Arsenal have been under scrutiny in recent seasons for a number of questionable transfers, and the prospective asking prices of Donyell Malen and Ismael Bennacer will not deter away from that.
The Gunners have been slammed most recently for the fees paid to sign David Luiz on a one-year deal, while their sale of Serge Gnabry for a lowly £5 Million fee has been under the spotlight also.
Now two more transfers look set to embarrass our club’s decision makers further, with Donyell Malen and Ismael Bennacer lined up for monster moves.
The latter is believed to be of interest to Real Madrid at present, according to FootMercato, with a potential £45 Million (€50 Million) fee being mooted. The Algerian international left our side in 2017 for a lowly €1 Million fee, but has since impressed for Empoli in Serie before joining AC Milan.
Malen is another player who left the club only recently, and his departure was not taken well at the time. Donyell notched up 27 goals in his 67 appearances for our youth sides, before being sold to PSV, with his fee believed to have been under €1 Million.
TuttoMercatoWeb state that Napoli are amongst the names chasing Donyell, with PSV in want of around €60 Million for his signature.
Our deals for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and a number of others have also come under the spotlight of late, and it is overly frustrating to once again see that our club has made a huge error in judgement, knowing that these players could well have helped us challenge for titles in recent years.
How much closer to the top of the table would we be with Donyell Malen, Ismael Bennacer and Serge Gnabry in the side?
Patrick
Allowing them to leave is not as stupid as not inserting a buy back clause or at the very least a sell on clause.
Well you have completely summed it up!
Mybe the buyer dont want add that clause, as far i can remember, the only clubs who always put that clause on selling their youths is madrid and barca
I keep wondering why arsenal don’t include first refusal clause when selling young players or is there some law that prevents it??
No just bad management.
Icebox, you have hit the nail on the head. The big issue with Kroenke has been the people he has selected to serve on the Board and senior management at the Arsenal, since David Dein was forced out.
Refer to my post on the Werner to Chelsea article in support.
Arsenal having absolutely diabolical at buying, but especially selling for as long as I can remember. Worst of all, not only did we miss out on around 200 million from Alexis, Ozil, and Ramsey, it’s actually costing us millions more in wages on Miki, and Ozil, and getting nothing in return!
All clubs get it wrong with youngsters at times. City letting Sancho go being a key one. But Arsenal have been constantly letting their highest valued assets go for next to nothing or free!! Something clubs rarely do.
Well, it does not surprise me anymore, AFC seems to be a charitable organisation, generously paying useless players and egoistic agents hefty wages and fees which achieving nothing on the pitch. Youngsters have to be groomed into pros by the seniors, unfortunately our seniors have no character nor footballing ability to be role models. Cannot imagine Bennacer in MFC and Malen in RM colors while I have to live seeing Ox as a UCL winner, Gnarby as a German champ, Schzney as Italian champ while we adore Ozil and hire/d the likes of Perez, Pepe, Mkhitaryan, Elneny, Xhaka, Torrera,Socrates,Luiz. Before we have a clear out of players, those involved in the administration should be changed or else blunders will keep happening year after year. Will Stan have an inquest into the operations of the club? I doubt! Expect another season where we might loose Auba, Saka and Gabriel, panic hire some nobody on inflated fees/wages and end of the season lift the “top 17 trophy”
👍 Being managed towards midtable mediocrity.
Should have been sent on loans or a buy back at least, specially a small club as Empoli.
Greedy Kroenke must be mad! Happy to take 2 millions but fuming for losing 100M!
We can lose Niles, Nelson and Saka in a more embarrassing way.
I will like to know what you all think of those players when they were here. It is easy to think on the hindsight we did bad business for not put buyback or sell on clauses. We all of you be patient with the players or coach for giving them playing time. Don’t cry over spilt milk. There current clubs and fans deserve what they would get from selling them on for the trust they have on them and their patience
Exactly my thoughts! We abuse every single youngster in our beloved club,but if anyone of them should leave and make name we then claim everything that can be claimed.
At times after reading some comments I really want to shake the person and ask them politely to grow up.
Its typical Arsenal. They sold Sczesney and Fabianski so that they buy Leno at a high price, but our academy graduates are better than Leno. They sold Coquelin and bought Xhaka at a high price, but Coquelin is better than Xhaka. Now they want to sell Maitland-Niles. Arsenal sold Iwobi so that they can buy Pepe, and Pepe is still far from the performance of Iwobi. Its quite bizarre
We sold szezsney because wenger didnt rate him or Fabianski, we bought Leno to replace ospina and Leno was a great buy. I agree about Coquelin being better than xhaka but that is too difficult a thing. Maitland niles is a bit of an enigma. Please we robbed Everton when we sold the useless iwobi, pepe was an expensive replacement though. The bigger more important issues you failed to address, Gnabry and Benaccer, both being sold or undersold by wenger and Gazidis. Our selling or moving on of some of our youngsters are an embarrassment. We are a disgrace at letting some of our youth and younger players leave for peanuts.
Same old story!
if a players is out of contract and they wont sign an extension the club is forced to sell at low price it is the same with youth players.