Evaluating Arsenal's Transfer Record

People are saying that we should give the benefit of the doubt to Edu and Arteta in transfer business, is this deserved?

As the links for players in January start heating up, I am hearing a pretty common refrain, “We should trust Edu and Arteta with their talent ID and player choices.” This leads (it does not beg) to the question of if this statement is true.

I will say, picking player is hard, properly valuing them is hard, making a determination if something was a success or failure is also very hard. What I am going to do here is primarily look at the percentage of minutes that a player has played for the team, using a sliding scale based on their transfer fee and my general feeling of how important that signing was at the time, I will also look at some stats (I am the stats guy after all) to give some weighting for how they actually did in the time that they have actually been on the field.

With all that out of the way let’s go through Arsenal’s moves since 2019/20.

Nicolas Pepe

Pepe is a borderline player to include on this list as he is generally thought of as more of a Raul signing than Edu, and he was here before Mikel Arteta was with Arsenal but let’s throw it in here anyway.

Pepe played just 42% of the available league minutes and did so with pretty disappointing statistical output for the club’s record signing. He went from just shy of 60% of minutes, to 47%, to just 20% last year as he became more and more peripheral to the clubs plans.

I don’t think I would get any pushback calling this a failure.

William Saliba

Stats for center backs are hard and should be taken with a grain of salt, I think this is a good illustration

Saliba is an interesting one, he was signed in the summer of 2019 but didn’t really play with Arsenal until this season. You could probably get a couple different ways to examine if he was a success or failure.

I lean towards focusing on what he has done with Arsenal with the idea that the loans were pretty key towards him getting to the level he is at currently.

Saliba has been a pivotal part of Arsenal, playing 98.8% of the available minutes this season and doing so looking very good.

Because I am grading his loans as something that were good for him to get here I am grading this move as a success.

Kieran Tierney

I am probably tougher on Tierney than most but I think he’s been a bit of a disappointment for Arsenal.

For his Arsenal career, he has only played 45% of the available league minutes missing big chunks of multiple seasons with injury. When he has played I think he has also just been above average and not all that special.

Given the combination of just above-average production and prolonged absences, I think that this transfer goes down as a failure. The fact that Arsenal went and signed another leftback I think really just hammers this home.

David Luiz

Luiz is another tricky one. I think that things look pretty good for him. He played 62% of the minutes that were available to him and was a pretty good center back when he played. I am a little less tough on him than say Tierny because he came in on a lower fee and given his age I don’t think anyone had expectations that he would be anything more than a couple of season stop gap.

I think he met those expectations and can be seen as a successful transfer.

Gabriel Martinelli

The last of the 2019/20 signings and easily the most successful. He has only played 46% of the available minutes but I think that can be discounted given the age when signed and the trajectory of how much he has played. He went from 18% over his first two seasons to 54% last year and 94% this year. He has become a first-name on-the-team sheet player and is one of the most exciting young players in the League.

This is one of the easiest success ratings.

Thomas Partey

This is another one that is hard to rate for me.

When he has played he has looked very good, like one of the best midfielders in the Premier League good. He makes so much of what Arteta wants to do possible, creating a perfect platform for Arsenal to build on.

Except that he has spent too much time not available and that has come at the detriment of the team finishing higher on the table.

He has been available and played just 60% of the League minutes that were possible and I think that is just not enough given his age when he came in and the transfer fee that he was signed to. Partey was not a player for the future where you can overlook a bit of time away but rather signed as THE GUY for midfield.

I am marking this one down as a failure but if he is available for the stretch run of the post World Cup he could move towards success but that is not a guarantee given his track record.

Gabriel Magalhães

Big Gabi is a success. He has played a lot and played well.

Short and sweet section and I think it shouldn’t have much debate.

Pablo Marí

I never really liked the Marí move from the beginning and with time my opinion hasn’t really changed. I thought it was silly when it was a loan, and became worse when it turned into a purchase. Marí was just never good enough and I think that is backed up with looking at where he has ended up on loan after leaving Arsenal.

Rúnar Alex Rúnarsson

Failure.

Arsenal didn’t spend much money on him but he just did not look like a Premier Leauge level goal keeper at all.

Cédric Soares

I think there is a case to be made that Cedric isn’t a failure, I don’t buy into it but I think it is a defensible position to hold.

Cedric came in on a free and was never supposed to really play all that much. I think that is what makes it a problem, he wasn’t really bought with the idea that Arsenal would want to play him and when they did have to play him he was exactly what we thought, a guy who looks like a rotation player on a mid to lower level Premier League player.

I think he is the wrong type of depth to have on a team and is a failure of a signing.

Willian

The less said about this the better. A failure of a signing with the only bright side being it only lasted a year.

Ben White

White has been a success and is probably the type of move that would be pointed to where we should trust the process.

When Arsenal were signing him the debate was about was he worth the big fee and where would he fit with Saliba in the team. Well I think that has been answered, with him finding a way to get into the first eleven no matter what.

I think that this has been a success.

Martin Ødegaard

Ødegaard in my mind is another no-brainer as a successful transfer. He has played often (83% of available minutes) and played very well when on the field with performances that have gotten better the longer he has been with the team.

This has been a success.

Aaron Ramsdale

I had doubts about Ramsdale but I think he has pretty much shut me up about them. He has played well, looking like a solid shot-stopper, someone with good command of the box, and a player with good distribution which is key to playing out.

Success.

Takehiro Tomiyasu

My initial thought was to call Tomiyasu a failure but I ultimately decided that would be too harsh for a signing that wasn’t really a big money signing.

Tomiyasu has been a bit hurt by the not getting on the field bug but I think given his age and fee I think perhaps looking at him like a utility player is probably fairer. He is a very good one-on-one defender and someone that is capable of playing all along the back line.

That has been valuable to Arsenal and I think in the grand scheme of the plans that Arsneal have it is enough to make this transfer look like a success at this stage.

Albert Sambi Lokonga

This is a tough one but I think that I am leaning towards this not having been a success.

I think that I rate his overall performance better than most but I think it has become clear that he is not close to becoming the Partey heir anytime soon. His performance as an eight has also not been good enough to see him displace others in the starting lineup or even as one of the first subs.

So based on not hitting the expectation of a future heir at the six and falling down the depth chart in other positions I think this goes down as a failure.

Nuno Tavares

Tavares has basically met my expectations for him. I thought he was an exciting but raw player and that would make for a perfect backup leftback. In his one season with Arsenal, he did exactly that, showing great promise but also making mistakes.

With his age and fee I think that just about makes this a success, it doesn’t hurt that in his loan in France he has performed well looking like if he is sold this summer it should be at a minimum be for a fee that recoups what Arsenal paid.

Success.

Auston Trusty

Trusty is yet to suit up for Arsenal and my initial thought is that he never would, I think his performance in the Championship will earn him a look in the summer and at worse will certainly make this look like something that makes Arsenal’s modest investment worth while.

For the 2022/23 signings, it is still way too early to say how these are working out with any confidence. Instead I will give a preliminary rating for each.

Gabriel Jesus - Success. He has looked as good as I hoped, the only thing that could ruin this as a success is if the injury bug keeps biting him.

Fábio Vieira - TBD. He has shown flashes of very good play but just doesn’t have a big enough sample. He also came in on a pretty big fee so the expectation for him to develop and contribute is pretty high.

Oleksandr Zinchenko - Borderline failure. I am very worried about a repeat of Tierney where he is just not available enough to depend on long term. When he is fit he has been a success it just hasn’t been enough for me yet this season.

Matt Turner - Success. He has been a perfectly acceptable backup keeper.

Marquinhos - Success. He was a low-cost punt on the upside, he looks like he is not out of place in the first team and he’s shown flashes of promise. It is hard to imagine this not working out with at a minimum of being sold on at a profit.

Overall

By my count Arsenal have had 10 successful transfers (plus potentially 3 more from this summer) against 8 failures, with a couple transfers where I think we need more time to make a determination.

So to go back to the original question, have Edu and Arteta earned the benefit of the doubt with transfers and I think the answer is no they don’t deserve blind acceptance. Yeah, they are doing pretty well with a 55% hit rate but that isn’t perfect, with more time maybe some of the signings over the last couple of windows will bump that up but I think that it is still reasonable to question the moves that they make.

Let me know if you think I am wrong in the comments with my rating of any of the transfers that Arsenal have made.