I was joking about Gnabry I'm sure he has no regrets about bayern. But who would have predicted Alexis to regret his move? I certainly didn't.
This afternoon RMC Sport claim the Gunners have seen an offer worth £31million plus an unnamed player rejected for Aouar. Matteo Guendouzi is likely to be the man included in the swap deal offer.
I have to be honest - I'm concerned that we seem no closer to signing a box-to-box or creative midfielder. The season starts in 3 days and we look no closer to offloading players either. Luiz has a neck strain and could be out for a while, which explains why Holding's loan to Newcastle was called off. What about the rest? Smith Rowe was being touted as an important attacking force for us this season, but he's apparently injured again. Hence why he's not been in any training photos recently. Going into the season with our midfield options being Xhaka, Elneny, Guendouzi, Willock & Ceballos is absolutely criminal. Where's the ball carriers? Who is going to create our chances? Are we going to be heavily reliant on wing backs? Everton have (on paper) superior midfield options to us now with the signings of Doucoure, James Rodriguez and Allan. This shouldn't be happening.
Confirmed that we're in talks with Aouar. And it seems like the Partey thing will run to the end too. Remember the transfer window stays open until 5th Oct this year, not ideal I know, but it means that some deals won't get done until nearly another month as passed.
Yeah its going to be tricky because Thomas Partey and Aouar and both TOP players and will want high wages. Not only do they have to generate the fee's by selling players (about £95m) they also have to convince them that Arsenal is a project worth joining - despite not having Champions League next Season. It looks like its only a matter of time before Kolasinac and Torreira leave so that's around £30m - then there's the possibility of Guendouzi (£30-40m), Elneny(£10m), Sokratis (£3.5m) and Lacazette(£40m) or possibly Bellerin (£30m). I think Arsenal would rather not sell Lacazette/ Bellerin but may end up accepting bids as they feel they have decent options in those positions.
Fabrizio Romano confirming that Auba has definitely signed and that we are going to be signing Icelandic goalkeeper Runar Alex Runarsson to replace Emi Martinez for around £1.5m. Which makes much more sense compared to spending £10m+ on David Raya of Brentford. Hopefully that additional cash can go towards funding Aouar or Partey (or ideally both, but it's looking unlikely at this point).
Sell Martinez and Torreira for £45m and buy Runarsson and Partey for £46.5m to replace them? Fine with me.
Auba signed. Emilio sold, Sokratis and Torreira on the way out. If Arsenal are serious about signing Partey and Aouar they would still need to sell at least one more player on top of that just to meet the 'non-homegrown' player regulations.(Mustafi, Guendouzi, Kolasinac.. possibly Elneny) I think we may sign one of the two but if we do manage to pull off both this would be the best transfer window in years.
Reports coming out of France are that Arsenal have put a Second bid in for Aouar. (close to the £55m asking price) Lets hope they can get this over the line quickly. Its funny when you look at Aouar and Partey our main targets it is clear that Arteta is looking for players that can carry the ball and play out of tight spaces and when you assess our midfield thats exactly what we lack.
Currently being linked to Jorginho at Chelsea. really don’t understand this one. He’s the exact type of player we don’t need. Another xhaka and Elneny - neither good offensively or defensively.
Arsenal are a joke of a club. So poorly run we penny pinch on Auoar but completely waste money on Cedric and Mari in January. We have God knows how many CB's. We are loaning Toreira but can't negotiate Partey into that deal.
Wenger really took over a decade of blame from arsenal fans for being stingy in the transfer market. It's crazy how we are still stingy after he's gone.... Clearly Wenger was not the one to blame. That man clearly deflected all blame from the board and fans to himself. Kroenke is a virus.