Hi Rich,

£15m, if true, is a joke figure for a player of his ability, age, experience, durability and professionalism.

It’s practically giving him away.

1)It’s the contracts we historically offered players who are substandard. Tomori wasn’t on a 100k a week contract at chelsea more like 20 then his salary will go up to 72 at Milan apparently. At Arsenal it’s different bang! Duff players like Xhaka, Torreira and Kolasinac are instantly offered 100k plus contracts off the back of half a good season with their respective clubs that no other mug would pay. You will have to reduce the fee to get them off the books. We’ve literally been giving away players to release their contracts.

2) if the players are obviously bad you will struggle to shift them. There must be a reason so few clubs want to take a punt on Xhaka even at 18 million or whatever

3) there’s urgency on our part as we have to move these players on really quick or risk having another shocking season so if we accept 2 million or so less here and than we want but it buys us more Time in the market this summer then so be it. Some of these players are a noose round the club and more importantly managers neck.

Maybe I'm remembering things differently but I've rarely seen us get full valuation for players, especially the last several years. Our big players would force a sale to be fair but still, peripheral players who are wanted we get less than the reported or suggested valuation prior.

Anelka and one or two others are only ones I recall my raising an eyebrow of how much we got. Really? They are willing to pay that?!

It's why I posted an "I'll believe it when I see it" when Rich had a list of valuations for players. I believed those were the valuations but we don't seem to get full value.

At the end of the day there must be a reason nobody would take an 18 million punt on a player like this and only one club want him.

Do you think the fact he single handedly costed his side 9 points last season is attractive to potential buyers.

It’s the housing market right. You can only attain what the property is actually worth.

Iwobi you mad b******.

To be honest the one that really grates isn’t any of the transfers being talked about it, it was selling Cesc to Barcelona for just 29 million when he was easily a 45 to 50 mill type player at the time. Should have stuck our feet in the ground. No way Daniel Levy would have let himself get bullied like that, I’m aware the circumstances were tricky but it just wasn’t enough

Tomori is hardly a good comparison with Xhaka, Mustafi and Torreira though; he's an academy product who has never established himself with Chelsea, while the other three were brought in from good clubs to be starting players for us. They're naturally going to be earning a lot more. A better comparison would be Willock, and if we sell him we'd probably get more than Chelsea will get for Tomori.

To me, it seems we rarely sell from a position of strength. It's too often players forcing a move, running down their contract or not having a place in the squad and us wanting to free up space. Iwobi was sold when we didn't have to, as was Oxlade-Chamberlain, and those are two of the highest fees we've ever gotten. We waited too long with Sanchez, and I think the same can be said about AMN and Nketiah now.

Current house prices are routinely influenced by what the housing market is at the time. A depressed housing market (sometimes called a buyer’s market) will mean a property will be available for less than the figure that exactly the same house could have been sold for in a non-depressed housing market (sometimes called a seller’s market). This should lead to good bargains being available to buyer’s. The same principle will often apply to the current transfer market in football.

There have been reports about other clubs being interested in Xhaka, but another way to look at it is that Mourinho is another top manager who rates Xhaka highly. So that's Wenger, Emery, Arteta, Mourinho, and add to that Hitzfeld and Petkovic for the national team. Think there's a fair bit of football knowledge between those six.

Yes, but one would presumably also look at the benefit side (or opportunity cost side) of the equation too in establishing what a player or property is worth. Sure it doesn't have a pool and a fireplace, but its a proper house that has proven it won't fall down in a stiff breeze. Beats the hell out of being homeless.

I suspect reason we haven't sold Xhaka yet (if that is the intention), has something to do with the fact that it is 10 June. Similar reason to why we haven't yet completed our other transfer business.

Many of those managers inherited him and have to keep nice right they can’t publicly announce they don’t rate him? At the end of the day Arteta is selling him for a knockdown price to the first club coming along. He can’t rate him that highly he is letting him go with Time in his contract!

They could do what managers do with players they don't rate; play others instead and try to get rid. But they've all had Xhaka as a nailed on starter in their team (and I assume Mourinho will too) and praised him whenever given the opportunity. Arteta even went out of his way to convince Xhaka to stay when he first arrived and Xhaka had one foot out the door, but now Xhaka is pushing to leave (according to pretty much every single source that has reported on the story) and so he's allowed to.

True. We've been trying to sell our house but decided to take it off the market because we'd only be able to get 50% of what the property is worth in the current market, and even then we'd be lucky to find a buyer. The difference is that the European football transfer market is likely to rebound quite rapidly.

Selling a player like Xhaka, who a) Arteta rates, b) is a known quantity, c) plays a role in the team for which we have no replacement on hand, just seems mad. Doing so at a cut-price is the least of it.

That’s not how the top managers do it though. It’s the Ferguson method right ? Pat them on the back and tell them they did a good job, tell the media they are doing well and there’s no problem (when it’s bloody obvious there is!) then make a note of all their sins and bang they are gone at the first opportunity when someone shows interest.

It’s not going to be a depressed market this summer though. Expect 100 million transfer for Kane and potentially grealish, rice and others

If Saka was put up for sale what do you reckon he would fetch. 50 or 60 I’d suggest? More ?

Then how can it be depressed if he’s also our player

You don't knock him publically but why on earth pick him for every game if you don't rate him? By your logic, Arteta would have picked Özil and Mustafi for every game to 'keep nice right'.

Cause all our current midfielders are characters off Sesame Street and despite being dire he’s all we have.

But a) Özil. b) Your story about Ferguson is pure fantasy. Are you saying he would actually play someone he didn't rate in an important match simply to keep a player in the shop window. He did sing the praises of the likes of Veron and Forlan. They were seriously good player who just didn't fit at United. But there were many other player who turned out to be crap and just disappeared (Djemba Djemba? Tiabi?). He also didn't mind taking a financial loss if a player didn't work out.

Well then you don't sell one of the two half-decent ones you have!

Japp stam, beckham. Tons of examples of it. Don’t bad mouth the player because coming out and saying “this guys a loser” tends not to help his performances and transfer value

Oh and on Özil and mustafi. Özil was dropped because his performances got so bad it was embarrassing as his effort was being exposed by willock and others and mustafi got a decent amount of games until his final season. But Arsenal also In that position had better options than our midfield where it can’t be missed on you we seem to be selling ALL our midfield players who failed us so badly bar Partey and the kids (and I’m loving it!)

Great. So your plan would be to sell now for peanuts, create a huge hole in our squad on the principle that the grass is greener on the other side, and buy later when the big clubs have sprung and the like of W Ham, Spurs and Villa are looking to splurge?

First opportunity? Excluding the January window in 2017 there have been six transfer windows where none of them made any effort whatsoever to get rid of him. Arteta even convinced him to stay when he was desperate to leave. Wenger signed him, Emery made him captain. They all had him as a nailed on starter and any midfield signing we've made during Xhaka's time seem to have been brought in as a partner to him rather than a replacement for him.

It's fair enough not to rate Xhaka based on having seen him play more than 200 games for the club, but it can't be denied his managers rate him highly as a player and professional.

That’s not my point. My point is merely other teams can’t rate these players as high as our fans do and there must be a reason for that. Probably that some of these players are more gash than the high esteem and regard we seem to hold them in. That indicates something right.

Honestly mate it’s not gonna take too much effort to replace Xhaka, Ce-ball-loss, El Nenny and Guendouzi. Let em go and bring in fresh blood. (I’m loving it)

Current one doesn’t as he wouldn’t be selling him for peanuts slap bang at the start of a transfer window. It’s also not their fault they haven’t been able to sell many of these misfits across multiple windows because they are useless and on huge contracts

If Tottenham get less for Kane than they would have if they’d sold him in a non-depressed transfer market, it surely has to be seen as depressed even if they get a very high fee for him, which they obviously will. The same will apply to any youngster who has just had a breakthrough season, like Saka. A mansion in Hampstead sold during a depressed housing market will still fetch a lot of money. It’ll just be less than the amount it would have presumably been sold for in a non-depressed market.

Good player: market isn’t depressed

Bad player: the market is depressed this players not an obvious turd !!,,

Funny that

It’s not just the market that’s depressed. I am too where Arsenal are concerned.

We're selling because Xhaka has been pushing for a move. And with every other player you're refering to (Mustafi, Kolasinac, Özil) we tried getting rid of them for a long time before they actually left. There hasn't even been a sniff of such a rumour regarding Xhaka, apart from January 2020 when he himself was desperate to move. If we had tried to sell him but failed you might've had a point, but we simply didn't. Instead we played him for 45 games per year.

No sniff of a rumour Because he’s crap and on a huge 120 k a year contract few would contemplate. We played him because of our midfield options being poverty

We are offering little resistance to the fact he’s being sold for peanuts so he can’t be rated that highly. He’s under contract. That’s the end of it,

Simply in life you don’t sell things you value highly for little money.

All the other players mentioned were underperforming on big contracts, and we tried desperately to get rid of them to the point where we paid teams to take them on. No such effort was made with Xhaka. Again, if we had tried and failed your point would've been more valid. This summer Xhaka is pushing for a move, and we're getting the best deal we can in a difficult market. There's just no evidence at all that supports your view.

You can only sell if you have a buyer. There have been hardly any and the type of clubs that don’t spend 110k a week easily

If a good player is sold for for less money than his club could have got for him at another time, that suggests the market is depressed. There are other factors like closeness to his contract expiring, wages and so on. But I think it’s a strange argument to suggest the current transfer market isn’t depressed.

Again, we didn't have any buyers for Mustafi, Kolasinac and Özil. Yet, for several transfer windows there were loads of reports about how we tried and tried to move them on and ended up with deals that gave us absolutely nothing for them. If the managers didn't rate Xhaka at all we would've done the same with him. Instead Emery made him captain (or are you suggesting that was a ploy to increase his value?) and Arteta convinced him to stay when he had one foot out the door.

If Saka wanted to leave do you reckon we would accept an offer of 25 million for him ?

No?

You have the answer you are seeking.

As I’ve said several times. We have plenty of centre backs and few quality midfielders. You have to make nice till the opportunity arises

If our midfield was Sesame Street Xhaka would be big bird.

I'm less optimistic about that. Hopefully the days of missing our transfer targets and going into season with squad holes unfilled are over. However, it would be very risky to put ourselves in a position where we have just one established first-team midfielder in the squad. Apart from the fact that you cannot guarantee that incoming players would be a hit, let alone immediately, we would hardly be putting ourselves in a great bargaining position. Last season we saw how fatal it is to go into the season without adequate midfield cover. When Xhaka or Partey was unavailable we has a big problem. Xhaka isn't nearly as bad as you make out.

So then you sign a new midfielder, it's what clubs do every now and then. You just seem to ignore all the actual evidence of the situation, starting with the fact that we actually had a buyer for Xhaka (unlike Mustafi et al). What better 'opportunity' could there be than the player wanting to leave and a club wanting to buy him?

When he wanted to join Hertha Berlin Xhaka's standing among Arsenal fans were at an all time low and it would've been the easiest thing in the world for Arteta to sell him and get someone new in. Nobody would've blamed him for it. Instead, Arteta chose to make an effort to persuade Xhaka to stay.

No I’m sure we wouldn’t. But that’s irrelevant to the point I’m making, as I’m sure you must realise. Saka has just had his breakthrough season and looks a truly great prospect. But if the current transfer market wasn’t so difficult or depressed as it is, I’m confident Arsenal would have got an even higher fee for him than we would have been able to now.

I will reserve final judgement on £15m for Xhaka (if that proves to be the fee) until I see what other players are selling for.

It does seem low for a player of his calibre. He may not be the level of player who most of us think will enable us to take the steps forward we need to but he is a decent player who just lacks the pace and athleticism that help greatly in the PL.

....Because of our lack of money and other Sesame Street midfielders.