By Sir Hardly Anyone
Last summer we kept a little list running of players who were tipped by the all knowing and extremely informed members of the media to be coming to or going from Arsenal. You will recall how Bellerin was utterly, totally, absolutely certain to leave, along with 21 other members of the squad, while 110 players were ready to come and join us.
I’ve waited until now to start running a little list on who is going and who is coming in, in the January transfer window, just to let things warm up a little. Here is the first edition.
In the coming days I shall do all sorts of exciting things such as putting part two in alphabetical order. And adding a few more names. But here are the starters.
| Player | Club | Position | Information | Extras | |
| Those we will let go | |||||
| 1 | Chuba Akpom | Arsenal | Striker | Ipswich fancy buying him | Could be a loan |
| 2 | Mathieu Debuchy | Arsenal | Defender | “Arsenal are increasingly anxious to sell him” | |
| 3 | Kieran Gibbs | Arsenal | Full back | Crystal Palace want him | |
| 4 | Olivier Giroud | Arsenal | Centre forward | New contract on offer | |
| 5 | Rob Holding | Arsenal | Defender | Loan to Aston Villa for rest of the season. | |
| 6 | Carl Jenkinson | Arsenal | Defender | Third loan spell to increasingly desperate West Ham. | |
| 7 | Mesut Özil | Arsenal | Midfield | Likely to leave | Likely to stay |
| 8 | Alexis Sanchez | Arsenal | Forward | Has signed turned down £9m a year to go to China. | He is going to Man City. Or Juentus |
| 9 | Jack Wilshere | Arsenal | Midfield | Arsenal have failed to open any negotiations with him re new contract | Shock horror |
| 10 | Arsene Wenger | Arsenal | Manager | PSG want him and will pay him £10m a year. | |
| Those we want to buy | |||||
| 1 | Franck Kessie | Atalanta | Midfield | Chelsea will outbid ARsenal Or if not then Man U will | He’s the next Yaya Toure |
| 2 | Julian Brandt. | Bayer Leverkusen | Striker | Liverpool! are in pole position. If not then Man U, Totts or Everton or… | |
| 3 | Christian Pulisic | Borussia Dortmund | No 10 | The hottest thing ever to come out of the USA | |
| 4 | Marco Reus | Borussia Dortmund | Attacking midfield | Can also play as a winger | Will come in if Alexis goes |
| 5 | Dimitri Payet. | West Ham | Arsenal now favourites to sign him. “The final piece in the jigsaw” | WHU boss says no chance | |
| 6 | Ademola Lookman | Charlton | Winger | Said to have agreed terms with Everton | |
|
7 |
Jordan Pickford |
Sunderland | Goalkeeper | And why exactly do we need another goalkeeper? | He will then be loaned back |
|
8 |
Jose Gaya. |
Valencia | Left Back | ||
|
9 |
Julian Draxler |
Wolfsburg | Forward | Arsenal unwilling to pay £34m, but Liverpool! are. | Draxler wants to leave |
|
10 |
Henry Onyekuru |
KAS Eupen | Forward | He’s 19 and has taken the Belgium league by storm | He’s an Arsenal fan |
|
11 |
Franck Kessié |
Atlanta | Centre back or def midfield | Has said “I miss the Champs League”. Tiny Totts want him. That makes no sense. | Has scored five this season |
|
12 |
Isco |
Real Mad | Attacking midfield | He’s unhappy. |
Of course the predictive success rate of those esteemed gentlemen of the media was horribly low, and indeed with some of the items they did get right, they rather cheated by not mentioning them until just a day or two before it happened.
What they did do last summer, and are now doing far more of, is blame someone else for each rumour. So the Daily Express, The Telegraph, the Sun etc etc never actually create any stories of rumours themselves. Oh no, absolutely not. No, they tell us that the story has appeared somewhere else and they are just “reporting” it.
Except that as we saw in the last window, there are two twists to this tale
One is that Newspaper A will quote Newspaper B as the source, but when one checks, Newspaper B is found to be quoting Newspaper A as the source.
The other is that a lot of these tales now are said to come from foreign newspapers and magazines, but when we check these foreign sources they either a) don’t exist, or b) don’t cover football or c) don’t seem to have run the story.
We’ll add some more in a few more days, but if you have spotted some other tales of Arsenal players coming or going please do write in and I’ll add them to the list.
- Just how much time do goalkeepers waste v Arsenal? The first ever statistics
- Current rules make matters difficult for youngsters trying to become professionals, and FA aspirations are not helping.
- Arsenal v West Brom Bus Station. Foster allowed to get away with breaking the rules throughout most of the game.
- Arsenal – Wall Building Army 1-0: Giroud the demolisher with the important goal
- Arsenal v WBA – the teams, players with very very long names, and some dangerous driving
Headline from the Daily Star. (or should it be Daily Scar)
‘Has Arsenal’s injury curse struck again? Prem star could face months out.
ARSENAL’S injury curse has taken things up a notch this December.’
I clicked on it to see which of our players has been struck down and it turns out the headline is referring to Jordan Pickford who you have in your list and of course plays for Sunderland.
That paper really is the lowest of the low.
I don’t remember if our ‘1st half season squad of 25’ included Danny Welbeck or not.
But it’ll be interesting to see which 15 leave in the coming transfer window to make room in the ‘2nd half season 25’, for the 15 we’ll be buying in this window…
Oh, I did see somewhere that we’re now interested in the young Ajax striker that has taken the Dutch league by storm 😀
Now watching saints spuds. Not complaining about choreography but is the underdog getting an early lead wearing a bit thin? Anyway thank you sky. If spurs were 2up I’d be watching midsomer murders.
Looks like Yet another Mike Dean assisted performance for the Spuds.
According to a PA poster, he has refer them three times this season, dished out three reds to their opposition, and two penalties to Spurs. Where we ever to get such favours…..
I think there could be a vacant room available in January for an attacking midfielder to come in into our 25 man 2nd half season squad if one of our 1st half 25 man squad is loaned out. But who will be loanee be? I think if at all a senior Gunner will be loaned out in January, it’s better to leave the matter for Le Prof to decide who the name should be.
Since the Gunners will not be having Santi Cazorla in their line-up for the crucial upcoming PL matches in Jan/Feb of 2016/2017, the vacuum left behind in the Arsenal’s midfield is yet to be adequately filled for proper utilization in our PL games in my view as Xhaka, Elneny and the intermittent injury hit Ramsey have not be able to step in into Cazorla’s shoes to adequately filled the gap left vacant in the Gunners’ engine room by Cazorla injury absent.
Since we don’t have a yaya Toure or a 2nd Cazorla in our midfield to fall back to and Ozil largely being a creative attacking midfielder and Arsenal should not be leaving authority at our midfield to chances, I think it has become very necessary for Le Prof to have a 2nd thought on his not needing to sign a senior player during tis coming January window and take a second look at the issue. For Arsenal need steel, timber & caliber in their midfield for a sustainable successful campaign in all competitions as from the 2nd half of this season.
Is a Dimitri Payet of West Ham good to fill this gap left behind by Cazorla absent in the Gunners’ midfield? Well, Le Prof knows best.
Spurs’ demolition of Southampton 1-4 at Saint Mary’s has left us with food for thought.
Last time i checked Draxler is going PSG, if I am not mistaken ?
It looks as if there is something very strange going on with the refs and the Spuddies this season – a bit like the apparent favouritism shown to Leister last season.
I watched the Dippers v Stoke match & was surprised at the relative lack of fouling by Stoke – not entirely clean, but very much less pushing, pulling, kicking, obstructing & no obvious stomping – a very different behaviour to their games against us. Also, the Dippers did not press half as hard against Stoke as against us – probably, because Stoke gave them a fairly easy game they didn’t need to.
The really big one missing from your lists is: Max Allegri (great name!) of Juventus who wants to take over if Wenger retires, as reported in Sun, Star & Express.
Also there are various reports of Ox Chamberlain being transferred to Liverpool.
The Jenkinson loan looks a bit obvious, and he’ll probably be gone for good this time.
I’m hugely amused by an article on the BBC website claiming that 36% of all rumours actually came to fruition and that the Guardian gets abut 70% of their speculation correct. Even the Daily Mail which I suspect has yet to get a rumour right this century is supposed to get over 40% correct.
It’s certainly not made clear what is actually a rumour but they must clearly be including things that are reported when it’s common knowledge that the deal has already been concluded but not officially announced by the club.
Most amusingly the BBC did report that Sky Sports got over half their rumours correct and that “non-newspaper sites” had the highest success rate yet they did not mention their own achievements…..or lack of them. Still, for a site that calls Mark Lawrenson a “football expert”, it’s not surprising really.
Mikey – Now that is something I must find
@bjtgooner and @mandy dodd
Spurs have had decisions go for and against them this season – though it seems that the decisions for them are the only ones that attract the media spotlight. And quoting statistics for Mike Dean’s record when refereeing Spurs games is meaningless without context. He might well have sent three opposition players off and awarded two penalties to Spurs but there’s nothing wrong with that unless they were mostly incorrect decisions (they weren’t). By the way, he also awarded one penalty against Spurs (also a correct decision) but that doesn’t seem to fit your agenda. Last night, for instance, the penalty probably wasn’t a penalty but there can be no question that the red card was a legitimate call by Dean. There is no way that a pull on a shirt can be interpreted as a genuine attempt to play the ball. And since the penalty was missed, no injustice was done.
JimB
Some interesting Mike Dean facts, including some Spurs related ones, here….
http://7amkickoff.com/index.php/2016/12/29/mike-dean-loves-drama-unless-hes-in-charge-of-an-arsenal-match/
@MickHazel
Interesting facts, indeed. But without context, they don’t tell the story that you think they are telling. Mandy Dodd was attempting to perpetuate and consolidate the myth that Dean is a Spurs fan (he’s a Tranmere fan from the Wirral) who routinely makes incorrect decisions in Spurs’ favour. Merely citing players sent off and penalties awarded tells us nothing about the validity of the decisions.
JimB
You are correct, context is all important.
You can find a lot of context in the referee reviews conducted by Walter and his team, a lot of which supports the fact that he is hard on Arsenal whilst soft on our opponents within the same game.
Thirteen games or so on the trot without a win under Dean’s stewardship suggests something is not quite right.
I won’t mention his blatant celebratory jump for joy when Saha scored for Spurs against us a few years ago!
Oops, I just did!
I can’t comment on Dean’s performances when refereeing Arsenal. I haven’t seen enough of them. But I have seen most of Dean’s games involving Spurs over the past 15-20 years and at least as many decisions have gone against Spurs in that time as for them.
His “blatant celebratory jump for joy” was far more likely an attempt to see the ball since he was unsighted and / or a self congratulatory reaction to his correct decision moments earlier to play an advantage.
i don’t think arsenal need any player for now let us build on the players we have for now, this current squad is one of the best squad in epl this season.thanks.
The media waffle about us buying a new goalkeeper was that before the WBA game Cech had not kept a clean sheet for a while.