BIG CLUB DOES BIG THINGS. SPURS IN THE MUD
What the hell just happened?
Arsenal moved like a big club that wants to win things.
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I’ve not been shy about my view of our summer so far… a touch underwhelming, and incomplete.
Today, I think I changed my mind. Why? Because transfer windows are a game of two halves and the second half looks good.
Yesterday, we just gave Trossard a pay rise. No extension to his deal. Just extra coin in his pay packet. This was awfully strange because the info we had all summer was that he was changing agent and he was going to move to Brentford, Villa, or Saudi. Now we were just giving extra cash to a player who is good… not great? Seemed off.
The day started with David Ornstein highlighting that Kai Havertz was out with an injury and the club would be looking for a replacement striker.
Now, this is devastating news if it’s a serious injury, but my understanding is the feeling is the injury isn’t cataclysmic. We’re not talking a blown-out ACL here. This is hopefully, at worst, an injury wecould see a return from inside 12 weeks.
Then things got weird and they got weird fast. Arsenal were in for Eze. Spurs thought it was a negotiation between two parties, they’d been trying to squeeze Palace, then Arsenal rolled up with a fat check and matched Spurs.
The rest is history.
Nothing could make this signing more delicious. Spurs fans crying into their TikTok cameras. Fans having to return their preemptively printed Eze shirts. Shades of Sol Campbell joining Arsenal. The Arsenal fan, the academy reject, is coming home.
Simply magnificent. Premier League transfer shithousery at its finest. A wonderful moment for all involved.
But… is it a bit weird? It is. It’s very weird.
The strategy here appears to be… add goals. Because positionally, I’m not quite at the galaxy brain level where I can fathom how Eze, a central midfielder who plays as a ten or a left winger… is going to pick up slack for a converted striker who presses like a monster, links play, and wins duels.
The spicy takes from the training ground were ‘Trossard will be a false 9,’ which would make sense from the perspective of his new deal, but also not make sense because Kai was injured in February and the choice was Mikel Merino, who did good things.
But, Arteta knows his tactics better than any of us, and if he thinks this is a solve, then we’d best trust he has a plan that is exciting.
Really though, all this Kai injury does is force Arteta into playing Gyokeres into form over the next 10 games. The Swede is going to be put into sink-or-swim mode and he needs to swim. This could be the best moment for Arsenal, or it could be nightmarish if he’s a slow bedder-inner. Let’s be positive here guys and gals… he’s gonna be just fine.
The bigger concern is I think Kai for Liverpool was the move — but now it has to be Eze? I’m not sure. I don’t know what Eze is coming to do, but that’ll probably be the first chance we get to see him in action. What a baptism of fire that’d be.
So what do we know about the player? He seems very humble, well-liked, and a total professional. He has the bang BANG magic we’ve lacked. He’s a little bit older than our normal signings at 27, but that just means he’s going to arrive with a chip on his shoulder and a point to prove.
His best position is as a 10. He can play out wide and would be great against deep blocks. He makes quick decisions, he can carry from deep, his passing has great range to it, and his decisions in and around the box are a lot better than what we have at the moment. I love the unpredictability he’s going to bring to Arsenal. We don’t even know how he’s going to fit in, but fit in he must.
His signing takes us to 7 for the summer. It tips us into COMPLETE from a squad perspective. He gives us guarantees in output we don’t have with Gyokeres and Madueke. This is an incredible move from Arsenal and it says a lot about the seriousness of KSE that they’d sign off on money like that in two days just in case Kai is down bad.
If there was one criticism… I just don’t get why we didn’t sign him 2 months ago. Why did it take an injury scare to convince ownership we were short? We nearly gave him up to Spurs. I can’t have that we were always in for him, we weren’t.
If I can offer up one worry… I wrote that I could justify losing out on him because Ethan’s progress was important. What happens now? Where is the younger Englishman getting minutes? That starts to look more unclear now because we are certainly looking a little clogged right now.
Also, final word… there’s going to have to be a payback at some point. This money we’re spending is emergency cash. It’s probably not a gift. At some point, we are going to have to sell someone that might sting.
But, we’ll worry about that for another day. Right now, just feast on the ambition of the window, and Arsenal finally acting like a big club.
P.S. Ok, remember, you can join the site and get the primo writing and all the video podcasts, and bonus content. Here’s an example of that that looks and feels like. Check out the AOP emergency pod from last night. x
Podcast## EMERGENCY PODCAST: KAI OUT / EZE IN!!!!
Pedro
·
Aug 20
EMERGENCY PODCAST: KAI OUT / EZE IN!!!!
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