Fabio Vieira looks finally, actually gone. Hamburg are in advanced talks over a €10m (£8.6m) deal, and with his contract running to 2027 there's no leverage left to hold out for more.
He cost £29.9m from Porto in 2022. That's the number that stings, and it's the number that tells you why the club will take this and move on. Four years, a loan back to Portugal, and never a settled run in the side.
You can't call it a bad piece of business now, only a bad piece of business four years ago. Take the £8.6m. The squad's shape has moved a long way past him.
Two academy arrivals confirmed either side of it. James Scanlon comes in from Manchester United, a 19-year-old winger with 24 Gibraltar caps who came through Derby before Old Trafford in 2021. Axel Donczew joins from Cardiff as part of the first-year scholarship intake.
Both are free transfers, and both land at a moment when the U18s badly need bodies. Josh Smith's interim side lost 2-1 at Brighton on Saturday and finished with nine men after Emerson Nwaneri was sent off. Four games, no wins.
Whether a scholarship intake fixes that this season is another matter, though Arseblog News make the case that Donczew is ready to contribute now rather than in eighteen months. On the evidence of the last month, they'd take it.
Marli Salmon has signed her first professional contract. Long overdue, and the right call.
Villa away tonight, 20:00 at Villa Park. One game played, one won, 3-0 against Coventry, and Noni Madueke sounding like a man enjoying himself after the Community Shield and the opener. That's a fair reflection of where he's at.
Nothing new on Julian Alvarez that I'd put in front of you. Atletico's Sunday deadline is today. Either something breaks in the next few hours or it doesn't.
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