Arteta headaches ahead of final pre-season game

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It is Friday, and we are on the cusp of a scortching hot weekend! It is also the last weekend before proper football returns!

Up next in pre-season is Lyon on Sunday. Our final friendly as Mikel Arteta’s preparations for the new season are reaching their climax.

On Wednesday we thrashed Bayer Leverkusen 4-1. A great performance and result against the German invincibles. Although it is just a friendly and they are a week behind us in their preperations.

Against Lyon I would expect Arteta to start with the team he looks to play against Wolves. But he has a few headaches.

Defenders fitness

Neither Jurrien Timber or Riccardo Calafiori were part of the midweek squad.

Timber was given a break as he continues his rehabilitation from a season out injured. Expect his game time to continue to be managed whilst he rebuilds fitness and trust in his knee.

Calafiori was also given a few days off following his whirlwind move to Arsenal.

He basically flew from Bologna to London, had his medical the went straight out to America. I imagine he was using this week to settle himself and his family in London. I do not think we always respect how tough it can be for players to move country at the drop of a hat – yes, they get paid well but they are still human!

With Takehiro Tomiyasu struggling again with a strain (how much longer do we persist with him?), I would expect the back 4 to be White Saliba Gabriel Calafiori going into the new season, with Timber being eased in and rotated across the back 4.

Kai Havertz back to midfield?

I have made it clear that I think Kai Havertz is our best striker. But then Gabriel Jesus has looked sharp up top and Havertz provided two assists and a goal from midfield against Leverkusen.

Calafiori strengthens the left defensively, and the result could see Havertz drop deeper again. But this time he is free’d up from his defensive duties and we will not be exposed by Olexsander Zinchenko’s positioning.

With the Mikel Merino deal not yet done, we could see Havertz drop deeper for the start of the season.

Or will it be Zinchenko?

The Ukrainian was excellent against Leverkusen, and he showed with his goal how he can influence the game from more advanced positions.

I would still not be surprised to see Zinchenko start the season in the left handed central midfield role, if the decision is to play Havertz up top.

A lot of fans have written off Zinchenko, but he is certainly an option for Granit Xhaka’s former position, and if you are looking for “two players for every position” I can certainly see him and Merino dovetailing nicely.

And what for the Euro boys?

Those lads that went to the euro final only returned to training last weekend, but I expect all of them to start Sunday.

This is not the 70s or 80s where players would turn back up to pre-season overweight and the first 2 or 3 weeks would be sweating off their over consumption. Players look after themselves a lot better these days.

Expect them all to get a 60 minute run out Sunday, and then be ready to start against Wolves.

Not sure if I will get a blog out over the weekend. Things are quiet right now as the club put the finishing touches on pre-season.

I would expect Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson to depart next week, and we should see Merino come in. Any further transfers could depend on if selling clubs drop their asking prices (keep an eye on Ivan Toney with one year left on his contract).

Enjoy your Friday.

Keenos

“Strikers inferior to Kai Havertz” moving for £60m+

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Julian Alvarez to Atletico Madrid for £64.4m (rising to £81.5m with add ons)
Dominc Solanke to Tottenham for (reportedly) £65m

If you are scratching your head why Arsenal have not yet moved for a striker, your answer is above.

For a long time, my answer to “we need a more clinical striker” has been to ask “who is out there”. The reality is, there are not too many top strikers in world football these days.

Their is only a handful of strikers that are on par with 00s legends such as Henry, Shevchenko, Raul, van Nistelrooy, Ronaldo, Batistuta, Vieri, Trezeguet, Crespo, Adriano, and Owen, followed by Rooney, Ibrahimovic, Torres, Eto’o, Drogba, Klose and Villa in the second half of the decade.

You can count on one hand the current strikers who are on the level of these – Robert Lewandowski, Harry Kane, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe.

Due to the lack of top, top strikers, we are now seeing decent strikers going for huge sums, and average strikers going for club record fees.

Some mocked when Arsenal reportedly demanded £35m for Eddie Nketiah, but in the current market that is probably what he is worth!

Do not get me wrong, Julian Alvarez is a lovely player, but in 2 seasons in England he has scored just 20 league goals.

Yes, he has played second fiddle to Erling Haaland in that time, but he does have a bit of the Gabriel Jesus’s about him. Alvarez turns 25 in 4 months and, like Jesus before him, has not been a consistent goal scorer.

Alvarez keeps Lautaro Martinez out of the Argentine national team, but this is based on his all-round game rather than his goal scoring exploits (for those calling for us to sign Martinez, he is not leaving Inter any time soon!). He is just not an out and out goal scorer.

Dominic Solanke is a solid Premier League striker. But last year was the first season he had performed at the highest level.

27 in September, Solanke’s Premier League record before 2023/24 read: Played 96, scored 10. You can perhaps understand why Arsenal are asking “so much” for Nketiah, who is 2 years Solanke’s junior when you consider those figures.

£65m for a player with one top flight season under his belt is an incredible figure. But this is from the club that spent over £50m on Richarlison. The Brazilian had 17 goals in his two previous Premier seasons combined for Everton!!!

Now I am not saying either Solanke or Alvarez is a bad player. But would either of them be a step up on Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus? Neither has ever scored 25 league goals in a top flight season in their career. and it is “we need someone that will score us 25 goals” that most of us call for…

Arsenal signed Jesus at 25 years old. just a few months older than what Alvarez will be when the Atletico Madrid deal goes through. With 58 goals in 159 league games for Man City, our Brazilian had a vastly superior record despite playing a similar role.

Solanke, meanwhile, is England’s seventh choice striker – Kane, Ollie Watkins, Ivan Toney, Marcus Rashford, Calum wilson and Eddie Nketiah have all been selected ahead of him recently. Solanke’s only England cap coming back in 2017.

Meanwhile, Kai Havertz is Germany’s first choice striker. He averaged a goal every 130 minutes last season as a striker. Solanke averaged a goal every 175 minutes.

Any striker that comes in must be better than Kai Havertz. And I am not just talking about their goals.

Last season we scored more league goals than any other season in our history. Signing a more clinical striker, that might get 4 or 5 more goals than Havertz or Jesus, might result in a drop in the total team goals.

We could have a single striker score 25 goals, but end up scoring less as a team!

The more I write about strikers, the more I am warming to Havertz being our first choice forward:

If I were to say we were signing Germany’s first choice striker who had the 3rd best minutes per goals a top 5 division in 2023/24 for £80m, we would all probably be getting excited. But we have that striker playing for us right now in Kai Havertz and we have not had to spend that sort of money on him.

Isak would be an upgrade, but how much would it cost to get him from Newcastle? Way north of £100m IMO. Meanwhile ictor Osimhen is class, but it is interesting to see he is yet to move anywhere.

Do we really want to spend £60m+ on Viktor Gyokeres. The 26-year-old has had one decent season in Portugal, preceded by a solid good 18 months in the Championship 9he failed to score 25 Championship goals in either season.

Ivan Toney is still talked about, but he would more be competition and cover for Kai Havertz, something a little bit different, rather than an our and out replacement. I would only want him if he was under £40m, and we sold Gabriel Jesus.

Any striker that comes in must be better than Havertz.

As we have seen strikers who an inferior to Kai Havertz are going for £60m+. I am not sure how many strikers out their would justify us spending the £80m+ it would take to get them!

Keenos

Why are Premier League set to investigate Chido Obi Martin deal?

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Chido Obi-Martin is on the verge of joining Manchester United.

The 16-year-old, who was nowhere near ready for the Arsenal first team opted to take a step down to Manchester United in the quest of fast tracking his journey to first team football, even if it means playing at a lower level.

As we blogged last week, Arsenal are better off without the youngster, whom is clearly being used by his handlers to make a quick buck at the detriment of his career.

The deal is subject to the Premier League 5 step investigation – or five-step review process as it is also known).

This process is nothing unique. It is an investigatory review that every transfer involving an academy player between two Category One academies goes through.

Before any academy player can be registered, the transfer must go through the review, which takes around 25 days to be completed. But what is the five-step review process?

Following Southampton receiving a suspended sentence back in 2022 for contacting academy players without permission, The Athletic outlined what is involved in the process:

Step 1: The new club submits a signed registration form to the Premier League.

Step 2: The Premier League appoints an independent third party (usually a law firm) to conduct “exit interviews” with the player, parents and both clubs. However, further interviews or requests for information are also permitted.

Step 3: The two clubs involved in the agreement, including the player’s parents, are required to sign a declaration that no financial or value-in-kind inducements have been utilised as a part of the move (including contra deals).

Step 4: Through the independent third party, a report is then produced for the Premier League’s board, coming up with a recommendation regarding the club’s application to register the player.

Step 5: The Premier League’s board can either approve or reject the registration application. They also have the autonomy to take disciplinary against the club if they were found to breach their youth development rules.

So what does this all mean?

Well firstly, absolutely nothing if the review finds Manchester United did nothing wrong in their recruitment of Chido Obi Martin.

If it is found that they have breached the rules, the player will still sign for Man U but they could face sanctions.

The Athletic article continues: Everton for example, were handed a two-year academy ban in November 2018 and a fine of £500,000 ($608,000) for offering incentives to a player and his family.

In 2017, Manchester City were fined £300,000 ($365,000) and also banned from signing academy players for two years after the Premier League found evidence of contact between City staff and family members. Incidentally, in that same month, Liverpool were deemed to have breached similar rules when offering inducements to a Stoke City player and subsequently banned from recruiting in the academy for 12 months. They were also fined £100,000 ($122,000).

Keenos