Morning all.
Let’s start with news that emerged via David Ornstein yesterday that Bruno Guimaraes has told Newcastle he wants to leave this summer to join Arsenal. We’ve known since last month that we’ve had a real interest in the Brazilian midfielder, and this is part of how this deal might happen if it goes ahead.
As yet it appears there hasn’t been ‘club to club contact’, which means this stuff has come about at the behest of agents and intermediaries. It’s not an unusual development, we’ve seen this before plenty of times, and if a player is public and vocal about his desire to join your club, then it can often be the trigger for a transfer to happen. That’s not always the case though, as we also know.
If you want a player and he wants to join, generally that makes your life easier. On the flip side though, a player saying he wants out via his agents etc, can often make that club dig in, and a position where they’re already not inclined to sell becomes more entrenched. Not least when it’s your captain. Newcastle have got the message out they don’t want to sell, and while that’s probably not a 100% fixed position, this one has all the hallmarks of a protracted saga to me, and I really think that’s something we have to avoid.
Look at what happened with Alexander Isak last summer. He told Newcastle he wanted to go, they dug in, and while the deal got done eventually I think the way it impacted his pre-season and his training had a significant impact on his first campaign at Anfield. It negatively impacted Liverpool too, and Newcastle because of how late the deal got done. Some might argue that as a test case, and having been through that just 12 months ago, they’d be more inclined to avoid that kind of scenario again, which may be true. I also think expecting football clubs to act rationally when there’s a highly emotive situation to deal with isn’t always realistic.
Newcastle have already sold Sandro Tonali to Sp*rs, and Anthony Gordon to Barcelona. If there was any kind of financial/FFP pressure on them, surely that’s gone by virtue of the near £150m they’ve generated from those two sales alone. To lose their best player on top of that, even if it does give them even more money to refresh the squad during this window, would be real reputational blow, which is why I think this is going to be a complicated one.
Despite the fact the player wants to join us, I think they have the stronger hand at the negotiating table, and if we want to avoid this dragging on for weeks and weeks at the detriment of the player’s fitness and our squad building, we’re probably going to have pay more than we might be comfortable with. As I’ve said previously, I can see why Guimaraes is a player Mikel Arteta would want. I’ve never been a fan of his flying elbows, but he’d bring plenty to our midfield in a summer when we know we’ve got to take the burden off certain individuals in the early part of the campaign. He’s got Premier League and Champions League experience, is at a prime age, and I think he’d slot in pretty seamlessly.
There’s no way that comes cheap though, nor should it, and if by announcing his desire to leave he’s wound up Newcastle at executive level, then it’s going to be a tough negotiation for Andrea Berta and his team. I suspect Newcastle were well aware of his desire to go, by the way, and typically when a player goes public like this it’s to force the move because the club were not receptive to the idea of a departure. So, I don’t expect this one to conclude any time soon, and I hope there are alternative ideas if this does drag on and on as we get closer to the start of the new season.
As Champions, and a team who made the Champions League final, I think Arsenal have got a lot of pull right now in the transfer market. I don’t think you need to work too hard to convince most players it’s the place to be. I’m sure that’s part of why Bruno Guimaraes, someone who was quite vocal about wanting to be a Newcastle legend, is now willing to leave under a cloud. We’ve all been around the block enough times to know you can’t put too much stock in what players say, and this is a situation we’ve experienced the other way with our best players wanting to leave, but I do think there should be a time limit on this one, and if it doesn’t happen within that, we go down a different avenue for a different player.
Let’s see how it all pans out, and it’s something we can discuss in a bit more detail later on when we’ll have an Arsecast for you. At the World Cup later, Arsenal interest comes in the shape of William Saliba when France take on Morocco in the first quarter-final, and that could be a very tasty game.
Right, I’ll leave it there for now. Have a good one folks.
