JoeAfter what was a thoroughly enjoyable European Championships, despite the result personally not being what I wanted, we’re back at it from an Arsenal angle. Enough has been said about Saka’s miss and I know that he will come back stronger for it. So time for a quick round up of the pre-season and transfers both in and out.
Pre-season
With pre-season already underway with a 2-1 defeat at Hibernian, the schedule is packed for the boys. As Arteta said we looked leggy so in one way the more games the better as we take on Rangers on Saturday before heading stateside for two clashes in Orlando. Then we have a few local domestic matches, where the reserves will almost certainly play before taking on Chelsea and Sp*rs in the Mind Series.
That takes us all the way round to the start of the season proper, away at newly promoted Brentford. As ever results in pre-season aren’t worth looking into, it’s purely an exercise in money making and match fitness. However reports from those matches where necessary will be on the way.
Transfers – out
Following a standard academy shake up there have been a few movements from within the camp. Matteo Guendouzi’s Arsenal career is all but over after agreeing a loan with an obligation (that’s important) to buy, meaning that barring something unthinkable he will be sold next summer. I’ve never been overly taken by him as a player and as a personality, he’s someone that Arteta will be glad to see the back of.
The Granit Xhaka saga is finally drawing to a close with his move to Roma all but done. Tim Stillman wrote an excellent piece on him that you can find here. He won’t be the last players to leave this summer and the club are believed to be working on deals to move a number of players on ASAp. Watch this space.
And then we come to William Saliba. Dear oh dear what a mess that situation is. When you spend the best part of 30m on a defender you’d expect him to play. But he hasn’t, not even once, so he’s off for another season on loan in France. What’s going on behind the scenes we don’t know but it really is time for Arsenal to play him or sell him.
Transfers – in
As always we’ve been linked with too many players to speculate so let’s deal with what we know.
The club have already confirmed that Nuno Tavares has arrived from Benfica to provide the much needed backup for KT. Hopefully this will end the experimentation fiasco we ended up in last season. He is very much an under study to KT this season but when called upon to do a job he’ll show us what he can do.
Sources also tell us that the club is close to completing a move for Albert Lokonga. The player is currently completing a quarantine period before his medical and is expected to be unveiled sometime next week. More on that one when it’s annoucned.
And that’s yer lot for now. A long one I know but now the Euro’s are over posting will be much more frequent!
COYG!
-Joe