by Tony Attwood
There is a commentary that has appeared in the website HITC in which it is proclaimed that “For far too long Arsenal have been toothless in the market. They’ve missed out on targets and settled for second-best far too often.”
There is no evidence for this, we are simply asked to accept this is true. Quite how long “far too long” is, we don’t really know but let’s have a look at a few. I am not putting in every transfer, but I am just wondering how many of these involve in settling for second best, taking into account their transfer fee.
| Player | From | Cost | When |
| Kieran Tierney | Celtic | £24.30m | 2019/20 |
| Gabriel Martinelli | Ituano | £6.03m | |
| Reiss Nelson | Arsenal U23 | – | |
| Joe Willock | Arsenal U23 | – | |
| Bukayo Saka | Arsenal U23 | – | |
| Bernd Leno | Bay. Leverkusen | £22.50m | 2018/19 |
| Mattéo Guendouzi | FC Lorient | £7.20m | 2017/18 |
| Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang | Bor. Dortmund | £57.38m | |
| Alexandre Lacazette | Olympique Lyon | £47.70m | |
| Granit Xhaka | Bor. M’gladbach | £40.50m | 2016/17 |
| Rob Holding | Bolton | £2.70m |
I am not saying that these players are all SuperPlayers in the AAA*** class, but rather that these were not accepting second best players when they were purchased. Some were incredible bargains – such as Rob Holding, at least one (Guendouzi) may be slipping through the net now (but that is not the same as accepting him as second best).
It may be that Lacazette and Aubameyang are reaching the end of their time at the club, but that is not the point of being “toothless in the market”. We most certainly were not “toothless in the market” when we bought those two.
Indeed when TalkSport join in with the commentary with a headline such as “Arsenal are ‘Banter FC’ and a club ‘everyone can laugh at’ we know that all attempts at sensible discussion are long since gone.
Basically Arsenal has, within its budget, probably performed as well as any other club – all clubs make mistakes in their purchases, all get a few players on the cheap, all pay too much because they are desperate.
Where the notion of Arsenal being useless at buying players comes from, is the fact that the media endlessly predicts who Arsenal are about to buy, and then to cover up their sheer and absolute hopelessness in terms of predictions, blames Arsenal for not doing what the media has said.
So I thought that from time to time from here on I would record the players who the media are predicting we will buy. And instead of grouping them by player as I have done in previous years, this year I’m doing it by source.
And remember this is only a couple of days-worth of trawling.
| Source | Player | From |
| 101 Great Goals | Folarin Balogun | Will sign new contract |
| Express | Yves Bissouma | Brighton and Hove |
| Sergio Aguero | Manchester City | |
| Lucas Vazquez | Real Madrid | |
| Julian Draxler | PSG | |
| Football League World | Emi Buendia | Norwich City |
| Football London | Emi Buendia | Norwich City |
| Yves Bissouma | Brighton and Hove | |
| Pedro Goncalves | Sporting Lisbon | |
| FourfourTwo | Sergio Aguero | Manchester City |
| Achraf Hakimi | Inter | |
| Wilfred Zaha | Crystal Palace | |
| Ivan Toney | Brentford | |
| Give Me Sport | Hakan Calhanoglu | AC Milan |
| Hard Tackle | Wilfred Zaha | Crystal Palace |
| HITC | Wilfred Zaha | Crystal Palace (2) |
| Emi Buendia | Norwich City | |
| Nabil Fekir | Real Betis | |
| Tariq Lamptey | Brighton and Hove | |
| Yves Bissouma | Brighton and Hove | |
| Just Arsenal | Bryan Gil | Seville |
| William Zaha | Crystal Palace | |
| London Football News | Seny Dieng | QPR |
| Achraf Hakimi’ | Inter Milan | |
| Jerome Boateng | Bayern Munich | |
| Folarin Balogun | Will sign a new contract | |
| Metro | Dybala | Juventus |
| Mirror | Wilfried Zaha | Crystal Palace |
| Shoot | Wilfred Zaha | Crystal Palace |
| Sky Sports | Hakan Calhanoglu | AC Milan |
| Sports Lens | Achraf Hakimi | Inter Milan |
| Sports-View | Achraf Hakimi | Inter Milan |
| Wilfred Zaha | Crystal Palace | |
| Sun | Hakan Calhanoglu | AC Milan |
| This is Futbol | Emi Buendia | Norwich |
Now we have seen in past that only about 3% of these transfers actually happen, but that never stops the journalists, but I am hoping that by undertaking the analysis by source, we will see which outlets are setting out deliberately to cause difficulty to Arsenal by ceaselessly reporting players as coming to us, who never do.
It will also raise another interesting question: when a player is predicted to be coming to Arsenal by multiple sources, how do they all get the story — and only later tell us that it has not happened because Arsenal are too slow?
- The fall of Arsenal: How far behind are we, and what is the solution?
- Someone is trying to fake football stats – and doing it rather well.
- “Arsenal need more of the same,” according to some pundits. Really?
