It’s only been 11 days since Arsenal’s final game of the season finished with a big German holding a small pot, but that’s been more than enough time for the relentless and merciless machine that is the transfer rumour mill to take over our lives and our social media feeds.
Usually when this happens, it’s because of one of four reasons;
- Arsenal are trying to buy a big name
- Arsenal are trying to buy a youngster who nobody’s heard of but are basing their opinion on him on one YouTube clip anyway
- Arsenal are desperately trying to keep their best player from leaving
- Arsenal are desperately trying to flog off their unwanted players to the first possible bidder.
This time is different though, because even though the season has just finished, Arsenal find themselves dealing with all four of these problems simultaneously.
4. The ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ aisle
Is anyone else a little worried that Arsenal are selling both David Ospina and Wojciech Szczesny at the same time?
Wasn’t the point of letting Szczesny go on loan to Roma be that he would cut the mistakes and the occasional petulance out of his game? It’d be one thing if a club that wasn’t of the stature of Arsenal wanted to buy him, then it’d be easier to justify.
But when it’s Juventus???
If Juventus are saying that they think Szczesny can succeed Gianluigi F. Buffon, then that’s got to say something about how well he’s played in Italy, no?
We all know that Szczesny and Wenger had a falling out during his last season at the club, but if Szczesny is willing to sit on the bench for a year at Juve, I don’t think it’d be too much of a stretch to suggest that he’d sit on the bench for a year at Arsenal, a club he holds so dear to his heart.
If Ospina was staying, then having having three #1 goalkeepers would be overkill, but with the Colombian on his way to Fenerbache, Arsenal need backup for Petr Cech.
Szczesny even qualifies as home grown for squad quotas, so we can’t hold that against him either.
Either Wenger is really, really, REALLY holding a grudge here, or Juventus know something we don’t.
All of this and we’re only 11 days in.
August can’t come quick enough.