Arsenal: There seems to be a theme to all these transfer rumors

Arsenal are always reportedly on a tight transfer budget, which is probably why all of these transfer rumors are starting to look the exact same.

Arsenal have some important business to do this summer. It shouldn’t even really be a lot of business, if they don’t want it to be. It just depends on how well they manage selling their dead weight, and if they’ll be bolstered by a bonus for Champions League qualification (spoiler alert: they will).

Whatever the case, the media, like the school of like-minded fish they are, are all following the same narrative, apparently agreeing that the Gunners are mostly in the business of players that will be cheap. Cheap, as in free.

So many free players have been linked to the Gunners this year, including but not limited to Antonio Valencia, Joe Aribo and now Ander Herrera. And that’s only in the last couple of weeks. Because apparently the best this club can do is pick at the scraps, since they can’t afford anything else.

It’s a dull narrative, honestly, because no one knows what kind of transfer budget this club is going to have available in the summer, because we’ve never had a summer like this before. Not even last summer was like this, because we didn’t have Champions League football and it was a well-established transition year.

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This coming summer is something else. And therefore it’s silly to follow what the club has done in the past because the past no longer matters in this brand new era at Arsenal Football Club.

It’s being said that we will only have £40m available without Champions League football, and twice that with it. Both are remarkably small numbers, but neither is verifiable. And the dollar amount doesn’t really matter, seeing as how we did excellent business last summer for less than £80m.

That’s not to say all free transfers are inherently bad, they just aren’t the kinds of transfers to inspire fans – usually. Unfortunately, they can’t all be flesh and blood tanks like Sead Kolasinac, who I’m still convinced is the greatest free transfer ever.

Some end up like Stephan Lichtsteiner, without anywhere to really go.

But at the end of the day, this narrative that the Gunners won’t have any money is dull and it’s old. All of these outlets are following the same lead and it’s not like they know any more than you or I.