Andrea Berta’s Transfer Targets: January 2027

[2Smokeyy]

Ngl only thing I'm seeing here is the standards truly in the gutter. 2020s equivalents of Jonathan Walters and Peter Odemwingie and they're apparently the best the league has to offer.

The PL generally lacks top quality compared to previous years tbf. Not sure how it went from the crop of players they had a few years back in KDB, Rodri, Aguero, Mahrez, Mane, Salah, Auba, Kane, Gundogan, Kante and others to what it is right now.

Enzo Fernandez moving for £125m and being spoken about like he’s a game changing signing sums it all up. Have no idea how his value appreciated after not doing much at Chelsea.

 

[Morning_woody]

Transfer targets in January you say ...

 

[Realist]

We all know what will happen come January we will have our usual injury crisis in attack then we will end up scrambling for an emergency attacker, we will then predictably try for someone like Rashford on loan before pulling out because we only want "top quality". We may end up recalling Nwaneri and he will be "like a new signing". Honestly though we are doing nothing until the summer.

 

[Trilly]

me, a lot of these guys at the club including those below say all the buzzwords and talk a good game but I feel like there are just too many cooks in the kitchen and involved in the decision making process:

For real.

We probably have KSE ruling out targets (although I think they have the smallest part to play considering they’ve been willing to do Rice, Vini and Alvarez)

We have Berta’s approach probably not helping and then the unrealistic valuations must come from him, Garlic and co with KSE not really knowing enough to say no.

I think Arteta can most likely convince the board and KSE to go past their valuations but there aren’t many players who he’s even willing to do that for in the first place.

KSE own many sports teams, they don’t strike me as guys who would just stubbornly refuse to move with the market (especially as their American counterparts at pool and Chelsea have no issue doing the same thing) but at the same time they aren’t going to push to spend money if Berta and Co aren’t telling them to.

 

[Red London]

 

[Malky]

I have zero confidence that the people in charge will sign anyone in January.
The only chance of it happening is a huge market opportunity - like Alvarez changing his stance on moving to England and demanding to leave Atletico.
Other than that, no chance. This club clearly has its valuations of players and you don’t get ‘ value for money ‘ in January, you generally need to pay well over the odds.

 

[Arsenio Venger]

Julian Alvarez

 

[BBF]

Are there any good backup keepers to keep an eye on this season? I can't wait.

 

[Batman]

Depends how they doing tbh. Going by Artetas history Gyokeres is done at arsenal cause once he realise you ain’t it, then that’s it. Unless Kai has mental breakdown like Zubi he’s untouchable and that donkey for all his flaws is mentally strong

Yeah but none of that means Kroupi will come in. I've never once seen Arteta go for the obvious solution in attack other than being forced into buying Eze when Kai was injured.

 

[Batman]

The PL generally lacks top quality compared to previous years tbf. Not sure how it went from the crop of players they had a few years back in KDB, Rodri, Aguero, Mahrez, Mane, Salah, Auba, Kane, Gundogan, Kante and others to what it is right now.

Enzo Fernandez moving for £125m and being spoken about like he’s a game changing signing sums it all up. Have no idea how his value appreciated after not doing much at Chelsea.

It's the decline of individual brilliance across the board. We're kind of an outlier in the sense that we've just come out of a banter era but even with our much improved squad, guys like Özil, Alexis and Santi and Auba would easily displace their present equivalent in this title winning squad.

You look at Madrid and Barca 10 years ago vs today and it's shocking, even more so if you go 15-20 back. Bayern 10 years ago vs today. Don't even get me started on the Italian teams. It just took longer to truly crater the PL because of the financial muscle vs other leagues but there is a dearth of top top players.

Very few teams have more than 2 or 3 absolute stars whereas in days gone by you had 2-3 superteams in England, Spain and Italy every year reliably. It will be interesting to see if there's a resurgence now that Pep is gone because people feel like positional play has ruined individuality with everyone trying to be mini Pep but at a certain point you kind of worry about the lineage because less absolute top class artists means less kids wanting to emulate that sort of player. It would be a real shame if football was stuck in a loop of producing a bunch of positionless cogs instead of ballers.

 

[Diesel]

Don't think he's been reigned in at all.

IMO, it's that Arsenal operate like more like a corporate giant and much less like a football club and it looks to be a bad fit for a wheeler and dealer type of guy.

That Gunnerblog article is all over the place, too. We were chasing Vini, but all of a sudden we need to generate money through sales after his deal fell through even though?

Yeah it feels as though Gunnerblog had all this information and he just let it rip. Probably some athletic deadline cuz it does seem like it's 9pm and the assignment is due at midnight type of a write up

 

[DanDare]

It's the decline of individual brilliance across the board. We're kind of an outlier in the sense that we've just come out of a banter era but even with our much improved squad, guys like Özil, Alexis and Santi and Auba would easily displace their present equivalent in this title winning squad.

You look at Madrid and Barca 10 years ago vs today and it's shocking, even more so if you go 15-20 back. Bayern 10 years ago vs today. Don't even get me started on the Italian teams. It just took longer to truly crater the PL because of the financial muscle vs other leagues but there is a dearth of top top players.

Very few teams have more than 2 or 3 absolute stars whereas in days gone by you had 2-3 superteams in England, Spain and Italy every year reliably. It will be interesting to see if there's a resurgence now that Pep is gone because people feel like positional play has ruined individuality with everyone trying to be mini Pep but at a certain point you kind of worry about the lineage because less absolute top class artists means less kids wanting to emulate that sort of player. It would be a real shame if football was stuck in a loop of producing a bunch of positionless cogs instead of ballers.

Good post. It's why I'm not that stressed about what we've done this summer. Champions would often buy the best non-top-four players in the PL. Fergie used to do that.

We did it this summer at CB and CM.

Which non-top-four attacker should we have bought who would improve us? Kroupi is the big talent for me but he's injured. Hope we go for him

For me this summer isn't really the error. Not getting Semenyo was the error

 

[Aussie_gunner123]

Chances of getting Sancho or Zaha as free agents for a year then look at a big name again next summer?

 

[jones]

Good post. It's why I'm not that stressed about what we've done this summer. Champions would often buy the best non-top-four players in the PL. Fergie used to do that.

We did it this summer at CB and CM.

Which non-top-four attacker should we have bought who would improve us? Kroupi is the big talent for me but he's injured. Hope we go for him

For me this summer isn't really the error. Not getting Semenyo was the error

You know there's football played outside England right? Semenyo is the only attainable attacker that'd have improved us in two windows really?

 

[Tnegs]

If the quality and standard of football in general really has dropped that low then it follows that the standard of player required to win the league has dropped as well. Instead of chasing a Vini or Alvarez we should just concentrate on matching what other clubs have ie the Ndiaye and Rogers type player and letting our midfield/defence be the difference between us and everyone else. Why insist on signing a level of player that doesn’t exist anymore?

 

[ArsenesCoatMaker]

Chances of getting Sancho or Zaha as free agents for a year then look at a big name again next summer?

 

[DanDare]

You know there's football played outside England right? Semenyo is the only attainable attacker that'd have improved us in two windows really?

Indeed but if I think back over the last couple of seasons, he's the big miss for me that I know about. We were never getting Diomande. You or others who watch non-PL football may know of some others. But I'm yet to see many names being mentioned this summer.

Not signing Semenyo and signing Madueke is a big unforced error

 

[TakeChillPill]

Sancho is still available as a free agent. Would you have a punt?

 

[jones]

Indeed but if I think back over the last couple of seasons, he's the big miss for me that I know about. We were never getting Diomande.

Isn't that the issue though? We have no issue spending 60m on a defender that might not even make the bench for large parts of the season but we can't take the risk of spending a large fee on a kid who looks like a world beater and could lock down that position for a decade?

Not to mention there's plenty of players around that would cost half a Konsa that would immediately elevate our left side. @2Smokeyy and @Clrnc mentioned Ezzalzouli a number of times who's not only good enough to lock the position down immediately but has the defensive work rate to boot.

 

[MikelHadADream]

We need to hope the non top 6 teams accumulate top talent like they did between 2022-2025 so we can do our lazy (but effective) PL proven scouting gimmick, but this time just apply it to the forwards (ideally we bring people in who can sign the best from other leagues).

Summer 25 was the summer we missed out on João Pedro, Cunha, Mbuemo, Semenyo who are all better than Noni and Gyok.

Kroupi is obviously the biggest stand out player at the moment at one of those clubs. Will be interesting to see if any other gems emerge.

We also need to just accept where the market is now. The club (Josh especially) seem to have a mental block around the 100m figure because it’s a round number. But unfortunately that’s the going rate now.