Arsenal’s transfer window grinds to a halt; even fantasy transfers have stopped

By Tony Attwood

Untold Arsenal has gathered together the transfer rumours published in the media during each transfer window for the last eight or nine years, and each summer we have found well over 100 players tipped by the media to be coming to Arsenal.  And each season, only between two and three per cent of those players have actually arrived.

Of cours,e the media has then blamed Arsenal for being too slow, or too miserly or too unimaginative in not getting their men, although such arguments have become tougher to maintain in a period of three successive runners-up positions.

But we have had our fun pointing out the woeful inadequacy of the media in covering these issues, just as they have pointed out the woeful inadequacy of the club in bringing in players.   Yet really, an accuracy rate of only around three percent really doesn’t say much for football journalism.

However, this summer it all seems to have changed and we seem to be running at half speed with only 60 players so far nominated as coming to Arsenal.   So why is this?   Could it be….

a) That Arsenal really are a lot more sure who they want and are not chasing 100+ possible players around the globe?

b) Given that between 97% and 98% of players nominated each summer in the past have never arrived, the media is getting a bit embarrassed by its annual failure to give us the actual news, with publishers telling writers to “get it right for once”.

c) The annual publication of our rumour list, with the revelation that only between 2% and 3% of the transfer rumours turn out to be true, has embarrassed the pundits, and they have pulled back on about half of their crazed stories.

We don’t know of course, although I think the last option is the least likely – I’ve never met any football journalist who actually cares when his predictions or reports are shown to be either woefully inadequate, or actually wrong.

But even so we do have some predictions, and here is the current table of incoming and then of outgoing players. According to the media.