Up For Grabs Now

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?

Happy the day after the no blog day. Sorry about that, all. Myself and grabs both found ourselves inconvenienced around the UK yesterday. We hope you didn’t find it too traumatic an experience.

Also Happy New Year to you all, on the off chance that there is anybody reading this and not swimming in afterbeer, I salute you, and apologise for the random and gossipy nature of all things Arsenal.

However, since this blog was established to bring you the finest in eloquent Arsenal twaddle on a daily basis, it would be rude not to say something.

The feeling for Arsenal fans today, as all chaotic hell begins to unleash, is something like being on a small Caribbean island with no boat as a hurricane slowly approaches. For the time being it’s quite calm and pleasant, and there’s a miniature umbrella in your drink, but the winds and rain are starting.

Only in this case the winds and the rain are transfer stories and wild speculation about the future of Arsenal players.

The big news is that Kolo Toure has apparently had a transfer request turned down by the board. A very strange story given what we know of Kolo, but perhaps not surprising. He must feel a bit like he’s lost his mojo at Arsenal, and centre backs are such funny players – rock solid one minute and then not the next.

You can see why we wouldn’t want him to leave, but at the same time how many players that you know want out can you afford to have on your side at any moment? Mind you we super-really can’t afford to have Toure and Gallas go at the same time, so perhaps the refusal is holding out to see if Gallas goes. If he doesn’t then maybe the board will feel better about letting Kolo follow his heart.

Other than that it’s the usual codswallop about people coming and going, none of which I’m prepared to take too seriously. The newspapers have begun doing their thing where they put little boxes for every club talking about who needs to be bought and sold.

None of them say anything interesting, although I wonder if the fact that every newspaper is now linking us with Arteta is anything to do with Arseblogger’s championing of him the other day.  Journalists are not a hard-working bunch, as a rule, and around Christmas time they are particularly lazy (does it frustrate anyone else how crap newspapers are around this time?), so it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

I for one am still hoping we buy a wide player as well as a central player (and possibly now a defender too). But not Arshavin. Too expensive, and too bad.

The other funny thing is how they all claim Manchester City have unlimited money to spend, which just isn’t true. No matter how much oil they might have, these guys are not going to simply chuck unlimited cash at the team, particularly not at Mark Hughes. They’ll buy some players, certainly, but I’m not sure it’ll be as wild as everyone seems to think. The price of oil has fallen dramatically of late, too, and everyone’s feeling a bit more careful about that sort of thing.

The other story is that Wenger will go to Madrid. Not a chance in France, if you ask me, which is somewhat ironic because one of the few other jobs Arsene might take is the France national team. He’d hate the lack of control at Real – he can do whatever he wants at Arsenal, even if sometimes it seems like it’s not what the fans want. But it’s a good scare story.

Have a good day off.