Arsenal: Hakim Ziyech gazzumps Joachim Andersen

Arsenal had some brilliant ideas to start the summer, but they’ve failed in both pursuits. Hakim Ziyech takes the cake, though, so let us mourn.

I don’t often get angry about Arsenal not signing a player. I mean really, what’s the point? There are so many players out there, so many opportunities, and at the end of the day, it’s pointless to get angry over something I have no control over.

That said, there are certain missed opportunities that will ruffle my proverbial feathers, and the Gunners are really chalking them up.

I said at the start of the season that £45m would be just fine. All we needed to do was sell a guy or too to get that up to £70m-ish and we’d be fine. One good centerback, one good attack and a leftback was all we really needed on this slim budget.

The names that started then summer all looked great. Joachim Andersen, a centerback solution for £20m, how can you say no? But the Gunners did. They said a big ol’ no.

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That ruffled my proverbial feathers once. But outright saying no to Hakim Ziyech may be the closest to actual anger I get over a missed transfer because there is absolutely no sense in it whatsoever. Not when you have rumors of Nicolas Pepe and Wilfried Zaha, both of whom are twice as much as Ziyech was, have worse numbers than Ziyech, and haven’t expressed so much interest in playing at the Emirates.

Really though, £35m for a player of Ziyech’s abilities is a complete and total steal, and the fact that he’s a Gooner makes it a no-brainer. He’s already got a love for the badge before he even puts it on.

But no, the higher-ups at the club have deemed it unfit, despite a willingness to bid a rumored £40m on Zaha, so it’s not like they aren’t willing to spend the funds, they just aren’t willing to spend them on Ziyech, and that’s what gives me so much cause for frustration. What is it about him that they could possibly find so unappealing? Goals, prime years, low cost, Gooner, it all lines up for the perfect solution to a critical problem.

Yet here we are, not even midway through July, and the move has already been declared off because of an apparent and inexplicable lack of interest in Hakim Ziyech’s services. Someone help me here…