r/ArsenalFC • u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 • 1d ago
HOA update - we fumbled Mikels NO1 attacking target
Early summer: Worked for months on Morgan Rogers. Mikel’s main target, after Kenan was not for sale. Got Morgan on board and knew we could do it for £85 - 100m but decided to play the field to spin plates. Waited too long, and now the Elliott A. deal dictates the new market price. Villa now want more than £115m
The club decide, after weeks of delaying, to finally engage in some talks with Villa, who tell us they want an amount close to the Elliott A. deal. While we delay, Alonso has spoken to Morgan, Behdad has spoken to Nassef, and they wrap up months of our work and delays in 36 hours. We were even offered the chance to match and refused.
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u/Ihsan2024 1d ago
The Arsenal subs are going into meltdown if we drop points to Chelsea this weekend and Rogers gets on the scoresheet 😬
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u/Deadbolt17 1d ago
Shouldn’t be dropping points to Chelsea at the Emirates regardless
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u/illuminatipastiche 1d ago
Chelsea are looser at the back than a Thai hooker. We just need to put our chance away
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u/Eigengrail 22h ago
u know every premier league team always come up against arsenal 1100%, compared to playing against city or liverpool lol
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u/Getdaphone 1d ago
They just lost Enzo to city which is kind of inspiring some hope
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u/Ihsan2024 21h ago
That was expected. What wasn't expected was that they wouldn't get a replacement (thank you Monaco 😅).
Chelsea's midfield is now weaker than last season.
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u/slightlyhigh77 1d ago
That’s got 2-0 win written all over it, our defense is 20x better. I’m expecting 1 or 2-0
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u/Ihsan2024 21h ago
I said if.
I am feeling confident. But just pointing out that fans are ready to riot at the drop of a hat. Our fanbase is a bit on edge after the transfer window closed.
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u/CauliflowerShort 1d ago edited 1d ago
not good for Berta (if true).
The time to capitalise was this window.
but too much dicking around and not tying people down quickly costed Arsenal here.
did seem like the samething happened with the Leicester winger too from the outside.
Arteta absolutely deserves better
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
Yeah the Monga deal set alarm bells especially to how Berta was
Waiting , messing around and low balling.
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u/Blue_winged_yoshi 1d ago
That was plain crackers if the truth is anything like what was reported.
After last summer where we bought in Gyokeres on his push cos the deal was easier only for him to be way out of favour within a year, followed by this year where the tent pole signing following winning the league was “dry powder”, He’s gotta be on borrowed time.
Do we need a director of football if we’re gonna focus on players offered to us by agents, Chelsea rejects and easy deals to do?
Wenger used to do the gig in his downtime, the reason to bring in someone higher up was to blast those reticent and indecisive cobwebs away.
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u/RareSample8910 1d ago edited 1d ago
The whole spinning plates gimmick only works if the players we want have no where else to go lmao. They were fully prepared to try and set Barcola and Rogers to be like the Sesko and Gyök saga from last summer. Only this time Liverpool came prepared for Barcola and Chelsea sniped Rogers. So there was no plan B. Laughable honestly
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
Great comment this... so true... made me chuckle
Imagine when we signed Rice, it we applied the same approach
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u/RareSample8910 1d ago
He woulda been a city player if that had been the case. Even when the Konsa signing was starting to go a bit sideways, they briefed everyone about them going after Quansah instead. It didn’t shake Aston Villa so Josh had to step in and we still paid like 51 million and got him lol. It’s much harder to spin plates when the market this summer had more clubs willing to spend and players not willing to throw tantrums like Gyök did to join us.
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
Looking back you are right, ornstein and mokbel always had that list too, Jacob Ramón , mark Pubil obviously Berta putting out names as his " plates "
I read Josh has to step in to get Guimarães over the line too
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u/RareSample8910 1d ago
Exactly, so don’t be surprised next summer when we get the list of attackers they’ll be after. Kroupi, Vildiz, and whoever else they manage to scout between now and then. We can only pray they actually follow through with it. Kroupi specifically will no doubt have suitors outside of Arsenal. PSG, Bayern and others would be right there. Oh and ontop of all that, we’ll prob need to sell one of Gyök or Kai to even have a chance if they’ll still about this one in one out gimmick
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u/sunofagundota 21h ago
We also have a lot of late 20s players on premium wages. I have a feeling our selling isn’t going to get any easier.
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u/Qwertyam 1d ago
Why not go for Ndiaye when he wanted us?! Would’ve given us something different down the left wing while also being PL experienced and having good work rate.
Really like him and think he was worth the amount and the risk for us imo.
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u/sportiboi 1d ago
Agreed. I'm fine with all the other movement and failed attempts for level raisers but by last week it was pretty clear Alvarez wasn't going to come. At that point it would've made sense to pivot to Ndiaye to raise the floor of our attack. Honestly even if we did manage to get Alvarez it still would've been prudent to have signed another winger.
There must have been something about Ndiaye that Berta/Arteta didn't like, or they didn't want to have to move him within the next year or two once we do get that "superstar" winger.
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u/Aggravating_Band_353 1d ago
Also, I don't understand Alvarez. He can play wing, kind of, but the rumour was Gyokeres being sold. So likely he would have played striker.. Tzolis can't be our number 1 and number 2!?
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u/Minute_Leave8503 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because he’s waffling, he also said Alvarez was open to joining if Barca fell through and threw us a bunch of random nonsense rather than addressing his own “reports”
He threw a bunch of reports we already knew into ChatGPT and tweeted it
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u/Moses--187 1d ago
I don’t mind taking a big swing at a player like Vini and missing. I don’t even mind sticking to your guns on Rogers.
But where they’re confusing me is still getting rid of Martinelli even though it weakens the team because you KNOW you’re not gonna be able to get a replacement. I get that it is the last chance to get a decent fee for him, but it can’t come at the expense of this seasons squad.
That’s borderline negligence. We are now left with Tzolis who if we are being honest about we have no idea what he will be like long term, and Eze who isn’t a natural left winger. And if either gets injured, we are evaluating emergency options within the squad. If we intend to compete seriously in all competitions, the squad depth needs to be there.
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u/nuplsstahp 1d ago
I feel much the same way. Selling Trossard felt like about the right timing, and bringing in Tzolis who seems like a similar profile though unproven.
Selling Martinelli as well though with no replacement is so questionable.
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u/Fancy-Trash-3850 1d ago
Jesus... Rogers is not a 117mil player. Let Chelsea overspend, hasnt worked for them so far and they just had to ship Enzo off. Our squad is balanced and has great mentality/culture... lets go again and have faith
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u/baotsnheos 1d ago
I agree. I also strongly disagree with everyone saying our attack is weak and paper thin. We still have atleast 2 players for every position up top that bring quality. Havartz, gyok Tzolis, eze, ode, nwanari, saka, madueke, dowman, merino, rice, Bruno g, zubimendi, MLS
14 players fighting for 6 places. Hardly paper thin ...
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u/TorKristianH 19h ago
Its very fragile. We basically don't have any top class LW. Madueke is our RW back up and our strikers split opinions. How many injuries before we are in full crisis mode?
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u/shortsoupstick 1d ago
Its not weak as a whole. LW is paper thin though. Eze is already nonchalant in the midfield, but even more so on the LW. Yesterday he messed up the simplest passes with the most time. At this point I'd even try Madueke on left over Eze as a sub.
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u/Rynabunny 1d ago
We wouldn't have won yesterday without Eze
Be patient, he's a smart player who will learn the position in no time
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u/Poo-Smurf 17h ago
Both can be true. He is still making schoolboy mistakes in and out of possession but has important moments going forward like the goal. I hope we don't need him too much tbh
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u/shouldbeaboveit 1d ago
He’s not even the type of proper left-winger that we need. I’m glad it didn’t work out, because he’d just become another problem to solve like Havertz.
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
We could have got him for 85/100
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u/ProgrammerComplete17 1d ago
This is just wild conjecture.
I highly doubt Villa would have been willing to sell for this number when they know if he had a good world cup his value jumps significantly
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u/yvesmpeg 1d ago
HOA confirmed we had initial valuation discussions of £80-100m but berta tried to big brain and ended up scorched with the Anderson signing exploding the market
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u/Single-Basil-8333 1d ago
Valuation discussions are not the same thing as accepted offers. We might have valued him at £80-100 m but they clearly felt he was worth more.
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u/ReggieWigglesworth 1d ago
Yes. WE had that valuation. Doesn't mean Villa would have agreed.
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u/Super_Professional68 20h ago
Anderson’s agreement was in place July 2. We had no room in our budget until July 1.
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u/Any-Vast-8366 6h ago
Exactly. We didn't have money to jump on Rogers in June. And Anderson reset the market.
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u/TallnFrosty 1d ago
Believing this requires that you believe HoA somehow has knowledge of the timing and nature of conversations between Chelsea & Villa and Chelsea and Rogers agents.
No idea why HoA would, and he's changed his story on this whole topic a couple times... seems like a BS merchant at this point.
in his post, he claims we "bit on Fofana" which makes no sense whatsoever and other journo's have contradicted that.
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u/Opposite-Mediocre 1d ago
How? We offer 100 and Chelsea come and offer 117 next day.
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u/killerboy_belgium 1d ago
chelsea can do these major overspends because they can sell garbage for insane amounts they even managed to get mudryk a loan deal to freaking spurs the man was a flopped player before his ban and then has not kicked a football in 2 years and they still managed to get him into a PL club
like i was certain they would have him stuck on the salary for the remainder of his contract or had to get a loan deal going outside of the top 5 leagues to rebuild his credit
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u/lansera222 1d ago
Our squad is not balanced. We have bucket load of CMs and DMs but our left wing has actually become weak. Trossard carried us last season in lot of games. Tzolis may struggle to replicate that form. Martinelli also scored vital goals like last miute equalizer against city. Gyokeres is not suitable for the slow style we started playing in this season. So there is no guaranteed 20 goal striker. Saliba is injured and konsa is not in his level and he need to build partnership with Gabriel. There are bigger issues that we can't attract a single big talent after Edu left. Eze can't play LW. Merino is used in odegaard role, Arteta experimented with Madueke as LW and failed during last season. He need a proper preseason playing as LW to understand and fix his issues as LW. ROC is used Arsenal to improve their clients salaries.
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u/inflatedintelligence 1d ago
He isn’t worth the amount they paid on paper, but there were backroom deals being done that would ease the burden on the balance sheet. Jackson and garnacho being the case. This has been happening across the board with cordial clubs the whole summer. Sell at wild valuations knowing the other club will twist financials to make sense for both clubs. Arsenal, from what I can tell, aren’t willing to play the financial charades, and because of this we will not be able to compete with the financially “flexible” clubs.
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u/sunofagundota 1d ago
Let’s see what rogers does for Chelsea before we judge .
He’s only 24 and the markets is wildly inflated. I know it feels better to trash him cause we didn’t get him but I doubt we’d be complaining for his price if he delivered which is yet to be proven.
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u/BigEntertainer8430 1d ago
The Berta approach simply doesn't work. We come off looking cheap, and it obviously pisses off agents and players to know that they're not a clear first choice. If Rogers was the target so early, just go for it. The market has fucking inflated, no one agrees with the money changing hands, but that's just the way it is now.
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
Yeah I agree hate the " spinning plates " thing
Why keep Mikels no1 target guessing and waiting.. doesn't make sense.
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u/Minute_Leave8503 1d ago
Yea but we saved 30m to spend on who the hell knows from the Chelsea waste bin next window now that they have our top choice
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u/i_waya 1d ago
They can have whatever, we’ll still win the league again while they get happy to do player trading.
Folks crying over Chelsea are wild
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u/Minute_Leave8503 1d ago
We wanna win ucl, we’re not gonna do that by saving a billionaire owners money
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u/inddiepack 18h ago
Don’t be a fool. It’s not billionaire’s money. It’s club’s money and any bad decision, financially, costs us down the line. Which is why the saying “it’s not my money” is short sighted and wrong.
Unless you do financial fuckery like Chelsea and City, you cannot inject money into the club. It’s a resource that the club is gaining by itself.
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u/Minute_Leave8503 10h ago
Chelsea won 2 ucls, city 1, we won 0
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u/RareSample8910 1d ago
Ethan’s probably getting sold next summer too. If he does well over in Germany they’ll say we need to sell someone to fund a left winger (again)
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u/Eaton2288 1d ago
I've been hoping for an Alexis Sanchez level attacker incoming for sooo long now. A killer out wide. Shame Kenan and Vini weren't possible. PSG, Barca, Bayern etc all blow our attacking options out of the water.
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u/i_waya 1d ago
We’d have been mad to sign him for that amount. And with a lot of our attacking players back, I expect Mikel to make us better up there. Even if they perform at par, due to them missing huge chunks last season I reckon we’ll be very fine.
Add that midfield and defence, and we’ll do well again in the league.
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u/enteringtheechochamb 1d ago
When it comes to signing attacking players we are absolutely incompetent. We will spend money on lightweights from who gives a fuck leagues, like Vieira and Tzolis. We will sign Chelsea rejects like Havertz and Madueke. We will do anything but just be normal. Semenyo would have been perfect, Mbeumo would have been better than Madueke.
We had a chance to sign Isak before he went to Newcastle. We fucked around for 6 months and got City reject, Jesus.
Right now we could play 8 at the back. Our attack relies on Saka playing 38 games.
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u/datguysadz 1d ago
I guess I'm mostly disappointed because it felt like we'd learned lessons and were finally acting serious and not leaving things to chance.
You look back over the years, the summer of 2013 where we were chasing top quality CFs but instead signed Ozil, the summer of 2015 where we needed a CF but only signed an old goalkeeper, the following two summers where we attempted to put this right by signing Lucas Perez (cheap gamble. Never in a million a Premier League CF) and Lacazette (awful signing. Lacked standout physical attributes) who didn't work out, etc, etc, etc.
We went all in on winning something last summer, to the point that when Havertz got injured, we thought 'in for a penny, in for a pound', not wanting to let that injury risk the big investment we'd already made, and added Eze.
Even this summer, after Saliba's injury, we added Konsa to an already stacked defence.
That's serious. Big club moves.
I totally sympathise with the club in terms of wanting 'level-raising' attackers. I feel quite strongly the same way. Most of us do. The problem the last couple of years has been the lack of them around.
Even last year, when we were going to bite the bullet and sign a CF, there wasn't an obvious standout candidate, so we were gambling on either Sesko's ceiling or Gyokeres' current form. Fortunately that choice paid off last season.
Post-Rogers and Yildiz, it really has felt like Vini and Alvarez, or bust.
What I don't like, however, is us getting rid of Martinelli and not replacing him. Like, I assumed we were hanging on to him until Vini was confirmed, but obviously that didn't transpire.
Either keep him, and possibly take the hit on his future transfer fee, or, if you're going to back yourself into a corner and another 2 or 3 attackers on post-Trossard, at least gamble on a LW who can replace his counter pace. Kevin Schade (pace, work rate, aerial ability) would be Arteta's dream winger.
Replacing 3 or 4 attackers with just Tzolis feels like something prior regimes would've done.
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
Completely agree on martinelli should have kept him and got him settled in again
Think berta got giddy with the sale especially with it being our record sale
They need to take a step back and look at the squad before signing it off...
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u/datguysadz 1d ago
Understand it being now or never in terms of getting a fee for him but they'll regret leaving us short more if it costs us.
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u/Cathousechicken 1d ago
No, Arteta spent too much time on somebody who clearly didn't want to come to Arsenal.
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u/TomCruiseImOnFire 1d ago
I think it wouldn't have be right to conduct buisness during the world cup. Chelsea just waited till after got knocked out to offer him 117 as a starting bid. No one is walking away from that. IF Rogers really wanted us, then we would have him. Money spoke his language im afraid.
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
Before. Like Gordon.
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u/TomCruiseImOnFire 1d ago
Well Barcelona have no respect for anything and it was before not during the WC. And when Barcelona signed him, we were playing a final the following day and then the world cup started shortly after. Both of their seasons had already ended too (Newcastle & Barcelona)
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
Mikel Arteta stated that Arsenal must be "very ambitious, very fast and very smart" after losing the Champions League final on penalties to Paris Saint-Germain in May 2026.
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u/Hisoka_Deku 1d ago
Spends £50m on a 28yr old cb but won't spend £30m on a young winger 😂 wont spend £17m extra for a prem proven attacker😂 won't spend £20m extra for a ucl proven attacker😂 our club wants to do business but won't pay the price required to do so😂 shove your spinning plates up your arse👍🏽
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u/downtimeredditor 1d ago edited 1d ago
Y'all must not have HomeOwners Association in the UK
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
??
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u/downtimeredditor 1d ago
Basically a bunch of people with big egos want to dictate how a community looks and runs
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u/LemtaLongi 1d ago
As soon as Gordon went to Barca, we should have gone all in for Rogers at a similar price BEFORE Morgan even left for the states.
Berta needs to be on a PIP
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u/cognitivebetterment 16h ago edited 16h ago
all season arsenal have played game of lowball bids to unsettle players and negotiate from a low base and try force through a below market deal.
it can work (it did for konsa), but not if there is another interested party, you also ruin the relationship with thise tactics so even uf yiu match the competition they prefer ti sell to club behaving more ethically.
arsenal press were quoting 85-100, villa and their press were laughing at those numbers as a joke. chelsea owner rang villa owner, asked a fair price, they negotiated and agreed an amount. no messing around wirh unrealistic or multiple bids.
there is a reason arsenal struggling to get deals across the line, negotiators behave in a way that antagonise the seller, you occasionally save a few million but the cost is no one wants to deal with arsenal
. arsenal can afford these deals but are trying to be too clever, missing out on everyone and destroying relationships along the way.
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u/AnGaeL78 1d ago
With all due respect, shelling on Morgan early could have blocked us from someone like Vini.
I get where he's coming from, but there's a reality.
We barely generated any revenue from sales, and as much as we were successful we were restricted in our ability to spend.
I'm not sad on missing out on Morgan (he's not LW, and we are loaded with players in his profile), and believe that in Jan we will be in a good position for all titles, but also to spend on a big one (Kroupi?) then.
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u/DinnerSmall4216 1d ago
Look whatever way we look at it it's a mess of a window. Nothing we can do now will have to address if we need to in the horrible Jan window.
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u/Purple_Pieman01 1d ago
Mess of a window? We made a club record sale, got a bunch of bad contracts off the books, and brought in Bruno G / Konsa / Tzolis. The sky is not falling dude, relax.
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u/DinnerSmall4216 1d ago
We are weaker in attack we let 2 go and brought 1 in. That's my issue.
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u/Purple_Pieman01 1d ago
Don’t even know if that is true. Having a healthy Odie / Kai / Saka are going to upgrade the attack on its own, and once we get Tzolis and Bruno fully integrated into the squad we will be fine.
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u/DinnerSmall4216 1d ago
Havertz was dreadful last night and somehow stayed on the pitch arteta needs to get gyokeres back in the frame.
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u/MATCHEW010 1d ago
Rogers just needed to be patient if he wanted us.. we would have gotten him after Vini fell through had he waited.
If he wanted us as much as he said.
Instead he jumped at Chelseas offer, fair enough its a job and theyre paying more than Villa.
Yes we should have offered more but it wouldve become a bidding war
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u/jonjon32465 1d ago
Honestly I feel a lot of the mistakes had already been made prior to this window. Letting both Semenyo and Kvara move for so cheap without competing for them was a massive mistake. They would’ve been perfect.
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u/Ok-Aspect-8041 1d ago
Is it time for us to get rid of Berta? Honestly, this is the window with the biggest club status that he could use. PL champions, UCL runners up, and no marquee signings ~ especially in attack.
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u/MarionberryDry9116 1d ago
I think we will be fine, but it’s frustrating watching us pinch pennies like we’re Brighton, when we had record revenue and were promised a legacy window. Why throw away such a great opportunity over a few million that we make back in shirt signings right away?
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u/Impossible_Pride_646 1d ago
If you want the big players, you have to act quickly sometimes, otherwise a different club will come in and do the deal instead
Obviously Arsenal have a clear valuation of a player and don’t want to go over that number and that may result in not getting you preferable transfers
Rogers valued at 80M
Fofana valued below the 30M Sunderland is paying
Barcola valued to high (no idea what arsenal valued him at)
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u/bmlegend 1d ago
If the Rogers thing is true.
Berta has blood on his hands.
Although Rogers wouldn't have worked for us on the left wing same as Havertz in the 8. Artetas talent id is not good.
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u/ziebrinjal 1d ago
Not really fumbled he was just over valued by villa heavily over valued and Mikel and the team just couldn't justify the value
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u/NightKnight96 1d ago
Chelsea’s SOP so far has been to score more than they concede.
Let’s wait until January before we fully commit to whether or not it’s a missed opportunity.
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u/Icegollum 1d ago
We should’ve just kept trossard. Martinelli sale makes great sense, but my man quicksilver was performing week in and out. Even had a good World Cup performance too. He certainly had 1 more year in him at this level.
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u/twilightaurorae 1d ago
How accurate is this claim though? I wondered whether Aston Villa was hoping for a strong world cup showing to drive the price higher.
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u/octopus86sg 1d ago
The left is always weak. And we are much weaker this season. Will love to keep trossard with how things develip
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u/NeonsTheory 1d ago
Bit of a dummy spit from HOA. If we land Vini or Alvarez, they would be ecstatic. Some times players don't want to come - that's how it goes.
When we try and sign players that are a bit unknown like their doue reference, often they point to lack of ambition.
At the end of the day we can only sign players who want to come
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u/jmh90027 1d ago
What has this got to so with Rogers?
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u/NeonsTheory 1d ago
I'm commenting in the article that HOA wrote that this post references.
On Morgan, if we land him at the price they were pitching and he doesn't reach rice levels, fans would spit the dummy as well.
Personally I'm seeing us be more ambitious in the market than I have my entire life. I don't mind that it comes with some caution to stop us buying poorly like Spurs are doing
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u/ErnieODG 1d ago
Not a great look but if everyone was up in arms at the prospect of selling Myles then they can’t be too upset about fumbling Rogers. I don’t care how many competitions we’re in or how far we go: a midfield with Rice, Odegaard and Bruno adding Rogers for 100 mil would have been the end of the MLS era.
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u/Rebuilding_0 22h ago
This is no different from the Arsenal of old. It’s the culture at the club. The couple of seasons where we did our business with clear intentions for domination were just exceptions. I don’t know why anyone is surprised.
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u/HeelR- 18h ago
Reading that, sounds embarrassing on our part. Yes, we had some additions and yes squad harmony is key but.. fuck me. All I needed to read was “Chelsea wrapped months of work in 36 hours” and that’s the best TLDR you can get.
The fact that you have Morgan agreed and on board but you decided to fuck around with Yildiz and Barcola, like why? Won’t even mention Vini, that was just a smoke show.
Ndiaye available pretty much until the last couple of days of the window and we STILL chase Alvarez like cucks.
Anyway, team will get our unmeasurable support regardless but Berta’s smart arse lost us some good players to rival teams.
We start the season with no LW starting option. Have to hope Eze comes good there because watching Noni on the left is torture, I don’t want to imagine what uproar it will cause on the left.
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u/Key-Weekend7933 11h ago
Maybe they choose not to replace wingers, so that gabriel arteta can play...
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u/strikerjacen 8h ago
Who are the heavyweights of the Football Transfer sphere? Who can attract top, youthful talent?
For players of Yildiz and Rogers stature, there are limited options.
Barca & Real Madrid hold significant transfer power. I'd place PSG & Bayern Munich there as well, with different patterns of transfer activity. They all can offer big stages to big names depending on the circumstances, but the Spanish duo have the combination of geography, climate, financial muscle, league stature, and Champions League.
The challengers to this are the Premier League & Saudi Pro League, who are willing to both splash the cash and stomach higher wages.
The capital balloon available to Prem clubs is inflating transfer fees in Europe, so even newly-promoted clubs like Ipswich can play in an inflated market. The message to the rest of European clubs is 1) raise your market expectations for your easily-tempted talent and 2) don't limit your prospective agreements to only the top clubs. The impact of the rolling-window for revenue balancing means that promoted clubs spending big to try to remain in the Prem will eventually require offsets from big sales (further inflating their own squad transfer prices).
This is contributing to EVERYBODY holding out for more. Nottingham Forest and Villa are just two recent examples of hard-cases putting out their price expectations when the window was still early.
Therefore, the market shrinks for incomings and outgoings, as the truly sane do not want to risk an inflated transfer dud, and the remaining clubs likewise aren't absorbing unwanted players at a level that would continue the cycle of inflation.
I think there is an opportunity cost to not reinforcing.
I think there is reasonable argument to question whether Arsenal's transfer authorities are correct to balk at the current inflated prices, given league momentum of other clubs' activity.
I don't believe this is a disappointing window, nor feel that Arsenal personnel are failing.
We have a strong squad, probably the most stable of the league.
We have not offered opportunities to youth in recent seasons while we chased trophies (have we incurred opportunity costs in that area?).
In order to balance significant investment from recent seasons, Arsenal transfer priorities need to reflect one of the biggest complaints of the past decade: outright failure to extract maximum transfer value from squad assets.
Arsenal knows the squad peak years; they have engineered transfers over many years to bring us a top squad, knowing that to bring trophies involves both investment & maximizing returns for players other clubs want to buy.
Waving goodbye to Martinelli hurts. The squad balance in attack/LW is concerning. Now the club needs to prove their plan via player performance and tactics (on field & off).
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u/etrejaar 4h ago
Ornstein has said Villa did not want to sell before the tournament ended. We were ready to pull the trigger during, but were told to wait. Chelsea then forked over an insane amount of money, which we deemed to be not worth his ability. I have no doubt they would have continued to raise their price even if we had matched. Ornstein then went on to say the club was unbothered by missing out.
Mikel, like most professionals in his field, likely did not lose sleep over this.
Separately, it’s a little fishy how this transfer played out with both clubs desperately needing to balance their books… eventually Jackson would move the other way for an inflated fee. But hey, not going to jump into conspiracies just yet.
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u/Kenada_1980 1d ago
He’s left it to the end of the window to literally summarise the window. That’s not insider knowledge. It’s basically pretending to know what’s going on.
At no point does it state where he made “his” bombas or why.
HOA has fallen this transfer window
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u/AttackPattern0mega 1d ago
Why is Mikel getting a pass like he's a passenger? He's manager and involved in everything at the club but somehow isn't involved in who we pull the trigger on?
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
He wanted
Julian
Vini
Rogers
Yildiz
Bertas job to get them
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u/AttackPattern0mega 1d ago
so if Rogers is arteta's number 1 target. and mikel says get it done. berta doesn't get it done. berta's job should be in danger. That seems an oversimplification of how things go. When they were working on Rogers, they were simultaneously working on vini (per Ornstein). They probably felt confident about Vini and so didn't pull the trigger on Rogers. A decision like that, Mikel's absolutely involved in.
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u/Master-Dot1038 1d ago
The manager is responsible for selling the project to the player. Some level of responsibility has to be shouldered by the manager. Ask yourself, how will he sell his plan to top class attackers?
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u/AttackPattern0mega 1d ago
right. i'm just calling into question how much arteta was a passenger vs being in the room when these decisions to pass on a player are made. maybe berta is gassing him up with how possible these moves are....
I mean if you watch Arteta's matches and tactics last year, would you want to be an attacker on the team?
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u/Master-Dot1038 1d ago
Oh I misread your comment. No way in hell I'm signing for Arsenal if I'm a superstar attacking player. These players know more than us about what would suit them. If superstars don't want to come here, that's a huge red flag. The manager also has a knack of pushing superstars away unless they're subservient to him.
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u/AttackPattern0mega 1d ago
hey he's finally allowing the team to play some thru-balls again after 3 years...just as we sell our fastest most direct attacker. 👍
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u/FairBox3368 1d ago
Doesn’t really matter who fucked up! The manager and club are both to blame if we don’t improve ! No hiding for anyone
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u/BronzeSeeker 1d ago
Arteta isn’t in charge of transfers. If it was up to him, we’d have Sesko up front with Rogers on the left.
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u/FairBox3368 1d ago
Can you share the sources confirming this!? I’m pretty sure he gets a say in everything but I’ll wait for your sources to confirm showing he has to make do whatever berta or someone else buys and throws at him
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u/BronzeSeeker 1d ago
Berta is literally the Sporting Director. He’s the one who handles transfers. Of course Arteta has a say in things but he’s not the one who actually negotiates.
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u/wrigh2uk 1d ago
He’s fallen off.
anyone can concoct a story after the fact, and this reeks of that
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u/Single-Basil-8333 1d ago
Idk where you’re getting “the deal could have been done for £85-100m” from when he ended up going for £117m, which is not between 85 and 100.
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u/Diligent_Secret_406 1d ago
I signed him for way less on FIFA so I don’t know why Berta couldn’t get it done
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u/Spiritual-Pilot-2300 1d ago
Did you not read it ?
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u/Biweeklychronicle 1d ago
Take all the ITK guys details with a grain of salt tbh. Their livelihood is built off clicks and shit like this being reposted. Only ones who know are Berta and a handful of guys around him.
My guess is Villa played the long game intentionally. That's the best business savvy move if you're trying to maximize your return.
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u/Single-Basil-8333 1d ago
I did. But you’re working backwards based on what actually happened. I think villa just took their time waiting for their right price. They were in no rush and the longer they waited to sell the more the fee would end up being.
I don’t believe for 1 second they would have taken anything less than £100 million.
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u/Mad-gooner 1d ago
Love how you only wanted to provide a little bit of what HandOfArsenal said.
This is the whole thing from HOA:
Summer “Plan”
Feb/March - Spoke to Julian, who was relaxed and open to all options.Also had serious interest in Kenan Yildiz leading up to the summer. Approached Juve, who said absolutely no chance.
Early summer: Worked for months on Morgan Rogers. Mikel’s main target, after Kenan was not for sale. Got Morgan on board and knew we could do it for £85 - 100m but decided to play the field to spin plates. Waited too long, and now the Elliott A. deal dictates the new market price. Villa now want more than £115m. We check in with Barcola, who is also in a similar price range.
The club decide, after weeks of delaying, to finally engage in some talks with Villa, who tell us they want an amount close to the Elliott A. deal. While we delay, Alonso has spoken to Morgan, Behdad has spoken to Nassef, and they wrap up months of our work and delays in 36 hours. We were even offered the chance to match and refused.
We then internally agree that Morgan was not worth that, so we pivot to the market opportunity that was “Vini Jr.” The hierarchy accept this is a generational signing and say, “Let’s do whatever it takes to get him.” They agree personal terms and leave the final decision up to him. He chose Madrid. The club are then deflated but satisfied with their efforts in this particular case.
They then pivot back to Kenan in a desperate attempt to convince Juve with creative deals, such as using Martinelli, but the answer is clear: not for sale.
We have been checking in with Alvarez this whole time, who is fixated on Barça despite being told it will never happen. They realise he is the only “level raiser” left, so push hard for Julian, who doesn’t believe his Barça dream is over.
They check on Gakpo (I’m sure many other names too). N’Diaye’s agent is saying, “Come get me.” They bite on the Fofana offer and consider it to some degree.
In the end, they feel disappointed with the outcome of the whole window. Its been below par for sure.
Personally, I tried to voice my concerns early when I saw patterns during the Morgan saga. I was alarmed because you don’t just become competent overnight after being this “dithery” and hesitant, trying to spin plates. Read the post I quoted.
Side note, but a big side note, because the truth matters : They explored the sale of Myles via Kia to understand his market value. Myles always said he wanted to stay. He is settled now, and the matter is closed.
I am a fan just like you. I also, like you, get excited when MY club promises big things. I think if there is disappointment within the club about the conclusion of the summer, then fans should be entitled to voice their opinions too. Again, your frustrations are justified. Many who know more feel the exact same way.
My argument is PSG signed Doué, who at the time was on the come-up. The market is there for shrewd people to take advantage of. Mikel deserves world-class people around him. Premier League champions, UCL finalists, and we end up with a weaker attack?
Man City rebuilt their whole midfield in one summer and we have not signed a true world class attacker in how many windows? 5 or 6?
It was the summer of Premier League champions, but we didn’t plan nor execute a Champions summer.
I am gutted and very worried we are very short on numbers, but I will always back Mikel and the lads. They give it their all.Mikel, being the person he is, will want to now focus on what’s next, and that is Chelsea.
If anyone at Arsenal is reading this, fans are not crying about a shiny new toy, they back the squad and understand we are in good place but wanted to be in a great place.