Former Gunner Ismael Bennacer has been pictured arriving at AC Milan’s La Madonnina medical clinic ahead of his proposed move from Empoli.
Now we know we didn’t report on Lucas Perez moving to Alaves or Joel Campbell joining Mexican side Leon on loan, but this is different, you shouldn’t be shrugging. This one is going to earn Arsenal some cash.
Yep, having seen Petr Cech, David Ospina, Aaron Ramsey, Danny Welbeck and Stephan Lichtsteiner depart for a combined total of about £3 million, Bennacer’s move to the crumbling San Siro could net us as much as €4.8 million thanks to a 30% sell-on clause inserted in his contract and now activated by Don Gazidis.
Video of Bennacer arriving at La Madonnina Clinic for his medical with Milan.
[Video: @RadioRossonera]pic.twitter.com/DF0d0nJ0yn
— TheMilanBible (@TheMilanBible) July 22, 2019
Bennacer, 21, only played 71 minutes for the Gunners first team before he was sold in 2017.
Those who’ve not put the game to the back of their mind might recall him coming on for Theo Walcott who’d himself just replaced Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in that horrible 3-0 League Cup defeat to Sheffield Wednesday four years ago.
Anyway, having grown frustrated with a lack of game time under Arsene Wenger, he took a punt on life in Serie A and has gone from strength to strength ever since. Good on him.
The Algeria international, recently voted the player of the tournament at the African Cup of Nations, is set to move for €16 million.
Now we can buy Tierney
One would think so.
(Be nice to stop reading about it daily too.)
Gazidis, the double agent no one ever wanted!
Surely, if Gazidis has bought him to AC Milan for €16 million, we (under Wenger’s management) shouldn’t have let him go for next to nothing in the first place, particularly without giving him much of a chance!
Just wait until you hear about this guy called Serge gnabry
Quite.
When I see Nketiah, Nelson and Smith-Rowe play for first team after the season starts, I will believe in the “we want to give minutes to young players” discourse. This club says what fans want to hear to calm them down then does otherwise. There is a reason Nketiah is still open to loan.
I knew there would be a comment like this. You can’t keep them all and we got a great sell-on clause.
Yeah but you need to keep the good ones
Get in..
Joel Campbell is still on our books?
Nope. Seems he joined Frosinone in Italy last year. I thought we sold him 2-3 years ago, but was 2018 apparently.
He’s in Mexico now. Seems to have wilted like the rest of the Costa Rica squad from their great run in the 2014 World Cup. Watched them in the Gold Cup last month.
Huge loss, this player is a gem. Way better than Xhaka for instance. Arsenal should have activated the buy-back clause because €16M is a bargain for him.
You mean the buy-back clause written in your imagination?
Hahahahahha brilliant mate
I’m 99% sure that the people belittling Bielik now with the “sell, what has he done? He can take get into the team now, he’ll just disappear” we’re probably saying the same about Bennacer at the time. I saw him at the afcon and he was unbelievable, it’s truly amazing how we lost such an asset so cheaply. Some will say being the best player at the afcon doesn’t mean much, but remember this tournament had the likes of our own iwobi, plus Salah, Mane, Zaha, Mahrez and Nicolas Pepe. He outshone them all. I suspect we will hear similar… Read more »
I would not forgive Ivan if he gave us 100mil for xhaka and mustafi.
I will have his statue erected at the Emirates if he does. £50 mil would do it for me.
Here we are rejoicing in the €4.8 million we may well get from the sale of THE BEST PLAYER IN THE 2019 ACN instead of bemoaning his loss and just what he might have given us if he’d stayed. The same could well be said for the €60 million-rated Serge Gnabry. And here we are again about to let Krystian Bielik go for thruppence. Let me put it another way … what would you say if we signed Gnabry, Bennacer, and Bielik in this transfer window for pretty-much fuck all? Now that would be management we could all be proud… Read more »
Imagine a midfield of Gnabry, Bielik, Ramsey, Bennacer. Oh well at least we signed a contract with some brewery.
They would never all be fit. And at it’s best it might just about be good enough to scrape a europa league place. Decent players all, not world-beaters by any stretch.
Why would you expect to have any world beaters in this team in the first place? Please lower your expectations to the level that our management has set them!!
As supposed to our current world class starters in Xhaka, Mustafi and Mihki?
It’s be so Arsenal to pay a transfer fee for Bielik. You can imagine Merson on sky sports: ‘He was already our player! How have we paid 5 mil for the the geezer and owe Rapid Vienna 30% of any future fee we receive? It’s a monkeys tea party in the boardroom Jeff’.
You think we have it bad? Chelsea decided Salah and De Bruyne weren’t good enough for them.
Damn, that’s got to be far worse than anything we have ever done right? We are not as horrible as I thought.
You just made my day so much better. Thanks for that.
Yes, but always look at the bottom line – in this case, it’s the trophy cabinet! I’m sure that will console Chelsea fans to some extent at least, although let’s not dwell on their last trophy, eh. We can’t really find consolation anywhere, can we?
Our poor record began under Wenger’s management, but Emery must be careful not to replicate it. Bielik certainly looks to be on his way – so that’s one down for a start.
That is the unfortunate legacy of an ideologically driven team building process we endeavoured upon with project youth. It started when we promoted youth on mass at the expense of experience when a more balanced approach was needed by supplementing the best youth (Fabregas, RVP and Nasri) with top class experience (like Xabi Alonso). That all came crashing down after the 8-2 massacre at Old Trafford when with a complete about turn in policy £75m was found down the back of sofa to buy Arteta, Mertesacker, Andre Santos etc in the last minute trolley dash. Had a more sensible balanced… Read more »
I somewhat agree; we had a staggered youth development policy (different youth of different levels meant staggered development, which caused frustration with those ahead of the development curve).
However I think we as a club lost our way and identity when we abandoned our youth strategy to chase world class fringe players, because we simply couldn’t afford enough of them.
And for all the mistakes of project youth; they came far closer to winning the league and the CL than our Lidl Galacticos era ever did. Project Youth would currently wipe the floor with the current squad.
The moment we stopped trying to build the best team we could and started promoting youth on principal we were on a downward spiral. Some of our youth were worldclass, i would certainly put Fabregas and Van Persie at a much higher level than any of the youngsters coming through at the moment but they were let down my a manager who wasn’t prepared to surround them with the experience they deserved. I’m all for youth, if they’re good enough, but for them to fulfil their potential they need to be guided by experience and preferably in the premier league… Read more »
Lidl Galacticos!!!!…… What a fantastic discriptive put down. With your permission I’m going to use that in polite society (if I’m ever allowed in to such black tie events) ???
Would jenkinson play a half for each team?
John C, the youth at that time was pretty weak though. It wasn’t just about the lack of few experienced players). We had Denilson, Gibbs, Walcott (not decisive), Ramsey (same as Walcott at the time), Djourou and Senderos (who were 24 or 25 years) old etc. Evra came up with men against kids. It was actually men against kids lacking quality.
I agree, as i said had we promoted the best ones, Fabregas and Van Persie alongside some adults we would have stood a much better chance of success.
So many of those games were embarrassing such was the ease our team got bullied.
We can only get excited about young prospects only when they’re from the French 2nd division.
It’s just evident that fans generally tend to get more excited about “what out there” rather than what’s in here.
That horrible 3-0 defeat at Hillsborough. Our best performer that night was a certain Krystian Bielik, coincidentally also heading off for tuppance.
Elneny, Xhaka stayed, and big potential Bennacer didn’t get any chances. He is now a dribbling, tackling, intercepting monster in the midfield. And he won PLAYER OF THE TOURNAMENT at ACoN, aged just 21.
While i too am disappointed when we don’t enjoy ther full benefit of a flourishing youngster from our academy… people ignore two factors of such stories. 1) the player likely would not have developed to the same extent if he stayed on Arsenals books just waiting for a few minute he and there in a league cup game. 2) fans have been screaming bloody murder ar Arsenal management for not buying ready made talent, but every purchase represents the end of a youngsters future at Arsenal. It’s a zero sum game. Can’t have it both ways. In this case, Arsenal… Read more »
Further, both the players mentioned in OP (Xhaka, Elneny) were already internationals for their respective countries, but also starting in their club teams (both of which might have been in European club competition at the time, I can’t recall). Bennacer was just a highly rated prospect at the time.
Hindsight is a real trip, isn’t it?
Not quite sure on you’re calculations on the last bit, but you’re spot on that ultimately, it’s the fans fault for letting this happen. Post Project Youth, fans have been the one demanding experience; getting excited when we bought the likes of Xhaka and largely didn’t even know who Bannecar was back then. Same for Bielik, Jorge has been singing his praises for years, but up until his charlton loan, you go to past articles on him and there were barely any comments, instead getting excited over the purchases of Elneny and Mustafi as the answer to all ails. Go… Read more »
And here I was thinking Arsene Wenger was the who would pick the lineups and who sent Gnabry on loan to West Brom only to later sell him for fuck-all.
But now that I know that it was the fans who’d made all these decisions, it changes everything.
Well, we certainly need money so all donations gratefully accepted! It’s a shame that he’s yet another youngster who came – and went – without having much of a chance really. Emery is talking a lot about giving youngsters a chance, although Bielik would disagree I suspect, but in the Wenger-era we had a very poor record. Let’s hope it improves in reality (not just talk) under the new management team.
We are rich!!! Drinks are on Arsenal!!
I think for the next 3 weeks, no social media and no sky sports or any other news. I’ll turn on the Newcastle game and see who’s in the squad. For the last 10 years summers have been long and miserable as an arsenal fan. So many players we were about to sign and then nothing happened. Add to that deadline day signings of awful players we didn’t need or that were injured. The chances of signing 3/4 players quoted by Emery with so little time to go, seems unlikely. I’d like to be surprised but confident I won’t be.… Read more »
This is another disastrous player and contract management by Arsenal that has been ongoing for years. From handling senior players like ozil, ramsey and koscielny to young players like gnabry and now this..it keeps coming on and on and on.. consequences
What an absolutely and utterly rubbish transfer window so far – and 16 days left of it.
I will be glad when its done so we can concentrate on another wank season with Emery..
“windfall”
I was at that Sheffield Wednesday game and I thought he was good…I watched him play for Algeria in the African Cup and he thoroughly deserves his best player award…it irks me to see him go to AC Milan…
To think this is more money than the utter fuckwads who run the club have been able to generate all summer…
I won’t say its much of a windfall. BUT something. I think we need to be more realistic in sales. We cannot adopt an intransigent position. If Ozil does not find a buyer for his outrageous wages (and bearing in mind he looks to be performing well pre-season) then we should strongly consider selling Mhkitaryan (3oyrs now) Either at 10m (and Mhki more likely to find a buyer) will be sufficient. Again similar with Cback. If Mustafi’s wage/price is prohibitive, we have to consider holding him another season. Chambers will depend on his own sentiment if he should want to… Read more »
If Bennacer had stayed at the emiates he would be coming back from a loan at portsmouth now and we would be moaning about signing another player from serie A or somewhere else.. Hindsight is 20/20