Are Arsenal going to have to pay the asking prices to get Declan Rice and Jurrien Timber?

When Arsenal missed out on Lisandro Martinez last summer and Mykhailo Mudryk in January, some saw these transfer misses as the Gunners failing to pay the amounts those two were available for.

The belief was that the Gunners’ transfer policy was to pay the price they felt was enough for the player after their evaluation and not allow other clubs to take advantage of their desire to increase their prices.

Looking at this summer’s transfer window, are Arsenal set to go against “that” transfer policy in their move to sign Declan Rice and even Jurrien Timber?

The Gunners have already had two rich bids rejected by West Ham for Rice’s swoop, one totaling £80 million and the other totaling £90 million. For Timber, the Gunners have had a £30 million bid turned down by Ajax.

The belief is that in the end, the Gunners will make a third bid in the £100 million region for Rice, hoping to sign him after that, as they’ll have met West Ham’s alleged asking price. In recent days there have been many ominous rumours that the Champions Man City have decided to intervene and try to poach Rice from under Arsenal’s nose since they failed to persuade Ilkay Gundogan to extend his contract at the Etihad.

It is bad news for the Gunners that Man City are having to revamp their aging midfield at exactly the same time as Arsenal, but according to most bookies the Gunners are still short odds on to sign the West Ham captain, and perhaps you could get even better odds if you check out the best Bitcoin betting sites in 2023 as the best price at conventional bookies is 3/5 on at the moment. If you are conviinced that Arteta will refuse to lose out on his top target, then it is definitely worth investing on Arsenal at that price.

Arsenal are also predicted to also meet Ajax’s £50 million valuation of Timber.

Let’s say these deals go through and Arsenal meets the asking prices of these teams. Will Edu and Arteta ever have the leverage to force teams to compromise their asking price when dealing with them?

I bet other teams who will be fortunate to have Arsenal try to sign their players will look at the deals for Rice and Timber and feel they should hold out to their asking price, and wait for the Gunners to scramble until they pay them what they want. Sadly, that could be now happening with every Arsenal target.

Arsenal have just reached a point where they will have to convince a team to sell them a player by reaching the team’s asking price.

To stay at the top, Arsenal simply must spend, and this summer’s transfer window could be the beginning of Arsenal’s doing so to maintain their position at the top.