Arsenal transfers: what happened in January, and the rumours for now

 

 

• The first ever analysis of how referees see each Premier League club

By Sir Hardly Anyone

In January we found 66 players who were said to be coming to Arsenal and top of the list of course was Mykhaylo Mudryk with TBR  and  HITC each mentioning the transfer eight times in different articles.  Of course he didn’t come to Arsenal, and seemingly that was a good thing, given a) the cost and b) his achievements at Chelsea.  Curiously none of the websites or newspapers that said he was coming to Arsenal apologised.

This reminds us perhaps that as we enter another transfer window, the media never get more than three percent of these rumours right.  And given that we are just publishing the first ten players on the list today, and that there will probably be over 100 listed by the time the window “slams shut” (because it always slams shut, although seemingly the glass never breaks over the heads of the turnips who invent these stories), the chances are that none of these ten will come to Arsenal.

So why, you may ask, do we do it?  Well, of course, the first reason is to laugh at everyone who takes it all so seriously.   And the second is to point out what a terrible job the media does in covering football.

What it doesn’t cover is the fact, pointed out yesterday on this site, that there is a variation of 151% between different clubs over the number of fouls each can get away with behind a card is shown.  That means West Ham can commit 11.8 fouls before a card comes out, while with Chelsea it is just 4.73 fouls before a card is waved.  I’m surprised Chelsea have not made a protest about this, although maybe they recognise that the players they sign are just a bunch of hearty roughs.

But seriously we are asked to believe that not just once, but throughout the whole season, West Ham fouls are 151% less aggressive than Chelsea fouls. 

But really, that is the number and those numbers are real, so no one wants to talk about them because it suggests (just as the home and away figures for referees do) that something is not right.  Instead, the websites and newspapers are packed solid with transfers that won’t happen, because they don’t want to tackle the reality: something somewhere is seriously wrong.

And that is good in a way, foras we pointed out in the article How can a club move down the Premier League table?  the answer to the question is to spend lots of money on transfers.  For the fact is that not only are around 97% of transfer rumours false, many of the players who join clubs don’t actually have an impact.  Some do, but not all.

So we might ask what did Arsenal do in January?  Here are the details in case you have forgotten… (details from The Premier League’s official site)

Incoming

Leandro Trossard (Brighton)
Jakub Kiwior (Spezia) 
Salah-Eddine Oulad M’hand (loan recall)
Jorginho (Chelsea)

Outgoing

Brooke Norton-Cuffy (Coventry) Loan 
Miguel Azeez (Wigan) Loan 
Arthur Okonkwo (Sturm Graz) Loan
Ovie Ejeheri (Seinajoki) Loan
Harry Clarke (Ipswich) 
Marquinhos (Norwich) Loan 
Omar Rekik (Wigan) Loan 
Nathan Butler-Oyedeji (Accrington) Loan 
Albert Sambi Lokonga (Crystal Palace) Loan 
Taylor Foran (Hartlepool) Loan 
Cedric Soares (Fulham) Loan 

And now the first ten stories…  More will follow soon.

 

No	Position	Player	From	Notes
1	Right wing	Marco Asensio	Real Madrid	Metro, HITC
2	Def midfield	Moises Caicedo	Brighton	Fo-Lo
3	Full back	Joao Cancelo	Manchester City	On loan with Bayern.  Sky Football Talk
4	Attack midfield	Maddison	Leicester	Mirror
5	Midfield	Sergej Milinkovic-Savic	Lazio	Goal
6	Defensive midfield	Declan Rice	West Ham	Football London, Sun., Metro  Football Talk
7	Forward	Alexis Sanchez	Marseille	The Sun
8	Right Wing	Savio	Troyes	TBR
9	Midfield	Youri Tielemans	Leicester City	HITC
10	Forward	Dusan Vlahovic	Juventus	€80m  Calciomercatoweb,

 

There will be more in due course.  Probably a lot more.  Perhaps more than 110.