Calm down dear, is has only been 3 days

Over the weekend the moaning begun.

“Why have we not signed anyone yet?”
“Slow out of the box again”
“Our rivals are already improving”

My advice is calm yourselves down. And if you are obsessing about transfers a couple of days into the transfer window, you will only end up ruining your summer.

Me? I spent the weekend sitting in my garden, watching cricket, drinking cider and going a strange shade of pink.

But really guys. Relax a little. There is a big wide world out their beyond transfers. You will only damage your own mental health if you decided to spend your weekend crying on social media instead of enjoying the sunshine.

The season has just finished. Most players are away on international duty. And it was the weekend!

The only deals announced so far are those that were easy to make – where minimum release clauses were activated prior to the window opening, loans turning permanent or free transfers getting announced.

And lets break down the transfer business of our rivals right now:

Manchester City*
Earling Haaland – Minimum release clause activated

Liverpool
Fábio Carvalho – Free transfer

Chelsea
No business done

Tottenham
Fraser Forster – Free transfer
Ivan Perisic – Free transfer

Manchester United
No business done

*Julián Álvarez was signed in January and loaned back to River Plate

Of the 10 transfers made so far by Premier League clubs, 4 are free transfers, 3 are loans turned permanent and 1 was a minimum release clause activated.

That leaves just 3 transfers that required negotiations with a selling club – Brenden Aaronson to Leeds and Diego Carlos to Villa.

So lets stop pretending that other clubs were doing lots of business whilst we stood still.

Had we signed Ivan Perisic and Fraser Forster on free transfers we would be up in arms over why Edu was signing ageing reserve players on big money. Not celebrating that we got business done early.

The only real stand-out transfer so far is that of Earling Haaland – but that has been in the pipeline since Earling was swimming around in Alfie’s ball sack.

“Oh but Liverpool are about to sign Darwin Nunez, Tottenham Richarlison and Manchester United Frankie de Jong”.

Yes, they might be close to signing them, but they have not yet. At the moment it is just media reports.

It is no different to the press saying we are close to signing Gabriel Jesus, Youri Tielemans, Serge Gnabry, Aaron Hickey, Yves Bissouma, Gianluca Scamacca, Raphinha and Marquinhos.

Why do we not dismiss other sides transfer speculation like we do our own? They will all be linked with ~100 players this summer like us. They will not sign them all.

If any of these deals do happen, it will probably be after the international friendlies are over. It is at this point clubs can do the medicals, complete the paperwork, apply for visa’s and secure their signatures.

Arsenal showed a clinicalness in the transfer market last summer – Aaron Ramsdale, Ben White, Martin Odergaard and Takehiro Tomiyasu were our 4 main targets and we secured all 4. We then added some talented youngsters.

I fully expect similar this summer.

3 or 4 senior pro’s who can come in and improve our first team from Day One (probably Jesus, one of Bissouma / Tielemans and a winger – Gnabry / Raphinha / Sterling) and then a couple of players for squad depth (Hickey, Matt Turner).

I will not worry until what we perceive as our main targets sign for someone else (if Jesus joins Chelsea for example).

I also will not worry if Liverpool sign Nunez for €100m after 1 good season (Calvert-Lewin, Isak) or Tottenham £50m+ on Richarlison.

I certainly will not worry that after just 3 days of the transfer window being open that we have not signed anyone.

We will do our own business, in our own time. And get it right.

In summary, go and enjoy the sunshine. Have a break for football. Drink a few beers. watch some cricket. And the transfer business will happen.

Up The Arsenal.

Keenos