Arsenal: So West Ham get Pablo Fornals and we get bupkis?

Arsenal’s transfer window has stagnated before it even began. Meanwhile, West Ham are having no problem signing guys like Pablo Fornals.

This is a big transfer window for Arsenal. Arguably then biggest we’ve had in two decades. Unai Emery is going to have his chance to put together the team he wants to have in order to take the club forward and we need the club to back him and make some moves.

It all looked so promising early on. It looked like we’d have locked down several players by now, with Hakim Ziyech, Joachim Andersen, Dennis Praet and Yannick Carrasco all getting really close to making the move, and all for very modest prices in the £25m range. That’s about the price range that the club needs to stick to as they seen to bolster their attacking midfield options and their defense.

Which is why it’s all pretty confusing why West Ham have had zero problems whatsoever landing a target of ours, Pablo Fornals.

The deal was just announced for a fee of £24m. Raise your hand if you’re confused. If you need to know what I’m doing, I’m raising my hand.

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Fornals was touted as the next coming of Isco, and it’s easy to see why. In the past two years at Villarreal, he’s accounted for nine goals and 19 assists. To put that in context, Mesut Ozil has managed 11 goals and 15 assists in that time. And Ozil is supposedly the best in the world.

Fornals is 23-years-old with one of those “high ceilings” that we seem to talk so much about, and he fits exactly the role that the Gunners need most. He plays the role that Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan need to vacate this summer.

So why is it that Wast Ham had seemingly zero problems signing the exact kind of guy that we would have wanted, and have wanted in the past, while we are left twiddling our thumbs? Sure, it’s early, but if other teams are addressing their needs and signing players of the caliber that we would want, I have to start asking questions, even if I really don’t want to. We should have signed Pablo Fornals. Not West Ham. But something tells me we didn’t even try.

It’s starting to get a bit nervy, this transfer window. I’m trying to stay positive, and we all should, but when West Ham are signing the kinds of people we should be signing, I arch an eyebrow.