Well, turns out yesterday was not Martin Zubimendi day.
It was Chloe Kelly day, as her re-signing for the club on a permanent basis was announced. I understand doing these things in isolation. If you make a big splash of a signing for Arsenal Women, and what a great signing btw, you don’t then overshadow it by also announcing a signing for the men’s team. Especially as there are lots of days remaining this summer, time isn’t tight. Tim has a nice piece on Arseblog News about how her loan deal in January developed into a return to the club she started at. Good stuff.
So, I will confidently state that today is the day we make Zubimendi official. And if we don’t, I’ll eat a massive bowl of concrete. Seriously though, unless there’s some big surprise signing about to be unveiled – which I don’t think there is, sorry – we should have our new midfielder officially on board. I mean, it is official already, all the stuff is done, it’s just not publicly official. Which it will be today. Or … you know … concrete and that.
Elsewhere, the striker stuff is now veering heavily into the realms of the absurd. Leaving aside the tabloid stuff about Viktor Gyokeres breaking up with his girlfriend because he doesn’t want anything to tie him to Lisbon (just to be clear, women are capable of traveling from one place to another just like men), there’s talk of a clause in his contract which came into play at the start of July.
Via Sport Witness:
If Sporting receive an offer worth €60m or more for Gyokeres and reject it then they need to pay the player’s agent 10% compensation, so a minimum of €6m.
Sporting want €80m and the club have made it clear that if the agent tries to use the €60m clause by getting a club to offer that just so it can be rejected and trigger the payment, Gyokeres’ price will revert to his €100m buyout clause.
Which sounds like a lovely clause for the agent, but not so much for the player who, in that context, gets none of the €6m, nor a move to Arsenal – which we believe is what he wants. Supposedly. Although we don’t know if that’s 100% concrete or only partial concrete. If that clause is accurate, my strong advice for the Swedish international is find a new agent or at least get a lawyer to read your contracts before you sign them.
Then there’s the Benjamin Sesko stuff, which suggests RB Leipzig want Arsenal to pay €83m … all in one go. Now, as a price-tag, that’s more or less where I think you’d expect it to be. It’s probably a little higher than I would like, but the market isn’t rational or sensible in any way these days. Aston Villa got €74m for Jhon Duran in January, albeit to a Saudi club where the financial implications of that kind of outlay aren’t quite the same; Chelsea spent €70m on Joao Pedro (again I realise any deal involving that club comes with caveats); and Man Utd spent €75m on Mattheus Cunha; so I understand Leipzig looking for as much as they can get for a 22 year old with potential who scored 20+ goals for them last season (Cunha has 33 goals in two and half seasons for Wolves, Pedro has 30 goals in 70 appearances for Brighton).
So, I think you can negotiate around that mark for a player who could be in your team for years to come. Remember, we all thought £50m for Ben White was very high and it turns out that was great value. What I can’t understand, because it’s not typical in any way, is the idea they’d expect Arsenal to pay it all up front. That doesn’t make much sense to me, and given the fact Sesko signed a new deal last summer in the spotlight of interest from us, I can’t believe there wasn’t some discussion of how to facilitate a move this summer should we come back for the player again.
Of course, I could be completely wrong, and I’ll hold my hands up if so, but this feels like something that emerges in the complete absence of any other information from sources who know the ins and outs of any potential deal. 2 + 2 = 5, sort of stuff. Maybe they want a big chunk up front, and that’s where the negotiation is going on, but over the last few seasons RB Leipzig have sold important players like Dani Olmo, Josko Gvardiol, Dominik Szoboszlai, Ademola Lookman, Dayot Upamecano and Ibrahim Konate without this level of fuss, so either we’re the problem (not impossible, of course), or the vacuum of credible info about our striker search is generating its own headlines, and nobody really knows what’s going on.
Apropos of nothing, I did a little check yesterday with regards the two big striker names mentioned and two of the big names when it comes to transfers online.
David Ornstein mentions of Sesko and Gyokeres on Twitter this calendar year:
Sesko: 0
Gyokeres: 2
Fabrizio Romano mentions of Sesko and Gyokeres on Twitter this calendar year
Sesko: 21
Gyokeres: 33
🤔
Right, I’m gonna leave it there. Back tomorrow with news of how Gyokeres is looking to re-home his dog because he doesn’t want to have the hassle of getting a pet passport blocking his move to London, and how RB Leipzig want Arsenal to pay the Sesko fee in gold doubloons and pirate treasure. Arrrrrrr.
Until then.
