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By Tony Attwood
For the past 15 or so years we have been tracking the summer transfers that Premier League clubs are rumoured by the media to be engaged in pursuing. On average about three in every 100 become reality in that the player does move as predicted.
So why do people keep on printing these stories window after window, when it is clear that they are printing imaginary tales?
One reason of course is some of these journalists are making things up. Another is that the clubs are making up stories themselves. Certainly someone is although we must admit that in 2024/5 Chelsea spent getting on for a quarter of a billion pounds on players. They came 10th in the league, 33 points below Arsenal and let in almost twice as many goals as Arsenal during the season.
This summer they have already spent almost a third of a billion pounds and this might suggest, if nothing had done before, that buying lots of players for lots of money doesn’t always work.
Now all this player buying, selling and hijacking of someone else’s transfer, might seem a bit risky, and might suggest the buying department doesn’t quite know what it is doing, but more than anything else it does mean that the club needs to have a lot of cash available, and a team of trainers and strategists with no end of ideas about how to integrate each newcomer.
But of course clubs don’t just buy because they want a certain player, they can buy to stop a rival getting him (then selling him on elsewhere) or indeed simply to make a profit next year..
Yet the fact remains that 97% of transfers listed in the media as being about to happen, never happen, not least because lots of clubs deliberately give journalists fake information in order to mislead other clubs. After all, when you think about it, the last thing in the world any top club is likely to do is reveal exactly who it is they are after. Do that and the first thing that will happen is the price will go up, and other clubs will start talking about buying that player.
Now none of this sort of skullduggery is ever commented upon by the media although that makes it hard for them to explain the fact that 97% of transfers listed in each window never come to pass.
Of course if a journalist says Arsenal is looking at and the player suddenly goes to another club, that club has “hijacked” the deal, and Arsenal are blame for being too slow as usual. Even though there was no evidence Arsenal wanted him in the first place.
Besides we should remember that keeping a club’s name in front of the fans during the windows is one of the key elements in this business. It is not about who buys whom, but who is out there making waves and trying to complete deals.
Consider what Mikel Arteta said after the Euro final: “We want to reach another level…It is going to demand us to be very, very ambitious.” But that doesn’t mean Arsenal will buy every player the media mention.
And the media will try and worry us by talking about “causes for concern,” because no one remembers yesterday’s news. So the media tell us that Jeremy Monga has gone to ManC and Morgan Rogers, who Arsenal have been after for a year, has gone to Chelsea.
Were they “players that Arsenal wanted and worked hard to sign,” or not? How do you know? Were Arsenal the “frontrunners on both deals” but refused to pay what was demanded? You can believe the media if you wish, but you might also wonder how a club seemingly so lackadaisical in its dealings ever managed to buy anyone. (While you also wonder how Chelsea are managing to stay within the financial guidelines!)
The fact is Arsenal do sign big money players when they really see the value: Declan Rice is a perfect example. You might remember the media frenzy about ManC attempting to drive up the price, but Rice wanted Arsenal so that’s where he is.
Indeed players want to come to Arsenal have an enviable reputation for treating players well and being honourable employers, which not all clubs have.
So the media are left talking about players Arsenal desperately want and need but can’t afford, and you can believe that if you wish. After all, who would you rather play for, the club that just won the league, or a club that is threatened with a massive points deduction and a transfer ban – except you don’t quite know when that case is gong to finish.
And here’s another thought. Everyone in the game knows Arsenal are clever at transfers. So they show an interest in a player like Sandro Tonali, and immediately his price shoots up. Tottenham thought they might get him for £65m, but after Arsenal’s interest the price went up to £100m. A clever trick.
Arsenal, like all big clubs, play the market, making enquiries here and there, tipping off the journalists when they can, keeping the media onside. And just as it looks as if Arsenal can’t buy anyone because the prices are all too high, they slip through an unexpected deal right at the last… All those other stories about not being able to buy anyone, it seems, were just a little bit misleading…
There’s a lovely argument put around in the media that Arsenal go into negotiations for new players without knowing the going rate for the player, and so “target players who prove to be too expensive” because they failed “to gather the appropriate information.” That’s from the Telegraph, and it omits any understanding of AFC pushing the prices of players up for clubs who really want to buy those players, as Arsenal move in for the players they really want, on the basis that “well, if we can’t have X as he’s too expensive, what about….”
But of course we are regularly told that Arsenal’s problem is that they are inefficient in their buying or selling, unlike Chelsea. And perhaps we can see the result of that. 23 points and 38 GD above Chelsea last season. Five points and 14 goal difference above Chelsea in 2024/25. 26 points and 48 GD above them the season before. 40 points and 54 GD above them the season before that. One might ask, “which club is getting it right?”
And in asking that one might also question the statement, which followed those figures that say Chelsea “have been excellent buyers in recent years, strengthening the squad year-on-year, but they have unquestionably been lacking in the sales department.”
Of course journalists need to make up stories when there is no football to report on. But some of them do get a bit silly.
