Last night I did a bit of an impromptu pod with Cookie on the Same Old Arsenal channel in which we talked about ‘keep, loan or sell’ through a selection of players. I reeled off a few Transfermarkt figures in Euros but, if you’re a regular user of Transfermarkt like I am, you’ll know that sometimes their numbers can seem a little ‘off’. For example if you take Gabriel Jesus, he’s down as €65million. At 27 going on 28 (that’s how it works) and with the wages he’s on, I think most of us would agree that we wouldn’t get that for a player who has had big injuries in both of the season’s he’s been at the club. In fact I’d go as far as to say – like both James and I agreed on last night – that if we were offered that I’d imagine Arsenal would possibly cash in. That’s the sort of money that you just can’t say no to.

And towards the end of the pod James picked three players and asked me for a collective figure on what I’d ‘take’ for them if we were offered. I tried to be realistic; we’re not getting mega money for players that just haven’t played much for us this season just gone. The three players were:

  • Eddie Nketiah
  • Reiss Nelson
  • Maquinhos

I had a little think and then suggested I’d want £30million for Eddie, £5million for Reiss and £3million for Marquinhos. Upon reflection though, I would probably revise down at last one of those figures. With the money that Eddie is on I think we need to be realistic; we’re not getting £30million for him. Broja is going to Everton for that cash because he’s on a significantly lower wage, so for Everton to have an interest in Eddie I’d suspect they’d be wanting closer to £20million for the player. I think that devalues him a little bit so I think if we said that we’d get £25million for Eddie, who scored a few goals in the Premier League and so you’d say with games would be ‘oven ready’ for the division, everyone should probably be happy. So perhaps we’d be looking at around the £32-£33million mark for those three players.

But I didn’t really touch on too many others in terms of what I’d take. I reeled off the Transfermarkt valuations but, as I’ve already stated, we know they are sometimes a little off the mark.

Would you, for example, take £22million for Ramsdale? Or just under £20million for Smith Rowe? I know neither have seen loads of minutes in the last season, but I would have thought given their status as England players and given both have won caps for England, we’d see a little more cash for them than what is being suggested. Perhaps I have my red and white tinted specs on here, but that feels a little on the low side. But then again, given Zinchenko is on there for around £35million (we paid £30million for him a couple of year’s ago I believe), I wonder if we should perhaps do an exercise in both Transfermarkt and my own valuation for the fringe players and see what comes up?

For me, the players that I’d think we might/could/should be open to offers for this summer would be (Transfermarkt valuation next to each one):

  • Ramsdale (£22million)
  • Kiwior (£27million)
  • Zinchenko (£35million)
  • Partey (£15million)
  • Smith Rowe (£19million)
  • Vieira (£19million)
  • Nketiah (£26million)
  • Nelson (£12million)

That’s a combined amount – if all were up for sale (I’m not sure they are) of around £175million (I’ve not done exact calculations from Euros in to pounds because, apologies, but I can’t be arsed).

I haven’t even included the loan players of Tierney, Sambi and Tavares. I think the money for those players will be small and so if we got £15million for all of them that would probably be about right.

That’s a big chunk of change. Probably too big I would wager (well, I certainly wouldn’t wager that kind of money even if I had it!). So Let me drop my expectations for a combined amount there. I think closer to £145million would be the value on those combined assets of players I’ve listed from Transfermarkt. If you add another £15million to that and we’re up to £160million. Do I think Arsenal will sell all of those players though?

No. I do not.

That’s because there’s already been 22 players released from Arsenal this summer already and we have seen the exits of Cedric and Elneny. Ethan Nwaneri will surely be promoted to the first team and there’s probably another space for a young player that Cedric’s departure could account for. I do think Arsenal will try to move players on, but I can’t see it being all of those 11 players. If you do that you leave yourself with a heck of a lot of summer work to do to keep the squad depth up. So If I’m having a guess I’m probably thinking that four from that eight will go. Then it becomes more of a question of which four and that becomes really difficult to answer, because I think it depends on who they can get cash in for earlier. One thing is for certain: we need to be able to sell assets this summer. We have a stockpiled squad of players and we will need to see a few exits. At most I would have thought seven, at least I’d have thought four. If the four that exit are those with the lower valuations, there will no doubt be more questions about Arsenal’s selling ability and I think those questions would be fair.

We still have time though. There’s a lot of ‘on hold’ feelings at the moment. It’s a bit like that bit in Star Wars IV when the fighter pilot is repeatedly going “stay on target”. You want him to fire the rockets earlier, but he knows that he needs to hold, stand his ground, then wait for the moment to strike. That’s what we have to hope is happening now.

Back tomorrow with some more thoughts on all things Arsenal.

Have a good’un.