Morning all.
There was no World Cup yesterday. There’s no World Cup today. So I guess we’re gonna have to talk Arsenal today. Let me just check all that sweet, sweet news pertaining to the current Premier League champions. Er …
Well, we can’t ignore the fact the World Cup is playing a part with two of our reported main targets, Morgan Rogers and Bradley Barcola, still at the tournament. Bruno Guimaraes is not but he’s currently in a stand-off (I don’t know it’s just a regular stand-off or if it’s a tournament co-host inspired Mexican one) with Newcastle. They’re going to be very stubborn I imagine, for reasons we can all understand, so I don’t expect anything to happen there any time soon.
Similarly, one of the players most likely to leave, Leandro Trossard, has only just been eliminated from the World Cup after Mikel Merino’s late goal saw Spain through on Friday. There is some news regarding his departure, with James reporting in The Athletic (£) that he is set to agree personal terms with Besiktas over a €20m move that has already been agreed between the clubs. There’s a three year deal (with an option for one more) on offer which, for a player who turns 32 in December, makes all kinds of sense, not to mention the kinder tax system there which turns this into a final big contract of his career. Even if you want him to stay with us, and I can understand why some would make that case, there’s no way we could or should offer him a deal of that length.
There was also news yesterday, via Miguel Delaney in the Independent, that Arsenal want to sign Julian Alvarez, and have it done ‘before pre-season’. We know he’s a player that Mikel Arteta really likes, and one that many Arsenal fans covet, but while I applaud the ambition of going for him and wanting to get it done quickly, this feels like a very tricky one to me. The player has his heart set on a move to Barcelona, but Atletico Madrid – right now at least – do not seem in any way inclined to do business with them. There’s more chance of me lashing on an Ai generated album of Maroon 5 singing Phil Collins Greatest Hits than him being sold there, as it stands.
So, that might give Arsenal some encouragement. If Atletico are prepared to sell then doing business with a club in a different league could be an acceptable compromise of sorts. Still, you have to take into account what the player wants, and I’ve read more than one report about his desire to stay in Spain, and regardless of our current stature, or Mikel Arteta’s powers of persuasion, I’d worry a little about Alvarez feeling like he’s had to ‘settle’ for a move he didn’t truly want for himself.
Nevertheless, if our interest is real, it might well tell us something about the planning for the rest of the window. If we’re prepared to go big for Julian Alvarez, and make no mistake it’d be a very expensive deal in terms of fee and wages, surely we also have alternative targets. Maybe he’s just ‘the guy’ for Arteta, the player he wants above all others, but if you identify his skillset as something the team is missing, then surely you have to consider other options if it turns out to be too complicated. He can play wide, and has done in his career, but last season was used exclusively as a centre-forward by Atleti, so does it tell us something about how the manager views his current options for that position?
We have the hottest striker in the world in the shape of Merino, while Viktor Gyokeres and Kai Havertz provide different styles when they’re deployed in that position, but interest in another centre-forward is certainly interesting. If you asked me the one area Arsenal really need to improve, I would say final third quality without hesitation. We have good players, but if we want to kick from where we are now, and pose the kind of threat that helps you win the Champions League as well as defending the title, adding more across the front line is, to my mind at least, the obvious way to make us better. They might well have identified Alvarez as the key man in that regard, but he can’t be the only option if we’re serious about bolstering the team in that area.
So, I guess we’ll see how this plays out, whether there’s any chance of signing Alvarez and, if not, what else we might have up our sleeves. Not for a while though, as he’s still involved with Argentina at the World Cup and will be involved on Wednesday when they face England. There’s some chat about him on the latest Arsecast Extra which we recorded yesterday and which you can find below.
I’ll leave it there for now, have a great Monday everyone.
