Martinelli cost Arsenal £6m in 2019, and he leaves as the most expensive player they have ever sold

Arsenal paid Ituano about £6m for a teenage winger on 2 July 2019. On Sunday they agreed to sell him for £55.7m, which makes Gabriel Martinelli the most expensive player the club has ever let go. The old mark had stood since 2017, when Liverpool paid £40m for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

The fee, and who gets a slice of it

Al Hilal’s package is worth more than €65m with add-ons included. Fabrizio Romano reported the verbal agreement on Sunday, along with permission for Martinelli to fly to Saudi Arabia inside 24 hours to finish the paperwork. The contract is a long one and is reported to be worth over $23m a year, which was never a number Arsenal were going to argue with.

They do not keep all of the fee either. Ituano wrote a sell-on clause into the deal when they let an 18-year-old go, so a slice of the club record goes back to the side in Sao Paulo state that gave him his senior debut at 16.

The squad sheets said it first

The clearest signal arrived before any fee did. Martinelli was left out of the matchday squad for the Community Shield, then left out again for the Premier League opener against Coventry City, with Christos Tzolis, a £34m signing from Club Brugge, taking the left wing instead. Mikel Arteta had already told him his part in the title defence would be smaller than it used to be.

“That’s a personal situation that we are dealing with,” Arteta said last week. “Everybody knows and recognises how much we love Gabi. Whatever the outcome is, it will be because everyone agrees to that.”

He leaves after seven seasons, and one of them still defines him. Martinelli scored 15 in all competitions in 2022-23, the year Arsenal ran Manchester City close and he looked like the best young winger in the league. He never found that level again for long enough, and the argument over whether Arsenal are selling well or selling early sits in that gap.

Jesus flew to Spain on Monday

The other Gabriel is going too. Barcelona agreed a fee of €10m with up to €4m more in add-ons and a 20 per cent sell-on clause, and Gabriel Jesus travelled for his medical on Monday, with a contract to June 2028 and an option beyond it. Barcelona turned to him only after their pursuit of Julian Alvarez at Atletico Madrid went nowhere.

Jesus cost £45m from Manchester City in July 2022 and scored 32 goals in 123 appearances. He ruptured a cruciate ligament against Manchester United in the FA Cup on 12 January 2025, lost the rest of that season to it, and came back to find Viktor Gyokeres and Kai Havertz in front of him. He turned 29 in April.

Fabio Vieira is on his way to Hamburg for around £7.7m. Together the three sales should bring in something near £72m.

The money went out first

None of this is a clear-out for its own sake. Arsenal have spent close to £200m this summer on five players: Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle for £75m, Ezri Konsa from Aston Villa for £51m with bonuses that can push it higher, Tzolis for £34m, Illan Meslier on a free once his Leeds contract expired, and Piero Hincapie made permanent after last season’s loan. The sales are the second half of a rebuilt squad rather than a retreat from one.

At the other end of the deal, Al Hilal are having a window of their own. Simone Inzaghi’s side agreed £50m with Aston Villa for Ollie Watkins days before the Martinelli fee was settled, so two Premier League forwards have gone to Riyadh inside a week.

One match, then the shutters

Arsenal play at Villa Park on Monday night, 12.30am Tuesday in India, without either Gabriel. The window shuts at 11pm UK time on Tuesday, which is 3.30am Wednesday at home, and any club that files a deal sheet before then gets two extra hours to finish what it started.

Follow every deal until the window shuts