Happy Saturday folks – how we all doing?

I’m going to start with something that I usually try to avoid – talking about The Scum – but it’s only because there’s little else going on and some of their fans will be getting a bit excited that they’re spending £654million on Dominic Solanke from Bournemouth.

Firstly, it is kind of funny that he grew up an Arsenal fan – after Matt Whats-his-face came from Wolves and had to do an apology tour video deleting his tweets because he was an Arsenal fan, Solanke will probably have to go back in to the archives to do the same when he signs. Don’t worry though, the Arsenal universe keeps ALL the receipts, man:

To be fair he had a very good season for Bournemouth and 19 goals is not to be sniffed at. He’s 26 and will be 27 in September, so he’s of prime age, but for me that is a little beyond what I’d put down for him. There are obviously a few of us Gooners who have seen that they’re moving for a player like this and the temptation is to get a little worried. I get it and at first, I have to admit, I was thinking “hmmm….don’t like the sound of that”, but after a few initial moments of that concern, I applied some basic logic so thought I’d share:

If Arsenal were paying that money for that player, how would I feel about it?

The answer, upon reflection, is “not good”. Yes, he’s had a good season last season, yes he’s a decent player, but £65million feels about £20million over the asking price if you ask me. I know it’s not always the most perfect gauge of a player’s value and heck, beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to values, right? Whatever a club is willing to pay, etc, but TransferMarkt has him at €40million and given that the season before last he got seven goals, the season before that he was in the Championship (although admittedly got 30 goals) and the season before that he got 15, £65million is a lot of money for that kind of player.

So hopefully he won’t ‘bang’, he’ll be a waste of money and we can see that filthy club fall further down the league next season. That would be nice.

Let’s bring it back to The Arsenal now, eh? Somebody said to me on Threads last night that imagine if that triggered off an offer from Bournemouth for Eddie for around £30million? Maybe that’s me wishcasting something in to being, but suddenly this merry-go-round felt very palatable. I have nothing against Eddie, he’s been a great servant to us and scored some great and important goals (remember the late one against United two season’s ago? That was awesome, had me believing we might actually win the title at that time and remember being in the pub talking to Johnny and Pete about it afterwards that day – it really felt like something was about to happen), but I think for him and for us it’s probably time to have a natural break and so getting the best valuable possible is the way forward when you want to invest as a club.

That’s kind of why I’m getting excited about this Merino deal; somewhere I read yesterday it was £17million. That would be crazy good money and save enough in the coffers for the club to potentially go big late in the window (Nico Williams wishcasting again, anyone?), but I suspect that’s wishful thinking and it seems more likely that it’ll be closer to the £25million most are suggesting, which is still pretty good to be fair.

What sounds more likely is that Eddie is off to Marseille on a season long loan and then €30million at the end of that. Let’s hope the Euro gets stronger to the pound by then, eh??

Then there’s the Neto move from Chelsea too. Let’s park the fact they have 985 first team players on their books and will have spent around £150million so far on players that I’m not sure massively improve their team, but £51million for Neto feels very steep indeed. Very talented player, plenty of Arsenal fans have said they’d like him at The Arsenal, but you look at this injury record and geez, that’s a gamble. Missed 21 games last season, 27 the season before that, 52 before that; that’s a guy you’re spending a lot of cash on for a gamble. And he plays right wing – that mean Madueke out the door? He’s a guy who I thought was one of their positives from last season, so what are they going to do there? How are they going to fit Sterling, Palmer, Nkunku, Mudryk, Neto and Jackson all in one team? They playing rush goalie or something?

I guess what I’m trying to say here, and by way of finishing off today’s blog, is that given our relative stability, clear plan, thoughtful recruitment process and balanced squad, some of the moves that other clubs are making does make me quite sanguine about how we’re going about this summer. Merino will most likely come in, then if we offload Eddie and Reiss we can move, but if we don’t we still have plenty of decent options. It makes for an exciting – if not slightly worrying because of the difficulty – start to the season.

I can’t wait. Just hope it hurries up and gets here already.

Catch you all tomorrow ahead of the friendly against Lyon.