The Perfectly Logical Explanation For Arsenal’s “Slow” Summer Transfer Window

There seems to be a growing worry among many Arsenal fans that the club’s transfer business is taking too long and moving too slowly. Questions like “Why isn’t the Merino deal over the line?”, or “Who is coming in at CF between Gyokeres and Osihmen, and when?” are dominating social media. There is a perfectly reasonable answer to all these questions. Deals for good footballers are complicated and they take time.

First, the good part. Arsenal is a very, very good football team. That means there is a relatively short list of players on the market who can even play for Arsenal. The list of players who could make Arsenal better is even shorter. The football clubs that have those kinds of players are loathe to sell them, and for good reason. They are hard to replace, and selling top players riles up the fanbase in the worst way.

Arsenal fans, still scarred by the sales of top talents like Thierry Henry, Cesc Fabregas, and Robin Van Persie, can testify to the agony and pain that accompanies selling off a truly world-class footballer. Even if the sale is good business for the club, moving talents like that will almost always negatively impact the selling club’s performance on the pitch. That’s why selling clubs drive hard bargains before moving talents.

They’re not going to offer discounts and they will demand as much (if not all) of the transfer fee upfront as possible. The time and effort it takes to develop quality footballers means there is often another club in the chain that has a sell-on clause. That means whatever fee Arsenal pays the selling club must also be big enough for the seller to still get a windfall after paying the sell-on clause.

The same thing applies to any installment payment plan Arsenal might propose. If Arsenal is paying in installments, does the club with the sell-on clause get paid in installments too, or does their contract with the selling club specify they get the full sell-on clause up front? It’s a complicated set of negotiations with a lot of potential permutations.

In the short term, some of this would be easier if Arsenal just did the mega-bucks thing. You know, paying inflated fees and agreeing to whatever wage demands the player’s agent makes. However, that’s a time-tested recipe for financial disaster. Look no further than the fiscal dumpster fire currently burning at FC Barcelona for evidence of that.

Teams like Bologna, Real Sociedad, and Lisbon have every right to drive hard bargains for players like Calafiori, Merino, and Gyokeres. They know Edu is trying to get these deals done as cheaply as possible. That’s a recipe for a long, drawn-out negotiation. But how long has the process been really? A lot of these deals just seem like they’re taking forever because of the constant drip of click-bait articles online.

They have catchy titles like “Personal terms agreed with Arsenal top target,” and “Fee agreed for Player X,” when in most cases nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, Edu flew to San Sebastian last Monday to work on a deal personally with the top brass at Real Sociedad. According to one of the few reliable online transfer prognosticators, Fabrizio Romano, a deal is finally just about done.

That means it will have taken from last Monday to this coming Monday for Arsenal to close the deal. Taking a week or so to close a deal for a footballer Arsenal desperately wants, while also saving 20 million quid off the player’s release clause? It isn’t that long when you think about it. It just feels like it’s been “so long” because this deal has been clickbait since June.

Assuming, however, the Merino deal gets over the line, there may still be one more trick up Arsenal’s sleeve. Yes, Arteta has been effusive in his praise of Gabby Jesus this pre-season. He also said he “believes in his strikers” after the Wolves game. Both things might be true, but this is a man who bought Timber, then Calafiori; who bought Ramsdale, and then David Raya. He knows this club has a weakness in the front line.

So does Edu. The only question is how they will address it. Will it be by adding another versatile attacker with an eye for goal, or will it be for an out-and-out #9 like Gyokeres? Whatever forward deal the club makes (if they make one) is likely to be the most complicated deal of the summer, which is why we’re this late into the window without a new addition up front.

That doesn’t necessarily mean a deal will get done. Joao Pedro? Gyokeres? Better to get it right than rush headlong into another Nicolas Pepe disaster. 70 million quid mistakes are hard to clean up.

The club has a plan, and very few people outside of Josh Kroenke, Mikel Arteta, and Edu have any idea of what that plan is. That’s why it’s probably a good idea to view 99% of what’s online about Arsenal and strikers as plant fertilizer; at least until Romano or Ornstein confirms it.

Closing transfers for the kind of footballers who can upgrade Arsenal’s first team is a high-stakes poker game and there are cards left to be played this transfer window. But things take “so long” for the same reason homemade food tastes better than microwave meals. Good food is worth the wait, and that’s just the way it is. Who knows, by the time you read this Mikel Merino may be undergoing his physical.

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