Arsenal ready to gamble on Reiss Nelson

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It looks like Reiss Nelson is set to return to Fulham on loan. This will get a few scratching their heads as to why we are not selling him.

Nelson has never really kicked on from being a talented youngster. Once considered the gem of the academy, he was usurped by a 18-year-old Bukayo Saka who in the space of 6-months, caught up Nelson and overtook him, despite him being 2 years younger.

Following a successful loan deal to TSG Hoffenheim, 2019/20 should have been Nelson’s breakthrough season. He played 17 Premier League games having only made 3 previous appearances. But the issue for him as at the same time, Saka burst onto the scene.

That same season, Saka played 26 Premier League games are was already performing levels above Nelson. That dented the older mans playing time as Arsenal turned their focus onto developing young Saka.

In the years since, Nelson has struggled to get playing time. Mainly due to the form and fitness of Saka, but also because of his own form and fitness. A loan deal in Holland failed to ignite, and last season a move to Fulham was hamstrung with injury.

2019/20 remains the most Premier League games he has played in his career, and he is now 25.

Some will say “he never got his chance”. But to have given him his chance would have meant pushing Saka down the pecking order, and Bukayo not getting as much of a chance. I think we made the right decision as to what youngster we backed.

The issue now is that Nelson is no longer seen as a raw young talent. He turns 26 in December and has just 61 Premier League appearances to his name. He made his debut back in 2017 under Arsene Wenger!

Last year the plan would have been to get Nelson some playing time with Fulham, which then would have boosted his transfer value.

When you look at Brentford having a £35m offer for Omari Hutchinson rejected, Arsenal paying Chelsea £48m for Nono Madueke, who then paid £48.5m for Jamie Gittens. Never has the winger market been so expensive!

For me, Nelson is probably the level below Madueke and Gittens, but the same level as Hutchinson – although the former Arsenal youngster is still only 21 so teams will pay a little more for his potential. The only thing these guys have above Nelson is they have have at least one full season of top flight football under their belt.

With his checkered injury record, lack of of a full season and heading towards 26-years-old, Nelson will be a player many clubs will pass up on. And that crashes his transfer value.

I expect Arsenal would have hoped to get an offer in excess of £20m had he shone for Fulham last summer. Instead he spent most of the season in the medical room and we would probably struggle to get £10m for him this.

But with 2-years left on his contract, it is not all a disaster.

If he joins Fulham on loan and puts in a decent season, playing 30+ Premier League games and maybe hitting double figures for goals and assists, his transfer value will quickly rise.

Clubs will take notice and suddenly we will be back talking about £20m+. Maybe even £25m+.

So Arsenal’s position is we either take a low transfer fee now and he is gone, or we take a gamble.

The gamble is that if he has a good season, we could see that £25m. If he has another injury his season, we might end up getting nothing.

It reminds me a little bit of the conundrum: Would you rather £1m now or flip a coin for £50m. I have always gone for a coin flip.

For me, £8-10m for Nelson does not really do much to our finances. I would rather lose him for £5m in a years time if it also meant we might get £25m.

Whilst I appreciate some fans will see this as a gamble not worth taking, and others will also complain that he is a victim of “Arteta hating young players”, just remember that we have Bukayo Saka.

I hope Nelson has a great season if he joins Fulham on loan. then they might look to splash some real cash on him.

Keenos

Havertz, White, Martinelli and more could “leave Arsenal in the next 12 months”

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Having already spent close to £200m (once the Noni Madueke, Viktor Gyorekes and Cristhian Mosquera deals are announced), it is very obvious that Arsenal will need to sell to help balance the books.

Obvious candidates to be sold this summer are Olexsandr Zinchenko, Albert Sambi
Lokonga, Fabio Vieira and Reiss Nelson. These four fall into the “no longer needed, they will depart the club” category. Now it is about selling them.

But alongside these, “over the next 12 months, there needs to be one significant outgoing to recalibrate after recalibrate after what has been a big summer of spending” according to the BBC’s Sami Mokbel, talking on The Latte Firm podcast.

Kai Havertz

A surprise one to open.

With Viktor Gyorekes incoming, Kai Havertz is no longer the undisputed number one striker for Arsenal. And many fans will be delighted with that.

Add into the fact that Declan Rice is making that left sided central role his own, Havertz is looking more and more like a utility player at Arsenal – covering up Gyorekes upfront, and offering a more attack minded option to Rice and Mikel Merino in the midfield position. Havertz would also be cover for Martin Odegaard.

Havertz is our highest paid player, earning in the region of £285,000 a week. That is a huge salary for someone to sit on the bench.

If Gyorekes hits the same heights as his Portugal form and Ethan Nwaneri continues his development over the next 12 months, Havertz might find himself surplus to requirements.

Whilst you would not see us return to a single striker option, you have to feel that his £15m a year wages could be better spent on two “2nd string” players rather than a single man covering 2 or 3 positions.

At the end of this season, Havertz will a book value of £24m, so any offer above £50m would get Arsenal interested, clearing £26m in profit and a huge salary saving.

Ben White

Still sticking with the “I would not have thought of him”.

I remember when we signed Ben White, many were critical. But what a signing he has been.

After a slow-ish start where he came under a lot of criticism, White quickly made the right back position his own. But he now finds himself as 2nd choice right back behind Jurrien Timber. And with Mosquera incoming, he will be 3rd choice as the right sided centre back.

Whilst I am sure Mikel Arteta would prefer not to sell White, the Englishman may wish to leave to reignite his career in 12 months. He will have a book value of just £10m.

Arsenal would expect to get around £40-50m for White, representing a book profit of £30-40m.

Gabriel Martinelli

I will always have a soft spot for Gabriel Martinelli in the way he went from completely unknown to one of the best left wingers in the world in a short space of time.

For me, Martinelli is still one of the best left wingers in the world. But he has also not stepped up to the next level since 2022/23. Whether this is due to his injury taking away a bit of spark, or his isolation due to Mikel Arteta’s attacking design.

Not all players suit all ways of playing. Arteta likes to overload the right, where we are strong with Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard. The left is more locked down defensively with Martinelli and Declan Rice. This means Martinelli’s attacking instincts and blunted and he gets less help from Rice than Odegaard does from Saka.

Any shift to try and provide Martinelli more assistance on the left will be at the detriment of the overload on the right.

Martinelli currently struggles playing the isolated position, and that is why we are looking at one v one merchants such as Nico Williams, Eberechi Eze and Rodrygo.

If Eze or Rodrygo come in, the likelihood is Martinelli will be relegated to the bench. And like with Havertz, his £180k a week salary is a huge financial burden for a player no longer first choice.

At such a low initial transfer fee, almost all of an incoming transfer fee for Martinelli would be profit. Arsenal could expect to see £70m+ in profit, and nearly £10m a year in salary savings.

Leandro Trossard

I was reluctant to add Leandro Trossard to this list initially, as I do not categorise him as significant outgoing.

Trossard has been a wonderful signing since joining in January 2023, and he has shown himself to be a brilliant impact sub. He has an ability to change games off the bench with his instinctive play that no one else in the squad has.

But Trossard has never been anything more than a backup dancer for Arsenal – providing cover on the wings, upfront and as an impact sub. He would not be a significant player to lose, and at £20-£30m would not represent a significant incoming transfer fee. This would only amount to around £10-20m profit were he to be sold this summer.

My feeling is Eze will be coming in to replace Trossard, with Martinelli dropping to the bench. As a result Trossard will be sold, but he will not be the man departing to help balance our books.

Gabriel Jesus

The headache with Gabriel Jesus is how he overcomes his injury.

We are unlikely to see him pull on an Arsenal shirt until December. And that is if all continues to go well with his recovery. That means Jesus will likely be sold in January, at the earliest. But will someone want to take risk on a player with his recent injury record.

Taking into account Jesus’ salary – he is our 2nd highest paid player on around £265k a week – Arsenal will struggle to get a significant transfer fee.

In 2026, Jesus will have a book value of £9m. I think the best we could hope for is £20m in transfer fee (a profit of £11m). But the big saving will be in wages – close to £14m a year.

Jakub Kiwior

Like with Ben White, Kiwior departing will be due to him wanting to leave and not because Mikel Arteta does not want him.

Once Mosquera joins, we will have 8 defenders for 4 positions. I do not remember the last time we were not reliant on full backs covering the centre, or centre backs covering the full backs.

Whilst I get that Riccardo Calafiori, Mosquera and Timber could all provide cover on the left side of defence, I like the idea that we have 4 specialist players providing cover for our 4 main defenders.

However, if Kiwior wants to leave for first team football, we should not stand in his way. And if that is this summer, I do not see the worth of us committing funds to a replacement when we have 3 players that could do the job.

Kiwior has a book value of around £8m, and Arsenal would look at asking for a fee in the region of £40m for the Pole. Whilst he would not be a significant departure in terms of importance to the first team, he would be significant in terms of profit.

Have we missed anyone else? Let us know in the comments.

Arsenal take spending beyond £200m with 3 new deals this week

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Honestly, I never recall a transfer window like this for The Arsenal.

Before the window started, news was that other clubs were “shocked” about how aggressive Arsenal had been in the market.

They had contacted player representatives and clubs to enquire about players, only to be told “he is going Arsenal”. It sent shock waves through football.

Despite this early news, Arsenal were not quick off the mark in confirming players – instead they chose to continue to negotiate to get the best deals and all transfers were delayed until July for the new PSR season. Unlike Manchester City, we did not need to get players in quickly ahead of the Club World Cup.

This perceived slowness did lead to criticism by some fans, which I have blogged on enough recently. What we are now seeing, however, is how quickly we are acting in the transfer market.

Last week a few players returned to pre-season training (many of those not involved in post-season international games). This week pre-season starts proper. And we are close to getting almost all of our business done.

Mikel Arteta had made it clear to Andrea Berta – he wanted the bulk of the deals done before the team fly out to Asia on our pre-season tour.

Before pre-season had started, we already had Kepa, Martin Zubimendi and Christian Norgaard in the bag. £70m spent before the deep clean of London Colney had even been completed!

3 new players and £70m spent before players had begun returning from their holiday was already groundbreaking for not only Arsenal but most Premier League clubs.

But Arteta and Berta were not finished. It was not a case of “that’s enough for now, lets do pre-season and sort out the rest when we are back”. No. A further £120m is set to be spent this week.

Yesterday, we blogged the more incoming were expected this week. It was not exactly an out there take. But we did not expect it to all happen overnight.

Noni Madueke was always going to be announced early this week having flown back from the USA, sacrificing playing in a post-season friendly tournament final to get a deal done to London’s biggest club.

Then overnight it was announced that we had made a breakthrough with Viktor Gyorekes. And now we are close to securing Cristhian Mosquera.

The deal for the Spanish centreback had gone quiet in recent weeks.

My theory has always been that he was always seen as a bit of an “extra”. If we had a spare £20m we would get him. And with the saving made on Gyorekes against what Sporting were demanding, we now have the confirmed free finances to secure him.

What we would not have wanted to have done is splash the cash early on Mosquera, and leave ourselves £20m short for either Gyorekes or Madueke if negotiations did not go our way.

As it happened, we got the deal done at the price we wanted for Gyorekes (lesson to all those kids moaning about us negotiating – so not pay the asking price when buying your first car or house), but probably paid a little more than we wanted to get Madueke.

But the Madueke overpayment did not affect anything as we know the Gyorekes price was all but done, and that his recruitment would not affect Mosquera.

These deals will happen this week. That will be £200m spent before the plane to Singapore takes off.

Incredible business.

PS: Ethan Nwaneri new contract is in the bag too!

Keenos