Gyokeres hijack by clown car Man Utd amid stunning Liverpool deal would be disaster
Always a dangerous place to be in this game when you find yourself in broad agreement with Richard ‘Keysey’ Keys.
We are slightly in awe of the great man’s ability to take a perfectly reasonable and valid position and smash it to pieces with his trademark subtle deployment of absolute certainty and wild hyperbole, but however much we try, it’s still hard to take too much issue with the central thrust of his latest pronouncement to the masses.
If Arsenal don’t get this Gyokeres deal done they’ll regret it for ever. He’s top class. He’d be the difference between finishing 2nd again – or winning it. Isn’t that worth an extra £10m? What are they doing?
Textbook Keysey. We love the way he almost makes it sound like a threat with the sheer melodrama of ‘they’ll regret it for ever’. And the binary certainty of Arsenal’s only two possible outcomes – signing Gyokeres and winning the league or not signing Gyokeres and finishing second – is classic Keysey.
Even second doesn’t exactly look nailed on, does it? In the ‘regret it for ever’ scenario? Fantastic that nothing happening at Chelsea or Man City is allowed to enter the tunnel-vision certainty of Keysey Making A Point.
Anyway, having self-indulgently dispatched the wily fish hiding in that particular tweet barrel, let us remember and acknowledge that there really is a very solid point behind all that nonsense.
What, in fact, are Arsenal doing?
We like to think we’re ever so slightly more allowing of subtlety and nuance here, and will allow all manner of caveats about how we obviously know nothing of the behind-the-scenes difficulties that exist in the minutiae of any transfer.
But come on. This is just fannying for fannying’s sake now, surely? This is a transfer that Arsenal can obviously afford, for the most final-piece-in-the-puzzle signing imaginable at any Premier League club, a transfer for which the player himself is overwhelmingly keen and to which now the only major obstacles appear to be Arsenal themselves and clown-car banter club Man United still hanging around and honking their horn as the bumper falls off the car, which despite being small is able to seat an unimaginably large collection of unwanted yet seemingly unsellable bomb squad players.
Clearly, chucking unnecessary money at a transfer is not necessarily wise or the best course. But there also must come a time when stubbornly continuing to argue and haggle over the structure of a few million pounds in payments becomes self-defeating. Even if you get the deal at the price/structure/whatever you initially wanted, is it still the best deal if that player – one so obviously vital to Arsenal’s whole season plan – doesn’t arrive until deep into pre-season?
The campaign is now less than a month away. It is already reason enough to stop counting every penny in a transfer of this importance.
Unlike Keysey we cannot be certain that Gyokeres will prove to be the silver bullet Arsenal have been searching for. There are no certainties in the transfer game, and Gyokeres is undeniably costly for a player unproven in Europe’s top leagues.
But there are more reasons to suppose he is precisely what Arsenal require. Precisely what Arsenal have required for years now. And there can be no suggestion Arsenal haven’t done due diligence. Whatever else Arsenal’s pursuit of that long-awaited and obviously-needed striker could be accused of being, let nobody accuse them of being rushed or hasty.
Comparing one transfer to another is another risky business, because no two deals are the same, but it’s impossible not to notice the alacrity with which Liverpool have moved on to and apparently secured the signing of Hugo Ekitike from Eintracht Frankfurt in their own release-clause-adjacent striker pursuit.
Yes, it’s unfair to compare the two very different deals. And we’re not saying Arsenal should have gone for Ekitike either, especially with the Emirates being surely the most unforgiving place a Temu Thierry Henry could attempt to succeed.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t adding to the frustration for Arsenal fans. They were already playing catch-up and watching Liverpool address what is for them a secondary issue while Arsenal are still doing some sums on their most important bit of business since signing Declan Rice cannot be helping.