A longstanding complaint about Arsenal by Arsenal fans is the failure to sell well. Where other clubs seem to maximise profit, we have a history of selling "cheap".
But hard to find accurate figures, but as it stands Folarin Balogun and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain currently lead the way at £35m. Alex Iwobi and Cesc Fabregas come next. The obvious connection between all 4 is they were at Arsenal before their 17th birthday. This bodes well for some of the players we are trying to shift.
Emile Smith Rowe, Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson are seemingly at the top of the "for sale" list, and ESR especially should trouble the record sale. Nketiah should be around that top figure too, with a number of clubs reportedly interested. Nelson will be more round the £20m mark - the same figure that Chelsea are selling our academy product Omari Hutchinson for, perhaps highlighting how bad we are at sales.
Aaron Ramsdale may have got that sort of money a year ago, but it seems his value has gone down a lot. Oleksandr Zinchenko was tentatively linked to Bayern for around £30m but that seems unlikely. Last seasons loanees Kieran Tierney, Sambi Lokonga and Nuno Taveres seem unlikely to bring in a profit with interested clubs only wanting loans and in the case of Tierney, injury being a massive obstacle.
Still hoping there is a future for Smith Rowe at Arsenal, so it will be interesting if Eddie Nketiah becomes our biggest ever sale... Expect the transfer market to gain pace in the coming week.
Will we break our record sale?
posted on 29/6/24
I'd be surprised if we got 30m or even 25m for Nkets due to his high wages but given Iwobi went for truly silly money I guess anything is possible.
ESR should command more but I imagine his or really any of these youngsters values will be significantly hit by the fact clubs will know we're very much open to selling rather than wanting to keep them.
posted on 29/6/24
I wouldn't be surprised if Eddie took a bit of a pay cut for game time and Palace are clearing a fair bit off their wage bill if they go for him (Olise and Eduardo in their top 3 earners by all accounts at around 100k a week).
Expecting at least 1 of our HG sales to be to Palace.
posted on 29/6/24
We might use one of the HG lads to finance a deal for Eze.
posted on 29/6/24
'Still hoping there is a future for Smith Rowe at Arsenal'
Whilst I don't disagree with this, it probably helps explain why Arsenal are seen as 'bad sellers'. We (the fans, at least) in the main are only happy to see players leave once they have proven themselves not to be up to it, either talent-wise, or physically.
Look at the top sales mentioned; with the exception of Fabregas, they were all players Arsenal fans would've preferred us not to sell - mainly because we thought they could 'do a job' for us.
Same with Joe Willock. Even Ainsley Maitland-Niles (who didn't pull in a huge fee) was a player many didn't want to leave.
Meanwhile, we now have Nketiah, Nelson, and Smith Rowe who have all shown, in different ways, they lack what is needed at a top level club. Which makes getting top money for them less likely.
Uncomfortable as it would be, if we wanted to guarantee pulling in big money this summer, we should be talking about selling someone like Trossard, or even Martinelli.
Would I want to see either of them leave though?
Nope.
posted on 29/6/24
He might be more motivated to move on if we bring in a top CF first. Despite being a very average player he'd still have a great chance of getting plenty of minutes next season with the current options.
posted on 30/6/24
comment by Lexington 125.2 (U8879)
posted 1 day, 7 hours ago
'Still hoping there is a future for Smith Rowe at Arsenal'
Whilst I don't disagree with this, it probably helps explain why Arsenal are seen as 'bad sellers'. We (the fans, at least) in the main are only happy to see players leave once they have proven themselves not to be up to it, either talent-wise, or physically.
Look at the top sales mentioned; with the exception of Fabregas, they were all players Arsenal fans would've preferred us not to sell - mainly because we thought they could 'do a job' for us.
Same with Joe Willock. Even Ainsley Maitland-Niles (who didn't pull in a huge fee) was a player many didn't want to leave.
Meanwhile, we now have Nketiah, Nelson, and Smith Rowe who have all shown, in different ways, they lack what is needed at a top level club. Which makes getting top money for them less likely.
Uncomfortable as it would be, if we wanted to guarantee pulling in big money this summer, we should be talking about selling someone like Trossard, or even Martinelli.
Would I want to see either of them leave though?
Nope.
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We should not be going back to the days when we lose our best players, yes it will happen we will sell one of our stars but we are not at that stage yet as we haven't won anything yet.
I would rather us sell Jesus and Zinny as they are no longer important to us.