Summer Transfers 2025 Missed Opportunities and Regrets

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

I agree it's a good point

on your penultimate para, tbf Man Ure are living off their reputation and the fact those that only support them because they used to win all the time are now locked into hoping those times come back

and spuds have a media circus which fawns over them and insists including them in a 'top six' even though (before recently obvs) they'd not won anything in a very long time and quite often stunk the place out

The point Mac is there is more than one way to create value in a business and winning things has never been the only way as evidenced by the two teams you mentioned and most of the top sporting brands in the US.

Anyway since this is a transfer thread, lets look at the transfer business and recruitment as one way.

In the last 20 years when we think about players we sold at their peak who had some level of superstardom and were on an upward trajectory I think Henry, RVP, Fabregas and Sanchez off the top of my head. Henry (16m), Fab (25m), RVP (23m) and Sanchez (35m), basically a world beating total of under £100m for the superstars our club was largely built around for the last 20 years. Merchandising value hasn't been great on these 4 players as Henry left quite early in this timeline (2007) and the other 3 left in largely bitter situations.

For Man U, I'd really only need to mention Ronaldo leaving at £80m. They also managed to make about £112m from the sales of both Di Maria and Lukaku but in general their net spend on players has been poor. However I believe Man U's "success" in the player recruitment has been tying their brand with legends no one will forget anytime soon like Ronaldo, Rooney, RVP, Berbatov,Ibrahimovic and then Ronaldo again etc. This kind of policy, which is basically the Mancunian form of "galaticos", has served Real Madrid for ages, and is why even if they aren't winning, people still show affection for these stars they loved so much and thus for the brand. It's really basic sports marketing and taken from the US playbook.

So we come to our own "noisy" neighbours. In the last 20 years we had Berbatov leaving for £30m, Modric for £30m, Bale for £85m and old man Kane for £86m. Unlike us and Man U, they're probably one of the best teams when it comes to net spend and making money off player sales in genery. Kane and Son also did great jobs for their marketing and merchandising.

In short, their suits have fought the battles off field pretty well by doing the basics while keeping their fans, and more importantly outsiders, believing that success is just around the corner. While we've gone the other way by making our fans and outsiders believe we'll always be bridesmaid but never the bride (seeing as we won't leave our comfort zone or ever try hard enough)

Henry said something about Man U a while back, that despite how bad we all say they are doing they've been in 5 proper finals since the last time we made a final. I'll look for it and add it to this post.

https://youtube.com/shorts/85_0yskwY...Uzl_QKtJd981JS

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

Really interesting topic this.

We are losing our position as one of the biggest clubs because of our lack of success in winning major trophies, and IMO you are right that we do not have the pull that Arteta/the club thinks we do. Unltimately, unlike we Gooners the outside world doesn't really give a shit that we have been runners up in the league 3x, and got to the CL semis. For all that he has improved us, Arteta is still a relative rookie with no winning track record. And we do not have the petro dollars to make up for our lack of footballing pull.

We have a traditionally big worldwide fanbase - but this is largely based on the exploits of Henry, Bergkamp and the Invincibles and a reputation for playing pretty football. This reputation is dying out, and if we are honest our current style of play is not really gaining new fans. Success is imperative for us.

I think that this is a big reason why its so frustrating to see us dithering. For anyone taking an interest in our club from outside, I think our reputation undoubtedly took a hit as a result of disastrous transfer windows last season, and our failure to prevent Liverpool from cruising to the title effectively with a couple of months to spare. Literally nothing that we are hearing so far this Summer is giving any indication that we really mean business. I mean - even the Zubimendi transfer has come under question - notwithstanding that this is apparently a done deal. If we are honest - we do not look like an outfit with any real ambition to enhance our postion as a top world club. Reputationally, landing a truly world class player (and I don't even include Gyokores or Sesko here) is very important for us, but from all we can see even or transfer targets - let alone the likes of Nico Williams and Rodrigo - are pretty lukewarm on joining the project.

I hope I am wrong, but currently I don't have a great feeling about how this is all going to play out - and I can see a relatively small time approach this Summer leading to failure next season...

Good post and again in total agreement.

Let's be honest, if Citeh, Liverpool, Chelsea or Man U had finished 2nd three times in a row, and everyone pointed out a striker was one of the main reasons, who here is in doubt that they'd all be going after Isak and he'd eventually move.

Ferguson did exactly that when he took RVP from us and subsequently won the title. In fact it can be argued he was only replicating this trick which he had tried earlier when he took Berbatov from the Spuds years earlier.

Striker, Partey, more creative attackers....these are not questions a club that is serious about winning things and has come 2nd three times in a row should be dilly dallying on or still not have convincing answers too at this point in time IMO.... I just hope this coming season will the be the straw that breaks the camel's back and meaningful change happens in the club organically or however, whatever it takes to stop this turgid cycle.

[HCZ_Reborn]

The point Mac is there is more than one way to create value in a business and winning things has never been the only way as evidenced by the two teams you mentioned and most of the top sporting brands in the US.

Anyway since this is a transfer thread, lets look at the transfer business and recruitment as one way.

In the last 20 years when we think about players we sold at their peak who had some level of superstardom and were on an upward trajectory I think Henry, RVP, Fabregas and Sanchez off the top of my head. Henry (16m), Fab (25m), RVP (23m) and Sanchez (35m), basically a world beating total of under £100m for the superstars our club was largely built around for the last 20 years. Merchandising value hasn't been great on these 4 players as Henry left quite early in this timeline (2007) and the other 3 left in largely bitter situations.

For Man U, I'd really only need to mention Ronaldo leaving at £80m. They also managed to make about £112m from the sales of both Di Maria and Lukaku but in general their net spend on players has been poor. However I believe Man U's "success" in the player recruitment has been tying their brand with legends no one will forget anytime soon like Ronaldo, Rooney, RVP, Berbatov,Ibrahimovic and then Ronaldo again etc. This kind of policy, which is basically the Mancunian form of "galaticos", has served Real Madrid for ages, and is why even if they aren't winning, people still show affection for these stars they loved so much and thus for the brand. It's really basic sports marketing and taken from the US playbook.

So we come to our own "noisy" neighbours. In the last 20 years we had Berbatov leaving for £30m, Modric for £30m, Bale for £85m and old man Kane for £86m. Unlike us and Man U, they're probably one of the best teams when it comes to net spend and making money off player sales in genery. Kane and Son also did great jobs for their marketing and merchandising.

In short, their suits have fought the battles off field pretty well by doing the basics while keeping their fans, and more importantly outsiders, believing that success is just around the corner. While we've gone the other way by making our fans and outsiders believe we'll always be bridesmaid but never the bride (seeing as we won't leave our comfort zone or ever try hard enough)

Henry said something about Man U a while back, that despite how bad we all say they are doing they've been in 5 proper finals since the last time we made a final. I'll look for it and add it to this post.

https://youtube.com/shorts/85_0yskwY...Uzl_QKtJd981JS

You accept I trust or at least hope that clubs get bigger price tags for players that they don’t want to lose (the exception to this rule being financially doped clubs that stockpile players).

The last player I can think of that left the club despite us not wanting to get rid of him was Alexis Sanchez (and we got cash plus one of United’s first team players for him). The only time we go after players that the clubs are ok getting rid of are players that they can afford to lose because of the abundance of quality throughout the team.


Plus need I remind you that we got over 70 million for Nketiah and Balogun.

And if you’re finding yourself envious of the car crash that is United. You do reach the point where it’s not unreasonable for someone to suggest you’ve either got a) an agenda or b) have become so entrenched in a certain way of thinking that even one of the worst run clubs in the world is doing better than us.


There are legitimate charges against the club, from the fact that it did not put up a fight when Arteta went for a power grab, its failure to address what was desperately needed both last summer and in January. It’s prioritising slimming the wage bill rather than having a big enough squad not to run our players into the ground through injury. And Uber alles, the fact that we all know that it prizes the club as a financial asset far more than as one that wins the top prizes

It’s almost as if, one can hold this view and also be of the view that it could be a lot fucking worse. Take away clubs that cheat (so basically Chelsea, Man City and Paris St Germain) and I’d say that only Liverpool is overall a better run club than us because it does what it needs to do, and it treats the head coach like a head coach and not part Fuhrer/part Svengali.

The team is hard to beat, we coped better with injuries that almost any other club with the same volume of injuries and a season which we can all agree was not one we will remember with much fondness, we finished 2nd and reached the semi final of the European cup

That we want more and believe (not unreasonably) that we can get much more, probably doesn’t suggest that we are run by circus clowns

IBK raises a lot of legitimate points and is worried that by standing still we will end up going backwards, it would be nice for us to have been more proactive than we’ve been in the transfer market so far. I think that’s partly because those at the club know we are working on a tight budget given what our ambitions are (I think we probably have around £250 million to spend before player sales) in terms of bolstering the squad in terms of quality and number


So if your charge is that KSE is not ambitious enough you’ll get no argument from me. If your charge is to twist everything the club does into a negative especially compared to other premier league clubs, yeah I’m less sympathetic

[Niall_Quinn]

People can dig through the weeds all they want, but after the last two transfer windows and the blinding evidence of how those two windows robbed us of very possible title and CL wins (the very things that would have eased all aspects of revenue, recruitment and retention) it falls on the club to demonstrate to the fans and our opponents that there's no more fucking around, mistakes have been made but lessons have been learned, and we have a decisive and ambitious plan moving forwards!

Which means it falls on deaf ears.

If Garnacho is fucking off from Utd, why didn't we bring him here? He'd be great on the left, rotating with Martinelli. Instead the rumours about the latter fucking off persist. People who don't know anything about football know we need a ready-made striker who can score the goals we couldn't last season. So instead of doing that we'll forego winning for another couple of seasons while we nurture a better Havertz. Presumably that leaves us with Havertz in the meantime? Is Trossard off too? Loads of kids have been booted from the academy, our one success story. Seems to me we're losing more than we are promising to bring in. One project striker for Arteta to mould into the ultimate backpassing striker? One winger when maybe two are out the door? A midfielder who enters through one door while another leaves through the other? Where's the "strength" in that?

The rumours on the net are ludicrous of course - we're signing everyone all the time. But peering through that shit mist, seems we are dithering around trying to make the "done deal" with Zubimendi and done deal, humming and hawing over Sesko's fee, and scouting around for a winger to replace who we'll lose, Williams by the sound of it. I don't see how that gets us any close to a title. If anything it cements our style of play which is all but a guarantee of failure.

So I get transfers aren't a snap of the fingers, I get players and agents fuck around and try to snout up the last penny, I get the football authorities are corrupt cunts who open and close windows so they can run more piggy profiteering "trophy" competitions. It's a shitshow of greed and incompetence. But if you had to guess in advance who would be the club mostly likely to fuck around during the window, who would you say? It's a tradition now.

They needed to get it right fast this window, to put those other windows to bed. Well they already fucked that up. Now they need to actually do something in the coming weeks, and no guarantees they won't fuck that too.

[HCZ_Reborn]

How bout this Humidity

[Chippy]

How bout this Humidity

[HCZ_Reborn]

Shouldn’t read paper talk but apparently we are looking to offload Zinchenko, Kiwior and Calafiori to raise funds for a Striker

There’s two things wrong with that as I see it. If we are needing to raise funds to buy a striker there are questions needing to be asked of KSE. We know that we want to offload players this summer (Zinchenko I’m happy for him to go but I see both Kiwior and Calafiori as useful squad players and I don’t want to piss around with us signing more defenders) but it should be simply players that are surplus to requirements.

If Trossard doesn’t want a new contract he should go, Jesus needs to go, Lokonga and Vieira need to go (Arteta clearly doesn’t want him, he’s expected to be left out of pre-season). I genuinely like Tomiyasu but really it makes no sense to keep a player who just will never play due to frequent injury

I think a back line of Timber, White, Kiwior, Calafiori, Gabriel, Saliba and Lewis-Skelly is sufficient for our purposes

My other gripe is if it’s true that Partey is going that we will go into the market for a defensive midfielder. Why? Assuming Zubimendi isn’t going to fuck off to Madrid last moment we have 2-3 defensive midfielders remaining. We have barely any cover for Odegaard (Nwaneri would be it, but he seems to be preferred on the right even though I think he’s better in the middle). But we need to stop playing defensive midfielders at 8, so if Partey goes that money needs to go on a creative midfielder, there’s no need to strangle the life out of the game against mid table teams.

But this comes back to the disturbing rumour that the club seems to want us to pay for players with player sales. It’s reported in the Mirror, so it’s about as reliable as bbc news or sky reporting on the Gaza conflict but I think we all recognise that the Kroenkes don’t give a fuck about us winning the title or champions league, they are delighted with three 2nd place finishes so may well be looking to achieve that with minimum expenditure.

Not that I would be heartbroken by this turn of events, but it seems far more realistic to me that if that’s the case Arteta walks next year because of a lack of financial support by the board rather than is sacked for not achieving big prizes


And as an addendum, bollocks to those who accuse me of being “Trust the process”, I don’t need to envy Chelsea, or fucking Man United or Spurs to criticise the club….nor do I need to take the position of criticising it for everything it does.

However if the club in this summer window does prove itself that it’s prioritising minimum spending over the big trophies. There should be massive protests from fans outside the stadium. Make Tom Selleck and his idiot son so uncomfortable every time they come here that they want to sell up.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

As mentioned earlier, Romano is reporting that our apparent first choice Williams has agreed a 6 year deal with Barca and is indeed accepting a measly €7m a year to make it happen.

Barca should be announcing this signing in the next few days.

I'd honestly kill to be a fly on the wall at the next meeting when Arteta and our transfer Tsars discuss their progress and their unique formula of chasing players for over a year, while leaving the ones who do show earnest interest stuck in some sort of limbo that later requires therapy where they discuss their abandonment issues

Seriously though, let's hope the approach changes dramatically in the next few days, fingers crossed.

[HCZ_Reborn]

As mentioned earlier, Romano is reporting that our apparent first choice Williams has agreed a 6 year deal with Barca and is indeed accepting a measly €7m a year to make it happen.

Barca should be announcing this signing in the next few days.

I'd honestly kill to be a fly on the wall at the next meeting when Arteta and our transfer Tsars discuss their progress and their unique formula of chasing players for over a year, while leaving the ones who do show earnest interest stuck in some sort of limbo that later requires therapy where they discuss their abandonment issues

Seriously though, let's hope the approach changes dramatically in the next few days, fingers crossed.

Our “Apparent” first choice, who for as long as I can remember was also reported to be wanting to go to Barcelona

The same reports who also claimed we weren’t after him because of his wage demands (so if he’s accepting what would be the equivalent of £114k a week, which sounds about right given Barca have a massive problem with their wage bill, but this will also likely be topped up with all kinds of clause add ons…also possibly makes that report bullshit)

Frankly apart from the fact that most newspaper reports are bullshit anyway, he hasn’t consistently been linked with us since January anyhow.

[KSE Comedy Club]

As mentioned earlier, Romano is reporting that our apparent first choice Williams has agreed a 6 year deal with Barca and is indeed accepting a measly €7m a year to make it happen.

Barca should be announcing this signing in the next few days.

I'd honestly kill to be a fly on the wall at the next meeting when Arteta and our transfer Tsars discuss their progress and their unique formula of chasing players for over a year, while leaving the ones who do show earnest interest stuck in some sort of limbo that later requires therapy where they discuss their abandonment issues

Seriously though, let's hope the approach changes dramatically in the next few days, fingers crossed.

Ben Jacobs was saying on talksport that we are waiting until July to conduct our business for financial reporting reasons.

Which based on the current date must be true.