Forget Man United – why hesitant Arsenal were the real losers of the January transfer window

Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com 
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Visit Shots! now
Arsenal finished the winter transfer window without making any new signings - and that could be a costly mistake.

The transfer window has finally closed once more, and as the dust settles and we start to look forward to paying attention to some actual football, played on pitches with a ball rather than in boardrooms with a fax machine, we will finally get the chance to see how well all those new signings we’ve been salivating over can play.

Some teams will prove to have done smart business, others will seem to have shot themselves in the foot. There will be ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, as there are with every window, and the consequences of the many eight-figure decisions made over the past five weeks are about to be laid bare.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

If you were take a straw poll of Premier League fans to determine how content they were with their club’s business, one would suspect that the least happy might be those in the stands at Everton, who surely needed to bolster their squad in some fashion ahead of a likely relegation battle, or Manchester United, who signed Patrick Dorgu but otherwise failed to shape the squad to Ruben Amorim’s needs despite the fact that there is an obvious and considerable disconnect between his ideals and the players he has at his disposal.

Supporters of both sides have reasons to be concerned, but if there is one club that absolutely nobody could argue were ‘winners’ in the winter transfer window, it’s Arsenal, if only because it’s difficult to win anything when you refuse to take part in the first place. In going an entire month without making a new signing, the Gunners’ transfer team have abdicated their responsibility to make the best they can of another chance at silverware.

Arsenal stand still despite obvious faults

Arsenal supporters might observe that league leaders Liverpool didn’t make any moves either, but then Arne Slot’s side are at the top of their game and in a position where it could sincerely be argued that any new additions could cause disruption as easily as they might improve the squad. Liverpool have no obvious flaws. Arsenal do, and their apparent unwillingness to face them is baffling.

The failure to sign a new striker of any stripe may well come back to haunt Arsenal. It’s somewhat ironic that their need for a centre-forward was still exposed even as they smashed five past a beleaguered Manchester City side on Sunday – Kai Havertz eventually got his goal, but his persistent hesitancy inside the penalty area and palpable lack of self-belief in his own finishing was an obvious issue.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Arsenal scored five but should probably have scored seven or eight. In tighter matches, when the opposition don’t crumble and Thomas Partey’s shot doesn’t take a wicked deflection to change the psychological course of the game, the simple fact that Havertz is not a natural number nine will cost Arsenal points. And if they drop many more points, their slim shot at the title will go up in smoke for good.

Perhaps the fact that their odds of overhauling Liverpool are so slim could be presented as a defence of their inactivity. After all, one thing that is clear about the January transfer window is that deals tend to be more expensive and harder get over the line, and it’s not unreasonable that the club wouldn’t want to get taken to the cleaners by spending excessively on a player who couldn’t be expected to help them win the league until next season anyway – but there is a significant flaw with that logic.

While the Premier League title may well prove to be beyond their grasp, given that Liverpool have shown no meaningful signs of slowing down, other competitions remain within reach. A lethal goalscorer could be the difference between winning the EFL Cup and missing out, while the Champions League looks more open than usual this season.

Most of the more frequent challengers for Europe’s biggest prize are playing below par. Manchester City have been shambolic. Real Madrid lead La Liga but haven’t looked half as menacing as usual and have concerns over defensive depth. Bayern Munich aren’t quite the same dominant force that they have been in the Bundesliga, and PSG are firmly in transition, not that they ever win in Europe anyway. If ever there was a year in which a team from the second tier of continental competition (an impolite but fair assessment of Arsenal’s place in the grand scheme of things) could win the Champions League, this is it. A ‘genuine’ striker might have made all the difference – now we will never know.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Leaving Tel to Spurs seems a strange decision

Over the course of the past few weeks, the rumblings coming off the rumour mill hinted that the Gunners were finally ready to splash out on the striker they have craved since age caught up with Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. They wanted Viktor Gyökeres or Benjamin Šeško, the stories said, or maybe it was Mathues Cunha and Yoane Wissa who had caught their attention. They had the cash and the conviction.

Of course, they did have one crack at signing a striker, but to describe it as half-hearted would be generous. The notion that Aston Villa would sell Ollie Watkins for just £60m was optimistic at best and absurd at worst, especially as the move arrived after Unai Emery’s side had already agreed to let Jhon Durán leave for Al Nassr. The fact that they decided against a second, more serious bid almost suggested that the offer had b been for show as much as anything else.

In the end, they signed nobody. There may have been barriers to many of the conceivable signings, of course, but it is patently untrue to claim that all of them were impossible, not least because North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur eventually managed the coup of the transfer window by snapping up the prodigiously talented Mathys Tel.

Spurs had looked on track for an embarrassing window when first Tel and then Fikayo Tomori reportedly turned them down, but they were able to persuade Tel to make the transfer in the end and now have one of the most gifted players in Europe on their books despite a dire season.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Tel, at 19, probably would not have tipped the scales in the push for titles all that far had Arsenal signed him instead. He is inexperienced and for all his self-evident technical excellence, he has faults which will need time and good coaching to iron out. But imperfect though he may be, he is still dangerous (and utterly unhesitant) in front of goal and superb at finding and exploiting space in behind defences. He would have given Arsenal a dimension that they lacked, and his future seems set to be sparkling, but they opted not to proceed with the opportunity to sign him.

As the Gunners demurred, their rivals got their hands on a precocious player instead. Spurs will likely be better for his arrival in the short term and perhaps much better in the long run, while Arsenal will still be the same team – almost good enough to reach the top, but not quite. Even the observer who is most cynical about Tel’s future prospects would surely acknowledge that he is a more dangerous finisher than Havertz, and that at least one more option at centre-forward could have made a significant impact.

Arsenal are, in fairness to them, not the only team who could and should have done more over the course of January. Presumably Newcastle United had money to spend given that they were prepared to shell out £70m on Marc Guéhi in the summer, but despite having a dangerous lack of depth in their squad they too stood pat with a Champions League place on the line.

There is the sense with Newcastle that while they are a thoroughly decent team, they are only a couple of key injuries away from some serious difficulties. They sold Miguel Almirón and Lloyd Kelly but replaced neither, and a couple of tweaked hamstrings or taut calves could have an outsized effect on their chances of making the top four.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But Arsenal should have known better. For two consecutive years, they have been close but not close enough. They are within a hair’s breadth of silverware and of re-establishing themselves as a truly elite team, one that builds extensions to its trophy cabinets to make room for all the new arrivals. But they seem strangely hesitant to take the last roll of the dice required to get there, and strangely satisfied with their status as the Premier League’s nearly men. Until they become a little bolder, and until they finally find that striker, one suspects that their wait for a title will continue.

Comment Guidelines

National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.

Follow us
©National World Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.Cookie SettingsTerms and ConditionsPrivacy notice