The Departing …

Morning all.

Arsenal yesterday released a list of 22 players, from the men, women, and youth teams who will depart when their contracts expire on June 30th. Among them, Mohamed Elneny, the current longest-serving player at the club, who said:

“It was the best eight years of my life. I love this club so much, I love the fans, I love everything about Arsenal.

“It breaks my heart, But that’s life, my time here has come to an end and I’m very proud of what I’ve done for this club.”

It’s also the end for Cedric. I can’t say I was ever a huge fan of the player, but he was always professional and seemed like a good guy behind the scenes. His ability to be first on the scene whenever there was a celebration was quite something. I really disliked the deal we did to bring him in though, which wasn’t his fault I should add, but thankfully there are better procedures, checks and balances etc, in place now.

An interesting adjunct to the list is the fact the club say they are still in talks with three players: Karl Hein, Reuell Walters, and Amario Cozier-Duberry. The former is the one to keep an eye on, because the goalkeeping situation is something that needs some clarity. We expect David Raya’s permanent transfer from Brentford to go through, probably after June 30th, while Aaron Ramsdale’s future is up in the air. I don’t think he’ll fancy another season of sitting on the bench, so the chances are he’ll go – whether permanently or on loan.

That means we need a goalkeeper signing of some kind, and we’ve already been linked with the lad from Feyenoord, who seems to have brittle bones. As for Hein, if he does sign a new contract, the expectation must be that he’ll go out on loan. He’s 22, and already established as the Estonian number 1, but he’s at an age where he has to go and play some regular football or he won’t develop properly. So, if that’s the case, who will be the third goalkeeper for us next season? Another signing, perhaps a veteran on loan, or someone from within the ranks?

Meanwhile, I saw a story doing the rounds that Arsenal are ‘reluctantly’ willing to let Eddie Nketiah leave the club this summer, with a suggestion that Fulham are ready to splash out £30m on the striker. With all due respect to Eddie, there would be nothing reluctant at all if that kind of money was on offer. I’d say the celebrations would barely have begun in Edu’s office before there was a knock-on the door.

“Ta-daaaah!”, says a familiar face.

“Cedric, come on in!”

£30m for Nketiah would be an amazing piece of business, but I don’t think we’ll get anything like that. The same report says Everton, Wolves and Crystal Palace are all interested in him too, so perhaps a small bidding war might increase what’s on offer, but even £15m would sound like decent business to me. Let’s see.

The summer transfer period is also known as ‘silly season’, when nonsense percolates and many otherwise sensible people choose to eschew common sense and basic intelligence because they want to believe. Here’s one from Sky Sports paper talk round-up:

Napoli have picked out two Arsenal players – Takehiro Tomiyasu and Emile Smith Rowe – they would be willing to include in any potential swap deal that would see £110m-rated striker Victor Osimhen move to the Gunners.

I would say the only way we’d splash out what Napoli wanted on him is by offsetting the cash price with a player as part of the deal, but these kinds of deals almost never happen anyway. Even if we won the football lottery, I don’t think Osimhen is a player we’d go for this summer, but I don’t suppose that will stop his name being mentioned along with ours for most of the summer.

Finally for today, Thierry Henry has been blocked from calling up William Saliba to France’s Olympics squad. Which is entirely the right thing to do, but am I wrong to judge Thierry for even trying?! I get it, if you’re in charge you want the best players at your disposal, but he played every minute for us last season and is in the France squad for the Euros so give the lad at least a little break.

Right, let’s leave it there. We are recording an Arsecast Extra for you this morning. Keep an eye out for the call for questions on Twitter @gunnerblog and @arseblog on Twitter with the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server.

Podcast should be out around midday. Until then.

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