Wednesday 27 July 2016

Why Chelsea And Not Arsenal Will Sign £45m-Rated Riyad Mahrez

Arsenal have, in the last few days, been linked with the signing of Riyad Mahrez and I doubt there are many Gooners who will not be happy to see the Gunners sign the Leicester City midfielder. Mahre,z in my opinion, is a big upgrade on Theo Walcott and his signing will significantly improve the current Arsenal team.


I personally believe Arsenal would have won the league last season if there was someone who was scoring more goals than Giroud ( 16 goals ) and Sanchez ( 13 goals ). Walcott scored 6 goals, which is certainly not good enough. Compare Walcott's 6 goals last season and Mahrez's 17 and the difference becomes glaring to everyone.

Reports claim we are the favourites for the signature of the Algerian, but the reports also claim Chelsea are interested in the player. However, after reading Gazidis' interview today, I strongly believe Chelsea and not Arsenal will sign the highly-rated and versatile midfielder.

"We can't afford to outgun competitors that have far more money. We have to be very careful, very selective," Gazidis told the New York Times.

That says it all. If the interest from Chelsea is genuine, we Arsenal fans might as well give up as Arsenal WON'T try to outbid Chelsea. The Blues have enough money to spend and, as the last few seasons have shown, Arsenal have their own valuation of every player and do not attempt to go past what they perceive to be the worth of each of their targets. This has happened many times and it is looking like it will happen again this summer.


Looking at Arsenal's balance sheet, we certainly can compete in the transfer market but, for whatever reason, we have chosen not to. Curiously, it was not too long ago that the same Ivan Gazidis told Arsenal fans that the club can afford to sign any player bar Ronaldo and Messi.

"We get a list of the players that Wenger wants. On the list is a centre forward, but I'm not going to tell you who he is.

"You've got to get the other team to want to sell him, but I think he wants to come. It basically comes down to whether the other team can find a superstar to replace him, because they don't have to sell.

"Money was tight when we moved to the Emirates but it's a lot freer now. In the accounts, there's over £200m in the bank. You could say to Arsene we've got no money and he wouldn't worry, or you could give him £100m and he might not spend it.

"We would back him to break the club's transfer record. If he wanted the man, he could have him. Apart from Messi and Ronaldo, he could have any player."

The above quote was made in 2015. Since then we have signed Welbeck for £16m, Elnenny for £5m, Xhaka for £35m, Petr Cech for £10m and Rob Holding for £2m. That's a total of £68 million spent since 2015. That figure of a £68m transfer outlay doesn't take into account the players that have left and brought in hefty transfer fees. That figure also does not take into account that Arsenal have earned more money from the Champions League and are getting, according to reports, a minimum of £100 million from the new TV deal.


In 2015, we had over £200 million in the bank, according to Gazidis, of which only £68 million was spent on transfers. Now we will have another £100+ million from the new TV deal. This means we still have roughly £132 million to spend if we so wish. However, Gazidis says we can't compete for a player who is reportedly available for £45 million.

It is obvious Arsenal are not ready to spen. It is not as if we are broke. It is even more curious that the club are always telling us that we have so much money to spend before season ticket renewals, but we all of a sudden become paupers when season tickets are renewed and the transfer window is fully open.

6 comments:

  1. Shame on you for letting another one slip through the net. Why of why would you not try to wrap up the deal before the Euros. If you pulled your finger out prior to it you would have landed Mahrez at an affordable price - and he wanted to come to Arsenal. Now you can drool over him while watching him outstrip opposing defences for Chelsea (not even a Champions League team). How pathetic!

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    1. pETER ... yES cHELSEA Is not a Champions league Team, of course due to bad performance....but History saye you never even reached the Quarter finals until 2006 and the only time you reached the final was in the Movie 'Goal II'...LOL...

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  2. Mahrez has 3 years on a contract left with the champions and no release clause. Every player has a price though even if the foxes don't need the £75m he would cost.

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  3. I really dont think we have been interested in him at Chelsea. We already got an abundance of right wingers. What we want is an out n out striker to partner Costa. Hes a good player but as hes only had 1 good season was it because of the team in general and players with him? Maybe best to go for him next season after staying with Leicester another year.

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  4. This is beyond a joke now. Time after time and they can't see this is affecting the future fan base of our club if not already. 12 years with no title, okay 2 fa cups otherwise sweet f.a. I am sure we are loosing fans to other clubs who do get the stars and do suceed. After 12 years of this we have probably lost nigh on a genration of young fans to other clubs because they give the something to celebrate, we don't. If this isn't fixed soon arsenal will go into major decline and cease to exist as a top club. Really are they that blind and naive?

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  5. This thing about Arsenai's interest in Mahrez looks to me a creation of the media. I don't think Wenger will fork out 40m for a player in a position that is not that critical. That would be very unlike the way Arsenal operate. I think, and I hope, efforts and resources will be concentrated on a striker and CB because of injuries to Welbeck and now Mert. If you read Wenger's lips, he wants to give a chance to the young players in the team. And I feel that, bar injuries, this may be a big season for the younger Alexes (Ox and Iwobi). Wenger will not want to scuttle that with Mahrez.So Chelski can have him if they want..

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