Does the week start in a Sunday or Monday? I forgot. Regardless, today is the start of a huge 7-days for The Arsenal.
The first team return to the club next week to commence pre-season training.
This is a huge season for Mikel Arteta. One where he needs to turn Arsenal from also-rans to winners. Silverware has to be delivered to back up the huge gains we have made as a club under him.
And to help with the quest for trophies, we need to start seeing players come through the door.
Long term followers of me will know that I am not too concerned when we have a perceived “slow start” to a transfer window.
I do not get my knickers in the twist and do not think we should be signing players early just for the sake of positive PR.
It is better to sign the right players, rather than sign the wrong players just because deals could be done early. And whilst 95% of Arsenal fans realise this, this is a loud minority who cry about us not yet signing anyone beyond a top second class keeper.
All this changes once we are back for pre-season. If we want a fast start we need the bulk of our deals done. Not necessarily done for next Monday, but at least ahead of when we play AC Milan in 17 days time.
But this week we should see at least 2 or 3 new names come through the door to join Kepa. And that could increase.
We have known for some time that Martin Zubimendi and Christian Norgaard were done deals. Must of us expected them to be announced towards the back end of last week, but this was seemingly delayed by the club due to the passing of Diogo Jota.
This shows how classy we are as a club that we delay transfers deals out of respect of the death of another teams player.
Zubimendi and Norgaard will be announced shortly. Maybe even today. And then following them I would expect Cristhian Mosquera to shortly be announced.
Arsenal and Valencia are yet to agree a fee, but it would in would be expect this to be done this week – Mosquera has made it very clear he has not intention of singing a new deal, and has only 12 months remaining on his current one.
Mosquera wants Arsenal. Arsenal want Mosquera.
Another close to be done is Noni Madueke from Chelsea.
Now I am not overly excited by Madueke, however this feels like a market opportunity to sign quality cover for Bukayo Saka.
The Englishman is apparently on just £60-65k a week at Chelsea. Arsenal could easily add £40-50k to that without breaking he age structure for a squad player.
As for the fee, I think it will be done for something in the region of £35m. This would represent a profit for Chelsea and get a player off their books (at last check, they had 31 senior players, of which only 25 can be registered).
I don’t think you are getting much better than Madueke for £35m and £100k a week.T
his certainly feels like a market opportunity and would enable us to rest Saka for 10 Premier League games a season.
Madueke is also both a good substitute to have in attacking and defensive situations.
Struggling to break a team down? Saka not quite doing it? A fresh Madueke for 20 minutes could be devastating. Meanwhile, if we are holding onto a 1-nil lead, he provides raw pace to hit teams on the break if defending deep.
On top of the above, there is still Rodrygo, Sesko / Gyorekes and Eze to talk about.
Rodrygo will only progress once the Club World Cup is over. And even then it will unlikely happen before August with Rodrygo likely disappearing for a few weeks on holiday.
Gyorekes is one that could happen this week.
Whilst I think Sesko was our primary target, my belief is that we have become frustrated with both RB Liepzig and the Slovenian.
We were told 12 months by his people to “come back in a year and he will be ready to move”. That year has passed and it feels like we are in the same situation. There just doesn’t seem to be the motivation from his side to get a deal done.
Meanwhile Gyorekes has been twerking for us all summer.
Rumour has it that he gets paid 10% of any official offer that Sporting Lisbon reject above £60m. I am not sure how true this is and it would be an incredible clause that could change football. A new version of a release clause where instead of clubs having to sell, they have to pay the player for rejecting a deal.
So if this clause is true and we come in with a £65m big for Gyorekes, that will cost sporting £6.5m for the rejecting. And if they are after (say) £75m, then more than half of that extra £10m has been eaten up by their rejection of the initial bid.
I think once we submit an official bid for Gyorekes, it’ll happen quick.
Finally we have Eze.
At first, I could not really see how Rodrygo, Eze and Madueke could fit together as new signings. But all indicators are that none of the deals affect each other and we can sign all 3. That would only mean two things
Number one is that Trossard is out (with his place in the squad taken by Eze). Number two is that Martinelli is gone (to be replaced by Rodrygo). And then Madueke is the Saka back up we have been crying out for for a couple of years.
It would amount to a huge turnover in attacking players, but it could work.
The combined fees of Eze and Rodrygo would like be £140m (£60m for Eze, £80m for Rodrygo). That would easily be supplemented by Martinelli and Trossard exciting to Saudi.
We would likely expect £80m for Martinelli, and £20m for Trossard. So upgrading them to Eze and Rodrygo would cost us a net £40m.
I do not want to see Martinelli go. I would prefer to keep him as the cover for Rodrygo. But we might need the sale to make this window work.
And if he departs, and we get the deals done, we would be left with Saka, Rodrygo, Madueke, Eze and Nwaneri as our wing options. That is a huge upgrade on last season.
This week could be huge.
**Keenos**