The dream ended in a cold sweat, Vini Jnr, signing a deal until 2032, worth a lot of cash money.
It was fun while it lasted.
My personal view is this story has done a lot for the reputation of Arsenal. To be a stalking horse with Vini Jnr is quite simply a space we’ve never occupied. Call it cope, call me a weak melt, say what you like… it is just an unfathomable position for us to be in when you think back to 5 years ago when we were put in a similar position with… Vlahović.
What have we learned?
Big dawg moves are competitive: There’s a section of the fan base that struggles with the idea of competition for signatures. Signing footballers at the high end of the game takes time, it requires patience, and quite often it involves a large slathering of disappointment. You have to be in the mix, you have to be serious, and you have to have the finances… we’ve never had all three of those things… now we do.
Stalking Madrid: I’m not sure how much of a lesson this is, but I’d certainly question stalking Madrid players. Not because the talent isn’t outrageous, but their culture is very questionable. Players do as they please, they are treated like royalty, and they tend to love where they are. Vini Jnr, if he signed, would have been fabulous… but, we can’t discount the feeling we all had in the pit of our stomachs here. This was NOT an Arteta player. Vini Jnr had a huge role in downing Alonso — and quite simply, he had not been coached properly in 8 years. He’s raw, unadulterated talent… but how far does that go in the Premier League? A place that requires hard work, a tactical aptitude that is higher than most other leagues, and a desire to share the load.
Move Quick: The thing I liked about this whole bag of nonsense is the club sprang out of nowhere to make the offer, and we landed the resolution really fast. This didn’t drag.
Moving forward, there are some things I’m watching out for… my biggest concern? That we sign someone to sign someone. We did that last year. The club powered through and won the league… but I think when you look at overall value, we didn’t get a lot out of the signings. Like, be honest here, how many players would Arsenal get a return on right now? Eze… no chance. Madueke? Give me a break. Gyokeres? Almost certainly no. We overspent and we put money down on players that weren’t really totally suited to the club. Now, we’re lumped with them.
The danger now is you sign a left winger for the sake of it and you overspend again. Iliman Ndiaye for £70m would feel like that sort of signing. 15 goals in 67 appearances. Like, why would we do that? What problem are we solving here?
Look at this chart here! The whole point about restoring the left was that we’d bring in players who are output machines… and the output machine on our list is Martinelli? Those numbers haven’t been adjusted for league difficulty either. We’re really thinking about getting rid of Martinelli to take a chance that one of the above players can IMPROVE their output in the hardest league in the world, for a team that faces the lowest deep block over the course of a season? Get out of here…
It’s better to do nothing than spend £100m on someone who isn’t right. Remember, we’re the Premier League champions, we made the Champions League final, we did that without a whole group of excellent players. We are not Spurs dropping £100m on Tonali here. We can be cute with our cash.
The player I want to see at Arsenal is Julián Álvarez. He’s world class, can occupy the left, can play in the hole, he makes everyone around him better, and the combo of him and Kai Havertz working together could be truly mesmeric. My one concern? This boy wants Barcelona. That won’t stop him being effective for Arsenal, I’m just not sure I want to go into battle for a player who has Arsenal firmly as our second choice. Or maybe I’m just being a wet lettuce here and I need to remember the first rule of football… you go where the money is and where you can get the move. After all, these guys are top professionals. That said, Miguel Delaney, friend of the pod, reckons the player is more likely to stay at Atleti than exit… that stalls any exchange for Viktor as well, which makes me REAL sad.
Álvarez comes with less risk for me. He’s played under two psycho managers, he’s done it in the Premier League, and he has the technical capabilities we love… extremely hard-working, and just incredibly efficient creatively. The numbers weren’t great last season, but nor were Atleti. The thing I like about Álvarez is he’s a big game player. He scored that screamer in the World Cup when Argentina had nothing… and he scored that wild free kick against Barca in the Champions League. He’s a ‘give me the ball and watch’ kind of attacker that’ll give us a different type of edge. But overall… he’s just incredible in all aspects of his game.
One rumour I find deeply disturbing, mostly because it comes from Gunnerblog, is that we’re interested in Romero. There are two ways of looking at this rumour.
We are declaring interest to spark interest. Villa are looking for a centre back with the hope of maybe shifting Konsa who I suspect wants out to Arsenal. Villa are a stepping-stone club, Emery is a stepping-stone manager, it’s good for the project to sell players to Arsenal because it makes it easier to bring in top talent that might go to more glamorous places. Arsenal declaring interest in a player like Romero creates a market of interest.
This is a Heinze nudge. One of the most influential coaches at the club is the Argentine, who is friends on and off the pitch with Arteta. He is Argentinian and the only way I would ever imagine Arsenal considering a signing that is this toxic is if there were personal assurances in some capacity.
I find the whole idea deeply troubling. It’s a banter era link. It makes no sense against any of the values Arsenal has as a modern club. He’s not a winner, he’s toxic to the dressing room, his public spats are cringe, his lack of discipline nearly relegated Spurs last season… and remember, to cap it off, the captain of Spurs had to be persuaded to be in London for the final relegation battle of the season because he wanted to go and see his hometown club play.
Why would we go there? Even my Spurs mates were messaging me laughing at that story. The caveat of ‘Spurs wouldn’t sell’ is so funny to me. Of course they would sell to Arsenal. They’d sell to anyone with money. He’s not a protected player. This isn’t like we’d be signing Sol Campbell. This would be like inviting a Trojan horse to the door… and inside, is just a sludge of stale milk. I’m not having it. A crime of a link if ever there was one. This is worse than Raul trying to get Vítor Pereira in to replace Unai Emery.
Player exits are anything but hot right now. Not only are we stumbling on signings, we’re also doing a pretty average job on exits. The only story with a hint of spice to it is centered around Jesus, who has attracted a bid from Napoli. Kind of perfect really, great club, competitive, and at a level that suits the player. It’ll be a league that is softer on his body and I suspect his tekkers will serve him well there. I’d take any number. Just get him off our books and fast.
Beyond that… I hear we’re hawking players around Europe in a variety of roles, and we’ll have to wait and see how it all pans out.
One last thing… Man City have lost Rodri to Barcelona. The rumor is Maresca is targeting Enzo to right the ship there. Good player, but the sort of player Pep G would have nowhere near Man City. So I like the move. I also like that he’s targeting Pedro Neto as well. The slow diminishment of excellence is a good thing.
So… it’s starting to look like an unkind window for Arsenal. I don’t think the club needed a huge amount this window, but I certainly hoped that we’d have more options on the table and that we might have had more of our business wrapped up at this point. But the key here might be that there isn’t a lot to be done this summer and we wait. Fans won’t like it, but honestly, it’s better than loading up on more 26+ players that are filler vs thriller.
Plenty of time to go… let’s see how Friday plays out. x
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