Wow, I've been away for seem like an age but in all honesty there has been no new news to share. In some aspects that's still the same but we have had a couple of teaser stories come out of the woodwork to keep us entertained.
The only real place to start is what can only be the start of another truly annoying summer affair with Barcelona. It was reported yesterday that Barca have approached Arsenal with an opening verbal offer of £27m for our captain Cesc Fabregas. Obviously this was laughed at whole heartedly and Barca were told that the offer was no where near good enough. Although at first read that sounds a good thing, it's not. "The offer is not good enough" is not the same as "Piss off, he's not available"
I expect Barca to come back with an improved offer and if it reaches the area of £35m plus add ons then I think it will be excepted and if an offer is excepted I am certain Cesc will take the opportunity to rejoin his boyhood team. The good news however is that I don't think Barca will move that high for a player they don't need. Fabregas will not be a regular starter at the Nou Camp, you just have to look at the stats for the current Barca stars to see that, for example Xavi made 3'411 passes last season and had a 94% success rate - that's insanely good, Cesc is a luxury for Barcelona, not a necessity and they will spend or indeed already have spent in other areas.
Samir Nasri's contract is another worry to Arsenal fans everywhere. News has been coming out of the club that negotiations have been progressing nicely and more talks are set for the near future although no target completion date has been set. Personally, I feel quite positive that Nasri will stay, I think more than money, it is a case of Arsenal proving that they will be challenging and winning trophies for the duration of his new contract and I think the influx of new signings and keeping Cesc, or a combination of the two will be enough to convince him of that.
Enough of players leaving, what about those coming in? It looks like the Gervinho deal is still not as complete as we thought. Recent talk is mixed, some saying that Arsenal and Lille are still not agreed on a fee but the more popular theory is that a deal is done and Arsenal are just waiting to make the announcement. Lets not forget, the international transfer window opens on July 1st which is next Friday and we all know how much Arsenal enjoy making announcements on a Friday.
Another transfer that seems to have real legs to it at the moment is Valez Sarsfield's Ricardo Alvarez. Palermo president has spoken in the press this week stating that
"We had a specific interest we had in hand as early as January. Unfortunately, our mistake we did a quick run at the moment and has already signed for the 'Arsenal'. "Now before we take that as gospel, Maurizio Zamparini (Palermo's president) is known for both attention seeking and talking bollocks however, Argentinian press is suggesting a deal is very close, if not complete and we know that Arsene was in Argentina a few weeks back so again maybe the magical Friday 1st July will see an announcement on Arsenal.com along with some shiny new photos of new signings posing in their new shirts.
The only issue I have with both Gervinho and Alvarez seemingly close to joining is that it makes it more likely that Arsene Wenger expects either Fabregas or Nasri to be playing elsewhere next year but you never know, with both players unproven in the best league in the world, Gervinho and and Alvarez may both be seen as squad players at the moment given us much needed depth and are more likely to replace the likes of Rosicky in Wenger's plan than Nasri or Fabregas.
I'll leave you on that as I go away and plan my euphoria for next Friday when we announce all of our signings. (What? I can be hopeful can't I?)
Till next time,
Goonerfish.
Don't forget, for more ramblings on all things Arsenal, you can follow me here on twitter.
It seems to be a common assumption that if we sign 2-3 midfielders / strikers that we would likely lose Cesc or Samir. In fact if you look at the players that we are looking at offloading (Bendtner, Vela, maybe Arshavin, Diaby and Denilson) in fact you would expect 3 signingts in this area as well as some youth promotions to cope with the players we are selling. Cesc will unlikley leave and with Samir meeting Wenger face to face then I think there is a strong chance we could retain all of them.
ReplyDeleteI agree that many players coming in will be squad fillers. I would love to see Cesc and Nasri both stay and the positive side of me says they will.
ReplyDeleteWe'll be looking to get rid of Denilson, allowing Rosicky to go if someone comes in for him and Bendtner will go (as long as someone bids enough) but Vela, Arshavin and Diaby will all still be Arsenal players next year.
We've said from the beginning that we could see about six new faces in the window which if you allow for Gervinho & Alvarez I'd expect the rest to be Oxlade-Chamberlain, a left back, a centre back, possibly two CBs but hopefully a new DM to challenge Song.