Good morning to all.
We’ve been having a cold snap here in Ireland for the last week and I’d like to officially go on record that I’ve had enough. Negative temperatures, freezing fog that hangs in the air like a Harry Kane pity, slippery footpaths – let’s get it right – winter is terrible and if I became Supreme President of All Ireland I would remove it immediately.
How? Good question. I haven’t given this much thought, but one idea would be to replace all the street lights with those heat lamps you can get for your backyard. Sure, it would be enormously expensive to run them across the country, but now that they’ve figured out the fusion technology, we don’t have to worry about that. Well, I guess not. I probably need to read some more. And anyway, I won’t be launching my offer until the weather properly improves, so you have a few more weeks to fine-tune everything.
Anyway, let’s talk about Arsenal and as we think about the second half of the season, there is a lot of focus on what we will do in January. We know Mikel Arteta and Edu were in the US to chat with Stan and Josh, and I doubt it was just catching up and going to an LA Rams game.
Yesterday, in his column in The Athletic (£), David Ornstein reported that our main target for next month is Mykhaylo Mudryk. The 21-year-old has been linked with us for some time, and we know full well that before the final transfer window closed, the club were chasing a winger before our plans were derailed by injuries to Mo Elneny and Thomas Partey. .
So it’s no surprise that his name is mentioned again, and just like when we try to read the training footage to figure out the team pick for the weekend, I try to pay close attention to how David phrases things in your articles. . In it he says:
Their priority target is Shakhtar Donetsk winger Mykhaylo Mudryk, and sources with knowledge of the matter believe the chances are high for it to happen, although nothing has been agreed at the moment.
The vagaries of the transfer market and all the ways a deal can fail need to be taken into account when writing about a possible deal, but ‘sources with knowledge of the matter believe there is a good chance it will happen’ is quite encouraging. . The question, I guess, is not whether Shakhtar will sell or the player wants to come, but how much it will cost to close the deal.
They are publicly talking about a fee close to €100 million and frankly that’s not really feasible for a 21-year-old, regardless of how good he is. David goes on to say “…but stakeholders understand that a lower rate would be considered acceptable.”
If, as reported, Brentford had agreed a deal worth €25m in the summer, it all comes down to how much value he places on his performances since then, and what he will have added to his fee. Generally speaking, you would need to see a footballer do something remarkable to double his value in 6 months. Take Jude Bellingham for example, shining at the World Cup is bound to make Borussia Dortmund officials re-evaluate how much they would accept from any bidding club, and for the player himself, it allows for more negotiation when it comes to discussing ‘personal terms’.
A quick look at Mudryk’s stats shows 10 goals and 8 assists since August. They are divided into 7+6 in domestic football and 3+2 in six appearances in the Champions League. Decent numbers, and perhaps a sign that a player is beginning to fulfill his potential, but you also have to take into account the league he plays in. With all due respect to our Ukrainian friends, Mudryk will face tougher opposition each week if he moves to the Premier League. In the Champions League, two of these three goals were against Celtic and the other against Disgustingly Sweet Energy Drink Leipzig.
Which is not to take away from those stats, but if you’re the buying club, it’s something you’d keep in mind when preparing an offer. Are those the kind of numbers that could double a player’s value in the space of a few months? Soccer is a bit of a crazy industry, so maybe, but maybe also, this is a deal that could be based heavily on incentives and achievement. So the better he does, the better for Shakhtar. If they value him at €100m, do they have enough faith in his talent to accept the kind of transfer that talent has to spend on so that he later benefits to the fullest?
It’s fair to say that Arsenal have shown a willingness to pay a premium for someone they consider to be the right player. There was a lot of doubt about the fees for Ben White and Aaron Ramsdale at the time of their arrival, not so much now. So how this one plays out will be fascinating. There’s also the discussion of what this type of signing could mean for our depth at center forward, but I could save that for tomorrow.
Until then, take it easy and stay warm. Unless you’re living somewhere that isn’t absolutely freezing cold, in which case can I come visit you for a while?
