Wolves are the latest club to show interest in Aaron Ramsdale with The Athletic’s David Ornstein reporting Gary O’Neil wants the player on loan for the season with an option to buy next summer.
The England international is looking for a way out of Arsenal having lost his status as the club’s first-choice goalkeeper, however, a departure is complicated by the Gunners’ eagerness for a permanent deal.
It was reported last week that Sporting Director Edu had turned down a loan offer from Ajax. With 10 days left of the transfer window, it’ll be difficult to keep rebuffing such proposals although other sales could help soften the stance.
🚨 EXCL: Wolves make proposal to sign Aaron Ramsdale from Arsenal. Initial loan + buy option + #WWFC would cover majority of 26yo goalkeeper’s wages. Acceptance at Molineux deal difficult due to finances involved but talks with #AFC continue @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/n2YwCgFMm7
— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) August 19, 2024
Nottingham Forest are said to have offered £25 million for Eddie Nketiah and there are suggestions Jakub Kiwior could return to Italy. Reiss Nelson is also on the lookout for a new home.
Earlier this summer, Arsenal had two bids for Wolves’ backup goalkeeper Dan Bentley rejected. The Athletic says they are unsure if Bentley would make the move to the Emirates should Wolves strike a deal for Ramsdale.
Interestingly, as Ornstein shared his story, Fabrizio Romano revealed Arsenal have a verbal agreement in place with Espanyol goalkeeper Joan Garcia although formal negotiations with his club are yet to take place.
Garcia was between the sticks as his newly promoted side lost 1-0 to Real Valladolid this evening. In goal for the victors, and keeping a clean sheet on his La Liga debut, was Karl Hein, who completed a loan move last week.
🚨🔴⚪️ Arsenal have already reached verbal agreement with Spanish GK Joan García on personal terms.
He’s the priority target for Arsenal to replace Aaron Ramsdale if he leaves in final 10 days.
Espanyol are aware of #AFC interest but no official bid yet, depends on Ramsdale. pic.twitter.com/JEcyvgjcQR
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) August 19, 2024
Looks like we are getting the business done.
Sp*rs providing the comedy already. 13 corners… its a good thing they don’t practice then 73 year old Jamie Vardy equalises.
Further comedy gold: Vardy gesturing to Spurs fans that Leicester have 1 PL trophy while Spurs have 0! Lol
I can’t see why we’d let Ramsdale go for a loan deal and have to scramble to find a much wesker second keeper
*weaker
because he wants it?
Is he going to be first choice there? Are we sanctioning a move that weakens us and forces us to go into the market when we don’t need to, only potentially to have Wolves not play him much, then faced with a challenge to get rid of him for real value next summer? He should be sold for a price befitting his ability at more than we paid for him, or kept as second choice with all the extra games this year. No room for sentiment.
Yeah, wolves goalie is good… Bit a of strange one.
Maybe the Saudis are sniffing around Sà?
I can’t think of any other reason for a cash-strapped Wolves to be in for another top ‘keeper.
As things stand, they have other, more urgent, requirements, so it’s got to be something like that in play.
How about a loan with an option to fuck right off? Because actually that’s kind of what they want us to give them. “Here’s how we take your super talented international keeper maybe just for a season while bearing zero risk in case he underperforms but only pay you anything decent if he does well AND we feel like it”. Hmm let me think about it nope thanks for stopping by.
I have seen that we are asking for £6m for a loan fee. Rammers still has 3 or 4 years on his deal, so even if we loaned him for 2 seasons, if we get decent loan fees and he plays well then we could do pretty well out of it in theory
I suspect this is what chelsea are up to. Teams can only loan out 6 players a season, but U21s are exempt. Chelsea have signed a ton of U21 players who I expect will be loaned out – if they loan say 10 at £3m a piece, that’s £30m income per season, and there’s a good chance that the player value will increase as a result of the loan (see Ian maatsen for example). It helps that chelsea and city own other teams abroad that they can loan players to for whatever fee they want – and as they are… Read more »
As I have said before, there is a ($) method to the madness of these billionaires.
Still hoping it blows up in their faces though.
It’s pretty sickening to watch (omari Hutchinson), as it’s effective and within the rules. On the plus side, reading comments about Chelsea on bbc articles, even their own fans despise the club right now
We all love the badge but sadly we’re all one dodgy owner away from “despising” the club.
We can only hope that all of football doesn’t go this way.
PL has to be more pro-active and visionary with their rules but $ might be speaking to them too.
This is the only explanation I’ve seen for whatever they’re doing that makes any sense.
It’s irritatingly clever. Take for example Andrey Santos – very highly rated young Brazilian signed for £12.5m – spread over 5 years @2.5m a season on the accounts. He’s already had one (unsuccessful) loan to forest that was cut short in jan and he went on loan to Strasbourg (owned by Clearlake). I’d guess the forest loan fee was about £1m. The loan fee to Strasbourg could be anything, as they are paying themselves. Say they set the loan fee at £2m – which they transfer from themselves at Strasbourg to themselves at Chelsea. Chelsea will then have a net… Read more »
If they got him in he would play. Comfortably better than Sa.
I wonder if the people calling Joan Garcia weaker have ever watched him or Espanyol play. I freely admit I haven’t. If I’m looking for logic in these deals though, it seems like they want to accomplish a few things:
Hmmmm. I think Ramsdale can do a big portion of what Raya can do, which is why he was an early Arteta signing. I also don’t think this decision is completely about that, otherwise why did we sign an American backup who obviously couldn’t come close to what Raya (or Ramsdale) can do? Personally I would be super comfortable having Ramsdale as our second choice! I just don’t know that Edu wants to pay his wages and that Ramsdale wants to be second fiddle.
Yes, he likes Ramsdale. He liked Zinchenko and ESR and Xhaka and Tierney too but then he got players who were better suited to his system and with the relationships he wanted to reinforce on the pitch. Some (most) players are stepping stones on the journey, not the final destination.
Why is Raya better than Ramsdale? He transmits calm. He helps the team retain the ball and he’s better at reading and claiming crosses. Both good shot stoppers.
I think most people assume given what happened with Ramsdale that a) the club wouldn’t go through that again by bringing in yet another keeper who’s good enough to realistically compete with Raya and b) the player himself would assume (a) and therefore not come if he realistically expected to be taken into consideration as first choice. That said with Arteta I’d believe anything at this point. If another keeper was being wooed to actually take over and in a few months we find Raya in the same position Rammy’s in now it would surprise me, but it wouldn’t shock… Read more »
I think the crucial difference is psychological. If Joan Garcia arrives it is with the understanding that he will not be first choice right away, maybe the CL keeper. But that would be an agreement both sides liked and wanted to enter vs the current situation which is a bit of an uncomfortable impasse.
Fair point.
I’m not sure the Ramsdale sideshow – as Dr Gooner perfectly describes it – is about anyone believing he’s as good as or better than Raya. It’s just that we all really like Ramsdale and didn’t want a bad thing to happen to him. It’s almost entirely a human thing, not a player thing. We could bring in another keeper who is better than Ramsdale to be second choice, and the sideshow wouldn’t repeat itself.
It’s good that we are firm with our price. No more screwing around. Ramsdale, eddie, nelson only for the right price. Newly promoted club should come in and buy all 3 of them, probably add kiwior. 120 mil blockbuster deal. It’ll save them from relegation. Win-win
I love this. Sell them a half a team for a bundle price.
Not a bad idea!
But seriously, that would be start of a really really decent PL team. Enough undervaluing our players, pay up or get lost.
Agree. Some spurs reject fetched 25 mln the other day.
Skipp- £25 million I couldn’t believe it. I thought he was called Skipp because of the way he runs.
Imagine Kiwi actually getting to play left centre back for once in his playing career in England, he’d be absolutely delighted. I still think he could be a magnificent player in that position, which somehow he’s never once played for us?
With Ramsdale behind him that’s the foundation of a brilliant defence, definitely worth at least 65mil for the two of them.
Make it an obligation rather than an option and it could work for both clubs?
Option should work out too , the man’s quality and will be keen to show just how good he is . The more he’s kept under pressure the better he is .
His brain farts were after 9 seconds v Southampton and games like that. If he’s under constant pressure he’s good so will have plenty shots to deal with at wolves .
I’d loan him and see what happens as he is quality and his value can’t decrease only increase after a good season (hopefully).
Wolves have Sa. He’s not a bad keeper by any stretch of the imagination. Is Ramsdale that much better than Sa? Is Sa going? I don’t think so on both. This doesn’t make much sense to me, but what do I know?
Jose Sa is more than fine but he’s 31 and doesn’t have Ramsdale’s springy athleticism or booming goal kicks. Wolves could use both of those traits much more than Arsenal. It’s an area where they can upgrade.
He has 3/4 years left on his contract.
Loan fee of £6m this year and probably next year fetches us £12m
Then sell him for £25-30m in 2 years time. That’s potentially £42m. Solid return.
Good luck and thanks for your part in the Arsenal revival.