Arsenal agree deal to sign Ezri Konsa from Aston Villa

Fee agreed at £50m plus add-ons and long term deal in place with English defender.

Konsa will undergo his medical in next 48h  (fabrizio romano)

Barcelona have completed the signing of Gabriel Jesus on a permanent deal for a fee of £8.6m (10m euros). Gabriel Jesus joined Arsenal from Manchester City in 2022, scoring 32 goals and adding 22 assists in 123 appearances for the Gunners. He was instrumental in helping Arteta taking the team to the next level and ultimately securing the 2025/26 PL title. I loved his attitude and style of play and a shame injury curtailed his career at Arsenal for most of 2025. He has my best wishes for the future.

We will miss Martinelli. Our lack of pace against Villa was there to see, a perfect game for him to have come on 2nd half after we took the lead.

Could never understand why Martinelli always went down the line slowly on his weak side when his natural tendency as a pacy, right-footed striker by trade should be to come inside at pace and look to shoot or get into scoring positions. Pep did exactly the same with Grealish who doesn't have Martinelli's pace. I suspect he was coached to do this the last 2 years especially as Arteta changed from wingers inside to wingers holding width outside and full-backs outside to inside, not that he ever had a good overlapping full-back supporting him.

He was never the same player once Xhaka left and wasn't replaced. The left side of the team wasn't the same either. I think Martinelli got a bad rep but didn't have the players supporting him that Saka does and was asked to play a more functional role. I'd have preferred to keep him with Trossard leaving but I suppose he generated some transfer profit as a record sale. Looks like the left side is weaker this year overall tho, unless Calafiori can stay fit for the season.

The charity shield and Coventry games look to have flattered Arsenal somewhat, the Villa game looks to me to be a more accurate look at what they are, very similar to last season where once again the defence is going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Two concerning takeaways from Monday night for me is that having been maybe fooled by the first couple of performances from Odegaard here he reverted to type and was completely anonymous, a knock on him during his time at Arsenal that he does not grab hold of games often enough and control things, also I wondered if Tzolis is going to be another Gyokeres in that Arsenal have brought in a championship player who's done Ok abroad but can't really crack it in the EPL, after a decent start against Coventry he was very poor on Monday.

Trossard who scored vital goals last season doesn't look to have been replaced and the general creative side of the team with Odegaard often being a shrinking violet is missing when you compare it to City and Chelsea therefore it is going to be imperative that Saka remains fit and regains the form from two seasons ago.

Perhaps the biggest concern especially when you've got the CEO talking about building a dynasty is their failure, in the light of winning the EPL and just missing the CL, to be able to attract a proper superstar to lead the line.

There's no concerning takeaways from the Villa game, we won the game, defence looked as strong as ever.

You can't have 38 great games as an invidual, and you can't use a sample size of one game to say Odegaard is back to being poor ffs. Emery's mind is always extra concentrated when his teams play us, for obvious reasons, and if Odegaard went on a run of under-performing which is unlikely, then he's be replaced by Eze, which is his best position. That's also why the Norwegian knows he has to be on his toes, having competition makes you better.

Tzolis was booked after 28 minutes which then affects the way you play, and Arteta subbed him because of that at half time.

Arsenal probably doesn't suit Gyokeres rather than Gyokeres not suiting Arsenal, as someone said last season, he might not be the striker that you want him to be, but he's the striker Arteta wants him to be, i.e. a lot of Donkey work, he's usually the last port of call when he's on the pitch, his running helps to create space for others. Wouldn't be surprised if he's off in January if he continues to be benched every game, but it's early in the season so rotation is probably coming with Europe anyway.

Arsenal won the title last season because of how good the defence was, we were one of the lowest scoring title winners there's been in the Prem, and yet again Mikel has gone and strengthened that department with Konsa and the permanent signing of Mosquera, lack of creativity is not that big a concern but there's plenty of creative players in the team if need be.

There are not many superstar forward out there on the market who we could have bought, we went for one and he decided to stay at Real Madrid, it's not bringing in stars for the sake of it, it's about jigsaw pieces fitting blank spaces.

I would have preferred if Mikel would let go of the leash this season and play more front foot football, but if he carries on winning with his own way, I wont care.


Kind Regards.

It was said with Saliba in mind, he'll still be back for the business end of the season where the difference between 1st and 2nd which is where we will probably be, will be around 3-5 pts or so.

That's also why I said Gyokeres is the last port of call, he's there for the donkey work but will start games when the game calls for it..

I allowed my disappointment at having in my team and him blanking against Villa to cloud my view of him, I'm going to have to stop him by putting him back in.

Thoroughly enjoyed yesterdays match. Plaudits to Chelsea for giving it a go and making it an exciting match to watch (compare that to the limp Villa effort at home the pervious week). Ultimately Chelsea were found to be some way behind the standard Arsenal set. Strange decision by them to bring two right backs on in midfield in 2nd half when they were losing 2:1.