The current narrative in the media is clear, and is set out in an article in the Athletic: “Moving from ‘Project Youth 2.0’ going into the 2021-22 season to signing experienced players in their mid-twenties this time last year was key to Arsenal raising their level.”
Except that in the summer of 2022 Arsenal were trying desperately hard to sign Mudryk for around £88.5m – at least that is what 63 articles in 19 different publications said. Indeed Sky ran the headline on Mykhailo Mudryk: “Chelsea agree £88.5m transfer deal for Arsenal target and Shakhtar Donetsk winger.” But it didn’t happen, so Chelsea got him – and finished 40 points behind Arsenal.
But if Arsenal really had been about to sign Mudruk as the media promised, would Arsenal have been able to go for Rice? It seems unlikely. Instead we would have been stuck with the dud.
Yet that question is not asked, because newspapers don’t talk about their past nonsense. Arsenal clearly have money to be spent – but not enough to do a Chelsea and spend it on a player who has not been able to deliver, and then go out and do it again.
Our view remains that Arsenal never wanted Mudryk and were helping to push Chelsea into a corner built of their own belief that it is possible to spend one’s way out of mid-table mediocrity. The media having made chumps of themselves, abandoned the story and left Chelsea isolated.
Rice on the other hand serves as a continuation of last summer’s strategy: a young player who was starting almost all the matches for his previous club, and who fits into the Arsenal system.
So now the media has to change the tune and we now have Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville saying “Rice is only worth around £50m-£60m.” Anything to cover up the complete balls up made of the last transfer window… although to be fair there is a sign of recognition of the stupidity of the media’s attitude to transfer as revealed in the piece, What difference did last summer’s transfers make?)
Arsenal are an embarrassment for the media. Of course they can still slip in a mention of the £72m paid for Pepe as a reminder that Arsenal don’t know what they are doing, but as with the Mirror’s article on big mistakes made in the transfer market, they are waking up to the fact that most transfers are a waste of money. And besides if there is an old story, then surely Pepe is it.
The Athletic, anxious to find the new angle now suggest Arsenal are “moving from ‘Project Youth 2.0’ going into the 2021-22 season to “signing experienced players in their mid-twenties this time.”
In other words, the youngsters such as Martinelli, Saka, Smith Rowe, and Odegaard are not to be mentioned. Especially Odegaard, of whom Bleacher said, as Arsenal contemplated signing him…
“The Norwegian teen had a host of trials at the likes of Liverpool and Bayern Munich, and he essentially had his pick of which club to join, eventually opting for Real Madrid in January 2015….
“Two years on, he has been labeled a disaster by Sport and has now been sent out on loan to Heerenveen in the Dutch Eredivisie. Odegaard wasn’t a star for Real Madrid, he wasn’t even a star at Castilla, the B team.”
So according to all of last year’s reports Arsenal should be a mid-table team in a position akin to that actually occupied by Chelsea, Yet the truth is the whole media should be a laughing stock for having got everything so wrong.
Yet the media now pretend is that they have understood and appreciated Arsenal’s approach all along. As the Athletic says of Arsenal, “Rice serves as a continuation of last summer’s strategy…”
Indeed the Athletic along with others are now sketching out Arsenal’s first XI – and they also add a few choices…
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