Van Persie, Transfer status and Usmanov - Friend or Foe?

Afternoon Gooners,

21 Days since the season has ended and the feeling of frustration we felt throughout May just hasn't stopped. With stories of transfers flying about as freely as you like and new signings being announced all over the place the lack of immediate changes to the Arsenal squad have left many fans clinging on to the previously mentioned frustration and in some cases it is transforming it into pure anger.

Lets all just take a step back shall we. The players do not return to training for another few weeks and our first friendly game is not until July 13th so Wenger has plenty of time to act. We have brought in Carl Jenkinson from Charlton and although at only £1m and with only 9 first team appearances under his belt he's not the big name superstar people are expecting, it is a start. Combine this with reports that we had a £16m bid accepted for Blackburn's Phil Jones and the current stories of us being close to finalising the transfers of Gervinho, Samba and Chamberlain (Although again, don't believe everything you read) it would seem that Gazidis and Wenger are in fact very busy trying to make the additions to our squad that 1) we need and 2) we can afford.

I am not normally a fan of players speaking out to the press, it normally seems to serve absolutely no purpose at all and has more potential to cause harm than anything else, however I couldn't help but enjoy recent quotes from Robin Van Persie.  Talking to 'The Sun' he said:

"Every year it goes wrong in an identical way and that is frustrating,"

"When you look at results in the last years, Arsenal shouldn't be talking about winning the league because too many times that has gone wrong.

"Of course the hunger and desire is great but sometimes you have to eat and be realistic.

"But I believe with the signing of a number of players, we should be in there competing for the prizes.

"Even now, it's still unbelievable we didn't win the Carling Cup as that was the breakthrough moment, showing everyone we could win a cup and create a belief within the team.

"When I talk about that it still hurts. It was so stupid and I ask myself 'how did that come about?"

He also mentioned the lifestyle of modern footballers:

“The really top players aren’t fooled by riches or fame because they are fully focused with their football,”

“For me, it’s very important to be having breakfast every morning with my two children and that wouldn’t be possible if you were hanging about in a disco all night."

In my opinion these quotes are from a player who lives and breathes Arsenal's values. If some of our players concentrated more on their football instead of the fame, money and lifestyle it brings then maybe fans wouldn't be calling for them to be moved on. Arsene's project youth depended a lot on players dedication and commitment and some of the ranks such as Denilson and Bendtner just haven't given it.

I wouldn't be a pre season blog if I didn't run over the transfer latest so her it is:

Gervinho: Depending on what you read this transfer is at different stages. We have either had a £8m, £10m or £12m offer accepted or Lille haven't received any offers except one from Spurs. It seems that both Spurs and Man City have entered the race for his signature which could disrupt any deal because we simply can not compete financially with City. However on several occasions the player himself has described Arsenal as his preferred destination so only time will tell.

Samba: It would seem that Wenger is taking samba into serious consideration and has tested Blackburn's resolve to keep the big man by suggesting bids of around £9m but if Blackburn are holding out for much more a deal would be unlikely.

Cahill: Bolton are looking for a fee in the region of £17m if reports are to be believed. This is a ridiculous amount for a player who is in the last year of their contract and has no European experience. If a deal for Cahill happens it will be for much less than Bolton's valuation. Also Man City have reported an interest so financially he's not even worth Arsene considering.

Obviously Players looking to move on include Denilson, Bendtner and Clichy. With the first two it's simply a case of finding someone that will take them. Clichy however is a slightly different story. Liverpool and Inter seem to be main contenders for his signiture but the £5m price tag being thrown about is ridiculous. I know he is in the last year of his contract but if you compare him to the £17m Bolton are asking for Cahill I would be expecting £8m to £10m for Clichy's services. Also I really hope he moves abroad, I couldn't take seeing him playing for a different team in the Premier League.

I'll finish today with Usmanov's desperate plea to get into the fans favour. You can find his quotes here courtesy of Tim Payton of AST.

Having read them it my opinion that this is simply excellent work from a very good PR firm. He is saying everything the fans want to hear but as for the bit that says he doesn't want to join the board, if he was offered a place today he would snatch at the chance. Usmanov wants to make a quick buck from our club and would not hesitate to ruin the financial structure the club has fought so hard to build. He would look for quick success while disregarding the future of the club. Mr Usmanov, you are not needed and more importantly not wanted please kindly sod off. (However if you want to leave Dein then I'd be grateful)

A final quote from Arsene Wenger to finish off

"Its great clubs who make players, not other way"

Never a truer word spoken Mr Wenger, listen up Samir and listen hard. Sign your contract and let us make you great.

Till next time,
Goonerfish.

You tell em Robin!! plus Rumour round up

Evening Gooners,

I've not written much in the last week but that's mainly because close to bugger all has happened. We've had links with players thrown about like everlasting gobstoppers in Willy Wonka's factory, some of the stories have been believable, a few have, in my own opinion, been quite possible but most of them have been complete nonsense. I expect these rumours will carry on for the whole of the summer but why get excited now? We will have nothing confirmed until at least June 9th as that is when the transfer window opens.

So far we have virtually had confirmed 4 transfers into the club (2 youngsters from Barca, Ollsen and Jenkinson) and we have heard both Denilson and Bendtner confirm they will leave the club as long as someone will take them and Arsenal have confirmed several youngsters such as Randall and Cruise have left the books. This shows that we are going to have a very active summer at every level of the club.

The chatter at the moment seems to be quite confident that we will be revealing our first main signing of the season at some point next week (by main signing, I mean 1st team) and the consensus is that it'll be Gervinho from Lille that is having his photo shoot with his new Arsenal kit. Gervinho is very much a Wenger signing, he's young, he's skillful and entering the last year of his contract he will be at a cut price, anywhere between £8m-£10m.

Arsene Wenger has been out to South America either looking personally at a player or meeting a player we hope to agree terms with. If it is the second of those options then the stories regarding Ricardo Alvarez a couple of weeks back could prove to have more backbone to them than many expected.

One rumour that now seems to be squashed for good is the arrival of Karim Benzema. First, Benzema himself came out and said he wants to fight for a place at Madrid then after that Mourinho has said that he sees Benzema as "untransferable". Ah well tabloids, time to pick a new target out of thin air.

On a personal note, Robin Van Persie, stand up and be proud you fecking legend. RVP has been quoted by a Dutch TV station accusing Chelsea players of " bitching" about referees. He said:

“People who are watching the game on television and fans really do not want to see these kind of things.

“If you want to witness a lot of complaints, you should just go the bakery or something. There’s always people nagging there as well.

“Chelsea players are always bitching against the referees. I really cannot understand that. Just shut the f*** up and focus on playing football.”

You'd think on his wages he wouldn't need to go into any bakery, let alone one that was full of bitching customers.  However I love the fact that he has named Chelsea in that quote, I don't know if that was actually part of the interview, I'd be surprised if it was, but some things just make you smile when you read them.

Two things however go against RVP's rant. First is little Jack Wilshere who has actually said Arsenal players need to surround the referees together other it makes players like Robin Van Persie look like they are always having a go at them, secondly he is not the most accepting of a lot of decisions concerning Arsenal, he's never - to my immediate knowledge -attempted to convince a ref to book an opponent but we need look no further than his (albeit ridiculous) red card against Barca, there wasn't a lot of focus on just playing football by anyone in a yellow shirt that night.

I shall free you now from my ramblings as we all prepare to keep everything crossed that our players survive the dreaded round of internationals over the weekend.

Till next time,
Goonerfish.

It's all about RVP & yet another clean sheet.

Morning Gooners,

Today is all about one man, the superb brilliance of a man that is Robin Van Persie. Our new number 10 finally seems to have put his injury hit start of the season behind him and is now on his way to proving that if he stays fit he has the ability to be one of the best strikers in the world.

RVP and the rest of the Arsenal players destroyed Wigan at Ashburton Grove yesterday. From the very first minute we attacked as a unit and 10 of the Wigan players couldn't cope with us, unfortunately the one player that seemed as though he was in line for a storming game was Ali Al Habsi, the Wigan keeper. Why is it that distinctly average keepers always, and I mean always seem to have their performance of the season against our front line?

Al Habsi however could only keep us out for so long and RVP's first hat-trick in an Arsenal shirt (even after his penalty miss) gained us the points and for those who didn't manage to see the game, I kid you not it could have been double figures!

Despite Van Persie's deserved headline grabbing from the game I feel the need to give a shout out to the back four. Today saw our fourth consecutive clean sheet in the league. Now for any Arsenal team from the past few years that stat is impressive but include the fact that we're missing our best centre back and have had our 3rd choice keeper between the sticks then it's unbelievable. Djourou in my opinion has come on leaps and bounds this year and is starting to show just how good his all round game is.

Wojciech Szczesny has come into the team of late and has proved he may be ready to take that step into the first team but on top of his solid performance I love this man on twitter, his summing up of the game was this: 

"Did any of you notice that I was acctually playing today? Great result and well done @Persie_Official!"

A very good point, very well made. It will be interesting to see who gets Wenger's vote when Fabianski is fit again. Both keepers have done very, very well when called upon and either will rightfully feel unlucky and hard done by if they lose out as neither has done anything worthy of losing their place.

The only other news (that isn't obvious BS) is the potential transfer of another Southampton youngster in the form of Alex Chamberlain. Some sources are claiming that the deal is as good as done which is the sort of statement that I will only believe when I read it on Arsenal.com but reports on this kid seem to be very promising and any potential move away from the south coast seems that it will be based on his opportunities to develop at the top level and if that is the criteria then I can think of no better place than Arsenal, he'd only have to look to a certain Theo Walcott to see how a player can develop under the careful eye of Arsene Wenger. But as I said, there has been no official confirmation of any bid, I'm not even sure if we've admitted we're looking at him so until Arsenal announce it, don't believe a word you read.

It's a happy time to be a Gooner and now we look forward to Tuesday as we look to book a trip to Wembley at the end of February.

Till next time,
Goonerfish.