It’s amazing how certain transfer rumours can stretch out for months without anything happening, yet we often see deals spring up from nowhere.
Arsenal already completed the surprise signing of Maty Ryan early on today, while everything does point to Martin Odegaard joining on loan from Real Madrid.
While that deal hasn’t been done yet, it’s become clear that he’s not going to be a permanent feature in Real’s team during the second half of the season so a loan move does make sense.
READ MORE: Official: Arsenal confirm first senior signing of the transfer window – completely out of the blue
Interestingly for Arsenal it’s been suggested that he’ll miss training today in a bid to hurry the move along, while it also sounds like there is the potential for this to be more than a six month switch:
– Initial loan deal until the end of this season
– As of now, there is no purchase agreement expected to be part of the deal
– Willingness from all parties to reassess the situation in the summer. Will of course depend on how successful his loan is, Zidane’s plans, etc.
— Freddie Paxton (@Freddie_Paxton) January 22, 2021
Real are in a strange moment just now because there’s every chance that this will be Zidane’s last season, so there’s no point in putting in a purchase option when that situation is still up in the air.
Zidane has always been over-reliant on the same group of players and he can’t seem to move on from the veterans, so the club will need to move on from him to allow the young players to take over and there’s every chance that could be next season.
They’ve also seen with Dani Ceballos that Arsenal is a good place for their midfielders to develop so there’s every reason to think Odegaard could extend his Arsenal stay or even make it permanent if Ceballos goes back to Madrid to play a regular starting role when his loan deal expires.
The most important thing is actually getting the initial deal done before worrying about what happens after the summer, but this looks like a very positive move for The Gunners.