Silly season is well and truly upon us. Prepare to be bombarded with three months of vague phrases such as;
- Interested in the player
- Monitoring the situation
- Gentlemen’s agreement
- Agreed personal terms
It really is all rather tedious. But signings must be made, and it is up to us to sift through the endless mounds of Twitter compost as we attempt to decipher what is genuine and what is horse manure – spoiler alert, this makes up about 98% of your timeline. We’re all sick of everyone and their nan claiming to have some sort of insider information about player X and how they’ve received intel that he’s made Arsenal his “number one priority” and has informed his brother, brother’s wife’s second cousin’s godson’s babysitter’s driving instructor’s third wife that he will be joining Arsenal no matter what. You see what I mean by tedious?
I think you will all agree when I say the transfer window has reached unbearable levels over the last six or seven years. The rise of twitter has a big part to play in this. Nowadays it is easy to know about a deal months in advance meaning we get constant “updates” from certain journalists essentially just pumping out information we already know because they’ve already told us 143798 times over the last three months. For example, according to Fabrizio Romano we’ve agreed personal terms with Martin Zubimendi at least half a dozen times since January. That’s a lot of personal terms.
For me it just saps all the excitement out of the transfer window. We all have a pretty good idea of who Arsenal might sign. That wasn’t the case as recently as 10-15 years ago. I remember when we signed Özil not so long ago. we had just beaten Spurs 1-0 the day before Deadline Day and Arsene Wenger was asked in his post-match interview if Arsenal had anything up their sleeve regarding late signings. Wenger, normally watertight and coy when it came to these things merely smirked and remarked, “Maybe we will have a surprise for you.” The next morning, we woke up to the news we were advancing on a deal for Mesut Özil and by the evening we had smashed our transfer record and Özil was a Gunner, sparking wild celebrations outside the Emirates. And this was only 12 years ago. social media did exist, but it wasn’t the phenomenon we know it to be now. That kind of thing would be very difficult to imagine happening now with all the constant non-updates we are bombarded with on social media.
Let’s say Arsenal pull of the signing of Rodrygo from Real Madrid. I think that one’s unlikely FWIW. Whilst it would spark a great deal of excitement within the Arsenal community, the chances are, we would all know about it at least some weeks in advance. Sometimes, the element of surprise is what makes these things so special to fans. I’m far too young to remember the days of transfer news being distributed to the masses via carrier pigeon or Morse code, but even in the last ten years our sources of transfer news has shifted a lot. Arsenalnewsnow was a big site back in my day. I remember one summer in particular when my friends and I were constantly refreshing the page to see if we had finally agreed a fee for Higuain/Benzema/Suarez (£40 million plus £1.50 perhaps?) or Draxler. We had not. Of course, Sky Sports News was the place to be for a lot of breaking transfer news back then but now that simply isn’t the case. It amuses me now seeing how much slower they are on the uptake than everybody else, constantly regurgitating information we’ve all known for weeks.
These days, as we all know, the place for transfer news is the cesspit we know as Twitter. Yes, it is 99% garbage, but when genuine news does break, it will break on Twitter first. But it becomes interminably dull, all this constant scrolling and refreshing in the vague hope we’ve signed someone. To be honest, I can’t be bothered with all that faff. The problem we have now is everybody will declare we are doomed if we haven’t signed 17 players by the second week of the transfer window. And obviously lots of people feed into it and you are left with a platform of doom-declaring doom scrollers and it all makes for a very unpleasant online environment. In many ways the most toxic part of the football season is when there isn’t any football at all.
But as I’ve mentioned, what is just as bad is the people who pretend to know things when they have no more idea than the rest of us. It seems people care more about gaining traction than being right. but we now live in an age in which opinion and speculation appear to be worth more than actual facts and reality, meaning it is incredibly easy to spread lies and misinformation and gain traction. Gaining lots of likes and retweets doesn’t make you right all it proves is you are a person with fingers and access to the internet. Or at least the address for an internet café. We see all sorts of information apparently from different sources regarding potential signings. Nearly all of them are made up. These are just some of the things I’ve read about Arsenal’s striker saga:
Sporting Lisbon President: We’ve told Arsenal we will only sell Gyokores for a minimum of 14 billion euros plus a lifetime supply of pastel de natas and a 50% discount for the Timeout Market. We are yet to hear back. Although we made the same offer to Man United and they said Luke Shaw was very interested in the TimeOut Market and asked if they do meat pies.
Gyokores: Please don’t make me go to Man United. I’ve got Gary Neville in my DM’s promising me a lifetime supply of Huel if I join. Personally, I think I’ll pass on half a decade of sneering, nasal manc pundits questioning my Pashun and Desiyah after every 3-0 loss at home to Bournemouth.
Gyokores’ Mum: I don’t care how much Arsenal decide to bid for my son, he’s going nowhere until he unloads the dishwasher, takes the chicken out of the freezer and folds his pants and puts them in the correct drawer instead of shoving them under the bed as usual. As if I won’t check there first.
Sesko’s evil identical twin brother: I promise you, I haven’t seen my brother anywhere. No, his body is not currently dissolving at the bottom of a septic tank. How dare you make such an unfounded accusation against me.
I am sure you were able to figure out, these quotes are indeed fake. I completely made them up which means they are every bit as true as 95% of what you read on Twitter. I, like you, have no intel on who we might sign. My prediction is we will sign some players between now and September and some of those players may even have two legs and two arms. Who knows? Over the years I have learned not to believe everything I read, and not to get drawn further into the inescapable rabbit hole of the Arsenalsphere of Eternal Doom with every day that passes. Maybe one day we’ll finally sign Julian Draxler, Steven Nzonzi and Yann M’villa.
In fact, as I was about to finish this article, I checked Twitter and it would appear that the lesser-spotted Martin Zubimendi is in London to have his medical. Don’t you just love it when a transfer just manufactures itself out of the blue? The magic of the transfer window has bestowed itself upon us at last!
The Sporting Lisbon President “quote” was gold! Thx vm, 21CG
As entertaining a close season read as one could ask for, 21CG.
Exhibit A:
https://dailycannon.com/2025/06/gyokeres-wants-arsenal/
LOL, 21CG
Very enjoyable 21CG . Your comment that the most toxic part of the football season is where there is no football at all is very true .
The problem is that signings are equated with success and a lack of signings is deemed to be failure . Liverpool fans were up in arms when they made only one signing last year (and a minor signing at that ) but they are ecstatic after a title win followed by the signing of Wirtz followed by Kerkess, Frimpong and possibly Guehi . They have a stronger squad because they showed restraint.
Having said that the Goonerverse craves a striker and until that craving is satisfied there will be tension magnified by all the silliness you describe so well . Best to let it play out
To take up TTG’s point, I do wonder whether the wailing and gnashing of teeth is not almost entirely the result of a need on the part of those people to have some form of control in lives lacking it in other areas, even if it is over something as ultimately unimportant as football. We all love the game and love our team. Our team has played some glorious stuff over the last few years and produced some fantastic highs. These are by their very nature ephemeral. It is childish to think you can live your life on a permanent dopamine high. Perhaps the immediacy of social media creates a form of addiction? In my day, the extent of social media was looking at the BBC Teletext pages for news. This quickly became very dull, due to the infrequency with which newsworthy events actually happen. Meaning we used to actually go out and, you know, interact with actual people in the actual world, having accepted our total lack of control over the news. This enabled us to work towards controlling the things in our lives which we could or wanted to. A bizarre inversion of normality.
The other thing we did was just to go out and play a bit of football.
Clery on Sesko
Top analysis as ever from Adam Clery. I really hope that Berta can make that move happen.
Good day for Santi Cazorla, he’s still got it
Thanks for that, Bath. I really like Clery, both stylistically and in terms of content. He actually talks a lot of sense. Sometimes you have to take his examples, such as the one showing the defenders apparently ignoring Rice and Merino, with something of a pinch of salt, or perhaps as indicators rather than full on exemplars.
I would imagine there will be quite large questions around Gyokeres were Clery to do a video on him, too. So on balance, I’d take the gamble on Sesko, for what little it’s worth.
CER, that’s kind of you but ’twas Ned who posted the link whom you should really be thanking.
Note to self: learn to read.
CER@12 – Exeter good at the Latin, not so hot at English comprehension eh? 😱
Enjoyed the Clery video . If we are looking to win the title in the next two years Sesko would be the third of my options . If we want a young prospect who might be worth a fortune in three years time I’d put him first . Gyokeres might be playing in a farmer’s league but he scores insane numbers of goals . Olly Watkins might be 29 but he is oven ready and cheaper .
I still remember him struggling in the Euros in all three games . He did nothing in any of those games that I thought was special . I won’t cry a river if we sign him but the other two are more likely to win us the title next year . I’m signing Gyokeres if I was given the choice . Which I never will be
C100@13 – Thay nevar tort us to komprahend nuffink.
TTG@14 – it’s a conundrum, for sure. Each of them is perhaps the best answer to a different question….So which question is the most important? Winning a major trophy this season? Continuing to build a deep and powerful squad? Ensuring we maintain a financial balance in terms of being able to sell better and thus raise funds to make the club self sustaining and competitive?
I guess that’s why Berta and Arteta are paid the big bucks.
All, we’re having some site issues due to trying to keep the same theme Dave used for goonerholic.com working since we started this site. WordPress, its plug-ins, and PHP have all moved well on in the last five years, and the theme has not been updated. As a result, every comment is now being moderated. Be patient, and we’ll release comments as we can get to them (we have folks in England and California working on keeping them flowing through to the site).
We are also working on updating to a current theme that comes close to matching this current look. Over the next couple weeks we’ll be working on it off-site, and when we have something that will keep us in the same ballpark visually we’ll port it over.
Thanks for your patience and understanding!
-The Editors and Tech Staff
Great work, Guys, thx vm for your efforts.
Wot CER said @17
I’m staying well away from transfer shenanigans, waiting for them to actually materialise.
In the meantime, why not read a nice article on Oviedo and Santi from the Grauniad, as linked by blogs this morning?
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jun/22/real-oviedo-promotion-la-liga-santi-cazorla
Another excellent contribution, 21CG. I’m not a twitterer and I’ve learned to ignore completely “Arsenal are interested in/have signed/having a medical/in London now….” headlines until they appear on A.com.
Having said that, I never pass up on a Clery video. I like him and his presentations and respect his perspective. I agree with him that Arsenal should buy Sesko (which, as I understand it, has been MA8’s viewpoint for a couples of years now). Clery did stimulate my interest in the other fellow by referring to him as (to my ear) Jock O’res. A good mixture of Scots and Irish blood in our centre forward is what we need.
Great work, by the way 21CG (now that I’ve finally taken the time to read it, safe in the knowledge it was a wise old article :-)).
Over the last few days I’ve read carefully selected articles (rather than click-bait) about our potential striker signings and I’ve come round to TTG@14’s point of view. At the end of the day I’ll be happy to support whomsoever Arteta, Berta and Kroenke Jr finally choose to buy but on balance I think that Gyokeres is now my preferred option. Sesko may have a higher ceiling but Gyokeres, despite the risk of the Gus Caesar effect (ref N. Hornby ca. 1982), is the most likely man to deliver the extra goals we need to convert all those draws into wins and deliver the league and or CL in the next couple of seasons.
It looks like the current issues with WordPress have killed the Drinks but that’s not the case, it’s simply that no-one has posted as there isn’t a single item awaiting moderation since my post @22 over 20 hours ago. Is everyone on holiday?
*Looks out door* Only tumbleweed. *Sighs*
In the meantime, the ITK commentariat have been portraying Sesko and/or his camp as greedy, demanding and self-serving and Real Madrid as making Rodrigo available for a king’s ransom because he’s a sulky, demanding, awkward customer.
Hey ho! I can’t imagine how overindulged, over rewarded and feted (or do I mean foetid) young men could turn out to be twats.
Meanwhile, silence from the Arsenal and the same speculative nonsense from the commentariat hopefully means that there is focused and determined activity behind the scenes.
I doubt we’ll see any significant transfer activity announced before the start of July. June 30 is the financial year end for the PL’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR), and also for most PL clubs (Arsenal’s financial year end of May 31 is uncommon). The bean counters — on both sides of potential deals — will be juggling their PSR balls with one eye on the calendar.
We have 2024-25 PSR headroom, but it is not infinite, and insufficient to buy a midfielder, a forward and a winger of the quality/prices being talked about without some nifty accounting footwork to structure the payments to remain PSR compliant. We will be in a much stronger position for the 2025-26 PSR season, thanks to our 2024-25 CL run.
>>>>>>>