It would not be the summer transfer window inside the Arsenal football sphere without, twists, turns, heartbreak, and elation all in one singular emotion that has yet to be scientifically defined. What more could you ask for?
Reports today from various outlets detail a narrowing transfer front for Gunners chiefs Mikel Arteta and Edu Gaspar after Arsenal has seemingly backed away from a move for Brighton starlet Moisés Caicedo, sending fans on social media into the typical diatribe of frustration and smatterings of calls for Edu to be on the chopping block.
Arsenal, however, has honed in on their main summer target in the vein of West Ham United captain Declan Rice, submitting a first bid (which was immediately rejected) and expected to follow up shortly with an improved offer that will likely come close to hitting the Hammers £100m valuation.
🚨Arsenal bid worth £100million for Declan Rice imminent. Mikel Arteta believes Rice wants to join as West Ham hope for bidding war. https://t.co/I6RgruQhKc
— Sami Mokbel (@SamiMokbel81_DM) June 15, 2023
In true Arteta and Edu fashion, another bit of potential summer business by Arsenal seemingly emerged out of nowhere yesterday when reports linked the Gunners with rapidly growing interest in German international Kai Havertz, plunging the fanbase into discourse surrounding not only what Arteta sees in the player, but more importantly, how he would slot into a budding Arsenal side ahead of what would be a possible £60m-plus move for the 24-year-old.
🎙️| @FabrizioRomano: “Kai Havertz and his agents gave the green light to Arsenal’s contract proposal. So Havertz is prepared to say ‘Yes’, personal terms will not be a problem, it’s about the final details. 90% of the personal terms are agreed. Conversations ongoing for Havertz… pic.twitter.com/9p6NdFGXPb
— Arsenal Buzz (@ArsenalBuzzCom) June 15, 2023
But what is clear to many, at least if you have resounding faith in the Spanish tactician on the back of his body of work that shows clear collective progression on the pitch as well as his penchant for developing players and extracting the maximum from them, is that Arsenal is at a phase in their project where incoming players are targeted for very specific reasons.
We saw this in the last two seasons surrounding moves for the likes of Martin Ødegaard, Aaron Ramsdale, Ben White, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Gabriel Jesus, and Oleksandr Zinchenko; players who were largely overlooked by the fanbase and their subsequent moves much-maligned for one reason or another.
As the process and project have evolved, each deal has come with the specific needs of the team in mind; not based on a role on a tactics board, but build around the qualities of the player and how that be added to a collective to offer further progression.
Perhaps the key is the money that Arsenal are willing to spend on both players holds too much sway with some. £100m for any player, regardless of their ability, is a risk in of itself. Rice, as good as he is as a midfielder, is not necessarily guaranteed to work; as we have seen time and again in football when talent alone does not mean a transfer will pan out.
Much of the same can be leveraged in the direction of Havertz perhaps even more so, after his turbulent period at Chelsea in the wake of a rapid rise at boyhood club Bayer Leverkusen that saw him billed as one of the brightest talents to emerge from Germany in decades. Should the club spend £60-£70m on a player who has not worked out in England for one reason or another? For many, arguably most of the fans, that answer is a resounding no.
Arteta and Edu, however, think such an outlay is justified. And in that light, on the back of their work at the Emirates, we should have a bit more faith.
When credible money has been spent on individual targets, those targets have delivered to the point where each of them – bar Tomiyasu on account of injury – has become absolutely vital to Arsenal’s way of life in the capital and tactical cornerstones both current and moving forward.
In Rice, Arsenal would be acquiring a player who, despite his age, has a wealth of experience enmeshed with the intangible quality of being a leadership figure. We saw this from him at West Ham, and residually so for England despite not wearing the armband under Gareth Southgate. Beyond that, his intelligence on the defensive side of the ball and patrolling central and half-spaces to expertly shield the back four is a dynamic that Arsenal saw in spurts from Thomas Partey (and still can), but Rice arguably elevates it to another level.
Those traits would not only likely further unlock the aforementioned Ødegaard should Rice expectedly be deployed in a deep-sitting role as a 6, but could well do the same for Havertz should he too arrive at a different corner of the capital.
Much of the misconception surrounding Havertz is that he is a center-forward, which is owed mostly to the experiment that was championed by former boss Thomas Tuchel on account of the German international’s superb understanding of space, running the channels, and considerable technical craft. But the crux of the problem at Stamford Bridge came in the vein of tactics that did not bring out those qualities, and instead, suffocated a player with central overloads that stripped any chance, or space, to excel.
At his core, and during his rapid rise in the Bundesliga, Havertz was central to Leverkusen’s way of operating in transition and going forward in an albeit more counter-attack-based system. But for all of Arsenal’s possession, the Gunners are experts at counter-attack play and can drive at the heart of the opposition due to a high press that so often causes mistakes in the defensive and middle thirds of the pitch.
Moreover, Havertz’s tactical flexibility could see him reborn as a central threat as a hybrid 8/10 alongside Martin Ødegaard who has undergone a similar metamorphosis, with the Norwegian captain no longer being a dedicated attacking midfielder as Arsenal has shifted more and more to a 4-3-3 rather than a strict 4-2-3-1.
At the end of the day, it may be too simplistic of a position to take, but truthfully, the buck stops at Arteta. If the Arsenal boss sticks his neck out for players at a certain price point, he not only intends to use them but use them in a manner that will get the very best out of them. We’ve seen it before, and I think we will once again.
