Arsenal: Let’s talk about these transfer rumours

The latest ridiculous transfer rumour to surface has Arsenal signing Ousmane Dembele. In the current climate, it’s time to have a chat about these transfer rumours and consider what the club can realistically do.

You may or may not have realised, but there is not much going at present. The COVID-19 pandemic has put a rather sudden and extended half to sport around the world. And the Premier League and Arsenal are no different.

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But that does not mean that sports media stops. As a ‘member’ of it, I can tell you the desperation for content is real. I spent the majority of my weekend researching players that Arsenal will likely never sign, watching full games of Axel Disasi to see who the Gunners might be signing.

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As a result, even though we are not currently in a transfer window, and there is no transfer window scheduled until the end of the current season that is not set to recommence before June and will take the best part of two months to complete from that point, the rumour mill keeps on whirring, churning out links to get clicks — we, here, are sometimes guilty of it, too, though we always try our best to only comment on rumours that have previously been reported and do so in a manner that is not reporting news but writing about the impact of that potential news.

The latest rumour to surface comes from Sport and links the Gunners and Manchester United with a move for Barcelona winger Ousmane Dembele. The report claims that Barcelona are keen to offload the Frenchman, who has underwhelmed since his historic £135.5 million move in 2017. They would like to recoup as much of that initial price as possible.

This is not the only high-profile name linked with a move to the Emirates — Dayot Upamecano and Thomas Partey seem to sit atop the list at present. It will not be the last. But the upcoming window, whenever it will be, will be unlike any recent transfer window and there will be changes for all clubs the world over.

The COVID-19 pandemic has financially crippled teams. Arsenal already announced they agreed to a pay cut with their players, while the Kroenkes have said they must help finance the club to keep it afloat. They were already struggling with a bloated, ‘Champions League’ wage bill that far outweighed their revenue. The names and prices that have been mentioned were never likely to happen in an ideal world. In the current climate, they are impossible.

Given the situation, it is not unreasonable to suggest that Arsenal will have to offload players simply to balance the books. Such is the extent of the crisis, it is impossible to say just how football will be impacted when it eventually returns. No one even knows when the transfer window will be, never mind what might happen when it does open.

This does not mean that we will stop writing about these names. If they are being reported, we will discuss the pros and cons of the potential moves, what it means for current players, and the set-up of the entire team. But take everything with a massive grain of salt because these are unprecedented time. Any dreams of Dembele, for instance, are little more than precisely that.