Morning all. A quick Saturday round-up for you.
After all the excitement of incoming business, our first official departure of the summer was confirmed yesterday as Pablo Mari joined Monza on a permanent basis. He spent last season there on loan, and there was an obligation to buy if they avoided relegation from Serie A. They finished a very creditable 11th.
Pablo made 31 appearances for them during his loan spell, and when you consider he was missing for over two months, having been the victim of a horrible unprovoked attack, that’s a big contribution. The fee isn’t massive, around £6m, but it’s all money in the bank, and every penny is useful as it looks like our initial outlay on players this summer could hit £200m if all goes well.
He made just 22 appearances for us, after his arrival from Flamengo. His time here was injury hit, but his signing was an early demonstration Mikel Arteta’s desire for ‘specificity’, wanting a left-footed centre-half in his team at all times. He was overtaken by Gabriel Magalhaes after the Brazilian came in from Lille, and in truth the upgrade was obvious pretty much straight away. Still, the best of luck to him in Italy.
While we’re in this ballpark, what’s happening with Reiss Nelson? He is now officially out of contract, and while there has been a lot of talk about how we’ve agreed a new deal with him, it’s very unusual for a player’s deal to lapse like this. I can’t really remember it happening like this before – where a contract expires and then the player signs on again with the same club.
It might be nothing to to worry about, but being honest, while I think renewing Nelson would be a relatively easy way to give us some squad depth, I was always a bit unsure as to why he’d stay. He didn’t play a great deal last season, and at this point in his career I don’t think he’s ever going to be a starter for this kind of Arsenal team. He will be 24 in December, and I think there are some parallels with Ainsley Maitland-Niles who has moved on at the end of his own contract. A talented Academy player who, for the sake of his own career, needs to make the right move for him.
Like I said, it could be a case that this will all get sorted, but as it stands, it’s not as if he HAS to come back for pre-season, because he doesn’t have a contract. It’s just a bit of an odd one.
Finally, this is a bit of old news, but I have to mention the fact that Ethan Nwaneri has agreed a new scholarship deal with Arsenal, and will sign professional terms when he turns 17 next March. There was a lot of interest in him from other clubs, rumours of big money offers from the likes of Chelsea and Man City, so I’m glad to see him stay.
He became not just Arsenal’s youngest ever player last season, but the youngest ever player to make his debut in Europe’s top 5 leagues. It was, I’m sure, a move designed to just hammer home how much the club rated him. Certainly more than his readiness to play regular football at this level, but it’s a good sign that players of this potential can see the pathway to the first team at Arsenal. When, in the last few years, you’ve seen the likes of Bukayo Saka, Eddie Nketiah, Emile Smith Rowe, Joe Willock, and the aforementioned Nelson and Maitland-Niles go from Hale End to the promised land, you can be pretty confident that if you work hard, develop well, and perhaps get a bit of luck along the way, you’ll get your chance here.
Right that’s it for now. Have a great Saturday, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
