In the fall out of the Vinicius Jr deal, a lot of names have been mentioned as potential replacements.

They contain many of the usual suspects – Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Nico Williams, Rafael Leao, Bradley Barcola – and some new names such as Jamal Musiala. There has also been many raw young talents that fans have mentioned that Arsenal should sign. And it is this last group that we need to avoid.

At the end of last season, when we won the league remember, we had Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Martinelli. Two Premier League, and international, proven wingers. At the time, I always felt that we should only replace one, not both.

Squad continuity is huge if you want to try and win back to back league titles. A big mistake by Liverpool last summer is they saw too many big names depart, and tried to recruit too many new stars. It failed.

My feeling was you either replace Gabriel Martinelli with an absolute superstar (such as Vinicius Jr), or you replace Leandro Trossard with a raw talent such as Mika Godts or Kenan Yildiz. You could also do the vice versa and kept Trossard as the continuity player, and sign the raw talent to replace Martinelli.

We moved early in the market to replace Trossard with Christos Tzolis.

Whilst the Greek man is 24, he is coming from the Belgium league and, beyond a struggled spell at Norwich, has no top flight experience in a major league. He is a raw signing who will need to step up to the next level at Arsenal.

Following the Vini Jr saga, fans have been quick to make the point that Kvaratskhelia was only 23 when he joined PSG, that Vinicius Jr broke through at Real Madrid at 21, Michael Olise was just 22 when joining Bayern Munich and Mo Salah was not a global superstar when joining Liverpool. The case is made that we do not need to look at an experienced, existing superstar and instead should be looking at prospects.

The concern is we have already done this with Tzolis. And it would then be a huge risk to go into next season with someone as inexperienced in elite European football as Tzolis alongside someone such as Godts, Antonio Nusa, Ibrahim Mbaye, Kaua Elias or Jean-Mattéo Bahoya.

Going into the season with two players who are unproven at the top level would be a huge risk.

The names are above are the sort of players you recruit when you already have an established superstar. If you have a Vinicus Jr or Kvaratskhelia already playing left wing, you go and get Godts, Nusa or Kaua Elias to be their understudy and learn from them, with the aim of one day becoming the next global superstar.

The other issue is none of those mentioned above are better than Gabriel Martinelli or Leandro Trossard. They may well turn out to be better, but right now, today, they are now. And Tzolis is also in that same camp.

So what we would actually be doing by selling Trossard and Martinelli, and recruiting Tzolis and (for example) Nusa is weaking our left hand side, not strengthening it.

Having failed to sign Vinicius Jr, I think we need to remain focused on a “ceiling raiser” left winger, and not a raw talent for the future. That is Jamal Musiala or, at a push, Kenan Yildiz. Iliman Ndiaye is another who may came into the equation if we want to go “Premier League proven”. Bjut he only comes into the thinking if Martinelli pushes for a move away.

For now, if we can not get Yildiz or Musiala, we are probably best of sticking.

We know what we have with Martinelli. His strengths and weaknesses. He is not a bad player and has 62 goals in 278 games. He has hit 10 goals in 3 of his last 4 seasons for us. You keep him, see if Tzolis develops into the player you hope, and then revisit next season.

Come 2027/28, one of Godts, Nusa, Mbaye, Kaua Elias or Bahoya may have kicked on. Got another full season of elite football into their legs and be ready to take a step up. You would then have them alongside Tzolis who would have a year of Premier League football under his belt. For now, they are all too big of a risk.

There is then also the likes of Musiala and Yildiz (who I actually think was out first choice this summer, ever before Tzolis). We open talks now with their people. Get a move to Arsenal on their minds. It might not happen this summer but we begin doing the prep-work for next.

Unless we get a proper ceiling raiser of a left winger, I think we stick with Martinelli and Tzolis rather than twist and replace Martinelli with an unproven talent.

Keenos

I am seeing a lot of fans write us off this season due to a “lack of transfer activity” and missing out on Vinicius Jr.

Despite lots of injures last season, we dragged ourselves over the line and won the league. We were also a couple of penalty kicks away from winning the Champions League. This all whilst key players were clearly running out of steam.

We have kept 95% of the league winning squad together. The only key departure being Leandro Trossard, who has been replaced by the exciting Christos Tzolis. The issue of overplaying Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi has also been resolved through the brilliant recruitment of Bruno Guimaraes.

Add in Viktor Gyokeres having a year of Premier League under his belt, Myles Lewis Skelly coming on leaps and bounds, and Eberechi Eze having a year of Mikel Arteta coaching in him. Simply put, we are stronger than we were 12 months ago.

Now let’s look at out rivals…

Pep Guardiola has left Man City. The experienced Bernardo Silva, John Stones and Nathan Ake have also gone. Rodri will be next. That’s not just losing a couple of squad players. it’s losing some of the key leaders of the Pep era, as well as the man himself.

Liverpool have lost Mo Salah. He single handedly won them the league 2 seasons ago. Ibrahima Konate has also gone. Cody Gakpo could be next. Throw in a new manager and Virgil van Dijk being nearly 40 and they could be set for a few years of rebuild.

Then we have Chelsea. They have done what Chelsea do. Sell a lot. Buy a lot. New manager, 11 new players. Their fans will hype them up again. And again it will take new players time to settle, a new manager time to impart new ideas. Building relationships takes time.

Manchester United are an interesting one. Michael Carrick stabilised them last year but how far can he take them? Their midfield still looks weak, and Bruno will need to have another unplayable season for them to compete. Unlike Arsenal, they do not have players who can take the onus of their star man.

So yes, we might not have done the business sow would have wanted (yet). But we are also the only top side not to have lost key players.

Rodri, Salah, Cucerella. These are huge players to lose. Not easy to replace.

We are ready to go again….

Keenos

For the next few weeks, and maybe longer, Arsenal will be the but of opposing fans “banter” having missed out on Vinicius Jr.

The truth is, there is no shame in going to Real Madrid and failing to sign one of their best players. Arsenal were close. Very close. And in the end Madrid had to offer Vinicius Jr “huge money” to keep him.

There is no debate that Real Madrid are the biggest club in world football. A team that almost every player would love to play for in their career. Their pull is huge, as is the salaries they can pay. And they have a history of going into the elite English clubs and plucking whichever stars they want.

Liverpool have, for a long time, been a place Real Madrid shop for free. Quite ironic when you consider Liverpool fans have a history of not paying when in Europe!

In 1999, Madrid signed Steve McManaman for nothing from Liverpool. McManaman became the first high-profile English player to leave a club on a free transfer via the Bosman ruling. Since then, they have repeated the trick with Trent Alexander Arnold (although they did pay a nominal fee to get him before the Club world Cup) and, this summer, Ibrahima Konaté.

Real Madrid also signed Ballon d’Or winner Michael Owen from Liverpool and Xabi Alonso.

Cristiano Ronaldo was the best player in the world when Real Madrid decided they wanted him. They paid a then world record £80m to secure their man. the fact that Man U had won 3 Premier League titles in a row, a Champions League the previous summer, and were the richest club in the world at that point was not enough to keep Ronaldo out of the grasp of Madrid.

Before Ronaldo, there was David Beckham.

At the time, the Englishman was the biggest name in football. Real Madrid wanted the boyhood Man U fan. They got him. Thus proving that is did not really matter about your ties to the club, the money you could pay or success you were having, if Madrid wanted your players they almost always got them.

And the same happened when Real Madrid wanted Eden Hazard. They had no issues recruiting Chelsea’s best player – although the transfer did end up as a bit of a disaster.

Thibaut Courtois is another Madrid poached from Chelsea. He was arguably the best keeper in the world at the time and he basically refused to turn up to training to force through the move, despite playing for Madrid’s city rivals Atletico previously.

And what Madrid have done to Liverpool on numerous occasions, they have also done to Chelsea – signing Antonio Rudiger on a free.

Following the signing of Luka Modric, Daniel Levy announced that Tottenham had agreed a special partnership with Real Madrid. That partnership involved Madrid returning two years later to sign Gareth Bale. In exchanged, Tottenham could send youngsters to Madrid on summer camps.

It is only really Manchester City who have avoided being invaded by Real Madrid. Their only big dealing was signing Robinho for Madrid in a transfer that kicked off the Abu Dhabi era.

As for Arsenal, we famously sold Nicolas Anelka to Real Madrid back in 1999. Le Sulk manufacturing a move that ended up paying for a new training ground and opened a door for us to sign Thierry Henry a year later. The other two big deals involving the clubs were Arsenal signing Mesut Ozil and Martin Odegaard. Ozil at the time being one of the best midfielders in the world and Odegaard being one of the most highly rated young midfielders.

In the last 12 months, we have reportedly rebuffed Madrid’s advances for William Saliba and Ricardo Calafiori. We said no. the players said. It is the same as what has happened with Vinicius Jr.

So whilst we may lick our wounds about not signing Vini Jr, we can sleep easily knowing that whilst we are trying to sign Madrid’s best players, the Spanish giants have a history of signing the best players from our rivals.

UTA

Keenos