ARSENAL GO VERY BRITISH

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Mad times at Hotel Rumour Mill. We are being linked with MANY players and some of those rumours refuse to go away. One thing is clear, we have profiles we’re targetting, with many options that are moving targets. That’s great news, years gone by, there was one target and then we were done.

First big one, Aaron Ramsdale, Arsenal #2 for… £30m.

I can’t really suss it out. That sort of cash seems extremely rich when we have a very, very competent #1 in Bernd Leno. The young keeper clearly has talent, he’s capped for England, but he doesn’t boast any outrageous qualities we couldn’t pick up elsewhere for less outside youth and Englishness. When a player like Onana is moving to Marseille for sub £10m, you really have to wonder what is going on here.

The other side of this is that Bernd Leno hasn’t signed a new deal yet. The keeping coach that hasn’t delivered is still here. What is going on there? Most players we have going into the final two years of their contracts want a new deal, I’m not so sure that’s Bernd Leno who told the club before the end of the season he wanted out.

One thing I will say, you can bemoan Martinez being sold last summer, but you can’t say we sold him only to buy back homegrown. We sold Emi because he asked out of the club. £30m for Ramsdale seems nuts, but we didn’t push the Argentine out, he just didn’t like that he wasn’t being given a guarantee to start last season.

New rumour: I asked Johnny on The Arsenal Opinion podcast where this leadership was coming from that Mikel Arteta has been talking about. None of the players we’ve moved on so far have the experience to really step into that role this season. Then bang, out of nowhere, it became totally obvious… Jordan Henderson. Sky Sports are linking Arsenal with the 31-year-old and you really wouldn’t be shocked. Can he lead? Yes. Does he know how to win things? Yes. Would Liverpool cash in on a 31-year-old? Yes. Henderson has never been a sexy player, nor earned the respect his game probably deserved, but could he add something to our midfield if Xhaka is moved on? Likely.

Next on the Brit list: Tammy Abraham.

Again, another weird signing. The young England striker isn’t exactly in favour over at Chelsea. He’ll be looking for game time this year in the hope of securing a place in the World Cup squad. There are very, very meek ITK suggestions that we’re in pole position to sign him. It just seems an extremely weird signing.

Firstly, I don’t see Auba or Lacazette going anywhere this summer. They are on mega contracts and they can’t even attract smoke this window. Secondly, Folarin Balogun was just given a kick into the first-team squad, he signed a 5-year deal, and he looks the business every time we see him given a sniff in the first team. Abraham blocks his path and clogs up the forward line.

What is there to like about him? Well, he has a physical profile we lack. His height and pace is similar to where Adebayor was at his age (23). He’s also pretty reliable for goals in the now. It wouldn’t be a bad move, but it would be very confusing without a serious shuffle of the pack this summer.

In an interesting twist of fate, fans are now looking at the Ruben Neves signing differently as it would appear that United is in the mixer for his talents.

Another rumour that won’t die is the Locatelli one. There’s two ways this one is going. We’re either being used as a wedge to get Juventus to cough up some actual money for Sassuolo’s prized asset… or we are the only club in that mixer that has the money for the player. To put the tiny Italian club’s numbers in context, over the course of a decade, they made a profit of €1.6m, their record transfer is €2m, the most they’ve ever received for a player is €12m. Arsenal waving £40m in their direction is game-changing, I’m not sure they could really agree to let mega-rich Juve bully them into a 2-year loan in the current climate. I’d also be surprised if the player would waste a year on subpar wages to wait in the hope Juve will be loaded next summer.

So, it would seem that the transfer window is taking us in quite a British direction, which would see a reboot of Project British Youth. Who knows where that’ll end up, but I won’t be complaining about Arsenal signing young hungry players with a point to prove. There’s a tweet doing the round complaining about us signing these players because they don’t have fashionable profiles… let me remind you of some profiles we’ve tried.

‘Swiss captain, best passer in the Bundesliga’

‘World Cup-winning right back’

‘Heavily trophied Brazilian winger that offers control in the final third’

‘Keeper with the most clean-sheets in Premier League history’

‘Greatest Swiss right-back of all time’

Some players with unsexy profiles that have banged.

‘Right wing-back from Juventus’

‘Failed French midfielder from AC Milan’

‘Mohawk kid from Halmsteads’

‘Guy that had a heart attack from Inter reserves’

Sexy comp videos aren’t everything.

ON THAT NOTE.

We dropped another podcast that we recorded for the video creeeeew. Enjoy. Find my co-host @iJohnnyCochrane.

Spotify | Acast | Google | Audible

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Rich

Habesha Gooner

Liked that Arseblog link

It’s what I want to see from our transfer business, and from our squad building

There’s no shortcuts back to the very top, but providing I see the emergence of an exciting young team, then I’m willing to give it some time

Hopefully we can clear out the deadwood, then put add some strong foundations to build from this summer

Delighted Smith Rowe has signed and taken the No10, the Villa links really irked me

China1

Wow great news for ESR

PhD2020

China1July 22, 2021 15:33:38
Well I asked you a question so not sure why my having to be careful of certain topics is relevant…😅
————

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/7/12/slowing-economic-recovery-in-china-is-a-warning-sign-to-the-world

David.D

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!
Finally

ESR SIGNS!!!!

GREAT NEWS!!!

I was worried with those Villa bids and nothing materialising with the new contract so bloody relieved we have finally tied him down.

Just happened to be checking Newsnow and saw ESR name corner of my one but didnt think anything of it and instead clicked on a story about Maddison.

Then once finished reading scrolled down to be met with the words Smith Rowe signs new deal

GET IN THERE!!!
VILLA DO ONE…..

Sid

Giving Ceballos the playing time he got instead of Willock and AMN is pushing mediocrity to new heights.

David.D

*corner of my eye….

Sid

Edu is proving the doubters who is boss

Leftside

Excellent news for us and ESR

raptora

Villa fans are fuming!

TR7

ESR wasn’t going anywhere anyway. Hopefully we get Maddison in who can play in central midfield with Partey.

Partey-Maddison-ESR midfield will be nice.

Mr Serge

ESR signs a five year deal at last

TR7

James Maddison is the only player in the Premier League to have created 100+ chances from open-play and 100+ chances from set-play since the start of the 2018/19 season.

China1

PHD I thought we were gonna stop this conversation and instead you’re posting links that explicitly say things like China has ‘First in, first out status of covid’ ‘ The changing outlook reflects the advanced stage of China’s recovery’ ‘ Domestically, the big puzzle continues to be why retail sales are still soft given the virus remains under control. It’s likely that sales slowed again in June, according to Bloomberg Economics, as sentiment was weighed by controls to contain sporadic outbreaks of the virus.’ I was happy to leave it where it was but you come back posting links that… Read more »

WengerEagle

That is a seriously impressive stat TR7 if legit.

Very surprised that De Bruyne hasn’t also.

Sid

Goal creation actions per 90 mins is a better way to evaluate a player than chance creation

China1

I’m not surprised that ESR has signed but I’m certainly glad There was no way he’d actually choose villa but the fact they were willing to even test the waters with multiple bids underscored just how far we’ve fallen as a club. Can you imagine villa making bids for a 22 year old Nasri or whatever? They’d have been an absolute laughing stock for daring to try But other teams can smell our weakness these days. I just hope we can get back to a place where the club commands instant respect again and teams like villa can go suck… Read more »

Mulerise14

Tr7,
A Partey, Madison, and Esr midfield would be easily run over…Tets want to play Partey as box to box and maddison is not deligent enough in his defensive duty…so lets find someone who can play 10 and left wing to rotate and compete with our shining new no 10.
If we can get one of Locatelli/Neves/That Az Alkmaar guy and this competition for Esr nailed, I dare say this would be the strongest team we would roll out in the last decade or so

Mr Serge

China agree villa have been taking the piss

Mulerise14

With proper sorting of d right back and the festering goalkeeper situations of course!

PhD2020

China1July 22, 2021 15:17:13 Why would you keep bringing up the country going into lockdown as a reason for why factory output should be lower if you accept that lockdown ended well over a year ago ——————– China1July 22, 2021 14:45:10 As for whether the economic numbers and factory output numbers are accurate – probably not. They probably never have been at any point in the last 20 years. —– Over to you… PS I mentioned factory output(see below for the time line),along with other economic data.I’m not tying your first national lockdown to simply the erroneous factory output data,but… Read more »

PhD2020

China1
‘as sentiment was weighed by controls to contain sporadic outbreaks of the virus.’

—-
So,again my doubting the veracity of the data numbers put out by the PRC and whether PRC has CV-19 under control given a mortality rate of 4000,which has hardly shifted in over a year-is questionable from various quarters.

That is what I am questioning,in a very simplistic way.

Again,we’ll leave it altogether.

As I said,I’ll defer to your assessment and we move on-right?

China1

Mulerise as much as ESR is absolutely better at 10 I wonder if it would be he who is used as the 10/winger rotation option whilst the new signing is first choice 10 as we saw this with Ode and also tbf to ESR he did have a few excellent games wide. I prefer him central as much as the next person but I think it was the spurs game where he absolutely roasted their RB time and again on the wing and he played brilliantly so he’s got it in him to be the flexible option, not just a… Read more »

G

Not sure why some are going on about wasting 120 mill
We haven’t signed Abrahams or Ramsdale.. couldn’t give a shit if we overpaid on Ben White.. will prove to b our best centre back this season..

raptora

“Emile Smith-Rowe’s introduction to the team on Boxing Day was arguably the biggest catalyst in Arsenal’s upturn in form in the second half of the season.

Mikel Arteta’s side had a 58% win rate in games he started compared to one of 41% in games he did not.”

China1

I’m not gonna bite PHD we’re moving on

PhD2020

China1July 22, 2021 16:35:59
I’m not gonna bite PHD we’re moving on


Cool… 🙂

Mulerise14

China1 I kinda agree with that…. but we need to get a prompter(Esr-mode)not extricate passer like ødegaard as our man in the hole as speed is now common good in the new team being assembled

Mulerise14

There is a new post house

Chris

Absolutely amazing news about Smith-Rowe!!! Nuff said!

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