Arsenal’s Push for Bruno Guimaraes is Well Timed – Their Summer Starts Here

Arsenal want to add Newcastle’s Bruno Guimaraes to their midfield options Ian MacNicol/Getty Images

It is about time Arsenal pushed forward and neared a total agreement for the transfer of Newcastle United’s Bruno Guimaraes.

After missing out on Morgan Rogers, who joined Chelsea from Aston Villa for £117million ($157m), there is a feeling that the club must get a move on with their incoming summer transfer business. Alongside Guimaraes, they also want to add a defender and are trying to pull off a deal for Vinicius Junior.

Christos Tzolis has arrived for €40m from Club Brugge, but is the only new signing who truly impacts the first team. Arsenal kicked off their pre-season at the weekend (beating Girona on August 1). Speaking directly after the Champions League final, Mikel Arteta spoke of a need to be “very, very ambitious, very fast and very smart”.

Arsenal are the Premier League champions, but that title alone will not earn them any points when the campaign kicks off on August 21 at home to Coventry City.

Too good to arrive from Newcastle United, where he is the captain, as a backup, Guimaraes would be a quality operator with and without the ball who reinforces the midfield.

Seasons that follow international tournaments are never easy to navigate. As well as prolonging pursuits for players, five of the 10 Arsenal players who reached the World Cup quarter-finals were midfielders — Martin Zubimendi and Mikel Merino with Spain, Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze with England and Martin Odegaard with Norway.

Four of these five (Odegaard being the exception) made it to the final weekend of the tournament, played on July 18 and 19. Players are meant to have three weeks off after international tournaments, so the quickest logical return to training for these players would be around Arsenal’s third and penultimate pre-season match, against Borussia Dortmund at Emirates Stadium on August 9.

That, alongside a truncated pre-season, could complicate matters for them more than most, with less clarity and more staggered returns from midfielders in pre-season.

Guimaraes’ exit with Brazil in the last 16 on July 5 means he would have had enough time to rest and recover from his time in the States to be with Arsenal for most of pre-season.

Agreeing a deal now hopefully means Guimaraes’ move will not drag into the season proper.

With Zubimendi, Merino, Rice, Eze and Odegaard going deep into the tournament, Arsenal’s only real first-team midfield options who would come into the 2026-27 campaign completely fresh are Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri. Kai Havertz played in the middle of the park against Girona, but he also featured at the World Cup.

With Guimaraes (if this move happens) expected to take some of the workload from Rice and Zubimendi, who played 4,454 and 4,292 minutes for the club respectively last season across all competitions, availability during the early period in the season could be a key driver in Arsenal’s pursuit of the former Lyon midfielder.

Arteta has previously spoken about the risks of accumulation of game time over multiple seasons in relation to Rice and his club and country team-mate Bukayo Saka, so conscious efforts to protect both (and others in similar positions) could be critical in the long term.

Arsenal were unable to retain the title after their three previous triumphs in the 34-year Premier League era.

Of the three clubs who have managed to do that (Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea), this Arsenal side are arguably most akin to Chelsea in the mid-2000s.

Their wait for a title was not 50 years, like the one that ended for Chelsea in 2005, but that side’s triumph was built on a strong defensive foundation that was reinforced with an all-action midfielder in Michael Essien, signed from Lyon that August for what was a club-record fee of £24.4million.

That Essien transfer saga lasted three months, with Chelsea’s first bid rejected in May, but they knew who they wanted and eventually got him. Some may have wondered if the chase was necessary, with Tiago Mendes having formed a title-winning unit with Claude Makelele and Frank Lampard, but Essien’s move saw Portugal international Mendes replace him at Lyon as the Ghanaian formed a new title-winning midfield trio with Makelele and Lampard.

Mendes ranked 10th for league minutes played in that 2004-05 season (1,968), while Lampard and Makelele were first and second on 3,413 and 3,240. The following year, Lampard dropped to second (3,150) and Makelele to fifth (2,544), with newcomer Essien sixth on 2,459 — a more balanced distribution across the Chelsea midfield.

Chelsea signed Essien the summer after their first Premier League title, and with him they went on to retain itCarl De Souza/AFP via Getty Images

There is some intrigue over Guimaraes’ age, as he will be 29 on November 16.

First-team signings at Arsenal under Arteta have tended to be in their early to mid twenties, but he has taken the opportunity to sign more experienced, older heads when he has felt it was the right player. While Christian Norgaard, who was 31, was a clear miss last summer (his only Premier League start came after the title had been won) — and he is on the cusp of joining Everton — Leandro Trossard (who was 28) and Jorginho (who was 31) are examples of hits.

While Guimaraes plays the same position as Jorginho, Trossard may be the stronger comparison here.

He arrived at Arsenal as an established Premier League player with a clear skill set after four seasons with Brighton and Hove Albion. There were moments when the Belgium international could drop out of form, but he brought a reliability that was rare among others in his three and a half years in north London — he’s now moved to Besiktas.

As captain of Newcastle, there should be no question that Guimaraes could provide a similar reliability with his own skill set. Whether that be from a technical standpoint in midfield or from a leadership perspective, this could be vital if he plays in place of Rice. Even if he is used alongside the Englishman, that additional edge would surely benefit Arsenal.

Last summer, there was a clear motivation to ‘win now’ about some of the signings. Viktor Gyokeres and Eberechi Eze were both 27, had amassed a wealth of varied experience, and there was a belief they could both be different makers.

Adding a personality and player such as Guimaraes could help add another sense of drive to this team.

As co-chair Josh Kroenke said after Arsenal were confirmed as Premier League champions again in May: “If you’re not trying to continually evolve and improve, you’re standing still.”

Source: www.nytimes.com