USArsenal yeah a surprisingly good deal. The sell-on clause is smart. Well done Berta.
It’s a 2 year contract. Barca will also be lucky to get any fee. They clearly valued the temporariness of the contract over all else and are seeing this as a bridge.
Bernard Woolley
Yeah, well like HomeSteak said, he could very well play there for this season, and then be shipped off to the Saudi's next summer. And if that happens, we'll get a little bit of that. If not, then we've still wiped the books of him.
USArsenal Agreed. Good to have gotten him off the rolls at any fee, frankly. One less thing to work on in future windows and the focus can be entirely on quality recruitment.
Just found out that Martinelli is the 3rd most expensive Saudi transfer ever
Mirth
Yup, they pay decent fees but pay mega tax free wages.
JazzG in the end Saudi bought a whole bunch of junk
The Martinelli fee is ok. Not brilliant, not terrible. The only real issue around it is how we now cope on the left. Will we get someone before tomorrows deadline? Looks highly unlikely so what's the plan? I just hope it doesn't lead to Arteta running Tzolis into the ground. It's all well and good saying x, y and z can cover there but we've seen time and time again if Mikel doesn't think someone is strong in a position he prefers to just play the first choice until he can't any more.
Qwiss 100% this. Even if Tzolis is as good as we hope, we don't want him run into the ground.
Nor do we really want to see Eze or Madueke on the left.
If we don't sign a better player for the left, that's a massive black mark for this window.
I dont trust Saka's fitness , nor Havertz. So we are short in attack again.
GooneriC Odegaard too. He's had more injury trouble than Saka. We are certainly quite reliant on their availability. Hopefully at couple of them will have a better season injury-wise than last year. If not we better hope Max and maybe even Ethan are ready to step it up.
Bit weird news around Ethans loan has died down. Wonder if we'll keep him now numbers are tighter.
GooneriC this is it really, we're reliant on our 1st choice attackers being available because our multi-million pound back-up's are not up to scratch. we've stuffed up our attacking recruitment for too long. here's hoping Tzolis bucks that trend.
Qwiss Bit weird news around Ethans loan has died down. Wonder if we'll keep him now numbers are tighter.
Think it was either Martinelli or Nwaneri that had to make way. Looks like Nwaneri gets another chance
Mirth yeah I just hope he gets plenty of minutes. Be great if there has been some sort of big change behind the scenes and the club are going all in on him. Given the shape of the market I think it would make sense.
Eze to cover left wing and Nwaneri the centre.
Gurgen yeah Dowman can play in any of these too if needed, certainly right and central.
There’s three things we needed going into this window
We addressed 2 and 3.
Number 1 gets partial credit if Tzolis keeps this up for a season but we’ve weakened the position overall.
Mirth the thing about the improvement up front or on the left is we weakened on the left, at least depth wise. If Havertz stays fit we are very strong at CF with him and Gyok. An upgrade there was always a bit of a luxury or keep your eye out for huge talent, etc On the left we knew at least one of Martinelli or Trossard was going so we wanted a big star to replace them. Instead we got Tzolis who looks a good deal and hopefully will work as better than Tross or Marti but we are still short on the left. So whatever way we look at it we've weakened the left side of attack.
Qwiss that’s fair. I’m very confused about why we let Trossard go in the circumstances - maybe he had personal reasons to move but still. He’d have been a great person for Tzolis to learn from too.
Really our only hope is Eze steps up at LW because otherwise he’ll probably be up for the chop next window too.
Mirth its weird because it feels like Martinelli was pushed out and Berta was out looking for bids for him.
Yeah I get you on Eze but then that'll depend a lot on whether Odgaard stays fit or not. If he does Eze wont get many chances at 10 but last season he played plenty. I'd also much rather Eze at 10 than Merino or Kai. I'd rather Ethan over them too.
Pretty confident that Trossard was the one pushing for the move just as much as we may have been. We certainly could have kept him but I believe he'd want us to extend him if we did. From memory, I believe we gave him a pay rise last summer but not an extension so he would've been available on a free next summer. He also is making big money in Turkey with favorable tax rates, which is why I think he decided to go there and not explore any other big European leagues. This is his last big contract and he wasn't highly paid until he got to Arsenal.
