So, we made our first ‘real’ signing of the summer yesterday as the deal for Christos Tzolis was made official. Apologies to Illan Meslier, but third choice goalkeepers don’t really count. I mean, they do, but they don’t. Mostly don’t, but with a bit of do. Oh god, the goalkeeper’s union will be onto me this morning. Let me rephrase. We’ve made the first signing of the summer of someone who isn’t over 6’5 tall. Nobody can argue with that.
Anyway, the Greek international is now an Arsenal player, arriving in North London off the back of a stellar season for Club Brugge where he scored 22 goals and made 29 assists. In his two seasons there, he played 108 games and got 43 goals and 45 assists, which are very good numbers, and Arsenal will be hoping he can translate as much of that to the Premier League as possible.
The 24 year old spoke about his move, saying:
It’s absolutely amazing to sign for such a big club, the champions of England. I’m very proud to be part of this team for the next season. I’m a direct player, I go for goals or assists. That’s my point of view as an attacker, as a winger. I’m always hungry to score or to give the final pass to my teammates. And I can say I work hard for the team, also in the defensive part.
Could he tick any more boxes for Mikel Arteta?
Meanwhile, Sporting Director Andrea Berta said of the new arrival:
Christos is an extremely versatile attacking player who naturally operates on the left but is comfortable across the front line. He’s an excellent finisher with both feet, thrives in tight spaces, and possesses incredible technical ability.
For more on him, Phil has produced his new player profile which you can read here, and over on Patreon, you can hear Lewis and I chat about him, his career trajectory, how we can look at those numbers in Belgium in the context of what we need from him in the Premier League, and lots more.
Without being too obvious, and acknowledging that compilations don’t tell you the full story about a player, I did see similarities to Leandro Trossard when I watched him. That’s the player he has replaced, and you can see how they looked at him and what he does and thought this is right fit. They’re not like for like, but there are elements of his game that are Trossard adjacent, and that’s not a bad thing at all.
I also quite like the profile of this signing, as it’s a bit unusual for us. Tzolis feels like the kind of player who would join a Brighton or a Bournemouth and show enough that we talk about him as a player we should sign, but obviously we then have to pay a premium for them because they’re established in the Premier League. The pathway is somewhat akin to Trossard, but without that extra step.
We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out, but if it works, it could be a very smart piece of business, in a summer when it feels like we’re trying to crack all the transfer nuts with a sledgehammer. Obviously we’ll have to wait and see how it goes, but not every transfer has to be a Premier League player, and as Phil pointed out in his profile piece, the pursuit of Tzolis came via Maurizio Micheli, a scout appointed earlier this year by Berta who identified Khvicha Kvaratskhelia as target for Napoli when he was working there. He might have a decent eye!
I watched his first day at Arsenal video on the official site, and it’s interesting enough as these things go. My main takeaway was we seem to be getting a lot of the new medical/physio staff in this one, and that the new club doctor looks like the kind of bloke who extols the virtues of crypto and prediction markets on LinkedIn while exploring the idea that if he hangs upside down and injects his own blood into his feet, he’ll never grow older. That might just be me though. Hopefully he’s good at the doctor stuff.
So, welcome to The Arsenal, Christos Tzolis. I think he’s going to be a player we see quite a bit of in the early part of the season, because he hasn’t been burdened with summer international duties, and let’s hope he can hit the ground running.
Elsewhere, the are reports that Arsenal are preparing a £70m bid for Bruno Guimaraes which, I have to say, feels about right to me in this current market. For a player who turns 29 in November, that’s a significant outlay, and still provides Newcastle with a profit on the fee they paid for him four years ago. That said, I expect them to tell us to take a running jump, and then we’ll see how Arsenal balance the equation of their own valuation and how much they actually want the player. Will the fact they chose not to pursue Morgan Rogers when the price went through the roof play add a little extra pressure, or will they hold firm? Time, and various ITK updates, will tell.
Ok, that’s your lot for this morning. There is a new Arsecast below if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, and we’ll have any breaking news over Arseblog News throughout the day.
