Once the season kicks off it will be Arsenal’s third in the Europa League and the gap to the top is as big as it has been in a very long time and yet players are still choosing Arsenal over so-called superior rivals.
Arsenal was supposed to be a club in decline but it seems that no one has told the players that have been signed or are being targeted by the club.
Tottenham, Champions League finalists, fantastic new stadium, Champions League participants and a very strong squad tried to hijack the William Saliba deal and yet he chose to sign for Arsenal.
The same club tried to sign Dani Ceballos and yet again, he chose to sign for Arsenal.
Champions League qualifiers Napoli have been repeatedly reported to be interested in signing Kieran Tierney and yet it appears that he will be signing for Arsenal.
Nicolas Pepe was reportedly wanted by Champions League winners Liverpool, Serie A runners up Napoli and one of the biggest clubs in the world Man Utd, and if today’s reports are true he has chosen Arsenal.
There is a significant pattern developing here and it cannot be based on money alone, not when you are going up against clubs like Man Utd and Liverpool.
It proves to me that the pulling power of Arsenal is as strong as it ever was and that is while they are in the situation they currently find themselves in. Imagine if Arsenal did qualify for the Champions League or had genuine title prospects.
At the end of the day you can buy your way to trophies and success in the short term but over the long term you cannot beat history, culture, branding and class and Arsenal have that in abundance.
As well as having a reputation for giving youth a chance, it could be down to the attraction of playing for the manager too.
If it’s a question of history, then Arsenal are currently the THIRD most successful English team behind Man Utd and Liverpool.
Form is temporary, but Arsenal’s class is permanent.
London as a big say in it also . Like when we signed Sanchez over Liverpool,think it was Brenda who said he choose us over them because of the shopping or something like that .
Good point Dan, I forgot about ‘London Weighting’. Players want to hang around in the trendy capital where its slightly warmer than ‘ooop norf’.
Sp*ds are based in London too as at the last time I checked.
Yeah potatoes and guns both reside in North London but, only one of them has pedigree woof woof ?
(Spuds have history too, just haven’t won anything of note lately)
If you are from north London you will know the difference between the two clubs areas. A radius of 3 miles from the Spud is, no other words horrible, scummy areas.
3 mile radius from Arsenal has everything, but mainly classy areas, Highbury, Highgate, Camden etc. Where would you want be/work
And this pull on players is forcing the selling clubs to accept Arsenal’s invariably inferior payment terms.
It’s amazing!
May be it’s the new home kit? I’d give anything to wear that on the pitch. Looks cute!!!
Very well said!! Makes me feel even more proud to be a gunner!! Big club, big history, big stadium. Now we just need to get behind the team and do our job ??.
If we sign Pepe & Tierney it would be great. Let’s buy a quality CB and make it a great window. Or am I being too greedy?
I don’t believe it’s “as strong as ever”. The following factors have probably reduced it:
1. Out of Champions League for three years in a row and not in the Top 4
2. Pulling Strength of United, City and Chelsea
3. The emergence of Spuds and Liverpool in the Top 4. More competition
4. Lack of vision and Ambition
Positive things about Arsenal for players:
1. High salaries
2. History
3. Living in London
This pulling power thing is damn. Sorry.
It’s all about money. If you can match the other clubs offers then everything else is a given.
Look at Spuds, they signed Ndobele for more than £40 million. Everton are signing and are going for expensive players etc.
It’s all about the money. And whenever we offer big money we seem to get the players (ozil, sanchez, Laca, Auba,) and may be Pepe too.
Money speaks. Even if you are a big name but refuse to pay the going rate then you are definitely not getting that player. I hear Pepe’s first choice was PSG, but the Neymar debacle stopped it. I also hear that another 4 clubs have all had an agreement with Lille, He is coming to Arsenal because we offered better personal terms, offered more wages and Agent fees than all the other clubs.
We also heard how Saliba spoke to spurs too but they did not want to loan him back for a season while we accepted to loan him back. We compromised while spuds refused too.
Same with Ceballlos, spuds wanted an outright deal or an option to buy, while we just compromised and accepted Madrids / Ceballos requests.
Again, as long we stay competitive in the Transfer Window then the higher the chances of us getting signing good players.
? Spot on, Goonster. Also with Dani Ceballos, Unai Emery knew him well and made a personal approach, as well as relationship with Hector Bellerin.
Hopefully the Edu/Everton Soares relationship can deliver the player to Arsenal.
OG: Hope you saw my apology to you and any Gooners around the world about a recent post. I’m sure you know the one I’m talking about. I know you’re thousands of miles away however you’re one of the most passionate and knowledgeable bloggers on this site.
Thank you, apology accepted, Ken, all of us say or type things we later regret.
Hopefully we can all look forward to some positivity for the Arsenal towards the start of the 2019/20 season.
You and I still have the Ashes to look forward to!
I’ll get to that later this week LOL
I agree Man City an Chelsea were complete dog shite before their billionaire owners. They also cooked the books to spend obscene money on their teams to avoid FFP sanctions. Looks like Citeh will get their comeuppance soon and Chelski are in the middle of another transfer ban.
Money talks but Stadium, Training facilities, location, history, class, top level competition help.
I always said the £40 Million transfer budget was a load of Bull, A dirty rumour put out by MUTV’s sister channel Sky Sports in order to derail Arsenal’s transfer window, They’ve given us negative publicity for years in fact since the days we were their beloved Manchester United’s only challengers for the Premier League. Still waiting for Arsene Wenger’s biography which should tell us all about the bias that has come from Sky Sports, with The Premier League and The PGMOL in their pockets, ever since they were established in 1991. Now that Managing Director Vinai has come out and said it was untrue, never put out by the club we can all relax and expect more signings. Even if the Pepe deals fails to materialise they’ll be other signings with Zaha and Everton Soares waiting in the wings.
Kenny, even £40 million can go a long way if you structure the transfer payments in instalments, good loan deals etc.
The £40-45 million never added up given the £60 million per annum from Adidas alone.
I’m quoting Vinai the Arsenal Managing Director Ozziegunner. He said whilst we haven’t got as much money as we would like because failure to get Champions League football the £40 Million was a rumour and never came from the club. He went on to say we have enough to make big deals or words to that effect
Kenny, I saw the Vinai and Raul interviews as well. Having dealt with the media throughout my working life, I know that they don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story!
Adanim, Arsenal also have some very promising youngsters coming through who (based on their team results) have a winning mentality.
However the issue remains the high wage bill, which will not be resolved until the Ozil and Mhikatarian contracts conclude.
Vinai and Raul didn’t exactly come out quickly to squash the £40m rumour when the window opened. I think that, and buying before selling, may have given Arsenal leverage in some negotiations. Something I’m now a bit concerned with re Tierney. Do Celtic stop and think “they just splashed out £70m plus on Pepe, give us £40m for Tierney”? After all they don’t need to sell
Trudeau, I believe there would be a lot of “good faith” in dealings between professional football clubs. Glasgow Celtic would be unwise to up the ante on the agreed amount of say £25 million, because it would jeopardise future dealings, not only with Arsenal, but other clubs as well. Your word is your bond.
I never knew instalmental payment could be this effective. We could get all our weak position strenghten, achieve the ucl goal and then pay off. Self sustaining model can be beautiful with the right professional not the amarteurs that squandered all our 10yrs consecutive qualification bonus on chamak, bendtner e.t.c
I hope at the end of the window we will all smile and confidence of our team. By then, i hope AdminMart will tender apologies for calling our transfer dealings ‘amarteurish’. as at today Raul and his team got my respect for doing excellent jobs
Sorry Adajim, for misspelling your name in my comment above.
no p. I understand.
I need to post this for kev:
Nicolas Pépé was the only player in Europe’s top five divisions to have 100+ shots, win 100+ fouls and complete 100+ take-ons in the league in 2018-19:
• 118 shots
• 108 fouls won
• 102 take-ons
Maybe ill repost in next article.
I agree, stat may not show the full picture, but for a non-arsenal player who i dont watch regularly, esp the one in ligue 1, i can only use stat to have a viw of his talents
Wenger’s gone. Arsenal couldn’t pull players like this. The blogger can’t use our new regime’s power to credit Arsene’s Arsenal of the past. Give credit where credit is due. Smh.
No. Arsenal never offered big money like this. That is why we hardly ever got these big money signings.
It’s all about money.
Didn’t wenger attract the likes of Ozil, Sanchez, Laca, Auba etc? And what is the correlation between them all? We paid the going rate and wages. But if we did not then they themselvees would never have come.
How many so called big name signings have we missed out on all because we could not afford their hefty transfer prices and wages?
Love the article Martin and the respect you showed the club. Coming from a supporter of 60 years who knows a bit about the history of our great club.
Newspapers still claiming we have 40 million to spend ? the managing director has come out and said that’s not true yet newspapers are still persisting that our budget is 40 million! It’s funny how we’re the only club in Europe who have a public transfer kitty lol. They seriously need to give this 40 million quid transfer kitty a rest they’re sounding like a broken record! Lazy, antagonising Journalism at its finest! They must be really sweating that no one wants to play for Ole ?
Sorry but The Arsenal is not the only European Club that exposes its Kitty in Public.
Have you ever been out on a Saturday night anywhere in Europe?? All Night Clubs are known for having girls exposing their Kitty’s in public.
Just saying. You guys are always too Negative.
But even with pepe’s deal we have not spent upto £20
And judging from the nature of deals arsenal are pulling
Out so far u wouldn’t say for sure they have a big transfer
Kitty until they surpass the £45 budget we were met to believe
You can’t completely say it’s a false info
@Nonny true but where have they got this 40 million kitty only from ? It’s not come from the club and I believe that as I’ve said before it’s not like Arsenal rang up the media to tell them we have 40 million to spend! Utd are trying to finance the Maguire deal through installments and Champions League qualification add ons.. I don’t see the mail or mirror coming out and saying utd have only 70 million to spend because the reality is they would never try to downgrade or humiliate the mighty and great Manchester United or any of they’re other beloved clubs! I think most clubs operate in a way where a good percentage of the transfer fee is paid upfront and the rest in installments, add ons etc
Well said Kev82, you’ve got it spot on mate.
The most positive and the most negative thing about Nicolas Pepe is that he needs to play at a very high intensity/pace. You just cannot have slow, mindless players, players like Xhaka playing with him or the intesity will grind to a halt. Also when teams shut up shop against us we have often struggled for space and to this day don’t break parked teams down well. To make the most of Pepe’s astonishing pace we desperately need Tierney and a solid CB. Without repairing the ‘hole’ in our bucket we will leak goals…. whoever we play on the wing. Given the choice of Xaha or Pepe I would jump up and down at whoever out the two we signed. Just a couple of weeks ago we had no alleged money, so a crazy sudden change if it is true. I’ll always carry the scars of Suarez, Higuain and Lemar…all “certainties’ that never happened. It ain’t over till the fat lady sings. I hope we are a big pull still.
I love the nature of our deals
Because almost all our deals are
Paid instalmentally. this now adds
Significant amount of pressure on
Us to deliver champions league spot
So that we can pay for our instalment
Deals it’s now an obvious fact that if
We manage to pull off this transfers
The club will make it clear that anything
Lesser than a champions league qualification
Spot is unacceptable not even EMERY will be
Spared you either step up or step aside will
Be the board’s massage
I have been reading posts of kev
Saying pepe isn’t worth That much
That his a limited player with just
Speed and good finish….
I would like to know what he is worth
Seems you work in transfer market from
All indications(nature of your posts)
From what I read on here he gets his info from twitter as most people (myself not included) do.. when I used social media and Twitter it seemed everyone on that platform think their football experts and can manage a team better than the professionals.. they jump on the bandwagon or play too many computer games!
I think you men’t ITK
Haha i had to Google that and this is what it said ? An football transfer news account on Twitter that pretends that they have insiders at a football club and usually tweet bullsh*t that their gullible followers will believe. They base their tweets from what other reports are saying and copy and paste it, or they make guesses and once every blue moon they get a deal right which somehow lures in followers.
Let’s be honest – we all think we are football experts and can manage a team better than the professionals! ☺
And in reality we couldn’t coach our way out of a paper bag ?
Have look at how they compare here mate https://one-versus-one.com/en/compare-players/Wilfried-Zaha-vs-Nicolas-Pepe
Admin, can we have a poll?
Kev’s Zaha Vs Pepe ( people’s choice)
I T K
IRRELEVANT TWITTER KIF
Let’s not get carried away until pepe is officially a gunner still a few teams that could hijack the move and offer him same or more money plus champions league football!! Would still prefer to buy 2 top quality central defenders that’s what been needed for many years and still not been addressed!!
We have too many CB
Presently but no wingers
I think we need team Balance
More than personals..we play
With virtually every formation
Because we lack a balanced team
When our attack and midfield is
Balanced the defence won’t suffer
Like they have been suffering over
This previous seasons. After then
Then we can then look at underperforming
Personals
We may have CB but not top quality ones which we need if we did we would not concede goals in the manner we do the defence is a complete shambles and has been for years until we sort that out we will continue to struggle to compete with the big boys!!
If you mean top quality then
We need a whole new set of
Squad per C.F I understand
That we lack dominant or world
Class cb’s but I will prioritise
A balanced squad over quality of
Players last summer we solved issue
Of dm this summer we should get wingers
Since sanchez left we have zero wingers
Which affects the balance of the squad
Getting a CB won’t stop us seeing a back 3
It’s about squad balance getting wingers and lb
It did feel sweet beating Totts to those players. Goonster, I disagree, I don’t think Tott pulled out of the Ceballos deal or the Saliba deal. Both clubs knew the demands and they made it to the talks with the players, Ceballos was the one who didn’t want a buy option but Spuds would’ve been aware of that. They only turned to their second target ..your man off Betis, after we signed Ceballos. Same with Saliba, everyone knew what the club wanted and they weren’t prepared to do the deal without it. Tott tried to offer better terms and we matched it, made a slightly improved offer, but again they spoke with the player or the agent but he gave his word to Arsenal and he stuck by it. He said Guendouzi helped him decide, spoke well, and the fact some French players have done well at the Gunners.
Tott didn’t pull out of either deal as far as I’m aware and I think they thought they could steal Saliba because of CL football. I love that they tried to prove some sort of power shift and got a slap in their face for their trouble.
I remember another French winger we got with great speed and finishing
Legend need I say more ?? ??