Good morning Arse folk, Tim here taking over the reins today and tomorrow. Well, I’m just lovely, thanks for asking, and you?
We will start this morning with the news, brought to us by transfer information dealer Fabrizio Romano, that ‘Viktor Gyökeres’ priority is to join Arsenal this summer despite calls from Manchester United in the recent weeks. Gyökeres always an option amid Šeško talks with no deal sealed so far, Arsenal keep assessing situation. United remain keen but believe deal now unlikely.’
Personally I think it’s reasonably obvious that Arsenal are ‘spinning plates’ with regards to their striker targets this summer and that they don’t quite want to show their hand with either by going all in too early and leaving only one egg in their basket. My read on it is that they probably prefer Sesko but it might be a slightly more protracted (expensive) deal to do than Gyokeres and they don’t want to kill the Gyokeres thing just yet as a contingency.
A bit like the scene from Mrs. Doubtfire where Robin Williams’ character tries to conduct two simultaneous meetings in the same restaurant, one as himself and one as Mrs. Doubtfire. One can but hope Andrea Berta doesn’t get too drunk and end up getting his bids mixed up. Personally I am not hugely invested in which of the targets we land, largely because I have barely seen either of them play.
My suspicion is that the striker market is rather lacking in absolutely top end talent and getting ‘another Havertz’ who can land around 15 goals a season would be a good outcome (especially if we can land a wide player capable of double figures too). Personally I think a lot of people have allowed the relentless banter and angst of the internet to colour their opinion of this team. We are a good team who doesn’t need much- but clearly a couple of attackers is very much what we do need.
Gyokeres choosing Arsenal over United does suggest some semblance of a brain in the boy’s head though. With United struggling to negotiate a payment structure with Brentford for Bryan Mbeumo due to their PSR position, they probably are scouring other targets but I think we can all agree that, regardless of whether Arsenal sign him or not, Gyokeres giving his former coach the cold shoulder to be Arsenal’s silver medal is very funny. You boys crack on with Hojlund.
This is all part of the horse play of the transfer window and the dance of negotiation, of course. Believe it or not it does happen everywhere too, we just tend not to absorb every single update and the thousands of non-updates over other club’s transfers. Once we hear of a rival being linked with a player, in our minds the deal is done immediately because we tune out the weeks and weeks of transfer snake oil salesfolk issuing post after post after post after post of nothing about the same transfer four times a day.
Considering. Monitoring. Prioritising. Discussing. Assessing. All these words are becoming makeweights for ‘nothing significant has happened since my last update two hours ago. Or two hours before that. Or two hours before that. Or two hours before that. And on. And on. And Ariston.’ The great thing for the purveyors of this type of methadone is that the more of it they issue, the more people want and expect it. I think it’s become a bit of a sickness but that’s just me I guess.
What Arsenal’s striker search does make me do is reflect on the impact of Gabriel Jesus’ knee injury woes. It is difficult not to feel sorry for him, he came to Arsenal for a fresh start and to be considered ‘the man’ in the centre-forward position having lost his mojo for being a number 9 after stinging criticism at the 2018 World Cup. I still think he went to the 2022 World Cup ostensibly injured because he wanted to wipe his World Cup slate clean and probably exacerbated the injury he had and we just have not seen him in form or properly fit ever since.
The August 2022 Gabi Jesus and today’s Kai Havertz would be a pair of striker options we would do well to trump this summer but, alas, Jesus’ knees aren’t coming back into working order any time soon so contingencies must be made. It both makes me sad that Jesus won’t quite spearhead this ‘project’ in the way we probably envisaged but seeing the difference that he made three years ago also makes me reasonably positive about the impact of a new striker this time around.
The World Super Mega Gianni Infantino So Wonderful Is He World Club Cup kicked off in the early hours of the morning UK time when Inter Miami- who deservedly qualified through robust and fair criteria- took on Al Ahly but, personally speaking, I just can’t muster up a micro fuck about anything to do with that tournament. They might as well be playing rugby out there for all the interest I will take in it.
Finally for today I am going to take the liberty of plugging the fact that we will have a couple of Arsenal Women Arsecast episodes this week. Jamie and I will be recording a mailbag episode in the middle of the week. But I will also be talking to my friend and broadcaster Marva Kreel, who has fronted a documentary for Copa 90 called ‘Finding the First South Asian Lioness’, which deals with under representation of South Asian girls in women’s football and some of the barriers facing them when it comes to breaking through into the professional game. It is available on Copa 90’s YouTube channel and is well worth your time. Till tomorrow when I will issue your final Arseblog methadone hit before Andrew returns with the hard stuff on Tuesday.
