Arsenal went into the summer as Premier League champions with a transfer shortlist of more than 20 players, and the only attacker they brought in was Christos Tzolis.
According to BBC Sport, the list reached Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea and Tottenham. Counting up the names in that report who never arrived, we get to 21, and that’s before you add Anthony Gordon, a long-term target who had agreed to join Barcelona before the World Cup.
It wasn’t a failed window across the board. Arsenal did land Bruno Guimaraes for £75m, Ezri Konsa for £51m plus £4m in add-ons, Tzolis for about £35m and Illan Meslier on a free, and they made Piero Hincapie’s loan permanent. Konsa, in fact, was Mikel Arteta’s first choice in defence all along.
The trouble is at the other end of the pitch. With January two months away, that shortlist is the best guide we have to what Andrea Berta can realistically do next, and most of it points in one direction: not much, and not cheaply.
Who was on Arsenal’s summer shortlist?
Here’s every player named who didn’t come, and why.
| Player | Area | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Morgan Rogers | Attack | Joined Chelsea for £117m |
| Bradley Barcola | Attack | Joined Liverpool for a reported £106m up front, rising to £123m |
| Vinicius Junior | Attack | Signed a new six-year deal at Real Madrid in August |
| Julian Alvarez | Attack | Stayed at Atletico Madrid |
| Joao Pedro | Attack | Chelsea deemed him not for sale |
| Malick Fofana | Attack | A late option, offered through his agency |
| Kenan Yildiz | Attack | Admired, and still a target |
| Nico Paz | Attack | Admired, and still a target |
| Yan Diomande | Attack | Admired |
| Eli Junior Kroupi | Attack | To be watched once back from injury |
| Elliot Anderson | Midfield | Joined Manchester City for £116m |
| Sandro Tonali | Midfield | Joined Tottenham for a minimum of £92m |
| Alex Scott | Midfield | Explored, but availability and price got in the way |
| Amadou Onana | Midfield | Serious knee injury at the World Cup |
| Jeremy Monga | Teenager | Signed for Manchester City |
| Louis Page | Teenager | Did not join |
| Ivan Fresneda | Defence | A right-back option until Konsa’s versatility settled it |
| Cristian Romero | Defence | Tottenham would not consider selling to Arsenal |
| Micky van de Ven | Defence | Tottenham would not consider selling to Arsenal |
| Jacobo Ramon | Defence | Clauses in his Como contract make it difficult; still monitored |
| Tarik Muharemovic | Defence | Joined Leeds United |
Almost half of that list were attackers. That tells you where the priority was, and it’s the one area where the window ended in disappointment.
How did a £100m target end up costing £117m at Chelsea?
Rogers is the part of this that still stings. He was the primary target going in, and there was a strong view at the club that he wanted to come. Arsenal understood Aston Villa valued him at £100m, valued him themselves at £80m, and Berta was confident he could talk the price down.
Then Anderson went from Nottingham Forest to City for £116m and the market moved. Villa’s valuation jumped to £120m and Chelsea paid £117m. Arsenal were given the chance to match that and said no, sticking to their £80m figure.
You can respect the discipline. You can also ask whether he’d be in N5 now if the move had come earlier, before Anderson’s fee reset everything. Konsa followed a similar pattern, with a £40m offer rejected a week before the deal was done at £51m.
Vinicius, Alvarez and the time it took
Arsenal genuinely believed they had a realistic chance of signing Vinicius and were prepared to pay what would likely have been a British record fee, on one of the most lucrative packages in Premier League history. There were fears inside the game that they were being used to help him get a better deal at the Bernabeu, and a six-year contract duly followed.
Alvarez showed very little sign of wanting to come, yet Arsenal kept going until the closing days because Atletico refused to sell to Barcelona. Whether that was time wasted depends on who you ask. Tzolis, meanwhile, came from a different direction altogether: an intermediary raised him, and Maurizio Micheli liked what he saw when he watched him play for Greece against Sweden in June.
What does the shortlist mean for January?
Very few of those names can be bought mid-season. Atletico have reportedly told Arsenal that Alvarez isn’t leaving in January. Bournemouth don’t plan to sell Kroupi, who is valued at more than £100m. And Yildiz is a 2027 story at around €150m, recovering from surgery on a broken foot with Juventus targeting an early December return.
Paz stays on the radar as a realistic target moving forward, but moving forward doesn’t have to mean this winter. So the January market is mostly names from outside that list. RB Leipzig want €70m for Antonio Nusa while Arsenal hope to stay under €55m, and Real Madrid want a straight loan for Endrick when Arsenal would want an option to buy.
Why the need hasn’t gone away
Martinelli left for Al-Hilal in a club-record £60m sale, Trossard went to Besiktas for a minimum of £15m, and neither was replaced with the top-level attacker Arsenal went looking for. Now Bukayo Saka is out with a quad injury and isn’t expected back before December, while Tzolis has only just returned to training after a lay-off before the trip to Anfield on Sunday.
Up front, Viktor Gyokeres scored his first goal of the season at Fleetwood Town and Kai Havertz has gone 561 minutes without one. That’s a thin return for a club defending a title.
Can Arsenal afford another big signing?
This is the bit that gets overlooked. Arsenal have spent nearly £450m in 12 months, and the sales of Martinelli, Trossard, Gabriel Jesus, Christian Norgaard, Jakub Kiwior, Fabio Vieira and Karl Hein brought in only about £114m. The remit now is to become more sustainable and better at trading players, and even the Vinicius and Alvarez deals raised doubts in some quarters about staying within the financial rules.
There’s also the age question. Guimaraes and Konsa cost a combined £126m and will both be 30 by the end of next season. A short-term fix in January would only add to that, which is why a younger left-sided attacker makes far more sense than another marquee chase.
Is Nwaneri the cheapest answer?
Arsenal do have one option that costs nothing. Ethan Nwaneri’s season-long loan at Borussia Dortmund includes a recall option from January, kept in the deal if it’s needed. It wouldn’t solve the left wing, but it’s a reminder that the club left itself a way back in.
And the PSG teenager?
The other name doing the rounds this week is PSG right-back David Boly, with Arsenal among the clubs said to be tracking him, along with Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Don’t get carried away. The 17-year-old came on for Achraf Hakimi in the 71st minute of Friday’s 5-1 win at Le Havre, his Ligue 1 debut, and reports in France say PSG have made him a very high first offer, potentially for five years.
He can sign it from 22 January 2027, his 18th birthday. He reportedly wants more league minutes before he commits and hasn’t ruled out leaving for free next summer, but as things stand he looks set to stay. That’s one to watch, not a fix for January.
Verdict: Arsenal’s shortlist only helps if they move first
We don’t think the lesson is that Arsenal aimed too high. Chasing Vinicius was worth a try, and they were right not to be held to ransom on every deal. Guimaraes and Konsa show what happens when Berta gets a target over the line.
The lesson is timing. Rogers got dearer while Arsenal waited, Monga went to City without the club-to-club talks that might have closed it when he seemed on his way to the Emirates, and Alvarez took up the back end of a window that needed a Plan B much sooner. If there’s a left-sided attacker Arsenal really want in January, the talking has to be done now, with the selling club as well as the agents, because they’ve already seen what the wait costs.
