There was a moment when Bielsa had Meslier playing at the top of his game. Enough so that Leeds fans began wondering if Leeds could keep him. And then the brain farts began. He's young, though. Probably will end up as France's #1. Win a World Cup or something.
Supposedly Dortmund have been trying to hijack our move for Tzolis but he has been holding out for us.
Was impressed with him at the WC. Had similar thoughts but watching him play I'm not 100% sure were he fits for us.
Starting to wonder if it's significantly harder to get deals done as champs and with people trying to squeeze you for as much as they can
I suspect it's partly that downside of selling-clubs wanting to rake us over the coals, and partly the upside of us being an even more attractive destination for players, who may tell their agent "I really wanna play for Arsenal/Arteta so make it happen". Don't know if it's net harder or net easier, maybe it's kinda more like a wash?
🚨⚪️⚫️ BREAKING: Leandro Trossard to Besiktas, here we go! Deal approved right now by Belgian winger.Arsenal receive €18m plus €2m add-ons as #AFC already accepted terms last week.Trossard will be in Istanbul tomorrow night for medical and contract signing. 🦅 pic.twitter.com/sEOe0XeRbv— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 13, 2026
Surely. But the question was more about whether it’s harder to attract or close deals because of our newly found champion status.
Last summer Arsenal added floor raisers, depth to cover potential injuries. While important to their teams they weren’t necessarily the best players on those teams. Only three new signings started the Champions League final and two of them, Mosquera and Hincapie were starting because the players in front of them in the depth chart were injured. This summer Arsenal are looking for ceiling raisers. They are often the best players on the other teams. Since the other teams don’t want to give their best players up, they either say no outright or put an artificially high price on their players, making negotiations difficult, So naturally it’s going to be harder to close those deals. For example, Bruno is a ceiling raiser, whose agents apparently believed they had an understanding with Newcastle that if they didn’t make the Champions League he could leave for about £50m. Whether or not that was in fact what the agents had been told, having already sold Tonali, Newcastle don’t want to also lose Bruno, so they are looking for Tonali money, which complicates the deal for a 28 year old. There is also the World Cup factor, Arsenal’s top three attacking targets, Alvarez, Rogers, and Barcola are still playing, so it’s likely nothing will get done with one or more of these players until after the World Cup It has nothing to do with Arsenal’s status as champions, when shopping at the top of the market deals are harder to negotiate. How many top of the market deals have we seen so far? Gordon, give me a break, Anderson, I think thats a huge overpay that’s artificially set the market.
Christos Tzolis - Premier League Debut vs Arsenal (2021/22)pic.twitter.com/Mis8ZYzVoj— AFC_Adi (@AFC_Adi06) July 13, 2026
I hate Bruno so much but man do we need him. Those dimes from deep will take so much pressure off Odegaard/Rice/whoever plays central
We would’ve won the league in 23-24 if we had him. My only hesitations are spending this much on a guy who turns 29 in November, and who missed a serious amount of time last season with a hamstring injury.
Good points. Except I’m not sure I agree that our status as champions is irrelevant to signing new players. in any case, I have heard, and it is very logical that we want to sign ceiling raisers. Bruno should be that (IF we get him). Rogers hopefully would be that (IF we get him) but he’d have to be better than Trossard, who’s been one of our most valuable, productive players… and assuming that’s who Morgan is basically replacing. Barcola (IF we get him) I’m not sure about, i’ve heard mixed reviews. Obviously, largely due to the WC, we’ve only signed one player, Meslier, and he sure doesn’t seem like any celing raiser! Nor it seems would be Tsolis, who seems like our next most likely signing chronologically. Crossing fingers we can get some bigger deals done soon, now that WC is ending.
The two things we are missing for next season. A left winger. If we only buy for one position its that. Secondly, its tactics. We had enough fire power to exert ourselves on clubs in our level like City, Liverpool, etc but we didn't. The first Liverpool game last season they showed us way too much respect and we were so caught up on not losing, we didn't. Same with City. We didn't realize just how scared clubs were of us, incuding PSG. The kind of record we had in the CL would scare any club in the world to death. Any. Some clubs in the league did come for us, or countered us and were often rewarded (Villa, Bournemouth among them). Arteta (and the players) sometimes don't do enough adjustments in games and often don't meet opposition with the same energy at kick off (Sunderland).
I'd think that the strong possibility of getting a first title or even a first trophy is immensely important. I'd also include CL football. We lost RvP at his best because we weren't close to winning a title. I'd be shocked if that wasn't a selling a point to getting a few of the players we did the last season or two. My guess is Norgaard and Kepa specifically came to win a title. Norgaard gave up a starting position to a sub role. Who does that without the possibility of winning big things.
Robbie at AFTV (okay its not Fabrizio), says the new rumor is we are going for Wan-Bissaka as a Ben White replacement.
Did teams stop selling to City when they were champions? Or Liverpool, they added Wirtz, Isak, and ekitike last summer.
I'm old enough to remember when we mocked clubs for signing players just because they produce a lot of goals. And now we've built supposedly advanced analytical models that say to buy the players who produce a lot of goals.