Take Thierry Henry.
Arguably Arsenal’s best player of all time, and certainly in my life time, only joined The Arsenal due to the departure of Nicolas Anelka.
The transfer of Henry to Arsenal was confirmed on 3 August 1999, with Anelka departure to Real Madrid announced a day later. The Anelka deal also saw Davor Suker move in the other direction.
Henry was actually Arsene Wenger’s 2nd choice to replace Anelka – their international teammate David Trezequet was top of the list.
How different the landscape of Arsenal could have been had Anelka stayed, or Monaco accepted the offer for Trezeguet.
Despite recent talk that Granit Xhaka’s departure from Arsenal has stalled, he is still expected to join Bayer Leverkusen. He is due to be replaced by a combination of Kai Havertz (when we want to set up normally) and Declan Rice (when we want to be a bit more defensive).
In the majority of our games next season, we will go into them with a midfield of Rice behind Havertz and Martin Odegaard. They will be backed up by Thomas Partey, Jorginho, Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith Rowe.
In games where we look to go more defensive, Partey and Rice will probably start together with Havertz sacrificed.
In recent weeks, we have been linked with the likes of Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia and, more recently, Real Madrid’s Aurelien Tchouameni. But all those links come with a caveat: “lined up to replace Thomas Partey”.
With the two new acquisitions, our midfield is currently filled. And that means it will be one in, one out moving forward. We will only recruit someone else if Partey is sold. And that brings a huge what if?
What if Partey is not sold? Well he then stays, then we do not make any more signings.
But what that means is our targets are currently in an Arsenal purgatory.
Take Romeo Lavia as the example.
Currently at relegated Southampton, he is clearly highly interested in joining Arsenal. But he knows he has to wait until Partey leaves before he gets his move. How long does he wait for Arsenal for before beginning to talk to other clubs?Well that point seems to be this week as his representatives opened talks with Liverpool.
If Liverpool move quickly, they could secure the services of Lavia before Arsenal have resolved Partey’s future.
The narrative will be that Edu’s dilly-dallying led to us missing out on Lavia. But the truth is we were unable to make a concrete move for him until Partey’s departure was close to being confirmed.
To miss out on Lavia is certainly not a disaster, but will be frustrating.
At just 19-years-old. he has all the attributes needed to play in conjunction with Declan Rice when we go more defensive. He will also not have the expectation to play week in week out at a top club.
The fear Edu and the team will have is the longer Partey does not move on for, the more targets will go elsewhere.
Lavia could end up at Liverpool, Chelsea could sign Caicedo and Barcelona could find the cash to sign Martin Zubimendi.
It could get to a point where our main “Partey replacement” targets have secured moves elsewhere and are no longer on the market. What then are our options?
Well we could just move to the next one on the list. But how far down do we keep going? We could enter the loan market, or we could take the risk and leave ourselves with only Declan Rice and Jorginho.
It will be frustrating to lose out on Partey replacements whilst we await his future to be resolved. And it will be equally furstrating to miss out on a potential £40million transfer because an adequete repalcement can not be found.
Finally it will be frustating if we sign someone we do not really want.
It is not an easy puzzle to solve for Edu and the team.
Ideally, Partey’s future will be resolved sooner rather than later and we can move onto signing his replacemnt before they are snapped up elsewhere.
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