Morning all.
Let’s start with some of the Myles Lewis-Skelly drama which kicked off a bit yesterday, but probably didn’t start start yesterday if we look back. Last week there was a story in The Independent from Miguel Delaney who said Manchester United were interested in the player, and were ‘aiming to see whether Arsenal would do business’. Was that because they had some encouragement, or were they looking at our squad and thinking there are a lot of midfielders and someone might be available?
Then yesterday, Tom Canton and another Football London reporter said that Chelsea had been ‘offered’ the chance to sign the 19 year old, and it all escalated from there. Transfer stories are often vague, with snippets of info that come together over time to paint the full picture, and I know Tom well enough to know he wasn’t just making stuff up for a few clicks.
That was followed by a story in The Athletic from James who reported that Myles wants to stay and is ‘fully focused on establishing himself in Mikel Arteta’s first-team plans for the upcoming season’. That, to some extent, gives us a measure of clarity from the player’s side, at least in terms of the public stance, and even if there’s some wiggle room in there, it’s best to keep that under wraps for now.
So, the question then becomes, if Chelsea have been offered Myles, who is doing the offering? I saw it said it was intermediaries ‘associated with’ Lewis-Skelly, and the other possible options are intermediaries associated with Arsenal, or by Arsenal themselves who, by the way, will never confirm or deny that. But could this be one of Andrea Berta’s spinning plates? They can’t all be incoming deals.
The outcry was significant, for obvious reasons. Myles is a very popular player, a Hale End graduate, and after his breakthrough in midfield towards the end of last season, someone many want to see more of in that position. I think it’s perfectly normal, and maybe even right, that we connect more easily with players who have come through the Academy, because of their long-standing relationship with the club. We know they understand what it is to be an Arsenal player, and they know what it is (generally speaking) to be a fan because they’ve grown up seeped in the traditions and history before taking that much sought after final step to the first team.
I think it’s pretty clear something is going on, there’s too much smoke for there not to be a bit of fire, but it’s hard to know exactly what. You could ask, ‘Why would Myles want to leave?’. He’s 19, playing for the Premier League champions, the club he supports, and last season worked his way back into first team contention in his natural position to the extent where he started the Champions League final.
Well, the season before he emerged at left-back, and that summer Arsenal went out and bought Piero Hincapie for £45m to add more depth to the squad. If it was a challenge for Myles, it was one he struggled with, playing just 698 minutes in the Premier League, starting just 5 games, and 4 of those were in the final weeks of the season. He got to April 11th with just 1 Premier League start. His lack of playing time also cost him a place at the World Cup.
Mikel Arteta started him in midfield against Fulham, he was superb, the manager said he probably should have done it sooner, and as I said he played the Champions League final after starting there in semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid. Then Arsenal went out this summer and bought a 28 year old midfielder for £75m who basically plays in the same position as Myles. Do you, as a player, see that as a challenge or do you stop and wonder why it is every time you seem to have forged a place for yourself, the club go out and spend big money for someone who is potentially going to take your minutes?
The same question could apply to Arsenal. If they were fully convinced about Myles at left-back, they probably don’t buy Hincapie, and if Mikel Arteta believed he could give us what we were missing in midfield, he wouldn’t drop £75m on a 28 year old. You can say we need the depth that Bruno Guimaraes gives us, and I think that’s absolutely right, but it does give me pause for thought when I see them operate like this. There are others whose minutes are in peril because of the Guimaraes deal, Martin Zubimendi is another one, and potentially Mikel Merino, but it does tell us the club thought we needed more than what we had.
I wonder too whether there’s a financial imperative here as well. The players we want to sell, the likes of Gabriel Jesus, Fabio Vieira, Reiss Nelson etc, are hard to shift and if we do manage to move them on, the income generated won’t be huge. There’s been a lot of chat about the potential departure of Ethan Nwaneri this summer, but despite those increased revenues from winning the league and going that far in Europe, Myles would be – if the club were willing to sell – a more valuable option, in my opinion at least. I had to laugh at the idea we’d let him go for £45m, that seems absurd, because a young, talented, English player on a long contract would bring in a lot more money in this current market.
Which, by the way, is not me advocating a sale, but as a club we’ve spent a lot in recent years, we continue to sell poorly, and the reality is that if we do need to sell someone to generate any serious cash, it’s going to be a player we like and don’t want to leave. From various conversations with fellow fans, I feel like many had made some kind of peace with the idea of Ethan leaving, but the reaction to this Myles stuff tells you that would be a very, very unpopular departure if it happened.
Whether that has any bearing on what happens next, we’ll have to wait and see, but I have a suspicion we haven’t quite heard the last of this one. Maybe not before the end of this window, but if Guimaraes becomes as much an obstacle to his playing time as Hincapie did last season, a player of his talent isn’t going to just sit on the bench regardless of how he grew up at Arsenal.
It’s certainly going to drive plenty of discussion, I feel like the Arses will be lively today! Don’t forget we also play a game of football later, taking on Como (managed by Cesc Fabregas) with a kick off time of 19.30 in this part of the world.
Right, I’ll leave it there for now, have a great day everyone.
