- Which clubs are spending now, and what they spent last season.
- So now we know how the Arsenal story will run from here on in. Time to hold our nerve.
By Tony Attwood
Is what we read, really what the world of football transfers is about? People trying to spend £80m and not knowing if the deal ever was possible, let alone whether the player will fit into the team… Really is that how football is run?
In fact, for journalists, most of whom have never spent a single day working for a company outside of the world of journalism, it is all a game of inventing or copying another headline that is a fantasy involving spending other people’s money.
As for the notion of checking the accuracy of any story – those days are long since gone – indeed, if you have looked at our summer transfer tracker over the last five years or so, you’ll have noticed that at most Arsenal sign just 3% of the transfers that the media highlights. Sometimes just 2%. What would happen in your job if you got a 98% failure rate?
So, an insight into what’s going on can be found with today’s headlines with their contradictory stories – in reality, they can’t all be even half right,
Take Gyokeres to Arsenal’s ‘collapse imminent’ as Berta makes U-turn on deal – report; that’s from “Ethan Nwaneri wears Sporting shirt as Arsenal iron out Viktor Gyokeres deal.
But then some deals just never get off the ground as we find with “Arsenal-linked ‘complete’ striker now set for £58m move to Saudi Arabia” That is from
So we are left hanging on because there is still Viktor. And maybe it is not all over because ‘There’s no doubt’ – Viktor Gyokeres message over Arsenal transfer will be comforting. That’s from the Mirror.
In desperation, some of the media then turn to so-called experts who at this moment seem to know nothing more than we do, as with the wonderful ‘I think’ headline as : Alan Shearer delivers his thoughts on Arsenal signing Viktor Gyokeres That is TBR.
And we all know, because we are told all the time, that Arsenal couldn’t negotiate a gin and tonic in the first class lounge, so the story expands into one we get every summer, that Arsenal are so utterly inept at everything that other clubs simply wait for Arsenal to go out and find the player and then hi-jack the deal.
Thus what lets Arsenal down every summer is Arsenal’s meanness and incompetence. But supposing, in fact, that it is Arsenal giving lazy journalists all these funny stories of transfers that never happen, to cover up the real activity. And the journos have never realised!!!!!
For if Arsenal are actually after X, wouldn’t they immediately tell all the pint-slopping journos that they are actually after Y and are in a bidding war with club Z over the player?
Or indeed might they not make up some alternative tale just to keep the journos off their back and give them the space to get the deal through?
The journos would then need a story to cover their backs, so they invent some other player Arsenal is after and how another club has just hijacked the deal.
And just supposing Arsenal were as bad at transfer deals as we are told every summer, you’d think someone would tell the Arsenal negotiating team that ManU or TotteH or Ipswich T or some other similar club has made an offer
But no, Arsenal never get it. All we know is that Arsenal are awful at negotiation, because 90% of the players Arsenal are getting don’t turn up and someone else gets the player. Indeed, so all-pervading is the “hopeless Arsenal” story that the collapse of talks is expected, as with Mourinho Poised to Swoop for Gyokeres if Arsenal Talks Collapse
Thus if only the journalists were allowed to negotiate the deals, Arsenal would have every star player on the planet.
So we have Arsenal and Sporting Lisbon ‘haven’t spoken for three days amid Viktor Gyokeres transfer impasse. Let’s put it this way: why does Arsenal only hire naff negotiators, while every other club has people who can get things done.
Or are all these stories are just journalistic fantasies?
And how come everyone else knows better than Arsenal, as with Arsenal must end Noni Madueke talks with Mikel Arteta’s ‘dream target’ told his team are ‘better off’ without him
Tony,
We know it’s all click-bait but the editors must give them direction. Unfortunately, the instruction is you must write five complete lies re transfers before breakfast. The rest of the day write as many as you want. It’s nonsense. I read a headline and move on. There is nothing true in the article and I know it. When the Martin Zubimendi signing was confirmed by Arsenal’s announcement I read the stories. I hadn’t clicked on anything before. Gyokeres? If he signs I’ll read about it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite familiar with both players from their actual performances and don’t need the so-called journos to apprise me of their abilities.
I’m really stoked by the Zubimendi signing. His distribution and ball winning tactics will help Arteta’s style of getting goals from all over the pitch, not just from the no. 9 position. Rice can rampage and Odegaard can find the spaces. Souinds exciting to me. And now they’ve added Norgaard to the group. He can deputise for Rice or Zubimendi. It seems Berta is about building squad depth. Whichever striker they add will have to fit the system, not the other way round.
OT but before the new season begins I want to say that I have so much respect and appreciation for last year’s squad. To come second enduring extreme adversity was an achievement in my eyes. Thank you boys!
Hear Hear to that final paragraph. Absolutely agree.
@ Gooner72
I could not agree more with your OT.