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Stay ‘calma’ over Zubi, Gooners

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo Wednesday mornings, eh? Not quite the weekend, far enough away from last weekend to keep any lingering happy thoughts away, instead if you’re a desk jockey like me you face a full day of work knowing that the weekend still lies a little too far beyond touching distance. I’m sure that’s why they invented midweek drinking.

What might drive any Arsenal fan to drink this summer is protracted transfers and as James pointed out in the Athletic this week, the expectation for financial reporting purposes is that he will not arrive at The Arsenal until 1st July. That’s gonna boil some online piss, for sure, if what I’ve read so far, with the window opened just four whole days. People are getting grumpy and what happens with situations like this, is that they shout into the void that is the internet, which creates an echo chamber of irritation as any slight concern any normal human has, gets amplified when they read other people’s hyperbolic views on t’internet.

The hive mentality kicks in, suddenly you have a whipping up of angst that really ought to not be there.

Most of the self-respecting journos and people who state a career on being ITKs (The Romano’s of this world, the Kike Marin’s of this world, etc) have been pretty consistent with what is happening. Even being away with the national team this week and having Zubimendi say he didn’t want to talk too much about the future, about the comments re: his medical at Arsenal not being true, as well as the fact that he’s had Xabi Alonso as his idol, hasn’t really moved many to suddenly declare Madrid are ‘in for him’.

They could make a late move. They could pay the release clause from Sociedad and we could indeed have a situation where Zubimendi is staring at a choice between Arsenal and Madrid. But even if that happens, I still think we’d be favourites to edge any signature. Hear me out on this one:

Arsenal have spent a lot of time on this deal. They’ve been courting him for almost a year it seems, since it became clear he wasn’t going to Liverpool. They will have been whispering sweet nothings into his ears, they will have been very clear that he’s their choice, they will certainly have been making him feel like he’s going to be loved.

Arteta effect. Mikel is a Basque boy, which might have a little bit of sway, but not enough perhaps to lure away from the prospect of Real Madrid and his idol Xabi Alonso. But having just arrived at Real Madrid, do you think that Alonso is going to be telling Zubimendi “mate, get your arse over here, you’re my first signing and you’ll play every week”? Of course he won’t. Arteta will have explained in great – and meticulous – detail how he expects to use the player, what his hopes are for the impact on the system. Arteta has had ample time to make this player feel like he will be a vital cog in a midfield that has just got to the semi final of the Champions League.

The options at Madrid. Real currently have Tchouameni and Camavinga in their side. They have a fair bit of work to do this summer, so top of their list is surely not going to be a defensive midfielder, is it? That gives us the opportunity to steal a march on any transfer.

I think I’ve said this previously on one of the blogs, but this kind of noise that comes from transfers like this that don’t come out of the blue, are to be expected. We had it with Declan Rice and Man City, as I’ve previously talked about, but Arsenal had approached that transfer in the same way that they are approaching this one. So for me, personally, I’m not really fussed about any spurious rumours coming from fan accounts of Madrid, Arsenal or football media accounts just trying to hype up potential shifts in expectations just for clicks.

As ol’ Unai used to say:

Calma. Calma.

I think that’s going to be the same for a lot of teams actually. The movement we’re seeing right now are the ‘low hanging fruit’ as I would call it. In other words, deals that are easy to do. It’s easy to sign Frimpong when you’ve been in touch with Leverkusen for months, you know Trent is leaving, he has a release clause (I think) and you just pay it. Then, if you’re already talking to them about that, saying to Leverkusen “do you want £100million+ for Wirtz?” is another easy one to do. Bayer know he’s going, they get the cash, deal can be done. Cunha was already on his way out and had a release clause. Same as the lad from Ipswich who’s just joined Chelsea.

These are all release clause deals. Arsenal are doing the same, it’s why everyone is talking about how Zubi is basically ‘done’, because it is. There are just the formalities. So as long as those are observed and we don’t get any U-turns from the Spanish side (which would also damage a relationship that has been good on both fronts so far), or from the player himself, then this really isn’t something to worry about.

So I think we just need to let this one play out. There will be rumours and counter-rumours, but ultimately we as fans just need to chill a bit, and let the natural process of a transfer play out. If we’d heard nothing until now, we’d all be excited, but because it’s been on the radar for for a while I think that’s colouring people’s judgement on what appears to me like a pretty standard transfer process.

Just food for thought on a Wednesday morning.

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.