Arsenal informed that dream Trossard replacement was "not for sale" before signing Tzolis

It has been a busy few days for Arsenal left-wingers, past, present and potentially future. A few days ago, it was officially confirmed that Leandro Trossard had departed to join Beşiktaş for around £17 million. Then, on Thursday lunchtime, David Ornstein of the Athletic confirmed that the club have "reached an agreement" with Club Brugge to sign Greek international Christos Tzolis, who will cost €40 million (around £34 million).

A few hours later, Fabrizio Romano reported that "Arsenal are now set to accelerate" their interest in Aston Villa's Morgan Rogers, describing the England international as their "top target". Fair to say, there are a few more obstacles still to overcome to get that particular deal over the line.

Back to Tzolis though, Ornstein also snuck in another interesting piece of information, revealing that he was not Mikel Arteta's number one choice. He noted that the Gunners "made a enquiry" to Juventus about Kenan Yıldız, but were told in no uncertain terms that the Türkiye international is "not for sale", despite the Bianconeri's failure to qualify for the Champions League.

So, Tzolis will become the fourth Greek player to represent Arsenal, after Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Konstantinos Mavropanos and Stathis Tavlaridis. The latter duo only made eight first team appearances, so he'll be hoping to enjoy a rather longer spell in North London that that. This though raises an interesting question? Would they have been better off signing Yıldız?

Christos Tzolis vs Kenan Yıldız 2025/26 statistics

Note: Statistics courtesy of Transfermarkt and Squawka.

The statistics actually suggest that Tzolis is better than Yıldız, scoring twice as many goals across all competitions last season, as well as three in the Champions League to the Turk's one. Now, this is not to say the Greek winger is better. He was playing at a lower level domestically. According to Global Football Rankings, Serie A is the second strongest league in the world, with the Jupiler Pro League in sixth, which is higher than I think we all expected when this sentence began, isn't it?

Yıldız is also three years younger, widely considered one of the best young talents in world football, hence why Juventus are not willing to sell their most prized asset. Nevertheless, if Arsenal have identified Yıldız as the profile of winger they need to replace Trossard, pivoting to Tzolis seems like a smart move.

If Tzolis and Rogers do indeed arrive, we are a long way off that happening, that is surely a surplus of left-sided attacking options, given that they already have Eberechi Eze and Gabriel Martinelli. Despite being from São Paulo, having been with the club for seven years, joining as a teenager, the Brazilian feels like one of us, but all this transfer activity surely puts his future in doubt.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow