Maybe Arsenal should just Reiss Nelson Gabriel Jesus
Morning all.
When asked about a certain Argentinian player at his press conference yesterday, Mikel Arteta said ‘Don’t go there’, so today we won’t. Zero mentions, zero speculation, which tallies with all the zero that appears to be happening, so it makes sense to do that.
A more interesting snippet from the presser was when he was quizzed about Gabriel Jesus who was not spotted training with the rest of the group. When asked about it, he said:
It’s something to do with the numbers that we have in the squad at the moment and the way we’re managing that kind of situation individually with all the players. They have some personal situations.
Regardless of how many numbers we have, the implication appears to be that the Brazilian has been frozen out of first team involvement. It’s possible, of course, that his ‘personal situation’ was connected to a move away, and Arsenal gave him permission to be somewhere else, but I really think we’d have heard about that by now. At this point, we’ve gone beyond the point where we’re open to him going, and now very much want him to leave.
There are four full days before the window closes, and beyond some vague stories from Italy there’s been very little indication about his departure. Some may choose to look at it as the player deciding to stay and see out his contract (which he is perfectly entitled to do, by the way), but maybe it’s more about a lack of interest or options. I know Tim has written before about him as a player, about how driven he is, so I have to believe that after missing so much football through injury that at 29 years of age he won’t want to waste another year of his career not playing just so he can pick up his wages.
Those wages, it’s fair to say, are clearly an impediment to any move. He’s handsomely paid, even by Premier League standards, and the reality of his situation is that any potential clubs he could join won’t be able to get near that salary level. So, they’ll wait for the final days of the window to see if Arsenal might be accommodating on any potential fee or, as we saw in the case of another player yesterday, decide that a contract termination is the only solution if they want him to go.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if that’s how this one played out. Earlier in the summer we heard Arsenal were looking for around £20m. In our predictions on the Arsecast Extra I said I thought we might get £2m. And as it stands right now, it appears that both valuations look optimistic. It’s a shame, he was a very exciting, talented player, but one whose career was repeatedly damaged by injury. It’s far from a unique story, and one this club has experienced before, but if we’re at the point where he’s being told he can’t train with the first team, the onus is on the club to incentivise his departure. If he stays, we have to pay the wages anyway, so negotiate a lump sum or something – making the assumption that right now there’s nobody going to pay a transfer fee.
The other player I mentioned above was Reiss Nelson whose contract was terminated yesterday. Like Jesus, there was lots of talent and lots of potential, but it was never realised – in no small part – because of injury. The club gave him a long contract and a good salary, and that too has been an impediment. They took a gamble and thought a young, talented English player would hold some value in the market, but the injuries were such that despite some good loan performances, clubs just wouldn’t take the chance, especially with wages that high.
Maybe now his chances of finding a club are better. There’ll be no fee to pay, no wages to match, and for his sake I hope he can enjoy some years of regular football because he’s missed so much throughout his career. And we’ll always have that goal against Bournemouth, which felt so seismic at the time. Ultimately it didn’t quite work out that season, but take nothing away from the way it made us all feel when the ball hit the back of the net. So much of football is about moments, and that was one which people will still talk about for years to come. Best of luck to Reiss.
Elsewhere, the Champions League draw took place yesterday, and our league stage opposition is as follows:
HOME GAMES
Real Madrid
Borussia Dortmund
Lille
Sabah
AWAY GAMES
- Bayern Munich
- Real Betis
Napoli
Slavia Prague
I am so tired of Bayern Munich I feel like an honorary fan of some random Bundesliga team. Real Madrid at home is obviously eye-catching too. The Vinicius Junior thing will obviously be a talking point, but let’s not forget that we’re probably going to witness some kind of Jose Mourinho remontada this season. If not entirely about what he does in footballing terms, I think he’ll be relishing his return to one of the biggest clubs in the world, and his main character syndrome will manifest itself over the course of this campaign. Where better than at Arsenal, given the challenge we present other clubs these days, and his history with us down the years? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
It’s a challenging enough draw in other aspects too, but then that’s what you should expect when playing at the top level of European football. We won eight out of eight last season, if we do that again this time around, we’ll be a team in very, very good shape. Let’s see how it all plays out.
Right, all the way to end and no mention of bin boot dev etc home lib lib32 lib64 libx32 media mnt opt proc root run sbin scripts srv sys tmp usr var *******. You love to see it. There’s an Arsecast below if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, have a great Friday folks.
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