Happy Saturday.
Yesterday’s blog touched on the rumours surrounding Eddie Nketiah, and later in the day those became something more substantial with David Ornstein reporting (£) that Arsenal were set to let him go to Marseille on loan for the season. On its own, not particularly exciting, but the fact there’s a €30m obligation makes it far more interesting and, I have to say, a pretty good deal all things considered.
The fact that he’s being sold outside the Premier League is a major factor of course, but when you consider we got €30m from Monaco for Flo Balogun off the back of a 22 goal season for Reims, I think it’s decent money for Eddie. He makes the move at the end of a 6 goal season for Arsenal, when his last goal of the campaign came in December 2023, so while he’s a more established player than Balogun, I still think that’s a good fee. He has never scored more than 5 goals in a Premier League season, and his scoring rate in general – which I realise includes many late substitute appearances so it is skewed a bit – is about 1 goal every 4 games.
The mechanics of why the deal is being done like this I don’t exactly know. It feels something akin to the way we signed David Raya from Brentford, but ultimately the fact it’s an obligation means that is money we can bank on and overall I think it’s a good sale. I had a quick look back at what I predicted when me and James did our traditional bit on the Arsecast Extra, and I said around €15m. I also said about €20m for Emile Smith Rowe, so Edu will – when all is said and done – have brought in double what I thought we’d get for these two players.
‘Chapeau’, as they say.
Obviously now, there’s more room in the squad for another attacking player to be brought in, and as I keep saying, the likely departure of Reiss Nelson makes that kind of addition even more important. It’s a funny old market though. I’ve seen Sp*rs just spend £65m on Dominic Solanke from Bournemouth, and while I think he’s a decent player who had a great season last time out, I don’t think I’d be convinced if we had spent that kind of money on him – especially as they’ve given him a 6 year deal! He doesn’t move the needle sufficiently for that kind of outlay.
Meanwhile, Chelsea continue their quest to buy every living footballer on earth by agreeing a deal for Wolves’ Pedro Neto. I have said it before, he’s a player I really, really like, who I think would suit this Arsenal side very well. The pace, the ability to play on both sides, and the direct way he plays would give us something we don’t necessarily have, but his injury record has always been a worry. If that were reflected in the fee, perhaps you could take a gamble, but again we’re talking nearly £60m, and at that price I can understand why Arsenal – despite having a long-standing interest in the player – have probably decided not to compete.
I’ve seen it said Neto’s arrival might ‘open the door’ for us to do a sneaky deal for Mykhaylo Mudryk, another player we were very interested in in the past, but I’d be very surprised if that happened. When we were trying to sign him 18 months ago, it was because we obviously saw potential, but his time in the Premier League doesn’t make me think there’s still a lot of that untapped. Of course, Chelsea have been a basket-case and that doesn’t help, and it’s probably true that Mikel Arteta could improve him, but do we need another project player when what need are guys who can come in and hit the ground running?
There’s a reason why the probable midfield arrival is 28 year old Mikel Merino. His experience and understanding of the game means he’ll get up to speed pretty quickly with Arteta’s tactical instruction. Mudryk’s ‘head down, run fast, clump the ball like a hippo with an ingrown toenail thing’ won’t work for us in a season when the margins for error could even smaller than before.
As for Chelsea, at the time of writing Transfermarkt shows their first team squad (albeit bolstered with a handful of youth prospects) currently stands at 42 players. And they’re still buying. What is going on here? How, and more importantly, why are they doing this? Fingers crossed it bankrupts them and they go out of business, but it’s hard to understand.
Right, that’s it for this morning, have a great Saturday whatever you’re up to. More here tomorrow as we look ahead to the game against Lyon.
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