There is no doubt that Arsenal currently are overloaded with strikers at the club, especially as we have no European football to give our backup players any much-needed game time.
After Arteta promoted Folarin Balogun to the first team to join Martinelli, Lacazette and Aubameyang in the pecking order, it seemed certain that Eddie Nketiah had to find another club or spend yet another year on the sidelines.
He was offered a move to another London side Crystal Palace where he could get a chance to resurrect his faltering career, but according to the talkSPORT reporter Alex Crook the deal fell through due to demands of the player and his agent.
He said on deadline day: “One Premier League chief executive said the problem with the Crystal Palace deal wasn’t Arsenal’s asking price.
“It was the demands of his agent, in terms of agent’s fees, and it was Eddie Nketiah’s wage demands that have priced him out of a move from Arsenal this transfer window.”
At 22 years of age, Nketiah should be playing regular football and try to regain his prolific scoring form of his days in the Arsenal U23 team, but it seems his chance at Arsenal has passed him by, with just 11 Premier League starts in his 3 years in the Gunners first team squad.
Now it seems that he is happy to languish on the bench for another year as his contract runs down instead of taking a pay cut to play regular football. The former Premier League defender Danny Mills believes that Nketiah is taking a big chance with his career by not taking the deal.
“He’s daft, that’s what it is,” Mills said. “He’s being badly advised. Sometimes you have to take a step backwards to take two steps forwards.
“You have to back yourself and say: ‘You know what, it’s not really what I want right now, I might have to take a little bit of a cut, but I’m going to go there.
“‘I’m going to go there and score goals, I’m going to show how good I am and then the season after that or the season after that, everyone is going to be coming in after me because I’ve scored 15, 20 goals in the Premier League.
“‘And then Palace aren’t going to be able to keep hold of me because there will be too many clubs in for me’.
“I think that’s very naive, because what will happen is you’ll have this season where you will do absolutely nothing, you end up on a free transfer and everyone is going, ‘well, you’ve not played for a year, you don’t really know what you’re doing’.
“You’re always best to go out and play, no matter what.”
He may not have been willing to take a pay cut this year, but he may find it even harder to get a deal elsewhere next summer. A fourth year on the sidelines with not much in the way of proven Premier League experience may mean an even bigger drop in offers to choose from, especially when he had an underwhelming half a season playing in the Championship with Leeds.
Nketiah may end up regretting this decision big time…
Very true however we’re paying too much for Mediocrity
As regarding our most expensive defender
For the past five to ten years, our recruitment team has been a mirror of our current position at the bottom of the Premier League table.
A lot of amateurish mistakes have been made by the recruitment team for many years. Some of these mistakes include the signings of players like Skhodran Mustafi for 35 million pounds, Lucas Perez for 17 million pounds and Sokratis Papasthatopoulos for 18 million pounds.
Losing players like Santi Cazorla, Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil, Skhodran Mustafi, and Sokratis Papasthatopoulos without receiving a single penny is a very terrible piece of business in the football world.
And it seems the recruitment board have not learned their lessons from the bad deals they made in the past. This summer, we have signed the likes of Nuno Tavares, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Ben White, Martin Odegaard, Aaron Ramsdale and Takehiro Tomiyasu.
Amongst these players, only the signing of Ben White from Brighton for 50 million pounds has been a cause of concern for us many fans around the world. The huge question on everyone’s mind was “How can Mikel Arteta and Edu sanction a 50 million pounds deal to sign a defender without any aerial presence when saliba was shipped out on loan”.
The fear on everyone’s mind was put on display when Arsenal played against Brentford FC in the opening game of the new Premier League season. Ben White was easily dominated by Brentford striker Ivan Toney.
It became clear that Ben White could not compete in the air against the tall premier league strikers and it seems Mikel Arteta and Edu Gaspar got the message. This brought about the signing of Takehiro Tomiyasu. A player who isn’t a pure right-back nor a pure centre-back.
Is Mikel Arteta and Edu trying to cover their Ben White mistake by signing Takehiro Tomiyasu who is 6ft 2inches tall and can cover Ben White’s aerial weakness?
MA just doesn’t like Saliba. football.london reported free an investigation that it’s because Saliba was signed by Emery and Arteta wanted his own player signed by himself. How arrogant
Good points Gundown.
Whilst lauding the signing of Ben White on here, I commented that despite said signing we remained AERIALLY venerable at the back – early doors so it has proved (admittedly White did not play against City, but we were done at the FAR stick by 5 foot odd …. again).
We have already seen the season more than one example of conceding when not dealing with relatively simple balls int o the box, and this has been the case in seasons past (we do however, have Gabriel to come in).
It was obvious Mikel’s overriding priority was to sign a ball playing centre back, and this he has done.
However, we all know a defenders first job is to defend, keep the ball out of the net – full stop.
I spoke to a knowledgeable Brighton fan re’ what to expect from White.
He told me – “AJ, Ben deserves his chance to move on to bigger things – but losing Lewis Dunk would have hurt us more”.
Make of that what you will.
It is a bonus if your centre backs can then play out from the back, we hope we have both of these attributes (strong defending / ball playing) in Ben White.
Takehiro Tomiyasu is an interesting one. I expect great things from this particular player.
We all get our information from various sources, but many people hang their hat on Fabrizio Romano. Amongst other watchers of Italian club football, Romano cannot speak highly enough of Tomiyasu saying we have a very good player on our hands – I very much look forward to seeing Tomi in our line up.
Back to the aerial weakness.
If a 4 (4-2-3-1) Ben White will line up at right sided centre back with Tomiyasu at right back.
But something nags at me.
I posted on here a bit back, that if our aerial venerability continues I can see us ending up with a £50M right back (B W), with Tomi (new arrival) lining up at R/H centre back.
Alternatively, a back 3 beckons.
Also linked into the “Aerial” debate is our keeper.
Bernd Leno, whilst a very good shot stopper, is not the best at coming for crosses or commanding his 6 yard box generally.
Begs the question once Ramsdale gets his chance, if he performs (takes those crosses) will he grab the shirt ahead of schedule ?
At the minute any cross, long throw, corner etc we look very venerable at the back.
Agree Gundown, a concern and leaves the Saliba debate wide open.
Once again a nice thoughtful insight of the situation
Is this the same Mr Danny Mills who milked Leeds to the last penny for the reminder of his contract after they let him join ManC on a free transfer???
In other news, Guendouzi has just been called up to the French senior squad after an impressive start to the season
Funny seeing Danny Mills pontificating given his self serving past exploits.
I suspect Nketiah will be another Ryan Fraser, running down his contract and thinking because he’s on a free he can demand big wages and then ending up at a club who will pay him and his agent less if he wants to play football. Tomiyasu is a good acquisition as he’s Santi Cazorla style two footedness means he can play anywhere in a back 3 or RCB, RB or RWB. He’s also strong and crucially good in the air. Better value than Ben White but I like them both. Sambi seems a good player and I hope he displaces Xhaka from the team.