Arsenal guilty of doing another piece of bad transfer business

You have to wonder if Arsenal will ever learn from past mistakes when it comes to doing transfer deals because on the evidence so far the answer is no.

Arsenal has agreed to sell David Ospina to Napoli for £3.5 Million after the Italians triggered a clause in the loan agreement between the clubs, though some outlets are reporting a fee of £4 Million

That is terrible business, he is worth a load more than that.

We are talking about a keeper that has been playing in Serie A and the Europa League this season, a player that is the number one for his county, Colombia and a keeper that is right now in his prime.

I hate to say this but if this was Tottenham or Liverpool there is no way they would accept a measly £3.5 Million for a top international keeper in his prime, no way.

Just because he was not the number one at Arsenal does not devalue him, not when he is playing in one of Europe’s elite competitions.

This sort of deal is what has undermined the club for so long now and I don’t care how desperate we are for cash. The time is now for us to start playing hardball.

Arsenal has undervalued their playing assets so often in the past that it is no wonder that we are now in a position where we have a transfer budget equivalent to some Championship clubs.

Updated: June 21, 2019 — 12:44 pm


  1. Chelsea sold us a past-it Cech for £11M!

    1. That’s primarily because ol numb nuts was delusional. Honestly wouldn’t chalk that up to much other than Arsene going senile.

    2. ? how we do business really is laughable!!

      1. ? I suppose we can expect to receive £3M for El Neny now? Maybe that’s too much, probably we’ll get a truckload of footballs for him.

        1. Well Egypt play tonight.. although I’m expecting him to run around like a headless chicken for 90 minutes, something tells me he’s going to score & assist.. and his value is going to go through the roof… ?? and if you believe that, you’ll believe anything ?? yep – truckload of footballs it is ??

  2. You don’t know what the activated clause was, who asked for it to be included in the contract or why it was agreed to.

    For all we know Ospina asked for the clause as a fail-safe so he wouldn’t have to come to us as second-fiddle, again.

    I agree it is really poor business though. He’s worth at least £15-£20m.

    1. If there is no real interest from other club, Arsenal have to sell him below 10 M

      He is a Colombian international GK, but his bad performances at Arsenal and at Napoli have made his value drop

    2. Sergio if you realize the number of fans who want arsenal to sell him for far less than 3.5m you won’t value him that much. I’m glad both him and Arsenal can move on with their lives

    3. I was actually surprised when I saw the figures involved. At worst that’s very bad if not poor business

  3. To slow we should have defenders by now

  4. Sensible business and Arsenal are opposites and have been ever since GAZIDIS came and also since he left!

    1. Gazidis may have left. .but the mess he left behind is still here.. average players with high salaries…It is going to take a few years to get out of it…

  5. 10 days till the kits are on sale! They’re already out in the states!
    I can’t wait, they’re so lush ? sorry if some find this boring, but this is one of the things I get excited about every season (well, except last season ??)

    1. Be honest Sue, I think it was the one thing Herbert Chapman got wrong when he changed our kit in the 1930’s from the maroon/red shirt, white shorts, maroon/red socks to the red/white sleeves shirt, white shorts and navy blue and white hooped socks. I always prefered the original kit. the one we wore to commemorate in the last season at Highbury.

      1. That was a lush kit, Kenny.. loved the colour!

      2. By the way people, I wouldn’t take too much notice of Manchester United fan Andy Goldstein’s comment on talksport that he has a friend on the inside who’s told him about the Aubameyang move to United. The guys a complete idiot. For example he says his friend has about, now remember “about” is a guess, “about 75.5 percent correct prediction rate”. How can he put in the .5 when he’s guessing the amount. Told you, the guys an idiot. Take on notice of him.

  6. Samuel Akinsola Adebosin

    For his having a season left on his deal at Arsenal and not in the plans of Unai Emery, the Gunners head coach next season, Arsenal have no choice but to sell David Ospina at a giveaway price to Napoli this summer. Agree, our cash strapped Arsenal FC sold him too cheap to Napoli FC this summer who must have been paying his Arsenal wages to him during his season long loan deal spell at the club which maybe they took into considerations before agreeing to sign him permanently for £3.5m which might have been inserted into his deal at Arsenal as his release clause. True, Arsenal should be inserting a much higher release clauses into the deals of the Gunners at the club to avoid seeing them being priced away from the club at ridiculous transfer fees.

    1. You’ve a healthy way of seeing things Sam, both sides of a coin.

    2. Barcelona have just stuck a 90milliom release clause on a young player in the B team

  7. Kamikaze GK in his thirties, and short, who we got for 3m/6m or something when he was entering his prime. GK’s do play on for longer, but you gotta take this lads quality into account, also GK’s don’t rely on pace compared to outfield players but Ospina’s no1 attribute is his agility. I think when you add up the loan fees on top of this payment, I think it probably ends up about the right valuation.

  8. Terrible low fee, but again, this is a consequence of the previous regime. They sign Ospina who was in fantastic form, relegate him to second choice behind the blundering Szczesny, until around halfway through the season. Ospina does nothing wrong, and is then relegated to second choice again only 6 months later because of Cech. The lack of game time, and a loan, has reduced his valuation. The current regime are also desperate to get the high earning deadwood of the wages.

    We’ll continue to see these low sales, for possibly another 2 years, with a lot of Wenger’s players, because of the lack of game time, awful form, and high wages. Don’t blame the new regime for this, because they’re the ones actually trying to do something about the deadwood.

    1. Forgot to also mention, that we cannot be picky either. The lack of interest in our players also affects their valuations.

      1. So… AW and his complete backroom staff been gone for a
        season, gazidis is out and a completely new backroom staff has been installed (apart from Bouldy) and yet it’s still the old regimes fault?

        THEY could have called Ospina back if THEY wanted to and then the new regime, that you think carries no blame whatsoever, could have decided what the transfer figure would be under their new rules.

        You are so predictable in your condemnation of the AW era, even when it is not of his doing.

        Ospina went out on loan, with the buyout clause inserted…when gazidis had brought in a new team that took that responsibility away from AW.

        Surely you remember trumpeting how this was signalling the new era and that AW was finally losing his power on everything Arsenal?

        I guess it was Wenger’s fault that UE only got to a european cup final, finished fifth ( when everyone knows it should have been third) with this dross squad of players and those terrible, terrible injuries…to (guess what?) Aw’s dross players

        As for clubs wanting our players, who has the club OFFICIALLY put up for sale???
        As far as I know they are only prepared to listen for offers regarding Jenkinson, unless you know otherwise, officially that is?
        Just because you deem them all dross, doesn’t mean the club and UE does, and that seems to be the case at this precise moment.

        1. The fact is that the previous regime left the club, specifically the squad, in an absolute mess! How you cannot see that is beyond me!

          The new regime have the difficult task of clearing up this mess, which I said last year, could take around 3 years. We will see a lot of Wenger players go for low fees because their form plummeted, whilst their wages soared!

          1. So in actual fact, it wasn’t AW’s fault that Ospina has been sold for a crazy price then?

            Is thisthe squad that, specifically saw us to a european cup final and should be playing CL football next year?

            Your already three years out of date and if UE buys wisely in the summer, there is no reason whatsoever that we shouldn’t be challenging again in the europa league.
            We know that, at present, city and pool are way ahead of us, but third place is no way out of our reach.

            These are the reasons that I cannot see the doom and gloom that you say will take three years to correct…UE has done a lot of it in his first season.

            As for Aw’s players going for low fees, since UE took control, we have SOLD one player (it seems in Ospina) and it was the new regime that allowed it to happen.
            UE seems happy with AW’s players at the moment and if he hadnt messed up near the end, you would be crowing about the way he has turned those players around.
            If you believe we can compete with any of the four clubs above us, without paying the going rate, you live in cloud cuckoo land.
            Of course the club has made mistakes, under every single manager the club has employed…so let’s get on with the next era and stop wallowing in the blame game.

  9. Selling Szczesny instead of Ospina was bad business

  10. 4M is better than another blunder from him.

  11. The club are so laughable it’s embarrassing!

    If i’m right, Gazidis was responsible for contracts for both Ramsey and Ospina?

    If so, I’m glad he left!!!

    The club need to get a grip on these situation ASAP!!!

    1. Won’t be long & he’ll be doing exactly the same thing to AC Milan – bloody useless!!

    2. GunneRay, at least someone on here remembers who was responsible for what…I so clearly remember the ecstatic heralding of a new era when gazidis announced his new “three musketeers” who would take over, the contracts, the identifying of players and the buying/selling of players.

      Ospina could/should have been brought back, a new contract offered and a bigger buy out clause inserted – we have every right to do this and we (that is the NEW regime) didn’t do it.

      Your right, it is embarrassing, but what is even more embarrassing is those fans who still think that the past regime are responsible for what’s going on today!!!

  12. we only paid 3.5m for him and hes hardly set the world alight so i dont see how he can be worth more now? as someone above said the real bad business was letting go of Szczesny

    1. Colombia’s #1 should be worth more than 4 mill. I’m sure there was some dumb clause Arsenal agreed to which forced the price that low. A bad Championship player can go for a higher fee than an established World Cup keeper.

  13. Calling my crib and I ain't even give you my numbers

    Two words:



    1. Nas? is that you playa?

      1. Calling my crib and I ain't even give you my numbers

        I never sleep cuz sleep is the cousin of death

        1. I lay puzzled as I back track to earlier times
          Nothin’s equivalent to the New York state of mind

  14. We seem to have an organizational weakness with respect to selling players. Hard to see how Ospina could be worth only GBP 4.0 million in this market.

    Onecan only imagine how we will do selling the likes Ozil, Mikhi and Mustafi

  15. Its darn if you do and darn if you dont at this club, ospina should have been gone two season ago, nobody really seems interested in him. He is gone now so stop dwelling on the negatives

  16. Quick question though, has arsenal ever sold a player above £40million??

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