Essentially the same price they are asking for Merino. In a world of £100m midfielders, ~£52m midfielders is reasonable.
I think you’re right about that figure being highly unlikely, but I also think it’s a little harsh to place all blame for the sales income on this regime. They’ve been dealing with such terrible assets it’s kind of difficult to assess how bad they’ve been at selling.
Think it's an extremely harsh take: outside of Manchester United, there really aren't any stupid buyers in the market anymore. No one is paying real money for Cedric or Elneny, and so the only players that we could sell for a meaningful amount would need to be replaced. Sure, we could sell Eddie for a meaningful amount, but his replacement would cost more than what we'd receive in a fee. And ESR/Reiss Nelson probably wouldn't sell for all that much.
That’s hindsight, obviously, but it astonishes me how many Arsenal supporters I talk to who are still convinced he’s going to be big for us.
He still could be. He still has very high potential it depends on Arteta. He isn't like an Nketiah where we have seen what his peak is in this system.
Nah. He's mediocre at the 8 and on the wing. He's a good dribbler, but isn't at all a good passer. He might work at striker as a backup though.
ESR was coming off his age 21 season where he had scored 10 goals in 21 starts. £30m for a English u21 felt pretty insulting. I thought it was being pushed by his agent to get a new deal which he got along with the 10 shirt. Villa probably looked at his medicals and knew that any more than £30m was too risky. Since then he hasn't scored in 2 starts over 1-2/3 seasons.
I assume to avoid losing him on a free. Even at his age, I could see a club in Italy, Turkey, Saudi or the US paying a small fee.
Anyone follow the Turkish league at all and known anything about Semih Kilicsoy? 9 goals in his last 10 for Besiktas, 18 years old, playing a mix of LW and CF.
I think this is a big change in the last recent years -Basically there used to be a secondary market for those players because lower table sides didn't really know who good players were. Now instead of buying an arsenal cast off you can get the same player elsewhere and cheaper. Man U have had huge issues unloading their dross on high salaries
Also unlikely players go to Saudi at crazy transfer fees and wages either. Can't recall how many months it's been since I heard anything from/about that league. Sounds like most players who took the big paychecks to play there don't think it's worth it.
The other thing is acquisitions used to be quite unprofessional and based totally on relationships. I recall Roy Keane saying when he first went into management, he was able to get players from SAF just by sending him a text. Now you would have a proper talent acquisition department (unless you are Man U)
Yeah, the other problem is the Saudi league had a max of 8 foreign players per club and the PIF clubs filled all their slots. So they will either have to change the rules and hurt their domestic player development or sell one for every player they sign.
The government-owned teams maxed out their foreign player spots over the summer, so there won't be any more moves until they expand those limits (from 8 to 10, which will take effect for next season), or players already signed leave. They'll be involved in the summer market.
I think this is where the academy has to step up especially for Arsenal. You can't be taking risks on squad players, because there is no where to send them. To me this is why we keep an Eddie or an ESR unless they want to leave. A player in the current market to replace either could be 50/60 and not be a dead cert upgrade. You are then stuck with that player for 2-3 seasons because of FFP, and then you aren't even gaining capital to invest when you sell him off. New management or not ManU has 2-3 years of 7-10 place finishes to fix the squad to the point where they can even utilize the fresh capital investment.
I'm fond of him but I agree. Arguably switched off to allow the Newcastle goal. Moving forward we have to be willing to kill your darlings as Elliott likes to say.
Nah. Turkish players really struggle outside their league. Players at the end of their careers go there to play too speaking volumes of their quality. Pass.
Goes with @chjoak earlier post about building up the youth squad. BOOM 💥 Arsenal have made an offer for Wolves u17 Brayden Clarke. #AFC 🔴 The Welsh Centre-Back has already said his goodbyes, with Arsenal likely to be his destination.There was interest from 4 other Premier League clubs. He is the son of ex-pro Nigel Quashie pic.twitter.com/BeTtmhDuxM— TheSecretScout (@TheSecretScout_) March 3, 2024