Well now you have caught your breath back from reading that essay of a title i’ll delve right into it!
A Fair bit kicking around today and its mostly transfer speculation with no less than four names linked with arrivals and departures.
Toure is being linked with a £10 million move away from us after an apparent bust up with William Gallas; im not really sure what to make of it. It would make some sense as they are just incapable of defending together and since Toure got injured at the ACN last season he has not been half the player he once was, he is clearly overweight and is just utterly erratic. Im a massive fan of his but at the moment if there was a choice of either Gallas or Toure leaving us it would have to be Toure.
A ‘source’ close to Toure is alleged to have said:
Kolo doesn’t want to stay – he cannot stand Gallas and Gallas cannot stand him,â€
“Gallas is showing him complete disrespect and Kolo believes he’s been mouthing off to Wenger about them not being able to play together and Wenger is listening to him.â€
Well the fact is they cant play together, they are exactly the same type of player and they have no communication either, I dont know what is wrong with Kolo but he is not normally a player surrounded by speculation like he is at the moment and it might just mean there is something up.
This brings me onto a player we have seen twice this season in the shape of Dynamo Kiev’s Pape Diakhate. When we played against Kiev he was outstanding on both occasions, again, a £10 million price tag is on his head. Its not the sort of easy link to be made by a paper, its not a ‘Wenger eyes up Arshavin’ sort of headline. There might be an element of truth in it after last summer Wenger admitted the defence needed strengthening and then brought in Silvestre, maybe he wants a better defender this time?
Noise Is Getting Louder
In a day where the headlines seem to be a little quieter on the Arshavin links there are more realistic targets for once, one in the shape of Arteta who is in my opinion one of the best central midfielders in the Premiership. He has been in great form this season and could well be a target with a £12 million price tag suggested, it does seem a little cheap but Everton might just have to sell some players if they are to get any players in, and they are in dire need of a decent striker. Its possible i suppose and he does already boast Premier League experience but we really do need to be looking at a good defensive midfielder as a matter of urgency. I feel thats where our biggest problems lie, along with a decent winger but i’ll come back to that later on.
According to The Sport we have failed in a bid to take Veloso on loan, not in a billion years would that have ever happened! He has apparently fallen out with his boss but really, a class player like him would never be available for loan.
Going back to the subject of wingers, i do feel that we need some genuine width, we will probably have Barazite returning for the second half of the season and he is a good player out wide ive heard but he is by no means a natural wideman, we need a player in the Ashley Young mould, where we will get one i really have no idea. I don’t see any on the market either, the closest i could possibly come up with is Bastian Sweinsteiger and i really, really, hate his hair.
If we get a defensive midfielder we could find a lot of our defensive problems vanish, i think Djourou and Gallas are potentially a very good partnership, however, the defensive midfielder is a matter of urgency and i don’t know if Arsene will fix it. He doesn’t give a fig about the defence and never has done.
I hope he does now for all our sakes after Villa fluked another win tonight.
Wenger has also made some rather crazy comments about us ‘dominating’ the league, i wonder what he has been smoking because i want some! They really are crazy comments undoubtedly aimed at making his troops more confident. This kind of stuff is really starting to grate Gooners all over the place and Gooner14 has previously said to me how Wenger might be ‘losing it’ and comments like this do not dispel such opinions.
Now a question for you…
Who are your top 5 Arsenal targets and why?
leave your thoughts in the comments!
Just to get a broader prospective of things.
Anyway, back later or tomorrow.
Top five
Arteta – Obvious one, can give us the spark cesc would normal give us)
Cana – Stronger tackler im midfield (pray for obvious reasons)
Arshavin – Creativity, winger who will run at people (needed)
Hangeland – Im not to sure we need a defender djourou looks a good player i think him and gallas could come good together. Maybe im wrong.? But i think he can play defensive mid so make your own minds up there….
Me – For obvious reasons
This would be nice but unlikely, January is going to be interesting.
1. Shay Given – world class goalie who can single handedly keep an opponent at bay when the defence is rubbish like ours (unlike almunia)
2. Giorgio Chielini – very strong, quick and dominant defender, has a good goal scoring record from set pieces too. 3. Steven Taylor – young and composed defender, he’d also add the english bite we lack at arsenal (i still believe the lack of english players at arsenal explains the many decisions going against us in matches)
4. Miguel Veloso – great hardworking, talented and technical player to patch up our rigid midfield, brings in the shooting option we strongly lack with his fierce left foot.
5. Andrei Arshavin/ Mikel Arteta – any one of them would offer us the creativity and width deprived by injuries to Fab and Theo. But i think Arteta would be better suited at this time because of his premier league experience, can play in the champions league and he’s definitely cheaper.
Well the facts are if Arsavan was going to sign surley he would be in London allready.
If others from the premeirship are going to sign then they wont play on Sat as they will be cup tied
So lets see who plays will Given be left out Arteta etc
I have a realy bad feeling again that Wenger wont sign anyone just like he promised another signing in the summer all we got was silvestre
We will probley end up with Dean Windass or something
If Wenger and the board fail to sign anyone we win nothing and fall out of the top four they must all go
sounds like Keith supports To**enham!
If we don’t sign anyone and win no trophies the board must go…. WHAT?!?!? This is Arsenal mate not a comic book club! You have obvioulsy only been supporting us for the last 5 years or so.
I must say that I personally would not be that happy in signing Arshavin, he is so inconsistent. He’s had about 8 good games in the last 2 seasons! If we sign him I really hope I am proved wrong. As for the Shay Given rumour, well he is our new Robbie Fowler isn’t he? Every 6 months or so we used to get a story that Robbie Fowler was gonna sign for us, now we get it with Given. Every 6 months for the last 3 years this story has come out. It’s rubbish just as the Fowler story was.
Most important is a defensive mid-fielder I believe. Who? I dunno. Sorry.
Agree totally with Tigoon. Good Call man.
Lets stop these unrealistic speculation and reading of the Sun and The Sport. That last one is the worst!!!!
The papers are likely to make up many transfer rumours so don’t believ 90% of them as they look to put two and two together to try and make four.
First Arsene will need to sign players that are not cup tied and also of good quality and price. So all that Tigoon has saifd is unlikely. Arteta is a different story but will cost more than Arshavin. He is a top player though.
Cana is cup tied while Hangeland is still unproven material after one good half a season with Fulham.
Arsene is not losing it and if you were the manager of Arsenal you would either be sacked after 10 minutes or the club will go into non existence due to your lack of knowledge about the outside football world (I’m not talking football tactics).
A defensive midfielder and a dead ball expert, or both in one.
Hey, Brain.
Im not saying the newspaper stuff is true, im just going through what is kicking around at the moment. I’m not saying we will sign the players we are linked to by any means, im just assessing the livelihood of it.
I dont know if your comment was aimed at me or one of the commenter’s but i am pro Wenger, i don’t by any means want him out.
Podolski for Bendtner – Bendtner is just lazy and needs on average 5 games to score a goal and at best he could be a 13 goal a season striker so that’s no good for us. Podolski can play wide or up front, can run all day long and is clinical infront of goal!
David Silva – Quality winger and with Valencia under threat of administration it might be a perfect time for a bargain.
Miguel Veloso – Do i need to say anything?! Classy, hardworking defensive midfielder who can also play along the backline. He can go for as little as £10m at the moment as his contract is nearly up but sporting are ManU’s feeder club so would surely have the first refusal.
Aguero (dreaming now) – The word world class is used too loosely nowadays but this lad is the true definition. We can’t afford him but hey! it’s a wishlist so i’m wishing.
Chiellini/Aleksandr Anyukov/
Sergio Aguero is a crazy good player, he will end up the worlds best im sure
If we want a winger I’d highly consider Hatem Ben Arfa. He looks very much the french Ashley Young from what I’ve seen of him in Marseille games – quick, technical, always wants the ball and dribbles well. I also like Lorik Cana and Mamahdou Niang from Marseille – one a tough tackling central midfielder, the other a good finisher even when Marseille are playing rubbish, he manages to find the net.
Diakhate is an interesting pick because he was supposed to have been this next big thing from his time at Nancy. He was one of the reason Nancy had one of the best defensive records in Ligue 1 and that one UEFA Cup they qualified for. However 10M for him? Not sure I’d value him higher than maybe 6-7M. I highly doubt Chiellini is leaving Italy, rarely do Italians on big teams leave that league, especially if they are internationals.
I hope Given opts for Arsenal red, especially with Newcastle being a club in crisis but if he chooses to stay on Tyneside I wouldn’t be surprised if Wenger goes back to France and inquires about Hugo Lloris or Stephen Mandanda since he’s already identified them as 2 up and coming world class keepers. In rality though it’s a bit sad other teams far below us have much better keepers. Almunia has improved but a club as big as Arsenal needs a better goalie. Perhaps Stekelenberg from Ajax? Boruc from Celtic?
My ideal central midfielder though would have to be Jeremy Toulalan but no way is Lyon releasing one of their best players for cheap.
goonblogger- Not meant to pose any offense, just saying this because of these crazy unrealistic targets people are making out, seeming like they know so much about football (not implying anything about myself). Just want more thought into these because of my aforementioned reasons are unlikely to come in. Comments like WC or 49 unbeaten show more understanding rather than stating so and so players but the majority are unrealistic.
BTW regarding Ben Arfa: Nasri was sold by Marseille because they wanted to get a replacement so got Ben Arfa. This means it is unlikely we go for him in the near future as we shud have signed him before or had to choose one or the other because of a lack of funds. Would be good but also seems unrealistic unfortunately (cup tied, just signed , expensive etc.)
Veloso is cup tied while I would like to find out more on Valencia’s situation and also Sporting’s in the coming month.
I think Valencia would bet bailed out by the Spanish government if they were really deep in it, i think that their situation was worse in the summer but they still managed to keep hold of all their top players, i dont see any cheap and easy bids from there.
Ben Arfa we have no chance and he is a very hot & cold player, i dont think i would really want him here, if i was to grab any winger i would want it would probably be Antonio Valencia from Wigan and seek to do what Villa have done to Ashley Young….
I just bring attention to all the links to players flying around and the chances of a move, i never state we will get anyone i have to say.
I think we just have very differing blogs, your’s is a more tactical look and it makes some great points & i like reading it.
I try and put my opinion across on everything, so tactics, players, transfers and the internal affairs.
I dont like writing about transfers much but there in not a lot else going around at the moment, i blog daily so its pretty hard to avoid! haha
I prefer writing about the internal affairs, check my source report for the Kronke takeover. Thats the real juicy stuff!
Sorry if I’m sounding like I’m making offense GoonBlogger. I’m not. What I’m really trying to get at is Arsenal fans love speculation at the moment even if it is pretty mindless. I’ve so many unrealistic paper talk all over the internet, T.V, newspapers and it is mainly false.
I did talk about it once for my post but for me it’s not worth it and there are better issues to talk about.
It’s good what you are doing; putting your views across for a variety of different things that’s no problem. I too read it hence why I’m here but I’m sure you can decipher what is true and what is not. I don’t know what I’m really ticked off about; maybe it’s all this negativity that’s not stirring up a good debate among Arsenal fans. Some fans haven’t even seen the player they want to come to the club!
The way I see it we have some great players and could be the best in the Prem, just need a bit more improvements from the youngsters but that is likely to come in time while a winger would be the main priority as the balance in keeping the ball is not right yet.
Arsene has made it clear that he has to bring in at least 2 quality and experienced players in Jan, and if he doesn’t consider cup tied players then there’s virtually no one else available because all good players have already participated in europe. so The Brain u might wanna be more realistic too..from the 5 i mentioned above, i think only chielini and veloso are cuptied
1. arteta
2. arshavin
3. tevez
4. veloso
5. senna
btw, rosicky is exactly the player we need right now
[...] this case its not a new name, it might be to some people but the Dynamo Kiev defender was linked with a move to us in December 2008 after two displays which caught the eye in the Champions League. He is an EU national as he came [...]