Summer Transfers 2025 Missed Opportunities and Regrets

[KSE Comedy Club]

Should does a lot of heavy lifting

Easier said than done, when we work in a market place of competing interests. The argument id say that is more pertinent is that we are too rigid with our targets, for example we wanted Sesko last summer but his contract extension meant that we didn’t look elsewhere. Now the one thing we do all agree on here is that it was nuts not to buy a striker last summer.

Osimhen? There’s clearly something not right there, you don’t get shipped out from Napoli to Galatasaray for nothing.

Plus I was never keen to begin with because I think it’s not good to lose a key player for potentially 4-6 weeks every two years.

Agreed on all of those. I said Osimhen as an example but tbh I'm not actually that keen on him personally.

[KSE Comedy Club]

But you realise by that logic that you can say because we scored far more goals last season there’s nothing wrong with us up front, and we all agreed last season that we needed a striker.

We scored 53 goals in 18 games in the second half of 2023/2024 season, that’s partly inflated by scoring 5’s and 6’s against completely hapless teams. But also we introduced the set piece play where we opened the scoring early and we then did get other goals on the counter attack.

We absolutely struggled to break down teams in the first half of the season before this and was exacerbated by experimenting with Havertz at 8.

The problem was the same, putting too much emphasis on attacks down the right and defenders doubling up on Saka

I simply don’t get why there is so much objection to me stating that we need another creative midfielder. We all agree that our attacking build up play is too slow, well that’s the obvious way to change that.

Well not quite.

Yes we scored more goals, however, the issue has always been that we don't score enough goals across all games.

When we struggle to score 1 or sometimes 0 goals in 3-4 games, then score 6 in another it distorts the actual result of no. of goals scored.

However, it doesn't mean we aren't capable of scoring goals, we just need different options when we face difficult to break down opponents.

[KSE Comedy Club]

To be honest, at the risk of giving you sensible advice. At this difficult time, I think you need all the positivity you can get and arguably getting depressed by our transfer activity (or lack there of) might not be conducive to that end

That is very true!

[HCZ_Reborn]

Well not quite.

Yes we scored more goals, however, the issue has always been that we don't score enough goals across all games.

When we struggle to score 1 or sometimes 0 goals in 3-4 games, then score 6 in another it distorts the actual result of no. of goals scored.

However, it doesn't mean we aren't capable of scoring goals, we just need different options when we face difficult to break down opponents.

Yes and for me that option is about having an additional creative midfielder in the team when we are playing teams that are more obdurate

What I will say is that whilst we were able to score a lot of goals against incapable teams in that run, the only teams we didn’t score against were Man City (where we were more looking to take a draw) and against Villa (although I think with that it was the fact that we put out a stupid lineup, this came a few days after journalists asked a question to Arteta about when he’d decided that Havertz was better off up front and he then played him in midfield again out of spite).

The main reason for this is because in a lot of games our set piece play really did shit up teams, I think to a degree teams have learnt to neutralise that threat….also I think we badly missed Saka and White who played such a vital role in those routines.

[Marc Overmars]

Sounds like Zubimendi is pretty much done and the Real Madrid links were just nonsense.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

So now you’re arguing Chelsea were the shrewd ones by paying 25 million to get out of a compulsory purchase clause that arguably they were silly to get into in the first place. You would be panning us if we’d failed to agree personal terms with a player we had on loan and ended up sending him back to the parent club with a cheque for 25 million.

It’s an arrangement that suits neither club really.

I also think you cherry pick when it suits you, I think the fact that we got over 70 million for Nketiah and Balogun given one is next to useless and one is at best average is exceptionally good business. You also dismiss that for clubs, the benefit with player sales is removing that player from the wage bill.


You’ve also complain that we try and low ball clubs when it comes to making purchases. The fact is as a club we aren’t perfect but in terms of finances (which I assume is what concerns you when you come on moaning about these things) are far better than most premier league clubs that aren’t either bending or outright breaking the rules.

We wanted Tavares off our books when we sent him on loan to Lazio, your argument is what…that we renege on that agreement to get more money from Lazio who in turn could take us to court for breach of contract. Or that we should have set the bar higher for his purchase to begin with? Again we wanted him off our books and Lazio probably wouldn’t have agreed to take him in the first place if we’d set it much higher (Italian clubs aren’t exactly minted). His stock has never been that high (he’s made one appearance for the national side) because although he’s good at getting forward, he can’t defend for shit and that’s why Marseille nor Forest took up a permanent option with him.

As much as it pains me to agree with him, Mac also made the point that we do have quite a generous sell on clause, I don’t think Lazio will sell him this summer….but I think should they decide to do so next summer and he’s still highly rated by Saudi clubs, we get a fair chunk of money back.

I apologise if I’ve got you wrong, but it feels to me like there’s a distinct Anti Arsenal Agenda with many of your posts that you think we as a club can’t do anything right. You know how I feel about Arteta, and I’m not exactly that kindly disposed towards KSE either. But I don’t think as a club we are as disastrously run as you portray us, and I think we would be if we tried to run the club more along the lines of Chelsea.

First of all, Chelsea are paying £5m to get out of paying £25m and an additional £150k in wages for Sancho. I didn't get that you got this wrong and that was why I was confused by the first point you mentioned which I did not get (alluding to Chelsea paying £25m to get out of a £25m transfer WTF ).

Also, if one looks at the deal financially, Chelsea still shafted Man U as Sancho's wages are 300k a week, but the loan agreement meant Chelsea only payed 50% of it. This means they saved £5.4m on his wages for the whole deal, which is probably why they did not bat an eyelid to renege on the transfer. So the answer to your 1st paragraph, is a definitive "yes", they were clearly the shrewd ones in this deal, and the ones that took their business school classes seriously, no matter how much it pains the likes of people like you to admit.

As for your next paragraph on Tavares, I'm actually with you on the way you rate him as a player. He couldn't defend well enough for me so I never wanted him to stay. However this in no way changes the argument that at £30k a week and at 24, being a full Portuguese international, he had value and we failed to exploit it because we panicked as usual, and took the boring conservative option when dealing with an asset.

But let's get back to the contract. Now it might seem to the simple bloke on the street (a tag no one is pinning on you ) that there is no way to get out of an obligation to sell. But did you consider what would have happened if we had broached the offer of a new contract to his agent? You already stated that Lazio was happy to take him because "they're not minted", so if we had said to him, "BTW Nuno's agent, we see what your client is doing in Serie A, maybe we made a misstep, what would he say to 80k-100k a week". With this planted in his mind, Nuno fails to agree terms with Lazio and "voila", we get him back and maybe even consider not penalising Lazio for not buying him, that's if we even bothered to put a penalty clause in the contract.

Now, from your antecedents, I know this idea disgusts you and you'll scream to high heavens how dare anyone consider that, but this is a world inhabited by people from corporate finance and contracts, and as long as it is legal, all is fair.

Also for examples of clauses being bypassed, legally their is practically no difference between an obligation to sell clause and a club inputting a release or buy out clause in a contract (and please take your time to think about it logically). Various examples are replete in Spain of clubs refusing to sell after the release clause were met but let me focus on the one you should be familiar with since you are the " best" Arsenal fan on here.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...-suarez-clause

Do you remember when Liverpool refused to allow us to speak with Suarez after we had offered to meet his release clause (if not see the link ). They were also in breach, and admitted it to us a few years later. Imagine what would have happened to that club if they hadn't called our bluff and had to sell Suarez, who was kicking and screaming that he wanted to come to us

In closing, I really miss the days when we had sound minds Dein running this club, these were the things that were a given, no one would shaft us, let alone twice (you might be forgetting that Lazio also took advantage of us with Guendozi ). Contracts and agreements meant to Dein what they mean to every serious suit in the corporate world, and if in doubt, ask Cashely

Which leads to your silly and petulant last paragraph which suggests I'm Anti Arsenal because I'm not singing from the Hynm book as determined by HCZ.....I'm not even going to bother commenting on this.

Ohhhh...I am 100% certain Lazio will sell him, at least within the next 6 months as that was always their plan, and only the silly suits like the ones we have wouldn't have seen that from a mile away.

[HCZ_Reborn]

First of all, Chelsea are paying £5m to get out of paying £25m and an additional £150k in wages for Sancho. I didn't get that you got this wrong and that was why I was confused by the first point you mentioned which I did not get (alluding to Chelsea paying £25m to get out of a £25m transfer WTF ).

Also, if one looks at the deal financially, Chelsea still shafted Man U as Sancho's wages are 300k a week, but the loan agreement meant Chelsea only payed 50% of it. This means they saved £5.4m on his wages for the whole deal, which is probably why they did not bat an eyelid to renege on the transfer. So the answer to your 1st paragraph, is a definitive "yes", they were clearly the shrewd ones in this deal, and the ones that took their business school classes seriously, no matter how much it pains the likes of people like you to admit.

As for your next paragraph on Tavares, I'm actually with you on the way you rate him as a player. He couldn't defend well enough for me so I never wanted him to stay. However this in no way changes the argument that at £30k a week and at 24, being a full Portuguese international, he had value and we failed to exploit it because we panicked as usual, and took the boring conservative option when dealing with an asset.

But let's get back to the contract. Now it might seem to the simple bloke on the street (a tag no one is pinning on you ) that there is no way to get out of an obligation to sell. But did you consider what would have happened if we had broached the offer of a new contract to his agent? You already stated that Lazio was happy to take him because "they're not minted", so if we had said to him, "BTW Nuno's agent, we see what your client is doing in Serie A, maybe we made a misstep, what would he say to 80k-100k a week". With this planted in his mind, Nuno fails to agree terms with Lazio and "voila", we get him back and maybe even consider not penalising Lazio for not buying him, that's if we even bothered to put a penalty clause in the contract.

Now, from your antecedents, I know this idea disgusts you and you'll scream to high heavens how dare anyone consider that, but this is a world inhabited by people from corporate finance and contracts, and as long as it is legal, all is fair.

Also for examples of clauses being bypassed, legally their is practically no difference between an obligation to sell clause and a club inputting a release or buy out clause in a contract (and please take your time to think about it logically). Various examples are replete in Spain of clubs refusing to sell after the release clause were met but let me focus on the one you should be familiar with since you are the " best" Arsenal fan on here.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...-suarez-clause

Do you remember when Liverpool refused to allow us to speak with Suarez after we had offered to meet his release clause (if not see the link ). They were also in breach, and admitted it to us a few years later. Imagine what would have happened to that club if they hadn't called our bluff and had to sell Suarez, who was kicking and screaming that he wanted to come to us

In closing, I really miss the days when we had sound minds Dein running this club, these were the things that were a given, no one would shaft us, let alone twice (you might be forgetting that Lazio also took advantage of us with Guendozi ). Contracts and agreements meant to Dein what they mean to every serious suit in the corporate world, and if in doubt, ask Cashely

Which leads to your silly and petulant last paragraph which suggests I'm Anti Arsenal because I'm not singing from the Hynm book as determined by HCZ.....I'm not even going to bother commenting on this.

Ohhhh...I am 100% certain Lazio will sell him, at least within the next 6 months as that was always their plan, and only the silly suits like the ones we have wouldn't have seen that from a mile away.

See your second from last paragraph is just projection. I’m not telling you how it is, I’m telling you how it comes across to me. And this is from seeing you post on here for a couple of years, there is to my mind a relentless negativity…you seemed to go postal over the collapse of the Mudryk deal, the Rice deal was getting to you…etc and you tend to be incredibly slanted towards a negative appraisal of the club. It’s an observation, I could be wrong, I could be right…it’s hardly like you’ve been shy making observations about me.

Lazio have firmly refused approaches from the Saudis, so it’s just possible that they actually want to keep the player rather than this insistence that the whole thing was a ruse to make a profit in a short turnaround.

Also you don’t breach contracts, not because of ethical considerations…it’s because no one will do business with you again if you do. And you especially don’t do it, for what an extra 20 million…that’s Trump like mentality.

There was no breach with Suarez, what made us look foolish with that is that we took what was a negotiation clause (as in if a club met that minimum, that the player needed to be brought into the loop and negotiations would take place with the club offering to buy, as we weren’t prepared to offer more there was nothing to negotiate) as a release clause.

Do you honestly think Atletico Madrid were just weak when we met Partey’s release clause, that was an actual release clause and they had to honour it.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

See your second from last paragraph is just projection. I’m not telling you how it is, I’m telling you how it comes across to me. And this is from seeing you post on here for a couple of years, there is to my mind a relentless negativity…you seemed to go postal over the collapse of the Mudryk deal, the Rice deal was getting to you…etc and you tend to be incredibly slanted towards a negative appraisal of the club. It’s an observation, I could be wrong, I could be right…it’s hardly like you’ve been shy making observations about me.

Lazio have firmly refused approaches from the Saudis, so it’s just possible that they actually want to keep the player rather than this insistence that the whole thing was a ruse to make a profit in a short turnaround.

Also you don’t breach contracts, not because of ethical considerations…it’s because no one will do business with you again if you do. And you especially don’t do it, for what an extra 20 million…that’s Trump like mentality.

There was no breach with Suarez, what made us look foolish with that is that we took what was a negotiation clause (as in if a club met that minimum, that the player needed to be brought into the loop and negotiations would take place with the club offering to buy, as we weren’t prepared to offer more there was nothing to negotiate) as a release clause.

Do you honestly think Atletico Madrid were just weak when we met Partey’s release clause, that was an actual release clause and they had to honour it.

How my "rants" come across to you shouldn't really matter. I don't believe the club is run properly and I've been consistent about this on this platform (and others online) for the past 20 or so years. If all of a sudden you are just realising it, maybe in the next 10-15 years you'll realise that it makes little sense for a non-Arsenal fan to be so invested with these ultimately "pointless" discussions we have here if one did not care.

As for this Tavares situation, I've already been definitive that they'll sell him, so lets see how that turns out....but even if I'm right/wrong you're not going to give/take away a cookie, are you?

So I'll be a grown up and leave it the way it is, as we've reached an impasse, which is a familiar trait of discussions with you.

Hopefully this thread is sparked to life with a meaningful news of a transfer, something most of our other rivals are actually enjoying currently, and not more crap of how bad we are at both ends of this game (transfer business).

[HCZ_Reborn]

How my "rants" come across to you shouldn't really matter. I don't believe the club is run properly and I've been consistent about this on this platform (and others online) for the past 20 or so years. If all of a sudden you are just realising it, maybe in the next 10-15 years you'll realise that it makes little sense for a non-Arsenal fan to be so invested with these ultimately "pointless" discussions we have here if one did not care.

As for this Tavares situation, I've already been definitive that they'll sell him, so lets see how that turns out....but even if I'm right/wrong you're not going to give/take away a cookie, are you?

So I'll be a grown up and leave it the way it is, as we've reached an impasse, which is familiar trait of discussions with you.

Hopefully this thread is sparked to life with a meaningful news of a transfer, something most of our other rivals are actually enjoying currently, and not more crap of how bad we are at both ends of this game (transfer business).

I’m confused, you’ve more or less admitted what I’ve said to you. And Yes I view it as you being relentlessly negative because I think you portray things in the most negative light, and in my view you do so because you start out with the first principle of “I believe this club is not run properly” . I conversely don’t believe the club is run badly, I think it makes decisions that I disagree with or from time to time seem objectively self defeating.

Do I think it’s run as well as it could be, No…but neither do I accept your appraisal which seems to view it all from a disastrous lens.

So basically our impasse is that you don’t like how I characterise your view, which is of course something you’ve every right to not like.

But I’m not here to evangelise (I will criticise arguments but the idea that I’m going to change your mind is beyond me) and presumably you’re not either, it seems to me however that you resent that I don’t see things as you do. If I did I wouldn’t argue with you. Sometimes I have misconstrued what you’re saying and I get it wrong, but if I disagree with people here I’m going to say so.

I’m not going to go back to childish insults because they are unnecessary and get us nowhere. But it’s true to say that not only do we fundamentally disagree on our analysis of the club, we disagree on what a club should behave like.

And if you want to look at it like I’m refusing to see the truth of things, well I’ll explain why I think you’re wrong but you’ll believe what you want to (as everyone else here including myself will also do).

[HCZ_Reborn]

But to precise my argument, both you and other people on here seem to take either disagreement or observing openly what the motivation appears to me to be behind your arguments as an attempt to silence you.

I argue hard if I believe I'm right about something, if I’m less convinced of my position I let it go.

You’ve in the past spoken of my posts as if I’m engaging in some epic battle. It’s not, it’s just in the real world I do have to learn to pick my battles and bite my tongue when it’s not worth it.

Here? I don’t have the same consequential constraints