Afternoon all. Many apologies for the tardiness of the post – I was returning from the land of rural dial-up, where I went armed with the wrong shape of cable. Idiot. Anyway, normal service should now be resumed on UpForGrabsNow, taking you through the transfer window and beyond into Arsenal’s 2009. Will be great to have you along for the ride.
I’ll start today by simply drawing out a number of things that Wenger said at his pre-match press conference this lunchhour. At the end of the day, I can blog until I’m blue in the balls, but it’s The Word of Wenger which actually matters. He was predictably barracked on transfer strategy and raised some points which regular readers will recognise as familiar from the ideas we’re always rabbiting on about on this blog:
“I believe that what we want to do is not basically linked with money – I read some ridiculous amounts of money that are completely crazy.
Quite right too. I’ve always said it. All this “we need to spend big” chat is just witless tabloid garbage, which we can do without at Arsenal FC, thanks very much. Back to Arsene:
“When I accepted to stay I knew what would be available and what kind of restrictions would be existing. I deal with that and have no regret and no imagination about how much money is available. What is most important is the Club has built a new stadium and we live in a very strong and healthy situation financially.”
Sounds like we don’t have much of a transfer pot and possibly didn’t have in the summer either. If this is the case then PHW has been telling big porkies. It would also put blogs like Le Grumble to shame, always whinging about Wenger’s apparent refusal to spend. If it just wasn’t available then that’s a whole new barrel of badgers, and Wenger’s loyalty is all the more admirable.
“How many clubs have managed to build a new stadium, have a good financial situation and continue to play at the top? This team is together getting stronger and stronger but what we need to focus on is continually developing and not live in dreamland where we are linked with players of £30-£40million because that’s not realistic.”
It’s nice in that Dreamland, isn’t it? I’ve been there once or twice myself and it was lovely. A youthful Johann Cruyff signed for £497 million, pulled on an Arsenal shirt and nutmegged me before thrashing the ball past Van Der Sar. It was great.
“Chelsea haven’t built a stadium and they lose £100million per year. How do you imagine you can deal with that at Arsenal Football Club without going bankrupt? We have to be responsible.”
And here comes the bombshell. The Big One. The Big Moan that has grown and grown this season got popped, as quickly as it took Arsene to say:
“It is not that we don’t want to spend. I believe that we have gone for a policy and we need to have a logic and a line of conduct inside the Club that has to be respected. We have gone for a policy that is to develop our young players and we have to show some character and strength and not listen to everybody who comes out every day with a new name.”
This suggests Arsene did consider using the Online Community (as that linked article suggests) in dictating his transfer policy, but on balance has decided against it. Probably a wise decision.
”If you look at the best players we have had over the years – in the last 10 or 12 years – we have always played at the top. The best players who have made a massive impact here are not always the ones who have cost £30-£40million. I can cite you players in the last 10 or 15 years who have cost £30million and have been a flop. It is not necessarily linked that you spend £30million and get a massive player.”
We’ve said it before, and we’ll keep on saying it: it’s quality we need, not headlines.
Wenger also talked about Arshavin, rather coyly, as seems to be his approach to this particular transfer saga, unlike Arshavin’s tired old whore of an agent who has been flagrantly exposing the transfer-market equivalent of his diseased genitalia all over the red-tops all week. We’ll be calling Andrei a Gooner in a couple of weeks for about £8 million, I reckon.
Finally, Arsene admired Mikel Arteta but said there had been “no enquiry at all about him”. Unlike his flat denial of interest in Shay Given,this doesn’t rule anything out, and it would be nice if we would enquire about Arteta wouldn’t it? It would be even nicer if we offered them a grubby fiver and some of Eboue’s old y-fronts and they accepted with open arms. It is the credit crunch and all that, isn’t it?
Tags: Andrei Arshavin, Arsene Wenger, Le Grumble, mikel arteta
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Yes.
Although Arse Shaving won’t come quite that cheaply.
His club want £20 million, so its basically up to him to put in a right proper strop and engineer a transfer. If he comes it’ll break our transfer record, but not by much. £14-18 million, Ah reckon.
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I hope Wenger does buy in jan we need to strengthen the squad, I get totally fed up year after year having a small squad that can’t finish the season as we started and now it seems that we have more first teamers on the treatment table than we have available to field. The likes of Bendtnar dont deserve a place in the first team squad we need possibly four more players and I think he should start playing Toure as a defending midfielder, what does anybody else think?
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:56 pm
jim – it’s not that i don’t think we need some good new players, just that people seem to think they will need to be very expensive and famous in order to succeed. you won’t find an arsenal fan who doesn’t think we need at least a couple of players this month.
Bendtner is a squad player who has the talent to be a big star if he can find his game. No harm having him as back-up is my view.
Toure as DM? Arsene’s always said he doesn’t have the stamina. Then again he was signed as a midfielder (weird to think of now) and AW said exactly the same thing about Song and had now played him there for half a season. I can’t see him changing his mind about Toure though.
James – admittedly £8 mil might be a bit short, but our bargaining position ought to be very strong indeed. He’s getting to the age where players can become less attractive investments, he’s in a massive huff so is effectively no sort of playing asset to Zenit and nobody else is seriously interested. I read somewhere that his contract is up in the summer, though if that’s true then I’m surprised it’s not mentioned more often. In any case, we should be looking for a figure well below the tabloid 20 million.
Also, Arsene’s dismissal of the newspapers’ numbers can only really be aimed at the Arshavin fee as there haven’t been many Villa/Benzema sort of stories flying around, have there?
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
arsene wenger is trying to play a hide and seek game in this arsenal/transfer issue.His stament has been contradicting since the league started.The first stament as regard transfer was that he will decide in December whether to buy or not.Later he said he will only if he sees a special layer,after cesc injury he said i am more likely to buy and now he said you will know “IF” we buy.My conclusion on this transfer issue is that if at all wenger will buy,he will unexperience player and developed into a star.
January 2nd, 2009 at 6:04 pm
One thing 4 sure i am so happy AW isnt 40 years old or we would have him for another 30 years i am just waiting until time takes care of him.
People says he can get a top job any where else CRAP
if he was at MADRID no trophies 4 so long would he be there
or BARCA or MU or CHEL only here we seem to be in a trance
wake up
this is DEJAVU of his days at Monnaco
January 2nd, 2009 at 7:56 pm
To you Ghavri I say bollocks. Wenger is arguably the most successful Arsenal manager, or at least one of. There are other far inferior clubs who have won little to nothing who have had a single manager for long spells. I certainly don’t want Arsenal to turn into some merry-go-round club like Madrid is where every other week we have a new coach. Additionally the idea that Madrid has inquired a ridiculous chunk of cash for his services speaks volumes about what they think of him. Sir Alex didn’t win anything at all for 3 seasons but I didn’t see the Man Utd board throwing him out. Like it or not Arsenal wouldn’t be anywhere near the club it is today without Wenger.
In any case the market is inflated and has been since Abramovich burst onto the scene. His 100M activity of the summer of 2004 created this snowball effect, especially for EL clubs, where everyone is overcharging transfer fees. Do we need to spend money in January? Yes. Does it necessarily need to be alot? No. However the market dictates our spending and right now that market is bloated. We’re already talking the likes of 10M for Matuidi who is not in a winning Ligue 1 team and has no top flight experience but these are the prices being mooted. This is the kind of environment Arsene has to work in with being the only top four club that has no billionaire backing and is self-sufficiently making profit.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:02 pm
sell either kolo or gallas for 10mill. get arshaving on loan.. meaning we pay his wages and give them a sum of about 2.5mill. That would happen as the club wont have to pay his wages and get a decent loan fee for him while arshavin would definately want to come here. then get parker for about 8mill. cracking business if you ask me. thats all we need in my opinion. just a bit of balancing and tinkering and we’ll be easily on our way to a top 4 finish at the very worst and champions league/f.a cup plus top 4 at the very best. Those two players would fit straight in the squad as they have the experience needed. parker would give the right balance and steel and arshavin is a good stop gap before the return of cesc. djourou + either kolo or gallas is the perfect pair up in defence. however if there was one area in the squad i’d sell it would be one of these two as they do not get on, are v.v.similar and style and cannot play together. silvestre and song can then provide the necessary cover in that area. if we do this i really think we would improve hugely in the season. we are not far away from being a major major force. COULD U GUYS PLEASE REPLY TO THIS as i’m very interested to see what u think about my ideas.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Almunia, Sagna, Toure, (A new defender) Clichy, Nasri, Cesc, Diaby & a new right winger, Sell Adebayor to Milan & play V.Persie & Eduardo when he returns up front.
Sell Bendther, Song & Djourou, THEY ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ARSENAL.
Thinking of Arsenal frustrates me so much!!!
Where has the Pires & Vieira days gone!
We aint quite the team we were a few years back, we need a defender, a winger, and possibly a new striker to cover for our boys.
Hopefully things will turn around at the start in the 2009/2010 season. COME ON ARSENAL
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:52 pm
zeki ur all wrong walcott is are right winger
the team should be
almunia
sagna,toure,sergio ramos,clichy
walcott,fabregas,arteta,nasri
adebayor,van persie
we need to buy 2 or 3 decent EXPERIENCED players
not just keep on buying yoiung players,put them out on loan for 3 seasons and then start them
but the young talent is good
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:47 pm
What if your ideas do not work out the way you have them on paper?I think that whoever we buy can get injuries like we have and we are not manchester united or are we chelsea we are arsenal and we have to be waht we are .Football if you have ever played it will tell you that ne team stays at the top for ever we have been there competing with a good united side.Then came Chelsea have two seasons and have started firing managers two gone and still counting .If we are not patient am glad fans do not call the shots we will be having as many managers as madrid have had since wenger came to arsenal they refused to wait for the low period to end .The heart beats for long because it has a rest between beats
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:12 am
Reading between the lines,
A lot of you gooners including myself and the Prof himself, would have loved to buy the best players in the world, As he rightfully mentioned, he is a human being and does make mistakes, but for me he is the best manager we will ever have, He is a living legend, he is the man who changed the premiership forever, there was times that the premier ship was not regarded as good as Serial A and La Liga,and now we are witnessing the English PREMIER LEAGUE being the best league in the world, dominating Europe, and the prof has the biggest contribution, the man deserves the utter most respect, there is one other person who should be respected as much in the world of football and that person is Sir Alex, if it was not for these two managers the premiership would have struggled to compute with the reset of the world.
Going back to all these paper talk about the transfers, we have to analyse what the papes say and what the great man himself said as well, The papers were speculating about 3 possible signings, but from the answer the prof gave, after the barrage of questions, he categorically denied his interest Shay Given his exact words “We have not made any enquiry about Shay Given. I have a high regard for him as a player but we do not look for a goalkeeper.” with regards to Artheta “Mikel Arteta is a very good player but we have not made any enquiry about him at all” it sounds like that he either doesn’t believe they will sell or he will be too expensive.
And as for Arshavin, Arsen is interested and trying to tie that up at a reasonable price with out any complications, i, e. press interference.
“There is no progress [on Arshavin]. If there is any progress made you will be informed, I promise you. If we buy a player you will be informed.”
And finally there was a talk about Hangeland, which I believe he regards his highly, and Roy Hodgson has said ” It would be foolish to say nothing will happen to Hangeland and Bullard. All I can say is I hope nothing happens with those two.” it does sound like that arsenal are chasing and hangeland might have said he is ready to talk.
Which brings me to the final point that, as there is no fire with out any smoke, the papers were right that there was some friction between the disruptive Gallas and Toure; Arsen said that, the reason why he has not played them together is because they both are not tall enough. To me its more like one because they are not getting on and two because toure has lost his sharpness since he came back from The African cup.
so based on all the above pointes that I mentioned, we can safely deduce that, he will get two players, one to replace Cesc and another one to resolved the defence issue, On Middlefield I believe it could be Arshavin or he may surprise us, as for the defence, it will be hangeland which would be a wicked signing,
So rest assured fellow gooners, the club is in the safe hands of Sir Arsen Wenger, even though I’m not under any illusions that we are not well equipped to compute this year, with the likes of United, liverpoo and chelski.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:06 am
John — I agree that either Kolo or Gallas has to go. Maybe we could throw someone into the mix for the Arshavin
Despite AW playing down Arteta, I think there could be some life to it, as the player could see it as a road into the Spain national team.
Veloso is my dream singing.
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:30 am
I really hope we buy Arteta after watching that Dracula-looking loser David Moyes say ‘I heard AFC have no money to spend in the window.’
I heard he works birthday parties as a Gollumn clone in his spare-time. Mind your buisness jerk, I would rather have our former pisshead captain as a manager.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:44 am
Sure, if his contract is up soon then well below 20 million is very likely. I hadn’t realised that.
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Nice Article Grabs, I just hope those who are crying for BIG name signings understand that the future of the club is more important now. I am sure no one would like us doing a Leeds United ( No disrespect to their fans).
@ Zeki, you can as well sell the whole team. Adebayor is good enough so also is Song. I don’t know why people keep complaining about Ade when teams like AC and Barca who are highly rated after always looking for opportunities to sign him. And as for Song, he is good just too slow. He will get better with time.
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