Arsenal’s dealings with Brighton have been quite the experience for the club, but that could be said for most sides negotiating with the south coast side.
The Gunners did not return this summer, at least not yet, for any of their players; instead, Arsenal moved to the likes of West Ham, Chelsea and Brentford to bring in Premier League talent.
Declan Rice, Kai Havertz and David Raya are now key parts of the squad whilst Brighton have had an interest in the likes of Folarin Balogun and Sambi Lokonga but nothing has materialised so far. Chelsea have been the most keen of sides to take on the shrewd Seagulls negotiators and a very interesting report from The Athletic claims a source close to the club said some very hubristic comments about the talks.
“We know what will happen; we just play the usual dance with Brighton and then we get the player,” they said. This is of course refers to the deal which took place to secure the Premier League record transfer for Moises Caicedo.
Arsenal were interested in the player in January and had a number of bids turned down, maxing out at £70million football.london understands. This summer though was all about Declan Rice who joked to Sky Sports that he’d held the record for this summer for a very short space of time.
“I had it up on the wall for two weeks, it’s come down already!” he replied to Sky presenter David Jones after being asked: “Can’t believe Caicedo has already broken your record though, Declan! You can’t be happy with that?”
Going back to the comment from the source, it does seem rather inaccurate. If the dance they allude to means bidding bigger and bigger amounts of money until you pay £15million more than the initial expectation of price prior to Liverpool’s arrival into the mix, then sure they have danced the dance.
Arsenal experienced a similar thing with their pursuit of Ben White, which two years later now looks like a steal. After being quoted an asking price of £50million, several bids went in before the Gunners eventually stumped up the asking price.
Whilst they offered a significant amount for Caicedo, Arsenal moved on and signed Jorginho instead for just £12million. As debuts go, it would not be unfair to say the Italian had a better start than the Ecuador international at West Ham last weekend.
Arsenal signed Leandro Trossard swiftly from Brighton in January for an initial £20million with a potential of £7million more in add-ons. A stunningly good deal and an opportunistic one as Roberto De Zerbi and the Belgian’s relationship had reportedly soured.
Arsenal have learnt from these dealings and any ‘dances’ they’re doing in the market this summer have landed them the players they want below the asking prices they were quoted. Raya has come in on loan, rather staggeringly, with an option to buy totalling the deal at £30million including the £3million loan fee.
West Ham initially wanted a reported £120million for Rice but Arsenal paid £105million. Chelsea quoted £70million for Havertz before Arsenal paid £65million and Ajax wanted €60million (£51.3million) for Jurrien Timber but the Gunners got him for less than £40million.
When Arsenal and Brighton waltz into the negotiating room in the future, it will be interesting to see how it goes. As they say, it takes two to tango… all right I’ll stop.
