Arsenal used to use the loan mark for player development. Now it’s just a method to reduce their wage bill .
If you think you have read that too many times over the years – it’s because you have . Under the current regime you can name almost an entire squad who have had their contracts ripped up or were loaned out while their deals expired .
I don’t blame Mikel Arteta. The Koronke Family should have made it part of the job specification that the successful candidate gets the best out of the resources he inherits . Our manager has been allowed to think that washing your hands off talent the moment they don’t suit his ethos is standard procedure
In recent transfer markets interested parties have played poker with the Gunners . We show our cards to the public by not even pretending an individual has a future in North London and aware of our willingness to release players . Buyers call our bluff by refusing to submit an offer knowing eventually we will simply give them away to save paying a salary .
That’s why only a permanent transfer should be accepted for Aaron Ramsdale or at the very least an obligation to buy with any loan deal .
Rightly or wrongly it’s been clear since last September that the keeper wasn’t considered first choice anymore . Lies were made up by his boss such as the position being rotated and that goalies might even be subbed as a tactical decision. Some Gooners believed this , others felt their intelligence was insulted.
So for nearly a year Edu had time to line up an alternative for the 26 year old knowing he’s too good to be asked to be an understudy .
This is Edu’s job !
A role he gets paid thousands of pounds a week to do !
In a world where everyone talks off record , we shouldn’t be two weeks away from deadline day with Ramsdale’s future not clear.
Set an asking price and if not met, keep him at the Emirates. Stop giving away players !
We can no longer hide behind players being paid over the odds by the previous set up.
Arteta and Edu were in power when Ramsdale accepted a contract extension and pay rise in 2023. Why that was granted when they were investing in Raya that very summer remains bizarre business .
According to his father, Ramsdale was never told why he was dropped or what areas of his game he needs to work on
It’s believed Wolves want to borrow the England International for the season with only the option to buy . Yet even if he increases his value at the Molinouex he would return with 12 months left on his deal, making it even more unlikely for any kind of fee .
We do have the right to extend his stay to another year but what would be the point?
Even if he did well on loan it wouldn’t change his chances of playing under Arteta..
At a time where it seems like we have to raise funds we can’t still be loaning out players anymore.
Dan
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If Wolves just want to loan Ramsdale without any obligation to buy him, Arsenal had better wait for another offer
Ramsdale will also help us with the homegrown quota, unless Arteta wants a towering GK with a better aerial ability
It makes no sense to loan Ramsdale he is a quality keeper and not even to any top6 wolves? Ramsdale for sale or for keep.
Ramsdale is a very good GK
But I guess Arteta wants a bigger one whose abilities aren’t similar to Raya, hence Joan Garcia
There isn’t really a “homegrown quota” any more as I understand it.
A club can have 17 players who are not homegrown and nothing else if they want to do that. They can add as many U21s as they like and up to 8 homegrown players, but it’s not compulsory.
iirc City started last season with 19 players. They don’t fill up their ranks with players they don’t want just to get a higher head count if it reduces the quality of the squad.
I don’t think a loan would make sense, because we would have to buy a replacement but also keeping him on the bench doesn’t help either. If the situation does turn into a mess, as the signs are showing then Arteta/Edu need to take the full blame. Apparently one of the assistance coaches then did advised Aterta against signing Raya, as it didn’t make sense to replace Ramsdale and he didn’t listen.
My understanding of the situation, is Arsenal would prefer to sell outright and If a loan is sanctioned they would demand £6mil. Also we need to take note of the fact that though Ramsdale’s contract runs until 2026 it has an option to extend to 2027 meaning it has 3 years left.
Let’s not judge the situation based on transfer romours, let’s rather wait for it to conclude then we can talk.
I am not against loans, it all depends on the fees. If there are no decent bids then loaning him makes a lot of sense especially if we can pick up £5 million. It gets him playing and other clubs interested.
With hindsight (always a great thing, but fairly obvious in this case), Arsenal should have sold Ramsdale when they brought in Raya last summer. Selling Ramsdale then would have meant he was (still) a first-choice keeper and would probably have attracted more offers to buy and at a better price. Trying to retain two first choice keepers was never going to work really as one always had to prevail over the other.
By delaying, Arsenal has effectively said to potential buyers now: “Ramsdale is a clear second choice keeper here, but we still want first choice keeper money for him”. Little surprise then that there hasn’t been that much interest.
Arsenal now appears to be in the worst of both worlds – they can’t sell Ramsdale (so far, anyway), but, of course, they can’t get a replacement for him unless they sell him. With only nine days left in the window and counting things are getting very tight to pull off any “double deal” like that.
I feel sorry for Ramsdale. Obviously if he stays now his international prospects will almost certainly diminish further because of lack of consistent first team football (playing in a few cups won’t cut it). He’s therefore likely to become quite disgruntled by the end of this season and, unfortunately, he’s hardly going to be a more attractive proposition to potential buyers by then anyway.
If no offer then keep him. Loan not beneficial. He’s a good keeper,should be #1 somewhere but if no suitable offer he’s a great #2 for cup games. £6m loan is not beneficial to the club. Considering we refused £25m for Nkeiteah which I think is totally crazy. Ramsdales contracted to us. He’s ours.
What use is his being ours if he’s not going to be playing.
Injury to Raya? It’s called strength in depth.
Arsenal have created their own problems in my opinion.
Simply madness to give both Nketiah and Nelson 6 figure weekly salaries; based on what, hope? Ramsdale gets a pay raise while they are bringing in Raya his replacement?
“Preserving their value” is an often cited reason. I would ask what value?
Nketiah and Nelson have both struggled to show much of anything. They don’t get much playing time because they produce so little.
Ramsdale has the best value of the 3, so we will see what happens with him.
Arteta and Edu have done excellent with some players, but have been absolutely amateurish with others. Happens with other managers and other clubs, hopefully lessons learned and we can move forward.
I agree with your point about Nketiah and Nelson – it’s reported that they earn £100k and £120k respectively a week. Although Forest – probably the last hope in this window – may be interested in Nketiah, I don’t think there’s much going on with Nelson currently.
I think it’s unlikely that Arsenal will sell Ramsdale by 30 August unless something drastic happens. Unfortunately, after another season playing in the domestic cups, he’ll be worth less come summer 2025, of course.
If we had not given them those pay rises they could have walked away from the club. We would have got nothing if they had gone abroad and minimal compensation if they had gone to another English club. As it is, we should get at least £25m for Nketiah and probably £15m for Nelson
The laternative was to buy a backup striker which would cost more than Eddie’s salary over 5 years.
Nelson may be harder to understand, but perhaps he was there as backup for Saka injuries – we don’t know because that problem didn’t happen.
Funny thing the author of this post was questioning the club for being firm in their valuation of Nketiah and rejecting Marseille’s low ball offer.Hypocrisy ? Ignorance?I wonder what this author feels or thinks now that the club seems to have received an acceptable package for Eddie going by the reports.
While we can acknowledge that the club has not been perfect in transfer dealings, we should also acknowledge that we are not privy to all the details and information about these transfers. For the most part we are usually speculating.
PS : I think Edu has done relatively well in this transfer window. £4 m for Bierith, £7 m obligation for Tavares, £ 34 m for ESR, £3.4 m for Norton-Cuffy and potentially £ 30 m for Nketiah seems like good business to me.
OM’s second offer was reported to have been £23m for Nketiah. Forest is reported to have offered a little over £25m for him. That’s a small improvement of course, but if Arsenal needs the money to finance another purchase, then taking OM’s second offer a few weeks ago would have given them more time to negotiate a deal (for a striker/winger, whatever).
Even if Arsenal gets a little more money for Nketiah now who knows whether they’ll be able to negotiate another deal before the deadline.
Bertie as I said we don’t have all the details. OM’s offer could even be equal to the Forest one but the structure could be different. £25m over four instalments isn’t the same as a similar figure over two instalments,for example.
Precisely Onyango, not just the author but some here too. So much hypocrisy with little information. @Bertiehere criticized Edu here, and said that we will not get a better offer than what Olympic Marseille had offered us for Nketiah consistently, funny enough @Bertienot is not talking about it anymore now that Forest has offered something higher in £25m and are likely to meet £30m.
Because 25 million for a terrible striker is not low ball lol
Dan that’s your opinion/feeling about the player,which is valid, but I’m not sure a player’s valuation is usually based on fans’ opinions of said player-that’s not how the market works. Any commodity in a market is worth what the buyer and seller are willing to agree on.
Exactly
Marseille were not willing to pay the asking price
They are not doing that due to fan opinion
They most likely are basing it on him scoring in three League games last season, not starting in Prem since Feb and not trusted in the last 6 games of the run in
A terrible player
I mean realistically if he was actually that terrible they wouldn’t have been interested in him in the first place.
If he were that good would he be about to join a relegation level team ?
That like saying Chris Wood is good lol
I was responding to your point about Marseille, specifically the last two sentences, I doubt they think he’s terrible otherwise they wouldn’t have been in for him.
I’m not saying he’s amazing or something, but terrible’s seems pretty harsh. At least De Zerbi and Nuno rate him some.
He’s one of the worst strikers we have had in the Prem who’s played say over 10 games
Is this the level of your football knowledge or you’re just intentionally doing to provoke comments or reactions?
Is the level of my footballing knowledge to do say facts ? lol
Look at it this way Dan, there are players who are at his level who are going for higher fees than what Marseille were offering. Take Chelsea’s Armando Broja for example, most Chelsea fans would think he is terrible with only 8 PL goals yet Chelsea will be getting £30 m for him. Is he better than Eddie? Not in my opinion.
Saying Nketiah is terrible is not a fact,that’s your opinion. Facts that determine a player’s value are things like length of contract,wages,experience,position,age, strength of selling club,league and the infamous ‘English tax’ .
Liverpool got over £23m for Rhian Brewster yet the lad had no experience in the PL and registered ZERO goals during his time there.And that was four years ago. If unproven young English strikers who’ve only played in the Championship are going for that much, Eddie who is more experienced,more accomplished,English capped and playing at a top flight club should be going for a lot more.
I challenge you to bring up names of English strikers of prime age so that we can make a comparison. Saying a player is terrible is not enough.
I would say a striker scoring in three League games
Not starting since Feb
Not playing in our last 7 league fixtures makes you a terrible player
I wouldn’t know about Arteta’s job specs, but I’d say he did make a pretty good job of the inherited “resources” by winning the FA cup and getting us to where we are now.
Edu hasn’t really proved himself TBH, and I suspect he’s too close to some players agents and could even be sometimes conflicted, although Josh/Lewis should be aware of this shouldn’t they!?
Why are Arsenal fans so finicky? Loaning Ramsdale is perfectly fine. He still has 3 years left. If he performs, then his value will rise, and we can sell him permanently for a better price next summer. If he stays, and don’t play, his value will diminish, and it’s also bad for him. He has a caliber of first GK spot. Those who are saying that we have made bad choice by extending contract, should know that we have lost many good players for peanuts. I am happy to see changes in the way we are functioning in preserving the value of our players.
Seems like another Homegrown player is leaving. Patino is off to Deportivo La Coruna, £1m and a sell on clause.
Ramsdale should be sold for the sake of integrity.
His contract was extended to preserve his transfer value, then he was replaced with Raya the next month (without being told this would be the case).
This is nasty behaviour that Wenger would be ashamed of, because Ramsdale is leaving had he known he was being replaced.
I couldn’t blame him if he deliberately chucked it in his own net.
Arteta isn’t the human being made out to be. Super talented coach yes, but even non-fans dislike him for a reason. He isn’t who he makes himself out to be.
The Havertz favouritism imo is clearly an attempt to stroke his own ego.
Havertz cost us the FA Cup and League (Villa Home) with his misses. Those games were like Giroud vs Monaco.
Arteta is refusing to buy a clinical striker to prove a point, much like Wenger refused to sign physical midfielders post-Invincibles. He isn’t half the character of Wenger, yet gets put on a godlike pedestal.
He has to deliver this season.
So Trossard failing to score from a couple of feet against Villa at home had nothing to do with us losing then ?
I’m not bothered if “non fans like him” as I witness every single home game how the Arsenal fans feel about him.
I’m not sure what Mikel makes out he is or isn’t, but what I am sure of, is the fact that he has brought this club together, both on and off the field these last two seasons.
Havertz was an inspired signing, who has improved himself and the squad under MA.
I didn’t realize that Havertz was the only player on the field when we lost to villa, I could have sworn our defence let in two goals.
The days of comparing Arsene to Mikel are long gone – one has gone down in history as an icon at our club, while the other is, finally, building his own legacy.
He certainly needs to deliver this season, would a top four and/or a fa cup suffice, as it did for Le Prof in his last decade at the club?
Suffice for fans like us Ken
It wasn’t suffice for others
Absolutely Dan and we’ve witnessed the REAL bad old days!!
Ken, what “REAL bad old days” has Dan witnessed ? He wasn’t around in the mid 70’s or the early 80’s.
I thought Dan was as old as us HD!!
He’s quite a bit younger than us Ken.
If he’ll only have 12 months on his deal after this then it’s risky so yeah a obligation for a permenant transfer would best.
If it’s down to 2 options 1) him staying and being backup or 2) Going out on loan and then returning, then option 2 is best. He needs game time and a chance to be put in the shop window, sitting and riding the bench just hurts all parties. Even a temp loan move will bring in a fee.
Others have pointed out that he has 3 years, then I don’t really think its an issue.
I think it would be selfish of us to keep him as number 2 keeper. He should be number 1 somewhere so either loan him or sell him.
Loaning players has been the strategy for getting unwanted players off the books.
If nobody is buying them, the only way to get them off the books is a loan. Or, sometimes the club wants to see if they do better and get them back if they do.
Loans are sensisble in many situations and MA/Edu had a lot of people to move along when MA took over – still doing it this window and maybe next.
The author has persisted with a narrative and certain rigid perspectives that are inconsistent with any kind of credible vision for Arsenal’s progress.
It is illogical to suggest that the Kroenkes should have hamstrung Arteta in the way described when we were trying to develop an effective club ethos and build a team capable of challenging the best teams in world football.
It also quite disingenuous to try to blame Edu for the situation with Ramsdale without considering the current football landscape which affects the transfer plans of every team in Europe.
As for Ramsdale contract extension, it is ridiculous to suggest that it was “bizarre” if one considers when the extension was negotiated. There is nothing bizarre about offering your number 1 GK a contract extension after what had probably been his best season; and in a title challenging team.
“According to his father, Ramsdale was never told why he was dropped or what areas of his game he needs to work on”
This is complete nonsense.
Quote from Ramsdale himself
“I remember him explaining to me that he wanted me to play a lot higher and a lot more aggressive. And so, every day in training, I would play higher and more aggressive. And he would say, No, no, higher. Every day, higher. Yes. Yes. No. Higher.”
“It was brilliant, actually, because he let me explain my emotions about feeling a bit exposed in playing so aggressive… In the end, we were able to come to a middle ground where I wasn’t overthinking out there, and the results spoke for themselves.”
After Raya came in the heat maps show that Raya is doing exactly what Arteta was asking Ramsdale to do play more aggressive without the need for the middle ground compromise.
Quote from Arteta
” What I like about David is what he does in goal, The things that he prevents us from, you don’t even see because they don’t happen, because he has anticipated them.”
Referencing precisely the above and why he wants that from his keeper.
Also worth noting Raya was always 1st choice when Brentford were still in the championship and we sold Martinez it was only covid and our inability to sell our older players that priced us out. Brentford were promoted that year so we grabbed Ramsdale instead. Raya then ran his contract down and the rest is history so to speak.
Bang on the money Angus 👏👏
Well Ramsdale won’t be going to Southampton, as they’re signing the Feyenoord keeper.