Photo from Freepik
Morning all.
There’s nothing quite like a piece of transfer gossip to get our hopes up of a new player arriving up. Yesterday, there was a story about Viktor Gyokeres, which was on many newspapers back pages after Portuguese outlet Record announced that the striker had told Man Utd he doesn’t want to join them because he wants a move to Arsenal.
The truth is more likely to be he wants to be at a club who will be playing Champions League football next season. Recently, there have been reports suggesting the player is prepared to go on strike to get his move.
Sporting CP’s club president Federico Varandas is quoted by Record as saying:
”I want to make one thing clear: We at Sporting have common sense. We said two things (at the start of the season): that we would not demand €100m and that the value would depend on the performance of Viktor. How did he perform? 63 goals, 17 assists (club and country), fantastic form, one of the best seasons in the history of Portuguese football. Even then, Sporting will not demand his release clause.”
“But people should know that threats, blackmail and insults will not work with me. I can guarantee one thing: Viktor Gyokeres won’t leave here for €60million plus €10m in add-ons. He won’t, and the game the agent is playing will only make the situation worse. As of now, we haven’t had one offer for him.”
The Athletic have an article this morning which explains how the transfer process usually plays out which isn’t as I thought it would. (The experienced agent and Sporting Director supplying the information remain anonymous)
Virtually no one is bidding for a player anymore without already knowing that they’re going to come to their football club or have a strong interest in signing for that club.
Despite the rules over transfers saying that a buying club is not permitted to make contact directly with a player or his representatives before speaking with his club, it happens almost all of the time. Clubs don’t complain though because they are all doing the same. By the time an offer for a player is made, the player being signed has already agreed to join the club wanting to sign him.
In theory, most clubs tap up other clubs players. That might be why certain clubs who have plenty of money to spend get deals over the line a lot quicker than Arsenal seem to. I suspect that’s the reason the reports about Martin Zubimendi have been flying around for so long too because the player, or rather his representatives, have already told Arsenal he wants the move.
The appointment of Alonso at Real Madrid might seem to have muddied the waters but I’d imagine Zubimendi would have known a while ago that that scenario would unfold.
Going back to Gyokeres, if he didn’t want to move to Utd, they’d have known that ages ago. Long before now, that’s for sure. That’s not to say he’s joining Arsenal of course but just because there’s nothing going on publicly, there will I’m sure, be a lot of talks going on behind the scenes.
The transfer window proper opens tomorrow so I think even the most pessimistic of fans can expect Arsenal to soon sign a few players.
Catch up in the comments.