By Tony Attwood
- It doesn’t matter who scores the goals, but which are not in the top 4 is interesting
- Mikel Arteta and the benefit of having a complete clear-out
1: Kepa Arrizabalaga
The issue of a backup keeper is always a tough one. He’s got to be a player who knows he might not get a game, but has to be ready to step in immediately if something serious happens to the first-choice man. Which means he can look forward to League Cup matches, and maybe the odd FA Cup game against a lower division team.
The brilliantly named “Kepa” is on a three-year contract, so he sits and waits. Reports say he is a very good keeper in that he played over 100 times for Chelsea, and 14 times for Real Madrid when on loan, plus 31 games last season for Bournemouth. He’s also turned out 13 times for Spain, so to have him as a backup really is quite a coup.
2: Eberechi Eze
Looking like a player who will grow into the team and grow into his role in the team – he is clearly working his way into the system. True, he is not scoring, but he is shooting, and one of things that the media love to ignore is the fact that Arsenal are, as we point out, second top scorers at the moment, just one behind ManC and their goal scoring machine. Last season, Arsenal scored 1.82 goals a game. This season so far, it is 2.0 goals a game in the League , and considering the fixtures we’ve had, that is not bad. Only Manc is better on 2.14.
3: Viktor Gyokeres
Now we are into big money with this move from Sporting. One of the thoughts that arises with these deals is that it wasn’t only Arsenal that were going for lots of players. The thinking must be that the likes of ManC, Chelsea, Newcastle, Tottenham and Liverpool will all be looking to buy if they don’t make an impact between now and January, so if he doesn’t quite make it, he could be sold on.
But that’s not to say Arsenal won’t keep him and make him part of the title-winning squad. After all, he scored three in ten, which, for a club that in recent years has preferred the method of sharing the goals around, is not bad.
4: Noni Madueke
Chelsea, as we know, buy all the players going and make player trading as important a business as actually playing football; so a £52m sale to Arsenal is just part of their normal activity. He does have a poor injury record however, and having paid this much, it seems unlikely that he is not going to be a major part of the squad this season as long as he is fit.
5: Cristhian Mosquera
On an interestingly long contract considering Arsenal’s fee was £13m, which reflects the notion that Arsenal think he really will develop. And we must remember he is only 21. Exactly the young player we need in case Saliba is injured. There is even talk of him being the “bargain of the summer”.
6: Christian Norgaard
Came from Brentford for a basic fee of £12m on a two-year deal. If he really does well in cup matches, he could step up, but otherwise it looks like life on the bench … but then again, last season’s record-breaking injury run would continue, if other clubs are thinking “we got away with kicking them last year, let’s try it again”.
7: Martin Zubimendi
He was brought in for £55m from Real Sociedad and given a five-year contract to go with it. He’ll take time to get used to the oddities of the Premier League and the refereeing approach, and the lunatic media “analyses” which we can expect in the coming months, but it looks like he will get the idea fairly quickly. One can only hope that Arsenal has a division within the club in which members of the club can speak to incoming players from abroad, in the player’s own language, warning them that there is something extremely odd, not to say biased, about the English media and about English referees, when it comes to football.
