Arsenal
Guide to surviving the transfer window
By Jonny Kipper
June 12 2025
Let me tell you about the time I accidentally created one of the most laughable transfer rumours you're likely to find, a rumour so nonsensical that it perfectly sums up the summer transfer window. And when I say I created it, I literally mean the manager of the club in question was asked about it in a press conference. This wasn't a silly little Twitter rumour; it generated interest in the world of football and at one point this player was even odds-on to join the club, according to Bet Victor. It may not have been odds-on actually, but he was definitely favourite to join this particular team - and all because of me.
I used to write about football and you can imagine the summer transfer window was our busy time. And we were judged - and kind of paid - depending on how many hits and clicks our articles got. I was pretty good at crafting headlines and if you had a really good headline for an opinion article that made no sense, you'd write it up anyway because, again, you're looking for people to click into it. All you needed was something very tenuous to link it together.
Like if I was still doing the job now I'd probably write an opinion article on why Arsenal should sign Kevin De Bruyne just because of the Manchester City connection and the fact you could headline it like this: 'Arsenal can now sign star who once pushed Mikel Arteta', in reference to the fact he shoved Arteta at the Emirates a few years ago.
This headline would bang in a major way. A lot of people would click into it. The 'can now' part implies it could actually happen, without breaking News Now rules, and there's a million little language tricks like that you learn to embellish headlines, to make opinion articles look a lot more credible from the headline end.
Back in 2016, I wrote an OPINION article about why Rangers should sign Robin van Persie. I can't find said article any longer so I can't remember what tenuous link I used to connect him and Rangers, but I think he was released by Fenerbahce at the time and Rangers, after being promoted back to the top tier of Scottish football, were sort of flying high again and there was a bit of buzz about them. When asked about it in a press conference, then-Rangers manager Mark Warburton said: "These stories do entertain me. I don't know where these things come from. I'm sure someone is laughing somewhere."
I know exactly how it started.
So I wrote my OPINION piece on why Rangers should sign Robin van Persie. Because I had a good headline, it did good numbers and eventually a Turkish website [I think Fanatik or one of these big Turkish sites] stumbled across it and due to the language barrier, interpreted my OPINION article as a transfer exclusive. And in the world of online football journalism, the ratio of sites that attribute sources in transfer articles to those that don't is literally 1:20. Most do not link to the original source. Fanatik or whoever it was did not link to my article. They ran it as their own transfer report. And then The Daily Record or The Scottish Sun see their copy and go, 'F*ck me look what's been reported in Turkey. Van Persie to Rangers! Then they pick it up. Then the bookmakers create a market for it. And then voila, it's a rumour. That's when the manager - Mark Warburton - gets asked about it in a press conference.
And this perfectly typifies the carnage and tail-chasing that is the summer transfer window.
What a lot of football fans don't realise about this time of the year is that transfer business is a business. Not just for the clubs in the Premier League, who splashed a combined £2.08 billion on transfers last summer, but it's also massive business for the endless amount of media outlets reporting on the transfers.
There is an insatiable demand for transfer-related content and that's why you see such a rich supply of it during the summer. It's because revenue goes through the roof for these websites from May to September, which is important because the hits plummet during international breaks and there's three of these relatively close together after the window shuts.
From a business perspective, you have to squeeze every drop of revenue out of the summer months to weather the storm that comes in September, October and November, before the rumour mill starts motoring again in time for January.
Again, it's a business.
Somebody is making money out of the Alejandro Garnacho to Arsenal rumour. Whether it's a young journalist on a pay-per-click agreement or the website that's getting huge traffic - and a spike in revenue - as a result, somebody, somewhere, is making money off it.
Once you realise it's a business, you must start treating every rumour like it's someone's attempt to make money rather than a scoop from a real journalist like David Orsntein. And that's another thing. You can't avoid soundbites from people like Ornstein and Fabrizio Romano and 100s of others during this time of the year because, like the websites, they make extra money too. They are paid guests on Sky Sports, other football shows, podcasts etc. These outlets aren't paying for them directly; they're paying to be able to put their name on their headlines, which in turn leads to more traffic. Which leads to more money.
The summer transfer is a carousel of carnage, lies and attempts to profit and it's going to be such a long summer for us as Arsenal supporters if we're treating everything that the rumour mill churns out as fact.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:07:06:14:51:42 by Padre Pio.
It's best to stick to tier 1 sources like Ornstein and Kebabshop but we all love a bit of transfer drama. Getting linked with a new player is exciting although 99% of the rumours are nefarious.
If we don't sign those attacking players this riot we should get together and write a strongly worded email to the club.
Ignore everything 'till the signature is on the contract.
(Then usually mutter, under my breath, ffs why ?) ๐
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:06:12:18:27:34 by blueamada.
But GS1 probably has newsnow Arsenal as his homepage.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Quote:Padre Pio
I remember checking for Reyes and Arshavin the same way.
I was doing similar during the Ozil transfer.
The article clearly shows the nonsense of the transfer window. All the terms that have now become commonplace with transfer reporting, concrete talks, exploratory conversations, nearing completion, fee agreed, deal progressing.....yawn!
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
They used to say that religion was the opium of the people, but now its definitely football.
Case in point, during covid, they very quickly realised that to improve public morale, they needed to get the football back on. I remember watching Hertha Berlin in an empty silent stadium on TNT sport and feeling that things were getting back to normal again. Of course, they werent. But it gave us all something to talk about again.
As evidenced by this forum, people are perfectly happy to talk about things that definitely wont happen, or almost certainly wont happen. Because it keeps us all busy and gives us something to do. And the media has tapped RIGHT into that. I'm as guilty as anyone in supporting this, because I drive a lot of miles each week (600 last week I think) and listen to Talk Sport. Since the season was pretty much over competitively by April, they have had to find things to talk about other than the football results. Literally HOURS if not DAYS were spent talking about Trent Alexander Arnold. Should he have been BOOED, or should he not have been BOOED. Then theres been probably about a solid month of debate about big Ange. Should he be SACKED, should he NOT be SACKED. Literally the same discussion over and over and over again. But thousands if not millions of people listen to it.
I'll always remember this kid on Arsenal TV about 8 years back, who used to stand there and be interviewed entirely seriously about who the next Arsenal manager would be. He was absolutely convinced it as going to be Allegri and spoke as if he had direct contacts within Juventus. He didnt, of course, he was a complete fantasist, and everything he said turned out to have not a single element of truth to it, but nobody called him out on it, he had his 15 minutes of fame and everyone was perfectly happy to watch him (well, not everyone, but you get my drift). There doesnt have to be any truth to a transfer rumour, it can be completely made up. All that matters is that people find it interesting enough to talk about, and fill the phone ins and internet forums. Its all very very odd really isnt it.
Quote:mapleleafgooner
Who is Jonny Kipper?
I think its a nom de plume mate. A mystery contributor. Which makes things all the more exciting.
Quote:regularjohn
I like this article. I wish I had had the time to write something similar myself.
They used to say that religion was the opium of the people, but now its definitely football.
Case in point, during covid, they very quickly realised that to improve public morale, they needed to get the football back on. I remember watching Hertha Berlin in an empty silent stadium on TNT sport and feeling that things were getting back to normal again. Of course, they werent. But it gave us all something to talk about again.
As evidenced by this forum, people are perfectly happy to talk about things that definitely wont happen, or almost certainly wont happen. Because it keeps us all busy and gives us something to do. And the media has tapped RIGHT into that. I'm as guilty as anyone in supporting this, because I drive a lot of miles each week (600 last week I think) and listen to Talk Sport. Since the season was pretty much over competitively by April, they have had to find things to talk about other than the football results. Literally HOURS if not DAYS were spent talking about Trent Alexander Arnold. Should he have been BOOED, or should he not have been BOOED. Then theres been probably about a solid month of debate about big Ange. Should he be SACKED, should he NOT be SACKED. Literally the same discussion over and over and over again. But thousands if not millions of people listen to it.
I'll always remember this kid on Arsenal TV about 8 years back, who used to stand there and be interviewed entirely seriously about who the next Arsenal manager would be. He was absolutely convinced it as going to be Allegri and spoke as if he had direct contacts within Juventus. He didnt, of course, he was a complete fantasist, and everything he said turned out to have not a single element of truth to it, but nobody called him out on it, he had his 15 minutes of fame and everyone was perfectly happy to watch him (well, not everyone, but you get my drift). There doesnt have to be any truth to a transfer rumour, it can be completely made up. All that matters is that people find it interesting enough to talk about, and fill the phone ins and internet forums. Its all very very odd really isnt it.
It's a good article written by the man with no name.
Thank God that 8yr old's wishes didn't come true. Allegri would have been terrible for us. I prefer Arteta.
I might go back to Newsnow Arsenal and check for 'Rodrygo to Arsenal' articles. He's the winger we should sign. Can play both left and right.
Quote:regularjohn
I like this article. I wish I had had the time to write something similar myself.
You do have time. You need to put down the cans of Stella and write us an article. The people of Arsenal Times demand it.
We're open to articles from all of our beautiful posters. Feel free to send them over to myself or Padre.
Monitoring?
Assessing?
Initial talks?
Concrete talks?
Promising talks?
Keeping informed
Mulling over a bid?
Frozen talks?
Deal progressing?
What a load of nonsense it all is.
Quote:Flava
Where are we at with our transfer dealings at the moment:
Monitoring?
Assessing?
Initial talks?
Concrete talks?
Promising talks?
Keeping informed
Mulling over a bid?
Frozen talks?
Deal progressing?
What a load of nonsense it all is.
What an utterly bizarre post given your comments 1 or 2 day's ago.
We'll say he was always out number 1 target.
Plus we'll get loans.
We aren't a big club.
"๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐. ๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐ฑ, ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด."
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2025:06:17:12:25:04 by Boston Gooner.
Quote:GS1Quote:Flava
Where are we at with our transfer dealings at the moment:
Monitoring?
Assessing?
Initial talks?
Concrete talks?
Promising talks?
Keeping informed
Mulling over a bid?
Frozen talks?
Deal progressing?
What a load of nonsense it all is.
What an utterly bizarre post given your comments 1 or 2 day's ago.
It's not bizarre at all. The post isn't a dig at the club, it's at the reporting
Quote:Flava
Where are we at with our transfer dealings at the moment:
Monitoring?
Assessing?
Initial talks?
Concrete talks?
Promising talks?
Keeping informed
Mulling over a bid?
Frozen talks?
Deal progressing?
What a load of nonsense it all is.
Fishwives' haggling over the last penny with buyer negotiating the terms of payment stretching over a lengthy period whereas seller wanted one lumpsum payment.
Quote:BG
We aren't a big club.
Team who made it into the Semi Final of the CL and has finished 2nd in the Premier League is not a big club......what a ridiculous thing to say!
You can think we're not acting like a big club because we haven't signed anyone by the 17th June but we are a big club
Quote:Flava
.......................we are a big club
Not the biggest but certainly not small..............
[www.transfermarkt.us]
#......Club.................................................Competition.................................Market Value
1......Real Madrid........................................Spain LaLiga.......................................โฌ1.33bn
2......Manchester City................................England Premier League...............โฌ1.32bn
3......Arsenal FC...........................................England Premier League...............โฌ1.09bn
4......FC Barcelona......................................Spain LaLiga.......................................โฌ1.07bn
5......Paris Saint-Germain.........................France Ligue 1...................................โฌ1.06bn
6......Chelsea FC..........................................England Premier League...............โฌ1.06bn
7......Bayern Munich.................................Germany Bundesliga.......................โฌ903.50m
8......Liverpool FC......................................England Premier League................โฌ867.50m
9......Tottenham Hotspur........................England Premier League................โฌ766.10m
10....Inter Milan.........................................Italy Serie A.........................................โฌ721.80m
Quote:Flava
Where are we at with our transfer dealings at the moment:
Monitoring?
Assessing?
Initial talks?
Concrete talks?
Promising talks?
Keeping informed
Mulling over a bid?
Frozen talks?
Deal progressing?
What a load of nonsense it all is.
Maybe the club are monitoring online posts, to see which signings would appease the fans. If we sign Sesko, some fans would be happy, if we sign Gyokeres, some fans would be angry. Clearly there is no margin for error in this window.
Some fans would be pisse.d if we keep Trossard.
Keep Trossard, Keep Partey, add Zubi, Kepa, Sesko and Rodrygo and let's go. We were all hyped when we signed Alexis Sanchez and Ozil from Barcelona and Real Madrid. The club will do something before the season starts.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Quote:Padre Pio
The season had started before Club signed Ozil. He was party of a clearance sale and never really fitted. Yes he some good games and scored some great goals but was hardly transformative.
The only real transformative signings we had were Bergkamp, Henry and Vieira. And Pires Ljungberg. Yet they only scored around 12 goals in the league.
It was the all round play that made that team work.
Sure that's what the club are working towards. Under Arteta.
Quote:Padre Pio
The season had started before Club signed Ozil. He was party of a clearance sale and never really fitted. Yes he some good games and scored some great goals but was hardly transformative.
He was transformative in some ways. It put an end to selling every asset we had without appropriately replacing them. It was signal that we could spend
Quote:mapleleafgoonerQuote:Flava
.......................we are a big club
Not the biggest but certainly not small..............
[www.transfermarkt.us]
#......Club.................................................Competition.................................Market Value
1......Real Madrid........................................Spain LaLiga.......................................โฌ1.33bn
2......Manchester City................................England Premier League...............โฌ1.32bn
3......Arsenal FC...........................................England Premier League...............โฌ1.09bn
4......FC Barcelona......................................Spain LaLiga.......................................โฌ1.07bn
5......Paris Saint-Germain.........................France Ligue 1...................................โฌ1.06bn
6......Chelsea FC..........................................England Premier League...............โฌ1.06bn
7......Bayern Munich.................................Germany Bundesliga.......................โฌ903.50m
8......Liverpool FC......................................England Premier League................โฌ867.50m
9......Tottenham Hotspur........................England Premier League................โฌ766.10m
10....Inter Milan.........................................Italy Serie A.........................................โฌ721.80m
Once upon a time, ManU was battling Real Madrid for uno numero.
What happened?
Summer is a great time to leave your phone at home and visit places.
Arsenal Times | [www.gov.uk]
Bartle Bull "Land between Rivers" - 5,000 Years History of Iraq
Moudhy AL-Rashid "Between Two Rivers" - Ancient Mesopotamia and Birth of History".
Paula Fredriksen "Ancient Christianities" - The First 500 Years.
The Father of Many - Abraham, 1800 BC
(The Book of Genesis calls the man Abram.)
In about 1900 or 1800 BC, a Sumerian set off on an epochal quest.
'Get thee out of thy country," the man's god tells him, "and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee."
The man from Ur obeyed the divine call without question.
His trek would lead him to a land called Canaan and a posterity in which his various descendants - Jews, Christians and Muslims - would be as countless as the dust on the ground of the Middle East.
... ...
When Abram laments he is still childless, God makes him a fourth promise of a great lineage, this time as numerous as stars in heaven. ... a forewarning from God that there will come a time when Abraham's "seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs."
.....
Hagar, an Egyptian serving girl, impregnated by Abraham, borne Ishmael - ish for "man" and mael meaning "from God". But he will be a "wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him," and between him and his kin relations will be violent.
Before sending off the half-wild Ishmael off, however, Abraham receives a promise from God that Ishmael too, will found a "great nation". According to Muslim tradition, Ishmael - son of Ibrahim, as Abraham is known in Arabic - then fathers the Arab people.
............................
Sadly, that "5,000 Years of Iraq History" or Old Testament or Torah is still being play out in 21st Century started by Abraham "But he will be a "wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him," and between him and his kin relations will be violent."
History is interesting.
Now, how will those Persians relate to Abraham's descendants?
Perhaps Trump 2.0 is that "Harlot of Babylon" signaling start of WWIII?
Quote:Jonny Bravo
No, if I dont get at least 5 hits a day of Vitamin "Here we go" my summer is ruined.
Narrative Bravo strikes again!
So much for reasoned debates that you tried to inform us should be taken place on this forum - Just a suggestion. If you're going to tell everyone else what to do make sure you follow suit!
The author got it spot on that the reason most transfers seemed like drawn out sagas is that someone actually started an unsubstantiated rumour (months and even years before the club even consider them). It could be started deliberately by their agents or many by fans with their wish lists.
Does anyone remember for certain what was the longest drawn out transfer (which then actually happened) for us? No point talking about which didn't happen. The names would not fit a book.
I remember checking websites daily when we and Man U were going head to head for Kevin Hofland, who at that time was the most sought-after defender with Real Madrid also keen. He never did became the player everyone thought he would be though.
Quote:GS1Quote:Merlion96
Nope.
Interesting views from you.
Thanks Merl.
Yep.
Got to say what you think.
"๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐. ๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐ฑ, ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด."
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