Gabriel Martinelli is set to continue his career in Saudi Arabia with Al Hilal after a permanent transfer from Arsenal, a deal that becomes the most expensive sale in Gunners history.<\/p>\n
The Brazilian had already turned down a move to Galatasaray, but Mikel Arteta made it clear Arsenal no longer had a place for him. Martinelli featured in pre-season as expected after the World Cup, yet he was left out of the squad for the Community Shield and the club\u2019s opening two Premier League fixtures.<\/p>\n
Arsenal entered the summer looking to strengthen the side that finished 2025-26 as Premier League champions and Champions League runners-up. Left wing, where Martinelli had already lost his starting role to Leandro Trossard, was viewed as a position requiring attention.<\/p>\n
Christos Tzolis arrived after Trossard was sold to Be\u015fikta\u015f in July. Arsenal then attempted to land a series of high-profile wide players, only to be turned away by Morgan Rogers, Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior and Bradley Barcola. A move for Malick Fofana also appears to have been left unexplored in serious terms.<\/p>\n
That left Tzolis, who had plenty to prove after moving up from Belgian club soccer and enduring a difficult earlier spell in England, to shoulder the responsibility. So far, he has started well in the opening weeks of the season.<\/p>\n
Even so, Martinelli\u2019s departure without a direct replacement has left Arsenal thinner than they would like, especially with the club expecting to defend their Premier League title and compete strongly in the Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup.<\/p>\n
Tzolis will need help. Eberechi Eze can play from the left, while Manchester United academy player James Scanlon joined over the weekend, with the 19-year-old drawn by the club\u2019s trajectory and the move made easier by Martinelli leaving without being replaced.<\/p>\n
Martinelli departs with 278 Arsenal appearances behind him. He is a solid player, even if not a standout one, and forcing him out under these circumstances does little for squad depth, despite the financial return.<\/p>\n
For Martinelli, the move is not an obvious footballing upgrade. His salary will be tax-free and significantly increase his earnings, but competition for his preferred position already exists. Crysencio Summerville, who joined Al Hilal from West Ham United in July, has started all four Pro League matches in 2026-27. He scored once and assisted twice in the 5-1 win over Al Khaleej, then added another goal in Tuesday\u2019s 3-0 victory over Al Ahli. He will not be easy to remove from the side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Martinelli joins Al Hilal as Arsenal sell their record departure and weaken left wing depth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1410,192,1843],"tags":[59,180,182],"class_list":["post-19089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-al-hilal","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-transfer-news","tag-featured","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}