I published a quick article earlier that caused a bit of a stir. Maybe I should explain my thinking a little more..
The league champions have brought in a very good player in Ashley Young - a player Arsenal had been keeping an eye on all season – they have also brought in a fantastic young defensive player in Phil Jones. It is a sign of intent and ambition, a desire to improve on last season and go one step further. City, believe it or not, have been inquiring about class players on the continent and will probably be making some sizable moves soon – Chelsea are going after Neymar.
Look at Arsenal right now and can you see any of that? There is a lack of killer instinct on the pitch and off it. How many players have we placed a bid for this summer? More than you may think, that is for sure. The only signing we have sealed was done and dusted months ago. I get the feeling that we are just being taken for a ride by other clubs, they know we do have money to spend and more often than not one of our rivals will stump up the cash if we don’t. Is this the reason we are going for players of Samba’s quality? No disrespect, but he is hardly Fernando Hierro…
It makes it worse to know that we look set to give in to Barcelona and give up our captain for a stupidly low fee. This is as they are securing the signing of Sanchez too for a fee that would pretty much match that paid for Cesc with all the add-ons activated. It is a farce. I will have my say on the conduct of Cesc if/when he leaves, it isn’t all positive but he could have behaved far worse. If Madrid came in with a bid I would still sell him to them, just to spite Barca.
A lot of people doubt today’s story in the Mirror about us losing both Cesc and Nasri – it is written by John Cross and Darren Lewis – two very respectable journalists who have no motive to scaremonger. Like I have said on numerous occasions, when a journalist writes a story he has often been tipped off from somewhere – it isn’t a case of creative writing to meet a deadline. The Guardian are also now reporting Barca tabling a new £35m bid for Cesc.
There will probably also be one last contract offer to Samir Nasri today or tomorrow, the deadline day for him. If he doesn’t accept, Arsenal will actively try to move him on.
The other day there were reports of Arsenal tabling an £18 million offer for Valencia’s Juan Mata – he is a player we showed an active interest in earlier this year after Lille started playing silly buggers with Eden Hazard’s asking price. Arsenal made contact with Valencia and the players father. Nothing materialised and I doubt there has been any change since then.
For what it is worth, I am very much looking forward to next season. I do think we will get some players in, the quality of those players is what I will probably end up questioning.
Til tomorrow.
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Mate you should stop talking like you’re in the know. The bottom line is you’re about as clueless as the rest of us. Give it up, you’re just making yourself look silly.
Have to disagree with about journalists, they may get tipped off but the source isn’t probably reliable. But I do think even John Cross uses ‘creative’ writing at times. If everything we read came true it would be chaos.!
The reason I read this blog is because you sometimes get stories that others aren’t reporting yet. Please don’t go like Le Grove and copy and paste all the BBC gossip and report it as fact.
thought you said samba was sealed + signed? you make stuff up??
Wenger should know dat he needs 2 buy players. Am tired of being an arsenal fan. We are lacking.
I understand your sentiment regarding selling Fabregas to Madrid just to spite Barca. But you may be forgetting that three signatures are required and that of C Fabregas might be missing and so no sale.
It is all very frustrating for us, but I suspect that Gazidis and Wenger are even more frustrated.
I too hear that City are looking to buy class players on the continent but let’s not forget that they want them to replace the class players they bought earlier and now don’t want and cannot sell.
With due respect Martin,Ashley Young isn’t world class and Phil Jones fantastic? Samba is what we need in the heart of defence. Think of Zigic goal in the lge cup final,Carrol’s goal at the emirates and a host of others. Samba will take care of that sort of defending. Stop getting paranoid like the average arsenal fan. Judge the signings when they are announced.
i think and hope wenger will not repeat the mistake he made when he released thiery henry and hleb. he should not let both fabregas nasri leave.let him offer nasri what he needs. i believe nasri will stay.
Silly post. I don’t understand why Arsenal fans are so easily baited by “reputable” news reports. The fact is that no one know what’s going on behind the scenes. The basis for the Cesc story is a short quote from a “senior” source at Arsenal. For all we know it was a 70-year old member of the janitorial staff. So Man U made some signings already, all that matters is who’s on the roster at the start of the season. While we’re on the topic, Ashly Young is rubbish mate!
While I repect the aforementioned journalists I don’t believe they are much the wiser than us. They might not have a scaremongering agenda, but they do have an agenda to file storys for their paper.
I don’t think you need me to list all the players we have supposedly bid for to prove the point. The above journalists are simply taking what we all know and adding some meat to make it a story.
Don’t get why you think we will ‘give in to Barcelona and give up our captain for a stupidly low fee’, have you heard anything that the rest of the world hasn’t? We went through all this last summer (and some) and what happens is a mystery until it is formally announced by Arsenal – this Cesc saga is boring and blogs (not specifically jabbing at yours)should stop feeding it.
To be fair your still pretty much reiterating what has already been said by many other news-papers/blogs/tweets etc. Again you comparing the transfer’s of teams who “haven’t” brought anything (apart from ManU who brought a over-rated and expensive winger) and making it out to be gospel. Man city are looking at anyone with two feet, manure capture of Phil Jone is ok – but then doesn’t mean he will become a legend; look at Evns! The killer instinct is lost on and off the pitch?!?! What are you talking about, Arsenal is a privately funded Club and doesn’t need to declare its dealings until the money has been spent – therefore, the build up is pretty much tight lipped and always has been! Lastly I would hardly call John Cross a reliable source.. he’s been on holiday and obviously missed writing short stories..!
Before you read the story in paper or their website.. There’s a small place where the journo’s name is written and some have Bureau/Agencies/etc.. That’s what he is trying to say about the Mirror report. It isn’t goal.com ‘who understands stuff’ and gets naïve bloggers who claim to be in the know. Not only Goonblog but other credible sources also believe that Arsenal might just say yes to Barca’s 35million bid.. Learn to accept the fucking fact that someone know more than you read in the tabloids.
It is highly likely we will lose Cesc. I still think Nasri could be persuaded if we paid him the money he is asking for. Which irks me slightly as he is becoming a greedy little imp, his signing back in 2008 was delayed to see if he could enhance is value/salary by having a good Euro’s.
Anyhow, IF we sell Cesc and even Nasri I really think we should be making a statement of intent and launch a bid for someone like schneider. If we get £35m for Cesc and £15m for Nasri plus the £40m in kitty that is substantial enough to fill the gaping loss of both plus bring in Cahill and strengthen the DM spot.
We can not be content to pay the highest ticket prices in the world and continue to sell marquee players, which incidentally are no longer becuase they are sold at the right time Vieira, Henry etc. It is becuase they want out and Wengers current policy is failing miserably as we will be left with piss porr, sub standard players on inflated contracts who also do not want to be at the club
anyone else getting the feeling we’ll bring in more money from transfers than we spend on them ? it’s sad but debt wins prizes.With man u. spending so much to strengthen, it shows how weak they were last term and how, finally with a whimper we capitulated. Liverpool, city and chelski will too strengthen and as ‘pool did with the Torres money,reinvest. Its a noble approach but if you look across europe the penny pinchers and the poor in their respective leagues win nothing.
unfortunately wengers made a rod for his own back..he said all along that his youth policy would prevail and it clearly hasn’t if he goes out and buys big players he has admitted it didn’t work..if i was a top class player i wouldn’t want to play alongside the likes of bentner,denilson,squallachi,there’s no one to pull in the top stars,its a double edge sword!wenger and co will not have got a better chance of winning the league than they did last season just a few sighning would’ve have got us there..i don’t blame fabregas for leaving,a footballer’s career is short!
OK let’s have a look at what has happened so far this summer:
Man United – Everyone is raving about Man United spending £50m on 3 players, lets not forget, the reason they have acted early is because of the players they have lost. They have lost The best keeper in the EPL (Van der Saar) They have lost one of the best midfielders (Paul Scholes) and they have also lost 2 other squad players with vast experience in Gary Neville and Owen Hargreaves. Wes Brown has stated his intention to move as has Darron Gibson and possibly John O’Shea. Berbatov and Nani are not totally happy either and remember United’s no.2 polish keeper is not as good as either of our polish keepers. For me United have not yet improved their team.
Man City – no deals yet
Chelsea – no deals yet
Spurs – Brad Friedl on a free, a slight improvement on Cudicini and Gomes.
Liverpool – 1 signing Jordan Henderson (£20m) he will probably take Lucas’ place in the team is he £20m worth of improvement on Lucas, well i doubt it.
Arsenal – 1 signing so far Jenkinson as our 3rd choice right back. Is he an improvement on Gavin Hoyte, who cares? I dont think our 3rd choice right back even got a game last year. OK, so we have 5 players that are eyeing up moves, 2 of them Bendtner and Denilson, i doubt anyone would care if they left and were not even replaced as Frimpong and Vela could probably offer more. Clichy, opinions are divided as orthodox left backs go he is the best we have, but with a run in the team Gibbs, Traore or Vermaelen will probably prove that he is no loss. Nasri, is holding us to ransom, is he that good, well France did not think so and let’s face it, he only became a regular at Arsenal last season and that was because Fabregas was injured. Then there is El Capitan himself, well sure when he plays which is about half of our matches he is good, yet of those half he plays he only finishes half of them. To be quite frank if we can collect £35m plus incentives for Fabregas, £20m Nasri and £25m for Clichy, Bendtner and Denilson, i say grab it. Add that £80m to ourt Transfer kitty and we can get some players of top quality that actually want to play for the club.
I doubt we will lose both considering that Nasri is actually waiting to see who Wenger signs. And we are in advanced talks with Bolton on Gary Cahill and we’ve plenty of wingers and attacking material coming in.
We need a centreback (Cahill), left back (Enrique), defensive mid (Vidal), and playmaker to replace fabregas
Let fabregas go. Time to move on. A man cannot be captain if his heart isn’t with the team, let him go as we need leaders in our team, and I hope it doesn’t work out for him as it hasn’t with other arsenal players. Wenger somehow makes these players and after they leave they cant cope and go nowhere. AocKB (of course) support another team haters. Peace
That hole you dug with your first effort today, just got a HOLE lot bigger! You should’ve just left it alone mate, instead of making yourself look an idiot all over again!
I don’t understand how it’s more likely we’ll lose Cesc this year than we did last year. This year he’s even come out and said he’s happy here.
Realistically in todays market, with his experience and ability a fair price would be something between £45-55million.
Why would we sell to Barcelona for £35million if we can keep him for another 1 or 2 years and sell him then for at least £30million?
Looking at the prices of talent these days there is no way we could get a player anywhere near as good as Fabregas for £35million.
There are a lot of big talents out there, but none who are at their peak to the same extent that Fabregas is. £35million would get you who? Sanchez, Benzema, Pastore, Hamsik, Neymar? All good talents but none of them established fully. Replacing him with one of those is like replacing him with Wilshire. Great talent, great player but nowhere near ready for that kind of important role.
The only players in the world with more transfer value than Fabregas in my opinion are Messi, Ronaldo, Iniesta, Sneijder and possibly Tevez and Rooney, yet how many players these days do we see linked to £30million+ price tags?
Just because he’s had a really bad season by his standards doesn’t mean he will have another one. Don’t forget he’s by far the best player in the league at picking out the right pass, and with explosive players like Gervinho, Arshavin and the near perfect van Persie around it will be invaluable to us.
As far as I know Cesc has at least 3 years of contract remaining, which means we have no reason to sell him this season since his value isn’t going to decrease over the year and even if it does it won’t decrease to the extent that it would be worthwhile for us to sell him now.
indeeed sid indeed. to think i use to rate this blog, now it seems its becoming a hits whore how ironic.
if you aint got nowt good to say then dont say anything, le grove hasnt seen me all year and if this blog keeps up this nonsense im sure i wont be the only one giving it a wide birth.
fix up look sharp.
our best midfielder did not play last season until the end (Ramsey). Our best player from start to finish and most consistent was Wilshere our best player is RVP. Walcott was our third topscorer and had more assists then Nasri. I would like to keep Nasri but I would not be too upset if he left even though Ashavin is a lazy little bugger and had a poor season last season we still created more assists than Nasri and goes for the right ball instead of hollywood ball that Fabregas always looks for and if anything I would like to see the strength of our sqaud improve and that would include adding more qaulity.
Hei WWW! Charlie Adam the one who replace Lucas not Henderson . LOL**
not the best post and doesn’t do much to dig yourself out of that hole as stated before but i applaud the effort. i too think selling cesc to madrid would be great, especially since we could get more than the 45 they supposedly offered but we know that would never happen. and please don’t forge that “reputable” sources, while i do love darren lewis, do have to keep their jobs. i don’t think either were writing this story to spite us or rattle our already tattered cage but it has always amused me that nasri has only said that he was contacted and that he was holding out to see what we do in the transfer market. while his ego has grown, so has his confidence on the pitch and he now wants to earn based on his ability (which is fair because he could earn a FAR higher salary somewhere else) and win trophies so let’s not blame him for that.
the cesc stuff has to stop though. not that you could but let’s not speak it into existence. we’ve already fought this battle for 3 years now and done fine so far. barca play the transfer game dirty but he hasn’t said he’s unhappy and is still under contract so leave it alone.
as someone else noted arsenal are VERY tight-lipped about their transfer business so we really won’t know much until it’s actually official as has always been the case. this season will be no different. we are obviously “interested” in cahill and samba but the reports from elsewhere that said gervinho is flying in and that alvarez has already signed are the only things we can realistically have any faith in.
let’s just be patient. although i’ve been saying it forever now we should just trust wenger and hope that he’ll open up the checkbook for once so we don’t end up with more cheap french defenders and free strikers.
I’m only interested in quality and power. We should test Lill’s commitment and make serious bids for Hazard and Gervinho. We should also buy Samba and Cahill. Anything less means we are not going to improve
glad to see some appreciation for the quality of arshavin. if fabregas/nasri are leaving or even wavering, i hope wenger has the good sense to stick arshavn in the central attacking midfield position make the team play for him. this guy has it in him to rip team apart if he’s managed right.
I say go get Fellani from Everton. Pair him with Song in front of the Central defenders. Also buy Maarten Stekelenburg from Ajax and watch us win the league next season.
Good riddance of Fabregas, his backheel at Barcelona costed our Championsleage. An overrated player. Robin van Persie for captain!
Blog owner you are a lazy snort and casually argued only without ant truths. FYI Fabregas still on a long contract of 4 years, and we can expect at least 3 years of service from him before Arsene agree to see him left. The reports I saw of Fabregas are frankly reharse materials and we held the card to his contract….Get this straight and Wenger is strengthening the attacking wing but it is never easy to get the right player for the central defensive side even if Cahill or Samba are really the right fit?
The player must be taught and engrained in the playing system and it all boils down to Wenger and his coaching staffs to rectify and add the correct stuffs to make it potent and dangerous for team facing us.
i find it laughable that people think that the £60m that we could get from the sale of nasri, fabregas, clichy, bendtner et al will be reinvested in the squad. perhaps we could add that to £40m that wasn’t reinvested when city came calling for toure and adebayor. add that to the £50m that people think we have as a transfer war chest and that makes it £150m we won’t be spending this summer. we are an absolute joke when it comes to the summer transfer window. the board and the manager sit in their ivory tower repeating the “trust us” mantra and we end up with mediocre french league crap. i’ve been an arsenal fan for 35 years and i can’t remember feeling quite this depressed about the state of things. even when we were shit in 80s pre-graham at least we had no expectations to win anything. it was a mediocre league last season, utd won it cos we bottled it again, and instead of sitting on their hands theyve gone out and spent £50m and it’s not even july yet. chelsea, city, utd, liverpool and spurs must be laughing their heads off at us. europa league here we come. we are an absolute fucking joke.
what an absolutely deluded article … firstly, samba is actually a gd signing and man utd got young and jones but were gonna get samba, cahill, gervinho and possibly others which is beter then man utds signings.
I toatally agree with what WWW said…
Fabregas is needed here but each summer he is creating a lot of unrest along with his Catalans.The Catalan master plan was to reduce the fee by making continous speculation and the DNA crap*s.
Cesc is a superb player but Ricky Alvarez is a better player but the fact that he underwent a knee surgery makes us a bit skeptical about his health.
We av to buy b4 we let Cesc go because other teams will hold out for much more when they know we’ve just sold Fabregas for a lotta money!
@ Ny: pls how is Ricky Alvarez a better player than Cesc? I DO NOT CARE WHAT OTHER FANS THINK ABOUT WILSHERE, RAMSEY AND THE OTHERS. WE ACTUALLY ARE SHITE MOST OF THE TIMES WHEN FRANCESC FABREGAS SOLÈR IS NOT IN MIDFIELD!!!
Things aren’t as bad as people are suggesting. Sell Clichy and Fabregas and the fringe rubbish and throw some money at Nasri to ensure he stays.
Buy Cahill, Enrique, Vidal, Alvarez and Gervinho and I will feel reasonably confident next year.
Something just almost always seems to go wrong without him…