Honestly, I never recall a transfer window like this for The Arsenal.
Before the window started, news was that other clubs were “shocked” about how aggressive Arsenal had been in the market.
They had contacted player representatives and clubs to enquire about players, only to be told “he is going Arsenal”. It sent shock waves through football.
Despite this early news, Arsenal were not quick off the mark in confirming players – instead they chose to continue to negotiate to get the best deals and all transfers were delayed until July for the new PSR season. Unlike Manchester City, we did not need to get players in quickly ahead of the Club World Cup.
This perceived slowness did lead to criticism by some fans, which I have blogged on enough recently. What we are now seeing, however, is how quickly we are acting in the transfer market.
Last week a few players returned to pre-season training (many of those not involved in post-season international games). This week pre-season starts proper. And we are close to getting almost all of our business done.
Mikel Arteta had made it clear to Andrea Berta – he wanted the bulk of the deals done before the team fly out to Asia on our pre-season tour.
Before pre-season had started, we already had Kepa, Martin Zubimendi and Christian Norgaard in the bag. £70m spent before the deep clean of London Colney had even been completed!
3 new players and £70m spent before players had begun returning from their holiday was already groundbreaking for not only Arsenal but most Premier League clubs.
But Arteta and Berta were not finished. It was not a case of “that’s enough for now, lets do pre-season and sort out the rest when we are back”. No. A further £120m is set to be spent this week.
Yesterday, we blogged the more incoming were expected this week. It was not exactly an out there take. But we did not expect it to all happen overnight.
Noni Madueke was always going to be announced early this week having flown back from the USA, sacrificing playing in a post-season friendly tournament final to get a deal done to London’s biggest club.
Then overnight it was announced that we had made a breakthrough with Viktor Gyorekes. And now we are close to securing Cristhian Mosquera.
The deal for the Spanish centreback had gone quiet in recent weeks.
My theory has always been that he was always seen as a bit of an “extra”. If we had a spare £20m we would get him. And with the saving made on Gyorekes against what Sporting were demanding, we now have the confirmed free finances to secure him.
What we would not have wanted to have done is splash the cash early on Mosquera, and leave ourselves £20m short for either Gyorekes or Madueke if negotiations did not go our way.
As it happened, we got the deal done at the price we wanted for Gyorekes (lesson to all those kids moaning about us negotiating – so not pay the asking price when buying your first car or house), but probably paid a little more than we wanted to get Madueke.
But the Madueke overpayment did not affect anything as we know the Gyorekes price was all but done, and that his recruitment would not affect Mosquera.
These deals will happen this week. That will be £200m spent before the plane to Singapore takes off.
Incredible business.
PS: Ethan Nwaneri new contract is in the bag too!
Keenos