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People, you gotta give me a few days to settle into summer transfer mode. I’ve been sitting on a _Season Long Airways_ for 24 hours—now I need a lie down to find my bearings.
The women won the Champions League, which was magnificent. Watching them run _rummage_ in The Tollington and have a damn fine time has been fun. Win the dog has absolutely no idea what’s going on in those celebration photos, but it looked iconic. What an incredible party the women had. I hope the men take note—it could be them if they get their act together next season.
The rumor mills are starting to fire up, though one player who looks likely to be heading to another club is Joan Garcia. I feel like we’ve been chatting this keeper up for three hours, bought house champagne and scampi fries to keep him happy, then we’ve popped off to the little boys’ room for, like, six seconds—and Man City have steamrollered in and snapped him up.
Do I care? No. Should we be putting a fee in for a backup keeper that was similar to the Raya fee? Also no. But… it does tell you something about getting deals done and doing them fast.
We are slow dealers. My hope is we missed out because we have a top-three keeper in the world. But… that’s a warning to everyone at the club. Don’t flap around—because there are much bigger dinosaurs lurking in the bushes, and they will eat given the chance.
Still, one deal that _has_ been done early is the Zubimendi deal. The Spaniard has the second-most vertical passes in La Liga currently—not bad when you play for Sociedad. I am very much looking forward to seeing how he could open up our play next season. Let’s see if that wild fitness record he has can be preserved.
The story doing the rounds at the moment is from Gunnerblog, about Šeško being earmarked as a future best striker in the world. I’ve heard similar things about him… but the big question is whether Arteta’s push to bring in Berta was really about breaking the model that got us to where we are now.
Arteta wants to win the Champions League and Premier League _now_—he doesn’t want to be dealing in project players for the rest of his life.
I’m just not sure I like this approach for a striker when the alternative isn’t Alexander Isak.
I don’t want a player the analysts around Europe _think_ could be the best striker in the world… especially when that player is in Portugal. It feels a little off to me. If you’re telling me to stick with Šeško because you want Alex Isak—a guy doing bits in the Premier League every week—then I’m with you. But spending the exact same amount on a player five years and four days younger, from a league that has deeper trust issues than Rebecca Vardy in a group chat… well, call me skeptical.
It reminds me of that period after Spurs made the Champions League final and decided to bin everything they were doing to "get it over the line"… and hired Mourinho.
When a system you’ve had in place for five years has taken you from 8th to 2nd… is the reason you’re not winning trophies _the system_? Probably not. The reason we failed last summer seems more about a weak budget handed down by ownership and misguided priorities on how to spend a smaller budget—driven by Arteta.
Maybe ownership has been persuaded to roll the dice on glory and say _fuck it_ to the sustainable model they’ve been building. Maybe it’ll work. I just don’t like that we’re moving away from something that _does_ work—and the risk we might take is still a massive gamble.
But there we go, that’s just me.
I’m also not saying Gyökeres will be a flop. I’m just saying that signing someone from that league scares me—and it feels quite weird to target a phase-five nine that doesn’t score many headers.
He’s banged in a lot of goals—so many that the league worries might not matter. I just get queasy about what we’ve bought into… because the skillset we’re bragging about is more vibes than I’m comfortable with.
Ok, I’m gonna stop talking now and take a beat to get my transfer beats perfectly on time.
On that note, I’ll bid you farewell. Me and Matt will be recording a members' podcast later this evening.
Speak soon. x