Morning all.
A very quick Thursday blog as I have some travelling to do today. As you might expect, it’s pretty quiet. We play West Ham on Sunday. West Ham play Gent tonight. It’s a short trip to Belgium, but it will still be interesting to see what kind of team David Moyes picks, and how much of an eye he has on the Premier League where the Hammers are still very much in a relegation scrap.
A player we have talked about a few times this season is Folarin Balogun, who continues to tear it up in Ligue 1. With 18 goals to his name, he’s just one behind Kylian Mbappe, and I would posit that Balogun scoring with that frequency for a team like Reims is a more impressive achievement than one of the world’s best players scoring for an expensively assembled rabble like PSG.
This week, there was an interesting update on his situation from David Ornstein, who Tweeted:
Big call ahead for Arsenal on Folarin Balogun. 21yo striker wants to be 1st choice next season; ideally at #AFC but not looking realistic, so a move appeals amid huge interest. 2yrs left on contract & no plans to renew or go on loan again.
This is one of those situations where you can make a good case for all kinds of outcomes. Ideally, Balogun returns to Arsenal, demonstrates he can do it at Premier League level, and adds some depth and quality to a team that definitely needs more at centre-forward. He’s a Hale End graduate, and if he could join the likes of Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah, that would be another great contribution from our Academy.
As ever though, it’s not quite that cut and dried. Without taking anything at all away from what he’s done during this loan spell, there is a difference between Ligue 1 and the Premier League. Alexandre Lacazette, who huffed and puffed but couldn’t really contribute last season, has scored as many goals this time around. The difference in age and the potential for further development is a clear distinction, but I think you have to add that context.
I think the key to this situation right now is in the last line though: No plans to renew or go on loan again. If he has gone on loan and gotten a taste for first team football, who can blame him? Why wouldn’t he want to play week in, week out? That’s not a bad thing in any sense. But then there’s the reality of the centre-forward position at Arsenal right now, and that’s Gabriel Jesus. Does he back himself sufficiently to perhaps take a step back and then take on the Brazilian in a straight scrap for that position? Maybe, but maybe he also realises that Jesus is going to be first choice for some time, and that his own chances of playing with the frequency he wants are better if he goes elsewhere.
So, from this leak via David Ornstein, he’s basically telling the club, I’m not gonna renew my contract, I’m not going to go on loan again: make a decision. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t renew if he got the playing time, but when a 21 year old is showing his hand like this after his first full season of top flight football, how confident would you be that even if he did get the playing time he wanted, he would then put pen to paper?
It’s a delicate one too, because Balogun’s agent is Bukayo Saka’s agent (and Eddie Nketiah’s). My suspicion is that he knows there are decent clubs out there willing to give him what he wants (RB Leipzig linked this week), thus this particular stance. Arsenal would have wanted to send him on loan to develop in exactly the way they have, but they’re now faced with a decision. The player is, in essence, saying play me or sell me. With two years left on his deal, and uncertainty over his willingness to commit even if he does play, what do you do – especially at a point where his stock is so high?
The answer, to my mind anyway, is sell: assuming the offer is right. We’ve long bemoaned the club not making the most of the outward market, this could well be a test of that. Take a leaf from Man City’s book, and sell with clauses (sell-on and buy back). Like most of you, I would love to see him get a chance, but when you look at the way this one is going, it seems to be heading in a different direction. Which is fine, that’s football. We’ll still need depth at centre-forward for a Premier League/Champions League season, but maybe what you get for Balogun you can use for a striker who maybe gives you something a bit different from Jesus, Eddie and Flo who are, if not exactly the same, similar enough.
Let’s see how it plays out. We know Mikel Arteta can be very persuasive, and what he wants at Arsenal he mostly gets, so it might well come down to the manager. It’s a problem for the summer though, so we can wait until then.
Right, that’s it for this morning. I’m heading to NYC for a few days, we have our live event on Saturday with the ArsenalVision lads, from which all proceeds are being donated to the Arsenal Foundation fundraiser. I hope to see some of you there.
I’m leaving the blog in the very capable hands of Andrew Allen for the weekend, but we will have an Arsecast for you tomorrow, a West Ham preview podcast on Patreon, and an Arsecast Extra recorded from the Big Apple on Monday too.
Catch ya later!
