Category Archives: Arsenal

Saliba with a side of Rice as Edu begins to cook

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The weekend was BBQ weather, and Edu was back at the coals cooking.

There had been talk last week that Arsenal and William Saliba were not far from agreeing terms on a new deal. And whilst must of us were sitting in the sunshine having a few rum cocktails, the news broke.

Saliba is one of the best young central defenders in world football. There were some naysers trying to create the narrative that he was unhappy at Arsenal due to his loan deal to Marsielle. That he did not like Mikel Arteta.

The new deal shows that these people really do not know what they are talking about. And that they are happy to try and distabalise the club sharing fake news to gain YouTube hits.

They have a wierd hatred for Mikel Arteta and will do whatever they can online to try and undermine him. It is odd behaviour.

The Saliba deal has come shortly after Bukayo Saka committed his future to the club. Aaron Ramsdale and Gabriel have also both signed new deals and Martin Odegaard is set to follow in their footsteps. These are huge positives for the club.

We are in a similar position to 2008. A team of talented young players who overachieved and could have won the league.

After the 2007/08 season, we struggled to keep hold of our best players. Manchester City, Barcelona, Manchester United and others came in for our stars, snapped them up, and gave them success and money.

This time is different. We are tying down our best players to new deals.

One thing of note is both Saka and Saliba only signed 4-year deals. That basically means we could have just 2 more years with them both.

If in 2025, we are not still a competitive side, winning trophies, I expect both to move on.

You can easily see Saliba at Real Madrid and Saka at City. It is now about Edu, Arteta and the rest of them to recruit and coach players that will lead us to success. It will also be down to Saliba and Saka to continue improving us and lead us to glory.

So what next?

Well Edu is currently boiling up some rice inside to go with the BBQ. And it will be ready soon.

I think the only people that do not expect Declan Rice to join Arsenal is West Ham fans. They are a little deluded over the fact. I even saw one say “pay Rice £500k a week and give him a 10-year deal. He will stay then.”

Sorry to break it to you mockney bastards, but he is fed up with being in relegation battles. He no longer wants to play for a fickle fan base that call forn the manager and boards head every other week.

Rice wants to play for a stable, forward thinking club that plays at the top level. Winning the European Johnstone’s Paint Trophy is beneath him.

We have England internationals this week, so do not expect a deal to be done over the next fortnight.

My gut is Rice will want his future tied up not too soon after those England games. He can then go on holiday, relax, before turning up to The Arsenal for the first day of training.

Have a good Monday.

Keenos

Perfect storm could lead to record Prem transfer spend

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I think we are in for a very interesting transfer window. And one where an absolute fortune could be spent by Premier League clubs.

Let’s start at the top with Manchester City.

City will do City things. They will spend £150-200m on 2-3 players. They will probably recruit Josko Gvardiol for £70million or more, adding another big money central defender to their squad.

They will look to offset that with the departure Aymeric Laporte. I would not be surprised to see him flogged to another Premier League club for £40m+.

Laporte could be a transfer target for Tottenham.

And I think that is what we will see in the Premier League this season. A lot of teams selling players to each other which will drive up the expenditure.

Speculation is increasing that Harry Kane could be off to Real Madrid. This will be one of the few transfers that sees a top player leave the Premier League.

Tottenham will then be in the same situation as they were in 2013 when they sold Gareth Bale – having a big chunk of cash that they will look to quickly reinvest.

Laporte will be on that list, and they are also being linked with Harry Maguire. James Maddison will also be a target, and they will need a striker to replace Harry Kane. All 3 are examples of money staying within the Premier League.

Can we see some of the Kane money go north of the border? Ange Postecoglou going in for his former Celtic player Kyogo Furuhashi, who will then be back up for Richarlison? Or could they take the risk and go for Lukaku?

West Ham will sell Declan Rice to Arsenal for around £80-90million. They will then need to recruit to replace. They are already looking at James Ward-Prowse and Fulham’s Palhinha. They will probably have to spend £40-50m on these, which in turn gives Southampton / Fulham £50m to splash out.

Another target is Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher.

Chelsea are set for a huge summer clear out. They have a bloated squad and are already close to their financial brink. That will lead to a fire sale.

Matteo Kovacic already looks City bound, and N’Golo Kante is off to Saudi Arabia, these will both be free transfers.. Chelsea will look to raise fees from the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Cristian Pulisic, Kai Havertz, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Chelsea will also look to cash in on home-grown players such as Mason Mount, Gallagher, Trevoh Chalobah, Ruben Loftus Cheek, Levi Colwill and Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Those sales could generate a lot of money, and could allow Todd Boehly to make even more overpriced signings. Can see Moises Caicedo heading to Chelsea for big, big money.

Brighton will be one of those clubs that benefits from the money merry-go-round.

They have already generated £45m-ish from the sale of Alexis Mac Allister to Liverpool. Caicedo also has one step out the door and expect bids to come in for Kaoru Mitoma. they could easily raise in excess of £200m in transfer sales this summer – with the majority of that coming from other Premier League clubs.

Do not be surprised if they use much of those funds to sign a few Chelsea boys. Gallagher (if he does not go West Ham), Colwill and Hudson-Odi all have the profile of Chelsea players.

And this is where it gets fun.

Brighton have spent the last few years celebrating selling their players for a premium. Being tough negotiators. But the shoe will be on the other foot if they want to sign players for Chelsea.

I can see a situation where Brighton hold out for £100m for Caicedo, and then Chelsea get their revenge by demanding huge fees for Colwill and Hudson-Odi.

You then have Newcastle…

Up to this point, their transfer business has been fairly sensible. No real superstars signed. Mainly players looking to step up a level. Could that change this summer?

Financially backed by Saudi Arabia, and now with Champions League football, they are a much more attractive destination for players than they were 12 months ago.

James Maddison and Kieran Tierney are just two players that are being linked with a move to the North-East. The pair would cost around £80-90m combined. And this is just another example of money being spent within the Premier League.

Arsenal and Leicester City selling those players will give them additional funds to spend on players themselves.

We then come full circle as Arsenal need to shift a few players, and Tierney is one of them.

If the club secures Rice, they will have to sell the likes of Tierney, Balogun and Emile Smith Rowe to finance their £200m summer.

Tierney to Newcastle? Balogun to West Ham? Smith Rowe to Brighton?

The final figure at the end of the transfer window could be astronomic. But it will mainly be the same money going from Club A to Club B who then sign a player from Club C who in turn buy someone from Club A.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Keenos

Is £190m realistic transfer revenue for The Arsenal?

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So I have seen a few people posting up what they think we could get for sales this summer. Some very realistic guestimates. Others far from it. The below is well worth a read to see how different some peoples expectations are (I think Adam is fairly accurate!).

Firstly, I always laugh when I see fans try and list the players they want to sell and buy. They almost always overestimate what they expect to receive for players, whilst underestimating what they expect us to pay for players.

You will get someone saying something like “sell Balogun for £60m, buy Osimhen for £80m).

In one response to the thread, someone has selling Tierney for £55m, Xhaka for £35 and Arsenal raising £275m from sales. “If it were any other club” indicates that the poster is setting unreasonable expectation so that he can follow it up with “Arsenal undersell players”.

Now players do not actually have a transfer value. It does not exist. The value is what one club is willing to pay for a player, and what anoher club is willing to accept. It is driven by ability, nationality, age and desperation (of both clubs).

There are also plenty of other influencers that can affect the transfer fee such as wages, agents fees, installments and add-ons.

Take Declan Rice.

If he had a year left on his contract, his transfer value would be a lot lower than it is now (with him having 2 years left and West Ham having the option to extend for an additional one).

Arsenal might also be willing to accept a lower amount for someone like Folarin Balogun if they get a huge sell on fee (say, £20m upfront with a 50% sell on fee), or a reasonable buy back clause (say £40m).

There are a few websites out there that actually try and estimate a players transfer fee through algorithm’s. Transfermarkt is one of them.

The maths takes out the personal bias that could lead you to inflate or deflate someones value based on whether you rate them or not.

They factor in age, nationality, contract length, as well as factoring how many other similar players there are in world football, and their contract lengths and values.

So again using Balogun as an example, they estimate he is the 33rd “best centre forward” in world football. That means there are 32 other strikers clubs might explore before getting to him, which could drive his transfer fee down.

But then if you were only looking at 21-year-old and under strikers, he is 6th. And 2nd for English. So these factors then push up their estimated fee.

I thought I would use Transfermarkt to estimate what Arsenal could realistically receive for players if they sold everyone on most peoples “lists”. Please note, I am fully aware that even when using an algorithm, it is still not fully accurate as it does not take into account the desperation for a club to sell or buy. Or a player pushing for a move.

Now straight off the bat, you can see flaws in the system with Xhaka’s valuation.

Transfermarkt value him at £24million. And I think this is fairly accurate if it was Arsenal’s decision to sell him. But Xhaka is pushing for a move and only really wants to join Leverkusen. That drives his price down.

You also look at those fees for Balogun and Tierney and can not help but feel they undervalue the players. Although I would say this is offset with Tavares’ market value.

These are estimations, and it will actually be interesting to see how close to the figures we actually get to. Transfers will also even themselves out. Xhaka will go for £10m less then his valuation, Balogun for £10m more.

What I think the above is good for is working out whether, across all transfers, we have undersold or oversole players.

If we sell all 14 of the above for more than a combined £190m, then we have beaten the system. We would have generated more than the algorithm predicted. Whilst some players might have gone for below the estimate, it will mean across the board we have done better than expected.

If we sell those 14 for less than the £190m, then the case could easily be made that we undersold players. That across the board we did not receive, on average, what they were worth.

I am not saying that if we do not receive £190m in transfers fees I will complain. This figure is based on selling all 14 of the above players.

Some players (Pepe, Cedric, Taveres, Lokonga) may well find themselves out in loan again. That would see a drop in £50m. So you have to compare our final transfer fees received players against the players estimated transfer fees that actually departed.

I am going to re-visit this as the summer goes on, tracking whether we are on courst for a good transfer window in terms of sales or bad.

Read into this however much you want. I do not really care. Just my Saturday musings.

Keenos