It’s one of those ‘drop everything’ moments when news filters through of an Orn-bomb. To most Arsenal fans, this term needs no explanation however, I’ll provide one – just in case there are any Gooners who have been living under a rock for the past 10 years or so!!
The Orn-bomb explained
When David Ornstein, formerly of the BBC and current football writer for The Athletic, posts an update on his Twitter account (or basically says anything on any podcast or media of any kind!) the news is considered highly reliably and therefore sends Arsenal fans into either delirium or despair. Generally the former to be fair, which is why he is so highly revered by Gooners around the globe.
David Ornstein has had too many exclusives to even start naming them, but the one that sticks out to be is the Jurrien Timber news, which came completely out of nowhere. The man is a legend and has earned his place as ‘ITK’ royalty!!
Back on topic!
Back to this transfer window and more specifically, what David Ornstein tweeted on 12th June 2026. To summarise, the tweet explained that we were ‘exploring’ a deal for Greek winger, Christos Tzolis, from Club Brugge, with a deal possible for around €40m. The tweet goes on to explain that this deal would not impact Arsenal’s potential move for Morgan Rogers. BOOM!!!
Out of nowhere, we had our first Orn-bomb and therefore concrete transfer link of the summer, with confirmation of our interest in Morgan Rogers thrown in the mix for good measure. Very exciting!!
Who is Christos Tzolis?
As this news was the proverbial bolt from the blue, we had little or no warning about this deal (aside from a name drop in a Hand Of Arsenal tweet earlier in the day) and were immediately left wondering, who is Christos Tzolis and more importantly…is he any good?! I’m not actually on Twitter, but I first saw the news on an Arsenal forum that I prequent during the transfer windows and all I saw was a name, along with the Orn-Bomb image next to it. After reading the tweet, I did what I’m sure thousands of other Gooners did and immediately found myself on YouTube, trying to get an idea of what we were dealing with here.
As the deal had gone from about zero to 60mph in what felt like a second, I figured this guy must be pretty special to get us moving this quickly in the window and I instantly found myself putting a picture together in my head of what Tzolis was going to be like. Inside from crazy football head, I had Tzolis down as a breakout star of around 19/20 years old, who had searing pace and was about to explode onto the big stage.
Without absolutely all of the respect in the world to Christos Tzolis, the reality of where he is in his career right now was very different to my
Tzolis wasn’t the pacy winger with top level output that we have all craved for our left hand side. He was much more functional than that and the immediate comparison that came to mind was Leandro Trossard.
Tzolis also wasn’t 19/20 years old, but a little further on in his journey at 24 years of age, with a few stints across various leagues in Europe (including a brief stint at Norwich) under his belt.
I don’t want to say that I was disappointed with what I found out about Tzolis, as I absolutely love an unheard of rumour that comes out of nowhere and slaps you in the face, so I was still buzzing about the news of a new attacker coming in. It was more of a need to adjust my expectations a bit.
Should we be excited?
To be honest, I’m not sure if any player was going to live up to the hype of what I had built up in my head after reading only his name and value!! I think that’s just the rumour-deprived state that I’ve been subjected to in the early parts of this window seeping in, along with a bit of desperation.
After I started to watch more and more of Tzolis, as well as running through a few scouted reports and stats, I did start to see why Arsenal were interested and the excitement level started to rise again. There’s a player here. Potentially a huge player.
How likely is this deal to happen?
At the time, I just assumed that this was a done deal and he would be coming in. As the update stated that Morgan Rogers was still a possibility regardless of this pursuit, I assumed that this meant that both Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard would be moving on, to be replacing by a ‘Rogers-level’ signing and Christos Tzolis as the rotation option.
A week or more has since passed and we’ve had no further update, so I’m being forced to adjust my perception a little. Given that Greece are not at the World Cup, if we wanted to sign Christos Tzolis tomorrow, I’m fairly confident we would be able to, which leaves the question – why has this deal not progressed any further in nearly two weeks at the time of writing?
After last summer, I was completely in awe of Andrea Berta and the work he did to get those EIGHT signings over the line, which is even more impressive given what we went on to achieve last season. That’s probably the main reason I completely forgot about Berta’s negotiating system, whereby he agrees terms with several players/teams and then pulls the trigger on our preferred option once he has all of his ducks in a row. It’s clearly a very successful way of doing business, but it drives fans like me absolutely nuts, because it makes it impossible to see who we are actually wanting to sign!! (aslo, surely this must be massively disappointing for the players who we agree terms with and then just cut loose when the timing suits us…hope that’s not going to come back and bite us down the line!!)
As a result of this process, we can go from an Orn-bomb, where a signing looks imminent, to never getting close to signing the player and the tricky bit is trying to work out exactly which side of the line this deal falls into. I’ve been back and forth a bit on this deal and how likely it is to get done and I’ve settled on the notion that I still think there is a good chance that Tzolis becomes a Gunner before the new season kicks off, but it likely depends on departures.
As I mentioned above, Tzolis gives me major Trossard vibes and those links to Turkey have surfaced once again. I know what the Turkish press can be like, but this one has been doing the rounds for a long time and Trossard now has 1 year on his contract, with no sign negotiations to extend his deal – this could be where Arsenal part ways with the Belgian. If that does happen, I think Tzolis will become an Arsenal player, but we’ll have to wait until after the World Cup (or at least until Belgium get knocked out – which based on current form, might not be as far away as previously envisioned!!) to get a final answer on this one. One to watch.
Chances of happening – as of now, I’d say the Tzolis deal has a 70% chance of happening.
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