Arsenal has been slammed for not selling Eddie Nketiah for less than their asking price as he looks set to walk away from the club as a free agent.
Nketiah has entered the last year of his current Arsenal deal and he had interest from the likes of Brighton and Crystal Palace in the last transfer window.
Football Insider said Arsenal was demanding £20million for a striker that is down the pecking order at the Emirates.
Palace refused to pay that fee and have signed Odsonne Edouard from Celtic instead.
Nketiah is yet to play for the Gunners this season as he is nursing an injury, but when he returns he would still struggle to play as he now has Folarin Balogun to compete with for a spot in an attack that already has the likes of Gabriel Martinelli and Alexandre Lacazette.
Arsenal is now facing the prospect of losing him for nothing at the end of this season, even though he has been offered a new deal.
At 22, he can rebuild his career at another club and Noel Whelan thinks it makes little sense that Arsenal will lose him when they could have sold him cheaply.
“It’s a bit of a silly decision,” Whelan told Football Insider.
“It’s like the Edouard situation at Celtic, when a player’s contract gets down to that length of time you know whether they are prepared to sit it out.
“£10million is better than nothing so it seems like a really bad decision by Arsenal considering the money they have gone out and spent.
“£10million back into the budget would have been better than nothing, which is what they have ended up with.
“They also have a very young player leaving on a free. It’s a really bad business decision. I’m not sure what they were thinking.
“Nketiah will be more than happy to sit it out, which is what will happen now. They should have taken the money.
“It might not be where they value him but they should have snapped their hands off.”
Not exactly a clear loss evaluation. Eddie is worth the full 20M pounds. Yes, they rate in lower amongst the 3 mentioned. This will not pan out that way. Eddie will rise to be a star the same way earlier lowly rated Saka has done. Eddie has not had a fair chance to play and show himself. Laca is total a total player as Eddie is. No mistaking Laca is a goal scorer albeit in a clustered box. In terms of skilful play Eddie will surpass Balogun. I think Arsenal needs to invest in Eddie. We lost Gnary and late Reyes through this type of judgement
Erm he didn’t personal terms Arsenal reduced the fee to £12m, where have you been?
Our club, together with many others , have not yet realised the massive changeand fee reduction in the transfer value market since Covid hit.
I welcome this long overdue change and hope that it continues falling, as I passionately want a game with far less money in it, almost all of which will go directly into the pockets of grossly greedy players and their appalling agents.
This thesis about greed will be a cornerston eof the series of articles I am desperate to contribute to JA.
But , as it cannot possibly apply ONLY to our club, I will first need Ad Pats permision to write it. It will prove a truly thought provoking read, I truly believe.
I emailled him three weeks ago asking his permission and have twice posted on this site asking his say so. To date all my requests have been simply ignored!
@jon fox
jon I believe Admin Pat is in shock.
We all are.
THE I say again THE inestimable jf has decided to publish Thesis2021 on JA.
Clearly Pat is fearful of JA being deluged 24/7 with rabid fans discussing the contents of Th21.
Pre sales of Th21 have already exceeded 47 million in English and 300 mill in other languages.
If Kim Kardashians butt broke the internet Th21 will make time stand still 🙂
Profits will be north of 7 billion US dollars
which “begs” the question who is pocketing all this money?
Really jon?
An article about greed simply to make money?
JA is above self promotion for profit.
Well done admin Pat. 🙂
I am at a loss to understand what you mean by this line” “An article about greed simply to make money”?
Who will be making money from it? Not me for certain!
I ONLY EVER WISH TO DEBATE SENSIBLY AND DO NOT LOOK FOR PROFIT FROM ANY SOCIAL ACTIVITIES, AT MY SENIOR AGE.
So fairfan, would you care to explain what that odd line means? JA is surely entitled to make a profit from running this site, which some forget is also a business!
And lets not forget, as of now, Ad PAT HAS STILLNOT REPLIED TO MY EMAIL OF JULY 16TH!!
Again Jon. I have now replied FOUR times to your comments on here…
It was a terrible decision to prematurely end the player’s loan spell at Leeds. If Nketiah has remained at Leeds, under the watchful eye of Beilsa, who knows what he would be worth today.
Instead, he was called back early and forced into the starting 11, when he was clearly not ready; this killed his trade value.
Honestly we’ve seen a strange window from arsenal, refusing to sell Eddie, Xhaka, and refusing to Ainsley go and now holding on to Elneny. Before January Lacatreath will score a few goals and he will deemed indespenceble and given a new five year contract