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By Tony Attwood
For many years we ran a Winter and Summer transfer chart, listing all the players that Arsenal were tipped to be buying in that transfer window. We stopped doing that because the results became so predictable – just three percent of the players that the media ran articles on Arsenal buying actually moved to the club.
Whose fault that was is a matter for debate. Some said it was the jorunos who simply looked a player and thought Arsenal might go for thim, and then put out a highly speculative but untrue piece. And really the reason Arsenal didn’t buy most players had to be either that they never really wanted to, or else the price set out by the selling club doubled when it was realised that Arsenal were in the market.
But it was interseting to see the names that some writers came up with as players Arsenal were after – especially as we realised that in each window the percentage of rumours that turned into purchases was around three percent.
This meant that, according to thse journalists and bloggers, Arsenal were wasting their time on chasing over 100 players each summer whom they never signed. And certainly it seemed that some publoications were really going down this route: Arsenal don’t know what they are doing, theire staff are just swishing around all over the place trying to buy anyone, and of course failing.
It all seemed like an excuse for bad journalism to me, but either way we decided to give the whole thing a break for a while, and only now have decided to do another run of trying to record all the transfer stories that we find involving Arsenal, just to see if things have changed.
So we have done our first quick trawl of the newspapers and websites and found .
Players Arsenal are rumoured to be looking to buy and come up with the first dozen names. We’ll keep adding to the list through the end of this season and the summer break and give a final total then. to see if the journalists who make a living out of predicting who is coming to Arsenal are getting any better than having a 3% accuracy ragte.
So here are the first dozen. We’ll add some some in a few days as the websites and newspapers come up with other ideas.
Just one other point on players leaving. Only one name has been mentioned so far – Martinelli. His name crops up several times and once we have enough names to make a chart we’ll do a departure board as well. But as I say, in the past only three percent of the comings and goings have been accurate, so I wouldn’t use any of this information as a way of placing a bet.
| Player | Club | Position | Price | Source |
| Eduardo Camavinga | Real Madrid | Mdifield | £70m | Sun, Star. Maube Liverpool or Saudi. Other clubs mentioned as wanting to buy him. |
| Marc Casado |
Barcelona | Midfield | Caught offside | |
| Yan Diodande | Leipzi | Winger | Caught offside, Give me Sport, Just Arsenal | |
| EdersonA | At. Madrid | Midfield | £44m | Man U “strongly interested”. Arsenal Station |
| Mateus Fernandes | West Ham Un | Midfield | £55m | Multiple clubs interested |
| Lewis Hall | Newcastle | Deferender | £30m | Chelsea also interested |
| Khvicha Kvaratskhelia | PSG | Attack | Substaintial | Star, Just Arsenal News |
| Jene Petter Hauge | Bodod Glimt | Winger | £35m | Man U also interested |
| Marco Palestra | Atalanta | Defender | £32m | Team Talk, Arsenal stories, Arsenal Station |
| Jacobo Ramon. | Como | Centre Back | Caught Offside. Chelsea and Real Mad interested, Football Espana | |
| Malik Tillman | Beyer Lev | Midfield | £35m | Hard Tackle, Football Talk |
| Victor Valdepenas | Real Madrid | Centre Back | £34m | BBC |
