Apologies
First of all good readers, apologies for lack of ‘material’ in the last few days I was having ‘issues’ with my computer, a bit like Emmaniuel Eboué, my computer kept ‘falling down’. Any road up cross fingers and all that, we’re back. But I must admit not a damn thing has happened as yet, there is speculation aplenty of course, Hleb – just where will he go? Nasri just when will he sign, Van Persie – just when wont he be injured? On the subject of Hleb it’s a question of when rather than if he’ll go. I can’t be bothered to write anyting to do with him as I can’t be arsed to fuel the fire. Nasri, same again, will he sign? Has he signed? Will spurs nick him from under our noses?! Well stranger things have happened, Robin van Persie staying fit for the whole season now that would be strange. Any road up dive in and get amongst the comments – lets build on this.
The quieter the better…
You know, I don’t really care who we sign, if we sign anybody. But damn it.. the least they could do is have a press conference and slag off Avram The Undertaker or something…. what is a columnist supposed to do?
Things have gone a little bit stale with the whole Sammy Davis Nasri thing. I’m sure he, or some other equally French bloke will eventually turn up to run our midfield.. they always do. What I’m more interested in this week is who we are up against… what the state of play is around the Premier League… our ‘peers’ so to speak. Because often, this is what dictates how the market is going to be and ultimately this is the same economy we sit in.
So I think we can assume the lunatics at Stamford Bridge are going to do go with their usual subtle approach in the market. They have already signed their 71st right back in Jose Bosingwa – you can never have too much cover at right back I suppose? But with no manager currently filling the role of Roman’s b*tch there is going to be very little coming out of our blue neighbours for a little while at least. Sp*rs though are suffering from the equivalent of ‘little man syndrome’… desparate to spend loads of cash to prove they are a big boy too. Hillariously, nobody is interested in joining them. Samuel Eto’o'o’o'o’o in particular used them as a means of engineering a better deal and panicked somewhat when it seemed they were the only club interested in him. Imagine, one season lining up alongside Messi, Henry, Deco and Ronaldinho.. the next thing you are laying back a pass to Tom Huddlestone or trying to play a one two with Jermaine Jenas.
And other previously cash flushed clubs are struggling to make headway for a host of reasons – Liverpool are busy have a nasty case of domestic abuse leaving Rafa Benitez with barely enough money to maintain his ludicrous facial hair; ManCiteh are too busy trying to emulate Leeds to spend any of the Baht they have beaten out of the Bangkok residents, and perennial overspenders the Geordies have Keggy Keegan probably trying to tap up David Ginola and Faustino Asprilla.
So less silly spending means a market that is far better suited to the studied and planned approach Arsene takes with his transfers. With nobody spending 16 million on Darren Bent or 22 million on Little Sean Wright Phillips means less interference in the market. Any player we have scouted for a long time will not be subject to huge bids as soon as we show any interest, which seems to happen fairly often. But it only takes one team to trigger the crazy spending and you can always assume the big Spanish teams will be ready to throw millions at the drop of a hat
But of course a lot of this sumer shenanigans could be gotten rid of if UEFA had the balls to do something. Rumours about player transfers might sell a lot of papers but the emergence of the super wealthy football owner has changed the transfer market along with the chances many football clubs have of winning the league. It would certainly be in the best interests of all football supporters and the game itself if this scattergun approach to football transfers was reigned in. Ideally a transfer cap (or salary cap or both) would be introduced by UEFA. Imagine if all clubs in the top tiers of European football were held to the same spending. Players would then have to choose where they went more on matters of football (the quality of the coaches, the type of fans, the system the team plays, the location etc) than merely the money being waved at them.
The likes of Wayne Bridge, Steven Sidwell, Paulo Ferreira (pretty much any 3rd choice yet Internationally capped player at Chelski) would be less inclined to sit on the bench if they were pegged to the same salary as their peers. Incentives would be allowed based upon final league table position or silverware won but that should be the only allowance to separate clubs. Poor Ashley Cole would be towing his car out of the trees on the side of the M1 as we speak.
Sure their are a lot of flaws with this plan (corruption is one immediately obvious one) but would this be any worse than the current system where a club can buy players merely to keep said players for lining up in a rivals colours? And only once such a system was implemented would the true worth of a manager would be found out. And I know I’d be backing Mr Wenger all the way to the bank.
By Paul Wright
Win a ‘Cesc’ T-shirt competition
OK folks to keep the boredom at bay and keep the ball rolling (excuse the pun) Allgoonerdup is running another win a t-shirt contest. And due to the avalanche of entries in the ‘Let’s talk about Cesc Baby!’ t-shirt entries I am putting that t-shirt back in the shop window. So in order to win this bit of clobber simply tell us, how old was Cesc Fabregas when he made his Arsenal debut?
Send your answers, name and postal address plus your choice of t-shirt, colour and size to:
iwannafreebie@allgoonerdup.com
Competition closes Monday 16 June.
Good luck Gooners.
There are only two centre backs on your list of transfer possibilities — and yet clearly this is not only an area we NEED to strengthen, it’s actually a position that Arsene has publicly said he WOULD strengthen.
Albiol and Kompany cannot be the only two pure defenders on AW’s shopping list.
We’ll sign Nasri — probably already have — as a like-for-like with Hleb, who is headed for Real. It’ll be interesting to see if AW is interested in anybody at Madrid in a cash-swap deal. There are stories about a young defensive midfielder named De La Red who played last year at Getafe. That’s a position that makes sense, but another YOUNG kid to protect the back four and still partner Cesc. We could get Song or Kolo to do that without spending anything.
Meanwhile, when is somebody going to mention the centre backs?
Kompany has been injured as often as van Persie. I trust Arsene’s scouting, but when I’ve watched Valencia they’ve been so dreadful that everyone looks bad — so it’s tough to make a judgment on Albiol. AW is brilliant is finding that type of player, though, a guy who doesn’t look great because of somenting out of his control. He brings in these guys — Adebayor’s a great example — and after some adjustment they become stars.
Surely there are other centre backs on the radar — Zapata, maybe. Or if we’re going to use Hleb as bait and he’s valued at 14 million, in my dreams I’d love to swap with Inter for a beast like Chivu.
We absolutely need a bad guy in the middle of the back four. For all the hoopla over Ronaldo, the one player who changed Man U most dramatically was Vidic. Rio is slick and cute on the ball and all that, but he needed an enforcer next to him and he got a great one.
Hate to admit we need to follow United’s lead, but there you are. A whole bunch of short, quick guys will only take you so far. Teams had no success pumping long balls at United because Vidic just beat up the target men. Please get someone like that at the Emirates.
At the end of the day, we’ll win or lose the title next on the strength of our centre backs. We’re going to get goals — we know that — and the fullbacks are the best in the world.
So with that one gaping hole to fill…how about it?