What will be the next moves in the transfer market for Arsenal?

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Over the next couple of days Arsenal expect to confirm the signings of both Ben White and Albert Sambi Lokonga (by the time this is published the club would probably have announced at least one of them).

Those two signings will join Nuno Tavares and take our summer spending to close to £80million.

So what else can we expect to happen in the transfer window?

Well we have already seen both Matteo Guendouzi and William Saliba leave to Marseille on loan – with the former set to join the French outfit permanently next summer.

With Arsenal still suffering from a bloated squad, there will be more departures in the coming weeks.

Expect Granit Xhaka to Roma to be completed as he returns from holiday following the Euro’s.

As soon as his departure is confirmed, expect Edu to move quickly for a senior central midfield replacement (there are plenty of names out there). That will complete our midfield signings for the summer with the new midfielder coming in alongside Thomas Partey, Lokonga and Mo Elneny.

Also expect a flurry of Hale End departures.

Last week Reiss Nelson was linked with a handful of clubs – Brighton, Crystal Palace, West Ham.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Nelson leave to one of these clubs on loan with an obligation to sign clause for next summer.

A similar deal will probably also happen with Eddie Nketiah.

Nketiah has not really “made it” at Arsenal and with Gabriel Martinelli and Folrian Balogun chomping at the bit, the time is now to sell the senior player and give his match time to those younger lads.

Making it a trio of Hale End boys that will likely leave on loan with an obligation to buy is Joe Willock.

Talk on the Tyne is the Newcastle are close to a deal that would see Willock return on loan for the season with a £17million deal completed next summer.

We will see a lot of these “loan with an obligation to buy” deals this summer as teams do not have the finances due to Covid19.

They kick the debt into 12 months time whilst the selling club can access the funds by selling the transfer fee on to a factoring company.

Arsenal would probably expect to raise around £50m loaning out Willock, Nelson and Nketiah with obligations to buy.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles is the final Hale End lad on borrowed time.

He was not as impressive as Willock whilst out on loan but will still have plenty of suiters. Expect him to also leave.

Once some of these deals are done over the next 10 days, the focus will return to incoming players.

The central midfield replacement for Xhaka will be followed by some extra creative midfield options.

I still would not be surprised if Arsenal signed both Houssem Auoar and James Maddison.

All that will leave unresolved is Hector Bellerin’s future (where we will sign a like for like replacement) and a decision on whether to keep Alexander Lacazette.

The transfer window does not shut until 31st August. The next two weeks will all be about departures.

Keenos

Arsenal should not be any players “back up option”

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Reports are that Manuel Locatelli wants Juventus, but the Old Lady are unwilling to meet Sassuolo’s €40m asking price.

Locatelli wants the move to Juventus.

Meanwhile Arsenal are reportedly happy to meet the asking price; but Locatelli does not want a move to the Premier League.

If a player does not want to join Arsenal; we should not force it.

Arsenal should take a step away from Locatelli and move on to other targets.

Were a move to Arsenal be forced through by both clubs and the agents involved, Arsenal would be getting a player that does not really want to be living in London.

That potentially leads to another Lucas Torreira situation who was rumoured to prefer a move to Napoli.

We end up with a demotivated player that suffered from him sickness, doesn’t want to be here and in 2 years time is forcing a move away. Probably to Juventus in a cut price deal.

The way the likes of Italy, France and Germany are currently set up, the 3 big teams (Juve, PSG, Munich) can basically unsettle any player within those leagues to the point where they are pushing the price down.

This is what Juve are doing with Locatelli.

They know the player is desperate to join, so are now using that to push his price down with Sassoulo.

Were Arsenal to drop out of the running, Juventus would probably get the deal they want – a year long loan with an option to buy for a lot less than €40m in a year.

It is a tactic commonly used by Juve to get the players they want without having to pay huge transfer fees.

From Arsenal’s point of view, we are in a no win situation.

Locatelli wants to stay in Italy. We get our man and we have an unhappy player. He joins Juventus for less and it will be “we move to the Emirates and still can not compete”.

He is a fantastic player and just the sort of man we need next to Thomas Partey in the middle of the park. But if Locatelli does not want to join Arsenal, we should move on.

Focus on players who want to ply in the red and white. Not those that see us as a back up option or stepping stone.

Keenos

Arsenal building a “defence for the future” with Ben White signing

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There is are valid questions to be asked over Arsenal’s signing of Ben White.

The first is why are we investing so heavily in a central defender when we had one of the best defences in the league last year.

We could have gone into this season with Rob Holding and Gabriel starting, backed up by Calum Chambers, Pablo Mari and William Saliba.

There is also the question over the fee for White – £50million.

When you compare this to what Manchester United are Paying for Raphael Varane, it does feel excessive.

Varane is at the peak of his powers and is one of the best centre backs in the world.

The flip side is Varane has one year left on his contract – had he had 3 years you would probably be looking at a similar price tag to Harry Maguire.

When you also consider that the likes of Lewis Dunk and James Tarkowski have been linked with moves in the region of £35-40m, then perhaps £50m for a 23-year-old English centre back is not a bad deal.

So what does Ben White bring to Arsenal?

A defence for the future

Ben White – 23

Gabriel – 23

Kieran Tierney – 24

If we replace Hector Bellerin with someone in the same age bracket, we potentially have a back 4 for the rest of this decade.

White is not a short term option like David Luiz. He is part of the new long term transfer strategy at Arsenal.

Replacing David Luiz

Last season David Luiz played 11 passes into the opponents final 3rd per 90 minutes. The next nearest Arsenal defender was Rob Holding with 8. Gabriel just 6 passes into the opponent 90 and Mari 4.

Ben White averaged 10 passes into the opponents final 3rd per 90.

With Luiz going, we lost the ability to go from front ok back quickly. That has been replaced with White.

Forward thinking

Last season over 40% of Ben White’s passes went forward.

This is more than Luiz (36%), Gabriel (35%), Holding (34%) and Mari (31%).

Whilst style of play does impact these statistics – Arsenal tend to play about either it at the back with sideways passes a lot – this shows that Arsenal have secured a defender whose thought is to get the ball forward rather than play an easier pass sideways to his fellow centre back.

Fitness

For too long, Arsenal’s seasons have been curtailed due to having too many injury prone players.

Samir Nasri, Tomas Rosicky, Abou Diaby, Jack Wilshere, Robin van Persie, Mesut Ozil and Theo Walcott are amongst a long list have missed a lot of time in an Arsenal shirt due to injury.

For those who have an interest in football out of Arsenal, many of these suffering injuries would not be a surprise as they were also often injured at the clubs we signed them from.

Last season Ben White played 36 Premier League games for Brighton – 3,194 minutes in total.

The year before he played all 46 games for Leeds United as they got promoted.

To have missed just 2 League games in 2 years is incredible.

Arsenal are getting a player that can be relied upon physically.

Interception king

Many people look at how many tackles a player makes to see their defensive contribution. This is wrong.

A player only makes a tackle as a last ditch attempt to win the ball.

Fabio Canavarro rarely made a tackle.

Where Canavarro was a world leader was in interceptions.

There is no need to make a tackle if you read the play and get to the ball first.

Alex Ferguson sold Jaap Stam After the amount of tackles he made per game dropped significantly. What they failed to realise in the early years of data is that his interceptions had dramatically increased.

Last season Gabriel averaged 1.17 interceptions a game. Holding was as low as 0.84.

Ben White averaged a huge 1.75 interceptions a game.

Interestingly whilst Holding averaged the lowest interceptions of the 5 centre backs discussed here, he averaged the highest tackles per game – highlighting that his game reading is not as good as the others.

Summary

So in Ben White, Arsenal are getting a defender that sets forward and wins the ball before it gets to the attacker and whose first thought is it to get the ball forward.

Add in his fitness ability to pass the ball into the final 3rd, you fee he ticks a lot of boxes that Mikel Arteta wants in a defender.

John Stones grew as a defender last season with his best year in a Man City and England shirt.

White is a younger version of John Stones.

Now we just need to add the right back of a similar profile and we have our defence sorted for the forceable.

Keenos