Well Foyth is a liability when he plays more often than not. He'd get crucified here. And it seems William Saliba won't be joining them either, so you can stop praising them for their hypotyhetical ambition now:

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The small time, worthless little cunts got what they wanted out of the bid though; a few million more will end up in Saint Etienne's coffers.

Hopefully they really did want Saliba and he told them to do one.

jones wrote:

Yeah but ASSE aren't letting him go right now regardless of the fee are they?

Yep. Whoever signs him won't get him until 2020

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Recon we’ll land him Tricks?

Everything points to it, mate.

All the jounalists that matter on this deal have said Saliba wants to come here, not Spurs. That he agreed with us ages ago and made it clear to Saint Etienne what his wishes were, and they have been the reason it's been such a drawn our process.

he should eventually come here. it's just annoying that our financial difficulties are leaving us so exposed. we should've been able to settle this deal a long time ago - just ringence Saliba if not actually finalise all the paperwork; released Koscielny, and then focused on getting an immediate replacement for Koscielny to start this season.

I'm not so concerned about Saliba only coming next year. Liverpool paid over 50m pounds for Keita to come 15 months later. they similarly negotiated forever (including effectively paying penalties) to ensure they landed van Dijk. you just want to make sure you lock your rivals out.

St etienne sauces reckon its done. 5 year deal + 1 year loan.

29m + 7m in add-ons and 20% sell on

Hefty fee but if he is a deligt level thoroughbred for the next 5-6 years it will be worth it

20% sell on in addition to 29 + 7m pounds with a loan! Wow.
If PSG are buying a relatively well-developed Diallo for 29m pounds + 2m pounds in bonuses, I'm wondering if we got our asses handed to us.

Lets hope this guy is worth it, from what I've heard he seems to be incredibly highly rated.

Leave it to Arsenal to spend a month on negotiating only to end up with a deal worse than what St. Etienne initially wanted.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Leave it to Arsenal to spend a month on negotiating only to end up with a deal worse than what St. Etienne initially wanted.

How much did they want initially? Was under the impression this was always going to be done around 25m-30m

Yeah but it reportedly didn't include a 20 percent sell-on clause.

Spurs really fucked us badly then. Oh well but at least we are getting him

The 20% sell on fee is the killer (i think caused by the spuds involvement) as i can see this guy being highly sought after if he is a success.
We can respond by jacking up his price like Palace have done with Zaha but at the risk of the guy running down his contract to get a move.

I'm sure there was always a sell-on in negotiations. We've paid the price for booking him early and have little to offer up front. I'm ok with it, good risk to take, won't slaughter them if it doesn't work out and not giving Spurs an ounce of credit.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Leave it to Arsenal to spend a month on negotiating only to end up with a deal worse than what St. Etienne initially wanted.

😆

Gazza M wrote:

St etienne sauces reckon its done. 5 year deal + 1 year loan.

29m + 7m in add-ons and 20% sell on

Hefty fee but if he is a deligt level thoroughbred for the next 5-6 years it will be worth it

St. Etienne clearly haven't been watching us trying to sell players. Might as well have taken a 5m add-on for him winning the golden boot. 😆

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Le Parisien saying it'a a done deal, and they seem to be implying there's no loan back.

C'monnnnn no loan back.

Sokratis + one of Mustafi/Holding/Saliba is much better than Sokratis + Mustafi/Holding as Holding will be eased in.

I doubt we're getting him now. Would be fantastic if we were

Maybe we've been able to convince Saimt Etienne to take Koscielny? Now that really would be making lemonade.

[Twitter]

Looks like a loan back, but good to see such a highly rated talent push to come here. And even better that Tottenham were one of the clubs he told to get lost.

[Twitter]

To further confirm that the deal's done. Fabrizio is saying €25m + bonuses.

Absolutely love it.

The fact that he was adamant that he wanted to come, is great.

If we could land another like Upamecano or Konate over the next three transfer windows, it would be great.

€29m total cost, inclusive of bonuses and no sell-on clause.

Levy will be fuming, he must have really wanted him to come in so late and so publically, and to offer considerably more according to a lot of different sources. Only for the kid to force Saint Etienne to accept the lower offer because he was adamant he wanted to come to The Arsenal. You might have more money you slimey cunt, but you still can't nick a player off us even when you throw it around!

Let's just hope the kid is half as good as he looks. Will try and catch some Saint Etienne games next season.

Levy is still new money, a pretender. We OG.

Ricky1985 wrote:

[Twitter]

To further confirm that the deal's done. Fabrizio is saying €25m + bonuses.

It says Arsenal have confirmed. Where did this happen?

No where...and I'm sure we won't confirm for another week or so.

Levy is a vile little man.

Anyways we’re on the right track with signings like this. We’ll soon be back above that lot down the road.

Their fortunate run to the final last year masked how poor they were in the league

Fuck those incel degenerates in their beer garden / space ship. We ride on them with Saliba the same way we been riding on them with transfers from day one.

Think it's great that he's returning back on loan. Would be even better if he remained there for another 5 years and arrives at 23. I don't care how talented he is, he would have had his arse handed back on a plate in the PL. Anyone want to take a gander at u-21 CB's who have excelled in this league?

Like with Martinelli, people are getting a little over excited with kids who aren't going to offer much any time soon and will then be burned to the ground when they inevitably fail to deliver on the fans own ridiculously lofty expectations. All in all, it's a much needed but greatly expensive speculative punt on a kid. Not the best allocation of funds when were supposedly tight on budget but hey ho!

This is the exact profile of talent I've been pining for us to target, and the type wenger seemed to give up on signing in the last 5 years. Get tierney in, and another good CB in the 22-25 age bracket, and the defense looks much rosier

deardevil wrote:

Think it's great that he's returning back on loan. Would be even better if he remained there for another 5 years and arrives at 23. I don't care how talented he is, he would have had his arse handed back on a plate in the PL. Anyone want to take a gander at u-21 CB's who have excelled in this league?

Like with Martinelli, people are getting a little over excited with kids who aren't going to offer much any time soon and will then be burned to the ground when they inevitably fail to deliver on the fans own ridiculously lofty expectations. All in all, it's a much needed but greatly expensive speculative punt on a kid. Not the best allocation of funds when were supposedly tight on budget but hey ho!

Deal couldn't be better. At 18 he will be a starter in the Europa League. He's going to arrive at 19 with a wealth of experience. We could then give him the same level of responsibility that de Ligt had for Ajax this year. He was only 19. If Tierney and Bellerin are stable and we find a good 24-26 year old for him to play next to (or Holding mans up quickly) then we are cooking with gas

When Fabrizio Romano says its done, its done. Welcome for 2020

we've been linked to this guy Pape Abou Cisse from Olympiacos, he's a 6'6" CB. He fits the profile of the kind of signing I've wanted us to make as well. I've said in the past that we need to be the club buying Koulibaly from Genk. Well this would be like that.

Hopefully his decision to join us over Spurs does something to reverse the inferiority complex that has built up in some gooners.