Arsenal’s summer transfer business took a dramatic turn on Saturday as news broke that Morgan Rogers would not be joining the Emirates Stadium after all.
The collapse came on a remarkable day for Gunners fans, with Bukayo Saka scoring a hat-trick and Declan Rice also getting on the scoresheet in England’s stunning 6-4 World Cup third-place victory over France.
Rogers had been Arsenal’s leading transfer target this summer, but the Premier League champions were ultimately gazumped by a club without European football next season.
The Aston Villa midfielder is now the most expensive English player of all time, having moved for a reported £117 million fee that Arsenal were unlikely to match.
With that door firmly closed, sporting director Andrea Berta must now pivot quickly to identify alternatives capable of strengthening the Gunners’ attack.
Bradley Barcola of PSG stands out as the most compelling option, with reports from Spain this weekend claiming he has already been offered to Arsenal during talks with the French club.
Described as “one of the best left wingers in the world” by Como scout Ben Mattinson, Barcola ranks in the top 4% of positionally similar players across Europe’s top five leagues for shot-ending carries per 90 minutes.
In 2024/25, Barcola scored 21 goals and registered 21 assists, producing more progressive carries and successful dribbles per 90 than Rogers managed across the same period.
RB Leipzig’s Yan Diomande is another exciting candidate, with transfer expert Fabrizio Romano revealing this weekend that Arsenal have explored the terms of a deal with the 19-year-old’s agent.
Diomande contributed 13 goals and ten assists for Leipzig in 2025/26, ranking in the top 1% of wingers in Europe for successful dribbles per 90 minutes with an impressive 4.29, though Liverpool are also said to be interested in the player valued at around £101 million.
Bournemouth’s Eli Junior Kroupi offers a different profile, with Daniel Sturridge having already labelled the 20-year-old “one of the best finishers in the Premier League” after a historic debut season.
Kroupi is the only teenager to score 13 or more goals in their debut Premier League campaign in the current era of the top flight, placing him in elite company on the list of all-time leading teenage scorers in English football’s top division.
The complication with Kroupi is that Bournemouth have very little interest in selling, and Arsenal would also face stiff competition from Tottenham Hotspur for his signature this summer.
Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford represents a potentially cost-effective option in a market where transfer fees regularly exceed £100 million, with reports suggesting Arsenal have held an interest in the England forward.
Barcelona declined to trigger a £26 million option to buy Rashford after his loan spell at Camp Nou, despite the winger scoring 14 goals and providing 14 assists during his time at the Spanish club in 2025/26.
Mikel Arteta is said to value Premier League experience highly in his transfer targets, and Rashford’s extensive background in English football could make him an attractive proposition at a significantly reduced price.
Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White rounds out the list of options, though selling him so soon after allowing Elliot Anderson to leave the City Ground this summer would seem unlikely from Forest’s perspective.
Gibbs-White is arguably the closest in profile to Rogers among all the alternatives, operating primarily as a number 10 while also capable of contributing from wide positions across a 20-goal, seven-assist campaign last season.
The playmaker was perhaps harshly overlooked by Thomas Tuchel for England’s World Cup squad despite those impressive numbers, and his domestic form would certainly appeal to a manager of Arteta’s ambitions heading into the new campaign.