By Illget Myman
The media seems as full as ever with names of players (many we must admit we have never heard of) who are at any moment going to come to Arsenal. In fact, what we have done today is pick out the first 20 we’ve found – but there are many more, and we’ll be bringing them into the list in the coming weeks of the window.
Now, in recent years, when we have run this series, we have eventually gained around 120 players’ names on the list, with around three per cent of the players actually coming to Arsenal.
But what is particularly interesting is that it does seem that quite a few clubs who are thinking of selling a player, put out totally invented stories of other players being bid for, in order to act as a cover for the real story – the transfer of a different player to, in our case, Arsenal.
The point of this is to smooth the way for the transfer to go through, to have the pesky journalists all looking the wrong way while allowing Arsenal and the selling club to get on with the deal-making.
Of course, such a scenario is rejected by others, but it is hard to find any other explanation as to how getting on for 97% of transfer rumours turn out to be untrue. How could websites and newspapers get everything so wrong so often?
Obviously, we don’t know because we are on the outside looking in, but what we can say is that when a player appears on the list of players that Arsenal are trying to sell, that usually means the opposite is true: that player is just a cover story for someone quite different, quite often from an utterly different club that Arsenal have made an enquiry about.
But these websites and newspapers do like to run the story, and it is quite good fun watching the nominated transfers fall by the way side, and of course at the end of the window we will tot up just how many correct transfers have been foretold. The record in past seasons is 3%.
Transfers so far predicted…
| Player | Position | From | Source | Amount | |
| Update | Julian Alvarez | Centre forward | Atletico Madrid | Football Fan Cast; Sky, Sport Witness, Caught Offside says Gyokeres in part ex | £150m+ AFC preferred bidder |
| Update | Andria Bartishvili | Attacking midfield | Kolkheti Poti | Gooner News | Not known |
| Update | Bradley Barcola | Winger | PSG | Sky Sports, Caught Offside, Football London, Arsenal news, Sports View, Give me Sport. Deal approved, but he wants PSG (Goonernews) £69m quoted | £45m+ |
| 4 | Andria Bartishvili | Attacking midfield | Iberia 1999 | Daily Canon, FFC “in talks” | Not quoted |
| 5 | Phoenix Blayney. | Goal keeper | Larne | Standard | Free? |
| Update | Ayyoub Bouaddi | 18 yr old midfield | LOSC Little | Hard Tackle: he wants to go to PSG, Sports Keeda says Vieira really likes him. | £60m+ |
| 7 | Alvaro Carreras | Left Back | Real Madrid | Hard Tackle, FFC | Only just signed |
| 8 | Ivan Fresneda | Defender | Real Valladolid, | Just Arsenal, Arsenal Station | No price specified |
| NEW | Antony Gordon | Winger | Newcastle | Currently on a long term contact | Arsenal monitoring |
| NEW | Morgan Greenwood | Forward | Marseille | Totts want him. | Footballpresse |
| 11 | Manu Kone | Midfield | Roma | Sun – Agreed deal | £43.2m |
| NEW | Khvicha Kvaratskhelia | Winger | PSG | Sky Sports – PSG don’t want to sell | £100m |
| 13 | Maxence Lacroix | Defender | Crystal Palace | Just Arsenal News | |
| NEW | Jeremy Monga | Leicester | Leicester | FFC – talks ongoing | Arsenal determined |
| Update | Morgan Rogers | Attacking mddfield | Aston Villa | Mirror; Sky, FFC. FoLo Villa lowered price (Standard). Rice telling him to sign. Rice trying to persuade him. | £100m, but price now discounted |
| NEW | Igor Thiago | Striker | Brentford | Football Pressed, EPL Index, club considering… | A priority |
| Update | Sandro Tonai | Midfield | Newcastle | FFC. ICFootball, £100m bid. Or £80m. | Totts interested |
| 18 | Nicolo Tresoldi | Striker | Club Brugge | Arsenal News | He’s honoured |
| 19 | Christos Tzolis | Winger | Club Brugge | Football 365 | |
| 20 | Kenan Yildez | Forward | Juventus | Gooner News | Club don’t want to sell |
More anon….
