He's a bigger waste of money than if they'd signed me and my dodgy 58 year old knees.

The winners of the Europa conference League (which Roma won) earns a place in the Europa League. Winning Europa league earns a place (as a 1st seed I think) in the Champions League.

Feels to me like Pépé will have to go on loan probably right at the end of the window to a club who will only pay half of his 140k wages (if that) and has no intention of signing him long term.

Bloke simply doesn’t have the temperament to play in the premier league.

Terrific business that by Sanellhi.

Oh he's real alright. On loan to Colorado Rapids till July 17, 2022. Then he's all Arsenal. Possibly part of the Arsenal summer tour.

To be centre back number 6 or 7 in a squad of only 25! If we sign Martinez that would mean we have 5 ahead of him who are all internationals bar holding and that’s totally ignoring Tommy who plays there for Japan. 7 fighting for 2 positions won’t happen. This blokes not even playing for the US side. Bet you he never starts a premier league match for the club.

Chelsea is after Sterling as rumored. Should we be interested?

Gabby Jesus arriving at Arsenal with Edu

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football ... u-medical/


But he can only play on the wing!

How much are we paying him

He couldn’t get in the city team !


Etc etc

I spoke to a football fan of sorts from my hometown Philly and he said we have a defender, Auston Trusty that is a Philly native (or sorts), from the suburbs (possible interest to Andy Green maybe). Area called Media. I'm familiar with it and his HS. I know nothing about him but he's tall (6'4'" and 23) according to Wiki and got a national team call up so must be decent.

Cheick Dacoure close to signing for Palace for £18m. Looks ready made for the Prem, and strangely the sort of player Palace seem to sign. Strong, tall, powerful central mids

Some pretty reliable sources reporting Chelsea are trying to hijack our deal for Raphinha. Shame if it happens as I think he'd be a terrific signing for us, but that's the way it goes sometimes. At least Gabriel Jesus is done, that was always the more important signing.

Ornstein calling Raphinha to Chelsea now. “North of 55m” are his exact words. Shame.

Romano on it now as well, £60-65m with most of it being paid right away. The club will probably get some flak for this, but it's not like we've been trying to sign him for ages. There's bound to be some negotiation in a transfer of this magnitude, and with other big clubs involved there are no guarantees.

Heard Tuchel wants Raphinha as a wing back. Crazy. If he sticks with his wing back formation, and two central mids Raphinha would probably play one of the two positions behind the striker. They’re favoured striker last year was Havertz.

It's a shame Gnabry is looking for such massive wages, he'd be a great option as wide forward. Probably not worth breaking our wage structure though, with Saka needing a new deal as well.

Where does Sterling fit in for them then

As I've said several times recently, being strongly linked with players is still a long way from actually getting a deal over the line. So many things can go wrong, including a last minute gazumping.

Nobody actually knows the level of our interest in Raphina anyway, it may even be a convenient smokescreen for somebody else. If he was a main target I just hope we have not invested too much time in this and have a back-up plan.

All these people on twatter talking about the best transfer window in our history need to take a chill pill.

Thus far, for all the links with exciting players, we've signed one guaranteed starter and one very promising kid who may or may not be ready yet.

I thought Chelsea's spending might cool with the takeover but maybe not.

Nah, this part I do think we know. When several reputable journalists report the same thing (us placing bids and negotiating with Leeds) independent of each other, I think that can be taken as solid info. We tried signing Raphinha, but Chelsea stepped in and were prepared to go much higher than us, it happens.

Still plenty of time left though. Martinez looks like a goer, we're clearly pursuing him strongly, and with Man Utd apparently close to signing a left back from Feyenoord, there doesn't seem to be much competition for him at the moment. With both Barcelona and Chelsea interested in Raphinha, it was always going to be risky.

Doesn't mean we haven't been talking to other clubs about other players whilst the media concentrate on Raphina.

It's a game of poker.

It’s a bit of an odd one really. How serious were we?

60 million is huge money for us to spend on a winger. You would think given the Brazilian connection we could have had him if we wanted.

I was excited about the prospect of seeing him but if the club could bring in a dominant midfield player it could have a massive impact

Not sure where this really leaves our summer

Our 2nd bid was 15 million less than they wanted. That’s a pretty big gap to fill. There was always a chance of getting gazumped. Did we really think our offers were going to get accepted. You either want him or you don’t.

Absolutely, I'm sure we have multiple possible targets going on at the same time. But you don't make the kind of bids we made for Raphinha as a smoke screen, you only do it if you're very serious about getting the player.

I think the question might be "How serious was he?" Initially, he was Barcelona bound but they wouldn't pay the money. We obviously offered more and now Chelsea seem to have topped that.

I'm not particularly disappointed. He's a good player but his best position is right wing and our first choice there is pretty handy. I would much rather we invest the money in central midfield.

I mean, if Chelsea doesn't come in with 65m and Barca can't pay I reckon we could've had him for around 50m (which would still be excellent money for a player unproven at a top club). We obviously mean business in this transfer window, but as we're looking at strengthening several areas of the team and our funds aren't limitless there is a ceiling to every deal.

While this is a bummer, I'm not that worried overall. We're going to sign a few more players, that much looks certain, and there are plenty of good players out there. I wonder if this means we renew our interest in Tielemans.

Moving away from Raphinha a moment. One interesting thing for me is in January we supposedly went very strong for Vlahovic, it didn’t work and now we have Jesus. They are two very different strikers in almost every way. It would seem strange that we’d change the entire focus and plan for team structure, style of play etc in 6 months.
So either, we were never really that strong for Vlahovic or, we were so you’d assume we still want a striker with a similar profile.

I still think we need a wide player. There seems to be some games where for whatever reason martinelli is less effective. If Pépé and nelson leave really we only have 2 natural wingers as Emile Smith Rowe and vieira look more like attacking midfielders. I wonder what our options are

I read an interview with Vlahovic where he said he didn’t even speak to anyone from Arsenal himself. If that’s the case how serious were we. I think there’s so few decent strikers about you have to just choose who is available

If our idea was to assemble a set of high quality interchangeable forwards, without a traditional no.9, rather like both Liverpool and City of recent seasons, then we probably need to look for another player of a similar ilk.

Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe are both on that developmental curve which means that whilst talented they are frustratingly inconsistent.

I see that Dame Deborah James has died from bowel cancer aged 40 leaving her poor young children motherless.

Kind of puts things into perspective.

RIP

Moussa Diaby, 17 goals and 14 assists for Leverkusen last year, 22, can play wide left or wide right. Newcastle heavily linked. Price is similar to Raphinha
There were links to Gnabry but I think his wages might be prohibitive.

Some of the other right wingers we’ve been linked to seem to have had their great seasons in teams that predominantly counter attack, so they’re using their pace and directness in wide open spaces that they just wouldn’t get in a lot of games for us. I think this is why Raphinha felt a really good fit - he has pace and dribbling ability but can also operate in tight spaces with technique and skill. His workrate is very high as well - as you’d expect from a Bielsa player

I was told by a close friend of Gnabry that he was not willing to leave Germany for family reasons.

To be honest if you offered half the fee for Raphina to Saka to get him to sign a new contract without a release clause I’d prefer that anyway.

Then use the other half to sign another wide player who is a younger prospect or a player more naturally comfortable on the left

I'm not quite getting it right now. We seem to be collecting 5'7 attacking midfielder/winger/no10 types, of which we are fairly well stocked already. Even the defender we are linked to seems rather pint-sized. I would love to see some muscle down the spine.

We aren’t well stocked

If you sell Nelson and Pépé which I expect you only have 2 natural wingers in the squad in saka and martinelli. Honestly I consider it a minor miracle Saka hasn’t suffered a major injury yet the way he gets kicked so much. You need 1 more to cover both positions.

Also on our left side we are a little unbalanced it can be improved.

Fair enough. I just feel that CM and no.9 type would be greater priorities. But I suppose the market is pretty tough.

I'm inclined to trust Edu and Arteta, actually, even if what they are doing is beyond my comprehension.

With no Euroepan experience for a few years and anticipating us trying to balance that and the league, etc, I am not optomistic we will do too well. Probably get out of the group stages but don't think we'll get past 'decent' competition. We don't have the squad depth. We'll end up in the Europa Conference thingy probably. I think we'll still struggle trying to balance the league, domestic trophies and Europe. I hope I'm worried for nothing.

We'll have to wait and see. The league has to be first and foremost for us. It's going to be hard to tell where we may end up. Depends on who we get but also who Tottenham, Chelsea and Man Utd get in the summre window.

I don't think we should rule out West Ham as well. I actually wish them well. My hopes are for Palace though. Always liked them and with Paddy in charge, even more so.

I always knew Kroenke made his money in shopping malls and plazas around America. Like a lot of the 1% in America he's bought up a lot of raw land. They must know something the rest of us don't. Shopping malls and shopping plazas are closing all over America though. Amazon has bought up many of them as distribution points. So, I'm wondering if or where Kroenke has diversified his money into? Raw land, farm land doesn't make much money. The mall business is dying if not dead in America.

https://www.forbes.com/profile/stanley-kroenke/?sh=7d62e3a5742c

Every time I see we are linked with a player and the headline is Arsenal in a fight to get so and so with, take your pick, Tottenham, Chelsea, Man Utd, etc, I assume we won't get the person. If its Liverpool or City, we 99.99% won't.

Not sure if others feel the same. I don't think we can compete for players like we used to. Tottenham may seem a better project than we are these days and that's disappointing to adjust to mentally.

If someone offers £65m for Raphina and that's £15m above your valuation then that's just the game. Walk away and move on to another target.

Are you better paying £65m for Raphina or say £40m for a younger emerging talent + £25m for Tielemans. That's what you have to weigh up, especially where funds are not unlimited.

Chelsea and Man Utd are one thing, but Tottenham aren't signing players like Partey, Jesus and Pépé (who was enormously hyped when he signed for us). They're clearly a notch below us in that regard, even in our current state.