By Tony Attwood
“Bashing Arsenal” articles ebb and flow through the window, and one of these websites has had a bit of a bash at Arsenal of late, leading with the headline “The 10 players waving goodbye to Arsenal today as Mikel Arteta transfer plan clear” (I know that seems like an incomplete sentence but that is what it says here at 1525 today)
It states that “The club had already decided that eight players would not be renewed: Sam Chapman, Harrison Dudziak, Seb Ferdinand, Cam’ron Ismail, Will Lannin-Sweet, Josh Nichols, Samuel Onyekachukwu and Alexei Rojas-Fedorushchenko,” although that is of course the normal summer review that most Premier League clubs go through in the, well, summer. But the website tells us Arsenal have got this quite wrong as “Arsenal should be demanding enhanced prices for players that they too might sell this summer, be that Gabriel Martinelli, Martin Odegaard or Ethan Nwaneri.”
Now that seems a bit weird since I am not sure that Arsenal want to sell any, let alone all of those stars, especially after Goal.com and others say, “Gabriel Martinelli lost for words after record-breaking goal sends Brazil through after rough start against Japan.”
But anyway, on Arsenal the website says, “Arsenal want to find the stars rather than sign the stars and they’re right to. However, while this is a smart move, it will not address the here and now, and so there is a need to upgrade the squad, but do so realistically without breaking the bank.”
Now at this point a spot of context is helpful. Arsenal won the league last season by seven points and a better goal difference than second-placed ManC. That’s not to say that Arsenal don’t want some more players, but it doesn’t really suggest Arsenal are desperate.
The average age of the Arsenal first-team squad for the 2025/26 season was approximately 26.7 years. This compares with the average age of the Manchester City squad for the 2025/26 season is 26.4 years. Manchester United’s average age was 26.5 years. So Arsenal were pretty much in line with their nearest rivals. Losing one old timer and bringing in a couple of younger players is the norm at this time.
Now the article continues with the news that Arsenal are facing major transfer complications after a £116m deal was agreed. But after a load of vague meandering mumbo jumbo we get to the concept that “If Arsenal want to land their top targets, they might again have to break their transfer record for a single summer, which was set last summer when the club dropped around £250million on seven players.”
That of course, is an opinion, and it is followed by the evidence of Arsenal’s poor performance in the windows past, with the statement ” Edu Gaspar was notorious for not getting the best value from potential exits, infamously cancelling many contracts with interest in the likes of Mesut Ozil, Shkodran Mustafi and Sead Kolasinac, among others, non-existent.” The problem of course, was with players bought through in the previous regime who Arteta didn’t think were right for the club and sold not by Edu but by those clearing up after he went to Forest.
So we then get links such as “Andrea Berta given £100m-plus transfer mission after Arsenal market disaster” and “Man City set to hand Arsenal £120m transfer nightmare to rock Morgan Rogers move”.
Put another way, if a rival club sees Arsenal after a player, they put the price up – at least according to the newspapers. What the paper is talking about, by its own admission, are media claims that Arsenal want this or that player (Bruno Guimaraes is an example) for a price. Of course it is possible that the player will go to Arsenal for the price said, but since 97% of the transfers listed by the media don’t actually happen, the chance of one happening at the price a newspaper predicts is about 100 to 1.
Furthermore, players are able to decide if they want to move or not, and all clubs are frightened of a valuable asset simply staying at a club and letting his value wind down as his contract comes to an end. Generally, however, player, selling club and buying club come to an agreement, while journalists are left out in the cold looking like the bozos they often are.
But the main point of the piece is that Arteta is (allegedly) not to be trusted with money and that because he makes mistakes he has to “spend millions correcting”. Except that in the next paragraph they say “Arsenal transfer latest: Path clears for dream signing as Morgan Rogers bid prepared.”
And we must remember none of these transfers has happened and each summer only3% ofthe Arsenal transfers invented by the media actually do go ahead. We are at the stage of “Arsenal told asking price for Martin Odegaard replacement after buy-back clause decision,” which means it might just be a club announcing a price for a player that the newspaper has decided could be the man to replace Odegaard when he eventually moves on, in a year or three.
Most of the stuff they are producing is of course, just bonkers as with “Why Arsenal must pursue ‘cheat code’ transfer for Bruno Guimaraes to complete dream midfield” and “Declan Rice just sent Marcus Rashford Arsenal transfer plea to Mikel Arteta.”
So we get to “when it comes to the marquee signings, the question will be whether Arsenal are willing to pay over the odds or look elsewhere. You could argue the choice is between becoming part of the problem or fighting against it.
“When you’re at the very top, staying there can often be even harder than getting there, and for Arsenal, now that they’re champions, finding players that will push the quality needle is going to cost them big money.” And actually I think we knew that.
The joy of the speculation and stirring up the fans.
The A-wipe media making up stupid figures. Same old same every year, as you say 97% wrong speculations by the A-Wipe Arsenal Hating media.
Arteta knows what he wants and we have faith in his decisions, and both we and the A-Wipe media, won’t know until it’s already happened.
We know other teams will improve and it will be harder to retain the title from past experience.
But we will also improve but also keep our winning squad together, and add a couple more assets to cope with the expected (non ref protecting) pending injuries, and the 60 plus game fatigue, but to acknowledge this by improving and progressing ahead of our competition once again.
I am not worried as we already have a winning squad, but we know from history that we need to improve to retain the title as other teams will get better and will be aiming to knock us off our throne.
Arteta will be the first modern manager to retain the modern premier title this year with Arsenal. We have faith in Arteta.
We won’t know of any new player assets until Arsenal have once again pulled a master stroke in landing a surprise couple of world class assets, and also hopefully promoting a couple of academy players to add to this great winning squad of players, by surprising us all once again.
Gooners for ever