- Two big stories circulate: can they both continue through the season?
- Arsenal: where’s the strategy? Is there a strategy? Does Arteta know what he’s doing?
By Sir Hardly Anyone
If you are the sort of Arsenal fan who follows the media’s notions of who Arsenal are going to sign, or at least who they ought to sign, you will have come across the nuame of Julián Alvarez. He used to play for Manchester City as a forward, although to be fair most people seem to have ManC on their CV somewhere, these days.
But it seems there is a problem now as he is with Atlético Madrid and the last thing in the world that club wants to do is sell a semi-decent player to Barcelona – the club that often beats them into third spot in the league table. So they look elsewhere.
Thus the player’s current employers (which is to say Atlético) want to sell him out of the country, which given the way the Spanish media talk about English football means Liverpool, Manchester United or Arsenal.
And increasingly this is the way that transfers are sorted out these days. The player that everyone is after because he currently looks rather nifty on the pitch wants to leave. OK, say his current employers, you can, but we don’t want you to go to X Y or Z. Which at the moment in Spanish football means “not Barcelona, not Real Mad and not At Mad.” Just as in England it means “not Arsenal and not ManC” (with ManC still included in the not list because they still haven’t settled their financial doings with the rest of the league, and that means they can outbid anyone on any player.)
So Arsenal have started to find themselves lined up as a potential home for players. Meetings between Miguel Ángel Gil Marín, CEO of Atlético de Madrid, will decide who can and who can’t buy their player. Arsenal await the all clear. Real Mad and Barce know there is no point in them bidding. Miguel Ángel Gil Marín is ready for Arsenal’s bid.
Of course, in England players were once told “yes you can go anywhere except ManC” are now allowed to move because the belief that ManC will not be able to buy their way back to the top is dominant: the chance of a financial punishment hangs heavy. But there is a growing wish not to let players sign for Arsenal. In fact, we now have the odd position where if Arsenal show an interest in a player, the selling club takes him off the “for sale” list and starts trying to work out what Arsenal see in him.
Arsenal have only been put in this position of late, but they are now quickly learning the tricks of the trade. If club X looks like it could be building a decent squad for the coming season, one of the rival top clubs suggests they are really interested in Player X. This takes everyone by surprise, and at the very least the rivals at the top then waste a lot of time and money negotiating a new deal with a player who in reality is not really worth it. In short clubs now have a dewpartment focussed on wasting the time of other clubs!
Thus distracting the opposition and getting them to waste time (and if they are really susceptible, money) is now part of the summer game. Get your rivals to huff and puff over one player while you sneak in and buy another; that’s how it goes.
Of course the media have been very helpful in this, because for years they have been packed solid with players that the top six clubs are allegedly about to buy, leaving other clubs running round in circles wondering what these clubs have seen in those players, before they finally realise it was all either completely made up, or a hoax, and a way to make other clubs waste their time.
Journalists and their editors don’t mind this at all of course, because all they are interested in is filling column inches and then moving on to the next story. ManC are even said to have bought one or two of the duds just to keep the opposition confused, before moving them on to another club in the City group, or simply putting them in the reserves. It is why agents have got more and more wary of dealing with the club – or at least that is the rumour (for obviously none of these matters can be proven, since no one ever admits anything).
But at least such stories keep clubs in the news and that is always in the clubs’ interest.
