Arsenal have far less of a problem than many commentators suggest
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By Tony Attwood
Each summer for the past ten years or so, Untold Arsenal has tracked the various Arsenal transfer rumours that hit the media. Our finding has been that most summers well over 100 players are listed as coming to Arsenal, but generally, only around 2% or 3% of these stories actually turn out to be true.
This raises two questions. First, why, with such an astonishingly high failure rate in terms of their ability to predict transfers, do the websites and newspapers continue to make such fools of themselves by publishing stories that are clearly untrue.
One answer of course is that they all say they are merely reporting what others have said, and that is certainly true, for if one traces back the start of most stories one can often end up going around in circles, as one website quotes another, which quotes another, which quotes another, which quotes…. the first one.
It seems that much of the point of this activity is to make Arsenal look both inept and stupid, offering too little money to the club and poor terms to the player, being too slow to show an interest, failing to realise where their best interests lie etc etc. The implication then is that if only the writer of the newspaper column, or the blogger, or the journalist chatting on the radio, were to be in charge of Arsenal transfers, Arsenal could have the best team in the league, because they really would get down to it and buy the players Arsenal need.
That this is all nonsense of course is revealed by the fact that none of the media that runs these tales actually do a summary at the end of the transfer window, noting how many predictions they got right and how many wrong. And this is why we started doing this column each summer about five years ago. Or was it more? I really can’t recall, because the whole thing is so silly. But I want to keep running this, just to make that point. At the end of the window, there is no point in saying “Arsenal were too slow” etc, because most of the time transfers were never going to happen anyway. And of those players that do move, something like 80% of the players transferred simply don’t live up to expectations.
Meanwhile, here’s a bit of real news: Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka and Myles Lewis-Skelly have all been selected for England’s matches against Andorra and Senegal next month which means one or more of them could be seriously injured for the start of the new season – exactly what we don’t want.
Still, to distract us from that thought, here are 17 players being quoted as being on the move to Arsenal, by various newspapers and websites…. But do remember, the number who actually will come to Arsenal, on the basis of the last few years’ analyses, is actually… none. When we get to 30 names we might have one who will indeed move our way, but at the moment, we are nowhere near that level.
And those leaving….
Player Going To Source Details
Martinelli ? Daily Canon, Just Arsenal Will go on offer of £50m+
Declan Rice ? TBR Will got if club don’t start winning soon.
William Saliba Real Madrid TBR Mikah Richards syas
Nuno Tavares Lazio Just Arsenal Been there on loan
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Arsenal have far less of a problem than many commentators suggest
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