- Maltreatment of young players; Arsenal to benefit from FFP enquiry?
- Progress for a club like Arsenal happens over time. We’re now reaping the benefits
By Sir Hardly Anyone
For reasons that no one has ever be adequately able to explain, the transfer window always “creaks open” and always “slams shut,” and although the range of players who are nominated as moving is invariably very large, the number of transfers tends to stay much the same year on year.
Of course Sky Sports, with not much else to do usually has journalists standing in the autumn rain hoping to spot someone come or go, but actually it’s mostly a bit of spoof.
What doesn’t change is the range of players who are tipped to be coming to Arsenal, with normally around two or three percent of those transfers actually happening. And quite possibly this season that number that do actually move could be small.
After all Arsenal have one player bought last summer who has spent the whole season in recovery, but who will be ready to play, we presume, and they are the top scoring team, and the best defending team in the league. The average age is young (25) and they are top of the league. So why break the team up by bringing in lots of new boys.
Indeed, imagine if at work you had an accuracy level of two or three percent in whatever it is that you do. Would you keep your job? Or perhaps if you are the person who cooks the family meals at home, would matters stay calm and peaceful if only eight or ten evening meals were actually edible! What would your partner say – or come to that what would you care to say to yourself?
But somehow these quasi-journalists do keep their jobs and the stories run and run each year. So it is time to ask, can this year beat the 130 players tipped to join Arsenal last summer? I’m not sure, but we are up to 20, so only 111 more transfers left to be invented by someone with a bit of imagination before last season’s record is broken.
And here’s the funny thing: some of the people who write what is 97% or 98% absolute twaddle actually get paid for doing it!!!
So here is the story so far… And as you will see at the end, only three players are so far tipped to leave.
| No | Player | From | Source |
| NEW | Leon Bailey | Teamtalk | |
| 2 | Franceso Camarda, | AC Milan | FFC |
| 3 | Eduardo Camavinga | Real Madrid | Caught Offside |
| 4 | Ousmane Diomande | Sporting CP | Express The TrivelaEffect |
| NEW | Éderson | Atalanta | Sportwitness |
| 6 | Alexander Isak. | Newcastle Utd | Pain in the Arsenal Just Arsenal |
| 7 | Mikayel Faye | Barcelona | Hard Tackle |
| NEW | Santiago Giménez | Feyenoord | Inside Football TBR Sport Witness |
| NEW | Leon Goretzka | Bayern Munich | Football Espana |
| Update | Victor Gyokeres | Sporting Lisbon | Pain in the Arsenal, Football London, Just Arsenal, TBR FFC |
| NEW | Manu Kone | Borussia Monch’ | Caught Offisde |
| NEW | Hugo Larsson | Eintracht Frankfurt | 442 Sport Witness |
| NEW | Rafael Leao | AC Milan | Weallfollowunited |
| NEW | Arthur Melo | AC Milan | Sport Witness |
| NEW | Victor Osimhen | Napoli | TBR |
| Update | Benjamin Sesko | RB Leipzig | Caught Offside, , 90 Min |
| 18 | Georgiy Sudakov | Shakhta D | HITC |
| NEW | Ivan Toney | Brentford | TBR, Sports Mole London World |
| 20 | Martin Zubimendi | Real Sociedad | TeamTalk, Express |
| 20 | Joshua Zirkzee. | Bologna | Pain in the Arsenal, Sky Sports, Football Talk Arsenal Station, Caught Offside, |
| Leaving | |||
| 1 | Jorginho, | Barcelona | Teamtalk |
| NEW | Kieran Tierney | Celtic | Glasgow World |
| Update | Charlie Patino | Fulham | Hard Tackle, Football Espana Standard |
Has this week been a bit of a reality check for the premier League?
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Arsenal 2 – 2 Bayern Munich
Real Madrid 3 – 3 Man City
EUROPA LEAGUE
Leverkusen 2 – 0 West Ham
Liverpool 0 – 3 Atalanta
CONFERENCE
A Villa 2 – 1 Lille
Just the one victory for Villa, but even in that game Lille had more possession, shots on target and a higher xG
I realise not many put much stock in xG but never the less out of all our teams only Man City had a superior xG to their opponent, just.
it’s just a thought, because prior to kick off I would of said every Premier League team, besides West Ham, would of been favourites. Not looking that way now.
This is interesting as it shows poor refereeing has been on going for ages.
Dont recognise the voice though.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/1c1nj0a/proof_of_refs_ignoring_the_rules_to_serve_their/
Wondered the exact same thing, Nitram. The most surprising result is Liverpool’s, of course, because Big Teeth fielded a strong side. Does that mean that his players, far from huddling up in order to give him an exit in the form of a Roman triumph, are already worrying about what will become of them under the watch of his successor? That’d be good news for the Arsenal, wouldn’t it? (And I wish Bayern’s players had felt the same about Tuchel, btw).
Now one poor night for English clubs is not enough to draw conclusions of course, but the time had to come when the “continental” clubs understood they had to be better at … everything (scouting, developing players, training, buying on (very, compared to English clubs) limited resources, etc…) in order to simply not be demolished by PL clubs when facing them.
Lille are a case in point, actually … they boast three of the most promising French youngsters (Diakité, but most of all Chevalier/Yoro – they also have in store an excellent 18-y-o RB, Kemryk Nagera), have allowed back French “old”-timers (Bentaleb, André, Cabella, Umtiti) to come home to roost, developed one of the most sought-for CFs (David), unearthed (relatively) unknown players capable of moments of genuine brilliance (Zhegrova), etc … and put at their helm yet another Portuguese manager (Fonseca) whose work they don’t interfere with, and who seems to do the most of the trust they put in him.
This has been more or less Bayer’s recipe this season (with better players, a better manager of course … I’ve watched them a couple of times, they were astonishingly good), so that you can’t help but wonder what many English clubs actually use their money for – I can’t say I took much pleasure in our demolition of toothless Sheffield, for instance, how can they be that poor, aren’t they one of the richest clubs in Europe?
Which raises the question too – again – of the way so many English youngsters are downright sacrificed. I don’t think Moyes/West Ham gave one single minute of playing time to any of the players who won them last season’s Youth Cup in extraordinary fashion, how is such a thing even possible? English clubs ‘d rather pay big money for above-average foreign players (Villa with Kamara-Digne-Diaby for example), than nurturing, showing a little patience, for their homegrown talent, and reaping the rewards (just a little) later on. Graham Parker used to sing “Passion is no ordinary word”, and there sure is no such thing as the passion of a young professional playing for the only colors he’s ever dreamed of donning, namely his boyhood club’s.
I’ve mentioned both Villa and West Ham, but I keep believing we – The Arsenal – might take a good look at ourselves in that regard, only I fear I might raise the blood pressure of some of Untold’s faithful , which I resent doing (Hi, Chris – I like your comments a lot, so please hold your horses when you read this; excommunication is a bit harsh, don’t you think? I’m just a harmless old fan, voicing a harmless – or so I think – opinion).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIZ0kf7oYqg