Well… what a day. I travel to the UK and David Ornstein drops arguably the biggest Arsenal transfer story of all time.
The people suggesting we show some ambition and put our names in the mixer for the Brazilian this summer were in abundance, and I cannot be a liar here, I looked down on them.
‘These fools, what are they smoking.’
Truth zoots. Honesty blunts. Call them what you want, but the people speaking transfers like this into reality were the chosen ones and I want the name of their dealer, or newly legalised dispensary.
This story has many layers, much uncertainty, and a lot of work to do before it happens… but one thing is for sure, if David Ornstein gets specific about…
There have been no club-to-club talks yet but the idea has approval at all levels within Arsenal.
… then you can be sure that Josh and Stan are in on this deal much in the same way they backed our moves to go big for Declan all those summers ago.
It’s quite the statement move. It’s what Premier League Champions and Champions League finalists try and do to push to the next level. It’s the first signing we’ve been linked to this summer where you’re like, yeah, I see the vision and I’m not sure we could do much better than that. It’s also interesting in the sense that it’s not need to spend £190m to get him. There’s a cap on the fee because his deal runs until next summer, so I doubt it can go higher than £100m.
Vini Jnr, without doubt, is absolutely world class. He’s a finisher, he’s saucy, he’s the next level Wenger spoke about… and his main solve is that he’d terrify down the left and it would free Saka from the triple lock he faces every game because our current left has been less worrying.
Exceptional passing, outrageous shooting, and extremely good ball carrying mark him out as an attacking threat for the ages. 22 goals and 14 assists last season. 22 goals and 19 assists the season before. He just has so much output it’s hard to comprehend. Not just that… he’s a Champions League MONSTER — 67 G&A in 82 appearances. If you want to win that trophy, he’s the unlock. 228 G&A in 375 appearances… what a player. What’s more? He’s very robust.
Fears? I think he’s quite a combustible character. He’s been spoiled by Madrid for a very long time. You don’t really need to do the dirty work out there. The tactical style has been ‘do as you please’ and any talk of systems and off-the-ball work has usually been met with downed tools and sackings (poor Xabi). How is he going to cope with a control freak like Arteta in a league that goes man-to-man in every game? Who knows… a story for another day.
The other weakness of the transfer is the reality of Madrid. They are bigger than Arsenal. Much bigger. Especially to a Brazilian. He wants to leave because they are stalling on his new deal, where he’s asking for €30m a year. £492,000 a week to get him to a gross of £411,000. He’s also asking for a £12.8m loyalty bonus from what I can see. It’s always murky to use Spanish papers to get to these numbers, but what does it really tell you?
Arsenal are going to smash out their pay structure to sign him… I’m using AI to help me here, but to get to his desired Madrid take-home, at Arsenal, this is what we’d need to be looking at.
To take home £17.1m net in the UK, you’d need to earn around £32.2 million a year gross — about £619,000 a week.
That is Haaland-level cash we’re talking about here.
A lot of folk scoffing at that, but a few pointers here based on speaking to people in the game.
Arsenal won’t be naive to these numbers if they’re leaking to media that they are in at all levels. They know he’s expensive, they know this is the biggest thing they’ve ever attempted, it won’t be a problem. KSE works in sport across the spectrum, and they’ve spent big before.
Dressing rooms want to see mega players in them. First and foremost, when you are Saliba and Saka, you want to be working with Vini Jnr because he helps you win major trophies. I don’t think they’ll be crying about his wages. Agents? Maybe. But look at Vini Jnr, what he’s done, and what he represents.
If you want to be a mega footballer, you have to accept that some earn more than you, and Vini Jnr is a bigger footballer than Bukayo, he’s been doing it longer, and he has more to show for it. That isn’t to knock Saka, it’s just the truth. You don’t enter the story for Vini Jnr unless you are fully prepped to pay the price of the deal.
So what’s working against us?
Arsenal are the stalking horse. We’re the exit plan if he doesn’t get the love. Florentino Pérez and José Mourinho are two of the biggest egos in the room. They know what Vini represents both from a sporting perspective and from an optics perspective. Let him go… and it could be a sting in the tail, even for an ungrateful Madrid fan base. Is Yan Diomandé filling the gap? I don’t know. But it’s high risk. If Florentino wants to keep Vini, he will keep him. If José really wants him, he will keep him.
But… Madrid’s finances are murky, José is a change agent, they might see a player in the last year of his deal as a good person to exit. Losing out on £100m for a player with one year left would be cataclysmic. Keeping a noisy player on the books could be disruptive, especially as he’ll become the only question when they’re pushing for titles. Also… sometimes, the story has to come to an end.
So, in short, this whole thing is very speculative right now. All we know is that if the rumour is there, Arsenal have interest from his people, Madrid are interested in what the deal is…. and the transfer gods are smiling.
My major concern here is this… this feels like the sort of distracting transfer story that could go to the wire and give us nothing. Remember, Arsenal also need good news distractions as their summer goes to hell with disappointments. ‘We tried for Vini’ works nicely for them as well. Hard to have a plan B in a deal like that… and your plan B, say, Álvarez, might not like that he’s not the plan A.
I’ll just briefly touch on Álvarez. Viktor is being bundled in swap deal talk. It makes a lot of sense, they need a new goal-scoring 9, we would move on a technically weak forward if we had the chance, Álvarez is a top priority for Arteta at all times. He can play second striker, striker, and on the left side. He would be a HUGE upgrade to our creativity, and he’d be great for overall output. People saying that Gyok was integral to our title push… sure, I can give that to you, but we’d have won the title if Kai was the feature of the season as well. That doesn’t mean we can ignore the touch, the weakness against top 10 teams, the anonymity in the Champions League final, the pointlessness of him in games against big teams. We need an upgrade. Álvarez would be that.
There’s also the Bruno story. Too boring to keep reporting on. Arsenal feel good about it, or did last time I spoke on it. Newcastle have lost a lot of players, they’re not buying very well, it’s very up in the air. I’m feeling good we’ll get it done if they’ll take £75m. If they dig in on value, I don’t think our ownership group will sign off on it because it is CRAZY to spend more than that on a player who is 28 years old. That is not how we got to the success we have in 2026. We should be signing younger players. Loading up with players at the age where most start to break or fade physically isn’t good business. The only reason Bruno gets a pass is that he is best in class, he’d plug and play, and we’re in deep trouble if Declan gets injured this season.
So let’s see where this all goes… Arsenal signing a cut-price Vini Jnr as Chelsea fans gaslight themselves into believing Rogers is worth £117m is total cinema.
Have a GOOD day. x
I couldn't give a tits about Vini's willingness to track back. We need to move on from a full squad of workhorses and add some sauce
Nice post Pedders
Glad you touched this point.
"the idea has approval at all levels within Arsenal"
This is key