Transfer Rumor Roundup

Arsenal are starting to get linked to some names including Onana, Merino, Bakayoko, Williams, and Eze

Sorry dear readers for the lack of content here lately. It has been a busy start to the summer for me and a couple of the data projects that I have been putting off have taken more of my time than I had hoped.

I should be back to a more regular schedule here now and lets start today going through some of the rumored links for Arsenal. I am going to make these shorter and for players that really seem interesting or move closer they will get the full video and stats breakdown that they deserve.

Midfielders

Let’s start with a link that really doesn’t excite me much. This is Mikel Merino from Real Sociedad.

The thing that I think you can say about this is that he looks totally fine as a player but not too much else. He looks incredibly average and I guess if the clb is looking for some players to fill out the squad that could be him but this deal just doesn’t seem like it would elicit much more than a shrug.

If Arsenal were doing this deal 3-4 years ago I would have been more intrigued by it but a player that is moving towards the end of his prime and has never really made the leap showing much more than pretty good numbers isn’t exactly what you want from the deal.

One of the projects that has taken up a bunch of my time is building out a tool that models player transfer value. I don’t think it is perfect yet but my initial tests have looked pretty good and I am going to start using this a bit more to help get an idea of the baseline for a player.

This has Merino at this stage a player that with his current salary needing to be close to a free transfer to make sense. With a year left on his deal maybe this is agent talk to try and get him one more good contract.

Now lets move to a deal that does get me a bit more interested, Amadou Onana of Everton.

There is still a good amount of projection needed on Onana to see how this will fit with Arsenal but given the age it is a much easier sell that he is far from his finished form.

Even at his current self I think his skills would translate to Arsenal fairly well. His stats last season showed him as a pure DM as a “Big 5 League” quality starter and that is maybe slightly below rotation level in my mind for a club like Arsenal.

His passing right now is not at the level required to be a lone pivot but it has improved to a level where it could be passable and perhaps in a system that is more tuned towards it, some of his passing could be unlocked more.

Overall, his strength right now is in his ball winning but he does show above average carrying and receiving and has paired that with about average passing. That’s a pretty good package for a young player who has all of the physical gifts that you would want in a midfileder.

It might be light in passing (you can always get that other places right?) but trying to advance the ball against a Rice and Onana midfield would be a real chore for teams.

If Everton need to make a deal for PSR reasons and something in the 35-45 million pound range is doable I think that could be a solid bargain for a player moving within the Premier League with this profile.

The last midfielder we will look at today is Joshua Kimmich of Bayern Munich.

This is one where it looks like he is available because he is getting to the end of his contract and Bayern might rather have some fee for him and move to a new player vs keep him around.

For Arsenal, this would be a type of move that could raise the ceiling for the team.

He is at the peak age for a midfielder and still adds a ton and you can imagine him fitting in with Rice playing more of a box-to-box role next to him working pretty well.

He wouldn’t be cheap, especially on what he would ask for in salary, but I think given the one year left on the deal the transfer fee to quality of the player trade off would be hard to beat.

The last year or two of the contract could potentially not look great, especially if he goes from a starter to a rotation player but what he could offer in the first couple of the years could be special and with Arsenal in a window to win a title, I would do a move like this that helps increase the odds.

Attacking Players

Moving up the pitch looking at attacking players we start with a player that has many teams interested in him, Nico Williams of Athletic Club Bilbao.

Williams has had an impressive couple of matches for the Spanish National team on top of a season in La Liga that has put him on the map as one of the most exciting wingers in the sport.

He has they attributes that I look for in a wide player. 3+ dribbles per 9, 2 shots per 90, and decent ball progression.

To top it off he looks like a player that would be comfortable playing left as an inverted winger/inside forward or right as a more classic winger which would be a major help to Arsenal’s front line depth.

Williams would be a player that is available with a release clause and it is set at a very reasonable £46m.

My transfer model would have assumed that he is on a lower salary but would demand a much higher fee. This is the opposite here where he is already at a pretty high wage (partly because Bilbao don’t often pay big transfer fees with their Basque only policy usually leading to developing players) and reportidly wants a nice bump up with a move to a new club.

Overall, a £46m and a £13m a year annual contract would be pretty big outlay but not crazy out of line with my estimate here and with lots of teams interested, there will probably be someone willing to go to that level.

Another new link is Johan Bakayoko and while I don’t watch much Eredivisie this is a player that I thought caused problems when he faced Arsenal in the Champions League.

His stats in the Dutch League are also mighty impressive.

The hard part about this is that the Eredivisie translation to the Premier League can be pretty steep. Trying to adjust across Leagues is still tough but one of the ways I attempt it is using the ELO ratings for the teams faced to get something in the ball park.

For Bakayoko it looks like this after adjusting.

That is still pretty good for him, even if it looks a bit less elite. Another way to go about it is looking instead of at the Eredivisie looking at his production in the Champions League. This is a smaller sample but one against better average opponents.

His numbers still look solid here, but with a big dip in the xG and average shot quality.

My transfer valuation tool isn’t set up for non-big 5 league players yet so I can’t use that to guess at a price but this could be one where the fee is in the £35-45 million range but he comes with a much lower wage demand.

I think that is a good spot to end it today. I think we got some good coverage of the players that are in the rumor mill and so far most of the links make sense for me and I think could be good fits.