@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Well it’ll still be worth signing him and loaning him for one season but we’d still need a defensive addition for this season

Maybe this is why we keep seeing Kanneman. They could be a package deal

SAINT-ETIENNE president Roland Romeyer has revealed William Saliba will be playing for the club next season.

Arsenal are believed to eb closing in on the signing of the 18-year-old centre-back, who is set to return to the French side on loan for the season.

Speaking of the player, Romeyer said: “He will stay at the club this season.

“It is an imperative condition should we come to an agreement for his transfer. It’s also William's wish.”

Saliba move to #AFC is being finalised now according to @TF1. A deal will cost €30m and the defender will be loaned back to #ASSE for 19/20 season.

We better pay that 30m when we get the bastard.

TF1 is good sauce. Tierney next please

Hopefully this comes out of next seasons budget

Maybe if St. Etienne is in no man's land in January we could get him then.

First of all, let me congratulate the team for being proactive. This is the kind of foresight we need to be competitive. Long range planning will be important. I care more about building a dynasty than trying to stay afloat season to season. This feels a part of that thinking, so I applaud the management

That said, I wonder if we risk a principal-agent problem here. On the one hand, how incentivized are St Etienne to actually give the player opportunities ahead of Subotic and Kolo, given that they aren’t invested in his future. On the other hand, if he does break out, how incentived are they to manage his health and make sure they don’t run him into the ground?

Subotic has moved to Union Berlin.

I think there's very little risk he's going to be on the bench after they kicked up this much fuss to keep him for a year, Claude. They want to keep him because he's good.

Oh. Good. With Subotic gone, he’s the man.
Would be great if we went all in on rebuild and got an Ndicka now, ready for this guy next year.

maybe im in the minority on this, but im not a big fan of loaning him back this season. he might not be ready to dominate the premier league, but now his season next year will likely be very inconsistent as he tries to adjust. so if we are signing him to a 5 year deal and loaning him back, the first 2 years of his deal we wont be getting max value from him. acclimatizing to the league also means being around the first team and getting a feel for england as a whole. the upside of him going back on loan next season is that he gets regular playing time, but he'll be getting it in a mediocre team, in a lesser league. the downside is the lack of time to adjust to england and the risk of injury while hes not even playing for us

ive never seen this guy play, and im pretty confident he'd be better for us in defense than mustafi. this coming season just looks like a writeoff for the team in general, we're punting before the season even starts

The question of whether a loan is good for him is a little irrelevant (I said right at the start of this thread that I think it will benefit both in the long run), the question is that given they are demanding that he be loaned back is it worth signing him? For me it is 100% yes.

Yeah, that's it really.

Yep. If that's what it takes to clinch this deal ahead of other clubs I will take it

goon wrote:

The question of whether a loan is good for him is a little irrelevant (I said right at the start of this thread that I think it will benefit both in the long run), the question is that given they are demanding that he be loaned back is it worth signing him? For me it is 100% yes.

would they demand we loan him back if we offer another £7m?

7m would probably be just about enough for them to fund a loan for an inferior player for a year.

The player wants 1 more year in France by most accounts

We've probably tried to offer extra cash.

mdgoonah41 wrote:

maybe im in the minority on this, but im not a big fan of loaning him back this season. he might not be ready to dominate the premier league, but now his season next year will likely be very inconsistent as he tries to adjust. so if we are signing him to a 5 year deal and loaning him back, the first 2 years of his deal we wont be getting max value from him. acclimatizing to the league also means being around the first team and getting a feel for england as a whole. the upside of him going back on loan next season is that he gets regular playing time, but he'll be getting it in a mediocre team, in a lesser league. the downside is the lack of time to adjust to england and the risk of injury while hes not even playing for us

ive never seen this guy play, and im pretty confident he'd be better for us in defense than mustafi. this coming season just looks like a writeoff for the team in general, we're punting before the season even starts

If he was 22/23 I'd agree with you but he is only 18 years old, which for a CB is very young. Very few I can think of who have gone into big sides and performed at that age  The extra year will do him good and I'd treat this as next summer signing so shouldn't take too much out of our transfer budget.

We definitely need to get rid of Mustafi and be looking at another CB for this summer. Saliba is one for the future, good to see us being proactive but we need someone for now as well. Especially if Koscielny leaves.

Mustafi did much better in a better league than this guy has done in his still very short career, and look how the German turned out. I'm not sure Saliba would hit the ground running, a lot of those risks he takes in the compilations would not go unpunished in the PL.

Hope this doesn't come out of this year's budget. We need players now. Not next season.

Kel Varnsen wrote:

Hope this doesn't come out of this year's budget. We need players now. Not next season.

I imagine that’s part of what made this attractive. We paid a lot of money and it was probably postponed to next year and subsequent years. There’s probably only a small holding fee of 5m pounds (or similar)

Claudius wrote:

The Mustafi question remains though. Somebody needs to play those 2400 Mustafi minutes this season. If not him, who? Holding did similar minutes to Saliba last year and is coming off injury. And Bielik is stepping up from playing against butchers and bakers.

Kos and Sokratis are both here. I imagine Kos hasn't been allowed to leave yet for this exact reason. The plan is probably that Holding will get back early and start offloading them during the fall. Until then we've got Chambers as backup, and Monreal and Elneny as emergency options.

That's assuming Mustafi even leaves, which he probably won't. I can't imagine any club he wants to play for would willing to match his current wages.

Elneny there

The window shuts in one month. We haven't been linked with any senior centre backs, and there are no credible sources reporting of interest in Mustafi.

I really fear that he'll be racking up games for us again next season.

Dreadful window. Nothing changes.

[Twitter]

The journalist that has seemed to be the best informed on this deal throughout seems to be suggesting it will finally be done tomorrow.

So even the most reliable journalist regarding this transfer is someone who communicates using primarily emojis. That's reassuring.

In all seriousness, I really hope this is done and that it comes from next year's transfer budget.

Why would it much of it come from this year’s budget? This is probably why we went so hard after this. To secure a good player without hurting this year’s funds significantly.

Shady wrote:

The window shuts in one month. We haven't been linked with any senior centre backs, and there are no credible sources reporting of interest in Mustafi.

I really fear that he'll be racking up games for us again next season.

The past two summers, we have tried and failed to sell him.
I don't think we are pushing him out this summer as he is one of the more resilient defenders we have.
He is not a first team player but we do not have any better alternatives off the bench and with players as basic as Tyrone Mings going for 25m, we are not getting any one better.
Even if we get Saliba, he will need time to get used to the step up so Mustafi will still be useful.

Claudius wrote:

Why would it much of it come from this year’s budget? This is probably why we went so hard after this. To secure a good player without hurting this year’s funds significantly.

I'm saying that I hope so because I don't know how it works. Although if it does come out of next year's budget, you'd have to wonder why we pressed so hard to get him this year. If it comes out of next year's budget, then it would be much better to loan him back and spend the 30m on someone who would improve us more this season instead, and next year have Holding, that guy and Saliba as our three main CBs.

Have to sign him now before he becomes a £60m player.

Claudius wrote:

Why would it much of it come from this year’s budget?

Because St Etienne need both the money and the player presently. It's reportedly the reason we're having such a hard time negotiating. They need the cash to improve the team without having to immediately blow every cent on replacing him. We're probably not giving them everything up front, but I'm certain that the bulk of the money is coming out of this year's funds.

If we contract the money, then St. Etienne can plan around it. That’s probably part of why we agreed what feels a rich figure. It would be odd to pay a large amount up front before receiving a good or a service. There are very few markets where I’ve seen this done. You’d typically pay a small deposit to show you’re good for your contract. And then the seller can use the contract with financiers to raise capital. The big fee could effectively pay for any interest that St Etienne has to face. We stretch money for both clubs in the process

Surely the protracted negotiations shows we've given the absolute bare minimum upfront that we could get Saint Etienne to accept.

Claudius wrote:

If we contract the money, then St. Etienne can plan around it. That’s probably part of why we agreed what feels a rich figure. It would be odd to pay a large amount up front before receiving a good or a service. There are very few markets where I’ve seen this done. You’d typically pay a small deposit to show you’re good for your contract. And then the seller can use the contract with financiers to raise capital. The big fee could effectively pay for any interest that St Etienne has to face. We stretch money for both clubs in the process

That sounds like a number of huge jumps you’re making there, applying standard business principles to a very much non-standard market.

In any case, no matter how much it is, the cash we have to put up will certainly impact what we have to spend elsewhere this summer.

[James Olley] Arsenal to complete £25m William Saliba transfer AND keep £40m summer budget

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal/arsenal-to-complete-25m-william-saliba-transfer-and-keep-majority-of-40m-summer-budget-a4184681.html