Arsenal spend £60m on left-backs and snap up midfield wonderkid - in bold January window predictionplaceholder image
Arsenal spend £60m on left-backs and snap up midfield wonderkid - in bold January window prediction | Getty Images
Arsenal have been rather quiet so far this January - so we found a way to predicted what transfer deals the Gunners might make.
As it stands, it’s a little tricky to figure out just how active Arsenal might be before the end of the January transfer window. Mikel Arteta may have told the media that the Gunners would be “actively looking” for reinforcements but as yet there has been minimal movement – and nor are there necessarily any holes which urgently need to be filled in their squad.
Guessing what might happen between now and the transfer deadline on 2 February is, therefore, rather tricky, especially with the rumour mill rather dry at the Emirates right now. Whatever Arsenal might do, they’re keeping their plans pretty close to their chests, so in order to garner at least some insight into what might happened, we decided to turn to the modern tool of choice: AI.
Is AI actually capable of piecing together the moves Arsenal will make from the limited evidence available, or is it still the kind of hopeless technology which can’t even generate the summary at the top of your Google search results without half a dozen different mistakes? Let’s turn to one of the most popular algorithms going and see what it says…
AI predicts that Arsenal will spend £60m on two signings this January
The algorithm whose virtual brains we picked reckons that Arsenal will make three moves in total this winter, with two being players who have been linked with a switch to the Emirates in recent weeks via the gossip columns – but will AI be proven right, and will around £60m be splashed out on the pair?
The first of the two is Elche midfielder Rodrigo Mendoza, who the AI reckons will cost around £17m, pretty much exactly what stories from back in November suggested he might cost.
The 20-year-old Spain Under-21 international is dynamic and technically impressive, but not yet particularly productive, so this would be one for the future and a move which added only a little bit of short-term competition for the likes of Declan Rice and Martín Zubimendi in midfield.
A little more money will supposedly be spent on left full-back Davide Bartesaghi from AC Milan, with the AI alleging that his versatility and ball-playing talent would see him added to the defensive rotation for a fee of around £43m. Well, it said £40-45m, and we rounded up to make it all a little bit neater.
Arsenal have indeed been targeting Bartesaghi, at least according to reports which date back to December, and we’d understand the logic behind such a move if they didn’t have plenty of depth in defence already. In reality, we’re sceptical that a January deal is on the cards and suspect that the Gunners are just keeping tabs should they want to make a move in the future – but AI clearly thinks otherwise…
Surprise £10.5m deal for left-back as two leave the Emirates
There was one more transfer deal that the AI thinks will take place prior to the deadline – a £10.5m move for Brest full-back Bradley Locko, a 23-year-old left-sided defender who was a member of the France squad at the last Olympic Games.
Why Arsenal would sign both Bartesaghi and Locko, we aren’t sure, but that’s what our future AI overlords seem to think. We suspect that even if Arsenal did want Locko (and we couldn’t find any stories suggesting that they were), they wouldn’t be doubling up at left-back this winter with both Riccardo Calafiori and Myles Lewis-Skelly on the books already.
Nor does the AI think that any of Arsenal’s current defenders are leaving over the next couple of weeks, unless you count Oleksandr Zinchenko, who is on the brink of a permanent move to Ajax after the failure of his loan spell at Nottingham Forest. Our digital friend believes that’s a deal which goes through.
It predicts that Ethan Nwaneri will complete a loan move to Marseille as well, but that will be it for outgoings, apparently, with Gabriel Jesus seemingly staying put despite alleged interest from Palmeiras.
So there we have it, AI thinks that Arsenal will spend northwards of £70m this winter, most of it on spare left-backs. A bold but brilliant prediction, or simply evidence that we’re turning over large parts of our lives to machines which aren’t as smart as we seem to think? Come back in early February and we’ll find out…
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