Arsenal face £1.15bn transfer reality check as Andrea Berta must catch Liverpool and Chelsea

A detailed look into Premier League player sales of the 'Big Six' undertaken by football.london has revealed that since Arsenal's record sale of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Liverpool in August 2017 for £35million plus £5million in add-ons, the other clubs have agreed the sale of players amounting to over £1.15billion for figures equal or above the price of the then 24-year-old.

The focus comes while the club aims to sign Eberechi Eze from Crystal Palace. Unwilling to meet the player’s £67.5million release clause, Arsenal are hoping to find an agreement for a lower fee, but there is a feeling the club need to move on some of their sellable assets first.

Reiss Nelson, Karl Hein, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Leandro Trossard, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Fabio Vieira are all players who could yet be sold by the club with Arsenal open to offers. However, none of those listed are expected to fetch major fees with the likes of Vieira and Trossard holding the most value but still not believed to be garnering interest above £20million.

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It comes after an improvement in the club's selling strategy in 2024 when Eddie Nketiah, Emile Smith Rowe and Aaron Ramsdale were sold for fees inclusive of add-ons coming close to £90million. Yet none of these individually reached Oxlade-Chamberlain's fee.

Since the former Southampton man's move to Merseyside, Arsenal have had other sales which have brought in reasonable funds. Joe Willock joined Newcastle for £25million, Alex Iwobi joined Everton for £35million and another Hale End graduate in Folarin Balogun was sold to AS Monaco for a figure totalling £34.3million with add-ons.

These three represented pure profit on the books having come through the club's academy. But under former sporting director Edu, the club were seen to have regularly undersold players.

Mika Biereth, Konstantinos Mavropanos, Bernd Leno, Matt Turner, Pablo Mari, Auston Trusty, Matteo Guendouzi, Krystian Bielik, Rob Holding, Lucas Torreira, Laurent Koscielny, David Ospina, Takuma Asano and Carl Jenkinson all left for single-digit million-pound figures over the previous five summer windows. While many simply left for no transfer fee at all, or found agreements to mutually terminate contracts.

In those same five previous summers, Stephan Lichtsteiner, Aaron Ramsey, Danny Welbeck, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Shkodran Mustafi, Mesut Ozil, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Matt Macey, Calum Chambers, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Willian, David Luiz, Sead Kolasinac, Hector Bellerin, Alexandre Lacazette, Alex Runarsson, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Nicolas Pepe and Mohamed Elneny all left without a transfer fee. The collective transfer fees, inclusive of add-ons which may or may not have been activated during their tenure, total more than £300million.

The new sporting director, Andrea Berta, has been known to bring in significant funds for players during his time with Atletico Madrid. Antoine Griezmann, Joao Felix, Matheus Cunha, Thomas Partey, Lucas Hernandez, and Rodri were all sold for more than Arsenal’s current record sale.

However, when looking at what the other 'Big Six' Premier League clubs have done in terms of sales that equal or eclipse Oxlade-Chamberlain’s sale price since the England international left, it is tough reading for Arsenal. Liverpool have agreed sales that total close to £250million with the sales of Philippe Coutinho (£142million to Barcelona), Fabinho (£40million to Al-Ittihad) and Luis Diaz (£65.5million to Bayern Munich).

Manchester City have agreed sales totalling close to £330million: Julian Alvarez (£82million to Atletico Madrid), Cole Palmer (£42.5million to Chelsea), Raheem Sterling (£49million to Chelsea), Gabriel Jesus (£45million to Arsenal), Ferran Torres (£54.7million to Barcelona) and Leroy Sane (£54.8million to Bayern Munich).

Chelsea top the pile with more than £400million agreed: Noni Madueke (£52million to Arsenal), Joao Felix (£43.7million to Al Nassr), Kai Havertz (£65million to Arsenal), Mason Mount (£60million to Man Utd), Eden Hazard (£130million to Real Madrid) and Diego Costa (£57million to Atletico Madrid).

Both Manchester United and Tottenham have sold one player each in the same time period, that eclipses the £40million mark with Romelu Lukaku (£74million to Inter Milan) and Harry Kane (£100million to Bayern Munich) respectively. Interestingly, of the five teams, only Man United didn't sell a player which became their new record sale, with the move of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid in 2009 for a then-world-record £80million still their biggest sale.

The total of all the aforementioned moves totals more than £1.15billion. So where does this leave Arsenal?

Theoretically, they could break their record sales figure this summer, with Gabriel Martinelli's future not yet fully assured. The Brazilian would be expected to fetch more than £50million, but it is understood Arsenal and the player are not exactly welcoming a move. Trossard is the likelier of the two left-wingers to switch clubs this summer.

Why Arsenal haven't been able to break their record sale comes down to several points. During the last eight years beyond Martinelli, there has not been interest in the squad's stars that would see the record broken beyond a select few.

The Gunners rejected a £50million bid from Man City for Alexis Sanchez in the days before Oxlade-Chamberlain completed his move to Liverpool. The Chilean would leave months later after a contract could not be agreed and joined Manchester United in a swap deal with Mkhitaryan.

There were rumours of interest in young players like Bellerin, Guendouzi, and Maitland-Niles, but the club never opened themselves to a sale when their stars were regular starters. Wolves had several bids knocked back by Arsenal for Maitland-Niles before he eventually left for nothing.

Even now, interest for Martinelli has not surged during the window besides some now quashed claims of Saudi Arabian interest. This, too, was a market the Gunners have not looked to utilise.

They turned down an offer from Al Ittihad after the English window closed in 2024 for Trossard, believed to be in the region of £30million. Clubs in the Middle East also showed interest in Partey in 2023 and 2024, but any approaches were rebuffed at the time.

Interestingly, with the chase for Eze and Martin Odegaard already at the club, some have theorised whether Ethan Nwaneri could be a player that is sold in the future for a big price if he cannot find a way into the team. Could Italian clubs come in strong for Riccardo Calafiori if Myles Lewis-Skelly proves immovable at left-back?

Will Real Madrid make an offer for William Saliba in the future that the club deem too good to turn down should the Frenchman U-turn on current optimism around a contract renewal? And will Martinelli's future be resolved at a later time if the fee is big enough?

These are all questions that could indeed change how Arsenal operates in the market. Considering their title rivals are no strangers to big sales, it could become part and parcel of establishing themselves back at the top. Time will tell, but this summer does not appear to show any signs of a record sale materialising.