Here’s your Friday edition of the latest transfer round-up. The sun is shining, the air is warm, and Arsenal still haven’t bought or sold anyone.
Wilfried Zaha
After David Ornstein’s midweek revelation regarding our interest in the Crystal Palace man, there are reports today that the player has asked his club to lower the reported £80m asking price so he can join the club he supports.
We suspect this is like going into an Audi showroom and asking for a free A6 because you really like their cars. Palace don’t have to do anyone any favours, and that kind of price tag puts him out of our league.
Also, as much as we could do with him, he’s not an £80m player, so chances are we’ll turn our sights elsewhere.
Dan-Axel Joey Joe Joe Junior Zagadou
Like Zaha, interest from Arsenal has made his special area tingle, and he’s reportedly told Borussia Dortmund he’d like to leave and join us.
The report comes from Bild, the German publication which most sounds like a Housemartins song.
Have we made a bid? Will we make a bid? Do we even know who he is? Did we spend all our transfer budget on that Adidas promo.
Yes, yes we did. And it was worth it.
Kieran Tierney
Football Scotland say we’ve had another bid for the left-back rejected. This time it was £17.5m with £7.5m in add-ons, based on appearances, achievements, and so on.
The Scottish champions are holding out for something closer to their £25m valuation.
Remember when you could buy a player in Championship Manager by offering £3.50 and £400m in add-ons? Maybe Raul is still on CM 99.
Gabriel Martinelli
It’s Brazilian youngster has been widely expected to join us for some time now, and Internet sleuths have grainy pictures of him in London. There are also apparently Tweets from family members, and his sister probably said something on LinkedIN but let’s be honest about this, we should be working on a cure for LinkedIN and their incessant emailing.
Anyway, he’ll probably be announced next week.
Here we go again…it’s going to be a long painful journey for we arsenal fans.. So let me start mine now and hope for the best
???????????
What in God’s name must Auba and Laca be thinking when they read that we can’t even buy a mid table winger?
Apart from ‘get me the fuck out of here’ of course.
The really sad thing is with Solskjær very likely to be sacked by Christmas and Lampard having zero experience, now is the time to spend big and get this team back in the champions league.
This foresight is lost on those brain boxes in the states though…
Foresight is not lost on you, dear sir. Good insight!
Not very bright are they
They are probably thinking ‘how the f*** can a mood table winger be worth 80 million’.
Mid
It works to our benefit. Solsjaer is pushing them, they will spend OVER and soon max out their budget.
Hopefully this leaves us plenty of targets and if there is competition between sellers, the price will cool off closer to end of window. Always.
Yes , the best part of the pain is the zaha saga, wish all get zahad at the end
Haven’t you cottoned on yet? We can’t announce any players until the new kit is out… because you have to do a social media introduction video as a bare minimum….!
Many a true word said in jest.
Nothing will happen until July 1st!
…did you just cast a spell? I’m expecting big things on July 1st now, Tony Potter!
If we’re going for zaha it better be a 442 next season with zaha and nielson, with iwobi back up. Now all we need to do is sell ozil and xhaka, and find a beast in midfield to replace him. Oh ya. Sell mustafi too
The “beats” would cost way beyond our budget.
Crikey, we really are screwed if we can’t even afford a pair of headphones…
Probably can’t, those things are way overpriced
To lose out on Tierney now would be embarrassing. Need to get that one done. Wonder if we could give them Bielik on loan or something like that to sweeten the deal
If we get a defence which rotates Holding, Bellerin, Chambers, Bielik, Saliba and Tierney can we be happy?
sounds alright
Arsenal’s 3rd bid will probably be £17.5m + £1.00 + £1.00 + £1.00…
We can keep going until Celtic’ negotiating team is worn down.
Nah. Blessing in disguise.
Celtic doing us a favour.
We are clutching at straws in the wind with seemingly little coherent strategy.
We don’t have money.
We don’t need to be wasting half our budget in a position that is less priority at the moment.
Imagine if that Audi has always wanted to be in your driveway.
I’ve always loved Arsenal, even when I was a tiny VW…..
It’s an A6 now. But the little A3 inside of it has always dreamt of this…
Saliba and Zagadou if given playing time can and will develop into top players. I think with the current selection available, prioritizing developing these two would be the best option.
We already have Bielik and Mavropanos.
We don’t need to be wasting money we don’t have on similar potential.
We don’t have much of a budget to be doing this for the prices quoted.
FFS I’d really love us to sign Zaha, I’ve always liked him and that Manure debacle aside, he has been a consistently good Premier League performer. He’s exactly what we need. There must be ways in which we can increase the finances to get him right? I mean aren’t we supposed to be like one of the richest clubs in the world? Plus if Zaha is a goner, couldn’t he have slipped over when clean through on our goal? We could probably have afforded him if he didn’t resign us to Europa bloody football.
In 167 (162 in terms of minutes played) club games since 2014 he has 35 goals and 37 assists. That’s one goal/assist about every 4.5 games. Stats don’t tell the whole story, but they don’t flatter him too much.
*2.5 games which is borderline for 80M. I would expect a better track record for that money. Maybe playing at Palace is that much of a handicap though.
16/17 18 goals or assists in 3025min = 0.54 goals/assists per game
17/18 14 in 2550 = 0.49 per game
18/19 20 in 3043 = 0.59 per game
So he is averaging a goal or assist every ~2 games
Also, about even between goals and assists each season
Not bad at all, but 80M?
I guess when you sell your 21 yr old right back for 50M you think 80M is reasonable for Zaha, which puts the whole thing in perspective.
Yeah but Man U have more money than sense
I wish one of our wingers scored every 4.5 games instead of 1 in 15 ala Iwobi, Mkhi etc.
I’m afraid one of the most valuable clubs in the world does not mean one of the richest, at least as measured by ownerships willingness fund transfers.
Trouble is it’s well renowned that Ziyech, Carrasco and Fraser are all available for £30m and in most cases have better numbers. And then there’s the younger gambles for £10-20m we’re linked with which would be more appealing on our budget. Doubt we could convince Stan to pump in another £50m when there’s arguable more suitable options. Don’t get me wrong, I like Zaha, but not for £80m. And if for some reason Stan found £50m (down the back of the sofa or whatever) replacing Ramsey is crucial, so too the work on our defence.
I would be happy with a transfer window that saw only Zaha come in and Mustafi go out. It’s far from ideal I realize and would be better yet if Tierney came in and Ozil left to give us more funds. But I truly think Zaha is a top quality player that can make a real difference for us. Obviously we also need to bolster our central defense, but to get Zaha in I’d be willing to roll the dice with Kos, Socrates, Holding, Chambers, Mavro and Biliek next season if reason necessary. Also, we need box to box midfielder,… Read more »
Spurs will probably sign Zaha & other players we want, just to rub our noses in it.
Funny, Spurs have just built a new stadium and they can still overpower us financially.
I don’t think we can have St Totteringham’s day again until Kroenke sells his shares.
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Spurs are going for bigger fish than us. Bruno Fernandes. We can’t compete. And they have assets to sell of value. We are selling players we don’t rate. The rest of the league and europe aren’t stupid. they have better choices for less salary. Which is why I said there is no “Must Sell”. We have to be prepared to keep and use to best of abilities. What we need to consider though is a bit of risk. As example when we went for Mhkitaryan, it was risk aversion at its worse. We needed a wide creative player and could… Read more »
The spuds have less money than us now with the new rents going up on the new ground.
I can imagine Zaha kicking up enough of a fuss to make his position at Palace untenable. Arguably he’s done enough for the club that brought him through with the first transfer fee and on the pitch. 25-30 million would be more than a fair price, they should let him make his dream move. I hope to see him in an Arsenal shirt next season. Top player and a gooner.
In that new home kit? Yes please.
Just get Tierney, Saliba and any Winger (Everton maybe? with Edu coming in, could see us looking for players in the Southamerican market) and give fair chances to the likes of Nelson, ESR, Bielik, Chambers, etc etc. Right now we don’t have either the money or the willingness from our saviour Kroenke to spend the money, so we should start focusing on young players again. We should be scouting the u21 Euros right now, La Copa America, etc.
Saliba is 18yrs and hardly featured for St Etienne. He is not De Ligt playing most games in the season and delivering.
Might as well promote our own Bielik or Mavropanos (which would be a risk too) but at very least we won;t be wasting half the budget on untried solution. That would be daft…and prob worse than Mustafi (like Jenkinson at Rback)
Tierney ditto. A position that can wait a season down.
Nah, i don’t care about Zaha anyway. Here is the scary thing. According to Sky sources, Ozil refused to leave.
That lazy has revealed his true face. I mean he would rather warm the bench or walk like a snail as being substitued when Arsenal was 0-3 down against Chelsea than play for another club.
Very very scary.
I think we need to start trending #ozilout!
Not already done?
Özil it’s, let’s say £40M with the wages + let’s say £20M for the transfert = £60M. Not enough for a Zaha and you still need to replace the lazy snail.
It’s not about Zaha…
I think it will be difficult to offload Ozil, Mkhitaryan and Mustafi and until we have them on our books, we will struggle with recruitment. We can only hope that if called up, they perform, but I am not holding my breath out for that. On the plus side, Ozil will help shifting a few shirts. Mkhi may have from time to time some good link up player with Auba. I can’t think of a reason for wanting to hold on to Mustafi unless we confine him to early stages of Carabao Cup, Europa league and FA cup, but even… Read more »
I don’t think Ozil will sell shirts to Arsenal fans
“off our books” right?
SkySports saying United have a 25% sell on clause. As much as I’d love us to sign Zaha, I wouldn’t be keen on us spending more than £50-£55 million on him, with relatively modest wages. If we could get Zaha on the left? and a player like Sarr from Rennes on the right? whilst also bringing back Nelson, I think it would transform us as a team. We’d still need 2 full backs, but centrally I’d be happy enough to give Bielik a shot, and miss out on buying a centre half this summer. Fixing our disjointed attack with a… Read more »
Personally, I believe our prime focus should be on most of the defensive targets aforementioned, primarily Kieran Tierney, and only Willam Saliba (if injected into first team action immediately). We should really be leaning towards signing our own Premier League proven centre halfs if above fails, the like of Lewis Dunk, Jamal Lascelles and James Tarkowski. We need a Koscielny/Mertesacker type partnership, we are in dire need of an aerial presence in our backline. Wake up and smell the coffee, Wilfried Zaha is a dream. We have two wingers coming into the fold, one who we are familar with in… Read more »
Ornstein always “knows someone who heard it first” close to the club! Then cites the Anthony Martial deal as proof..,….So how long ago was that?? First of all he’s been an enigma since signing. Secondly….,how many scoops is that??? 1 in how many years??? Go tell your fairy stories to your kids…they might even believe them! Stop trying to wind up Arsenal fans!!
Here we go again……..???
As all of this is not new stuff, I understand that the pooh-o-meter stays in the cupboard. 🙁
Im from south london wilf Is like a superstar out here you speak to urban youths and they literally refer to him as “star in da ‘ood” I’m old enough to remember Ian Wright’s transfer. Palace lost many fans and literally many thousands of people became gooners cause of ians influence in general. I would love for it to happen again.
Yeah I know some of you basic folk will be like “ooh fake fans” jog on.
I love Wrighty & I’m desperate for us to sign Zaha ?
One should not be desperate in market.
That’s the last thing to do. Seller will fleece us if so.
You need to be a poker player.
There are plenty of options in market besides Zaha and price isn’t far off (Ziyech, Carrasco only 5m + more)
Once demand falls off when apex predators in market have spent their money for most parts, prices will also likely cool.
Desperate are for people who simply do not understand how the market works.
It is NOT fixed price like a supermarket.
“he’s not an £80m player” I mean not that I even disagree, but on current market? Where 1 good breakout season at right back has you at £50M, with Stones currently the most expensive English CB ever, how can he not be? I’m not talking about the current market, not the fact valuations on the whole are ridiculous. We live in a time where a breakout 18yr old CB for St.Etienne is £25M with a loan back, and a player we sold for just £2M 12 months ago is bandied around for £20M, how can Zaha not be that? It’s… Read more »
Who is the 2m to 20m player?
The Jeff
Buy Dan -Axel Zagadou. For the sole reason that he is 6.5″ tall. I miss having players of that stature in our squad….. Also I really like the Olivia Newton-John song…………
We don’t have the money to be doing this unless you live in a fantasy world.
ManUtd also didn’t qualify for CL next season, but that doesn’t stop them to be aggressive in the transfer market. Between having ambition & without one.
United have a lot more commercial earning than us. We’ve taken a massive hit over last 3 seasons out of CL. We’ve lost a lot of the allure of the club particularly this season since we fell short of being slioghtly better than Wenger’s last season. I don’t think many players (and agents) see us the same way anymore. When Wenger was in charge (before slump last 2 seasons), we were predictably IN CL and Wenger had a reputation for the most parts as a developer that would better the value of an up and coming player. Hence the attraction… Read more »
United will spend. They just sealed Wan Bissaka. It was over priced at 50m. Hopefully they won’t be wise and pay over for players (which is why prices are high at the moment, sellers know teams like Chelsea, United will pay the silly money) We will have to be patient and wait for these apex predators in market to fall away as they max out their budget. It may mean risk to us for certain players in some areas and we still have to contend with Spurs who have assets to sell, will prob make good money and reinvest in… Read more »
Wild swings in valutation. I read Zaha was 25m. Which is more realistic and closer in price to Carrasco and Ziyech (just above 30m and 1 quid) So we have plenty of play but should be prepared to pay around that price for a creative wide player give or take preferably 5m less. There’s plenty of options at the moment to play off with Thauvin, Ziyech, Carrasco, Zaha all 25-26yrs plenty of experience and proven capability (Carrasco a bit of a wild horse in lower league China) There’s the next tier prob priced too high in Pepe, Fekir but if… Read more »
Please, just stop recycling your old posts.
After reading rumours about David Moyes replacing #EmeryOut logical next step would be going for Cahill&Arteta midfield. Both should be available for free. Our shoestring budget could live to fight another day.
Too much money for Zaha. Kante was more transformative for a team and was only £35 mill. That Tanguy spurs want could transfer our midfield more after Ramsey has left and is the engine for any real team. He is only £55 mil. Can get another player with the change for £80 mill
Blogs, you can turn off the emailing from the settings on LinkedIn.
Leno….bellerin holding sokratis kolas….xaka bielik torreira…ozil auba laka
Lets be realistic guys…40M wont really improve our squad.