It looks like the first domino has fallen on how Arsenal will be dealing with their very large squad for the second half of the season. With Arsenal’s injury crisis (knock on wood) easing, the openings for players to get on to the bench, let alone to get on the field, have gotten tougher and tougher, leaving senior pros not even making match day squads.

In a fast-moving transaction (from the outside) that went from first publicly reported interest to done deal in just a few hours, we have Ethan Nwaneri moving on loan to Olympique Marseille until the end of the season. Here is David Ornstein with some more details:

The deal [with Marseille] includes a significant loan fee that depends on appearances but will reduce the more he plays. There is no option to make the move permanent at the end of the season.

The move has been driven by Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta’s desire for the 18-year-old to play under Marseille head coach Roberto De Zerbi.

Let’s break it down.

Crowded Pathway at Arsenal

This season has probably not gone exactly to plan for Nwaneri, he has made 4 starts in all competitions (0 in the Premier League) and has played just 5.8 nineties over 12 total appearances. This is coming off of a season where he made 16 starts (11 in the Premier League) and played over 15 nineties.

In the limited opportunities (against mixed opposition quality) he has looked quite good, especially for his age but he has not done quite enough to make it impossible to pick others above him.

The path to playing time at Arsenal in the second half of this season didn’t really present a lot of obvious opportunities as the leverage of the remaining matches only continues to ratchet up.

Unfortunately, prioritizing Nwaneri’s development minutes has been one of the casualties of Arsenal pushing very hard to win the biggest honors this season.

Last season he got the majority of his minutes playing wide right after Bukayo Saka was injured. He did quite well there but it doesn’t appear that he, nor the club, wanted to continue down the wide attacker path, viewing his future playing in a more central role.

In the summer, Arsenal brought in Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze to add to Mikel Arteta’s arsenal (pun intended), directly competing with Nwaneri’s preferred positions as an attacking midfielder or winger.

Selfishly and perhaps with some PTSD of seeing Arsenal depleted by injury, I would not have minded keeping him around. He has a potential to score goals from very little that is hard to replicate in the squad but realistically this is for the best.

A Perfect Ligue 1 Landing Spot?

Ligue 1 has long been a breeding ground for young talents, churning out Premier League-ready players like clockwork. This is especially true of midfielders where there seems to be the right combination of tactics, trust in youth, and level of competition that nurtures prospects into full time players.

Nwaneri’s move to Marseille positions him in a competitive environment (Ligue 1 is rightly a top 5 League, even if it is 5th) where he can hopefully find more opportunities away from the suffocating pressure of Arsenal’s chase for silverware.

I am not a close watcher of Ligue 1 (they are not on a television channel/streaming service that I get at all), so I am not going to pretend to be one here, but here is a bit on what the data shows on Marseille.

Under Roberto De Zerbi (who we all should be a bit more familiar with given the Premier League ties), Marseille have adopted a style that is not too dissimilar to Arsenal.

De Zerbi is a key to this deal according to Ornstein, with Arteta working with him on it and becoming the driving force for moving to France versus some of the other options within the Premier League that were also available.

De Zerbi, shares a stylistic DNA with Arteta, building his team to play possession-based, high-pressing football that emphasizes technical midfielders like Nwaneri. He does favor more of a 4-2-3-1 or 3-4-2-1 than the 4-3-3 that Arteta uses but that should still present an opportunity to play in an attacking midfield role.

What This Means for Nwaneri’s Arsenal Future

With no buy option or obligation, this is clearly not goodbye for Nwaneri at Arsenal. Hopefully this is more of a strategic interlude where he can develop more and come back prepared to compete again for the spot at Arsenal.

This doesn’t drastically change my view of his odds at making it at Arsenal, and I don’t think that it changes the opinion that Arsenal still see him as one of the brightest talents in their ranks. The reality is that with the level that Arsenal are at right now, it is not easy for any player to push their way into a title winning side, let alone a teenager.

The signing of Eze this summer always made a move like this seem more likely, I think that there is a good chance that something like this could repeat again next season with both players in the creative attacking midfield spot in the heart of their prime.

This underscores the challenges of youth development in a title-contending side, the stakes are high and with the size of squad required to play the number of matches at the intensity that Arsenal want under Arteta, minutes are a tough commodity. Arsenal have an example in their squad of how this can work out, with Saliba developing in France before stepping into his current role, perhaps Nwaneri’s path can mirror this.

This is a big chance for Nwaneri and hopefully he can seize the opportunity, plus I love to have an excuse to pay more attention to League outside of England.

What do you think, readers? Is this the right call for Nwaneri, or should he have stayed to fight for minutes?

Leandro Trossard has agreed a new contract at Arsenal which will grant him a significant pay rise.

The 30-year-old has reached an agreement on a contract adjustment, increasing his salary but not extending the deal beyond its previous expiration of 2027.

I can’t help but not fully understand what the logical reasoning is behind this.

McNicholas has this in the article as a potential reason, but I still don’t know if that really makes a ton of sense personally.

[Trossard] has been in talks with the club for some time over improved pay, with a view to bringing his salary in line with his valued role in the squad.

Salary information is opaque and not reported well enough that I particularly trust many of the places online that you’ll see wages but if we go with the £90k per week that you would see on a place like Capology or Spotrac that is probably below what a player who has his role of the last few seasons would have been making at Arsenal.

Since he joined in January 2023 he has played in 124 matches, making 73 starts and has played 75.4 nineties in all competitions. He has gone from 12 to 25 to 38 nineties in those 2.5 seasons and he was a player that played a pretty large role, especially the last two seasons.

His agent and Trossard himself, with hindsight probably did a poor job negotiating his initial contract with Arsenal where he agreed to a wage that would be more fringe player than player just outside of the first eleven and they tied him up to a 4.5 year deal (plus potentially an option, I have seen that reported but unsure if fully confirmed).

The part that doesn’t make sense is that his role going forward is not nearly as clear, and it very well could be that he will not be that same player that is playing in 50+ matches and pushing 30+ nineties for Arsenal.

This summer Arsenal spent pretty big on Noni Madueke who is a younger and frankly probably better player than him. When you put together a depth chart he just doesn’t have as many paths to playing time as he did last season.

If everyone or even if most players are healthy, he is on the bubble now for players that would make the bench in the Premier League. He probably would make it most matches with Arteta wanting to have 3 attackers on the bench (it would depend if you count Ethan Nwaneri in that group), but it isn’t a slam dunk and it is far from certain that he would make it on the field.

If this was a player in his prime years and he was looking like he was going to grow (or maintain) his role, fine pay up for it. However, given that he is 30 and the business that Arsenal have done, his role is looking like it is shrinking.

His wage was out of line for a player that was playing 30-40 nineties but is it out of line for a player that is more of a backup and insurance policy for injury? It probably isn’t too far on that.

I think the other factor is that is this a case where there are teams out there beating down Arsenal’s door to take him from the team and offer him more money? I have not seen a ton of interest and it seems like all the teams are not coming close to matching a transfer fee that Arsenal would want to see him go. That is the market giving him the news that other teams don’t see him as worth what he thinks he is there.

All of the word on sources close to Arsenal are that any additional incomings would be tied to players leaving. This isn’t tied to the Premier League PSR rules, where the team has plenty of room but more likely tied to the size of the squad in general and that they are close to the stricter Financial Fair Play rules set by UEFA. Trossard very well could have been one of those players that could have left before this news but now it seems that things are done on that front.

If the club was already potentially limited by the UEFA rules, why make it tighter for yourself if you didn’t have to.

Increasing the wages that is probably only adding an additional £2-5 million to the wage bill for each of the next 2 (maybe three with option) but that is still not something that I really understand if things are as tight as they say and there is so little interest from other teams to pay him what he is asking for. The other thing that this does is probably make it that much harder to sell him to another club in the coming years given that this pushes him above the wage structure of more teams.

It is a bit of news that erodes a bit of my trust on the club’s overall decision making and squad building process.

Arsenal’s midfield is undergoing a seismic shift with the departures of Thomas Partey and Jorginho as free agents, leaving a void in experience and depth.

Into this empty space steps, the former Brentford captain Christian Nørgaard.

As I do with every signing (and even some that don’t sign) we will dig into what the data is able to uncover and help give us the context about this player. I can’t help but start from the position with the opinion that while he wasn’t exactly on my radar a month ago but think that this is a player who should profile quite nicely as a cost-effective backup for Martin Zubimendi. Nørgaard’s defensive nous, set-piece threat, and Premier League experience offer Arsenal a reliable anchor to bolster Mikel Arteta’s Premier League aspirations.

Let’s get into it starting straight away with a radar and distribution chart. Here we place him on the Deep Playmaker template with the idea that he’d come in at the base of Arsenal’s team and that has been more often than not the role asked of the player in that position under Arteta.

The in-possession section of the graphic isn’t the prettiest here, but he does fill out the ball winning section quite nicely.

Here is what it looks like on the defensive midfielder radar and the more generic central midfielder radar as well.

Looking at the percentiles, it is a reminder that the green bars don’t pop but they also don’t have a lot of major areas that are not at least pretty good. I don’t worry too much about the upper right section of the chart for a defensive midfielder, focusing much more on the possession and defensive metrics.

Before we get too far into things, I would highly recommend looking at the clips that Adam put together. For a defensive midfield player this is a very important part of understanding the player and it really helped me get a feel for the player, even if this a player that being in the Premier League we are more familiar with.

Team Differences

This is an important section for getting an idea of how the team he played in could be effecting the numbers we are looking at here. The difference between Arsenal and Brentford is obviously pretty large.

Style wise Brentford played a pretty standard midtable type of style, lower possession mixed with very direct play. They looked to be solid at the back, even being willing to cede low quality shots in exchange for space that they could attack at speed when they won the ball back.

They played a game that featured tons of turnovers and stoppages as they tired to make it as start/stop and transition based as possible.

Norgaard did an excellent job for them in this role.

Arsenal of last season wouldn’t be described by many as an attacking juggernaut, but they look that way in comparison to Brentford and their willingness to play ugly.

The not great looking numbers continue looking at the defensive side of the game. Some of the weird style stuff really pops here, lots of shots allowed but they do a very good job of making sure that they are not high-quality shots. They do try and win the ball back but are fairly comfortable letting teams have the ball should the opportunity not present itself.

Overall while this is a tricky team to make direct comparisons to Arsenal with! These two teams are pretty close to polar opposite on the way they play and this will be an important factor to remember for the rest of the numbers that we dig into here.

Passing

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After going with a dual track approach on Benjamin Sesko and Viktor Gyokeres all summer long, with an Ollie Watkins stalking horse as a backup the process has boiled down to Arsenal seemingly choosing Gyokeres.

There have been a flurry of updates today and it was capped off with the very reliable David Ornstein of The Athletic reporting that Arsenal are in advanced talks with Sporting for him:

Arsenal are in advanced talks with Sporting CP over a deal to sign Viktor Gyokeres.

A move for the 27-year-old striker is not done as discussions continue over the transfer fee — but the situation is progressing towards a conclusion.

Personal terms are in place on a proposed five-year contract, the Sweden international having prioritised a switch to Arsenal for some time.

This is in light of news from Hand of Arsenal (always a bit weird to type up people who are anonymous online like that but his track record this season has been very solid, but ymmv):

For the last 2 weeks Marcel Schäfer (DoF) for RB Leipzig refused to negotiate lower than €90 million. The mission then became very clear. Arsenal now trying to close a deal for Viktor Gyökeres. Talks ongoing over the structure of the fee and add ons.

This seems to generally track the narrative that seems to have played out this summer where Sesko was the first choice at striker for Arsenal. The club was close to signing him last summer but Sesko decided that he wanted another year as the starter at RB Leipzig and signed a new contract that included a new higher release clause of €70m (£58m) that reportedly could fluctuate but after negotiations this summer and reporting now that release clause didn’t seem to be very iron clad or maybe it hasn’t been very well reported on how it could deviate from the base number.

I am disappointed about this development because Sesko was largely the player that I favored but I can’t blame the team for having a valuation and sticking too it and not wanting to move too far off of it. If Arsenal wanted a deal done in the region of £50m to £60m and Leipzig were not budging off of their £78m that’s nearly a 35% and £20m difference in valuation and that is hard to bridge.

I don’t envy the decision makers here having to make the call because Gyokeres at £50m to £60m isn’t exactly a cheap gamble either. This is a BIG bet from Andrea Berta who by reports was one of the people behind the push for the player compared to others at Arsenal that were not convinced by him and it is one of the more impactful decisions that Arsenal will have this summer.

We have written and talked about Gyokeres a bunch already and it would be good to distill things down here now.

No denying his Portuguese numbers

Gyokeres scored 39 goals in the Primeira Liga last season on his way to being the highest scoring player in any domestic league this season.

That is a pretty great data point to have and that will be the starting point for the bull case for him. The most important job of a striker is that he scores goals and he did that a lot last season.

This also isn’t just a one season wonder for him (even if last year was by far the biggest one) or just a result of him having a ton of penalties (he did have that with 12 last season and 17 total over the last two). He still leads with 51 non-penalty goals scored over the last two years in his domestic league.

He backs up the gaudy goal scoring numbers with excellent shooting volume, lots of touches in the box, good carrying and dribble numbers, and solid creative numbers for a striker.

Based just on his numbers in Portugal this is by far the best statistical forward in the world right now.

Looking at his numbers it is impressive as hell.

His shooting numbers are excellent, he’s got volume, plus quality chances, plus adding value with his accuracy and power.

This is a story that holds for his career too:

He has shown a solid track record of beating his xG and it is backed by his skill of shot placement and power which would make me think that this is actually a durable skill for him and not just noise.

His big finishing hot spots are exactly where you want your striker taking shots from as well, dominating the center of the penalty area.

His finishing looks strong across the board as well, when he gets solid looks at goal he does an excellent job of turning those chances into goals at a high rate.

If Arsenal fans are worried about the dreaded “Big Chances Missed” this is a player that generally has not had that struck him (he will still miss them because everyone does and getting big chances is better full stop).

One bit of a red flag here in the data ignoring level of competition (that will come below) is that he is not a good header of the ball. For a player that has his athletic traits and size (6-1½) he is poor in the air.

If scores at the rate he has previously with his feet people won’t care but it something that can’t be passed over and not mentioned when talking about the player.

This probably dovetails with his lack of heading ability but he is also not a threat on set plays for how prolific of a scorer he has been.

Outside of penalty kicks he has just 3 set play goals in his career from 20/21 to present. For Arsenal maybe there are better looks here for him but another one that’s a bit of a red flag.

For a striker, and a player that Arsenal would be wanting to come in and get a team that was missing open play goals and threat there is a lot of good news here.

How they translate to the Premier League however is open for debate

Now we get into what makes this a very tough transfer to get a read on.

The Portuguese League, like many leagues outside of the top two or three is one where teams at the top are very good but the quality beyond that drops off significantly.

Here is a graphical representation of this using Club Elo ratings comparing the Premier League, the Championship, and the Portuguese Premiera Liga.

The top teams in Portugal are quite strong, they back this up performing well in the Champions League generally and would be about on the edge of the European places in the Premier League. Once you start getting past the top 5 teams however, that quality of team drops off significantly past that and the teams are rated as below the level of the Championship.

This is a bit like when we see players kill it in Cups playing against teams from the Championship or League One or even in Europe playing against the minnows. It’s impressive and you can only play the people in front of you, but it can be a data point that you take with a grain of salt.

There are a few things that we can do to try and account for this but nothing is perfect here.

The first thing would be doing an adjustment for the strength of opponent and the differences in teams. I attempt this using Club Elo data and here is what Gyokeres’ data looks like after that:

That is a pretty large drop off and difference here. He goes from one of the statistically best players in the world to maybe something between good and very good.

This isn’t an easy task and this should be more of a ball parking exercise than something that is the gospel truth.

The next method would be only looking at his games against other strong teams. For this I have set the cut off of at an Elo rating of 1725 which is roughly the top 50 teams in Europe, this is also about where 17th place in the Premier League is cut off. I have included the last two seasons here because otherwise the sample size would be very small.

Compared to his overall numbers the drop off is pretty significant here.

His goal scoring this season has been beating up on lots of bad teams. Looking at the breakdown of goals scored in the Primeira Liga it looks like this:

• Goals vs the other top teams (top 3) - 1 (0 non-penalty)

• Goals vs the teams in 4th through 7th - 7 (6 non-penalty)

• Goals vs the bottom 11 - 31 (21 non-penalty)

He can only play against the teams on his schedule and he can’t control that the teams that he is playing against haven’t been very good, and he has destroyed them, but there is clearly room for doubt here.

Final thoughts for today

I can’t help but feel a bit mixed today on this news.

I thought that Sesko was the guy and I thought that he fit in with what the vision of the club was perfectly. It would also be a chance to sort of right the mistake (with hindsight) that they made with Alexander Isak.

Sesko is far from a certain thing because there is no such thing but he represented very good present talent with super star potential. His age was also perfect to be the rotation for, while able to play with and sometimes in the place of Kai Havertz for Arsenal.

It looks like baring a last-minute shift from Leipzig on his valuation that won’t be happening.

Gyokeres ends up as a bit of a weird middle ground. His age isn’t bad but he’s in the middle of his prime and there isn’t probably another level to go to here with him. He’s been great in his domestic league but only pretty good when he has come up against competition that is of the caliber of the Premier League.

If Arsenal wanted a win now option guys like Ollie Watkins or Victor Osimhen were there and probably guaranteed more floor while having similar or better upside. They came with other issues, Watkins maybe has less runway given he’s older and Osimhen has seemed to want a massive pay day so maybe that swayed the decision here.

It does seem that the price is going to be manageable but I am curious to see what sort of wages he will end up on because that will help shed some light on if this is a striker that they expect to be the number one guy (and I’d be nervous about that bet) or if he is more of a rotation option (more comfortable about that).

It is hard to read the future but I am coming from a starting point that this is not a player that I would be expecting to displace Kai Havertz from the starting position.

Let me know how you are feeling about this one.

There has been a bit of smoke around a potential move for Chelsea’s Noni Madueke now for a few weeks. I have been a bit baffled by the decision for Chelsea because he has just come off of a good campaign for them and looks to have all of the promise in the world that he could continue to develop with a very high potential ceiling.

If the idea behind Chelsea’s accumulation of all of the young attacking players is buying lottery tickets, why would they be choosing this one as the one to sell given his combination of current production plus potential production.

When I try and make sense of some of the decisions and choices at Chelsea my head just starts to hurt. I can to a certain degree understand the logic behind the moves and the way they have made bets on accumulation of talent early betting enough blossom that they can have a title challenging team but then they do things that defy logic and it just makes me think that they are addicted to player trading and churn in the squad.

This brings us to today where David Ornstein has reported that Arsenal and the player have agreed to personal terms and reported that a potential transfer is progressing with the path cleared to talk with Chelsea about a fee and that is combined with fresh comments from Enzo Maresca after their Club World Cup match where he and the club have seemingly giving their blessing that he can leave:

Noni has been very important for us during this season. Today, again, he has been important. But my message to the players and to the club is that I want just players that are happy to be with us. The ones that are not happy, they are free to go. It's not for Noni, it's for all the players we have. But again, Noni has been very good during the season and very good tonight.

It’s also been rumored that the fee that Chelsea would be looking at for this move is £45m+, with add-ons on top. So that will be kind of the starting point for how we look at it.

This looks like it could be a fast-developing situation so let’s get to know this player a bit more.

Last season Madueke put up pretty strong numbers for Chelsea and from my outside perspective was a player that was key to when they were at their best.

He has just under 43 nineties in the Premier League for Chelsea over the last three seasons for Chelsea and he again has looked quite strong, especially when you start to factor in that these have been his age 20 to 22 seasons.

One of the big things here is the Madueke is a high-volume plyer. He shoots a ton, he dribbles and carries a ton, and lots of Chelsea’s attacks flowed through him.

That does lead to him losing the ball a ton and if things aren’t coming off it will have the actions really stick in people’s minds and become a bit of the focus. For a player of this mold that very often seems to be something that comes up again and again.

It very much reminds of similar kinds of things that would come up around Alexis Sanchez, he had more end product in goals and assists but the high volume and high risk drove people crazy because he looked so wasteful with people remembering all of the times that it didn’t come off.

One thing that I find helpful is looking at how he compared to similar players at the same age. His list of players is a bit mixed but it is full of players that were hot prospects with a potentially bright future.

Not everyone went on to reach their ceilings, but this is a really good list to be on.

Maybe this is a me problem and everyone else that seems to be turned off by the player is right but I don’t know if I can come to the same conclusion here. I can see that he has flaws and like most players under 23 will make mistakes and be frustrating at times but I think that obscures that he seems to be supremely talented and with all of the tools to reach the highest level.

Looking at that stats dashboard from the last three seasons he pops as at least average in every category and with good numbers in areas that you want a wide attacker to excel.

Looking at each group you can see that there are weaknesses in his game but overall that he really fills out the stats.

Is the Chelsea Association Poisoning the Perception?

I can’t help but wonder if Madueke played for West Ham, or Bournemouth, or Brentford, or Crystal Palace that he would be view differently.

Looking at him compared to other targets that I think would thrill fans he stands up pretty damn well.

He plays in a different position obviously, but Eberechi Eze is a player that has been linked and universally viewed as a potential great signing.

Madueke is four years younger and put up stronger numbers last season than him.

Antoine Semenyo just inked himself a new long-term deal to stay on the south coast but he was a name that excited players as a potential option at the start of the window.

Again, Madueke matches up incredibly well here and on many of the numbers is the superior player.

Earlier in the window Bryan Mbeumo was a player that Arsenal were considering going after before the alure of a starting role at Manchester United swayed him. He was another player that fans viewed very positively as an option.

This is another one where the advanced stat numbers are pretty stark in favor for Madueke with again him being a younger player as well.

There is the perennially linked Mohammed Kudus who, again I think would be viewed very positively as a backup right wing option by Arsenal fans and how he compares:

I can basically copy paste again here what I have said again and again on how Madueke compares here.

Stripping away the team and comparing him to other players it is hard to view this as anything other than something that is heavily tied to the Chelsea link.

I understand that Arsenal buying from Chelsea is annoying but in my view Arsenal have generally gotten pretty solid value in these deals (Luiz, Jorginho, and Havertz) with a few flops (Willian and Sterling) and the convivence that it provides to players of not needing to massively disrupt their lives moving to a new city or Country is going to mean that it will remain attractive.

It would be bad process to simply view a deal as bad because of what team that they come from.

Final Thoughts

The big sticking point for me on this deal is that I don’t know if this is really the most important place to be dedicating time and money.

Arsenal are clearly in the market for a striker and a left winger. Both of these look to be quite expensive potential signings. They also look to be interested in a potential additional midfielder with the Eze links going on at the same time.

I can imagine that the team would love to have real depth and an option to be able to backup Bukayo Saka but is that really the top of the list this offseason? It isn’t for me but perhaps the club see it differently, they have been linked with Leroy Sane and Mbuemo already this window and maybe they seriously want to figure out ways to make it so Saka isn’t needed to play 90% of all of the minutes.

This is where I come down on this feeling like a real luxury signing but that doesn’t make it a bad signing.

Madueke would be one of the strongest backup/rotation players for a right wing spot that any team in the world could call upon and it would make Arsenal’s depth at that position the envy of basically every team.

This is what I wrote when reflecting on Arsenal’s depth in attack at the end of the season:

Versatility is important and incredibly valuable, but it isn’t a total replacement for numbers. This is a lesson I already knew but this season helped to push it up the things to consider in squad building analysis for me. Having players able to cover multiple spots is great and it can help make covering for short-term absences easier with a lower drop in performance. There is still a minimum number of players that are required to make it through a long season with four competitions.

I don’t want to back track now, because when you look at the right wing backup it basically is players that are versatile and can cover it. The team has Saka and then Jesus (an injury question mark), Havertz (a striker), Ethan Nwaneri (a midfielder 8/10 type), Gabriel Martinelli (a left winger), and returning loan players Reiss Nelson and Fabio Viera.

Looking at those options I can kind of get on board a bit more behind the idea of needing that depth.

The big question is at what price point does this transfer make sense?

Looking at the estimates again will be fun:

• Transfer Markt value him at €40m/£35m

• SofaScore value him at €43m/£37m

• Transfer Room value him at €50m/£43m to €75m/£65m

• Based on just similar players €42m/£36m

• My transfer estimate model has him at €60m/£52m to €72m/£62m

That overall comes out to about £47m here and if Chelsea are looking for something in the 45-50m range that’s not an outlandish asking price and if Arsenal can negotiate below that there is a chance for getting very strong value from this transfer.

The other major question is how does this effect the overall budget for the team? The team wants a striker, they want a left winger, they may want more in midfield. The team needs to work on new improved contracts for Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Ethan Nwaneri.

What does a deal like this do for the overall budget that can be used for those moves? This one is a question that can only be guessed at and even then not very well. I would feel very comfortable that there is a budget that has a limit at some point for Arsenal but I don’t know exactly if it is capable of fitting all of that work inside of it without some other moves or a compromise somewhere else.

If this link goes further, I would absolutely want to try and look very specifically at some of the complaints that critics have of the player on the decision making, effort defensively, and shooting quality but right now I would be pretty comfortable and in favor of this move.

It’s pretty clearly not a popular position to hold but I work hard to try to come my own conclusions independently of their actual popularity.

Get 20% off forever

One case to keep an eye on is Arsenal and Eberechi Eze. The 27-year-old is high among a number of options being considered as Mikel Arteta’s men seek a versatile attacker. Contact has yet to be made with Crystal Palace but serious consideration is being given to the idea at the Emirates Stadium. No other clubs have the same level of interest at present and Eze is not a player Tottenham Hotspur have targeted to date. The England forward has a release clause in his contract worth in excess of £60million but, should they proceed, Arsenal would try to do a deal below that price. It is unclear whether a sale might be needed to facilitate such a move, but this situation is separate to their pursuit of a striker and left-winger.

This was from the June 30th edition of The Athletic’s Transfer DealSheet from David Ornstein and it was quite an exciting one to have dropped on top of us. The big part of this and what really changes the potential for this move was the last line, “this situation is separate to their pursuit of a striker and left-winger.” If this is in addition to, rather than in place of some other move the club is making it is a real change of course for Arsenal.

Eze is a player that is a bit of a throwback to a player that we would go after under the Arsene Wenger Arsenal, not to mention that he spent time with the Arsenal youth setup.

Does he have a nailed-on position? Not really, he’s a bit of a tweener between a midfielder, winger, and striker.

Does he fully fit with the type of player that Areta has targeted for that advanced midfield role? Again, not particularly, with him favoring the more off ball second striker types in Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino, before potentially grooming Declan Rice for that spot.

Is he exciting and just a baller that I am prepared to sort of just forget all of that and hope that you can just figure it out along the way? Oh yes, I am.

The numbers

The stats last season show for me a player that was highly involved in the attacking actions for the team and that was good but not quite elite.

One of the fun things about Eze is he seems to follow a mindset of you can just try stuff on a football pitch. That leads to some really cool stuff that you just don’t see as often these days but it is also a bit of a red flag in that his shooting numbers are reflection of not great shot decisions.

There are a lot of low value shots here and many of those are taken in situations where there are a number of bodies in the way, this led to him only being able to put 27 on target and had 41 blocked by defenders.

Compared to his peers the shooting numbers are a mixed bag, he has a good volume of shots, and it produces good xG volume and goal counts. It comes with just an okay average shot quality and bad value added from the shooting (all the blocked shots are the major culprit here).

Some of this is down to him being THE GUY for Crystal Palace and needing to make things happen but it’s still a bit concerning and something to note.

Switching to a bit more of a positive for Eze, is that the year prior, where he was more of the secondary option to Michael Olise at Crystal Palace he really excelled.

This would really be the hope for what could be possible with a move to Arsenal in my opinion. He looks like he fits to profile of an excellent second or third attacking option, able to take advantage of space created with the focus on others.

His shot chart last season still showed a player that wasn’t afraid to let things fly from lots of locations but significantly less shots that were through traffic and getting blocked at just 34% compared to 41% this last season.

Eze for his career has really blossomed over the last two seasons after hinting at big things in the 22/23 season. His best statistical season was the one with Olise looking like he was a borderline star caliber player but he still held his own last season rating out as a player of Champions League caliber.

I think that best case he gains back a bit more of that star potential with a move to Arsenal but I think we would all be pretty happy if he continued at roughly the same production after a switch with a gentle decline into his early 30’s.

Here are the individual stats broken down by area:

I have my projection system and it’s a fun sort of tool but not overly serious, it is a nice one for setting a bit of a baseline for expectations on what might be expected for next season.

One of the things that should be noted here is that this does not take into account movement between teams and that can be a large effect on a player’s numbers.

Overall, this looks good! I would be very content if this was what Arsenal would be able to get from Eze and there would be upside that more was possible from him.

Fit at Arsenal

At Crystal Palace they played primarily a 3-4-2-1 formation last season, playing the majority of the time behind the striker as a left 10.

The season prior he again played all over the attacking part of the field for Crystal Palace, but was primarily through the middle as an attacking midfielder or central midfielder.

The way that I would imagine this working is that he would primarily play through the middle with Arsenal but offer support in other positions as well. In a way it fits with many of the moves that Arsenal have done recently with players showing versatility and the ability to play in multiple spots giving extra flexibility into the roster.

Looking at him compared to a number of the Arsenal players he seems to be a solid compliment and potential rotation option with all of them.

Compared to Odegaard, he plays in a different way but I can still imagine that this is a bit of insurance if Odegaard is still struggling with his ankle or form like he was for long stretches last season. This is also an area where the team had a major single point of failure where there wasn’t really a good senior option if Odegaard wasn’t able to go.

Eze on the wing is also a real possibility. Ornstein did say that this wasn’t in place of a winger that could be brought in but given his experience playing wide, it is a real possibility that he could play there even if that would not be his first-choice position.

The main position that I would imagine Eze playing would be in the left midfield position that Declan Rice has taken up. This would free Arsenal to have a player for those tricky matches where the team needs to unlock a deep block or they are chasing a game and give Rice the option to push further back and cleanup things as a defensive midfielder.

When I look at the squad, Leandro Trossard is probably the one that he seems to be the replacement for and where he takes minutes. This could also be a signal that maybe a player like Trossard could be on the way out at Arsenal. When I look at their stats they look incredibly close to each other, and they pop up again when you do a search on players based on playing at the same age with his season before his move to Arsenal.

Final thoughts

Like basically every deal, the key here is at what price does this get done at to be able to say with more confidence if it is a good or just okay deal.

Looking at the numbers, watching him from just being a major observer of the Premier League and the versatility the player brings the fit in the squad makes a ton of sense to me.

His release clause is £60m + £8m in bonuses, this seems like it is a bit on the high side for me given his age. Trying to use the public valuation tools is a fun game and they are still surprisingly valid for what clubs look at (a bit scary to say) and they would have him at a lower price as well.

• Transfermarkt put him at €55m, that would be £48m

• Sofascore value him at €58m, that would be £50m

• Transfer Room’s model would say that he is between €40m and €50m, which would be £35m to £43m

• My friends at Gemini Sports gave me their estimate and it Eze should cost €43m/£37m and their estimate of what he will cost at €55m/£48m.

Looking at the similar player comps and the estimates again from Transfermarkt would put him closer to €33m/£29m, given that he is English plus it is a between Premier League clubs deal this is probably on the low end for things.

I would look at the Trossard deal again as a bit of a baseline starting point, that deal was in retrospect a bargain at £20m + £7m and given what I just mentioned above with the English + Premier League going a bit more wouldn’t be unexpected.

Overall, I think my target range for a deal like this would be a 4+1 contract at a solid rotation level wage say £150-175k a week for the base. Ideally the transfer fee would be in a similar range as the contract and would be £40m-£45m. For this deal given Arsenal are close to winning the big things, you might even be willing to push things a bit further out to make the deal happen.

What are your thoughts on the player? Do you like him as a fit? Let me know in the comments.

Well this morning for me we got a throw back, with David Ornstein at the Athletic reporting that Arsenal had made a £9.3m bid for Brentford’s Christian Nørgaard.

This is a pretty big divergence in the overall plan for how I imagined this going for Arsenal. I think the plan was to bring in Martin Zubimendi and have Thomas Partey move down the pecking order from starter to the rotation/backup spot that was previously taken by the departed Jorginho.

Until this last week, it seemed that a new deal for Partey was all but a formality but there has been a pretty hard pivot away and Arsenal have responded quickly. First was the interest in Lucien Agoumé from Sevilla and now a concrete bid for Norgaard.

My initial view on this is that this is fine. Arsenal will have a hole and he will fill it and I think would do so quite capably. This isn’t a move that excites me and is also a bit underwhelming to me. There is almost certainly some familiarity breeds contempt with that given that I see him play more often in the Premier League compared to other players outside of the League that I don’t watch as regularly and they are more blank slates thar are easier to project on to.

His performance last year for Brentford was pretty good and it is in a role that would be quite different to one that he would have with Arsenal. On the deep lying playmaker role (which I’d say is the role that the DM is mostly asked to play at Arsenal) he just doesn’t fill out the right side of the radar enough to get my blood pumping.

He does a ton of ball winning work and that really makes him pop, he has high volume combined with high success rate.

Last season he was one of the best ball winning midfielders in the top 5 leagues. He added a ton of value with the disruption he added breaking up play with his very active style. It’s a newer thing that I am looking at but his on field play wasn’t overly associated with suppressing shots however, with teams shooting more while he was on the field compared to their normal production but it was for lower xG than normal.

This points to at least right now if you stuck him in the midfield and wanted to make sure that the team had cover he could do that job and would probably do it at a high level.

Where things are a bit tougher is the things that he does in possession.

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That pretty accurately describes today’s focus: Lucien Agoumé, a 23-year-old Sevilla midfielder loosely linked to Arsenal. The sources that have linked the player to Arsenal are pretty thin and not overly reliable and I don’t put a ton of stock into it right now but at least there is a logic to it and that lets me entertain the move enough to have some fun writing about it here.

The scenario hinges on Thomas Partey, whose contract expires at the end of June 2025. If Partey rejects Arsenal’s renewal offer, a growing possibility on the latest reports are to be believed, Arsenal will almost certainly need a replacement. Sevilla, who had Arsenal’s Albert Sambi Lokonga on loan last season and reportedly valued him enough where they would like to have him again permanently, face financial constraints that make them open to selling just about all the players on their roster to sales. This could open the door to a rare swap deal between the teams or simply a transfer for Agoumé to Arsenal.

It’s a long shot, but worth monitoring as the transfer window unfolds.

Let’s break down Agoumé’s profile. He emerged from Sochaux’s academy in France, signed with Inter Milan at 17, but only made 4 appearances (73 minutes) for them. Loans to Spezia, Brest, Troyes, and Sevilla followed, with Sevilla securing him permanently in 2024 for €4 million. His development has been stop-start with the different loans, but his potential is clear.

If you read Adam’s player ratings, he is a player that has featured prominently before and you might be familiar with, ranking as a top 10 option on the stats scouting.

His stats this season are solid and more skewed towards ball winning but overall, he doesn’t show massive deficiencies in his game that would raise a red flag for me.

He’s still on the younger side and given the bit of the start stop development it isn’t crazy to think if he got a permanent home somewhere he could blossom further (to be fair that would still be hard at Arsenal where he’d likely still be looking at only a few thousand minutes per season as a rotation option to start with).

His stats over the last few years back up the view that this is already a fairly high-level player and one that for his age looks quite promising and a good bet to continue to develop, with upside well beyond the current solid player level he is at.

For a club like Arsenal, I would like to see more passing from a player in this position but that is a skill that tends to develop in the 20’s and he is starting from a level that isn’t a problem.

I don’t want to go too deep on this level of rumor but overall I think this looks pretty favorable for the player.

As a final bit of fun, here is this season compared to Martin Zubimendi, Thomas Partey, and Declan Rice.

Overall, he seems to come out pretty solid here.

If thing line up this could be an interesting link and an option for Arsenal to fill out the midfield numbers.

There was a brief window last summer where the possibility of Nunez to Arsenal was open and I was one of the bigger backers of the idea. I have defended him from the complaints about his finishing and thought that Liverpool had made a really smart buy when they plucked him out Portugal.

It looks like by all accounts; Nunez is being told that he is no longer in the plans at Liverpool and that he is free to find himself a new place to play.

So given my previous excitement about the player, this should make me giddy given Arsenal have a need in attack, and I can dream about the player again.

Except I find myself significantly less on board with the idea of this move. The biggest reason is what we just saw with Nunez under Arne Slot.

Under Jurgen Klopp Nunez was a devil and his combination of relentlessness and athleticism was a potent combination and it was perfect for the type of play that Liverpool employed in that era.

He missed a ton of chances those years and it started to question if maybe it was something about his style that just made him a below xG player but even discounting that he might never be the goals = xG guy he put up good scoring numbers and there was the if he just put it together this is one of the best players in the game type production.

So, this is what made me excited, and I thought Liverpool fans that were down on him were giving up on a player too easy for what he did.

Then I saw him play this year…

Slot is a different type of coach than Klopp. He was able to work with the players that played the heavy metal soccer previously, but it was still in a much more controlled style. I suspect that this is something that was directly tied to the downturn in Nunez’s production this season.

The system just did not have the same accommodations for Nunez to create chaos that they had previously and Nunez that has his dialed turned back from 11 is just not as much fun and not nearly as good.

I don’t think Mikel Arteta is so rigged that he won’t allow for chaos in his team, I do worry that he would be like Slot and not like the stuff that Nunez does and try to hold it back and while that doesn’t mean he is a bad player, what makes him special is harder to bet on showing up.

I am a guy that loves upside, and I am willing to put up with a player that is under their xG for a lot longer than most but introducing something that puts that ceiling inside of the team into question puts a real damper on the way I view a potential move.

I think that there are some great potential landing spots for Nunez and he very well could go and max out his potential making Liverpool look dumb to give up on him. I just have more doubt that Arsenal are that perfect landing spot and that there is a higher chance that this is a deal that falls on its face. That makes me a bit sad because at his best I think Nunez could provide the type of impact that other chaos players like Alexis Sanchez and Luis Suarez were able to provide in the Premier League.

I will watch to see how this goes with curiosity and hope that he can go to a team that gives him back that freedom.

Arsenal might have their first deal of the summer close to completion, and it is in a position that will make no one unhappy at all… Backup goalkeeper.

David Ornstein of The Athletic is reporting that Arsenal are close to finalizing a deal to sign Kepa Arrizabalaga from Chelsea. With a £5 million release clause, the transfer fee is modest, making this a cost-effective move to secure a reliable deputy for David Raya.

Kepa’s willingness to accept a reduced role is evident from his recent career moves. Before his loan to Bournemouth, he also took a significant salary cut, reportedly around 50% of what he was earning previously, easing concerns about inflated wages for a backup goalkeeper.

Initially, Arsenal were linked with Espanyol’s Joan Garcia, viewed by much closer watcher’s of goalkeepers than me, as one of Europe’s most promising young goalkeepers. He had a below-market release clause of £25 million making him an exciting potential move and making this deal seem much more mundane. The latest reports suggest that Garcia is set to move across Catalonia to Barcelona, preferring a move that would give him an opening to being the number 1 keeper from the start compared to the situation where he would be the deputy to David Raya at Arsenal.

With the first choice going elsewhere and the team content to go with Raya for the medium term, picking a player who has a reasonable transfer fee and wage demands while still showing that he is a capable player should he be called upon makes a ton of sense.

Arsenal have a busy summer in store for themselves. By all accounts they plan on bringing in 3-5 new first team players in addition to the backup keeper role and these are likely pretty expensive and complicated deals and the last thing that would be needed is mixing in a backup keeper move during crunch time for getting those deals over the line.

With Kepa Arsenal are getting a pretty fine keeper and really over the last few seasons a keeper that has been even more than that.

Kepa brings more than just adequacy to the role. Public perception of him often lingers on his £71.6 million move to Chelsea in 2018, when he became the world’s most expensive goalkeeper. The lofty price tag set unrealistic expectations, and his first two seasons were a beautiful disaster to watch as a rival, marred by errors and inconsistency, ultimately leading to his replacement by Edouard Mendy.

This has fueled the narrative of Arsenal signing another “Chelsea reject,” a trope that unsettles some fans. However, this overlooks Kepa’s recent trajectory and performances. He hasn’t been a regular at Chelsea for two seasons, and with Chelsea’s strategy of hoarding young talent, many players will have a Chelsea stint in their past and perhaps we will need to get over that.

Kepa’s career since 2022 paints a different picture. In the 2022-23 season, he performed admirably in a struggling Chelsea side, proving he was far from their biggest issue. His 2023-24 loan at Real Madrid saw him serve as a capable understudy to Thibaut Courtois and Andriy Lunin, contributing to La Liga and Champions League triumphs making 20 appearances. Most recently, at Bournemouth in 2024-25, Kepa excelled as their primary goalkeeper, recording 8 clean sheets in 31 Premier League matches and a 73.9% save percentage.

This season, Kepa has been a reliable shot-stopper, saving slightly more goals than expected based on post-shot xG metrics.

He saved a few more goals than expected and there doesn’t seem to be anything that looks like a red flag here for him. His long shot stopping isn’t always perfectly consistent but this season it didn’t seem to be an issue for him where he let in just two goals scored from 35 shots on target faced.

As a modern goalkeeper, he’s comfortable with the ball at his feet, fitting Arsenal’s possession-based style, though his passing isn’t elite (but neither is the fee attached). Out of possession, Kepa is proactive as a sweeper, adept at handling balls behind the defensive line, a trait that complements Arsenal’s high line. His primary weakness lies in dealing with crosses, where, despite his 6’2” frame, he struggles to command his area during set pieces and with crosses into his box.

The long and the short of it is, Kepa aligns with Arsenal’s need for a seasoned backup after Neto’s loan return to Bournemouth and he looks like he would be a better option should Arsenal need to call upon him. His familiarity with the Premier League, ability to play out from the back suit Arsenal’s possession-based style, along with him having played the number two role previously. At 30, he’s still in the not particularly worried about him losing too much athletically for a goalkeeper zone and should fill the need at backup keeper in the short to medium term.

All of this points to a low-risk move for Arsenal, he fills a need and does so at a reasonable price with a pretty high floor for the expectations of what you need in this spot.

Let’s start the summer transfer rumors with Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo.

The links are still from spurious sources but let’s not let that stop us from doing some analysis.

Mbeumo is right in the middle of his peak, turning 26 just before the season starts. He’s a bit on the smaller size but is built well to be able to standup to the demands of the Premier League plus he has a track record of good performance with 4 seasons under his belt in the League already.

He is currently going through his best goal scoring season having scored 19 goals and 26 overall goals plus assists this season. At a high level that’s an impressive tally.

It does include 5 penalties scored (6 attempted) but even with those taken out it’s a 20 G+A season and 0.57 per 90 basis.

Here is the radar and distribution for the season:

That’s a bit less impressive than the high-level numbers would suggest but still a good overall player that would add needed depth and versatility to Arsenal’s team.

Let’s start with the shooting. This season he’s had excellent shoot positions and has turned it into excellent finishing.

There is air in these numbers for sure with 14 from 8.5 expected but he’s still added a ton of value this season with his placement of shots and I am very happy to see the areas that he is shooting from.

For his career he has not shown that he has consistently do this, he has taken 419 shots with Brentford in the Premier League and Championship and has scored 54 non-penalty goals from 50.6 xG.

Going forward, I would probably adjust my expectations for the goal scoring back towards the expected values but this is still solid production. If you want to pick a nit, and that’s what I do, the spot you would highlight is that the shot production at just 1.6 per 90 from open play this season and the last three season’s combined is just good and doesn’t excite you if you’re Arsenal

The other big plus for him is that he is a player that can provide you value, playing all over the field for Brentford. He’s been part of a 2 in a 3-5-2, as a right winger in a 4-3-3, as a right attacking and central attacker in a 4-2-3-1.

My view of the player is that I would have doubts that he is a game changer enough to be a consistent starter on a team of Arsenal’s caliber and with their aspirations but that he is plenty good to be a guy that starts occasionally and is an important depth player in the squad that wants to compete in four competitions.

There are different kinds of players, but I see him as a younger and left footed version of Leandro Trossard.

Mbeumo is going to be more forwardy with Trossard a bit more midfieldy but they are both offer versatility that is valuable in this part of the squad and good production over multiple positions.

The big factor here is probably what price Brentford would want to sell at. If this is a player available under or even at £50m it is a type of deal that I think makes a lot sense for Arsenal as they need to replace Raheem Sterling and add depth for next season.

If you want a bit more, I also wrote about him when Arsenal were linked back in the January window:

I don’t envy the decision makers here because looking through the links and the different options, there doesn’t seem to be a choice that doesn’t come with some trade off or downside that would be enough to question if that is the right decision or not.

In this post I want to go through the different options and sort of think through each and put them into a bit of a category here.

I don’t think I am ready to push out the boat right now with a decision that I think is best because I think I can probably talk myself into a number of different ways here and it depends on the day of the week and maybe even the hour of that day which way I lean.

Let’s get into it.

Versatile but just serviceable option

The first player in this category is Brighton’s João Pedro. He is a player that I have long had an admiration for but I think that he’s a player that has some growth required to really make the impact at Arsenal.

This season he’s often played off of Danny Welbeck rather than as the out and out striker and really the numbers are just okay and actually are a bit of a disappointment from my mental rating of the player.

When I look at Arsenal’s problems in attack one of the items that I keep kind of coming back to is that they just don’t have enough guys that just let it go with shots, Pedro this season doesn’t look like an option that changes that.

Looking at a bit longer term, including time where he’s been more of a true center forward, he ends up looking better but it’s still off of what you would expect for a team that has aspirations of winning a Premier League or Champions League.

The big plus for Pedro is that he’s more than just a striker and has a bit of the Gabriel Jesus in him that he can play well at multiple positions.

He’s more of a player that likes to play off of the left channel and while he has featured more cental, I think he could adapt as a wing forward type out on the left wing if called upon.

The big stumbling block here is that Brighton don’t sell cheap and I think that there are just enough questions here that would have me questioning going above £50-60M for the player.

Again, maybe I can talk myself into it but not without some reservations and doubts.

The next player I am sticking in here is Matheus Cunha.

Arsenal were linked in the winter to Cunha but Wolves flirtation with relegation made that an untenable option for them. Now that they have guaranteed another year in the Premier League they might be open to selling him in a window where they can more easily replace him.

Cunha isn’t really an out and out forward but like this category suggests his versatility would mean maybe he could be someone

Over the last three seasons, he’s primarily played off of a striker but has spent time up top and on both wings.

He’s put up very good numbers in some not great Wolves teams and that would make you interested in what he might do with more talent around him.

I don’t know if he’s the striker but could be an interesting option to replace a player like Leandro Trossard if he doesn’t want to stick around.

Here is my analysis on the player from January:

Win now but doesn’t solve the striker problem

Another player that has come back after a January chase is the only player in this category and that is of course Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins.. Here is what I wrote about him in the winter:

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Picture this: Martín Zubimendi dictating play at the Emirates, his precise passes slicing through opposition lines while he calmly shields Arsenal’s back four with the poise of a seasoned general.

The Real Sociedad midfielder blend of vision, tenacity, and tactical nous has been a darling of many of the top teams, Arsenal chased him previously, Liverpool wanted to give him the keys, future Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso wanted him to be his guy.

With reports growing louder about the progress of this transfer, and with the club operating under the assumption that this blockbuster move is all but a done deal, poised to give Mikel Arteta’s squad a new twist for next season. This makes it the perfect time to go deep on the player and learn what Arsenal might be getting with him.

All stats used here are valid and up to date through May 8th 2025.

With Zubimendi there is a slight disconnect between the rating of the player from the tape and the stats, where scouts have consistently rated him but the green bars on FBref have been just okay.

Here we place him on the Deep Playmaker template with the idea that he’d come in at the base of Arsenal’s team.

Here is what it looks like on the defensive midfielder radar and the more generic central midfielder radar as well.

Looking at the percentiles, it is a reminder that the green bars don’t pop but they also don’t have a lot of major areas that are not at least pretty good. I don’t worry too much about the upper right section of the chart for a defensive midfielder, focusing much more on the possession and defensive metrics.

Before we get too far into things, I would highly recommend looking at the clips that Adam put together. For a defensive midfield player this is a very important part of understanding the player and it really helped me get a feel for the player, even if this was from the last time Arsenal chased the player.

Team Differences

Style wise Sociedad are fairly unique. They have high possession but they play in much more direct way than you’d typically expect with much more risk taking.

This has been a good team but it seems that after five straight finishes in La Liga’s top 6 (6th, 5th, 6th, 4th, 6th) the drain of talent was a bit too much seeing them slip to 12th.

The big drop off has been in attack where they went from an okay, perfectly solid attack to a bottom tier side in La Liga (4th fewest goals scored, 8th fewest xG).

Arsenal wouldn’t be described by many as an attacking juggernaut, but they look that way in comparison to Sociedad this season.

For Sociedad, this seems much more of a final third problem (xG down 9%, goals scored down 32%) than a major issue I would lay at the feet of Zubimendi; the team has declined a bit (4%) on the entries into the final third and the total final third touches, but it is not nearly of the magnitude to at a high level suggest causality from things that you point to for a DM.

The defensive numbers have held up for Sociedad and that has been a bit of the saving grace from an implosion where things really fell out for them.

Overall while this isn’t a perfect 1 to 1 style fit, it’s not a radical change of phyolosophy, under manager Imanol Alguacil, employs a dynamic, possession-based tactical style that emphasizes high pressing, and fluid positional play. That’s not so different than what Arteta has instilled at Arsenal as well.

Passing

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With the deadline looming after the weekend, things are starting to heat up, starting today with some links to Mathys Tel from Bayern Munich (look for more on this soon) and continuing with a link to Ollie Watkins of Aston Villa. Sami Mokbel of the Daily Mail is pretty good on Arsenal news and reports that they have made a bid for the player and could continue to pursue the deal.

Aston Villa are at a bit of a crossroads where Jhon Durán has emerged as very promising striker who is looking for more playing time (with links away from Aston Villa) and they seem to need to make a decision on their future plans, maybe not exactly this window but it could happen here and Arsenal are probably right to be pushing this now.

They have Watkins and Durán, and are linked to Joao Felix from Chelsea as potential replacement for either player. It looks like something is going to happen it just depends on who it is and to where they go.

Watkins just celebrated his 29th birthday, so he is the player that is more likely to be at his peak value for Aston Villa but he is also the more established player as they fight to keep progressing in the Champions League and fight for a European place in the League.

For Arsenal, this probably isn’t the ideal age to be signing a player but with the injury-ravaged depth, the perfection of fit is perhaps a secondary concern to purely having the required number of high-quality players needed.

Here is how his numbers look this season:

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The latest on Arsenal’s search for a forward is reports in L’Equipe (via GFFN) and others is that Arsenal hold interest in Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo.

Transfermarkt says that he has a contract through 2026 (but with a club option to extend for an additional season) and that is sort of the selling sweet spot given his age (25) and contract situation. He is valued at something in the £40-£45 million range on transfermarkt and in the reports.

I have to say that I am not fully convinced that this is a needle moving signing but maybe it is a solid January move to address that Arsenal haven’t added often enough to their attack so they are just short numbers.

I don’t want this to come across as he is bad because he clearly isn’t, it is just a matter of the expectations and where it fits into the Arsenal squad. If the idea is that you are buying a depth player that you expect to hopefully replicate a Leandro Trossard type role I think that fits, if you expect that he is a full-time starter, I think you would be disappointed.

Looking at him compared to other wingers and he rates solidly above average but his time at Brentford doesn’t suggest that he is a talent that should be a starting player on a Champions League team.

He doesn’t have any massive weaknesses and shows as above average with the shooting. This is a valuable basket of skills and he complements it with his versatility, having been played in a number of spots for Brentford.

This would ease my mind a bit on him when Bukayo Saka comes back given that he can cover more than just right wing.

Hot finishing boosting him?

Mbeumo has hit double figures already this season for goals scored in the Premier League and that is mighty impressive.

He has done it on just 32 shots, and just 17 of them on target (numbers before this matchweek) and 4.5 xG.

That points to this being something that is probably more hot streak than what you should expect going forward.

For his career, this is the outlier. He had a big season in the Championship where he was +5.4, followed by a -1.0 and was below his xG for his 3 previous seasons in the Premier League at -5.3, -0.6, and -0.8.

Weird things can happen in small samples, maybe he has figured something out and this is the new normal.

However, I would be very skeptical to make a big bet on that continuing given his previous track record over the last 250 shots he has taken where he looks like he might be streaky and more of a goals = xG player than an amazing finisher.

Final Thoughts

This move could be fine. He looks better right now because he is running hot but he has solid skills and the Premier League experience.

There is also a bit of a how does he translate moving from a more transition heavy team to Arsenal, does he make the team more transitional, or does he have to adapt to having less of those potential moments?

He is a bit older than you would like if you want to expect or project growth and improvement on the player. This is very much the late/middle of the prime for a wide player.

It is always tough to guess how changing teams affects a players numbers because it can be ambiguous with different players seeing things move in different ways. Mbeumo doesn’t seem to have massive splits beating up worse teams and Brentford have not been that bad of a team to where I think the change would be massive for the pure talent change (style for sure would be an adjustment).

If the price is reasonable, I can get on board for this type of move. If £40m is the actual fee that is being looked at I think that’s reasonable for the conditions that you would expect in January where you have to overpay to get a player and with the desperation that Arsenal have it would be fine.

I would just maybe temper my expectations on what the player’s ceiling could be, with this from my perspective looking more of Trossard type than first eleven nailed on player.

What do you guys think?

It is not the ideal time to be a buyer and the players that you can buy usually come with the issue of being a castoff from their team, not doing well on their current team, a player that is not in high demand, or is massively more expensive than they might be in the summer transfer window.

This is because it is just harder to get moves done in the middle of the season with little bedding in time, compressed timelines, and the season going on with teams not fully sure where they are or pushing to hit the goals that they want.

This is what makes Juventus striker Dušan Vlahović the almost platonic ideal of a January transfer.

He hasn’t exactly settled and met expectations since he moved 3 years ago. Juventus look like they are close to bringing in a replacement for him in Randal Kolo Muani. That checks the boxes for a player that is an outcast and would be available.

What makes him a compromise is that he just hasn’t performed all that great this season.

This isn’t horrid but it isn’t full of green flags that would make you certain this would be a hit transfer.

The pros:

• He takes lots of shots, 2.7 from open play

• His shot quality is good, especially for the volume of the shots he is taking

• He gets into solid locations for receiving the ball

• Good size, sweet ball striking that looks great in a highlight reel

• He’s available

The cons:

• His finishing looks very poor

• He is a zero outside of the penalty area

• He doesn’t look like the answer to the problems Arsenal have in attack

Looking at a bit of a longer timeline for him, here is the radar for his 2022-23 through 2024-25 seasons in Serie A, Champions League and Europa League:

The shot numbers look solid but that is really about it when you look at this. This isn’t a small sample size either, this is 72.4 nineties of playing time here. I get the Juventus haven’t exactly been great over that run but it basically who he is at this point.

Here is this year compared to last year. Max Allergri was supposedly the problem but he looks like the same player now under Thiago Motta.

Even going back to his Fiorentina days what he has produced has not really changed.

Kai Havertz hasn’t exactly been the best performer as a striker this season (with caveats that he is often asked to play positions/roles other than striker) and Vlahovic doesn’t exactly look like he is offering more than that.

The big issue right now at Arsenal is also that the team is having a finishing problem and adding a player that rates as a very below average finisher doesn’t scream that we are solving that problem.

Over a large sample size (250+ shots) here in top competitions he has been a below average finisher, and it doesn’t seem like a fluke with him putting up bad post shot xG numbers too.

I have never been particularly enthusiastic about this player and felt a sense of relief when he chose Juventus over Arsenal to not have to try and put that aside and root for him to prove me wrong. I don’t think my opinion has particularly changed in the intervening years since.

Maybe I can talk myself into a loan deal, looking at the injuries and the pure numbers Arsenal in attack, beggars can’t be choosers, but man I don’t love it. I will give this the full treatment if this gains more steam.

All I can think is, here we go again.

The January Transfer window is open and the rumors have started flowing in. While the rumors are still early I am going to keep things in this section and not go too deep or dedicate too much time into them until they seem like they have legs and a real possibility of happening.

The first rumor of the winter we are looking at here, I think is perfect for that; Matheus Cunha is a reported longterm player of interest for Arsenal but for a variety of reasons it would probably be a tough deal to get done in the winter window. This makes it perfect to do a quick check in on him but no spend too much time on a deal that has a low probability of being consummated.

Here is what Fabrizio Romano had to say about the potential for the move:

Arsenal have been tracking Cunha's progress even before his recent excellent form but no club-to-club contact has been made so far and Wolves insist on their intention to keep Cunha until June. Let's see what happens, based on eventual proposals.

I think that this makes a lot of sense. Wolves are in the, probably safe but losing their best player and not being able to replace him would be a major problem territory. With Cunha my last simulation had Wolves as the 16th best team and about 17% to be relegated.

That’s pretty safe but it is not so comfortable that as the owner of that team you would want to make a sale for anything less than a major above the odds money.

For now let’s set that aside and take a quick look at the numbers of Cunha:

Matheus Cunha Stats

His numbers look good but don’t jump out as looking amazing. He is a bit of a tweener where he has played all over the field so doesn’t neatly fit into any one position but does seem to do a good job filling in many positions.

The other one is that the headline number of GOALS looks like it is riding a wave of overperformance right now.

10 goals scored this season from 21 on target, 3.9 expected goals and 4.4 post shot xG is definitely on the I am not sure that this is real side of things.

Maybe he is just a plus finisher and this is something to expect. Looking at his numbers in the Premier League might suggest that there could be a bit of something to this with him finishing well above.

I do think I would still have some skeptism about it, looking at his career between the Bundesliga, La Liga, and the Premier League where he has 300+ shots, he is and even finisher.

Maybe it is a skill that has developed over the last few years but I would still hold a touch of apprehension if I was buying him driven by the goal scoring numbers.

Looking at his numbers a beyond this season he again looks solid.

The big question would be about how moving from a not great attacking team in Wolves, to a much more talented Arsenal team would change?

I think the big positive in this high level view is that there isn’t anything that jumps out for me as a major red flag (beyond ‘is the goal overperformance for real?’) to worry about. It would be interesting how it looks to get more detailed on the player.

How much over the odds makes sense?

Returning to this question is the key one. If Arsenal are convinced that he is good enough for them the next task would be trying to figure out what the right price to pay for him would be.

Transfermarkt puts him at €50m and that might be in the ballpark of what I would expect, probably pegging it at £40-£60m range. I think that would be very reasonable to expect in the summer time to spend on this caliber and age of player.

The problem is what premium would Wolves want to give him up now, when replacing his quality is hard/impossible. Wolves are looking fairly safe to stay up but losing this cailber of player would damage those chances.

If I was Wolves, I would do some deeper analysis but some back of the envelope math would look something like this.

The current relegation odds are about 15%, maybe they double and would be 30% without Cunha. Staying in the Premier League for an additional season is worth £100-£150m in additional revenue from TV, match day, and commerical deals.

If I were Wolves, I would look to see about covering off as much of the risk of relegation as possible with this sale (given that they could also sell in the summer regardless) and add on an addition £30-£45m on top of my inital price £40-£60m, making the demand something like £70-£100m.

At the bottom of that range there might be a deal to be done, and maybe that is the guaranteed money, with some bonuses built in that can help it rise closer to the higher figure. The bottom of this range I am not saying a reflexive no, at least not without digging deeper but that is a lot of money and is almost certainly bringing forward budget from the summer. The club would need to be very sure to want to want this deal.

So what do you think of Cunha? Is it worth digging deeper now?

Arsenal have held some talks over the potential transfer of Crystal Palace midfielder Adam Wharton, who is also on the radar of Liverpool and Manchester City.

Sources with a close understanding of the situation have informed CaughtOffside that the Gunners are prepared to try making a move for Wharton in January, with the talented young England international open to leaving Selhurst Park.

It is understood that Arsenal hope to try getting a deal done for somewhere in the region of €55m, but Palace would ask for more like €65m for the 20-year-old.

Wharton exploded on the scene after returning to Crystal Palace after a loan stint at Blackburn.

Lets take a quick look at him over the last two seasons.

In the Championship he showed strong numbers as a defensive midfielder, flashing a well rounded profile that hinted that he could be a future star as a deep playmaker. This was also enough that Crystal Palace believed he was ready to step up to the Premier League.

This is a big green flag for an under 20 midfielder.

His switch to the Premier Leage saw a dip in his on the ball numbers from the Championship, his passing rated as just okay rather than above average. His defensive numbers by contrast got a bump up. This was also good enough to get him a call up to be a part of the England squad at Euro 2024 (but didn’t get any minutes).

This season he started the season carrying a hernia injury but played through it, before it became something that he could no longer manage needing surgery at the beginning of November that will have him out through the beginning of December.

His numbers this season, even while playing through injury have looked a bit better but it has not translated to Crystal Palace finding the same form that they had at the end of last season.

The positives, if you were looking at this from an Arsenal perspective is that the passing numbers have bounced back to the same or better levels to what he did in the Championship.

To help with the sample size, here is how his overall combined Crystal Palace numbers compare to other midfielders:

The numbers look good, when you factor in that he is still just 20 years old it is even more impressive. It makes a lot of sense why the top teams are circling him.

But does it make sense for Arsenal?

This is the most important question, and it is a compound question.

Does Arsenal see him as a six or an eight? My personal view towards him leans towards seeing him the deeper starting position but he has talent and time where he could develop that specialization.

Where is Declan Rice’s long-term position? Is he the six of the future or will he continue to play the majority of his minutes further forward?

If Wharton is viewed as the long-term replacement for Partey and Jorginho at the deeper role I am very excited for the thought of this move regardless of the answer to Rice’s long-term spot because this is such a long-term hole in the squad.

It is just a good problem to have when you can add players of this caliber to the team. The €65m price tag is probably on the higher side of what I would like but it doesn’t seem massively out of line for the potential that he has shown.

The news out of Arsenal has been pretty quiet from the normal reporters but there is a report today (from a source that I don’t know if he is particularly reputable about Arsenal) that Arsenal could be open to talks about extending his stay.

So even discounting if this is true or not, I am interested in whether offering a new contract is a good idea or not. So let’s focus on that.

The first thing is looking at his performance.

His time at Atletico Madrid was good but he was never a TOP TOP player, rating out as a solid Champions Legue caliber player. After moving to Arsenal his first season saw him go up a level with a bigger role, his 2021/22 season was hit by injury and he didn’t quite live up the same level but bounced back strong the next year as Arsenal had a title challenge.

Last year was another season where he was effected by injury playing just 9 ninties and not quite looking like his top self, this season in a small sample the downward trend has continued to where he is looking like a player that maybe shouldn’t even be starting for a team with Arsenal’s aspirations.

The sample is too small to make a definitive judgement and his stats are going to be affected by the same game state effects that the team is going through right now but it does appear that if you are worried about age and injury related decline the hints are there for you.

Here is what his last two seasons combined look like:

This isn’t bad but I am not sure it screams out to be a player that is in need of an extension or that cannot be replace, and better yet improved upon. Compared to the Partey at his peak this looks like a shell of his former production. The graph below has his 2019-2023 seasons in red and his last two seasons in blue.

He is no longer close to his previous production. It is a relatively small sample size lately but given what we know about how a player ages and how sometimes a small drop in a players athletic ability can have a drastic effect on their performance if it was allowed them do special things, I think that the club would want to be extra careful if they want to try and keep him going.

The big part of why this is a small sample size if the big red flag and that is his injury history.

He did get surgery to hopefully address the problems but the reoccurring muscles injuries are almost never a good thing to see.

Watching him play after coming back from the latest injuries it is also something that it looks like he has lost the explosiveness. This was a player that I think was dependent on that to help him excel in the tight spots a midfielder operated in, using his agility to create space and to be able to create many of the little moments in buildup that would send Arsenal forward.

It is also more apparent when he has been defending. He doesn’t seem to have the trust in his ability to hold his position to where he can quickly close a player down or recover quickly, now he needs to push up or drop back and that has downstream effects for what the other players on the field need to do.

The overriding view on things is that there are red flags here for extending the player. He has a worrying injury record, and he is on the wrong side of 30. His production has dropped and there would be doubts that it can come back to the level that he showed previously. He is currently a very big earner and while he might be willing to take a pay cut, it is probably not enough to match the actual risk of the deal.

If I was advising Arsenal I would recommend that they really shouldn’t be seriously entertaining a new contract for Thomas Partey.

Vieira just could never quite make the breakthrough at Arsenal playing just 20 total 90s in the Premier League, Champions League, and Europa League over two seasons. He put up decent but below expectations numbers in the start-stop minutes and never quite showed more than flashes of his promise that made Arsenal sign him from Portugal.

A loan with a chance to play more often, back in a familiar place might be something that does Vieira good and helps get his career back on track. Another season where he played less than 1,000 minutes wasn’t going to do anyone any good, even if the good is just putting himself in the shop window for a move to another club next summer.

This is what I wrote when he first signed, from the By The Numbers column that first was published on ArsebolgNews:

Vieira looks to be an exciting player with impressive statistics. The statistics should probably be taken with a bit of skepticism, however.

First, is that he played in several different roles and that can skew things (most notable here is that it probably boosts his attacking numbers and pushes his defensive numbers down).

Second, he is moving from Liga NOS to the Premier League. Liga NOS is not a bad league, it is the 6th strongest according to Club Elo but it has a very heavy tilt towards having 4 good teams, 1 okay team, and then a bunch of teams that would be on par with mid-table Championship quality.

With that out of the way, I still think that this is an exciting (but certainly not a sure thing) type of move. He should have the luxury of not having the pressure to step right into the starting elven right away if he proves not to be ready. My expectations are that he is being signed to bolster the rotation options for the team, most notable Martin Odegaard who doesn’t have a like-for-like replacement on the bench.

Looking back on this, I don’t think I was wrong. I had some skepticism about the numbers and he might translate. I think some of the deeper analysis on how he plays and what he could offer was right. The technical quality was never in doubt and he showed it at Arsenal in his minimal playing time.

This move shouldn’t effect Arsenal’s plan that much right now but it does make the pure numbers in the squad feel a bit off.

With his departure, the only real true right midfielder in the first team that isn’t having to shift from another starting position is Ethan Nwaneri. I think the depth chart looks something like this, overall very strong but a reoccurring theme is the numbers might be a little light.

The transfer window still has a week to go and it might be a real busy one for Arsenal.