On the back of a day in which Football365 published entirely contradictory stories on Arsenal’s painstaking choice between Benjamin Sesko and Viktor Gyokeres, with one ‘ready to sign’ a few hours before a report insisted the other ‘will sign’, we were just about ready to call time on a transfer window which still has 66 days left to run.
We even saw Fabrizio Romano looking ever so slightly exasperated at having to explain that Gyokeres “didn’t say no” to Manchester United but also definitely didn’t say yes as if he was talking Red Devils fans down from a ledge, and he bloody loves this stuff.
He knows as well as we do that it’s these sort of transfer sagas that keep him in multiple mobiles and whatever else he spends his money on, and essentially pays our wages. And this one really is a doozy: two big-name strikers; two Premier League giants; desperation on each and every side.
There are multiple angles to approach it from, opportunities for nuance for those tricksy headline writers and therefore thousands upon thousands of transfer-obsessed eyeballs lapping up every last update, U-turn and plot twist.
We both want it to rumble on so we can garner those sweet, sweet clicks and for it to stop immediately so we can write about something, anything besides. But even if we have to grin and bear it for several more weeks while our advertisers rub their hands with glee, with a goal-orientated mindset we can all take solace in the likely outcome being very, very funny.
The thought of United feeding on Arsenal’s transfer ‘scraps’ is in itself delightful. But far better than that is the very good chance that one of Gyokeres or Sesko will flop while the other shines having either won or lost the race to sign for Arsenal.
Both being held in such high regard means it would be funny no matter which of them flops at which club. Manchester United spending another £60m-odd on a striker to score no goals is funny. Better than that? Gyokeres being that striker having scored them at a rate of one every 84 minutes under the very same manager at Sporting. That would excellent.
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But not as excellent as Arsenal starting the season with the striker they’ve needed for half a decade before reverting to Kai Havertz come Christmas and then Mikel Merino when it comes to the Champions League punch in March, before we’re all treated to the revisionist pundits insisting they didn’t ever think a striker was the answer anyway.
And that brings us to our ideal scenario. We want Mikel Arteta and Andrea Berta, after what may or may not have been but have certainly been reported to be several flip flops between the two strikers, to choose Gyokeres as their flop because a) he has very little sell-on value as a 27-year-old, b) their concerns over him scoring goals in a minor league would prove to be amusingly well-founded, and c) (and this is absolutely the main reason) he was Manchester United’s first choice all along.
Even if Sesko somehow weirdly decided there was a different option after being snubbed by Arsenal and didn’t join the transfer market scavengers, we will have been well sated by Gyokeres being utterly terrible for the Gunners given they will have both chosen him and won a battle with United to secure his signature. That’s good stuff.
But of course (and we appreciate that we’re asking too much and probably don’t deserve such joy) the absolute best-case would be for Gyokeres to be absolute balls for Arsenal and Sesko to bang goals for Manchester United as the second-choice striker for the second-choice club. *Chef’s kiss*