Arsenal: Manchester United business was all too predictable

Arsenal successfully completed one of the only swaps in world football, and all of a sudden the two are best friends. Typical tabloids.

Arsenal’s transfer rumors are always going to be a source of entertaining rants. I haven’t had a go at them in awhile, so I figured it was long overdue. Let’s do this.

The Gunners had a skid for awhile when they sold a few players to rivals and it really sucked. That was over half a decade ago, though. As soon as those players were gone, similar moves were linked and talked about for the next two, three even four years. All because it seemed to follow a trend.

Nowadays, the most recent bit of Arsenal transfer activity is powering all of the most recent transfer rumors. Not exactly a surprise, but still kind of annoying.

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The Pierre-Emerick Aubaemyang stuff I’m fine with. We got him so we are naturally linked to Ousmane Dembele and everyone else Sven Mislintat has so much as sent a Christmas card to.

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But the other font of transfer rumors is just Manchester United. That’s it. There’s no saucing it up, because no sauce is necessary. Every other transfer rumor regarding the Gunners is also regarding Manchester United.

This all stems from the Alexis for Henrikh Mkhitaryan deal. As soon as that most unlikely of deals (a swap + Jose Mourinho? No way) happened, it unlocked a whole new world of transfer speculation that had, up until that point, only been poked at with a stick like a dead horse.

But now that it happened, go look at the rumors. Hector Bellerin to Manchester United. Matteo Darmian and Luke Shaw to Arsenal. It’s incredibly unlikely that any of these things happen and I’d wager that the only thing it’s based off is the “illustrious” transfer history between the two clubs.

The simple truth is that business between these two clubs has been stagnant since Jose Mourinho. The only reason the swap happened is because it fit this bizarre sweet spot where both clubs got exactly what was needed. There was no other currency needed because both walked away looking so much better than they previously were, as did both players.

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It was one hell of a sweet spot. And that’s it. These two clubs don’t have much of a track record together. Danny Welbeck and Robin van Persie. That’s it. It’s not going to be any more than it already is.