Arsenal are about to offload Fabio Vieira for an embarrassing price as he continues to excel on loan at Hamburg.
Andrea Berta has made a statement since arriving as Arsenal’s sporting director, signing eight players in the summer window and sanctioning a wave of key contract extensions.
For all of the Italian’s highs, even he can’t seem to flip the script regarding how poor Arsenal are at selling unwanted players.
The £250m Arsenal spent last summer can’t mask the imbalance between signings and sales, as the Gunners only managed to make approximately £12m from those they offloaded.
Undoubtedly, the worst sale was Albert Sambi Lokonga joining Hamburg for £260,000.
Now, the latest news regarding Fabio Vieira’s future suggests that Berta hasn’t learned his lesson.
What would you consider to be Arsenal’s worst sale of all time?
Arsenal are going to sell Fabio Vieira to Hamburg for a low fee
Arsenal knew how embarrassing Lokonga’s sale price was, leaving Hamburg in a state of disbelief at their luck.
Two of the German clubs’ top players this season have been Lokonga and Vieira, who is currently on loan from Arsenal.
Hamburg’s luck is about to grow, as it’s been reported by BILD that the Bundesliga side has ‘already agreed’ a permanent deal to sign Vieira, and the fee is terrible.
The club’s budget to sign Vieira is understood to be a ‘high single-digit million fee’.
If Hamburg were to sign Vieira from Arsenal for, say, €9m, the Gunners would receive around £7.5m.
That’s the top-end of the ‘single-digit million fee’, so it remains to be seen what the actual agreed price is.
It’s a terrible deal for a player who has earned the headlines during his loan, even more so when remembering that Arsenal paid £34m to sign Vieira in 2022.
Hamburg will hope to work with Berta again in the future, given that they could end the year having spent less than €10m on two former Arsenal players.
Imagine we’re Chelsea, how much would Fabio Vieira sell for in the summer?
Arsenal have reportedly agreed a 'single-digit million fee' to sell Vieira 😳😤
It’s an abysmal return for two established players, sales that put Arsenal to shame when compared to what their rivals manage to achieve in terms of sales.
Year after year, Chelsea make millions of pounds from offloading below-par squad players, players that, in some cases, aren’t at Vieira and Lokonga’s level.
For example, last summer, the Blues managed to generate just under £50m from the sales of Armando Broja and Carney Chukwuemeka, players who combined for a total of 1,312 Premier League minutes for the club.
Arsenal cannot compete in the market when it comes to sales, and Berta has to resolve this fast, but given Vieira’s rumoured sale price, there’s no guarantee of change.
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