Morning all.
A joint article this morning with bits from both myself and Kev.
I know we’ve discussed what the club is going to do about the futures of Lacazette, Elneny and Nketiah in depth recently with all their contracts due to expire this summer, and for me it’s keep two out of the three, regardless of whether or not the club offer them a new contract, the future is theirs to decide. We know Mo Elneny wants to stay and will sign a new contract if it’s on offer but no one really knows if Eddie Nketiah feels the same way. Looking at his situation from the outside, he might be thinking the same as us in that Arsenal will definitely signing a striker or two in the summer, so where would that leave him? Has he the stomach for another season of sitting around waiting for his turn again? He could score the winning goal against the Totts, a hat-trick against Leeds and Everton and a brace against West Ham at the weekend but if a big name comes in in the summer, does anyone honestly believe Nketiah will start ahead of him? I know I don’t.
If we go back to the season when Bernd Leno suffered an injury which opened the door for Emi Martinez, the latter was fantastic, yet he wasn’t going to be our number one keeper the following season. He wanted to be Arsenal’s first choice keeper and probably believed he’d done enough to prove he should be. After ten years of waiting, he decided to wait no more and left. I think that’s where Arsenal and Nketiah are now with the only difference being that Nketiah can leave for nothing.
As the next campaign kicks off in August, unless they’re sold or tied down to new contracts, more players will be into the final year of their contract.
Reiss Nelson
Dinos Mavropanos
Hector Bellerin
A.Maitland Niles
Matteo Guendouzi
Bernd Leno
Lucas Torrieira
Even if Arsenal sold them all this summer for a £10 million each, that would generate enough funds for one, maybe even two players. If the club had been smarter, better at managing contracts, perhaps we’d be looking at £100+ million for the lot. Regardless, I can’t see a way back into a Mikel Arteta team for any of them. Barring Leno perhaps but with the American keeper snapped up last summer, I fully expect the German to leave.
Edu has has a lot of business to do before August 31st and not just with the senior squad. Academy player’s futures need sorting out too as the last thing we need is to see super talented young players being snapped up by other clubs for peanuts, or worse still, nothing. Serge Gnabry is widely tipped to move clubs this summer – agent initiated I suspect as his contract has just a year to run, but if Gnabry does move, he’s likely to do so for a generous fee. Yet he was ours once but we let him slip away to do great things. He’s still only 26 years old.
So yes, the club has a lot to do this summer and there really is no point in filing any of the tough decisions in the “too difficult “ box because there’s a lot of money involved. No club can plead poverty if it’s allowing players contracts to expire on a regular basis.
Arsenal really should be looking at the following summer too because now is the time players will sell for the best fee the club could probably get if there not in Arteta’s plans. Assuming Arteta is still the clubs plan. Those players are:
Bukayo Saka
Gabriel Martinelli
Granit Xhaka
Rob Holding
Pablo Mari
Nicolas Pepe
Cedric Soares
William Saliba
Arthur Okonkwo
In my opinion, just four players from the second list are worth keeping, although Okonkwo is an unknown quantity really.
On top of all of that, Arsenal have three months to negotiate and seal the deals they hope to this summer. We as a club don’t tend to do things quickly, certainly not player signings but hopefully that will change during the close season. I can see a number of Premier League clubs going after strikers, midfielders too. Man Utd and Newcastle Utd for starters and we know Brighton need a striker or two too. Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City will looking to improve their squads and if Totts sell Kane, they’ll have a few pounds to spend too. Arsenal need their transfer plans a,b,c and d in place. I’d like to think it was in place back in January because that was the time Aubameyang was allowed to leave which left us short of striker options and for all the hard work Lacazette was putting in during a game, he wasn’t scoring goals.
This could very well be the most important transfer window for the club since Mikel Arteta and Edu started working together because we’re kind of at a crossroads and only better/different players than we have in midfield and up front will take Arsenal up a level. That’s not meant as a slur on Nketiah, Xhaka/Elneny or any other player but Arsenal cannot afford to go sideways for another season.
See you in the comments.
Nice post. Lot’s of ifs, buts and maybes. Hard to predict what the future holds.
From the first list I doubt any will be at the Club for much longer.
It will be very interesting to see what happens with Saliba. We should give him a go as reports from France have been positive.
@Pb your analysis of some of the players yesterday was very harsh, particularly Ramsdale and White.
Considering both are in their first seasons at the Club they have been outstanding in my opinion.
Hi Pete, I hope Saliba has a future with us. He’s a solution to our right back problem as well as being a potential top notch centre back.
My take on the debate around our summer signings is similar to Rico and Pete, but i’d go further and suggest that Ben White has been an outstanding signing and a major part of our defensive improvement.
Sometimes you don’t see a player’s real value until he’s out injured for a few games and I think that as White has played almost every minute this season we’ve not, fortunately, had that scenario to consider. But when it happens maybe it’ll tell us a few home truths about his quiet influence.
White, isn’t a defender who makes flashy or showy interceptions, he isn’t eye catching like say Gabriel because a lot of his work is about reading the game and making interventions with the minimum of fuss, he has also been a vital cog in our improvement at defending corners and the free kicks that used to cause us all palpitations as they flew into our box, not anymore.
Leno was brilliant against Aston Villa a few weeks ago, he reminded everyone what a good goalkeeper he could be with maybe a bit of the eccentricity of Aaron Ramsdale rubbing off on him, but Ramsdale is also about chemistry and he has great connection with our centre backs, we didn’t see that during our first three games of the season with Bernd in goal.
Our defence is a young defence, it reminds me of a young back four from the late 1980’s a defence that had a few mixed performances but which ultimately became the best that any club
has had in English football history, they also had a connection, a chemistry, but it didn’t happen overnight.
I’m not worried by any of our summer signings I like all of them, even Nuno, but then I like this team more than I’ve liked any Arsenal team in the Emirates era, I just get the feeling that we’re at the foothills of something special.
Regarding Rico’s post and the 2023 expiry date group of players Guendouzi has basically gone, he’s signed a pre-contract with Marseilles in January and Arsenal agreed a fee for £9m. Time I guess will tell the wisdom of that deal but I’ve heard that he was not a popular character in our squad. Needs must I suppose.
Mavropanos is in a similar situation with Stuttgart but if they get relegated German football regulations will prevent the transfer going through so maybe Arsenal can sell him elsewhere for a better fee?
Apparently Reiss Nelson has kicked on at Feyenoord after a slow start and has shown signs of developing into the player we’d hoped he would become at Arsenal.
If Nicholas Pepe leaves I wonder if an opportunity for Nelson to rejoin our group as an option to playing Saka into the ground every game will arise?
Excellent first comment Kev.
Good shout on Nelson too. His journey hasn’t been easy but the updates on afc.com suggest he’s finally found his game. I’d like to see him in our pre season before he’s dismissed entirely.
Re Mavroponos, I don’t see him as being an Arteta style of player, unless he’s totally changed his game since he was last spotted in an Arsenal shirt.
Not so sure about the White / Gabriel partnership , personally I always feel better when Holding is playing but it could be that the injuries to Tierney and Tomi have unsettled things and perhaps that has knocked on to Ramsdale.
Of the players listed above we have a surfiet of them that are ok but not great . Of the first group only Nelson and Mavropanus stand out because the other four we have burned our bridges and as the deal for Mavropanos with Stuttgart relies on them not being relegated and they are currently going down with three matches to play and one of those is against Bayern it doesn’t look good unless we fall over for yet another give away. They may well be back.
The second list I would suggest depends on who we can sell and what we can get for them . I can’t see us selling Saka or Martinelli just yet , there would be riots if we did. Saliba deserves a chance but most of the others are MEH! although as I saoid I would want Holding to stay . As for the keeper we have Hein to take into account and with Ramsdale , Turner how many aspiring kds do we need when Hein comes back ?
As thirsty said , If, but’s and maybes but in the words of Johnny Nash There are more questions than answers .
Sorry but you will be singing that for the rest of the day.
I’d like to think Saka and Martinelli are nowhere a for sale list ever. Or at least until their best days are behind them. Hein slots into the academy list I reckon, one of many whose future needs sorting out.
Pete, Kev, we agree to disagree.
Well, obviously players can improve, especially after the first year of a transfer, but Odegaard and Tomi didn’t have to, they could hit the ground running. And albeit it takes some time to get to know your teammates, and understand where they are tending to turn, what kind of pass the prefer, that shouldn’t apply to goalkeepers.
I might have been harsh on Ramsdale and White, but I didn’t say anything demeaning of them. I don’t think either of them is a bad player, far from that. I said I don’t see Ramsdale a clear improvement over Leno (they only have comparative statistics in the League Cup – both playing 270 minutes – Leno has a 7.11 average ratings [and 1 MotM award] with 80.3% passing accuracy, while Ramsdale has an average rating of 6.75, with 51.4% passing accuracy). These 3-3 games don’t tell much, but at least don’t contradict my point of similar qualities.
And I don’t think White is a poor player either. All I think – and say here – that out of the 20 PL teams at least 15 have a central defender of White’s caliber (what we seen from him so far). I wouldn’t go as far as saying or implying that he is no improvement over Holding, but not a huge one. And if we take into consideration that Rob cost us 2M while Ben 52M it does seem like a poorly spent 50M…
Kev, you could be right on that we will see White’s true value added to the team when he will not play. But that is a mere hypothesis at the moment, because the guy ALWAYS plays. We will probably see next season, and find out ourselves.
We will have new defenders next season as we 99% lost Marí (the Guendouzi-effect), and we also lost Mavropanos, too. While Stuttgart doesn’t have the obligation to buy if they get relegated, it will change into an option. And paying 2.5M for a 20M defender would be a no-brainer, even for a Bundesliga 2 team. So Dinos’ fate is no longer in our hands, we will not get more money for him even from a mid-tier PL club. So with White, Gabriel, Holding, Saliba along with Ballard and Rekik we have 4+2 defenders all having senior international caps. We will need 5 CBs for the season, so if we sell/loan the latter 2 there could be an incoming signing. If Saliba goes that could be 2. But I seriously doubt we want to spend heavy for attacker(s), midfielder(s) and defenders in the same window, especially as every week a new full back gets rumored for an Arsenal switch.
Rico, it was a nice post – as always.
Maybe I’m being pessimistic, but I think we get 10M+ only for Bellerin and Torreira.
Gundouzi was already sealed for 9M, Mavropanos will go for only 1/6th of his (undervalued) TM price, Marí, Nelson and AMN don’t worth currently 10M (Soaes neither). So the only player who we could or should sell for more than 10M would be Leno, but we already communicated that he will not play second fiddle and he wants to go, so I don’t see getting more than 6-7M for him. We are talking about good ole’ Arsenal, anyway.
I think we will have a transfer budget around 70-90M this summer which would amount to 2 decent players plus 1-2 relatively unknown. And that’s not less than we need. We should focus on retaining players not to lose their worth and value, especially Nketiah and Elneny. And we shouldn’t spend big on players for the ‘B team’, so an Osimhen+Jesus swap would be nothing short from crazy.
Afternoon Rico and All
I am surprised that we let players get so low in there contracts after all didn’t Edu and Arteta say that they will stop players running down there contracts and being able to leave for free.
I recon all players out on loan that Arteta or Edu feel have less that 90 percent chance of making the senior team should be sold and stop just hanging on to them
Good afternoon Rico and all
Nice combo post Rico and Kev.
PBarany….its not ole Arsenal we only talk about……Man Utd bought Pogba for 10million and he left on a bosman. Than they bought him for 90 million and again stand to lose him for nothing. So even the high and mighty United fall on their faces.
I guess we will buy a striker, a winger, a midfielder and a back up RB.
No one is mentioning Pepe……he will fetch a good 25million and it seems that Edu and Arteta are going to sit down with him and tell him kindly he is up for sale.
Who will we get??? Its ole Arsenal we are talking about….so its anybody’s guess. hehe
Thanks Pbarany, I did an average, we should get more for Leno and Torreira
After Geoff, Devil, thanks.
Raul said the same about contracts but it didn’t materialise back then either. Covid hasn’t helped us to move players on either.
Good point, DG.
I don’t aim for United’s or Chelsea’a ‘culture’ of transfers, but I think Leicester, Aston Villa and Liverpool are doing really great. They sell their good players for a hefty price (Mahrez, Maguire, Chilwell, Grealish, Solanke, Suarez, Coutinho), they buy better players than their price (Watkins, Cash, Soumare, Fofana, Kante, Ndidi, Salah, Mané, Thiago), and they don’t mind spending big if the player worth it (VvD, Alisson, Jota).
There’s the problem Pbarany, other than the players most of us don’t want to see sold, we don’t have ones to sell for big money.
Peter, regarding White not missing any games etc, well I guess it’s Xhaka conundrum, Mr Marmite himself, we all want an upgrade on him but we bloody well miss him when he’s out of the team and I think that’ll apply to White. Fortunately the scouting dept seem to be targeting players with positive histories of fitness – and long may that continue.
Good debate
Torrieira has had a great season with Fiorentina, who incidentally have spent a lot of the last 4 months talking about Arsenal reducing the asking price for him, well they’re sitting on a lot of Juventus dough for Vlahovic and if the Florentines push their luck maybe another Serie A club will step in? I think we could help Hector get a move as long as Betis don’t take the piss, he’s still a top defender and his form in La Liga will surely have alerted other interested parties?
As for Leno, maybe Newcastle will come in for him?
There’s an issue with getting a big transfer fee…it needs to be spent on replacements. More often than not they don’t work. Transfer fees get silly for average players.
Take Aston Villa mentioned earlier. Grealish sold for around £100 million. Replaced with Emi Buendia, Leon Bailey and Danny Ings. All 3 have struggled to fit in.
Barcelona probably the best example Neymar sold for an eye watering price. Replaced by Coutinho and Dembele. Both have been flops. Virtually bankrupted the club.
Liverpool have bucked the trend with some great signings, but they don’t all work out. Look at our own Oxlade. What happened there?
Newcastle might fancy Pepe too. Not many other clubs will want to spend big on our players.
Pete, that’s a good reason to keep Elneny imo, he’s already settled and whilst he might not be the greatest midfielder to ever play the game, he’s reliable. Look how long it took Partey to find some kind of form.
Pete/Rico that’s a good reason for not spending a shed load this summer on big-timers and promoting our own Hale Enders instead.
Absolutely agree Kev, I’m all for bringing through our own.
i am always in favour of promoting from Hale End. Ideally the back ups should all be from Hale End.
However, Arteta needs to rotate them now and then. First of all to rest the first teamers and secondly to give them much needed minutes. Especially next season when we will be having 5 subs.
Agree, and hopefully European football to contend with.
Evening Rico and the House.
So far 2022 has not been a very good year for me.
Have been working long hours with plenty of overtime and not much spare time.
Every time I logged on to H/H it took me ages to read and understand some of the long winded comments ( stats Systems etc) and I had no time to comment myself.
I have not watched as much of the academy as I have done in the the past but
sufficient to give a opinion on some of our youngster.
I have been a big fan of Harry Clark and Norton -Cuffy from the moment I first
saw them and I am over the moon the way they have both improved this season
They give me hope that at long last we could see a full back and C/h from hale end make it into the first team.
at the start of the season I had great hopes for Taylor Hart and Cirjan (spelling?)
but sadly they both missed out through injury.
Cirjan has missed the whole season and T hart played his first game this year against Man U last friday and looked good.
The U 23 game against Leeds tomrrow against Leeds is live on main line tomorrow so I hope to see more of Him
Must close For now more later
Evening Rico and the House
Can you tell me if I have a comment in maderation Please
Evening Rick, it’s out now.
Norton-Cuffy is getting rave reviews isn’t he. Perhaps another loan next season for him in the championship or PL.
New post up now.