Good morning all and happy Saturday! Tim Stillman here to take the reins this weekend until Andrew returns to his desk on Monday. While Andrew has been taking in pre-season in LA and Philadelphia, I have gone a little more low key (but no less glamorous). I am off to Lincoln today to see the Arsenal U23s (or ‘Arsenal XI’ as they are known during the summer for some reason) play at Sincil Bank.

I am only going because I have never been to Sincil Bank before and this will be ground number 70 of the 92 for me (the promotion of my local childhood club, Bromley, to League 2 this season bumped me up another one!) Anyway, I can cover that game off in tomorrow’s blog, which I am sure you absolutely cannot wait for.

The real place is to start is the confirmation of Emile Smith Rowe’s move to Fulham yesterday. The deal is reported to be around £27m with a potential further £7m in add ons and it is reported that Arsenal also hold a sell-on clause for the player too. The emotional impact of his departure hadn’t really dawned on me until now because, in my head, I have been fully expecting this for quite a while now and have thought that to be the best thing for the player and the club.

From Hale End to the first team. 55, 32, and then our number 10.

Once a Gunner, always a Gunner.

Thanks for the memories, Emile pic.twitter.com/lgWWKHJfIL

— Arsenal (@Arsenal) August 2, 2024

I still don’t really understand why Arteta and Arsenal insisted on his retention last summer, other than maybe they wanted some security against a big injury somewhere that just didn’t materialise. I think one of the things that Arsenal fans have probably struggled with is a lack of real explanation as to why Smith Rowe fell so far out of favour.

At first, many suspected his continued omission was fitness based. Then many of us have guessed that maybe ESR doesn’t have the physical or out of possession properties that Arteta wants, but we have never really had that confirmed in any serious way. That said, I do think Arteta’s comments about Smith Rowe have always contained an element of caveat or challenge.

Even after he won the Man of the Match award for his performance against Luton in April, Arteta said, ‘[I was pleased with] how physical he was today without the ball. He went into duels and won a lot of them and was thinking with that killer instinct to play forward and make things happen.’

Arteta wasn’t really asked about Smith Rowe’s physicality or how well he played forward but they were clearly things he had spoken about as development points with the player and that further suggests they were elements of Smith Rowe’s game that Arteta felt to be lacking.

Smith Rowe posted a tear jerking Instagram message to say goodbye and it was difficult not to feel sorry that his Arsenal career didn’t quite go the way many of us thought it would three or four years ago.

At the end of the 2017-18 season, I went to watch a few Arsenal FA Youth Cup games and it was solely because I had heard so much about Smith Rowe and wanted to see him for myself.

I went to Colchester to watch him play a youth cup tie there and it was very clear that he was several levels above everyone else on the pitch. Unfortunately he was carrying an injury in the final against Chelsea and could not show his best form and, in hindsight, that was to be a portent for his Arsenal career. Manchester City travel to Fulham on the final day of the season and it would be wonderful if Smith Rowe’s Arsenal legacy is not quite finished yet…

Another Hale Ender edging closer to an exit is Eddie Nketiah, who is clearly set on a move to Marseille. Fabrizio Romano reports that Nketiah and Marseille have agreed personal terms but that Arsenal knocked back a bid of around 27 million Euros yesterday. Whether it is the size of the fee or the structure of the payments that is the issue I am not sure but I strongly suspect that Marseille will come back with one more bid and it will probably do the trick.

He is clearly a big target for Marseille and the player must really want the move to have already agreed personal terms. I suspect Arsenal have knocked the bid back fully expecting Marseille to return with something closer to their valuation. The club rejected Fulham’s first bid for ESR and it looks like they have rejected two for Eddie from Marseille. It is heartening to see Arsenal stand their ground a little more in the market when it comes to valuation of their players.

There has been a lot of conjecture over whether or not Arsenal are good sellers. I think to be good sellers you first have to be good buyers and the club only really set on that path three years ago, there was always going to be a lag. But with good, homegrown players like Smith Rowe, Nelson and Nketiah available and maybe an international like Kiwior or Zinchenko, it does feel like the accusation of being bad sellers would have some foundation were they not able to secure good fees for those players.

For Eddie, he needs to leave to kickstart his career and it looks like he knows that too. Whether or not Marseille is the right club for him is a call for him to make but with Havertz, Jesus and Trossard as current options for the number 9 position and Nketiah just not quite having the all round game Arteta wants from a centre-forward, this one makes a lot of sense for player and club.

Eddie is 25, he isn’t a youth prospect any longer and any buyer pretty much knows what they’re getting, even if there is room for development with more regular football. I like Eddie, I think there have been a few times where I have written him off and he has proved me wrong. I think it is very clear he has worked on several elements of his game that were pretty much entirely missing when he was younger.

I get the impression he has worked very hard to try to make his Arsenal career work but now he wants to play more regularly- and so he should. He strikes me as a strong professional and I have a lot of respect for the way he has conducted himself and fought to make a career in North London. He is currently just short of Arsenal’s current level but that is hardly a disgrace. I hope he gets his move and shines.

Anyway, back to the current squad and they are now back from the U, S of A and preparing for a couple of games at the Emirates against Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday and Lyon on Sunday. This is where the pre-season starts to get really serious and probably transitions from physical tuning to physical and tactical tuning.

Declan Rice, David Raya, Aaron Ramsdale and Bukayo Saka all return to training this weekend and I imagine we will see those players from the bench on Wednesday with further involvement against Lyon. Rice and Saka in particular are such important players that I fully expect that Arteta wants them ship shape and in the starting line-up for the Wolves game on the opening day.

It looks as though the Smith Rowe money will be used to fund a move for Mikel Merino. At 28, he is very much a ‘for now’ signing and that suggests to me that Arsenal feel they are past the ‘building’ or ‘project’ phase and into the ‘it’s time to win now’ phase. I also think that Arsenal are responding to a pretty dry market.

I imagine if you cornered Arteta with a truth serum and a nice glass of Rioja, he would probably tell you that he would prefer to buy a younger, deep lying playmaker but probably just doesn’t see one on the market. This window reminds me a little of January 2023 when Arsenal brought in Jorginho, Trossard and Kiwior, floor raisers rather than ceiling raisers.

While last summer, we saw Rice, Havertz and Raya come in as players that Arteta probably expects to be regulars in the starting XI for the next 5-6 years, this summer feels a little more like we are replacing under used squad players with options that Arteta might actually use when they stakes are a little higher than ‘we are 5-0 up against Burnley with 10 minutes left.’

I also think we are underestimating the impact of the expanded Champions League with two extra group games from next season. That is going to place an even greater demand on the squad which means that we just can’t have players on 450 minutes a season taking up space. We also might have to get comfortable starting the odd game without a Saka or a Rice and if someone like Merino is more trusted to aid that than Smith Rowe then that is what needs to happen.

Anyway, I have a four pack and a train to Lincoln to catch, more from me tomorrow before Andrew returns on Monday!

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