This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.
On a cobbled street in downtown Lyon, the door to a local speakeasy creaks open. Cigarette smoke hangs heavy in the air, as men in fedoras talk in hushed tones. Three gentlemen in the corner are playing blackjack, drinking a bottle of Blue Label Johnnie Walker, overlooked by a detailed copy of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. On the table next to them sit Arsène Wenger and Dick Law, trying to convince a pair of bemused Olympique Lyonnais officials to sell them their best player for a middling fee.
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This isn’t how transfer dealings actually work, of course. This is an imaginative representation of Arsenal’s transfer activity, a creative interpretation of their unsuccessful efforts to sign players over the last couple of months. Still, we think it captures the fundamental futility of it all. The colour seems to have drained from the club’s transfer window since the signing of Granit Xhaka back in late May and, consequently, the summer has become a monochrome dustbowl for the supporters, a scene from an extremely glum film noir.
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While the Xhaka signing was undeniably exciting, it has been overshadowed by what appears to be a deeply muddled transfer strategy in the time since. The whole thing has come to resemble Arsene Wenger performance art, with missed targets and underwhelming bids dominating the headlines, while a couple of youngsters – Rob Holding and Takuma Asano – are earmarked as ‘ones for the future’. This summer has become the archetypal Arsenal transfer window, an extended metaphor for all the years of prevarication and non-business which appeared to have ended with the marquee signings of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, only to resume before that start of last season when not a single outfield player was added to the squad. It could well be Wenger’s final masterpiece, his pièce de résistance, the underwhelming summer to end them all.
Of course, it’s not actually all down to the manager. It’s the club’s transfer negotiators who decide exactly how much money to offer for key targets but, unfortunately, Wenger’s parsimonious reputation acts as a powerful magnet for frustration and blame. The negotiators have done him no favours, then, with the very public (and ultimately fruitless) pursuit of Jamie Vardy earlier in the summer, not to mention the latest revelations about Alexandre Lacazette. In a statement released on their official website on Tuesday afternoon, Olympique Lyonnais confirmed that they have already rejected a €35m bid from Arsenal for their star striker. Going on figures that have been widely reported, that’s significantly less than a rival offer from West Ham.
Arsène Wenger has a moment of existential despair thinking about the transfer market, possibly // EPA Images/Andy Rain
Opening gambits are naturally lower than the final transfer fee, but for Arsenal to offer less than a side who are about to contest their opening Europa League qualifiers is practically derisory. Similarly, the depressing reality of the modern transfer market is that €35m is no longer a high-end bid. Lacazette is one of the best strikers available at the moment, and he is not going to be bought at a price that is obviously lower than market value. For a fanbase that has seen their club bid £40m and a single shilling for Luis Suarez – and fail spectacularly in the attempt – this summer must seem almost fantastical, a triumph of Arsenal’s sublime ability to miss out on their key transfer targets through whimsically low financial incentives and a generous dose of wishful thinking.
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That said, there’s still some time to fix the situation, even if the club will struggle to bed in new signings ahead of the start of the season. It wouldn’t be very ‘Arsenal’ to do something hugely decisive before their opening game against Liverpool, however, and so it seems likely that the depressing film noir will go on. Supporters will grumble under their breath, the stadium will turn monochrome, and the discordant tinkling of a grand piano will echo through Islington. Torrential rain will lash The Emirates, and wash away the hopes of a new season once more.
