January movers: How's it going?

Checking in on some of the names, six weeks later

I admit I feel some level of exhaustion talking about past transfer windows. But no matter what we as fans to do extricate ourselves from these discussions, they’re going to keep coming up. Every weekend when someone Arsenal was linked to but never moved on scores or plays well, we’ll get the “should have” posts, and that will sting. Naturally, we won’t hear a peep when those guys have bad games, but I digress.

It’s unknowable to what extent Arsenal’s season could have been saved by a January transfer, or even one in the summer. The latter likely would have helped more, and probably stings more, but these things have been talked to death at this point.

Though it probably wouldn’t have saved Kai Havertz's poor hamstring, I too would have preferred something in January, but it didn’t happen. When the window ended, I took a look through some of the options Arsenal could have explored in the below piece, breaking down road bumps that may have broken up each deal.

Some of those obstacles have become much clearer since the beginning of February, as reporters have had time to dig for details. Some are still relatively unclear. But either way, I thought the international break, roughly half-way to the end of the season from the window’s close, might be a good time to check in on some of those movers and see just what Arsenal may have missed out on.

Follow me, won’t you, into the land of missed opportunities…

The Permanent Deals:

Jhon Durán, €77 million, Al-Nassr

I don’t have a radar to post for Durán, Villa’s 21-year-old former second striker option who was sold for a small fortune to Saudi Arabia. Why? Because I don’t have advanced stats. Here’s what I can tell you about what Durán has done:

• He has scored 5 goals in 5 Saudi Pro League starts. The first four came in his first 2 starts.

• He has taken 20 shots, 10 on target, in SPL play

• He also has two goals in three Asian Champions League starts, both against Iran’s Esteghlal FC.

Is any of this good? I don’t know!

DISCLAIMER: Most of the radars you’re going to see in this post are small sample sizes, please be aware of that. They also do not include domestic cups, due to FBref not tracking advanced stats for those competitions.

Omar Marmoush, €75 million, Manchester City

On the one hand, Marmoush has four goals in his start to life at City, one coming in his most recent outing, a draw with Brighton. All things considered, that might be his most encouraging performance overall, as he’s otherwise dropped a hat trick against Newcastle and a number of pretty unremarkable other games. Marmoush had very good dribbling numbers at Frankfurt but so far has struggled in that area at City, completing just three of his 19 attempts. He’s also created little to speak of, which was a big strength of his profile in the Bundesliga. If he can’t either keep outperforming his xG by three or lift everything else, this looks very questionable at €75 million and c. €270k per week, which is roughly a top-15 PL wage.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, €70 million, PSG

This is in some ways a very similar Kvara to what we were seeing at Napoli, and in some ways a different one. Kvara is still taking shots for fun, and without particular attention to quality of those shots, but they do end up on target most of the time. That can make it tough to end up ahead of xG, which he currently isn’t. Kvara’s dribbling has picked up a bit since joining, but his creative numbers have remained very good. Whether Arsenal ever had a shot is anyone’s guess. He had been set on joining PSG since summer, and some rumors about allegedly absurdly high third-party fees — which can be a way for richer clubs to make transfer fees and wages look smaller — have leaked since the deal closed. From a pure production standpoint, potentially the best player on this list since February.

Ollie Watkins, £60 million (rumoured), Aston Villa

Here’s your deal that felt the realest that didn’t happen. I was never close to thinking £60 million was reasonable for Watkins, for reasons I covered at the above link. Of course, there’s absolutely no way to know whether Ollie would get better (or worse) chances at Arsenal vs Aston Villa, but since the window closed he’s got three goals in five Premier League starts, and none in a pair of Champions League starts against Club Brugge. His finishing has gotten a bit better, with those three goals coming from about 2.5 xG, but funny enough his touted creative abilities have largely disappeared. To put it simply, this is the profile of a player who’s doing *fine*, which is very on-brand. And that, in my estimation, is not a £60m player at age 29.

Santi Giménez, €32 million, AC Milan

There were those in the Arsenal fan base who thought Giménez, a less-proven option who had been linked to the club before, could be worth a shot as a longer-term, developmental option. Santi came out of the gate pretty quickly, scoring in Milan’s wins over Empoli and Verona in league play and again in their second leg against Feyenoord, but has cooled off over the past month, with just one goal over the past five games. It’s still early, but one concerning number for Milan would be that their new number 9 already has 18 miscontrols in his 183 touches of the ball, or one for about every 10 times he touches. That’s roughly bottom-ten-percent among strikers.

Donyell Malen, €25 million, Aston Villa

Malen appeared to be ramping up in playing time after joining Villa, leading to two starts in the FA Cup and then against Ipswich Town in mid-February, a match which Villa drew. But he’s played just 38 minutes total since, bringing his overall counter to 170 minutes, far too low to draw any conclusions.

The Loanees:

João Félix, loaned to AC Milan, £5m fee and 100% wages

If there are any dual Arsenal-Milan supporters among our subscribers, you’ll have to let me know what it’s been like with Félix, because this looks frustrating. João started the first four league matches and both Champions League fixtures against Feyenoord but has come off the bench all of March after failing to score from 19 shots in February. Milan allegedly took on all of his £130k per week wages, which with the loan fee means this move may have cost somewhere around £7.6 million. That doesn’t sound so bad until you remember it’s for about five months, making this AAV around £18.2 million, roughly double that of someone like Leão. Of course, they won’t actually pay the £18.2m, but I find this kind of thing illustrative. Either way, João better step it up.

Evan Ferguson, Loaned to West Ham

Ferguson was once thought to be a £100 million player, but now he’s a loaned player I can’t even make a chart for. Graham Potter is down both Michail Antonio and Niclas Füllkrug due to injury (presumably a huge reason for doing the loan), and yet he’s used Ferguson so seldom that the Irish wonderkid has played only 95 minutes in all competitions for the Irons, and has yet to score. That’s not going to help him recoup any value.

Randal Kolo Muani, Loaned to Juventus, fee up to €5.6 million

In some ways I think Kolo Muani is one of the more “controversial” guys Arsenal didn’t pursue at all, given he was out there all month and could cover multiple roles. But as time has gone on, I’d say that clarity has made it extremely apparent why this one never crystallized: Randal was after a starting striker job, and Arsenal didn’t have one of those to offer. Kolo Muani agreed to join Juventus by January 15, with the deal formally announced by January 23, nearly two weeks before the end of the window. That’s way early. Yes, Juventus have Vlahovic, but Kolo Muani has started 7 of 8 league matches since joining and both of the CL matches he was eligible for, with the club’s ouster largely in his hands, to be honest (He was promised the starting job, I assure you).

As for performance: Really hot and cold. He scored five goals right away in the first three games, and hasn’t scored in the eight games since. He doesn’t shoot much, so his shooting cold streak isn’t that big at 14, but it’s notable. He hasn’t been very creative, either, and for what it’s worth, his turnover rate is even worse than Giménez above, though he does add the benefit of effective carrying.

There are reports that Juventus have opened talks to make this signing permanent, so maybe they’re happy enough with the deal.

Marcus Rashford, Loaned to Aston Villa, 70% wage coverage and £40m purchase option

There’s a solid argument that this is the best overall loan performer, in my opinion. Rashford isn’t shooting well since joining Villa, but that’s not stopping him from shooting. “Volume creator” and “Marcus Rashford” also haven’t really belonged in the same sentence without a negative between them for something like…six years…so we’ll see if he keeps up his chance creation performance, which so far has very much ebbed and flowed. Villa didn’t pay a loan fee for this deal but are on the hook for something like £220k per week in wages, per reports, meaning Rashford is their highest-paid player by about 50% this spring. They can make the deal permanent in summer for £40 million. Could Arsenal have made this deal? Probably not without guaranteeing Rashy some serious minutes. He has started half (four of eight) PL and CL matches since making the move to Villa on February 2, a date on which both Martinelli and Havertz were still fit.

Álvaro Morata, Loaned to Galatasaray for 12 months, €6 million fee

I again don’t have a radar for Morata, but here’s what I can tell you:

• He has so far primarily not been just a backup to Victor Osimhen, instead being deployed along with the Napoli striker in a two-man attacking front in three of his last four Turkish Süper Lig appearances. He’s scored two penalties and gotten an assist in league play so far.

• He also started in place of a suspended Osimhen in Gala’s 4-1 loss to AZ in the Europa League knockouts on February 13, but was injured in that match and ended up missing the next six games, including the return leg. He made his comeback on March 9.

Marco Asensio, Loaned to Aston Villa, 100% wage coverage

I probably do not need to get into the statistical improbability of Asensio continuing to score 1.6 non-penalty goals for every 90 minutes he plays, nor rack up 1 npxG for every 90. That said, he of course gets the plaudits for being there to do the kicking, and for kicking the ball right. Asensio joined Villa for no fee, but at the cost of his full wages being covered, so roughly £210k per week, another outlier for that club. He has started three league matches, scoring four times there, and came off the bench twice in the CL tie against Club Brugge, adding another three goals (one was a penalty). Once you get beyond all the goals (which is tough) there actually isn’t a ton going on here yet, but it’s still very small in terms of sample size. Could Arsenal have done this deal? Another one where I’m skeptical! Asensio told Sky that Emery promised to use him as a No. 10, his preferred position, and something Arsenal wouldn’t do (latter addition being my own).

Mathys Tel, Loaned to Spurs, €10 million loan fee, 100% wage coverage, €60 million purchase option (player has a say)

Tel probably inspired the most conversation among Arsenal targets. I published a pretty mixed film study on the young French attacker, which you can read here. By the window’s end, we’d learned that not only did he agree to sign for Spurs, who among his choices were most likely to give him playing time, a key consideration, but Daniel Levy had somehow agreed to a ludicrous €10m fee to bring in the teenage attacker for the beginning of February through the end of June, while also covering the full €2 million in wages the player was owed. As a sweetener, Spurs do have a purchase option worth up to €60 million including add-ons, but with one poison pill: Tel makes the call about whether it goes through, even if Spurs activate it. The result is Spurs paying a per-week cost in the same ballpark as what Arsenal pay Declan Rice, for a 1) teenage attacker who 2) had 16 career goals in all competitions, 3) nearly half of which had come with his team already up at least three goals and 4) who may not even want to stick around when it’s all said and done.

350 minutes is NOT a large sample, to be perfectly clear, but Tel has been anything but convincing since joining. Even in the cup match where he scored a nicely-poked goal from a setpiece, he spent most of the game struggling to really take hold of proceedings. Does he still have loads and loads of potential? Absolutely. Could Arsenal make something more of him? Perhaps. Would he have impacted the title race, or would it have been wise of Arsenal to give him the type of time on the pitch he was seeking? I’m not there with you, if you’re going there.

UPDATE

Friend of the Blog 1.76 Acres asked a very smart question last night after I’d already pushed the big red button on this post, which was how Merino at 9 would stack up here. Below you’ll see Mikel M’s chart from his time at 9.

What you can see here is that the xG is not super great, and the shot volume is low, likely a side effect of not being a super natural player in the position and the attack just generally being out of sync in the minutes he’s gotten. But across his just under 6 90s up top, Merino actually has done quite well overall, with creativity, solid ball security and duel winning and good shooting when he’s gotten his shot off.

There are four 9s on this page, including Ollie Watkins. On my standard CF radar template, I have a whopping 19 (!) statistics. Of these 19 statistics:

• Merino ranks first of the group in eight of them

  • Goals/90

  • % of Shots on Target

  • Assists/90

  • Shot-Creating Actions from Live Passes/90

  • Key Passes/90

  • Passes Completed in the Penalty Area/90

  • Miscontrols per Touch

  • Aerial Duels Won/90

• Merino ranks second in expected goals assisted per 90, shots on target per 90 and aerial duel win percentage, while also ranking last in a suite of ballcarrying stats (dribbles per touch, dribble success rate, carries into the box per 90)

• He also ranks last in a couple of stats that come down to him taking the fewest shots (xG per 90, shots per 90) while being right in the mix in other stats that measure the quality of his shots (npxG/shot, goals/shot on target)

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Listen, I don’t mean to type all this out to “defend” or “pardon” anything by anyone. I’ve tried to be abundantly clear both throughout January and since that my preference was always sign someone, ideally someone worth bringing in permanently, or a loanee as a fallback.

I guess the idea is closer to something like “this stuff is hard.” It’s often framed as “see good player, sign good player.” But there are selling/loaning team dynamics, player preferences, agents, transfer fees, timing, roles, wage structures and so much more to consider. That said, perhaps it really is as simple as Arsenal should have signed a true number 9 and didn’t. We will never actually know.

Looking ahead to the summer, though - big things are coming.