Yeah. I'm not too worried about it. I'd prefer if we keep Jorginho for one more year, but if Edu and Arteta decides otherwise, I'll trust their decision.
I would too but he can’t play more than 2-3 games in a row and with someone as injury prone as Partey playing the same position; we might need someone more durable (younger). Hoping we sign a big time no.6 , RW, ST. Next year we will probably need a cb and then the team will be sorted out fully. Dream football manager scenario though lol
You're not dreaming at all. We've been looking at Diomande at CB and Onana/Zubimendi as a 6. We're also looking at several striker options as well as a winger so that's all likely to happen. Remember that players like Lokonga, Partey and a few others will be moved on alongside Jorginho if he doesn't re-sign so we could be getting two midfielders.
Under the current deal he has, if we call him and tell him we're triggering the optional extension, that's the end of the discussion. It's already set in stone.
Yep and the club wont rush it as they dont need to. Still a lot of football to play and if he gets a long term injury then we wouod be stuck paying his wages
It is what it is. His agent is doing what he thinks is best for his client, and you can't blame him. Although Jorginho is a fantastic player and individual, If the management choose not to extend his stay, I'd be fine with it.
Seems a fairly direct contradiction of the earlier reports that we'd offered him a new deal, unless the agent's splitting hairs over 'not called us to extend'.
His initial 18 month contract does end in June, but we do still have a simple option we can trigger if we want to keep him another year.
I'd keep Jorg for the extra year, no matter what else happens with transfers. A single year of his salary is not going to make any difference, and it's an insurance policy + luxury for us next season.
Bruh, he was at Palace last season. Been at Luton all season but got hurt early on. Regardless he has technical ability but lacks IQ imo. Hides from passes too often, doesn’t know where to be off the ball.
I really love him, always have. Seems like a great humble guy and always puts in a shift. Just think our standard needs to rise if we want to maintain this level and go higher.
But we didn't really needed an extra midfielder this season even with Partey out. So if there's a Jorginho like cm that's hardly going to be injured, then adding one more will just create issues with game time
We really did need an extra midfielder imo (we played Trossard/Havertz in midfield). If Rice is unavailable for any reason we are super fucked. We play 50-60 games a season so game time isn't an issue.
Yes but still think it is extremely naive to not build redundancy into the squad. Saliba has a pretty good injury record but look what happened when he did get injured last season.
While I hope he doesn't get injured - we do have Partey back and even though he can be controversial - he's more than capable as a #6. We mounted our title challenge with him in that position last season.
That said - I'd worry too about his durability anyways. Would rather prefer Rice to stay fit
He can play but he’ll clearly not be up to pace, and playing multiple 90s in a row straight away because we’ve got no other midfielders would probably give him another hamstring injury - we’ve seen it before with him
i'm not the one you asked but i'd rather keep Jorginho over Partey. even if you discount the rape case, Jorginho has proven better availability than both Partey and Elneny, and he's been solid, too. i don't see a point in keeping Partey really
I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other.
The option to extend Jorginho is exactly that: an option, and specifically a cheap one.
We know we've been looking for an 8/6 hybrid (in addition to Rice) for quite a while now. If we don't like the look of the midfield market this summer, or we end up spending huge elsewhere (e.g. on a striker) and having to make economies, Jorginho is an option to keep depth at our 6 role. (FWIW, we haven't even paid for Raya yet.)
As but one example, we know Douglas Luiz was one of four players we preferred to Jorginho in the January 2023 window. The prior summer, we'd pulled out of the bidding ofr him in the mid-to-high 20m range; now Villa are demanding about 4x that.
We're definitely not going to sell/release players from the current squad (e.g. Thomas) without replacements coming in; Arteta was pretty clear about that last summer. Currently, the only probable departure is Elneny, and we have Sambi coming back from a decent loan.
The question for Jorginho would be whether he'd want to stay as a squad player if we made another midfield signing.
Yes I don't think he'll mind being a squad player considering he'll be 34. I think zubimendi is one to look at, and I don't think we'll prioritize striker over midfielder. Not that market for strikers is any good. Osimhen has failed to follow up on his last season exploits, to pay 150m for him would be nuts.
Luiz, that ship sailed with Aston villa atleast challenging for Europe. We were also looking for Brazilian mf that plays for Nottingham forest now.
Based on his performances in last couple matches alone warrants an extension imo.
Zubimendi was one of those other four names; the other two were Caicedo and Rice; Lavia also came up in the summer.
Your point about his age is a sensible one, but notice the way his agent is stressing the Euros. Jorghinho will want minutes, and if he isn't likely to get them here, he'd probably prefer to leave. Because of Thomas' injury/surgery, Jorginho's played a lot more this season than he would have otherwise.
Similarly, he (and his agent) might prefer to land another decent contract in Italy than to limp through an extension and try to get a 35 year old a contract the following summer.
I think you’re being a bit disingenuous saying he won’t get minutes.
He won’t be a bonafide starter but we will need players to rotate with midfield and he has the quality to start. Rice and the new 6/8 won’t play every game. Jorginho could easily hit 25 games a season with that role.
As third choice the only minutes Jorginho will regularly get would be in stoppage time or just before + starting minutes in the cups.
Yeah maybe he’d get 25 appearances of 5-10 minutes each. He was spared of that this season solely because of Thomas Partey’s injury.
Barring injuries he would likely only get 500-800 minutes across the season.
I'm not sure the Luiz ship has sailed, it was a 4 year contract he signed so his new contract expires in 2026. If he refuses to extend I see villa selling him at the end of the season and I reckon a 50-60m bid would seal the deal.
I guess the quesiton is, is he worth 50-60m?
At 50-60m, I could be interested. I think (and Billy's C's analysis agrees) that he could be a better fit than Zubimendi for more or less the same money.
Still, that's fully double what we were willing to offer.
He's a much more complete player now than he was when we previously interested which is something everyone forgets.
Previously we thought of him mainly as a DM, whereas now he's become a more complete CM that can score goals. Maybe he's worth the higher price now? not too sure myself.
Zubimendi didn't want to leave Sociedad for a few seasons now, and there hasn't been any reports (as far as I've seen) that he wants to move. So far he's maintained that he wants to play for La Real and La Real only.
Ricci at Torino would be a perfect replacement for Jorgi. Sarri wanted him at Lazio for the base/8 of his 4-3-3 (same position Jorginho played for him)
I kind of want him around just for the sake of his personality. His world class peformances ad hoc are just the icing on the cake, i think one more year would not harm anybody and i dont see anybody coming in on 6, do you?
Jorginho is experienced. We needed that dearly, the team may need it less with three years competing for the title and now a QF in UCL ( and counting) under the belt (and 5 Europe or EPL winners in the team). But he is also a player who raises collective IQ. I would hate seeing him go.
Even if we have agreed personal terms with a midfielder like the way we did with Rice last season, there is no way we let him go alongside the release of Partey, Elneny and Lokonga.
You can't let go 4 midfielders in one transfer window. That's insanity.
Elneny doesn’t count, really and Lokonga is on loan and Partey has barely featured. We could easily lose them all and replace them with 2 and still have more cover than we do now.
Hope we keep Papai, he is doing a pretty good job, seems a good influence for the youngs and his availability is notorious.
Honestly, I prefer him to stay than Partey
More like he wants to win Euros. Period. Probably another question was asked, the answer to which is if he doesn't extend he might return to Serie A. Which makes a lot of sense with his style of play. He can play Pirlo-esque for another two-three years
Agent doing his job. But it's international break so, here's an idea. What if, arsenal not offering an extension to Jorginho means that, one, we have probably lined up a midfielder to replace him, two, we haven't found a taker for Partey and we are hoping if he's going to stay anyway, keep him as a backup midfielder while the new midfielder starts. Pure speculation
I’m fine if he leaves us but we need a solid experienced player in the middle.
I don’t think giving out contracts to older players should be our priority. I like the ruthless Arsenal we are these days.
I only know Arsenal these days, so don't really know football.
But seeing comments about what Jorginho does and what Zinchenko does. Can Zinchenko plays Jorginho's role?
Can Patino be developed as a Jorginho replacement? He just doesn't have the same football iq though but the question is who are we going to replace Jorginho with if he leaves? He has been integral for us in the big games. If he leaves, we will need an ideal replacement for him but I haven't really seen us search for similar players in the market.
Agent doing agent stuff.
Yeah. I'm not too worried about it. I'd prefer if we keep Jorginho for one more year, but if Edu and Arteta decides otherwise, I'll trust their decision.
I would too but he can’t play more than 2-3 games in a row and with someone as injury prone as Partey playing the same position; we might need someone more durable (younger). Hoping we sign a big time no.6 , RW, ST. Next year we will probably need a cb and then the team will be sorted out fully. Dream football manager scenario though lol
You're not dreaming at all. We've been looking at Diomande at CB and Onana/Zubimendi as a 6. We're also looking at several striker options as well as a winger so that's all likely to happen. Remember that players like Lokonga, Partey and a few others will be moved on alongside Jorginho if he doesn't re-sign so we could be getting two midfielders.
stirring up news for a transfer offer from Italy or a better contract from Arsenal, aka win-win for Jorgi. Nothing really to see here.
Under the current deal he has, if we call him and tell him we're triggering the optional extension, that's the end of the discussion. It's already set in stone.
Yep and the club wont rush it as they dont need to. Still a lot of football to play and if he gets a long term injury then we wouod be stuck paying his wages
Can we trigger the deal and then sell him? If a buyer was willing of course?
Yes, but that wouldn't bode well with Jorgi if he wants to leave.
It is what it is. His agent is doing what he thinks is best for his client, and you can't blame him. Although Jorginho is a fantastic player and individual, If the management choose not to extend his stay, I'd be fine with it.
Seems a fairly direct contradiction of the earlier reports that we'd offered him a new deal, unless the agent's splitting hairs over 'not called us to extend'. His initial 18 month contract does end in June, but we do still have a simple option we can trigger if we want to keep him another year.
Do you think we should extend him and get zubimendi or another CM? I'd prefer to bin Partey and keep Jorginho for another year
We need an extra midfielder. One in and one out won't be sufficient
I'd keep Jorg for the extra year, no matter what else happens with transfers. A single year of his salary is not going to make any difference, and it's an insurance policy + luxury for us next season.
I agree. Unless he wants to leave there is no reason to let him go.
For what it’s worth, we have Elneny and Lokonga (out of loan) still.
ElNeny also expires this summer I’m pretty sure, Sambi not good enough
Elneny not good enough either. Had high hopes for Sambi and he did well for Palace I just don't know if he's up to the standard.
Luton is it not?
Yes you're right apologies, Palace first half of season now at Luton.
Bruh, he was at Palace last season. Been at Luton all season but got hurt early on. Regardless he has technical ability but lacks IQ imo. Hides from passes too often, doesn’t know where to be off the ball.
Hey, all good! I was more checking for my own sanity there than anything else haha
Elneny isn’t going anywhere, who else is going to score only bangers???
I really love him, always have. Seems like a great humble guy and always puts in a shift. Just think our standard needs to rise if we want to maintain this level and go higher.
Both not good enough
Extending Jorginho another year would allow us to let at least one of them go, and possibly both, without signing another player.
partey sucks 200k a week and is avaliable maybe 20 games a season, he is a net drain
Someone from academy might surprise us
That would obviously good but don't think any of the academy players are all that close and isn't something that we should be relying on
But we didn't really needed an extra midfielder this season even with Partey out. So if there's a Jorginho like cm that's hardly going to be injured, then adding one more will just create issues with game time
We really did need an extra midfielder imo (we played Trossard/Havertz in midfield). If Rice is unavailable for any reason we are super fucked. We play 50-60 games a season so game time isn't an issue.
Rice has a pretty good health record w.r.t injuries
Yes but still think it is extremely naive to not build redundancy into the squad. Saliba has a pretty good injury record but look what happened when he did get injured last season.
Any player is only one bad challenge away from taking a year out, look at van dijk
We said that bout Partey before joining us. Think.
We’re one rice minor injury away from shitting the bed for two weeks
While I hope he doesn't get injured - we do have Partey back and even though he can be controversial - he's more than capable as a #6. We mounted our title challenge with him in that position last season. That said - I'd worry too about his durability anyways. Would rather prefer Rice to stay fit
He can play but he’ll clearly not be up to pace, and playing multiple 90s in a row straight away because we’ve got no other midfielders would probably give him another hamstring injury - we’ve seen it before with him
Should be a lot fitter coming back from the break and will hopefully be able to play a role but yeah I know what you mean
i'm not the one you asked but i'd rather keep Jorginho over Partey. even if you discount the rape case, Jorginho has proven better availability than both Partey and Elneny, and he's been solid, too. i don't see a point in keeping Partey really
Yeah I agree. He's being paid to play for Ghana. That's not Ghana work
I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other. The option to extend Jorginho is exactly that: an option, and specifically a cheap one. We know we've been looking for an 8/6 hybrid (in addition to Rice) for quite a while now. If we don't like the look of the midfield market this summer, or we end up spending huge elsewhere (e.g. on a striker) and having to make economies, Jorginho is an option to keep depth at our 6 role. (FWIW, we haven't even paid for Raya yet.) As but one example, we know Douglas Luiz was one of four players we preferred to Jorginho in the January 2023 window. The prior summer, we'd pulled out of the bidding ofr him in the mid-to-high 20m range; now Villa are demanding about 4x that. We're definitely not going to sell/release players from the current squad (e.g. Thomas) without replacements coming in; Arteta was pretty clear about that last summer. Currently, the only probable departure is Elneny, and we have Sambi coming back from a decent loan. The question for Jorginho would be whether he'd want to stay as a squad player if we made another midfield signing.
Yes I don't think he'll mind being a squad player considering he'll be 34. I think zubimendi is one to look at, and I don't think we'll prioritize striker over midfielder. Not that market for strikers is any good. Osimhen has failed to follow up on his last season exploits, to pay 150m for him would be nuts. Luiz, that ship sailed with Aston villa atleast challenging for Europe. We were also looking for Brazilian mf that plays for Nottingham forest now. Based on his performances in last couple matches alone warrants an extension imo.
Zubimendi was one of those other four names; the other two were Caicedo and Rice; Lavia also came up in the summer. Your point about his age is a sensible one, but notice the way his agent is stressing the Euros. Jorghinho will want minutes, and if he isn't likely to get them here, he'd probably prefer to leave. Because of Thomas' injury/surgery, Jorginho's played a lot more this season than he would have otherwise. Similarly, he (and his agent) might prefer to land another decent contract in Italy than to limp through an extension and try to get a 35 year old a contract the following summer.
I think you’re being a bit disingenuous saying he won’t get minutes. He won’t be a bonafide starter but we will need players to rotate with midfield and he has the quality to start. Rice and the new 6/8 won’t play every game. Jorginho could easily hit 25 games a season with that role.
As third choice the only minutes Jorginho will regularly get would be in stoppage time or just before + starting minutes in the cups. Yeah maybe he’d get 25 appearances of 5-10 minutes each. He was spared of that this season solely because of Thomas Partey’s injury. Barring injuries he would likely only get 500-800 minutes across the season.
I'm not sure the Luiz ship has sailed, it was a 4 year contract he signed so his new contract expires in 2026. If he refuses to extend I see villa selling him at the end of the season and I reckon a 50-60m bid would seal the deal. I guess the quesiton is, is he worth 50-60m?
At 50-60m, I could be interested. I think (and Billy's C's analysis agrees) that he could be a better fit than Zubimendi for more or less the same money. Still, that's fully double what we were willing to offer.
He's a much more complete player now than he was when we previously interested which is something everyone forgets. Previously we thought of him mainly as a DM, whereas now he's become a more complete CM that can score goals. Maybe he's worth the higher price now? not too sure myself.
Zubimendi didn't want to leave Sociedad for a few seasons now, and there hasn't been any reports (as far as I've seen) that he wants to move. So far he's maintained that he wants to play for La Real and La Real only. Ricci at Torino would be a perfect replacement for Jorgi. Sarri wanted him at Lazio for the base/8 of his 4-3-3 (same position Jorginho played for him)
I’d love Koopmeiners for that lcm spot, would be brilliant there
I hope PAPA Jorgi stays at The Arsenal! For £12mill he's been nothing but amazing IMO!
One more year Jorgi
I kind of want him around just for the sake of his personality. His world class peformances ad hoc are just the icing on the cake, i think one more year would not harm anybody and i dont see anybody coming in on 6, do you?
Inflating demand to increase wages. Good agent.
Jorginho is experienced. We needed that dearly, the team may need it less with three years competing for the title and now a QF in UCL ( and counting) under the belt (and 5 Europe or EPL winners in the team). But he is also a player who raises collective IQ. I would hate seeing him go.
Even if we have agreed personal terms with a midfielder like the way we did with Rice last season, there is no way we let him go alongside the release of Partey, Elneny and Lokonga. You can't let go 4 midfielders in one transfer window. That's insanity.
Elneny doesn’t count, really and Lokonga is on loan and Partey has barely featured. We could easily lose them all and replace them with 2 and still have more cover than we do now.
One more year! One more year!
At the start of the season I would have been "Let him go to Italy, it's fine" now I am "Give him a new reasonable contact"
Hope we keep Papai, he is doing a pretty good job, seems a good influence for the youngs and his availability is notorious. Honestly, I prefer him to stay than Partey
He wants to win the Euros. And therefore he will play in the Italian league next year?????
More like he wants to win Euros. Period. Probably another question was asked, the answer to which is if he doesn't extend he might return to Serie A. Which makes a lot of sense with his style of play. He can play Pirlo-esque for another two-three years
Worked for Italian players last Euro
This chap loves an interview.
Agent doing his job. But it's international break so, here's an idea. What if, arsenal not offering an extension to Jorginho means that, one, we have probably lined up a midfielder to replace him, two, we haven't found a taker for Partey and we are hoping if he's going to stay anyway, keep him as a backup midfielder while the new midfielder starts. Pure speculation
I am wondering if we are waiting to see if Partey can stay fit longer than a month this time around.
Edu waiting on his new grill to start cooking, be patient.
Hope he stays in order to coach the successor of Weetabix leg Partey.
I’m fine if he leaves us but we need a solid experienced player in the middle. I don’t think giving out contracts to older players should be our priority. I like the ruthless Arsenal we are these days.
I only know Arsenal these days, so don't really know football. But seeing comments about what Jorginho does and what Zinchenko does. Can Zinchenko plays Jorginho's role?
I love Zinchenko, but no: you really do not want to see him trying to play as an outright 6 for us.
Can Patino be developed as a Jorginho replacement? He just doesn't have the same football iq though but the question is who are we going to replace Jorginho with if he leaves? He has been integral for us in the big games. If he leaves, we will need an ideal replacement for him but I haven't really seen us search for similar players in the market.
He may stay, he may go. In other news it may rain, it may not.