MEGA MONEY KIDS BACK IN FASHION

UNITED FOLLOWING THE CHELSEA TREND OF LAST SUMMER - WILL IT WORK?

Arsenal launched their brand new Arsenal kit. This is how they’ve framed it.

Introducing our new 2024/25 away kit, in collaboration with adidas and British African heritage brand Labrum London.

We’re celebrating our connection to our African supporters via inspiration from the continent's design traditions.  Featuring the traditional pan-African colours of black, red and green, this shirt is punctuated with a striking white zig-zag graphic designed by Labrum London founder Foday Dumbuya.

This shirt has a great story behind it that gives our massive African fanbase a new uniform for next season (African readership of Le Grove is massive, thank you my friends). It pays homage to our African players, with none other than King Kanu making an appearance (remember when he broke onto the scene? Like no one I’d seen before and no one I’ve seen since). It also seems to have landed quite well with the London fanbase.

I don’t wear football shirts that often - but I do like seeing our players in the black shirts, so this one works for me. I’m interested to see what the rest of it looks like. I have to be honest, I like the training clobber more than the main shirt.

Could have worked as a keeper's shirt or a kit for sure. Anyway, congrats to Arsenal on the new shirt. I hope it sells so many we can buy the next Mbappe.

Talking of which… United just dropped £62m and £150k a week on Leny Yoro. The 18-year-old Lille centre-back has been a prime target for Madrid, PSG, and United all summer. The new ownership group at United managed to make the teenager theirs today.

READ HOW UNITED LANDED STATEMENT SIGNING

Or… I’ll tell you. Madrid wouldn’t pay more than £30m, PSG wouldn’t go higher than £45m, and United dropped in with their standard £62m offer and blew everyone else out of the water.

This feels like a throwback to last summer when we all watched in awe as Chelsea threw mega money at very young players in the hope they’d land the next big fish. A year on, there are no standout stars, they aren’t in Europe next season, and we’re still unsure if they can get back to the top.

Yoro is no doubt a talented player, just look at who was interested, but that fee demands he become one of the best in the world this season. There aren’t many players who do that in the Premier League as centre-backs because the demands are so brutal. Saliba, literally a top 3 defender in the world, had a similar profile and needed three loans to get to a level acceptable to Arteta when he was rolling with Rob Holding. He also broke his back during his first full season because of stress. Part of the reason he was put out on loan was so he could build his strength in a lightweight league because he wasn’t there physiologically.

Arteta is a far better coach than Ten Haag, Saliba arrived in a far better system than Yoro will have to navigate, and it was still a minor miracle the whole thing worked out.

£62m is finished article money. Madrid has the best young players in the world and they recognized the risk associated with the age, so they didn’t drop Camavinga cash. I don’t understand this strategy of big clubs signing players as teenagers to avoid paying big prices when they are 23… then getting in the negotiation room and just dropping mega-money. Jarrad Branthwaite is 21 years old, he’s shown he can do it in the Premier League, he deserved a call-up from England, and United wouldn’t go above £50m for him.

This sort of move just doesn’t feel overly serious when you have the first-team issues United has. That’s why it’s akin to Arsenal buying William Saliba when we were falling out of the Champions League for £27m. Great, long-term, but what would an actual centre-back have done for Emery that season? Might have got us the extra few points to push us back into the richest competition in the world.

There are no teenage centre-backs playing regularly in the Premier League for a top-half-of-the-table team. Can someone find me one at all? So if your objective is to get back into the top 4, I’m unsure how this move gets you there. If it’ll take three years for this guy to get to the level, that feels like a mad number to put on a player who is by definition a rough diamond.

United conceded 58 goals last season. Quite something to see the £62m solution is a child who has 3,500 league minutes in his entire career.

Here’s some teenagers United signed for a lot in the last decade:

Martial - €60m

Luke Shaw - €37.5m

Amad Diallo - €40m

This also highlights why Arsenal are putting £1m on an England U20 keeper and following the City model in the process. Dropping mega money on teenagers is risky business - so why not drop £10m on a squad of the best U16s and generate £34m a season in transfer revenue - then keep the 1 Leny Yoro you get every 4 years. That’s exactly what City has been doing so they don’t have to do what United is doing now.

Arsenal transfer news has been fairly dull. Merino and Williams rumors won’t die - I’m struggling with Williams due to the Barca connections, but Merino seems like a smart signing if Thomas Partey leaves… though I have serious doubts that’s on the cards, especially after James Benge insisted he’s more likely to stay.

The sexy rumors are mostly outgoing.

Emile for £40m

Reiss for £20m

Eddie for £30m

That’d push our summer to £100m in the bank. Edu and the ownership group would be VERY happy with that outcome.

But wait…

Zinchenko - £40m

Kiwior - £30m

Partey - £20m

Tierney - £5m

There’s still more cash on the table for players that could exit and not damage our chances next season.

My hope is now the cogs of madness are starting to whir, there will be some trickle-down economics that could flow our way over the next few weeks.

Ok, that’s me done. Thursday Therapy has been posted to the podcast section on this very site and you can also get it for free Friday morning! x