It shows how little notice I have taken in the transfer window that I thought it had closed last night. It does’nt. 11pm tonight.
In the past, I have gone as far as booking transfer deadline day off work. This year have been a complete non-event with no top team yet to make a serious signing.
Some fans will blame the artist formally known as FFP, but the reality is Premier League clubs have spent too much in recent years, overpaid for a lot of average players, given them huge wages, and last summer saw record spending. Every club has had to tighten its belt this January.
Moving forward, I would not be too surprised if this year becomes the new blue print – clubs spending 100% of their budgets in the summer to give themselves the best chance of competing over the course of the season.
Some fans will moan about the PSR restrictions. They use “net spend” tables to show they are being unfairly treated and the rules are broken. But when clubs like Everton were spending 94.5% (2020-21) of their turnover on wages, it is clear that big transfer fees are only part of the problem. Fans really do need to educate themselves before moaning.
The big Arsenal news is that Lino Sousa has joined Aston Villa.
This has led to the usual accusations of Mikel Arteta that he is not giving youth a chance.
Sousa, like Folarin Balogun, was refusing to sign a new contract with the club. So why should we give him game time if his deal is running out at the end of this season? I do get that some will argue that had he played more minutes, he would have signed, but he has barely turned 19.
As a teenager, if you do not want to sign a 4 or 5 year deal with The Arsenal, then the door is open for you to leave. We have still yet to sell a youngster that has proved us wrong (the Serge Gnabry position is very unique).
Ultimately, if Arteta felt Sousa was good enough, he would have got game time. We are not a charity and we have to get out of this “give youth a chance” whilst also demanding that we sign superstars to compete for the league.
Giving Sousa or Ethan Nwaneri 5 minutes here or there will do nothing for their development. They are best off playing 90 minutes in the PL2, and then going out on loan to show they are ready.
Look at the journey of Conor Bradley who scored last night for Liverpool.
Bradley is a year older than Sousa. Last season, at the age of 19, he went out on loan to Bolton Wanderers were he proved that he was ready. This season he has broken into Liverpool’s first team squad and has now played 9 games.
Sousa would have taken a similar journey for Arsenal had he decided to sign the contract offered to him. He would have been loaned out next season (when he was 19), and then 2025/26 would have been the year we looked to integrate him into the first team. He would have been just 20, like Bradley.
Instead, he opted to join Aston Villa who will loan him out to Plymouth Argyle.
I have no issue with him deciding to play for a mid-table Premier League club in the hope it might fast track his career by a year. If he has the desire to play first team PL football and is happy to take that step down, then so be it. In 6-months, following his loan deal, he might be ready to start regular for Villa. But that does not mean he would have been ready to start for Arsenal.
No fee has yet been mentioned, although a deal starting at £4m rising to £12m has been mentioned (not sure if this is just a Twitter rumour).
We need to keep doing this with our youngsters if we decide they will not make it at The arsenal. These £4-5million a youth team player soon adds up.
Another to depart is Bradley Ibrahim to Hertha Berlin. Not a player I know much about but like Sousa his contract was coming to an end at the end of this season.
What is interesting about both Ibrahim and Sousa is neither are Hale End academy products. Both joined the club in 2022 from QPR and WBA respectively, signing their first 2 year professional contracts with us. They decided not to extend those deals.
Maybe this is a message to the club – you poach another teams 16/17-year-olds, they will be less loyal and not feel like they need to sign that new longer-term contract at 19/20.
Last nights results did not go for us with both title rivals winning. Tottenham also won to jump above Villa in the race for 4th.
I have said it before and I will say it again, finishing 3rd behind Liverpool and Manchester City should not be seen as a failure.
Both clubs have been building their current squads for nearly a decade. We are 3-4 years into the build. And they both outspend us on wages by £80m a year – that is the equivalent of 7 new £200k a week players. You can perhaps then understand why Arteta is talking about his squad perhaps not being as deep as those above us.
The only way we close that wage gap (and in turn the gap on the pitch) is to consistently finish top 4 and continue to invest what we earn sensibly.
Enjoy deadline day.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
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I hear you about finishing below Liverpool or City, but feels like you didn’t finish your sentence. Finish below Aston Villa or Ange and that would be absolutely be a failure. We would need question why other coaches where able to make their teams better than Arsenal with much less time and resources.
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