Three deals in a day, and one of them is the biggest Arsenal have ever done in that direction. A club-record £55.7m fee agreed with Al-Hilal for Gabriel Martinelli, with the Brazilian granted permission to travel for a medical. Gabriel Jesus to Barcelona for £8.6m, agreed in principle. Fábio Vieira to Hamburg for around £7.7m. Roughly £72m in a Sunday afternoon, on top of the £45m Arsenal had already banked this window.
Thursday’s post had Vieira in advanced talks. He turns out to have been the small print.
Martinelli is the one that stings. Seven years, 278 appearances, 62 goals, and he leaves at 25 as the most expensive player Arsenal have ever sold — past Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s move to Liverpool in 2017. Because he arrived from Ituano as an 18-year-old for next to nothing, essentially all of it lands as profit in the accounts, which is not the least of the reasons this got done. He never kicked on from the 15-goal season, and last year told its own story: 30 league appearances but only 11 starts, and a single Premier League goal. You still don’t usually sell that profile at that age, and the sadness around it is warranted even if the logic isn’t hard to follow.
Jesus at £8.6m is the price of a contract expiring next summer. Three league starts all season. No leverage, and everyone involved knew it.
All of which is supposed to fund Julián Álvarez, and there’s the problem. Atlético will not deal with Barcelona under any circumstances. Álvarez wants the Camp Nou. Arsenal are the club standing in the corridor waiting for him to change his mind, and they’ve said they won’t open negotiations until he does. Sunday’s deadline came and went without a decision.
So: two forwards sold, one hoped for. If Álvarez says no, that squad looks thinner tonight than it did on Friday. Marcus Rashford on loan is doing the rounds as the fallback — separate from the Álvarez pursuit, apparently — but I’d want something firmer than paper talk.
Arteta, meanwhile, has asked the Premier League to expand matchday squads beyond the current 20, on player-welfare grounds. The figure he has actually pushed for is 23, in line with the Champions League; La Liga allows 23 and Serie A 25, which is his point about English clubs operating with less room than everyone else. “It doesn’t help the valuation of the player. It doesn’t help the player feel part of something.” A reasonable argument, made by a manager who is about to have fewer people to leave out.
Villa Park tonight, 8pm. Bruno Guimarães and Ezri Konsa could both make their Arsenal league debuts.
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