Why Are Arsenal Not Listening To Palace? by Dan Smith
Part of my motivation in writing my Africa Contribution Series was to avoid discussing rumours daily. I have long accepted we have zero ambition at our club. Daily I see the priority being finding value over talent.
So, transfer windows are depressing enough for gooners without people getting our hopes up. We know that Wilfred Zaha is a lifelong Arsenal fan, we know our manager would equally like him to move to North London. Yet none of that matters.
A week ago, reports said Unai Emery was going to ask his owner to find the funds to make this deal happen. Anyone who’s followed Stan Kroenke will know he never has gone that extra mile for us. Meanwhile Palace are trying to scare us off with an 80 million valuation, almost double our budget. Yet for some reason we have apparently tabled an offer of 40m? That’s the equivalent of walking into Curries with 100 pound in your pocket, asking a shop assistant to show you TV’s worth 500, believing that they will change their mind and lower the price. Why would that happen?
Even if the player accused Steve Parish of trying to price him out of a ‘dream move’ could he not simply point out we are not even anywhere near the asking price, therefore how much do we actually rate him? Didn’t we get 40-45 million for the Ox who only became a starter at full back? Haven’t Bournemouth quoted 30 million for Fraser? Didn’t Mahrez leave Leicester for 70 million? If you’re an Eagles fan who just saw your right back sold for 50 million, you’re not going to accept 10 million less for your star man.
It’s crazy that 60-80 million now only gets you an inconsistent winger. Yet these are the type of players we must look at. We are not in a position to compete for World Class players so have to take a gamble on someone who might develop into one. Two things are going on with our recruitment team. They are naive or arrogant thinking that Palace are somehow going to care that we have ‘no money’ or the interest is fake, a PR move to make supporters think things are changing, coinciding nicely with the week kits go on sale.
Sky Bet give odds of 8/11 for Zaha to be at the Emirates by the end of August. That’s more ridiculous then the ‘offer’ we have tabled.
Dan Smith
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