Morning all.
The Daily Mail are linking Bukayo Saka with Man City. They are desperate to get hold of our man before Liverpool do and with just two years left on his contract, he’s there to be bought. Anyone who expected, or still expects Arsenal to get through the summer without such speculation must have been living in a non footballing world. Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Marin Odegaard, Gabriel, Kieran Tierney, in fact the club have a number of players who other club managers might fancy in their team. The so called big clubs, ie the ‘money is no object’ clubs will come after the best. Saka is definitely one of our best.
There might come a time when he does move away from north London and why not? Footballers aren’t as loyal as they used to be and if Arsenal aren’t winning things, they’ll get itchy feet. If another club offers a “double your money deal” or something similar, who wouldn’t be tempted? I know I would. I don’t doubt that most, if not all of the young guys who come through the academy from a very early age dream of playing for the club they were born into but once that box is ticked, the dream is perhaps over.
If Man City offered Arsenal £150 million for Bukayo Saka, could they afford to turn it down? TransferMarket have our man valued at just below £60 million which is in my opinion, no way near his true value. Jack Grealish moved to Man City for just over £100 million and I think Saka is better than him, he’s younger too and more versatile.
This kind of story is what makes the transfer window exciting and depressing at the same time. City fans will hope a move goes through whilst Arsenal fans will be praying it doesn’t. Or at least this one will and for what it’s worth, I think City have zero chance of getting hold of our guy this summer and give it a year or two, Guardiola will be gone and City won’t be such an attractive prospect. Either that or the footballing will have said enough is enough and curb the spending of these super rich clubs. I’m interested to see how Chelsea will operate under their new ownership.
Meanwhile, the new rich kids on the block, Newcastle Utd, will fancy their chances of capturing our players and we know Jurge Klopp is a huge admirer of Gabriel Martinelli so he’s bound to be on the phone at some stage. If not this summer, then next perhaps. It’s important that Arsenal as a club do all they can to tie players down to new contracts. Especially those whose contracts expire next summer and the year after. It truly will be a summer period to remember in the transfer window and across the sporting calendar with the likes of Royal Ascot coming up and the Melbourne Cup over in Australia, where you canvisit Melbourne-cup.online for the latest information. Then we will head into the Premier league return and of course the World Cup, so what a great and exciting period we have coming up.
Contracts expiring in 2023:
Bernd Leno
Contracts expiring in 2024:
Bukayo Saka
Gabriel Martinelli (1 year option)
Rob Holding
Cedric Soares
Granit Xhaka
Nicolas Pepe
Arthur Okonkwo
For what it’s worth, I think four of the above players, five even, could depart this summer. We already know that Matt Turner is joining the club this summer, as is fellow American Auston Trusty so it’s very likely that Bernd Leno will be sold. Whether Trusty is for the first team or a season on loan in England remains to be seen but if he excels in pre season then he might just stay put. I watched a video clip of him and he’s very left footed and he looked slow but time will tell. Cedric Soares and Nicolas Pepe are another two I think could leave during this transfer window and depending on whether or not Roma still fancy Granit Xhaka, perhaps his Arsenal career could come to an end. I’ve a feeling he’s here for a while yet though as Mikel Arteta seems to trust him.
The transfer window officially opens this week, Friday to be precise, so hopefully Arsenal will move quickly and get their deals done.
See you in the comments.
I’d be making a new contract for Saka and Martinelli a huge priority. I’d also happily extend Holding’s deal as well.
The rest I’m not fussed about and in some cases actively want gone.
As for City sniffing around Saka, it was inevitable. I think it’s on record somewhere that when Abramovich came into Chelsea they targetted us to buy from so they could improve their squad and damage a competitor. The same happened at City when they harvested our team several years back. Newcastle will probably try similar.
It’s the inevitable outcome of allowing sportswashing into football and won’t stop anytime soon. We aren’t in that category so will always have to battle for the scraps while defending from the vultures above.
The best way to keep the grubby hands off of our young players is for our club to truly compete with the clubs that are trying to pick them off.
If we learned nothing from past experience it’s how a good team can be destroyed by selling players that you don’t want to lose.
Obviously it’s not that easy when your predators have an oil well to dip into , maybe Arsenal should invest in renewable energy.
What he needs and is trying to engender is a spirit which makes players want to stay and that is the most important thing.
Perhaps we should be looking at the song at the beginning of every match and do what other clubs do and pipe the music of our anthem to make it sound louder. After all
” We are the Arsenal and we are the best , we are the Arsenal so FFFF all the rest.””
Morning Rico. It’s that time of the year when, starved of game-talk, the papers feel free to make the agenda. The mail have some curious football journos. Most of the main ones have turned into political commentators blaring half-baked left-wing views about morality in football when they can’t dream anything else up or be arsed to look into the dodgy ownership scandal that will surely engulf the PL. One wonders why.
The revolving rumour-mill has fallen on Saka now but there’s Jesus, Zinchenko etc waiting in the wings to wind up Arsenal supporters. I’m waiting for the “Klopp Wants Martinelli” re-run or perhaps “Conte Demands Saka” shite as the rumours of a Spurs takeover and cash injection from Colonel Sanders grow.
It won’t be long.
Morning Rico and all
I don’t recon Saka will go to Man city or Liverpool this season due to lack of game time there, at least with us he will play just about every week. How ever Chelsea on the other hand could be tempting if his pay went up by a fair bit.
I don’t know where the hacks get their info, but I suppose there are people in most clubs willing to leak a bit of “inside information” in exchange for a few quid. Then, of course, there are the players agents who are only too willing to spread rumours in the hope of pushing up the players profile and value in order to increase their own income.
I wouldn’t put it past some managers to do a bit of rumour mongering either to encourage one of his own players to look for a move or to tap-up someone he’s interested in.
When reading these rumours I keep a bowl of salt nearby, convenient for a large pinch from time to time.
Morning Adam, Geoff, all.
Lazy journalism Adam. It’s not like we’ve been here before. Thank goodness Haaland has already moved eh…
Transfer speculation stories provide more interest than reporting on games. They provide far more hits on websites so the more crazy the story the bigger the level of interest.
I think Arseblog ran a spoof story a few years back about a Bulgarian prodigy. It hit the mainstream media…but it was completely made up.
So Rico…away you go..
“Truly compete” Potter, now that sounds like a plan. If Liverpool could and still can, then so can we, regardless of City, Chelsea and Newcastle’s money.
Morning All from sunny LCA.
Morning Rico, I am currently ranking 😄 at City Airport.
Ah agents bless-’em, don’t they all like to frighten the living daylights out of us all, yep they’ve been very busy and Bakayo Saka has a very good agent, adept at manipulating situations to the maximum financial benefit of himself and his player.
Bakayo has two more years to go and I’m sure that Arsenal will want to tie him down, maybe with a buy-out clause of say £150m, so I reckon something will be agreed.
But even if Arsenal got Bakayo to sign a new deal with a bumper pay rise for say four years does anyone think that the links to City and/or Liverpool will go away?
Arsenal have some top young players so it’s not surprising that the big money clubs would want to have them, that used to be us before Abramovitch arrived at Chelsea and KSE arrived at Arsenal…
We all know that Newcastle will be dipping into the transfer market heavily this summer. It wouldn’t surprise me to see players like Raheem Sterling go there. I hope Pepe is on their radar! Expect Eddie Howe to be gone by Xmas. Replaced by Maureen-o?
Chelsea will slip. They are now owned by asset strippers, not a money launderer. I would be surprised to see the type of big signings they have become accustomed to. Their defence is aging and they have lost Rudiger and Christensen.
Chelsea & Spurs should be in our headlights, while trying to keep in front of improving teams Man Utd, Newcastle and Villa.
😂 Morning Kev. No, the links to our players will never go away as anything goes when it comes to trying to destabilise the club.
Tuchel has £200 million apparently Pete. It’s true, honest. It’s in the papers… lol
Good afternoon Rico and all
I can assure everyone here that even if we win the EPL, CL and/or any other cup our players will still be mentioned in the same breath as other clubs. Players like Saka, Martinelli, Partey, ESR and others of the same ilk will always be mentioned by the press. As has been pointed out….it is done simply to destabilise our players. The press have an agenda in favour of Liverpool and Spuds. And they simply press home the fact that City, Chelsea and now NUFC have vast amounts of money. So they will always stay harping around.
They even did it after the Invincible season so I dont think winning anything even the CL will change the press headlines.
Its the easiest way to get clicks on the internet.
I am starting my own rumors Kane and Song are going to Liverpool and half of Chelsea are going to NUFC
Afternoon Devil, for sure it is although I’m surprised so many fans fall for it. I’ve noticed a few sites have 5/6 articles a day, none of which usually have a grain of truth to them. But, it’s a way of making big money I guess.
BDW…..Arsenal have an option to extend Saka’s contract by a year which they’ll activate meaning 3 years at least left. So if he is to be sold I presume that any club has to offer crazy money.
Would I sell him for 150million? Yes I would provided that good replacements are in place. replacements who will hit the ground running and do well. Arsenal existed BB and will continue to exist AB. No player is bigger than the club. Not even TA06 and TH 14 or DB10 were bigger. And BS is not different.
Where did you see that Devil? TransferMarket doesn’t show that but it does for Martinelli.
So won’t leave until after the Paris Olympics diving competitions
Flo Balogun has scored for England U21..
He’s scored another….
Did anyone watch the England game? I’ve replayed the penalty incident several times and am amazed that it was awarded Kane was in an offside position when Grealish played the ball forward and was still offside when the ball was played for him to run on to. Only then was he brought down. The on-field officials,the VAR and the commentators completely missed the offside.
2 goals for Balogun and one assist for Smith-Rowe
England got a dodgy penalty against the Germans, the Germans!
Dear Lord the world has really gone mad.
Maybe England will win the World Cup….
(Irony 😉)
Good morning Rico and all
Its on google Rico. He has until 2023 plus an additional year if Arsenal want to enforce it.
1 – 1 , then Kane kicks his own ankle and dives for a penalty , Why are we not surprised.
Morning Devil, all.
Ah, so his contract expires 2024, as written in the post and not 2025 (inc the extra year you mentioned)
New post up now