These purchases for Arsenal make no sense financially or logically

By Sir Hardly Anyone

It is interesting that the level of promised signings continues to rise without any consideration of money, or sales or indeed fitting the team together. In fact it was only a short while ago that Arsenal announced a series of redundancies among the recruitment staff, which was widely interpreted in the media as being due to financial constraints, and yet the same media predict more and more purchases.

For example “Football Talk announces, “Arsenal are in talks over a potential deal to sign Lyon star Houssem Aouar as Mikel Arteta looks to pull-off a double midfield swoop also involving Dani Ceballos,” but then add, “according to The Athletic,” so as to remove any responsibility from themselves.

However there is one chink of light and reason, and this from the most unlikely of sources. For following our little piece yesterday about trying to fit the players into a 25 man squad, for today they are saying, “…if he is to make more additions, Arteta will have to sell players in order to free up funds and also space in the squad.”

They then quote Sol Campbell as saying that he “thinks Arteta should sell Guendouzi, Sead Kolasinac, Calum Chambers, Rob Holding and Sokratis.”

FoLo, never wanting to take responsibility for any story they run, now turn to Fabrizio Romano, an Italian journalist, to suggest Atletico Madrid’s Thomas Partey “remains a key target, while rumours are gathering pace regarding Lyon’s Houssem Aouar who reportedly wants to join a Premier League club.”

And how will they pay for this? Well, perhaps taking note of our admonishments about not thinking of the money, only the transfers, they say, “one particular transfer could be fantastic news for the Gunners in their bid to raise funds as AS Monaco have confirmed the signing of Kevin Volland from Bayer Leverkusen.”

That in turn means Bayer Leverkusen have money to throw around and suggest that “Reports in Germany claim Gunners left-back Sead Kolasinac is on the Bundesliga club’s radar. According to Sport Bild, a transfer fee taking the defender back to Germany would be around €15 million (£13m) which is what they have pocketed from the Volland deal.”

You might notice here that not only is FoLo not taking responsibility for the story when it comes to Kolasinac leaving, we are down to “reports in Germany”. Quite possibly “reports in England” are used in Germany in the same way.

So the question again arises, why does no one take any responsibility for the story – why are they always reporting what someone else says? Is it

a) because they are too lazy to do their own reporting?

b) because they know the stories are all hokum and recognise that of the 130+ Arsenal transfer stories that have circulated this summer only a handful are likely to be true?

c) because the original source didn’t actually say what they claim?

That last point might seem a bit alarming, and yet on the occasions when Untold has invested the time and effort tracking the original story down and translating it into English, that is indeed what we have found.

And what throws a pebble into the smoothly oiled machine that is journalistic research, is the fact that Arteta did say, “I have been really clear that everybody starts from zero all the time in football. What you did two weeks ago or two years ago doesn’t really matter.”

So maybe Guendouzi stays. And yes there was a mistake in our calculations about Guendouzi’s age. To be “under 21” for the 2020-1 season, you had to be born later than 1 January 1999, and he was indeed born on 14 April 1999. Which means he has a double value in the squad, since he won’t count as one of the 25.

One curious story however is that Sokratis Papastathopoulous is being offer for sale at £3.5 million. Now that is in the Express – but yet again they won’t take credit for discovering that. They blame it on the Mirror. But in fact a look back at the Mirror, and they don’t claim responsibility either, stating that a £3.5m fee is “being touted” – meaning by someone else. But they do say who by, and so the trail goes cold.

One last one, and it is back to FoLo at their hilarious best for this, as not only is it convoluted it also includes the invention of a new word. They have the headline “What Lionel Messi’s transfer bombshell means for Arsenal’s hopes of signing Philippe Coutinho.”

Scroll down through the story to see where this leads and what the player actually says is “I have to go back to Barcelona; I want to work hard to have a great year. I don’t know if it will be there [Barca] but I want to work hard.”

The story continues, “The incentive for Barcelona to move Coutinho on is obvious. The 28-year-old collects a sizable (sic) wage from the club, and while his market value has dropped, a full sale would boost their transfer budget and help the club overhaul their playing squad.”

Which is a bit odd since they appear to be losing Messi – but for a fee (not a free as Messi’s dad tried to claim).

The article continues, “A move to Arsenal would not only put him with a talented young coach in Mikel Arteta, but it would allow him a fresh start in a league he is familiar with.

“Coutinho developed considerably while at Liverpool, and with his career at something of a crossroads (he is now a Champions League winner, but needs a home), the chance to go back to the site of his best form could be too tempting.”

Now that is fair enough, but that has nothing to do with Messi. And yet the headline was “What Lionel Messi’s transfer bombshell means for Arsenal’s hopes of signing Philippe Coutinho.”

If Messi leaves, Barcelona are rolling in money. If he stays why would that affect Coutinho, other than making Coutinho want to play in a team with Messi in it?

This tendency towards the non sequitur is now the dominant force in football reporting. One might as well say, “Why the current increase in rainfall in London is bad news for Arsenal.” Or “Why Boris Johnson’s allegation in Parliament that Keir Starmer supported the IRA is good news for Arsenal.”

Indeed I think it might be worth taking half a dozen football headlines and then translating them into an English phrase that actually reflects the article. It would probably result in quite a different (although quite often quite amusing) headline.

Maybe I’ll have a go.

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