Earlier today reports emerged, via TalkSPORT, that Calum Chambers was set for a £20m move to Crystal Palace.
The young centre-half spent last season on loan at Boro and performed well enough for many to think he could reclaim a spot in the Arsenal squad this season – especially now that central defensive depth is required with the three at the back formation.
However, Arseblog News can reveal that while The Eagles do have an interest in the 22 year old, they are pursuing other targets ahead of him, and that any deal – should it occur – would have to be substantially below the figure being bandied around today.
Arsenal paid Southampton £16m for the then 19 year old in July 2014, and he has two years remaining on his current deal.
Chambers is currently on an extended break, having played in the European U21 Championships this summer. He was an ever-present in the England squad which made the semi-final where they lost on penalties to Germany.
He kept FA Cup final hero Rob Holding out of the squad throughout the tournament, and given the amount of football on offer next season it would be a shame if we were to let him go without another chance.
Why are we letting Szcz and Chambers go? Need to keep young talent like that.
Exactly my thoughts Texas. Can’t believe that we are willing to let Szcz go, and possibly Chambers.
Because we are quite a poorly run club.
Why would we sell him for less than 30m in the current market? Everybody seems to be taking the piss …
Please refer to my earlier answer…
Yes and yes. We are MORONS if we sell for less than 20m, and still pretty stupid if we sell at that price. Heck, that would barely allow us to recoup what we paid for him!! He had a strong season at Boro followed by a high-profile, successful campaign with the England u-21’s (or u-23’s, or whatever they were). Guarantee there’s a mid-table club who will look at that and be willing to pay 30m+ for him in this market. And if not, we keep him and he could still develop into a great servant for us.
why sell in the first place . in my opinion chambers is more reliable that gabriel . gabriel will play well for 2-3 games but manages to make a mess in his next game . there is always an error waiting in for him . chambers has had errors too , but lately he has become a very reliable presence ahead of the goalkeeper as seen by his good performance for borro and in u19 euro . i say sell gabriel and keep chambers .
Szczez is 27. Young for a keeper perhaps.
Keep him. Making a loss or breaking even would be crazy in an inflated market for an England talent.
I don’t get it. He seems a real player with a decent attitude. Tie him down to a long deal, and sell Gabriel instead.
or keep all of them because Kos isn’t getting any younger and Per is done after this season. Monreal’s getting up there in age too.
CB is fine, get rid of the extra LB (Gibbs) and the 2 RBs (Jenks and Debuchy)!!!
Szcz sale (10 million pounds is most recent rumour) is absurd…
Nothing against Chambers but I will take Gabriel over. Gabriel is very underrated by some fans but he hasn’t been given runs of games…remember Koscielny when he started at Arsenal?
I can’t help thinking the key word in this piece is “TalkSport”.
in terms of veracity, it’s a bit like the famous books “Why you can totally trust every word I say” by T. Blair, or “How I coach teams to play attacking football” by J. Mourinho.
Or “TalkShit” as I like to call it
Thought his contact went until 2020? he signed a 6yr contract in 2014?
Can’t say I’m too fussed, either someone stumps up the cash? Or we’ll loan him out for another season and take stock again when Per retires.
I like him but he’s extremely slow over the first few yards, not a problem at Boro when their parked on the edge of their own penalty box.
For us it could be an issue.
Personally I’m not convinced he was well scouted. And when we tried to slot him in at right back it was like we just suddenly discovered he has no pace.
It’s hard to know how centre backs will mature but he looks nervy to me (unlike Holding) and I wouldn’t feel that confident about him in the Arsenal defence.
I too worry about the speed of Chambers when it comes time to replace Per.
Whispers going around that southampton enquired about chambers and our price tag was around 25m and in turn Arsenal enquired about Van Dijk. Swap deal?
No one really does swap deals in practice
Ha. With this market 20 is too low. They can pony up or fuck off in my opinion. Why would we sell? If we do back 3 he’s probably even better suited to our setup than with a back 4.
Derby Albino goes for 15 m. Yet a guy with a seasons experience at premier league only goes for the same? Its more of the old talk the price down if they play for Arsenal, talk it up if they don’t. I should file under B for Bolleaux.
Shame if we sell him. Wenger tried to convert him into a Cback. But we have Holding now. IMO the smart thing to do is to revert him to his original role as a Rback which he performed with such aplomp for at Soton. Lest we raise the spectre of pace again, I’m sure young Chambers can more than match Kolasinac or Monreal in a foot race. Of course we may consider the fact that the Ox could be vying for a spot with Bellerin but I feel this is short sighted if that is the reason why Chambers will… Read more »
In 13/14 he played 22 games in the league for Saints. They averaged 1 point per game. In the 16 he missed they averaged 2.1 points. Now I’m sure this is correlation not causation but by the same token let’s not start ascribing him magic powers.
Wenger didn’t try to ‘convert’ him, its a position he played many times as a youth player.
We don’t play right backs in this formation, we play right wing backs, a position in which he would very obviously struggle.
I’m sure he can’t match the pace of Kolasinic or Monreal.
“But we have Holding now” Yeah, when we played with 2 CBs. Now we play with 3, that means we need at least 6 CBs or so in the squad. Kos and Per are on the wrong side of 30. Questions still need to be asked of Gabriel, who’s out for a while with injuries. That leaves Mustafi (I like him, but still not convinced as he seems too similar to Gab and Kos for my liking, though that’s what Wenger likes), Holding and Beilik for the long term. I know it’s now a new thing to sell off players… Read more »
Full of yourself most times but I’m not god and you’re allowed to have an opinion. Kinda your Elneny is shii tantrum
I’ll be disappointed if he moves on.
Would have loved him and Holding to form a long term CB partnership.
Keeping the fingers crossed.
I was hoping he would stay….the fact that he wasn’t included in preseason should have rang the warning bells. It seems inevitable that he will be sold now.
Note: if a first team player is loaned out by Wenger after being given chances to play, it means that players arsenal career is over
He’s on holiday.
Oh yeah I forgot…..the hope resurrected
We’ve got a ton of players at CB now, but for me Chambers should be staying. I’d rather see Gabriel moved on, not that I think he’s necessarily a bad player. I just feel Chambers could do a better job now he’s had a bit more experience.
He should bw learning as much as he can from per and kos. Per is retiring at end of season, kos will probably play bit part the following season. Then we are stuck with not having wnough centre backs again.
It’s probably palace trying to get sakho that’s why all this talk
I think he is a good squad player and, from what I have seen of this squad, we should keep him. However, if player like Bielik and Maitland-Nialls have shown enough to get some game time then we should cash in on a young English player who, if he leaves, is likely to have a similar career progression to Senderos.
On reflection, if Bielik or Maitland-Nialls were that good why did Elneny play at centre back in Oz?
Because Maitland-Niles isn’t a CB maybe?
Because it’s probably unwise to make conclusive claims based on the very first preseason game?
Umm, probably an unpopular opinion but whenever I saw Chambers play last season for Boro, he didn’t look that convincing. I mean he didn’t stand out individually wherein we could say that’s a great player. Which is not to say that we should sell him but getting 20 million for him would not be the worst thing in the world. We also have Bielik who is probably going to get game time this year. Also, if last 2 years have taught us anything it’s more than useless keeping players who Wenger doesn’t fancy, might as well get some money from… Read more »
Wasn’t he Boro’s player of the year?
Nope, it was Ben Gibson.
I wanna buy a Ferrari laferrarri Aperta, but its gonna have to be at a significantly lower figure than what is been quoted. So Ferrari if you are reading this, the ball is in your court.
Wait, they named a car the Ferrari the Ferrari? What about all those other Ferraris? Are they Lamborghinis?
I seem to recall Chambers having an immense game at home to Leicester in 2015-16 at a time when it looked like that game might turn the title race in our favour. I think he might have come on as a half-time sub and snuffed Vardy, who was on fire at that point, out of the game completely. I definitely feel he has a future at Arsenal in a back three. He also has time on his side, which other centre backs in our ranks don’t, as others have pointed out. It would be ludicrous to get rid.
If chambers was at another English club we’d be interested and having to pay £30mill+. Selling him makes no sense
A damn shame
No no no no no!
The boy has done good.
He has talent.
We cannot let him go unless its for much much more than we paid for him.
He has improved so much since joining us it would be madness….
Let’s face it guys, remember the Cahill debacle……
Again economics must dictate a price hike plus the fact the boy has improved through his loan spell.
Actually as I type I am literally just hearing this on Sky Sports.
My cripes the media are so full of Sh*t, they literally drive the market place……
I rate Chambers and think he’s a better player now than when he left on loan. Moreover, playing 3 at the back one would think there would be both room for him on the squad and playing time to be had. However, I know we’ve looked at Elneny at cb and I wonder if Arsene has decided that move makes Calum expendable.