In any team, but especially one as raw as Arsenal’s current crop, the sale of two of your most experienced players represents a risk. Selling them to the team tipped by many as your closest challenger is a gamble so big and fat you could put lend it some goalie gloves and call it Paddy Kenny.
At first glance, Manchester City’s strategy would seem to be a winner. If you’re going to spend big, better still to weaken your key rivals by signing their stronger players. It makes sense. They got our vice-captain and longest serving player, and our main striker. Which sounds pretty devastating.
But Mr Wenger is definitely up to something
Famed for his ability to sell off damaged goods at the right time, some are suggesting that Arsenal are getting more money for Toure and Adebayor than they’re worth; that like many others to leave N5 they will soon discover that Arsenal made them look like rather better players than they actually are; and that both players are in decline in any case.
Let’s hope so. Our massive financial disadvantage is only going to get bigger if we lose out on Champions League football next spring, an eventuality which would in all probability prove pivotal to the modern history of the football club.
My instinct is that Mr Wenger has got this right.
Toure was a stop-gap who grew into a lynch-pin, treasured by all at the club, but rarely considered a truly top-class defender. The last of the Invincibles, he will be missed by many, but more for his character and heart than his ability.
He was always one of those players whose eventual market value was difficult to predict, and the £16 million figure mentioned seems like good money for a player who was unhappy enough to request a move in January.
Which leaves Gallas, Vermaelen, Djourou, Senderos, Song and Silvestre, and, to be honest, a lot of Gooners praying for another centre half.
At the arse-end of last season, Mr Wenger regularly lamented our lack of height in defence, which points towards a certain 6′5” Norwegian Cottager.
Hangeland for Toure? Sounds like the right kind of roulette to me.
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