Unai Emery has made it clear that bringing a loan signing to Arsenal this month will be difficult, although the manager suggested the impending departure of the club’s head of recruitment, Sven Mislintat, would have no effect on their efforts in the transfer market.
Emery said last week that Arsenal were exploring loan deals only – the club spent heavily by their standards last summer – and he has an interest in Barcelona’s Denis Suárez, who would bring a fresh option on the wing. Emery has other targets such as the Sevilla midfielder Éver Banega as the club look to plan for the end-of-season departure of Aaron Ramsey to Juventus on a free transfer.
It has so far proved tough for Mislintat and his team to persuade potential selling clubs to part with players on loan and Arsenal would seemingly have to offer assurances that they would make any deals permanent in the summer. It is unclear whether they would be prepared to do that with Suárez.
Emery sounded a little downbeat when asked for a progress update and he seemed to suggest it would be one incoming loan, at best. “This transfer window is not easy to take players that can help us with better performances than the players we have now,” Emery said. “The club is working and I spoke with Sven, with Raúl [Sanllehí, the director of football] about different possibilities with players.
“They are working but it is not easy to take players that can help us with big performances now. We are looking, the club is working with the possibility to loan players and if we can take [somebody] for helping us in a different position on the team, then maybe we can.”
Emery was tight-lipped on the subject of Suárez. “They are conversations between us, privately,” he said. “I don’t want to say to you this private conversation with the club.”
Emery also gave nothing away with regard to Mislintat’s future, adopting his now standard feign of ignorance on weighty issues, but he maintained it had been business as usual with his colleague. Mislintat, who has grown frustrated very quickly – he joined from Borussia Dortmund in November 2017 – will continue to give his all until such time as he departs.
“I was working with him over the last two weeks,” Emery said. “We had two or three meetings together and we are working normally. I don’t know another different issue to him. Is he leaving? I don’t know. When I spoke with him it was all normal. My relationship with him for transfers in the last two or three weeks – we are speaking about that. Today, for me, the normality is working with him.”
Arsenal entertain Chelsea at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday in a pivotal game in their battle for a Champions League finish. They trail their fourth-placed rivals by six points and, after three defeats in their last six Premier League matches, they can ill afford another loss.
Emery, who described the Chelsea game as a “small final”, said that Mesut Özil was fit and available for selection after knee trouble but it was also the case at West Ham last Saturday, when Arsenal lost 1-0, and he left him out of the squad entirely. Özil has not played since the 1-1 draw at Brighton on Boxing Day and he faces an uncertain future under Emery.
“I’m not thinking about that,” Emery said, when asked whether Özil could leave the club this month. “I’m thinking about how he can help us this year with good performances. He’s had injuries and not been OK to play matches but now after these two weeks maybe this Saturday will be OK for him. He’s training consistently with his work over the past two weeks and I think he can be [available].
“I want consistency. He’s had some injuries and these injuries mean that sometimes he is OK and sometimes he isn’t. I want every player to give the same work every day to be OK for every match. With Mesut, it’s the same.”