Agree, I do wonder what the fee is.

Just seems frustrating that you have this young kid with clear talent and yet we have to sell him in order to maintain the wages of players like Kolasinac who are nowhere near good enough.

I’ve got a bad feeling we will end up selling him and Lacazette who both have talent and won’t be able to offload the dross clogging our wage bill that’s holding us back.

A difference is that Kolasinac seems happy with a squad role, and Maitland-Niles has made it clear he isn't. I really like him, he's a useful player, but if I'm honest I don't see him ever growing into a starter for us. Our starting eleven is in desperate need of strengthening, and if that can be achieved by offloading replacable squad players then it's fine with me.

It's a real shame, TG. I think with the right coaching there is a very good player there. We may regret this one.

I just hope we get the right fee, he's young, english and very versatile.

Bizarrely the club have just announced the signings of Mari and soares.

I thought this was done long ago.

Fee is key here. He's got 3 years left on his deal so we should be in the driving seat. He has everything going for him for the fee to be a fair bit higher than £20m
Young
Counts as home grown
Versatile
Wages won't be huge
selling to another prem club

Fee needs to be north of £25m. and we should be adding buy-back or sell on % as well.

If you sell AMN and buy Gabriel for net £0 then you've strengthened a problem position in the first 11 and lost a utility player. As much as there are others that need to go that is a sensible strategy.

Chelsea close to £90 Havertz, to add to £55m Werner and £30m Ziyech.......meanwhile they still don't have a decent GK and look to sign 35 year old Thiago Silva on a free. If that was Arsenal pushing all their money in to attack and ignoring the clear problem areas from last year everyone would be lining up to have a pop. Maybe Chelsea have another £150m for the defence ready to be spent......Chilwell seems on his way soon for £50m

The fee being suggested is 20.

Seems low considering signing Mari cost us 18 apparently.

https://www.statsperform.com/resource/e ... n-arsenal/
Some damning stats in here if you're in to that sort of thing.

Just improving defending and attacking set pieces alone would gain us goodness knows how many points each season. That really should be easy and looks like something Arteta knows can be an easy win by bringing in a set piece specialist and also adding more height (Gabriel) and better delivery (Willian) to the team

Meant to be quite a few movements on some defensive outgoings.
Sokratis interesting Napoli
Holding to Leeds once they get knocked back on Ben White from Brighton
Chambers wanted by Fulham (and others)
Mustafi wanted by 3 clubs
AMN close to Wolves

I feel any top club needs 5 CB on their books. If all those left we'd have Saliba, Luiz, Mari, Gabriel (pending signing) so feel we either need to keep one of the above (Mustafi or Holding for me), or pick up another CB or promote a young player. Particularly as we've had success playing 3 at the back at the end of last year.

Still no word on where Malang Sarr is going on a free transfer. His stats last year were up there with some of the best CB in France.

Stop teasing me.

RMC saying we want to sell Bellerin to PSG

https://rmcsport.bfmtv.com/football/mer ... -4641.html


Would be even more peculiar considering we are about to sell AMN

They would be wiser to go for Sanagoa - much better player. Ask Kiwi...

Not really, if you consider the fact that Maitland-Niles isn't a full back - at least not in his own mind. I feel like a lot of the debate about his impending transfer to Wolves leaves out the part where he's the one who apparently wants to leave as he's not being given a chance to play in central midfield.

I think there was a quote from AMN saying he sees himself as a right winger. It is a shame for us because from a club point of view having a utility player like AMN who is never first choice but can slot in when needed is very useful, obviously from a player point of view he sees a short career and wants to establish himself in what he considers his best position - and who can blame him for that.
I remember Man U in the Fergie years having so many of these players who were never first choice and could have easily played prem football as first choice in their preferred position for 16 out of the 20 prem clubs but always just stayed at Man U, sat on the bench, played when needed, did a job and picked up the trophies at the end of the season - Phil Neville, Butt, Brown, O'Shea - all crucial to Man U's success in those years

Havertz to Chelsea for £90m is close. His reported wage is £130k a week. That shows how negligent we've been with handing out wages, this kid is one of the most sought after young talents in world football - his transfer fee reflects that but yet we have pretty journeymen footballers on near the same wage as him.

Hi Haz,

I think any club willing to pay really big money for Bellerin post injury will be buying him on past reputation and not current performances. He's not been the same player in terms of speed since he returned and even before his injury he was not the greatest defensively but often got out of trouble because of his recovery pace.

Anyone paying say £30m would be taking a huge gamble.

The prospect of a Saliba/Gabriel CB partnership is very exciting. I can't wait to see them in action. However, we know that football never quite works how you want it to. They both have, size, strength, pace and technical ability......everything you'd want in a modern day CB........but to expect both the develop into worldclass performers might be hoping for a little too much. Fingers crossed eh.

Players like Saliba and Gabriel are exactly the profile of player we should be targetting. Young with huge potential who have some experience but not yet enough to make them unattainable price-wise.

I don't need either to be world class. Just effective. The prospects of those two are exciting. Most pundits say of the two Saliba has the biggest upside potential. But saying that, both look promising. It will be some time before we see the two pared. Both are fairly young. Both should be able to communicate in french presumably. Then later on in english with their teammates.

I wonder if we'll start the season in the back 3 with Saliba right, Luiz central and Gabriel left. Eventually phasing out Luiz (as long as the other two are up to scratch) and moving to a back 4.

I wanted a big turnover in players this summer, certainly starting with all those not first 11 players Elneny, Mkhitaryan, Sokratis, Kolasinac, Chambers - we need to be careful if we sell the likes of Bellerin that you have to go out and immediately replace him with a starting full back.

Priority for the rest of the summer: not in priority order but in logical order of how things would likely happen
Signing up Aubameyang
Clearing the deadwood
Finding good money for the likes of Guendouzi, Torreira......Bellerin, lacazette
Re-signing Ceballos on loan
Replenishing central midfield with 2 quality additions
Replacing any other positions where we've sold a first team player

Yeah he’s good, but Sonoma is the real prize...

Tbh I’m not sure I ever believe these figures. Is that with or without signing on fee, appearance and performance bonuses, image rights etc. Willian who was at moneybags Chelsea champions league, premiership winner was supposed to be on 130. That’s clearly clearly bs. Got to be.

Have a feeling we may see cash sales over the next few weeks for chambers and holding and possibly Bellerin but all the others you mentioned could end up being loans agreed at the last minute of the window.

Can see Guendouzi asking for 200 grand a week from his next prospective club and them wincing and shaking their heads.

Legend!

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal-fc-news-tottenham-jonathan-dinzeyi-a4532526.html
New Arsenal signing Jonathan Dinzeyi after joining from Tottenham: I've always been a Gunner!

Haz
Ainsley has cleared up the bollox about “not being given the chance to play in midfield”; this is being totally driven by the club trying raise funds; trust me, Ainsley would rather stay as was excited by the possibility of the project unfolding under Arteta

Arsenal youngster Jordi Osei-Tutu to join Cardiff on loan

Thanks for clearing that up, Hodd. He must've not been looked at as a starter then, I assume?

If both Bellerin and AMN goes, who is playing RB? I'm at a loss here. I don't get it. Unless we are going with a 3 man back?

They must have rated Maitland Niles, he was picked ahead of Saka for the semi and final of the fa cup,

Probably just a case of being able to get a fee for him as opposed to Torreira, kolasinac and the others. Seems a shame, your selling a promising player and good contributor that’s come through the academy because you cant sell Özil who doesn’t even want to play football anymore or Kolasinac who is half the player but has a 100k contract nobody would contemplate

It’s without a question a real shame,

That's exactly it. These young british players will always generate a decent fee (unless we let their contract run down!) Ox, Iwobi, AMN. I expect we could get some decent money for Chambers and Holding. But as you say such a shame that the 3 of them should be nowhere near the first out the door.
Still feeling the affects of the disastrous decisions towards the end of Wenger's time on transfer dealings. Even given covid and poor league performances there should be much more money to play with just from generating proper fees from players sold that we could afford to 'write off' those players who contribute nothing AND buy their replacement.

There are a few reports saying we've pulled out of the Partey deal as we don't want to pay his full release clause and Atletico won't accept any player plus cash deal.

Boubakary Soumaré is a player mentioned as an alternative. He's also from Lille where we shop regularly now, but Wolves had a bid of 40M euros rejected last year so his price won't be dissimilar to Partey's.

Partey is 27 and Soumare is 21. The later is more the profile of player I think we should be targeting.

It’s just that, you’d only sell chambers or AMN if you can’t sell Kolasinac outright.

Which scouting genius picked him out by the way. There must be better left backs in the championship surely. When his agent got the 110 grand a week contract offer from us he must have fell off his chair.

The thing is, Maitland-Niles is at that age where he needs to be a starter. If Arteta doesn't see him as first choice in any position, then it's probably better to move him on, for his own sake as much as ours. Wolves seems like a good club for him, a very good manager and a team that plays football. With the Iwobi fee from last year, that's now about 50m in two years that the academy has made for the club, which is an excellent return. Not all academy players are going to have long Arsenal career, but if we can get a few regulars, and sell some other players here and there for big fees than that's a job well done for the academy.

To be fair, Kolasinac was voted into the team of the year in Germany before he joined us. He's not a bad player in my opinion, as long as he's played at left back or left wing back rather than centrally in a back three. Clearly behind Tierney though, so if he's looking to be a starter he should probably find another club.

This lad Gabriel seems to have been in a medical for about a week. He must be in BUPA.

We are going to need a lot of players this coming season with decent cover required in all positions. The compressed season, following on so quickly from the one just finished, is going to put a huge strain on the players. Even if we do avoid our usual injury dramas.

Harry Maguire found guilty of resisting arrest, aggravated assault and attempted bribery in a Greek court.

It's a serious business for him, but it's hard not to laugh. 'Do you know who I am?' - yes mate, Billy big b*llocks.

First, my guess is we didn't really want to sell AMN but had to make a tough choice. The 20 million is needed. Second, I don't think we'll sell Bellerin. Can't see it really happening for a few reasons, one is obvious.
Third, lots of clubs circuling, smelling blood in the water. They know we have to sell, have a lot of talented youth and are going to make bids after turning some of their heads.

Tonights friendly on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZufyCMvBVr0

AMN playing....??