Morning all.
Long before the season came to a close, Leicester City, Southampton and Ipswich knew their time in the Premier League was coming to an end. All three clubs were relegated and must now fear their better players will be targeted by other clubs. For the clubs, PSR could be a concern too but I’m just guessing as I’ve no idea what their financial situation is.
Back in May, Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Wolves were linked with Leicester City player Bilal El Khannouss, a Moroccan international who plays in midfield. The fee Leicester City are asking for their player is reported to be €26m (£22.1m) which is pretty much what they paid for him a year ago.
Another Championship player who is attracting interest from Premier League clubs is Hayden Hackney who right now, is representing England at the Under 21’s Euro Championship although he was on the bench for their opening match against the Czech Republic. As was Tom Fellows, another player tipped to make a move to the Premier League. Fellows plays as a forward, attacking midfielder or winger for EFL Championship club West Bromwich Albion.
A winger is a position Arsenal are hopefully looking at this summer because our current options are pretty drab. In fact I’d say the only “proper” winger we have in the first team squad is Gabriel Martinelli and at a push, Gabriel Jesus. No, of course I’m not knocking Bukayo Saka, or any of the others who play out wide but I wouldn’t describe them as wingers.
Another youngster tipped for a good future is Southampton’s young midfielder Tyler Dibling. The 17 year old came through the academy at Southampton before moving to Chelsea in 2022. He didn’t settle in West London and soon after, returned to the south coast club in 2022.
The Championship is rich with talent yet it so often seems that overseas talent is more attractive than Englands homegrown or youngsters already in England albeit in a lower League. I’ve never really understood why.
A good example, or rather a bad one, is Fabio Vieira who Arsenal paid around £30 million for a couple of years ago. Fancy footwork he might have but the physicality of the Premier League proved to be something he struggled with. Now it looks like he’ll be sold for less what Arsenal paid for him yet he’s still just 25 years old.
Mike Biereth, born in London and signed from Fulham, Ayden Heaven, born in Islington, signed from West Ham when he was just 14 years old yet neither are still with the club because I guess they believed their pathway into the first team wasn’t there. Why? Because in Hayden’s case, we had both Jakub Kiwior and latterly, Riccardo Calafiori at the club and in the case of Biereth, Mikel Arteta played any player up front other than the only proper striker we had at the club. (Not counting Eddie Nketiah, or Chido Obi for that matter.)
I’m not silly enough to think that every young player or Championship player is good enough for the Premier League or more importantly, Arsenal, but there has to be a number of players who are. Or young players who are already showing signs of becoming a great player whilst playing the odd game for their current clubs first team.
Mikel Arteta said we as a club need more players but if those aren’t coming from our own academy then surely, it’s worth looking at the Championship this summer. After all, any spare cash after signing the key players needed this summer, will go a lot further, heck, we might even make a profit on them in years to come. You can bet your bottom dollar that clubs will make a profit on a few of the players Arsenal let slip through their fingers.
I’m off to get my tin hat…..
Morning Rico, good post…
Apparently French football is in a mess, no TV deal to speak of and spiralling costs. PSG are the notable exception the rest are in debt, some of them seriously, so with that in mind it seems that Ligue Un is the place to looks for quality bargains or if not bargains realistically priced players. If my memory serves me right Arsenal have been rumoured and linked recently to a couple of Ligue One players?
No need for a crash helmet in my opinion , I tend to agree . When we switched from having people on Hackney marshes and the lower divisions and went to Stat DNA I think we lost the ability to see what was under our noses.
We seem to have a way of picking children for our academy but there also seems to be a gap when it comes to seeing 18,19 and 20 year olds that play non league or lower division .
The two most obvious players to have come through this route are Ian Wright and Jamie Vardy and I am sure that there are many others out there that could make the breakthrough given the chance .
Perhaps there is a case for signing a few and farming them out maybe even to Colorado . I know that given the chance to get a year or so in America when I was playing in county league football or senior amateur , I would have taken it.
Morning Kev, Potter, all.
I think it’s a waste of a great opportunity. Look how many players now in the PL came from Championship clubs..
Bale, VvD, Chamberlain and Walcott too.
PL clubs can be snobs imo.
I’ve lost count of the players we’ve been linked to Kev, most of which are poppycock..
I have lot of sympathy with those on here who advocate for scouts rather than do everything using stats, but I suspect that we already do that anyway, as do Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth etc and they’re routinely admired for their recruitment.
It’s also easier for those clubs to take a punt as they can pick up players cheaper and they’re not being constantly being judged by online shock-posters looking for clicks, Football 365 and FourFourTwo, check out their headlines, their Arsenal narrative is consistently negative.
I wouldn’t be surprised to be told that every Premier League club already knows who’s around in the lower leagues and who shows promise, that would extend to Championship clubs and others across Europe. The fact that Vardy stands out among current players is that it’s so rare for a non-league player to progress through to the very top.
Arsenal are, according to rumours, tracking a Blackburn youngster, have a young Scottish lad joining us this summer ( he choose Arsenal over Rangers apparently) and we already have a young Irish lad we signed a year ago and have been linked with another. The problem we have is that Chelsea in particular, Man City, Man United to a lesser degree and Liverpool throw copious amounts of dough at youngsters and we don’t, we pay well but we don’t pay Chelsea-stupid figures, so we miss out.
You only have to see the outrageously inflated sums paid out for teenagers from South America to see where this is going…
Khayon Edwards is being linked to a couple of lower ranked Portuguese clubs, now how did they know about him? Scouts and Stats I’d imagine, I hope he goes there and is successful, better playing football in an Iberian climate than going to a League One or Two club.
England is actually quite the place to scout youngsters, we’re one of the most productive in Europe, which is quite a sea change, and our youngsters are quite prized.
Stuart Pearce at Wealstone , Vinny Jones at Bedmond , Mikail Antonio at Tooting , Troy Deeney at Halesowen.
Although I didn’t play against them individually I played against three of the clubs . We had two players better than me that could have made it but for various reasons didn’t , we were only a small local club , there must be hundreds out there but I am not sure that we look at ready mades when they reach those ages.
Good morning (just) all..
Maybe having a non- English manger and coaching staff means they are blind to talent in the lower English leagues. Just saying.
Maybe the players you played with didn’t want it enough, Pearce and Jones were from another era and the other two came up through the divisions, now name me a non-league player who was scouted directly by a Premier League club?
Morning Rico and all.
It sounds to me that our whole academy from the people in charge down to our recruiters need to be looked at, or replaced, after all iF we buy or look at young players around 17 – 18 years old from other clubs then our younger players may see it a slap in face and feel we don’t rate them and want out.
Perhaps the ideal transfer process is a mix of scouting and data. Also, the physicality of the league they are playing in as well as the level of football in that league. It’s easy to look at a player in Spain for example who does well against the lower league placed clubs but how he fairs against the likes of Barca and the Madrid teams is what matters more.
Afternoon Geoff.
Talking transfers, have we signed anyone? Lol
11:21 Kev, it’s all very well signing younger players but they need to be used, otherwise what’s the point? Thats why we lost Chido, Hayden and Biereth…
Personally I beleive there are several advantage of looking for English born players.
1 they have the support of family and friend close by
2 their partners have there family and friends close that can help to take the pressure off the player
3 they understand the culture and what is required by both the club and it’s fans
4 they are used to the cold and wet conditions in England
yes there are plenty of players that can adjust, but I am guessing there are plenty of players and their partners that get home sick.
Maybe we should look at have more training camps for young kids from country area’s that may get overlooked a chance to show what they can do, so we can then keep an eye on them for the future