Morning.
For a bit of variety, let’s start with some news of players going out, rather than coming in, and the BBC report that Reiss Nelson could return to Fulham on loan, having spent last season on loan there too. Ideally, I’d prefer to sell him, I think it’s been clear for some time he’s never going to play regular first team football for Arsenal, thus, for all concerned, a clean break is probably for the best.
However, despite doing well at Craven Cottage in the last campaign, he suffered a very serious hamstring injury in December, which ruled him out for the rest of the season. His last competitive appearance was on December 5th, that’s 225 days without a proper game, and by the time the new season comes along, you can add more to that tally. So, if Fulham have some concerns, I can’t really say I blame them.
They like the player; they’re worried about the injury situation. To me, that seems pretty reasonable, and it’s not as if there’s a long line of suitors out the door for Reiss at this point. Which makes a loan deal sensible, but where I think Arsenal can negotiate is ensuring this is a loan + obligation, rather than a loan + option. If Reiss Nelson makes a certain amount of appearances, for example, it should trigger that obligation to make the deal permanent. Or, perhaps, we offer them a permanent deal now at a lower price than we might like, and – dare I say it – there are some … add-ons … which could bump the final price up if he does well there and plays regularly.
Whatever happens, he’s one of the players in the current squad who has to go and play somewhere on a regular basis now. It’s a bit mad to think of it, but Nelson made his debut under Arsene Wenger. His first senior appearance came in the Community Shield on August 6th 2017. We beat Chelsea on penalties that day, and just as an aside, if you’re harbouring worries or concerns about our transfer business this summer, cast your mind back to 2017, when we had the Alexis Sanchez/Henrik Mkhitaryan saga, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain not even bothering to go through the motions at Anfield as we got hammered 4-0 before we lost to Stoke a week later, and adding just Alexandre Lacazette and Sead Kolasinac that summer. Despite trying to fix things with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s arrival in January, we ended up finishing 6th and our long consistent run of Champions League qualification was ended – and wouldn’t be revived until the 2023-24 season. Just some perspective, I guess.
Back to Reiss, since that debut almost eight years ago now, he has made 90 appearances for the club (with 8 goals and 9 assists to his name), but just 35 of those have been starts. 19 of those starts came in the Europa League and EFL Cup, just 10 in the Premier League in 8 seasons. For a player who was so highly rated at Academy level, it’s an illustration of how hard it is to make that final step. Of course, there have been spells out on loan, and his career has been punctuated by some ill-timed injuries, but he’ll be 26 in December, and surely he’s at a point where he needs to make a serious decision about what remains of his career.
If a loan to Fulham helps bring about a permanent move there, I really don’t mind it at all. If we can get a few quid in, whether it’s this summer (with a loan fee) or next (with a transfer fee), all the better, but I don’t think selling Reiss Nelson now has a significant impact on whether or not we do anything else this summer. Perhaps it’s worth pointing out too that Nelson is considered a homegrown player, and there are requirements there, but his departure might open up a space for someone else to fill that gap 🤔.
Meanwhile, talk of Fabio Vieira and Parma has resurfaced. It was first reported almost a week ago, but since then little has happened. It’ll be interesting to see if he ends up on the tour which departs on Saturday. He was at Gianni Infantino’s World of Twats thing during the summer with Porto, so was probably given some extra time off after his loan spell with his former club finished. He’s another player who, given his age, needs to go somewhere else to play first team football, but there wasn’t a lot of substance to the Parma story last week so we’ll have to wait and see what happens there.
Finally, Karl Hein is being linked, somewhat spuriously, with a move to Sevilla. He spent last season loan in La Liga with Real Vallodolid, so it makes some sense he could go back there. The club posted a goalkeeper training video yesterday, featuring David Raya, Kepa Arrizabalaga, and Tommy Setford. There was no sign of the Estonian international who was, ostensibly, the number 2 keeper on tour last summer. There’s talk we might cancel his contract to allow him to leave, but as much as I’d be on board with facilitating a move for a player we don’t really see a future for, some kind of sell-on clause would probably be wise for a young goalkeeper who could easily mature into a solid player and fetch some money down the line.
Right, all that a not a word about anyone coming in … yet. Let’s see what today brings. Have a good one folks.
