Morning.
A really fast Sunday weblog. It appears to be like just like the Kepa deal goes to occur after David Ornstein posted about it yesterday (£), and in the identical article James says the participant is ‘prepared to battle for his place’, however a part of our curiosity is as a result of truth he has been a stable understudy beforehand at Chelsea and Actual Madrid.
It’s, I suppose, a bit unusual that the world’s most costly goalkeeper goes to come back to Arsenal to basically be the quantity 2 to David Raya, but it surely additionally exhibits how large cash transfers are precarious issues. So typically you hear about how a membership spending large on a participant is a present of ambition, they’ve actually put their cash the place their mouth is and so forth and so forth. However possibly it’s simply an illustration of how timing, market forces, the atmosphere into which that participant arrives, and maybe a very good dollop of hubris and/or stupidity play a serious half in transfers and the charges paid (and possibly some under-the-table stuff that doesn’t get talked about as a lot because it ought to).
We’ve been there, accomplished that, and worn the t-shirt within the form of Nicolas Pepe within the not too distant previous. A signing that had everybody so excited in the summertime of 2019, however in the end we purchased a participant that Unai Emery didn’t need, and who turned out to not be to the style of Mikel Arteta when he took over both. One stellar season in France catapulted his value into the stratosphere, we stumped up the massive lump of money, and whereas I believe he did extra in his time at Arsenal than individuals keep in mind, it may well’t actually be seen as something apart from a little bit of a flop all issues thought-about.
Anyway, as I stated yesterday, I believe Kepa for £5m is a wonderfully cromulent approach to supply back-up for David Raya subsequent season and past. And hopefully it’s a transfer that provides us a bit of stability for a few seasons a minimum of. It looks like there’s been a lot goalkeeping drama in the previous couple of years. From the Emi Martinez emergence in 2020 and his subsequent sale to Villa; the preliminary ‘Him?!’ after we had been linked to Aaron Ramsdale; then him displacing Bernd Leno right away leaving an enormous cash buy on the bench who we bought for a pittance; Ramsdale firmly establishing himself and turning into a well-liked member of the squad, then we introduced in Raya and he instantly got here into the staff on the Englishman’s expense; Arteta’s feedback about how essential it was to have two nice keepers when he solely ever meant to play certainly one of them, and all of the related drama e.g TV slicing to Ramsdale on the bench any time Raya did something; final summer time’s pursuit of Joan Garcia the place we had been led up the backyard path, leaving us desperately scrabbling to discover a late back-up in addition to a brand new membership for Ramsdale which all occurred on the final minute and left us with a quantity 2 goalkeeper the supervisor mainly had no religion in.
And that’s with out even mentioning Alex Runarsson. So, let’s hope that these answerable for goalkeeping points at Arsenal are pleased – or a minimum of sufficiently content material – with two gamers of their prime years, a pair of Spanish internationals too to allow them to do the Spanish bantz collectively on the coaching floor, and everybody can simply cool down for a bit and allow us to consider finding out different areas of the pitch. Appears cheap.
Till …
Proper, that’s it for immediately. Have a enjoyable Sunday.
