Category Archives: Arsenal

Arsenal’s pursuit of Kylian Mbappe

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Kylian Mbappe. Great player. Great performance at the weekend.

It led to a few Arsenal fans saying “we should have signed him last summer”.

Well we tried. And we went big.

We were rumoured to have offered £80m to Monaco last year. A huge sum for an 18 year old. The deal never went through and he joined PSG on loan for a year with an agreement that they will pay over twice that this summer – £166m.

Instead Arsenal signed Alexandre Lacazette and in January Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

The pair cost Arsenal a combined fee of just over £100m.

So the money was there to go higher than £80m for Mbappe, but Arsenal didn’t.

Personally, I am more than happy in having Lacazette and Aubameyang instead.

Mbappe might turn out to be better than the pair (he arguably is already better than Lacazette, but not yet on Aubameyang’s level). But we got two instead of one, adding real depth to our striker force.

I honestly think that with the two of them, and Danny Welbeck as 3rd choice striker, Arsenal have the most strength in depth up top in the Premier League.

What a lot of people seem to forget with Mbappe is last summer was not the year we could have got him for a few hundred thousand. That was the year before when he was just 17 years old.

In the summer of 2016 we were very close to signing him. Arsene Wenger even met with his parents. In the end he decided to stay with Monaco – signing a new contract with the French club.

It reminds me a lot of the Ivan Rakitic to Arsenal story that broke recently.

At 16 years old, Rakitic has a trial with Arsenal. He also had interest from Juventus and Chelsea. He decided to remain with Basel as he did not want to be just another young talented kid at a high profile club.

Two years on and he joined Schalke, turning down offers from Barcelona and AC Milan. Again, his decision was based on playing first team football.

Mbappe has already broken into the Monaco first team. In 2016 he decided to stay with the club and play week in week out with them rather than join Arsenal.

At the time had he joined Arsenal he would have been behind Alexis Sanchez in the pecking order.

Role on a year and Arsenal had the £80m interest in him once more. A year older, Wenger now saw him as a Sanchez replacement; rather than a you player with potential.

Sanchez did not leave and Mbappe joined PSG on loan with a huge transfer set to be completed this summer.

“But he is a striker and better than Olivier Giroud” some moan.

You are wrong.

For Monaco he played outwide with Falco in the middle as a focal point. For France he players one side of Giroud (with Antoine Griezmann the other side) and for PSG he plays wide of Edison Cavani.

Mbappe would have come to Arsenal to replace Sanchez, not to play down the middle.

It should also be remembered that Mbappe is a Parisian. A PSG fan born in the French capital.

There is talk this summer that PSG might pull out of a deal to sign Mbappe. I would be very surprised as he is their future.

There will be yearly speculation about Neymar to Real Madrid. In Mbappe they have a Paris born player; the future of France.

If PSG do pull, I think it will be a battle of the Spanish clubs for his signature.

Barcelona need someone having missed out on Griezmann, and Real Madrid need a marque signing if they fail to land Neymar or Eden Hazard.

Mbappe is going to be a brilliant player – he reminds me a lot of Michael Owen’s break through in 1998.

Let’s focus on who we are buying this summer, not who we could have signed 2 years ago.

The future is bright at Arsenal. Let’s embrace it.

Keenos

Goodbye Jack Wilshere

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We wake up this morning with Arsenal being a very different place from yesterday.

For the first time in 17 years, we have an Arsenal without Jack Wilshere.

Having joined the academy in 2001 at the age of 9, he made his debut 10 years ago – becoming Arsenal’s youngest ever league debutant at just 16 years and 256 days.

If back then you would have said that he would have played just 125 league games for Arsenal; I would have laughed.

By now, he really should have been captain. The heart beat of the team. Both The Arsenal and England.

Instead he had found himself at home rather than in Russia, and no longer an Arsenal player.

I think it is the snub by England that has led him to leave Arsenal.

Having missed Euro 2012 through injury, played just 2 games at the 2014 World Cup, and missed Euro 2016 through injury once again, he had got himself fit and ready to go to Russia. Gareth Southgate decided a lack of first team football and his injury record meant he missed the flight.

That means Wilshere has started just 1 game – a dead rubber against Costa Rica – in international tournament football. He made his debut at just 18.

Wilshere has not left Arsenal due to money. He has not even done it to win trophies. He has left Arsenal in attempt to make something of his career before it is over.

At 26, he already has more money than he could dream of. He and his new wife and 3 children are already set up for life.

For Wilshere, he wants recognition. He wants to play regularly. To perform for club and perhaps now more importantly, country.

He wants first team football. The problem is, at Arsenal, we could not guarantee that. And nor should we. I imagine this is what Unai Emery told him.

Wilshere knew full well he would not get first team football, week in week out at Arsenal. He also knows he will not achieve this at the 5 sides above him. That means he will have to look down.

The likes of West Ham, Crystal Palace, Wolves and Southampton have already been linked. It might be harsh, but this is probably his level to be playing week in week out. There is even speculation over a move to Turkey, with novibet.co.uk installing Fenerbache as 1/5 favourites for his signature.

Southgate has shown by selecting the likes of Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Harry Maguire and Jake Livermore that it is important to be playing and performing in the Premier League, regardless of who you play for.

The easy option would have been for him to stay at Arsenal, sign a new deal, remain in his comfort zone. 20-30 games a season. But he still has a burning desire to perform, to play week in week out, to get to the top.

I imagine in his mind he is focusing on the next two years. Euro 2020.

He leaves Arsenal having given the fans many memories- most notably a performance against Barcelona and that goal against Norwich.

But these were from 2011 & 2013. The reality is there have not been enough similar performances since that goal against Norwich.

I hope he gets what he wants, what he deserves. And in 2020 I hope I will be cheering him on in and England shirt.

Jack Wilshere, you are proper Arsenal.

Keenos

3 loanees compete for second chance at Arsenal

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Lucas Perez

There has already been plenty of talk that Unai Emery fancies a bit of Lucas Perez.

The squad that finished the season last year was one attacker short. A wide man. We need someone to fill the talent gap between Alex Iwobi and Henrik Mkhitaryan. We need a winger who is also comfortable inside.

A budget solution will be Lucas Perez returning to the squad.

The 30-year-old Spaniard joined Arsenal in 2016 for £17.1 million from Deportivo, but struggled for game time.

7 goals in 21 games was not the worst, but 5 of those goals came in two games – against Nottingham Forest and FC Basel.

Last year, he was shipped back to Deportivo where he struggled to find the form that led to his big transfer to Arsenal.

His struggles back in Spain have been well document, with Deportivo writing “Get out of our club” on his former house in the Spanish city.

Despite struggling, he still contributed 8 goals and 6 assists in La Liga last season.

I would not be entirely happy if he returned, but we should not sell him until we get in that extra attacker.

Joel Campbell

Despite being told many years ago to “get out whilst you can Joel”, the Costa Rican forward is some how still on the books at Arsenal.

He created a lot of debate whilst at the club, with many claiming he should have got more game time.

Having struggled to get a work permit after agreeing to join the club in 2011, Campbell played 40 games in the two seasons he was part of the first team squad – scoring just 4 goals.

Since then, he has struggled on loan deals in Spain (for Villarreal & Real Betis) and Portugal (for sporting) – perhaps showing that he does not quite have it for the top level.

At all 3 clubs, he struggled to become a first team regular, scoring just 6 goals in 59 games. His career is pretty much 1 in 10.

For the same reason as we might keep hold of Lucas Perez, Joel Campbell might get a second life at Arsenal if we do not recruit the forward that we need.

It would take Arsenal to not sign anyone, and cash in on Lucas Perez, but there is an outside chance that he might still be at Arsenal when the transfer window shuts in early August.

No longer a youngster – he recently turned 25 – Campbell played 90 minutes against Switzerland (his first start of this World Cup). He looked quite impressive. Assisted the first goal and won the penalty for the second.

There is confusion as to whether his contract runs out in 2018 or 2019.

If it is 2018, today will be the last day he is at arsenal making these 281 word pointless.

Jeff Reine-Adélaïde

It is 3 summers since Frenchman Jeff Reine-Adelaide had an impressive pre season that got a lot of Arsenal fans exicted. He has since shown how hard it is to go from talented teenager to established senior pro.

Now 20, he spent the second half of last season on loan to Angers in the French Ligue 1, where he failed to score or assist in 443 minutes of football; his light being a man of the Match performance against Bordeaux.

In 2017 he looked on the verge of breaking into the first team squad, but an injury in January ruled him out for nearly 12 months.

Arsenal might decide that rather than spend big on a talented youngster to provide the width and competition, to give one of their own a chance.

Personally, I would like us to still sign someone between Iwobi and Mkhitaryan (Jeff is not as good as Iwobi) and then keep Jeff in the squad for the Europa League – at 20-years-old he does not take up a first team squad place.

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Keenos