- Analysis
- Sport
- Soccer
- Premier League
Alpha move: Arsenal’s Eze heist heaps humiliation on Spurs
By Emma Kemp
Premier League with 4K on Stan Sport.
Every match, live & on demand.
Eberechi Eze was Tottenham’s most important signing when they thought they had him. He definitely is now that they don’t and Arsenal do.
On the scale of Spurs suffering, of which a significant amount has been tolerated, this late-transfer-window gazumping ranks pretty highly. On the scale of Spursiness in general, let’s just say it is nothing if not consistent.
Tottenham fans are accustomed to feeling aggrieved, but the events of the past 24 hours must have left them incensed – a sentiment which will surely only sharpen come the first North London derby of the season on November 23.
Speculation had swirled for days that Tottenham chair Daniel Levy was closing in on Eze, having upped the ante in his pursuit of the sought-after Crystal Palace attacker and even reportedly agreed a deal on Wednesday. The formalities were pushed back only because Eze had to be available for Palace’s UEFA Conference League play-off on Thursday night.
During that slight delay, the story goes, Arsenal contacted Palace chair Steve Parish on Wednesday afternoon and swooped. Again, formalities were still to come, but Palace manager Oliver Glasner all but confirmed the impending move in his post-match press conference following the 1-0 win over Norwegian side Fredrikstad.
Glasner revealed he’d received a phone call from Eze on Thursday to say he was not feeling well enough to play that night, and when asked to confirm if the 27-year-old was heading to the Emirates Stadium said: “I’m responsible for Crystal Palace and I think he won’t play for us again. So I have to prepare the team for Nottingham and for the second leg against Fredrikstad, and I’m planning without Eberechi.”
Eberechi Eze in action for Palace during their triumphant FA Community Shield final against Liverpool at Wembley a fortnight ago.Credit: AP
According to The Independent, the saga is even more juicy than the last-minute hijacking it appears to be, asserting that Arsenal had agreed the principles of a deal for their former rejected academy player as far back as August 10 and kept it quiet while publicly playing down their interest.
Whether the negotiations with Spurs were deliberately stalled by Palace in the dwindling hope Arsenal would return with a better offer, or Levy is simply not the shrewdest negotiator as per his reputation, the result is the same: humiliation.
Eze vies with Chelsea’s Reece James in last weekend’s scoreless Premier League season-opener at Stamford Bridge.Credit: Getty Images
Of taking the bait and being the last to know. Heavily invested in yet another target who fell through. Still smarting at the near-miss of Morgan Gibbs-White in July, to go with plenty more previous near-misses.
And you have to feel for manager Thomas Frank, who was already without the injured Dejan Kulusevski when he replaced Ange Postecoglou in June and has been without the injured James Maddison since the start of August, and knew his bosses also knew that he needed a No.10. He needed a talisman, too, after the departure of Son Heung-min. Eze, with his on-field guile and poster-boy charisma, would have fit the bill.
Frank must have watched Liverpool do eight deals this transfer window and City strike nine over the past six months, and wondered why his own squad were in much the same place they were at the end of their worst English Premier League campaign in 21 years instead of building momentum three months after winning the club’s first trophy in 17 years.
The goodwill from that Europa League title will only last so long, as will last weekend’s impressive season-opening win over Burnley. This almost-signing fresh hell is food for more pessimism. To most neutrals it is all probably just a bit funny. For the club just up the road it is quite delightful.
Mikel Arteta will have purely football intentions in bringing home the boyhood Gunners fan whose dream club let him go at aged 13, before also being rejected by Fulham, Reading and Millwall and eventually given a chance by Queens Park Rangers in 2016 before moving to Selhurst Park for in 2020.
For Eze, this symbolic return home and the prospect of Champions League football is reward for his flourishing form since, including first England caps and a brilliant last season during which he played a critical role in Palace’s FA Cup win.
For Arsenal, another almost-club carrying a severe case of seconditis, he could be the difference in the hunt for a first title since 2004. Rightly or wrongly, this is a “now-or-never season” for Arteta, who has spent so much some reports suggest Eze’s transfer would take his expenditure beyond £1 billion since his appointment.
Furthermore, Kai Havertz’s injury could leave him with Viktor Gyokeres as the only recognised centre-forward for a period, and the Swede has not enjoyed an easy entry to the Premier League.
But the expectation is that Eze would play on the wing, meaning he could feed Gyokeres as the attacking focal point, and meaning he also could fix the Gunners’ two real weaknesses: predictability and Gabriel Martinelli. That he can also play as an attacking midfielder offers the option of relieving some of Martin Odegaard’s creative responsibilities.
But all of this overlooks the epic psychological blow such a power move inflicts on Tottenham, whose loss is the old enemy’s gain in the cruellest of ways.
Football has a new Home. Stream the Premier League, Emirates FA Cup, J.League and NWSL live & on demand, including Premier League with 4K, from August 2025 on Stan Sport.