Morning, an early one for you today.
First up, the fixtures for next season are out, released yesterday. We begin our campaign at home to Nottingham Forest, and end it at home to Everton. There’s an auspicious away day when we have a North London derby in our run-in. Win the league at White Hart Lane again at the end of April, is it? Don’t mind if I do.
Beyond that, the games are the games. I don’t have much to say about Man City in October other than I hope we beat Man City in October. The only other aspect to this that might be interesting is when the Champions League draw is made. We’re in Pot 2, which should give us a relatively friendly group, but who we get and how those fixtures impact on the Premier League ones is a bridge we’ll have to cross closer to the time.
After that, we had a first bid for Declan Rice turned down, and from what I could see, a lot of people lost their ever-loving shit about this. Let me just say this, I understand anxiety over getting deals done. I am very keen for us to sign Declan Rice. However, despite being around the block in term of transfer windows, summer, and social media more than a few times, I was actually a bit taken aback by some of the ferocity and anger that greeted this news.
I suppose there’s fear of another club coming in, and there’s talk of Man City being interested so that’s going to complicate things if they really push. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong, per se, about having a first bid rejected. This is what happens all the time, whether it’s a player valued at £100m or £10m.
You offer X, they ask for Y, and then you meet somewhere in the middle after negotiating. If your first bid is instantly accepted, chances are you’ve paid too much. It’s also very much in West Ham’s interest to make it known a bid has been rejected, so what emerges in the media isn’t always the full picture.
One day we’re rekindling interest in a player, the next day the same publication says we’ve withdrawn our interest. It’s almost like there’s information, misinformation, and – at times – disinformation. Remember too, any information you don’t like is guaranteed to be 100% true, it informs your preconceived ideas and biases. We find it much easier to believe stuff we don’t want to happen, that’s human nature.
From what I can gather, Arsenal’s total bid for Declan Rice was in the region of £90m. Just let that sink in for a minute. On the one hand people are saying paying £100m for a player is absurd, on the other the club are being lambasted for not paying more than that off the bat to make sure we get the deal done. We lose sight of the value of money when it comes to football transfers.
NINETY MILLION POUNDS. That’s a lot of money. Even the ‘Just throw another ten million at it and get it done’ stuff. Ten million pounds is a lot of money too. I know it doesn’t always feel like it in the context of the football world we live in, but still. It is. This is a deal that would smash our existing transfer record, it’s a staggering amount to pay for the services of a football player, and it’s gonna be a bit complex.
I suspect West Ham will try and hold out for a bit more, there’s already talk of a second bid which pushes it close to/over the £100m mark, so we’re in the ballpark of what gets the deal done. It’s more about the structure of the payments than the amount, I reckon, but until you make that first bid, you can’t fully understand what they want and how they want it.
I bet you almost every player we’ve signed in our history came after a first bid was turned down. It’s just that that information wasn’t made public as it was in this case. The selling clubs came back, we talked, we got deals done. If you ever wondered why we have consistently tried, as a club, to not talk about transfers before they’re done, this is part of the reason why. From Wenger to Arteta, it’s better to do the work behind the scenes. Publicity = complication, at least on the surface level which is where we all exist in scenarios like this. People with no influence over things whatsoever, fretting from afar.
So, while I fully understand nervousness, the window is only open 48 hours at this point, and there’s a whole summer to go. Even if Declan Rice doesn’t sign for Arsenal – and I’m not saying that, so don’t aggregate me, bro – it won’t be because we had an opening bid turned down.
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Right, if you fancy some listening that isn’t related to the transfer window, we have an episode of Waffle over on Patreon in which James and I answer questions about anything and everything except Arsenal. In this episode, Zombies v Dinosaurs, the man who ate a teabag, James’ letter to Ted’s Lassoo, and lots more. Get it here.
As well as that, on today’s Arsecast, I chat to Peter Mujuzi, the Arsenal stadium announcer, about that job, the match-day in the booth, his music choices and lots more. Check it out below. For now, have a good one.
