We know there’s a massive interest in transfer rumours this summer – more than any other in recent memory – but we’re also cognisant of the fact we don’t want end up spamming you with loads of articles based on very little.
So, what we’re going to do, unless there’s something absolutely full-on that we have to cover, is do transfer round-up posts (daily or otherwise) with the latest info on our incoming targets. We will, of course, apply the Poo-o-Meter when necessary, but it won’t always be applicable.
Apologies to fans of measuring the veracity of information via cartoon plops, but there you go.
Let’s start.
William Saliba
The young French defender has been linked before, and the latest on the Saint-Etienne man is that there is ‘concrete’ interest from Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United and Southampton.
There’s a suggestion he could be sold and loaned back but also a feeling that a big transfer fee, which would eclipse the record amount received (€14.6m for Kurt Zouma in 2014).
Interestingly, when Chelsea bought the centre-half in January of that year he stayed at Saint-Etienne ‘on loan’ until the end of the season.
It’s difficult to see Arsenal agreeing to that though. If we’re spending money on defenders, we need them in the team, not playing elsewhere, because otherwise there’s an exponential rise in the possibility of the continued Mustafication of our defence.
Alexis Claude Maurice
Via GFFN, Lorient are expecting an improved bid for the 20 year old forward having already rebuffed an initial approach from the Gunners. Eintracht Frankfurt are also bidding, looking to replace Serbian international Luka Jovic who has joined Real Madrid.
Arsenal have a relationship with Lorient, last summer signing Matteo Guendouzi from the Ligue 2 side, so perhaps that will work in our favour.
Let’s see if the bid goes through.
Fedor Chalov
Sky Sports News ‘understands’ that we’re monitoring 21 year old CSKA striker Fedor Chalov. We haven’t heard his name mentioned before, but he got 17 goals and 7 assists for the Moscow side last season.
The thing about Sky Sports News ‘understanding’ things is that generally they see some random bloke on Twitter talking about it and build from there. Nothing’s an impossibility this summer, but we’ll get the Poo-o-Meter out and give this one a runny eight.
Update: Turns out he scored against us in the Europa League quarter-final last season, bagging the first goal in the 2-2 second leg draw in Russia.
Christopher Nkunku
L’Equipe have listed the midfielder as one of the players that PSG are trying to sell this summer, along with the likes of Thomas Meunier (already linked with us), Julian Draxler and Layvin Kurzawa.
Arsenal tried to bring him in last January, and with David Ornstein revealing recently that one of our priorities this summer was a box to box midfielder, he ticks that box very nicely. If PSG want to sell, it also makes him less complicated to get.
Emery likes the player from his time there, so he’s a name we might hear more of in the weeks ahead.
Gianluigi Buffon
A Gazetta journalist on Twitter claims we’re interested in the Italian as back-up to Bernd Leno and to replace Petr Cech in the squad.
We’re just sorry we don’t have a Poo-o-Meter that goes up to infinity + 1.
anybody heard of the Kolasinac to Barca rumour yet? Sounds completely ridiculous to me.
Kolasinac is far too poor in possession to play for Barca, his passing is atrocious, apparently he’s earning £120,000 p/w? If we can get €20mill and him off the wage bill? Then sell sell sell
Barcelona bought Song from us and Song wasn’t a top quality player. Kolasinac was seen as our best playmaker this year doing it from the wing. This being said, it is still foolish thinking Barcelona will buy him.
That’s a shit load of crap, Rich…
I loved that rumor. The club that prizes possession and quick passing more than anything is allegedly targeting perhaps the worst dribbling and passing fullback in the Prem.
Only rumor I’ve loved more is the Xhaka Cousins Instagram DMs nonsense.
Well they DID sign Vermaelen and Song…
To be fair they like ‘attacking’ defenders don’t they. I guess maybe he qualifies.
Maybe not …
You want to get rid of Kolasinac? We have : 1) A limited budget. 2) Difficulty selling players with high salary 3) Priorities all over the pitch but chiefly CB, Cm and winger which we should add quality over quantity. 4) A rash of players leaving for free. And you want to waste money fixing a position that is less priority. You want to sell one of our better performers. He was excellent for us until last 6 matches. Most of the assist and endeavor was coming from the left from him or iwobi all season. I think you need… Read more »
He’s a defender. His job is to defend which he is atrocious at. And it’s not like he’s the cog in the wheel keeping us oiled. He’s very poor at decision making and any real crosses. We have to regularly play a back 5 to shoe horn him in the side leaving us back heavy and not much more solid. I’d sell Kolasinac in a heartbeat
He’s played mainly in midfield where until the last few matches he was excellent and I can’t see any reason to sell him
well said that man ohh how have we appeared in such a state that the need to justify such woeful squad players in the team needs a list. the only saving grace thus far is that manure are in a pitiful position aswell however they will throw their chequebook at the situation whereas we will become the liverpool of the 2000’s(meant to be up there but for some reason scrapping it out for a top 6 spot) seriously needed investment in the left back and central defensive areas will help, (quality proven international players taken from the big teams) alas… Read more »
Agreed here about the analysis of the position, particularly if Nacho has indeed signed the extension (or the club took up the option for it). We have more pressing issues, and given Kroenke’s inability to spend any money on anything, we should be looking at priority signings first (CB, wide forward, CMF, RB).
Hleb comes to mind
Both comfortable ball players at the very least
Barcelona buying a left back who can’t pass would be… odd
He has had 9 assists this season. It’s only the last few weeks he lost form and frankly not the only player. We need to keep him
I like these kinds of round-up posts, it’s nice to have all the bollocks in one place. Keep ’em coming!
I wonder if Moreno will be mentioned again now that he has officially left the scoucers? Not that my heart could take aleft back as bad as Santos again.
I find it too emotional.
“Arsenal interested in young French midfielder.”
Ok, hope he’s good. Let’s try and get a decent price.
“Man City and PSG also interested.”
Oh shit, sign him! Give him 100k a week! Can’t believe we could lose this wonderkid!
“Player signs for CD Castellón.”
Dodged that bullet. Never rated him. On to the next.
Haha.. Saves time big time
Can’t help but feel the media have acknowledged our limited funds, assumed we will have to look to youngsters and are now linking us to any promising young player (with the exception of the Buffon rumour, which is obvious nonsense).
Saliba is 18, and has played around 15 professional games, I’m certainly not against moving for him, as we need a couple of centre half’s, but like with Guendouzi he’ll likely struggle at times, particularly coming into a defensive unit that is chaotic at best. Maurice will be very raw as well, and will just be adding competition in a position we’re well stocked in, we already have Willock, Smith-Rowe, Nelson, Saka, Nketiah, Ameachi, and it looks like we’re moving for some Brazilian lad as well. Nkunku might make sense as a Ramsey replacement, 1yr left on his deal and… Read more »
No coherent plan. No Tech director.
Now linked with relative unknowns.
Some people prefer risk on Mavropanos or Willock or someone from somewhere anyone but the players that we have.
BUT the risk is higher and we do nothing to capitalise on the gains Emery has made with the squad.
Instead they want us to reinvent everything.
These same people will be scratching their heads (presumably blaming Mustafi even when he is gone) when we are firmly in mid table.
Just do what you have to do to get Arsenal Working Again ….
GAWA
Appreciate you sifting through the dross so we don’t have to, cheers Blogs! Saliba and Muarice would be a nice statement in regards to the emphasis being on young and promising. Saliba seems expensive for an 18year old but if he continues to improve that price will soon double, so could be a good investment. On the fence regarding Nkunku, hope he isn’t too used to playing with superstars at PSG who will almost certainly win the league each season, depends how hard a grafter he is, could be too big a test for him, or he could thrive with… Read more »
Promising for us is not good enough.
Same people who claim they don’t mind promise and waiting 3 seasons for Unai to get us back into CL about say a year ago.
We will have issues convincing the likes of Rabiot to join us.
We are not as attractive a destination anymore.
We’re not unfortunately. Not a lot of footballers want to play with Mustafi any longer.
Rabiot has a reputation as a right primadonna, I’d rather we didn’t go for him to be honest. I’m pretty sure his mother/agent tried to sell him to Arsenal before and the club declined.
Vonnie, I understand your concern, I also had a similar one but then I did some research and honestly, it’s just heavily biased Parisian papers totally over doing it, he just needs to grow up a little. Almost like for like what Aubameyang went through in his last 18months at Dortmund… and that dude has been an absolute joy, on and off the pitch ?
I get where you’re coming from and I’m happy to be proved wrong, but it just seemed odd that there were no takers from any club, the same stories kept coming out, and he’s been sort of on the market for ever. Auba was different in that it was after he got fed up at Dortmund and he was reported as not trying and sort of messing about, not reports of a major character problem, and yes, he is a joy and we shouldn’t even consider selling him or Laca.
So because something MIGHT be difficult we should give up? I’ll remind you of that next time you go off on one defending Mustafi…
Rabiot shone under Emery, a £3m-5m signing on fee and £150k-170k wages, which is whats being mooted for United (6th place finish) to complete the deal is within our grasp. Rabiot is desperate to be a main player in a team, something we are actually looking for in a proper midfielder.
Why all the down vote? It’s the sad truth.
ESR, AMN, Willock, Nelson, Bielik, etc are all promising… are you saying that they’re not good enough? You keep reminding us about our woeful budget, yet rule out the highly practical solution of building a team. And you keep telling people to ‘get a reality check’ when I think your view may be fogged by those rose-tinted glasses you insist on wearing up on cloud 9. “Same people who claim they don’t mind promise and waiting 3 seasons for Unai to get us back into CL about say a year ago.” And if you’re honestly attempting to suggest I’m one… Read more »
For the money we have available I’d rather have a promising youngster than an average older player any day. They won’t all work out but some will, and that’s got to be better than mediocrity, surely?. And I honestly believe we’ve got some gems of our own and they need playing time to shine.
Totally mate, to be fair we’ve had good youth for years, there’s just been poor navigation in terms of their next step. It’s stunted so many players growth, our dithering at different levels. It’s a smaller gamble on ‘promising’, and so much more satisfying when it pays off! If we can bring a couple players in who we feel we can help reach their potential (not saying specifically Rabiot but those alike) and use some of our current crop and some youth we can at least try to develop (/re-establish) some identity. Sorry the other two messages have gone under… Read more »
@leno: calm down man, it’s just santori. He will never bother replying your message at all. So best consider him as a wall, a talking wall that talking shit about his favorite player especially mustafi all the time
Lol, replies to santori rarely work out.
It is a heavy one way traffic with that guy (santori), really. He probably wont say a thank you even if you gave him a thousand pound to reply your Comment
The more attention I’ve paid to transfer rumors lately, the more I’m warming up to Edu being our technical director. The European market is kind of a madhouse at this point – for a lot of reasons, but I like to blame PSG and Man City for everything – and South America is a market where we can be really clever, especially with Edu’s connections to the Brazilian national team. Based on my very professional youtube scouting, the player I want the most is that Palacios lad from River Plate. A player with those skills at his age in a… Read more »
We probably only have 60m tops (And that’s optimistic dependent on IF we can sell players) to spend on at least 3 positions.
60,000,000.01 if we sell Mustafi.
The problem with south american and African import are the Work Permits especially in England…
Transfer period is one of the most draining times of being an Arsenal fan 99.9% of the rumors remain to be just rumors. Anyway it would be great if we engage in serious business this summer
Most of the rumours are generated in the past by agents trying to up the ante on their players. Back then, linking to Arsenal and Wenger was a stamp of quality. Nowadays, we are not that astute with our buying. Plus we have lost our lustre. Hence we are mow seeing us being linked to quality 2 or 3 levels below what we used to be linked with. A wake up call for some but most people here are sleep walking. They still want to get rid of half the squad and think we have money to buy top players… Read more »
We are not that astute with buying. We bought Mustafi.
Well he was an established German international and in the their World Cup winning squad so on paper looked a good signing. When he first played we were undefeated for 17 matches. I don’t think anyone could have seen how much he would regress.
I think you may have missed the point of Der32’s posts on this thread.
So we can’t buy quality and we shouldn’t buy promising young players because they will be a risk. I guess the answer is just drift along with the squad we have at the moment, cross our fingers and hope it’ll all get better, then.
How serious can you get with just 40mil?
Fedor in Portuguese means “bad smell”, so that Poo-o-meter might be a little low
KKK Boa!
Not completely related but if true it would definitely help with transfers…. Apparently if Man City lose the appeal and are banned from CL next year we would then qualify. Anybody know when those decisions will be made!?!?!
It’ll go through various appeals etc first, there’s no way a ban would be for this season
I have also heard we also have an interest in Micele Deez from League Tres in France.
You may ask, Deez who? Why, Deez Nuts, of course.
Ha ha…got ’em!
Layvin Kurzawa could be a nice option at LB. He fell out of favor at PSG but is a talented attacking fullback, if not the best defensively. Pacey, strong and determined. Kurzawa/Nkunku would do nicely!
Kurzawa is very good, I think. He’s not in the French side only because they have Lucas Hernandez and Mendy. If we could afford him, an important building block. Don’t remember how Emery rated him at PSG.
We are unlikely to worry about fullbacks. we have too many other areas we need to add that are far higher priority. Cback CMid Wide player Fullbacks are covered and will continue to improve organically. AMN for most parts has done well for a first season in his Natural side this time at Rback. IT IS his natural position. He can continue to improve and compete with the returning Bellerin (assuming no one poaches Bellerin) There’s enough positives to his natural play at Rback to suggest he will learn the other stuff next season. Kolasinac many conveniently forget (as per… Read more »
You couldn’t be further off the mark. If you knew anything about modern football you’d know that fullbacks/wingbacks are central to any decent team. Pick any “top 10” team in Europe. Where is their biggest strength? Fullbacks.
Between Monreal and Kolasinac they are simply not good enough. Monreal is starting to get caught out on a regular basis. Kolasinac’s delivery is woeful and he doesn’t have the intelligence and technique to play at the top level.
A top full back to go with Bellerin on the right is an absolute necessity to progress
I second this, there is a reason why Man city spent so much on full backs and why pep failed in his first season.
Santori, what would be really great is if you would say the same thing in yet another post, to be sure we all understood your position and broad-brush view of those here. Because I’m still not clear. Another post, please. That would be great. Thanks.
Please that Buffon story should be kept far from the rumours
We’ve got enough buffoons already
Damn Blogs, feeling a little underwhelmed with the fecal detail, and where else on this big ole net will I get such razor sharp anal-ysis?
Ooh, theres my taxi……
We used to be linked with top players.
We used to be a Champions League team.
we used to be invisible
‘We used to be invisible’
But now teams see right thru us!
This is an absolute shit-fest
I rather agree. The MAGA of make Arsenal great again will hopefully be better than Trump’s MAGA (Trump being a clown, and American politics a farce)
Which part of the Arsenal MAGA hasn’t been a farce?
I heard that we’re going back in with an improved bid for Andersen and Praet from Sampdoria. This is definitely one of the more believable rumours circulating at the moment.
Andersen and Praet sound like an awful mid-70s pop act.
Or a really good law firm
EISH!!!! again transfer time…rather say nothing.
South African right?
From Benoni even…
I’d like to see links to Liverpool’s Sturridge (Striker) and Moreno (LB). Both are out of contract at the end of the month. Moreno lost his place to Robertson, but is a solid LB that could fill Monreal’s shoes.
Sturridge would probably get injured in the bus ride over from Liverpool and Moreno? I’d take my chances with Kolasinac another year.
Just take a step back and listen to the names linked to Arsenal. Unbelievable how far this team is going down. What a shambles of a club. This is the best we can have as only a RUMOUR.
Just lie n tell us Ronalfo n Messi are coming. At least it would give us a good laugh.
Bale is coming
I just wish it was August 8th already, and all this madness was over with…
Bunch gone, bunch signed before pre-season, chel$ea ban in effect, $iteh fined and banned from CL…
Its a bit concerning we aren’t being linked seriously to any goalkeepers. With cech retiring and dave ospina likely to go we are looking a bit short. Its gonna be a busy summer, however i don’t think we will get all the business done that we need to.
Martinez.
Without Cech, Lichsteiner, Koscielny, Kolasinac, Monreal, Mustafi, Jenkinson, Elneny, Mkhi, Ramsey, Suarez, Xhaka, Welbeck and Ospina we are left with no left backs, no backup goalie, no midfielders, no center backs, etc. Yet, most of these players are just not good enough to be playing for Arsenal. Looking at the budget we have for signings, I’m afraid we’re in for more crap football this season.
Chalov plays very well, I would like to see him at Arsenal.
And it would bring Anton Miranchuk crashing.
Our attack would be quick and young, something that was missing this year.