By Sir Hardly Anyone
Arsenal had a net spend in the window of £67.8m – considerably more than most pundits were saying at the start. Indeed the standard theme (and there are always standard themes because these journo types love to copy each other) was, as the Mirror put it “Arsenal must sell before they can buy this summer”.
Well yes we sold Martinez for around £20m and Sam Greenwood for an undisclosed amount. And as the Star excitedly told us, Arsenal managed to sign two more players before the transfer window shut on Monday night after the acquisition of Thomas Partey.
“!Nikolaj Moller and Joel Ideho joined and will go straight into the Gunners’ Professional Development Phase.”
- Willian: Winger — from Chelsea: free
- Tim Akinola: Midfielder — from Huddersfield: free
- Salah-Eddine: Midfielder — from Feyenoord: free
- George Lewis: Winger — from Fram Larvik: free
- Pablo Marí: Defender — from Flamengo: £14m
- Cédric Soares: Defender — from Southampton: free
- Gabriel Magalhães: Defender — from Lille: £27m
- Jonathan Dinzeyi: Defender — from Tottenham Hotspur: undisclosed
- Dani Ceballos: Midfielder — from Real Madrid: loan extended
- Rúnar Alex Rúnarsson@ Goalkeeper — from Dijon £1.8m
- Thomas Partey: Midfielder — from Atlético Madrid: £45m
So the questions are a) how could the Mirror have got this so incredibly wrong in its “sell before we can buy” view, and b) when will they come out and admit they screwed up big time, and c) when will they apologise? We are not holding collective breaths within the Tower of Untold.
And indeed because lots of bloggettas copy what the Mirror says we also had
- “Arsenal ‘must sell before they can buy this summer” from Sports Mole
- “Mikel Arteta needs to sell before he can buy… ” from the Daily Mail
- Arsenal to sell one of three players to fund massive €50m deal… from Team Talk
- “Arsenal eye relegated Premier League star but must sell before they can buy, however. That from the Daily Express about Abdoulaye Doucoure.
- “Arsenal will have to sell players to sign 27-year-old Ghana midfielder Thomas Partey, 27, who has a £45m release clause at Atletico Madrid, and French midfielder Houssem Aouar, 22, who Lyon value at £55m.” (BBC, citing the Star as their source)
And who did we lose?
- Dinos Mavropanos: Defender — to Stuttgart: loan
- Zech Medley: Defender — to Gillingham: loan
- Trae Coyle: Forward — to Gillingham: loan
- Matt Smith: Midfielder — to Swindon: loan
- Jordi Osei-Tutu: Winger — to Cardiff: loan
- Sam Greenwood: Forward — to Leeds United: undisclosed
- Henrikh Mkhitaryan: Midfielder — to Roma: free
- Ben Sheaf: Midfielder — to Coventry: loan
- Tyreece John-Jules: Forward — to Doncaster: loan
- Ismaila Diallo: Midfielder — to Burnley: free
- Emiliano Martínez: Goalkeeper — to Aston Villa: £20m
- Mark McGuinness: Defender — to Ipswich Town: loan
- Daniel Ballard: Defender — to Blackpool: loan
- Mattéo Guendouzi: Midfielder — to Hertha Berlin: loan
- Lucas Torreira: Midfielder — to Atlético Madrid: loan
So all that having to sell in order to buy… the sales of Emiliano Martínez to Aston Villa was the only sale that brought in money. And yet in addition to those few newspapers and blogs I listed above as an example, virtually all “outlets” as they are called, told us time and time again we had to sell before we could buy.
This surely is one of the biggest fake news stories in football of all time, and yet no one is even admitting they got it totally wrong. Which in itself says quite a lot about the entire football reporting industry.
- Arsenal about to show who is being dropped as we create the “25”
- Partey: It Feels Great To Continue Being An Arsenal Fan…
- Women’s Super League Matchweek 3 Review: Arsenal top of the league
There is nothing wrong with clubs we are trying to buy players from thinking we don’t have much money.
I think to be fair we did want to get rid of a number of the players in the squad but it didn’t happen for some reason. I’m pleased with the window as we got we positions we actually needed for a change. I would have sold Leno and kept Martinez though.
If the media clowns ever give a hint of apology ,or god-forbid (!) , retract their erroneous claims , I’d probably have a fit ! Well maybe during this Covid 19 period , they may yet get their brains untangled .
Over the years , we have been having a great laugh at them during the transfer window periods. Not that we don’t laugh at them the other times , when they consistently screw up ! In most fields , if you get your predictions and opinions wrong , you get sacked .
Yet ……
As long as MA is happy with his buys , the media experts can stuff it !