Arsenal: You just can’t buy in the local transfer market anymore

Arsenal have pursued English options for their transfer problems, but the ugly trend of stifling local prices makes it an unbearable pursuit.

Unfortunately, being in the Premier League, the players that Arsenal and fans see most often are the players that suit up in England. Obviously. Which is why people always don’t get quite as excited when we have to go buy someone from Ligue 1 when we had been linked to a Premier League talent.

But it’s gotten pretty stupid trying to buy local talent. And by pretty stupid, I of course mean really stupid.

Arsenal tried to get Wilfried Zaha. Crystal Palace asked for £80m. That in and of itself is ridiculous. Zaha is not that good of a player. But he’s established in England, so his price balloons.

When we reportedly offered £40m, Palace answered back that Zaha would actually cost £100m which, it doesn’t need to be said, is even more stupid. It’s so, so stupid. And it’s all because of where he plays, not who he is as a player.

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If he was putting up these numbers in the Bundesliga, he would cost £25m. But the Premier League quadrupled his value and as a result, unless another team succumbs to sheer stupidity, Zaha is going to be stuck at Palace for the foreseeable future.

Now, the Gunners are inked to West Ham’s Issa Diop and, true to form, the Hammers are asking for a perfectly reasonable £60m.

Only that isn’t perfectly reasonable. It’s just as stupid as what Palace are doing with Zaha. I get that they want to hold onto these players, and they don’t want to make it easy to acquire them, but the true problem here is that big clubs out there, with infinite money, have paid these prices before, so they are holding out to get the exorbitant price they want.

Which is why the Gunners won’t be buying any Premier League talent any time soon. Or ever. Because the transfer market is so grotesque and bulbous that there’s no way to find a deal that’s reasonable. Ryan Fraser was the closest, but it sounded like even he had his price going up every time we went in for a bid. And Harry Maguire for £90m?

That’s okay though. Let City and Bayern and the Spanish giants buy these bloated Premier League talents and let us pluck up the Matteo Guendouzi‘s out there and look the geniuses for it. I’m perfectly fine with that.