On the face of it, selling Charlie Patino for just £1m looks like a huge undersell.
The youngster was once the jewel in the academy. He looked destined for the top as part of an England youth set up that also contained Jude Bellingham and Jamal Musiala. But whilst those two have risen to the top, Patino has struggled to transition from age group football to men’s football.
In Patino’s only start for Arsenal, against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup back in 2022, he looked lightweight and clearly not ready for men’s football. Unlike Bellingham and Musiala, he was not an 18-year-old in a 25-year-olds body. He struggled physically.
He then went on loan to Blackpool.
Whilst he performed well, he also showed he was not Premier League ready as Blackpool were relegated. It was decided another loan would best suit him and off he went to Swansea City.
Patino would struggle to establish himself in the Swansea team and from November would be dropped to the bench. This would see his minutes very limited, and average just 15 minutes a game in the final 30 matches of the season.
Returning to Arsenal this summer, it was again clear that he was not ready for Premier League football, yet alone ready to break into the Arsenal first team. And whilst he was away on loan, younger players had begun to break through at the club – namely Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri.
Patino also had just 1-year left on his contract. That meant that Arsenal could not afford to loan him out again to see if it was “3rd time lucky” and see if he bulks up and develop the physicality to match his fabulous technique. The only option for the club was to sell him.
But other sides in England would have taken note of his average Championship performances. He was showing signs that his level was as a squad player in the Championship, rather than a Premier League hopeful. And this would result in very few clubs showing interest.
In the end, Arsenal have agreed a deal with Deportivo La Coruna, who currently play in the Spanish 2nd division.
The fact he is off to the second tier in Spain highlights again that he had failed to make that transition to top level men’s football. There was simply no interest in him from top leagues.
By moving to Deportivo, Arsenal are gambling on his long term value rising.
The easy option would have been to sell him to a Championship club for £4-6million, and walk away having banked some profit. Instead we have decided to “send” Patino to Spain, to rebuild his career and reputation. And if Patino successfully develops in a less physical league, Arsenal could be quids in.
By agreeing a lower upfront fee, we were able to negotiate a “significant sell-on clause” that could see the club benefit between 35-50% of his future transfer profit, depending on which source you believe.
Taking into account the way the transfer market is going, a couple of good years in Spain for Deportivo could see him quickly become a £20m play. That would see Arsenal net between £6.65m and £9m profit. And if he really applies himself over the next couple of years, we could benefit even more!
We recently saw the Riccardo Calafiori deal being held up due to a sell-on clause that Basel had put in his contract when selling the defender to Bologna. That would see Basel bank 40% of Calafiori’s transfer fee to Arsenal just 12 months after he had returned to Italy.
We also adopted the same strategy with Omari Hutchinson.
The youngster was allowed to go to Chelsea for free, but we agreed a reported 50% sell on clause. Chelsea then sent him on-loan to Ipswich, who then decided to spend £20m on him, banking Arsenal £10m.
had we sold the wantaway youngster for a straight fee 2-years earlier, we would have been lucky to bank £5m. By gambling that his value would increase with game time, we made more money. And we will be hoping the same is with Patino.
The difference between the £1m we got for Patino and the £4-6million we would have got selling him to the Championship is negligible. It would have made no difference to our overall transfer fund. And we are not Chelsea were we need to raise funds here and now to satisfy PSR (ps: I wonder how many of the Chelsea exits are deals with instalments paid over a long period, and then Chelsea are using factoring companies to gain early access to the unpaid sums. At a cost of course).
If we think Patino is undervalued, and that with game time he could explode, it makes complete sense to allow him to leave for a smaller upfront fee and gamble on that explosion happening. Imagine the outcry had we sold him for £4-6m and then in 12-months a West Ham , Bournemouth or Crystal Palace come in for him for £30m. At least now if that happens we could get up to half of the fee.
With transfers, you always need to take a step back and look at what is happening. With Patino we are making an educated guess that he will make more off the sell-on clause in 1-2 years time than we could get for him now.
And my final thought on Patino is: how much do you think a player that struggled for regular Championship football should be sold for?
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 