A big summer for... Arsenal

0:03I think when it happens it's magical. In 2026 the champions are the Arsenal.

0:15Again at last. The fifth ace of him, he's had the backing but he's doing the business so you have to take your hat off to him. I think it gives sense to everything that you go through in the process of winning something big for the club. and I would have done it again.

0:35Now, Arsenal supporters have spent the past months basking in the glory of their Premier League title win, but can they go again and defend the crown next season? It's a big summer for Arsenal and on this special Sky Sports podcast, we're going to be diving in to see how Mikel Arteta's squad are shaping up. I'm Peter Smith and I'm joined by three colleagues who cover the club closely. We've got Damesh Sheff from Sky Sports News. How are you doing, Damesh? Very, very well. We're going to start again soon, isn't it? Yes, yes, absolutely. Catch your breath after the World Cup and go again. Sam Blitz, football journalist with us as well.

1:07Yes, very excited. I mean, the World Cup was good, but this is where it really is, I guess. Yes, absolutely. Get stuck into pre-season games and transfer stories. Definitely. And features writer Nick Wright here. Nick, let's talk about the World Cup because Arsenal were very heavily involved in terms of the amount of players they had there. Well, we saw Rice and Saka having their injury issues with England. How are the Arsenal squad looking in terms of those players that are coming out of that tournament? Yeah, I think most Arsenal fans would agree it wasn't ideal timing to have a World Cup after that kind of epic 63-game season.

1:38You know, you probably wanted these players to be getting a rest. Instead, you've got Declan Rice and Bakaya Saka playing 3 ,000 metres above sea level in Mexico City, 80 % humidity in Miami. So not ideal, perhaps, in that sense. Arsenal had 13 players who featured at the tournament, which was the second most of Premier League clubs, behind only Man City. and you know there were some fitness and injury worries along the way weren't there William Slieber's back injury being the main one of course we don't know the full extent of that yet but if he does require surgery which is apparently a possibility then that could be a spell on the sidelines Declan Rice and Bakai Saka of course also had their problems through the tournament and Arsenal actually had eight players who reached the last four you know in the three from Spain as well David Raya, Mick Amarino, Martins Uvmendi then you've got Ebereche as in Nani Madweke as well as Rice and Saka all those guys now need a three-week break that's mandated by FIFA so Arsenal's pre-season is going to be disrupted they are going to be without quite a few important players and there is maybe a little bit of uncertainty about who will be fit when it all gets going again so yeah not an ideal time for a World Cup for Arsenal and a few question marks after the tournament yes obviously Arteta needs to start making those plans for the season Sam but there was a bit of positive news from the training ground.

2:53Some of those players arriving ready for pre-season action who hadn't been in the World Cup. Yeah, of course. I think the big one was Ben White. He sort of declared that he's fit and back in training. He actually returned to training before everyone turned up to London Colney this week. Arsenal do a little pre-pre-season camp in Marbella. They do it every year with a small group of first-team players. Sounds like a nice trip, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Not bad, eh? No carbs before Marbs? No, definitely not. Definitely not. But yes, so White returned to training during that Marbella camp with a few of the first team squad members who weren't at the World Cup.

3:28Uri and Timber, he is also back in pre-season, but he still needs a little bit more time. He says he's still rehabbing over the summer. There's probably hope that he'll be back by the start of the Premier League season. But yeah, he's still not fully back. And as Nick said, it's going to be a staggered approach to pre-season. Obviously, a lot of players will be coming in at different points in different weeks. You'd like to think, looking at the timings with the three weeks, that they have to take off. The majority, if not all, will be back by the time they play Man City at the Community Shield.

3:59And City, they were the only club who had more players at the World Cup, had more minutes at the World Cup than Arsenal. So it's going to be a pretty weird game, that one. But I think Arsenal are also boosted by, no disrespect to Coventry at all, but that Friday night game to start the season It's probably a nice one to maybe bed in a few newcomers as well. At the start of last season, they had Manchester United at Old Trafford, which was a tricky game, and they nearly dropped points there. So, yeah, it's not ideal planning for Mikel Arteta, but it's still not as bad as maybe many feared when Saliba went down with his back injury.

4:38Just picking up on that, it's going to be interesting to see what happens with Ben White, actually, because at the end of the season, the talk was and the information we were getting that Ben White could be one of those players that Arsenal may listen to offers for. I just wonder whether that approach might have changed very slightly now given the potential injury to Saliba. We know that Ben White can play across the back four. I just wonder whether Arsenal, maybe before the season starts, maybe in a position to say no one's going to go at the moment. And then as the window ends, I think there's another week at least, isn't there?

5:18Just a week to 10 days after the start of the season before the window closes. Depending on what kind of business they get done then, I think it's going to dictate what happens to players like Ben White. Interesting, yeah. If it's a low-key week, Darmusch, in terms of players returning and some players going off on holiday after the excitement of the World Cup, There has been some big headline news in the transfer world, which, of course, you've been all over. Morgan Rodgers, this record transfer to Chelsea. Now, it wasn't so long ago we were reporting that Arsenal had made him their number one forward target this summer.

5:50So how much of a blow was it for him to go to Chelsea for£117 million? Two bits. I think it's a blow because they've missed out on him. They definitely wanted to sign him. And for the majority of this transfer window, there were talks happening. not necessarily club-to-club contact, but via intermediaries, trying to explore how much it would take to sign Morgan Rodgers. And I think that pricing might have changed, because I think Arsenal might have found themselves in a position where they thought, yep, we can do a deal for Morgan Rodgers, because they were of the understanding that it was at a certain price.

6:28I think the market had got distorted very slightly, say very slightly, quite long by what's happened. and not necessarily in the same positions. You can't compare like for like Elliot Anderson and Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes. But when you look at the pricing of those three players, £85 million for Mateus Fernandes, £100 million for Tonali, £116 million for Elliot Anderson, Aston Villa will probably look at that and say, well, if this is the market value for players like that, then Morgan Rodgers' minimum is going to be£100 million, if not more. Now, were Arsenal prepared to go to£100 million?

7:06Maybe, but I'm talking about that would be stretching it with all the performance-related add-ons included. Now, my understanding of it is, speaking to people close to that deal, Arsenal were talking about this deal for weeks. They wanted the player. Chelsea only came in last Thursday. So there were initial talks via intermediaries last Thursday about the possibility of trying to get a deal done. They found out what the price was going to be, what Villa were going to accept. Sunday, literally I was told it was one bid. On the table, agreed, signed, medical. Done deal. Rodgers is a Chelsea player.

7:47Should Arsenal fans feel a bit frustrated by this damage? When you see Chelsea, we know about the amount of turnover of players they have there in terms of the money they generate from their sales as well. Hinkapie has come in,£34.5 million, obviously activating after that successful loan period he had last year. But when Arsenal are spending that sort of sum on defensive players, and they have done in previous windows, should they have been storing a bit of this up for signing marquee forwards? That's one argument, but Arsenal's approach will always be, right, we want to buy a certain player, but we've got a price that we're going to attach to this certain player.

8:23Now, if there's always going to be that situation where the selling club is going to say, well, actually, it's going to cost you a little bit more, then they have to make a decision do they go that little bit more i think this was quite a big gap in the valuation between what arson were prepared to pay and what morgan rogers eventually left for should arson fans be worried now i think andrea burta and the recruitment team have kind of bought a little bit of you know wriggle room with regard to the arson fans only because if you look at how he do how they've been doing their business since burta came in it isn't we're going to focus on one player and that's it it's too risky a strategy so what they try and do three or four targets in each position that they're looking to to recruit in right and they will try and get their ducks in a row with all four players get as far down the line with deals with all four players and then take a step back and say what is the best value on the pitch off the pitch then they will have that further discussion with Mikel Arteta with with everyone who's involved in the recruitment and then decide which player to go for.

9:31Now, if, as we're led to believe, Morgan Rodgers was the number one target and they've missed out on him, yes, you can say that that's a bit of a blow for Arsenal, but they weren't clearly prepared to go to£117 million. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the windows are right off. They would have got in the background other deals that they are looking at and they will now revert to. That's what you would expect to happen. In the coming days, we might see those number two and number three choices in that left wing position might be because, Sam, that is clearly an area they would like to improve.

10:04Martinelli, just one Premier League goal last season, albeit against Man City, but one goal. And obviously Trossard has gone off to Besiktas, which maybe raised eyebrows for some, did for me. I think he's been a good player for them. He's a good player for Belgium at the World Cup as well. But he's gone to Besiktas for 17 million. I saw he started 21 Premier League games for Arsenal last season. So a hole to fill there. But could that be Christos Zolis? Yeah, Crystal Solis is a really interesting one in the fact that if you look at the two profiles between Solis and Trossard, they're very, very similar.

10:33Solis is a player who can play out wide, but can play as a number 10, which is very similar to Trossard. They're also very similar style-wise. They've got very similar injury histories. So you can see that one making sense. The problem is that Arsenal need top draw in that position. Neither Trossard or Martinelli really nailed down that left-hand side last season. Even though Trossard probably ended the season as clear first choice number one, there wasn't quite the output that people were expecting. There was certainly not matching the output from the other side of the pitch and what Bakayosaka brings to the team.

11:08I'm sort of with Darmish on this one. I don't think that it's a huge blow for that Arsenal missed out on Morgan Rodgers, especially for the price. £117 million,£100 million plus. That gets you, for a club like Arsenal, who don't have that history that Chelsea have of spending that type of money regularly, for Arsenal, that should get you someone like Declan Rice, transformative of the team. There was a little bit of unknown of where Rodgers would fully fit in. Would he be a left winger? Would he be that number one choice on that left-hand side? Is he actually a left winger? Or is he more someone who's going to compete with the likes of Martin Odegaard and Eberiches in the middle?

11:49there was that unknown you know they they have also invested 60 million pounds in ever richie this time last year he's a very very similar player so yeah obviously arsenal need need that top draw level improvement in that left wing position because if they go with solace and they sell martinelli and then they bring in someone who's maybe you know not quite as proven is that better than having trossard and martinelli who are proven at that premier league level i'm not exactly sure. We'll come on to a couple of other names they've been linked with as well. High profile names and potentially big money names as well.

12:24But Nick, I think it's just worth stating here as we're stressing about transfers that Arsenal are or aren't making. They're Premier League champions, Champions League finalists. You sat down with co-chair Josh Cronker at the end of the season. A group of journalists were able to hear his thoughts. And he came up with the line, we're going to look to strengthen because we know teams around us are going to get better. If you're not trying to continually evolve and improve you're standing still. Is that the fear at Arsenal that they've got to the top of this mountain and they want to stay there now but they know it's going to cost them to do that?

12:57I wouldn't say it was a fear. I think it's just an acknowledgement of where they're at. Krumke talked about having put the foundations in place. He said that's often the hardest part of the journey to get the foundations to build a winning squad, to put the winning culture in place. Arsenal have done those things and now it's about adding top quality to improve the team. Last summer was very important in terms of adding depth and strengthening the squad in a number of different areas. I think now they appreciate that the transfer strategy has to be different. They're trying to do something different.

13:30It's about elevating the team in certain positions and I think the left side of the attack is probably the most obvious one, isn't it? I think they need something a bit different in that position. They need someone explosive, someone who can dominate 1v1, someone who can break games open in the way that Morgan Rodgers showed he can do for Aston Villa. It's clear that that is why Arsenal were interested. I think that's why Arsenal are interested in Bradley Barcola as well, another player who excels in those 1v1 situations. Arsenal ranked ninth in the Premier League last season for attempted dribbles.

14:02I think that tells you quite a lot about the lack of spontaneity on the ball. Arsenal have some fantastic strengths as a side, don't they? Defensively, they're brilliant. We know how good they are on set pieces. but if there is room for improvement I think it is sort of in open play isn't it and I think that is a key area for them when they look at how to evolve this team you know to just diversify their attacking threat a little bit and in order to do that I think they do need to sign players capable of breaking games open and beating teams who sit back and frustrate and I think these these players come out at a cost don't they especially when they're proven to be top quality OK, that's the end of part one.

14:44Stick with us, though, because when we come back, we'll be talking about Bruno Guimaraes and whether he could be on his way to Arsenal and how the Gunners rank against their Premier League title rivals.

15:02Hi there, I'm Pete Graves. And while you're enjoying this show, I just wanted to let you know that we are back with another round of Transfer Talk, where we'll be talking about who's on the move, where they're going, what they could bring to your team. So if you don't already, please like and subscribe. You can watch 3Sky TV on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. See you soon.

15:30Welcome back to A Big Summer for Arsenal, this special Sky Sports podcast. There's two central midfielders I wanted to touch on with you. Two players at different ends of their career, where you've got Alex Scott, a young, exciting English talent, 22 years old, and you've got Bruno Guamara's at Newcastle, 29. This has been ruffling feathers among Newcastle fans. I thought they might lose Tonali and then Bruno as well this summer. But it seems like Arsenal are pretty serious about their interest in this Brazilian. They are, and like I explained before, we've already got two targets. There will be other targets that we probably don't know about just yet.

16:06But, yeah, you do mention at both ends of the scale, Alex Scott, the information we have on that at the moment is that Bournemouth don't want to sell in this transfer window. But the problem that they've got, he's into the final two years of his contract. And the information we have, he's not going to agree terms on a new deal. So do Bournemouth say, no, we've still got that one year insurance, if you like, at the end of this season. but that's a risk in itself because then Alex Scott could then find himself in a position to say, actually, I'll just see out the remainder of this contract. I'll be 24.

16:44I'll still have some fantastic years ahead of me and I won't have any transfer fee attached with me. So that's the risk whenever a player enters the final two years of a contract. It feels like a dangerous time period now. Before it was just like one year left on your contract. Now they're looking at two years. So even when players got three years left, you're hearing about extensions of contracts, even that far out from when their deal was expiring. So there's definitely an interest there. They'll definitely face competition. Not least the fact that Bournemouth don't want to sell in this transfer window.

17:16But, you know, the will of the player, is that going to play a part as well? Bruno Gimores is a name that just will not go away. There's been so many conflicting reports about where we are with this deal. some have reported that Arsenal have made two bids both of which have been rejected and that there's been club to club talks between Arsenal and Newcastle I've spoken to Keith Downey who's spoken to who knows everything that's going on at the Newcastle end no contacts no bids from Arsenal officially everything has happened via intermediaries at the moment so people will say well why don't they just go and speak to Newcastle listen Sometimes transfers, even though we don't want to admit almost that that's how it works, but sometimes this is how it works.

18:07You don't usually get a club approaching a club without any knowledge of whether the player wants to go or not. So once the club speaks, say Arsenal spoke to Newcastle, they will know 100 % that Bruner Gimoresh definitely wants to go to Arsenal. We kind of know that anyway because he's kind of intimated privately to Newcastle United that if, and it's a big if, Arsenal meet a price that they are comfortable with, that they feel is his valuation, he would be open to speaking to them and open to joining them. He doesn't want to be that player who is in the ESAC scenario where he's not going to go on strike, he's not going to do any of that.

18:51He understands the position that Newcastle United are in. I would expect Arsenal to make some sort of formal move sooner rather than later on this because it has gone so far down the line behind the scenes for it not to go anywhere. So it's clear the player wants to go and Arsenal want him. The problem Newcastle United have got is, on the positive side, he's under contract. They're under no pressure to do any business. But again, the will of the player. and if he really wants to go, then Newcastle United are going to have a decision to make. Yeah, interesting one to watch. Does he think Arsenal are the biggest club in London?

19:26I know Morgan Rodgers thinks it's Chelsea, but just wondering if they'd asked him that question as well. Oh my goodness. I mean, that is going to follow him around. I mean, Arsenal play Chelsea what? Very early on, September 5th, I think it is. Is that second game of the season? Third game. So Arsenal have got Coventry, Villa and then Chelsea. I mean you can probably get a bad reception from the Arsenal fans for saying that I don't think you can get a bad reception for not going to Arsenal because it's kind of out of his hands because Arsenal could have signed Morgan Rodgers but they decided we're not going to meet that valuation There we go, and Sam just wanted to touch on as Darmish was saying, lots of names being linked but a couple that jumped out to me John Stones potentially on a free Esri Konza as well, linked with a move.

20:17It would be a real blow for Villa to lose him as well. It was turning into a quite difficult summer for them in many regards. But just maybe some signs that Arsenal may also look to pick up some deals in the defensive areas, which they've not made a bit of a habit of, haven't they really, under Mikel Arteta, strengthening that back line at any opportunity. Yeah, a lot of people say that Mikel Arteta likes a left-back. Those two aren't quite left-backs, but you do definitely... He likes a centre-back who can play full-back. Exactly. It's his ideal signing. Absolutely. But yeah, it feels like those two positions are slightly perilous given the Saliba situation.

20:52You also have to remember that Arsenal's two right-backs, Eurion Timber and Ben White, don't have the best injury record themselves. You can't put your hand on your heart and say, fully rely on them to play 35 games out of the 38 Premier League games that are coming up next season. But yeah, I think those two would be really interesting moves. Obviously, Esri Konsa, behind the scenes, is very, very close to Bakaya Saka. Those two are literally tied like that. So you'd imagine there's been a lot of conversations in the England camp. And John Stones, well, Mikko Arteta, who actually spoke about this about five or six years ago, and he said, John Stones is a defender that I really like.

21:32Punted the seed. Yeah, it's that profile that I really, really like in a defender in the centre-back. And it's interesting, the parallels again. that sort of summer of 2020, they were linked with John Stones. They were linked with Bruno Gimmarais as well. He ended up going to Newcastle. So it's funny how all this works out. But it seems like with a lot of these moves is that these are longstanding targets. Solace is maybe the exception where that's an up-and-coming player who's sort of come up on the radar on the scouting team. but it looks like a lot of these moves are sort of based on Mikel Arteta's knowledge of the Premier League going back years and years and years he really puts a lot of value in Premier League experience doesn't he I think I think that's clear from Arsenal's signings in recent years Konza is certainly someone who has that obviously Stones as well the Konza one is interesting isn't it because we know Mikel Arteta loves a player who wins his duels we know that Mikel Arteta is upset when he loses a duel Esri Konza here's a stat for you He had the best ground-duel success ratio in the Premier League last season.

22:3773 % of his ground-duels won. I think he does tick a lot of boxes for Arteta. He's very combative, good in 1v1s, and can play right-back, centre-back. I think the issue there is probably the valuation that Villa have put on him. Maybe that's a bit more than Arsenal are willing to pay, but another interesting one to keep an eye on for sure. Yeah, absolutely loved by Villa fans. Sam, we were talking about the creative areas and how Arsenal use the board. I just wanted to get thoughts from you on a few of the youngsters who we've seen over the past couple of seasons, even Nwaniheri, 19 years old now.

23:09He didn't have a great loan spell in Marseille in the second half of last season. Obviously, Max Dalman, the thrills and excitement that he brought last season at 16 years old and that goal against Everton. And obviously, Myles Lewis-Skelly, who looked like he was out of the picture after that previously promising season. And then he battled his way back into the team and was there for the Champions League final as well, wasn't he? Again, 19 years old. to these young players that we've got excited about over the recent times. Where do they stand going into this season? Can they play a meaningful role for Arsenal in this coming year?

23:40Well, it's really interesting that the big one that stands out is Waineri. What do Arsenal do? Do they stick or do they twist? Now, Waineri is going to be very interesting in the Bukayo Saka side of things. Obviously, we've seen that Bukayo Saka can't really train two days in a row at the moment. We saw that with Arsenal. We saw that with England at the World Cup. And if Saka needs a bit of time to get back up to full speed and get back up to 100 % over the summer, maybe Warneri is a player who maybe acts as a bit of cover alongside Maduweki and alongside Max Dalman as well. The other thing with Warneri is that Arsenal, as we've said, they don't currently have many players in pre-season at the moment.

24:19So that's going to be a real opportunity for Warneri to maybe start in Odegaard and Eze's position and say, look this is what I can do yeah I didn't have a good time at Marseille last time I think Michael Arteta actually said he maybe regretted letting Warneri go because Mourinho got injured a few weeks later and Havertz took a little bit longer to come back from injury as well obviously they sent him there to work with Roberto Deserbi and he left Marseille a few weeks later and is now coincidentally at Spurs but the other thing with Warneri is Downman's there and do you really want to halt Downman's progression by playing someone who's so similar.