RICCARDO CALAFIORI - IS IT... REAL TALK?

AGGRESSIVE LEFT-SIDED CENTRE BACK CHATTER HEATS UP

There’s always a flavor-of-the-month player in these big international tournaments. Twitter loves them. Everyone pretends they knew about them before the tournament. It’s always a lie. What is NOT a lie is that Arsenal are never in the mix for those players.

Well, it seems that they are going to be this time. Calafiori has been heavily linked by the Italian media. Fabrizio and a bunch of very Italian handles have been stating that Arsenal want a piece and terms would be easy to agree upon. £60k a week, £45m, and he’s ours… apparently.

Here are the things working against us:

• It is actually illegal for Italians to move to England - we’ve only had three in our history.

• Italians rarely move from a small Italian club to a big English club. The custom is that the unknown players have to go to Milan, Inter, or Juventus.

• It is standard practice for small Italian clubs to lean into their media to promote fictitious Premier League interest to get a bid from one of the big Italian clubs.

• Thiago Motta is the Juventus manager - he was at Bologna - Fai tu i conti.

Now, some of this has been countered, with Italian media saying Juventus do NOT want a part of this action. It’s only Arsenal and Chelsea. Chelsea, let’s be clear, just want to be in the news. Fabrizio works for them, and he seems to be getting some sort of bonus every time he links them with a big name we know they can’t afford.

What’s working for us:

• He’s played in a JdP system.

• Arsenal has great relations after signing Tomiyasu from them.

• We need a left-sided centre back to compete with Gabriel or to take on a more permanent role in the side from Zinchenko at left back.

• Arsenal liked Gvardiol - and he showed the way for what we could be bringing to the club.

• He offers the aggression we don’t have with Kiwior.

It’s also warming my heart to read the Italian media dismissing the idea before it’s happened.

When he was at Roma and then FC Basel, he played largely as a left-back or in a more advanced role as a left-sided midfielder.

It was only once he moved to Bologna for €4m – plus a 40 percent cut of the future transfer fee – that Thiago Motta transformed him into a central defender.

That role allowed him to surge forward from deep and help the attacking moves, which is why he managed five assists in Serie A this season, along with the assist for Mattia Zaccagni in Italy’s EURO 2024 draw against Croatia.

Arsenal already have a rock-solid central defensive partnership of William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes, so would Calafiori be going to London to be an alternative to them or switch to left-back where he was merely decent?

Either of those solutions sounds like a step backward in his career development and, therefore, damaging for the Italy team too.

Who knows where this one ends up - but on paper, it seems feasible. We just need to see what the realities are with the player and the clubs interested in signing him. If an Italian club steps up, it’s over, people.

Don’t get emotionally attached to a Serie A transfer rumor.

The merry-go-round has started with player movements. Fulham sold Paulinha to Bayern Munich for £43m. A very tidy sum for a 29-year-old. That gives them a bit of ammunition to lowball the shit out of us for a 23-year-old with England pedigree. I really hope we push them to pony up at least £40m for ESR. He was an OG starboy, offering assists, goals, and all-around good vibes.

It was interesting to read stories about Arsenal selling The Emirates to Stadco LA, LLC. There are benefits to this for PSR, to the global multi-club offering, and maybe from an expansion perspective.

Someone emailed me about it in early June, saying the club wants to expand the stadium to 80,000 by taking the roof off to add more seats, stating the extra money generated would be about £45m a year. I’m not really in the business of breaking stories from anonymous sources - but the rumor is far too specific to be fireless chatter.

Stadco LA, LLC built the SoFi stadium. It is outrageously impressive, so if they’re looking after an Arsenal renovation, you know you’ll be getting best-in-class tech and elite architectural thinking. The pretty pictures around the stadium might have made the Twitteratti feel good - but the harsh reality about the stadium is it is a very dated proposition right now. The tech is average, the food experience is garbage, and it’s a very washed-out-looking space. My cousins tell me ‘the English don’t care’ but I think you would if you tasted the promised land of what it could be. Arsenal is leaving so much money on the table by having rubbish options and almost zero reason to show up early and stay late.

Nice to see that the club is looking at what works at their other properties (maybe) and importing those ideas to London (if this is all true). No point in being multi-club if you’re not going to share best practices. I just hope they don’t bring the Super Bowl beer experience to Arsenal. No one wants to buy a $28 Bud Light.

Ok, that feels like a good point in which to end the chat. Question, would anyone like me to setup an official Discord for Le Grove? Free for everyone. Let me know.

Check out the latest podcast with Johnny and Tom Canton. xx