Arsenal: 2 standby midfield transfers in Premier League

Ruben Neves Transfer There for Arsenal as Backup

When it first broke that Arsenal were in contact with Wolves and Ruben Neves about a deal this summer, most expected an announcement to follow shortly after. The opposite has happened. It’s entirely died down.

Arsenal know what they’re doing here.

Having opened a line of communication, Edu and co have got a grasp of the situation, where the player stands and what would be needed to pull the deal off. The reports were that Neves favours a move to north London, Wolves would sell and the transfer would cost about £35m.

This is another example of putting the feelers out. All this took place in under a week and has since gone cold. Between Neves and Bissouma it’s clearly the former who shares the most similarities with Locatelli, and should the Gunners fail in their efforts to sign the Italian then they’ve done all the groundwork they can to have a backup in Neves available.

As with Bissouma, there are no other known clubs who’ve expressed an interest in the Portuguese international so Arsenal may been feeling relatively safe in pursuing other targets before returning.

Is this strategy risky? Is it even a strategy at all and instead complete nonsense that is trying to make sense of how the window is being operated in? Quite possibly yes to both of those.

It does offer one explanation for why Neves and Bissouma were mentioned early on in the window and have since calmed down, though. Equally, if Arsenal leave it too late this summer and head back in for either Neves or Bissouma, Wolves and Brighton could turn around and tell Edu where he can stick his tens of millions.

Given the strength of the reports for both Neves and Bissouma, it would be unwise to rule either out at this stage just because neither are grabbing the headlines.