Kiwior - new contract? - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Kiwior - new contract?

Sicario2

Hasn’t put a foot wrong since coming in for Gabriel. Still think if he played instead of Rob Holding in 2022/2023 we could have won the title.

I would keep hold of him, he’s only 25 and ever improving. Has a great pass on him too and compliments our other defenders well.

lorddulaarsenal

Love him. So good on the ball and is great in a high line

samthegooner

Unless we were able to sell him for substantially more than what we purchased for, I am definitely fine with extending Kiwior. You can't ask for much more from a backup CB than what he has provided this year.

JazzG

Depends on what kind of offer we get. I doubt he’d want to stay and play backup for much longer tbh. If we get a good offer we can reinvest into another defender.

flobaba

No brainer. Decent for a back up CB.

DiabyKungFu

Sell high and refresh with a younger higher upside guy.

Burnwinter

DiabyKungFu Sell high and refresh with a younger higher upside guy.

I agree with this if Gabriel's coming back as strong as before. We need to find moments like this to sell. We also can't sign young talents if they'll be in the shadow of the likes of Kiwior for years.

But we should retain Kiwior if Big Gabi is looking wobbly or is expected to be brittle. That would mean rebuilding the central defensive partnership.

MistaT

Gabriel has played some heavy minutes over the years, and is a big body.

I could see him needing more breaks in coming seasons.

Sell Kiwior on being the starter for all FA, EFL and some CL games.

Claudius

Definitely keep. He has really stepped up this season. I don't see the appeal to him of going to some second rate club, unless someone like Juve come in and give him a chance to play minutes and win. Gabriel is also coming off a long term injury, so will be useful to have this guy around. If we sell him, then what? We need to spend the same amount of money plus time all summer looking for a similar player?
We have priorities we should be focusing on, not creating more incoming/outgoing work for ourselves.

Qwiss

If he'll agree to stay it makes loads of sense. I hope he signs.

Pepe LeFrits

I think it'd be best to cash in now, if he chooses to stay based on the run of games he's gotten recently, he'll regret it pretty quickly once Gabriel returns and we'll be left with an unhappy player declining in value.

Claudius

Pepe LeFrits so what do you do then? go hire a new player to be in the same boat? Ben White's minutes next year will be down versus 2 years ago. Trossard and Merino have been fine off the bench, and even then both have played in pretty much all games they've been avaialble. I'd keep him

Pepe LeFrits

Claudius Kiwior has been bench warming for 2 and a half seasons now. The same won't be true of White or a new signing (plus White is effectively first choice cover for two positions, Kiwior is first choice cover for one).

Burnwinter

Claudius go hire a new player to be in the same boat?

This is exactly what you do. It's what we did when we signed Kiwior. Barring Big Gabi's injury Kiwior is an ideal sale for us currently.

There can be reasons to keep him, but if he's behind two fit starters we need to sell him and persuade the next star young centre half to join us.

Coombs

Burnwinter it's kind of a win-win with Kiwior. Sell now on a high, reinvest, or focus on other areas of the squad and keep him as an able squaddie. Of course, we can always do the Arsenal Shuffle and sign someone else without selling him on, make him languish, and eventually let him leave on a free or at a discount.

Claudius

Burnwinter this doesn’t add up. It’s completely unnecessary work and squad disruption at a time when
A) we have so much buying to do elsewhere
B) we are likely losing two left backs and a left winger anyway this summer.
We don’t need all this disruption

Burnwinter

Coombs Yes, he's a great asset. He performs decently when called upon, is evidently a superb athlete, and he's got transfer value if we want to sell. Least of our worries really.

Guess we can't really sell Jakub without replacing him, but we should be replacing him, because if we are replacing him, cash the fuck in I reckon … 🤷‍♂️

For example Huijsen's got a £50m release clause that I could see us triggering if we were recouping most of it from Kiwior moving on.

Qwiss

Burnwinter Huijsen's not coming to do Kiwior minutes. He's also going to want a hefty pay day due to his release clause.

I'm with Claud, just keep Kiwior. Moneys one thing but so is time and man power. We've too much else to sort out. If we have Zubi, a striker, a winger, another mid and a back up keeper by the start of August they can toy with the idea of replacing the Yak.

Burnwinter

Claudius Sure it adds up. It's absolutely not "too much disruption" in a football sense to turn over bench players. That's vacuous.

It's only disruptive if it affects other transfer business, which it need not necessarily—that's a matter of contingency.

Bernard Woolley

I agree. Doesn't sound like we are even in the conversation on Huijsen (even if he's super valuable) - https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/may/13/real-madrid-confident-of-beating-chelsea-to-signing-of-in-demand-dean-huijsen

QuincyAbeyie

Bernard Woolley we're probably interested but know that whether RM pay up or not is all that matters.

Panda

Yep Huijsen to Real Madrid makes perfect sense he's basically as good as Saliba anyway 👀 get it done Real and we can keep Kiwior who is always available and usually solid back up.