The biggest Arsenal transfer rumour in recent weeks is the expected arrival of Ben White from Brighton, but in recent days there has been speculation that Everton have tried to gazump the Gunners with a bigger bid for the England international.
The new Toffees manager Rafa Benitez had reportedly sanctioned a big transfer move for White and it seems Everton told Brighton they will outbid Arsenal as they aim to hijack the deal,
But it seems that we are all worrying needlessly as an Arsenal source has now told Football Insider that the club still expect to wrap up a deal for White quite quickly once the Euros are over.
With the Three Lions already in the semi-final, it seems that any transfers involving England players at the competition are going to be delayed for at least another week, and it could be that Arsenal could be signing a World Cup Winner, although he hasn’t kicked a ball this month!
It would certainly be very disheartening if we missed out on White, but I have the feeling that this information is correct.
The fact that it has been revealed that William Saliba is going off to Marseille for another season on loan in France, must mean that Arsenal are certainly full of confidence that getting White will be at the Emirates next season…
its the Euros so he wont be a world cup winner if we sign him XD
😂😂 I missed that Val, well spotted.
If he can play like Bonucci and Chiellini, buy him. Otherwise use the money to buy John McGinn, Fabian Ruiz Pena, Dusan Vlahovic or Kelechi Iheanacho
You be reaching at times you know?
I’m reaching? What do you mean kev?
from the players you listed above,i would literally only take fabian ruiz and that only if his cost was reasonable and if i was obliged to take one. otherwise, none of them fits in the way we play or they are mediocre players. and yes, mcginn is not a wonderful player, he is just a decent player on a decent team. the kind of signings we need to avoid.
Yeah Fabian Ruiz Pena will be costly, because he’s in his prime, left-footed, in Euro and big clubs’ target
About McGinn, I expect his connection with Tierney on the left side of our midfield
Hi GAI, we need ball playing midfielders and wide players like Raheem sterling. We need established players and not another prospect. We need to have a team that can compete with Man City and Liverpool next season. We can’t continue to go in circles.
Arteta should go for Raheem Sterling, and Aouar.
Sell Xhaka, Guendouzi, Torrera, Kolasinac.
I have a feeling that Arteta Hates Saliba. I won’t be surprised if we sell him next season. This club has consistently made bad decisions with transfers. We buy players we dont need and find it difficult to sell players who have passed it.
If the players you mentioned leave, we’ll need at least one DM. Aouar, Sabitzer and Maddison are similar to our existing CAMs, so I prefer to use the budget to buy another player type
Sterling is much better in attacking than our LWs, but we have to sell at least one of them first. About Saliba, I also believe he won’t extend his contract in 2022
Personally think it’s £50 million wasted while we have £60 million worth of CB’s on the books already (Saliba & Gabriel) that need a coach to sharpen and polish them.
Is the problem the CB’s or Arteta’s evaluation of talent?
Our attack is on life support, the midfield is the weakest in decades, and checkbook Arteta offering £50 million for his 3rd CB in 18 months.
For White’s sake I hope he is Tony Adams reincarnated, or the kbives will be out for him and Arteta.
For £50 million the player should step in and instantly deliver or consequences should follow.
Then again Arsenal never learn. Arsenal jump in both feet with Willian before Ozil saga concludes.
£72 million Pepe investigation and here we are knocking on the door for supremely over valued White.
Everton may offer more in transfer cash, but Arsenal will certainly overpay White in wages; that’s just how we do, modus operandi
Arteta is putting himself surely and squarely in the firing line. None of us including Arteta knows how his decisions on players are going to pan out but boy he is making sure he has to hit the ground running. He is making, along with Edu, some controversial decisions and boy will they bite him in the Arse nal and us, if it doesn’t work from the get go. The team is not shaping up how we thought at all at the moment. No real midfield replacement or striker as yet, after ballsing up letting Martinez go. We as usual look to have NO PLAN.
Reminds me of club’s methods during Wenger;
Wait while other clubs shuffle players, and buy late hoping for good deal for key positions.
Early on White but complete unnecessary purchase. Sure Nuno at LB, but it’s backup and not key.
Same with Sambi at CM; young player for future not a starting partner for Partey; least I hope not.
Otherwise Midfield need rebuilding STAT, dead cat performances throughout the year.
Don’t buy into the whole “need to sell first” BS. If so, why the bidding for White when our midfield has been anemic at best.
On our 3rd manager, yet still the same labored, haggling, time wasting transfer window as always.
I now hate transfer windows; everything about them. Season can’t start soon enough to relieve me of the tedious, soul killing laborous plodding Arsenal does during transfers.
Don’t be tactful Durand – say what you really think (;-))
I actually like White a lot and think he’ll be excellect from Day 1. Overpriced yes but its a sellers market for top young English players.
But that’s taking it in isolation as there’s several snags too:
We have a ton of CBs, two potentially could be as good
Defence not priority
Lack of games for Saliba
How much do we have left for key position?
So I get where youre coming from
excellect? Freudian slip?
Just a simple typo, so how could it possibly be considered “Freudian”? CALL ME A PEDANT IF YOU LIKE; I DON’T MIND, AS ITS TRUE!
Arguably we dont need White and he only replaces Luiz at most (might i add Luiz is better) but may prove to be good. The defence is the least problematical of ALL of our positions. Not sure about the left back Nuno or Lokonga but they are for the future, probably when Arteta isnt there. At this moment in time, i was hoping for Bissouma and a target man up front but i think i will be hoping a long while.
i also think white will be very good for us but i agree with your comments regarding value for money and priority signings. I still think we could have retained saliba and sold one of our other cbs, maybe mari. Or even keep chambers solely for backup RB position. The team’s main problem is creativity and the inability of our midfielders to think fast during transition from defence to attack. We desperately need proper RB, CDM, CAM, these 3 should be the main priorities. After these are done and dusted, buy reserve LB, GK and if possible, another young midfielder if the budget allows it, as we have had ceballos, odegaard and most likely xhaka departing/ed (in addition to guendouzi and torreira).
To be better try Grealish, keep Xhaka, try White & Locatelli
I am not feeling spending £50 million on a CB..
Waste of money..
Why are these agents making Arsenal managers look this sad? .. White @£50 million… Willian gets pd to have at least no more goals as a number 10 for Arsenal than Allison as a goalkepper in a season and £72 million for Pepe who probably only showed Arsenal that they would have been happier if they pd around £25 million.. These AGENTS are the heroes… If they managed our players, we would at least be seeing £200 mill for Saka and £160 mill plus for Smith Rowe…. 😎🙄…
Nicolas Pepe will come Good. He will surprise us next season. If you compare Pepe with REAL Madrid Hazard, the difference is clear. Hazard cost more than Pepe. Hazard is a compete failure at Real Madrid.
What I wish the club do is to get 2 top signings. Raheem Sterling and Aouar.Every player has a price.
I agree on Nicholas Pepe; his form and contributions (goals and assists) to the team have improved over the last two seasons. Compared to other players in his position in the EPL he is up there. People just get hung up on his price. His confidence can’t be helped by being benched for Willian after he had a good game, particularly after having scored. .
For me, this is like misplacement of priority. It is actually ironic because that 50 million should be going for White’s teammate Bissouma.
Our defense was the 3rd best last season just behind Mancity and Chelsea. So we are covered in that area, plus the addition of Saliba, rumor carries that he is moving to Marseille on loan.
Our midfield and attack are the areas that robbed us of champions league spots.
Well, Arteta is just fortunate to be our current manager, so he alone understands what he wants for the team better.
Let us see the addition he gets in central midfield and attacking midfield. Perhaps there is a lot of money for us to spend this summer.
Read Chelsea are bidding for White too. Not surprised rumors about teams bidding for him kept coming up.. I’m not against Arsenal upgrading our backline because other clubs are upgrading their frontline too, I just hope whoever we sign keeps the ground running
So he doesn’t understand our priorities then. Everyone knows that creativity is our key priority and if not resolved, defense will always be seen as problematic. Transition from defense to attack is slow and by the time we get to the 3rd quarter, the opponents build up their defense and we don’t have the resource it breakdown. Our midfielders resort to passing across and back passes. With such a team, even the world’s best defense won’t help. Our Mustafi took the blame for a problem not created by himself but the technical team’s failure to understand our priorities.
👍AgB, well summarized; transition from defense to attack through midfield and service to Arsenal’s forward line are the biggest problems and should be the highest priority to address.
Watching Holding make a hash of playing out from the back under pressure last season was painful. Although we didn’t concede too many goals, we need CBs that are very comfortable on the ball to play out from the back. Arteta doesn’t seem to rate Saliba for some reason, so I’m fine with having a new CB. As you pointed out though, our midfield needs to be revamped. So I hope to see some astute investments in that area of the pitch.
A CB is a priority. We currently don’t have a single CB we know can perform at high level all season. Not one that can carry the ball. So buying one that can do that is imperative, ecpesially since Arteta likes to play from the back. It might be as important to our fluidity as buying a midfielder. Any way, it seems we are looking for both.
I agree. Saliba is not coming back (probably won’t play for Arsenal ever as long as Pennywise is the coach) and Luiz has left. A quick search shows that many top teams have 6 to 7 CBs except for Spurs and Leicester with 4 and 5 if I am not wrong.
I have not seen him play or took any notice of him until he was linked to us but from what I gather he ticks all the boxes.
Still I don’t like the fact that we are still bullied into paying outrageous amounts for our targets. 50 million is a huge amount for a defender. He is currently at 33K per week but after he signs I will not be surprised if he is offered our trademark competitive salary of 100-200k.
From what I have seen on White compared to our CB’s, he’s better than those we have currently. Wenger was not used to buying English players bcos they were always overpriced.
We all want Arsenal to be successful, so as MA. Let’s give him the room to operate. 50m is too much but if MA strengthens the squad with White, Renato and a good CAM, I wouldn’t be sad with the 50m valuation of White.
Do you think with these 3 signings we could challenge for top 4? Look at chelsea’s team, from the manager to players we are outclassed. Arteta cant even finish above West Ham with a better squad. As if few addition of mediocres will change anything. This is becoming a joke…
Unfortunately it is far from funny!
Ben white is definitely and upgrade on holding and provides the ball playing ability of luiz . 50m is a bit too much but prices are always inflated when it comes to English players .
I know that people will say that we had the third best defense in the league but we should be looking to improve on that and white is definitely going to help with that .
Concerning the saliba situation, ideally I’ll prefer him to stay but if he has to go on loan it will be best to go to a premier league club.
I agree that Arsenal DESPERATELY need to
upgrade the middle of the pitch with talents
like Sanchez, Locatelli, Cavaninga, etc but this
overall notion or seemingly fan consensus that
the current CB room collectively is good enough
for Arsenal to seriously challenge for a CL place
IMHO is LAUGHABLE.
Saliba should be in Arteta’s short term plans,
but Gabriel, Mari, Holding and Chambers are
sadly mid table players at the CB position. Gabby
has shown flashes but if Arsenal genuinely want
to consistently be in the top 4 and EPL title
discussion the CB room HAS TO BE
UPGRADED as well.
Ben White might be overpriced but he is BETTER
than anybody currently in CB room @ the
Emirates.
Chelsea won a champions league with Rudiger, Zouma and Thiago. They also made top 4.
The day Lampard was sacked, Arsenal and Chelsea were on the same points in the table.
Our priority should be in attack and midfield. We need goal scoring midfielders. We need players like Raheem Sterling and Auoar.
It makes no sense to spend 50m pounds on White and afterwards look for bargain deals for midfielders who won’t improve us immediately. We need intelligent midfielders.
We need top players on the flanks who score goals week in week out.
White is quality no doubt, but I believe Saliba, Gabriel, Mari, Chambers and Holding are good enough next season. We are not playing in Europe by the way. We need offensive players.
If we are to replace Luiz, then get Sergio Ramos on a 2 year contract. A free transfer.
Chambers Gabriel Mari Tierney
Partey
Pepe Aouar ESR Sterling
Aubameyang.
That team above can face any team in the league.
Hang on where is Saka and Willock? Saka, ESR and Willock has to be played after last years performance.
It seems that in midfield either you sell academy graduates or play them else they will leave in 2022 for peanuts. If you sell them you can buy new players with the money. But in defense no such option.
This offer mustn’t go like this. Arteta do something….. Everton isn’t rich than Arsenal, not even closer. So, let’s keep a bid on him….
Its all about time. Won’t be long
For me, if we are getting Ben White Holding should be sold to raise enough money for CM and attacking midfielder,then bring Saliba back to the team, if we don’t buy good CM and attacking midfielder no hope for the coming season, this is the time to work.
Ben White is a replacement for David Luiz. No other Arsenal’s CB can carry the ball up front.. Saliba is probably a good CB but he could not do what David Luiz did. If Saliba stays, he will challenge Gabriel’s spot, not Ben White.
And where will ESR, Willock and Saka play?
Just over a week and our first pre-season game starts on 13th July. A week! We haven’t signed one player and are losing players to tournaments. A pre-season with no new players…..unbelievable, farcical and incompetent. We have 5 games over a short period before the EPL, Brentford on the 13th August. Bed players in? Ha ha.
👍 And Arsenal finished eighth with this squad.
Sean
It is frustrating but some players contracts have only come to an end at then of June and can imagine most clubs are watching what’s happening.
We ha e never been a club where we get players in at the start and even in AW days we always left it until the death. Never understood this.. was it too save 1 months wages.. who knows..
Sure we will make a few but who and what position is another story
What Skills1000 said X 1000.
If AFC do not beef up the midfield, does not matter if we have the best defense in the league, will be mid-pack at best!
Need to score more goals. How does one score more goals? Create more chances…
Our executive team is among the worst in the EPL.
Aaron
Totally agree on need players who can contribute in scoring goals
What surprised me most was we had the 3rd best defensive record for last season
We sacrificed goals scored for goals conceded.
We now need to build on this.
We talk about saliba needing to come back to us. Adding white but the boys who did play for us done a half decent job even though it didn’t seem we had it under control
Let’s see how it plays out in the next 4 weeks and who stays and who goes
Me …I want the deals done now but reality tels me there still a long way to go before we find out what our starting line up will be for the first game kicks off
Ad PAT, two related matters stand out as clear inconsistencies in your article You report that we are confident of signing him , despite thefact that as of now he has not signed Then you report Everton as likely to gazump us.
To my logical mind BOTH these contradictory claims cannot possibly be true. That is, UNLESS you fondly imagine that Brighton will not wish to get the highest price possible for his transfer, which suggestion is patently for the birds. I suspect your article is based far more on pure hope than on accurte judgement therefore.
So often, logical thinking and forensicly clinical thinking provide the truth, whereas blind hope only promotes premature excitement (or in Whites case, some laughably silly depression, by certain fans).
All that being said, I much suspect that he will end up with us as I think Evertons reported interest is a suspect report.
While White is a fine CB, our priority must be to rejuvenate our midfield .Bissouma,Sanchez,and Lokonga (for development) are players who would bring pace and energy to an area where we have been pedestrian for some time.The return of Willock who will no longer lack confidence after his productive spell at Newcastle will add weight to Partey and ESR and create a strong engine room to enable us to compete with the likes of Liverpool and Man City in that vital area.
waiting for a signing that is actually going to make this side halfway decent. Lokonga, White, Tavares are all signings that will keep us 8th.
Who knows what is happening with this deal. The Mirror is reporting today that Brighton are looking for £55m. Eh? I have clearly been labouring under the misapprehension then that the required fee was £50m. The fee is obviously creeping up, or else the story is complete BS. I fully expect Brighton to announce that there has been no contact with Arsenal or any other club.
Biscuitbum!