With the end of this summer’s transfer window only a few days away, on July 20th in its article, TBR Football touched upon Arsenal’s possible new player acquisitions to win the Premier League. While there were a few other players mentioned, the article’s centerpiece was Kaoru Mitoma, a winger who currently plays for Brighton.
Currently, Arsenal is one of the most international players in the League, with 17 foreign players, such as Gabriel Martinelli and Gabrieu Magalyanis at the heart of the team, just to mention a few non-European players.
At the same time, the team is one of the Premier League teams with the strongest connection to Japanese players. The team previously had players such as Junichi Inamoto (2001-02), Ryo Miyaichi (2011–2015), and Takehiro Tomiyasu joined the Gunners from Bologna FC in 2021.
The 25-year-old Tomiyasu is currently out due to injury, missing the first games of the new season. It is not his first time since joining Arsenal that he has suffered injury misfortunes, with right knee damage in March 2023 that required surgery, as well as an injury to his tibia that happened during the match against Wolverhampton in December that kept him out of the team for almost a month. It is fair to say that he has yet to perform to expectations since joining the team, but there could be some interesting synergy if another Samurai were to join the team.
The Premier League is one of the most popular non-Japanese sports leagues in Japan. In July, Brighton toured Japan with Mitoma, playing against Japan’s Kashima Antlers and Tokyo Verdy, which proved its popularity in the market. But in addition to watching the games, there is even new excitement; nowadaysJapanese bookmakers also offer Premier League betting opportunities, which has become a new popular form of entertainment.
In the TBR article, Mitake was described as a ‘star man’ and was assured that he ‘would bring further depth to Arsenal in attack’, urging Arsenal to ‘make their move now.’ If, in fact, Arsenal goes for Mitoma, it would mean two samurai playing for Arsenal at the same time.
Being away from home and playing in a foreign country could put an athlete in a stressful situation, so having two players who share their native language and play for the national team together in the same team would be mutually beneficial for both and for the team at large.
Kaoru Mitoma is from Kanagawa, Japan, and started his professional football career with Kawasaki Frontale in Japan’s First Division, before making his Premier League debut with Brighton in the 2022-23 season where he made 33 appearances and scored seven goals. Last season, a mid-season injury forced a lengthy leave, but in the newly-started 2024-25 season he was named in the ‘Team of the Week’ (The week’s best eleven) which allowed him a rocket start to his new season.
