KAI WAGES – BALOGUN OPTIONS – DECLAN SLOW DANCE!
Well Happy July 4th my friends – are we having a good time?
Look, America, I’m gonna admit it… you did a good job with ol’ US of A after we let you have it. The beer is good, I like the sunshine, and I just found out that the record for eating hotdogs in 10 minutes sits at 76, Joey ‘Jaws’ Chestnut reckons he can go to low 90s. If that isn’t land-of-the-free shit, I don’t know what is.
So what do we have to talk about today?
DECLAN RICE. Can you believe this deal still hasn’t been done? The club is still negotiating over bonuses and length of deal. It’s quite painful to watch people get so upset about this thing not being ready right now. Chill out guys, it’ll happen, but big expensive deals take time because there are so many factors involved – and obviously lots of lawyers and agents trying to get those billable hours LOCKED.
Edu getting slander from the Twitter underclass of deal experts is painful viewing. He’s not even in charge at this point. Also, can we make up our minds what we dislike him for, I’m sure 6 months ago it was his inability to get big moves done. Now he’s managed that, we want to hit him with penalty clauses because we’re putting down arbitrary dates one when we ‘feel’ it should be done?
The internet is a thankless beast… nothing is ever good enough.
I tell you what is good enough – £21.5m for Granit Xhaka. The Swiss said his goodbyes last game of the season, so he was always exiting. Arsenal held up the deal to get the biggest chunk of money possible. I think that sort of fee for a player with one year left on his deal is really good going. I’m not going to get all emotional and call him a legend – but he’s certainly a player I had a hard turn against, but ended up falling deeply in love with him when I started into his soul and saw a good man, a loving father, and a really top, top player.
He leaves with his head held high after an epic story arc shift. At the end of the day, it went wrong for Xhaka when Wenger signed him without a true idea of how he could function. Wenger went box to box, that didn’t work, but nor did life as a 6. Mikel Arteta was the unlock and the player thrived everywhere he put him… including as a left-back. He ended last season with 9 goals, 7 assists, and 3700 minutes of football. We’ll be losing a leader, someone who knows the darkarts, and a key figure that rarely gets injured. Remember when people said Arteta would get fired if he persisted with Granit? How’d that work out?
Good luck Granit – have a lovely time in Germany. Also worth noting I’ve been told he’s a really impressive coach. He’ll be a manager one day. Maybe even for Arsenal? Slightly unsexy midfielders seem to do the job for us!
Folarin Balogun rumors are all over the place. Some are suggesting Mikel wants to keep him – which could be ‘come and get me talk’ from Arsenal. Others are suggesting Brighton, Brentford, and Palace are interested in him. Mark Irwin of The Times, a really reliable reporter, said Arsenal want £50m for him. WHY NOT??!! If you are French and you come out of nowhere and score that many goals in Ligue 1, it’s an instant £60m fee.
I’m a little bit up in the air on this one.
I think Eddie is a top, top striker who gets an unfair rap – but I also think Balogun clearly has something about him. Eddie has done it in the league. Folarin hasn’t. I guess at some point, we’re going to regret losing a player. I guarantee you this – if we exited Eddie, he’d get 15-20 goals next season. Problem is – same could happen with Balogun if he gets the right club.
Talking of Palace, they are the club interested in Reiss Nelson. We still don’t have news on whether the Englishman has actually penned the deal. Bit weird considering the ‘he’s nearly signed’ rumors hit June 12th. There was a weird story suggesting he’s not picking up his phone. Doubt that is possible with anyone under the age of 25 – though I did hear a funny story the other day that young people, when put in a selling environment, really struggle with making actual calls because they don’t really speak to people that much. Anyway – if there’s a good deal on the table for Reiss, he’s signing. If we’ve put a ‘no thanks’ deal on the table – he’s going somewhere decent.
There’s been some FIERCE debate about Kai Havertz wages. BILD say £325k and some other sites say £210k. Look, I don’t really give a shit where the number landed but you need to understand:
- £65m makes him currently out second most expensive signing of all time (will go to third soon). That means he’s important. It means he’s seen as elite. It means he’ll be expensive.
- Real Madrid had been speaking to his people for a while, they missed the boat because they thought they could get him on a cheaper deal. They don’t pay shit wages.
My key takeaway – he’s on starter wages. That means he’s taking Xhaka’s role.
There are rumblings that we’re in for Aurelian Tchouameni. Madrid apparently looking to offload this MONSTER player for £80m and Arsena; are in the mixer. Now, I love the idea of this – but I can’t imagine we’re going to flood our midfield with another MUST START signing. We need one more midfielder, that’ll be coverage as a 6 for the next 10 years. Lavia makes more sense because he can share minutes – I don’t think a player like Caicedo or Tchouameni are at the level where they can be rotation options. I’d imagine we’ll go for a lower-tier player that can grow.
COULD BE WRONG THO!
Finally, word is that Rob Holding is OUT this season, but it might be a loan. Hold up – why would we do that? Rob is a very good player, he never makes mistakes, we should be getting a decent fee for him and he should get all the money he wants so he can pursue his country music passion post-retirement. Why can City sell a reserve team keeper for £19m but Rob Holding for more than 68p is a challenge?
Oh – watch this space on the back-up keeper front. Arsenal are sniffing around names apparently. Clear that Matty T needs minutes next season. He needs to go do a Leno. I’m sure he’ll get a great move. Maybe to Italy like his American brothers? Arsenal will backfill with someone that can play with the ball at their feet like Ramsdale. There’s a few keepers who are on the market that can do that. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of fee we might pay. Turner should be getting us some semi-decent money.
Btw – did you see Pulisic is leaving Chelsea for £14m. Unreal how low that number he is. Milan want a king’s ransome for their players, but they plead poverty like the best of them when buying. He was a £65m player! Milan getting a bargain there.
Ok – are we good? We are.
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— LE GROVE (@LeGrove) July 3, 2023