But... why?
Gyokeres absolutely tears it up in the Portuguese league and comes in for £60m, which apparently Arsenal are still trying to negotiate down. But Arsenal are willing to pay Chelsea £52m for a player Chelsea doesn't even want? The English Tax explains some of it, but even though he's English he doesn't even count as homegrown.
If this were an end-of-the-window thing and all the other players we were after had already been signed, or we'd missed out on them and had to settle, then I could see it. But, that seems like a lot of money for a player who, if he's behind Saka, won't even be a starter. If they're buying him as a left winger, why buy a right winger to play on the left?
If they are buying him to play on the left, does that mean that they're not going to sign Eze? He's actually a left winger, he's actually better than the current starters, and would only cost an extra £20m?
Maybe if you're hoping to win the CL, you need to be buying £50m players who won't start. But, wouldn't it be smarter to buy a £70m who will start (and counts as home grown) and then have someone like Martinelli as the backup?
The fact he's from Chelsea doesn't really bother me, except that it means that Arsenal are helping Chelsea to meet their FFP obligations... not that those actually seem to matter.
When should they have stopped?
IMO if someone hasn't even been charged with a crime, they should be given the benefit of the doubt. This isn't even "innocent until proven guilty", it's just "not assumed to be guilty before even charged".
Can you imagine the chaos if it was widely known you could stop a club from playing a player just because the police were investigating? Gangs would make a fortune by placing bets against a team / player then arranging for an associate to make an accusation. Even if the charges were later dropped for a complete lack of evidence, the gang makes their profit in the window while it's uncertain.
If you're going to draw a line in the sand, where do you draw it? If you draw it at a conviction, that's reasonable. I don't think anybody would expect that a player who's convicted of a crime should still get their full wages, and get to play if they're appealing or if they're on probation or something. But, maybe you want to be even more harsh, so you draw the line at being charged. That's a bit unfair, what happens if they're found not guilty? Or what if the prosecutors drop the case before it goes to trial? You could give them back pay, but that won't restore their reputation, and sufficient time without playing could destroy their careers. But, it wouldn't affect too many people because it's not common that players are charged. So, maybe that's not completely unreasonable.
But, to me, treating a player who hasn't even been charged differently from other players is taking it too far. Players are high profile targets, so they probably face a lot more attempts to get at their money than most other people.