Morning all. Many years ago there was a long-running summer saga involving Arsenal trying to sign a Brazilian player from a Spanish club. We were interested in Julio Baptista, then at Sevilla, and after what seemed like a million stories every day, he ended up going to Real Madrid. ‘The Beast’, as he was known, was not ours. A year later he joined on loan, with Jose Antonio Reyes going the other way, and suffice to say it was all a bit disappointing. Sure, he scored four goals at Anfield in one game, blazing a trail for Andrei Arshavin to follow a few years later, but all in all it wasn’t a great success, and he went back to Madrid the following season to try his overhead kicks there. Anyway, that Baptista pursuit in the summer of 2005 seemed to drag on for ages. When we didn’t get him, we didn’t pivot to another attacking target. The main arrival that summer was Alexander Hleb and my recollection is that he joined before the Brazilian decided to go to Real Madrid. Now, you might be wondering what relevance this has to today’s goings on, and the answer is, not a lot. Other than we’re potentially involved in another saga with Real Madrid involved. This time there’s no Sevilla though. I wonder if the Vinicius Junior stuff will become all-consuming, because when you go for a target like this, if it doesn’t happen you have a lot of work to do. There’s a restlessness about our summer business so far, but if you bring in a star like this, it smooths things out quite considerably. If you don’t, then what? When the Morgan Rogers thing didn’t happen, we wondered what the alternative was. It now seems clear it’s the Brazil international, looking to take advantage of some uncertainty about his future with contract talks at Real Madrid at a kind of impasse. There’s a thread on r/gunners which rounds up the latest info from journalists in Spain about that situation. We had a big discussion about it on the Arsecast Extra yesterday, and while I could be wrong about this, it does feel a bit like an ‘all our eggs in one basket’ gambit. Which is risky, but I suppose when you go for a player of this stature there’s always an element of that. Arsenal have to be mindful of the timing, because if it plays out too long there’s a chance we end up scrambling at the last minute if it doesn’t go through. We also know that Andrea Berta’s modus operandi of keeping multiple options open isn’t really going to work in this scenario. If you’re a player/agent who Arsenal are talking to, but you know that any concrete interest is entirely dependent on whether or not the club are going to get a deal done for Vinicius Junior, you’re not going to be strung along by that. Which will make it more challenging, but not impossible, to pivot if you can’t get Vinicius in. Which is to say, you would hope that in conversations behind the scenes with the player’s camp, Arsenal are pushing them to make a decision about that renewal as quickly as possible, at which point they can either accelerate the interest, or look elsewhere. I will say, I’ve found the discourse around this one fascinating. Although I’m still a bit more on the side of this being unlikely to happen, I do like that as a club we’ve gone in this direction. I’ve spoken more than once about how most of our attacking signings under Mikel Arteta have tended to be a bit underwhelming, so this is a change of tack in that sense. Some see this whole thing as a mess: dealing with Real Madrid, dealing with a star player and the ego/entourage that comes with that, but I just think if you went after any one of the best players in the world, that’s something that’s inevitable. I know this current iteration Arsenal has been built on a bedrock of humility and a collective ideal, and I love that, but what if we need something different to push us to the next level? It certainly feels to me that, after the season we had and the way we had to grind our way to a brilliant title win, we could do with something new. Mikel Arteta is always looking for new ways to drive and motivate his players, and I’m certain every single one of them would be thrilled with the idea of adding someone of that quality to the squad. Maybe Vinicius is the kind of player whose talent and ability in the final third is what helps you get another goal in a Champions League when you’re already 1-0 up. There are no guarantees, obviously, but since we lost to Bayern in the quarter-final in 2024, the talk has been about adding players to the attack who can really raise the level. Someone who can give us what the big players at clubs like Bayern, or Barcelona, or Real Madrid, have at their disposal all the time. We had something close to that in the shape of pre-injury Bukayo Saka, and I hope he can get back there, but let’s be honest and admit he’s got a lot of work to do to find that level consistently again. If you’ve read this far, you’ll notice I’ve written in circles a bit. I’m hopeful but dubious. I’m worried but excited. I think it’s as difficult a deal as we might have been involved in for years, but it’s worth pursuing. Whatever happens though, I hope we’re agile enough to cover all our bases, and that by the end of the window, this is a squad that looks better to go the distance across the whole campaign. — For some extra reading this morning, this is really good stuff from Arsenal fan Elle Hardy on the man who dominates transfer news online, Johnny Here-We-Go (Fabrizio Romano). Typically it’s by sheer volume, as someone like David Ornstein is a far more credible reporter. When he speaks, it’s always worth paying attention, whereas Romano is about churning it out so it’s basically impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff (he’s a lot of chaff). Anyway, worth a read as we experience yet another summer of transfer madness. The Arsecast Extra is below if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet. Have a good one, more tomorrow. Download – iTunes – Spotify – Acast – RSS The post Memories of The Beast (sort of) appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.