I really thought I’d kicked the NEWSNOW habit this summer, but here I am, about to cook up a TRANSFER HIT OF GOODNESS FOR YA’LL!

Serge Gnabry is on the market for a reported 40m euros this summer. The exArsenal winger has refused the offer on the table from Bayern, he only has 1 year left on his deal, so he’s looking to get some action elsewhere.

This is a top tier player, he creates, he scores goals, he can play on the right or the left, he will give you production if you give him minutes. He is pure elite levels of class, and I know he’s spoke about Arsenal, but this one seems a bit unrealistic for the wage bill and the transfer budget.

… but we can dream.

The list of players the fans think Arsenal need this summer is likely very close to the one Mikel Arteta has.

We know the weaknesses our season faded on.

The cash priorities are going to be:

Find a primary striker that can give us goals

Find at least one top class midfielder that can compete with an injury-prone Thomas Partey

Fix the full back positions with robust back-ups because we have two injury prone players and quite average back-up

… then the last priority is probably us finding a winger that can give us end product at the other end of the pitch.

Serge G is probably a sexy luxury we can’t afford, he’s probably a cherry-on-top player that will hopefully be on the radar next summer when we have Champions League football… I don’t think he’s where we’ll be aiming resource this season. He’s a £250k a week player and that ain’t generally where Europa League money tends to go.

The sort of options we’ll be exploring would be with clubs that might take a chance on Nico Pepe. Crystal Palace have a Zaha issue this summer, he has one year left on his deal, he can walk free next year, maybe they fancy swapping him for Nico? We’d be getting guaranteed goals, a total nuisance of a player that would occupy defenders, and a known quantity in the Premier League. It’d be a budget Gnabry, but you’re still looking at a player that got 15 goals for a team that finished 12th.

Arteta and Edu have to work out how they can make up 8 extra points next season. Goals is going to be absolutely key to that, but I think they are going to have to get creative, and we have to understand our reality right now… we are a Europa team.

It’ll also be interesting to see how closely we stick to the strategy this summer. The vision of the club is very clear, we actively target players that are between the ages of 21-24 with 2-3 seasons of experience under their belts. That is smart, it is sustainable, and it worked so well it nearly landed us top 4 in year one.

… but.

A lack of experience did cost us right at the death. We are going to ship out Bernd Leno, Nico Pepe, Lacazette, and maybe Granit Xhaka this summer. That would take the average age of our squad down from 24.1 to 23.25. I think they might try and find some experience where they can to avoid it feeling like kids leading kids. That won’t come at great expense but I think it can be justified if we add a few NOW players to the squad that can help our really young talents when output is a struggle.

It is interesting that many are already falling into the trap of thinking everything we do as a club is terrible. Some of the Eddie commentary has been absolutely terrible over the last few days. We tied down a player the club watches every single day to a longterm deal. Is it expensive? Yes. But that is the penalty cost of botching his development this season.

Tammy Abraham scored 12 goals in his last season at Chelsea before he was binned off and replaced by a £90m player who still had feelings for Inter. People were horrified when we were linked to him, they said he was rubbish… this season, he’s bagged 27 goals and won a European trophy.

The above tweet sums up the opportunity here. People say that his form was a blip, but let’s not forget, he was our best striker in preseason. What we forgot as Arsenal fans, myself included, is young players need a run of games. Eddie was dining off 6 minutes here and there and totally lambasted when he didn’t deliver. Even in that Everton game, when he missed that chance, he still showed more in attack than anyone else on that pitch, creating 2 gild edge chances.

I will say, with absolute confidence, if we’d started playing Eddie in December when Auba exited the club, we’d have finished the season with 78 points, not 69. In a team that lacked end product, he should have been prioritised over a striker we knew was never coming back to goals. He was a better athlete, he had a connection with the other youngsters in the squad, and his primary asset was scoring. We opted for the wrong solve and paid the price in the end.

It’s also odd to see so many people railing against the signing of Tielemans. Like, how did we go from this guy being an example of unbelievable transfer mastery, to him being a disaster of a player that can’t run? This guy is absolutely top tier talent, he would be a massive add to our midfield. He has an incredible range of passing, his deadball skills are superb, he’s extremely good from a technical perspective, he can use both feet, and he’s very ambitious and progressive in his play. Let’s not use one bad season under Brendan Rodgers to call time on him. I remember everyone saying the reason Liverpool failed the season prior was because Thiago was too slow for the Premier League, that now looks like an all-time shocker of a narrative. As a football community, we definitely give too much attention to people that think it is analysis to say every player is shite. Always remember, last summer, a huge chunk of fans said Odegaard was a boring player, the man himself said the abuse was so bad he had to delete his Instagram… now he’s the #1 name request for the new shirt.

Right, I think that’s me done. Thank you to all the wonderful people who signed up to our Patreon. We are working out our summer content plan. We have some fun new ideas you’ll like. Chances are we’re going to make a podcast THIS weekend. So stay tuned.

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