Arsenal have been unlucky with few signings
When Unai Emery joined Arsenal in the summer of 2018, he was clear as to which positions the club needed strengthening.
Five additions were made under his watch in the form of Lucas Torreira, Matteo Guendouzi, Stephen Lichtsteiner, Bernd Leno and Sokratis Papastathopoulos. All the signings gave one indication: improvement in defense.
While the Gunners defense hardly looked any better than the previous season’s, Guendouzi and Torreira were the ones who attracted a lot of eyeballs. The pair’s impressive on-pitch performances were echoed in their market value, as it increased to a whopping £95 million combined, according to Transfermarkt.
Everybody hailed them as coups and Arsenal received a lot of plaudits for their recruitment. However, three years down the line they are desperate to sell them. With the reports that are doing the rounds, both are available for around a meagre £15 million each.
Many supporters argue that the Arsenal board should show more ruthlessness and sell them for a higher fee. But, as has been the case a number of times, the Gunners don’t have the power in their hand.
While the Uruguayan has two years left on his current deal, Torreira has already revealed publicly that he wants to leave England. That is a situation a club never wishes to be in.
It would have been music to the ears of the player’s suitors, who now know that the 25-year-old does not see Arsenal as his future. And that means his market value will plummet.
The North London outfit could not have foreseen it. Parallels can be drawn with Guendouzi’s scenario. The young midfielder attracted a lot of attention in his first two years in London, but that seems to have cooled down.
The Frenchman has had rows with his Lorient, Arsenal and more recently his Hertha Berlin manager.
“It’s like puberty for him, he’s kind of a rebel. He has to work and learn like an animal.” That’s what Pal Dardai told Bild about Guendouzi in February. Clubs never want bad apples in their squad because managers know that even a single player is enough to contaminate a healthy squad.
Marseille have shown the most interest in the 21-year-old, which now appears to be Guendouzi’s likely destination.
Although Arsenal might not make a profit on the duo, they cannot be criticized for the recruitment. Guendouzi and Torreira still have massive potential and a big future.
But it looks like it will not be at Arsenal, as many would have hoped for.
I’m shocked. MA and Arsenal are experts at turning most of their assets into liabilities.
Who would have know that ousting players publicly and trying to get rid of them lowered their value???
Nothing new! This was actually our policy under AW/IG for well over a decade.
No better example than the Ramsey/Ozil/Alexis debacles! Liverpool sell their three highest valued assets (Sterling/Suarez/Coutinho), for around a quarter of a billion, whilst not only did we bring in a big fat ZERO for our three assets, we actually somehow managed to LOSE money on them!
Ramsey goes for free, Alexis (our best player, and one the best in the league) we swap for one of United’s worst players, that had flopped in English football, who we continued paying a big wage for barely any return, and Ozil we rewarded a player on the decline, an insane pay raise!
No club in the history of football has performed worse than we did under AW/IG when it came to selling players.
Well said. Most fans hate Kroenke (I dislike him too) and blame him for not investing when the reality is that we have actually spent a hell of a lot recently.
We overpay
We undersell
Net Spend = Joke
This is our main issue
Spot on.
Please tell him how we have been and leave MA out of it
TMJW, Bravo for such clear truth!
@ThirdManJW
Its utter BS to say that it was AW policy for a decade!!! Ozil & Ramsey exit happens well after AW left the club. Sanchez deals happens at the tail end of his stay at Arsenal, where he is already on his way out and its more than likely his opinion was not highly regarded or sought after anymore. Just because Arsene the manager at the time announced the club decision at the time does not mean he is 100% behind it. Please remember that by the time the Mikhitaryan swap deal happened Sven is already part of Arsenal technical team.
AW made good money for Arsenal through the years through the sales of Vieira, Henry, Song, Chamberlain, Adebayor, Hleb, Flamini, Samir Nasri, Fabregas, Van Persie, Coquelin and Giroud.
As of Ivan, you can say that its been Ivan Gazidis policy….but again here he is nothing but a mere Kroenke proxy or mouthpiece init…Wouldn’t it be be more accurate to say its been Kroenke’s policy???
Please understand that in any business organization where the owner has a full controlling shares, chairman, board members are nothing but a mere proxy/stooge, what or how the owner want something to happen, the owner will get.
First and foremost, I doubt arsenal wants to sell for 15m a piece. If that’s what anyone is offering, we should simply not sell.
Secondly, where did the figure come from?
So if we don’t sell them and their contracts run out? Then what? Fans are becoming way too comfortable with the way we lose revenue on players.
That is kroenke’s business model, he can show loses and pay zero tax. His asset is the land, which continues to grow from strength to strength.
We paid £7.5m for Guendouzi so that’d be a rare example of actually making a profit.
£25m for Torreira but dosn’t look like we’ll get anywhere near that figure back.
Torreira case is not the club fault, he was unsettled under Emery and has since wanted out, I doubt there were serious bid for him last summer, else arsenal would have sold him instead of a loan to atm.
Same applies to Guendozi who think he is better than everyone else, I thought he was going to attract interest from big clubs around the world but I guess I overestimate him.
Arsenal should just sell bot and move on, it’s what it is, however I think whoever rejected PSG £25m bid for Bellerin last season was out of his mind, I know it’s difficult to sell without a proper replacement but I think it was a stupid idea, now with the shout of Beria, we might not get £20m for his sale
Real Betis
I’ll be so disappointed if we didn’t sell laccazet this season and renew his contract. That’s typical arsenal keeping players who should be sold to make money. AW sold players at their peak but since we settled some emirate debt and bought Ozil our decision making has been awful because we don’t want to be labelled ‘selling club’ then we held on too long to some players.
You may think Wenger hold on too much to some players too but I doubt there were serious bid for the like of Walcot, Ramsey and Wilsher then, else they would have been long gone