Wenger on Reyes, Cesc, Henry, himself and the team

So a 2-0 win over Barnet yesterday saw our first run out of pre-season end up relatively successfully. There’s some concern over Denilson who was on the end of a late tackle and had to be stretchered off but it’s not anything too serious apparently.

The first goal came from Emmanuel Adebayor as a relatively strong first team played the first half. The second goal came in the second half from young Dutchman Nacer Barazite as more youngsters got a run out. We’ll have to wait for some of the bloggers who were actually at the match for their feedback on the players but there’s really not a whole lot you can read into performances at this early stage. If you want to watch highlights and an interview with Arsene Wenger then click here.

It’s Wenger’s post-match comments that make for the most interesting reading this morning. He more or less confirmed that José Antonio Reyes would be leaving, saying that even global warming couldn’t make the weather good enough for him to stay in England. When asked about his own contract, he said:

I have shown my commitment in the past and I never worry about the weather. My future is not only linked with the players, but the whole club. It is to the fans and the young players who I have brought and told I will look after them, so it’s a much bigger picture than that. You will see soon if I sign a new contract.

The strongest hints yet that he’s planning on putting pen to paper. Of course it is the first time we’ve heard from him since the sale of Thierry Henry so it’s bound to be the strongest hint yet. And speaking of the ex-captain the boss reckoned that Thierry couldn’t wait for this team to win trophies, saying:

Thierry Henry had played eight great years at the club and, at 30, maybe he didn’t have the patience to let the young team develop. You can understand that. We have the potential to cope without Thierry. We will focus more on team play and sharing the responsibility.

I also think there are some players will take on more responsibility – like (Robin) Van Persie, like (Emmanuel) Adebayor, like (Theo) Walcott, like Eduardo, who has just joined us. There are certain players who raise their game when you have a departure like that.

As well as that he addressed the Cesc to Madrid rumours and by the look on his face from the interview above I don’t think there was anything too serious in it. The question about further signings doesn’t seem to have come up, which is a bit of a shame, but at the same time he’d have told us something cryptic which would have had people chin-wagging all week to try and work it out. He did say that with the departure of Henry, who he had expected to stay, he knew he needed to sign a striker, which we assume is Eduardo. The Crozillian was there yesterday but he didn’t play. Fabianski and Nordtveit made their Arsenal debuts in the second half.

Our next game is against Genclerbirligi in Austria on Thursday. There’s a team for whom the songs just roll off the tongue, eh?

About Freddie Ljungberg the boss said:

At the moment Freddie stays at the club. I expect him to be here at the start of the season because he has not left yet and I’m 90 per cent sure he will be. In Freddie’s case it’s a bit special like it was for Thierry. If he had wanted to go we’d have let him. But I’m happy for him to stay.

And that’s about that for this Sunday. Before I get a lot of emails about it just let me say that I’m not in the slightest bit interested in the stories about Thierry Henry’s marriage.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Saturday round-up

Morning all. Saturday is here. I just had a very nice lie in. Now I have a coffee. All is good so here’s a quick round-up for you.

Cesc says we can do something special in the season ahead, believing the time the young players have spent growing up together could be decisive. He says:

I love this club, I believe a lot in this team and I feel we can do something special this season. We have been playing together for the last three or four years. We are very young but we capable of doing big things. Since the start of this project we all promised to be together. We have to stick together and make titles for Arsenal.

Well, despite the fact I still think we need at least one more signing, having a team spirit like that is a good start. Perhaps those who think we might be better off without Henry aren’t just thinking about things on the pitch.

Mathieu Flamini looks like he’s going to stay. After announcing his intention to leave he was frozen out towards the end of last season but has since made up with the boss and is happy to play wherever he’s selected. I’m quite happy to see him stay, I have to say. He’s an honest, hard-working player who gives depth to the squad. I can’t imagine he’ll sign a new contract so he’ll probably be off next summer but in the meantime he’s a good lad to have around.

Freddie Ljungberg won’t join another Premiership club, according to his agent, because of his respect for Arsenal fans. Good man, Freddie. I’d much rather he went somewhere like Spain or Italy to be honest.

After reports yesterday that we’d agreed a fee with Real Madrid for Reyes it seems things haven’t quite worked out. Madrid faxed us an offer of €8m to which Arsenal faxed back a demand for €12m and Madrid are not willing to go that high. AS reports that Reyes is desperate to move to Madrid and won’t consider any other option this summer, so much he’s been to London twice to persuade Arsenal to let him stay at Madrid. The thing José has to realise is that the whole thing has nothing to do whether or not the deal is right for him but for Arsenal Football Club. If we receive a better offer from another Spanish club then Madrid can go and fuck themselves. It’s all a bit of a mess at the minute.

Philippe Auclair from L’Equipe on Bacary Sagna.

There’s football today as Arsenal take on Barnet at Underhill in the first pre-season game of the new campaign. From here it’s a slippery slope into training camps, pre-season tournaments and then the real thing. Hurrah, and thank God and to be honest I can’t wait. Reaction to and fallout from today’s game should be interesting and will be covered on tomorrow’s blog.

Finally for today congratulations to long-time Arseblogger Ilmarinen who today is getting married in Finland. All the very best to him and the soon to be Mrs Ilmarinen. The cake, I believe, is made entirely out of vodka.

Till tomorrow.

Cesc is staying, Sagna official, other Friday stuff + Arsecast 36.

Morning all. Some strange business to get on with this morning. Before we get to the now confirmed signing of Bacary Sagna (official Arsenal spelling) we’ll touch on Cesc. We know that Madrid want him but he says he’s staying with Arsenal. The Mail quotes him as saying:

I have talked with them because they seem to me like spectacular people and they made a great effort to get me to sign. It was a very difficult decision for me but with Thierry Henry leaving, I feel that I can’t leave the club that has done so much for me. I have a great responsibility this season and I can’t wait to get started and try to win things.

It made me very excited that a club as big as Madrid were interested in me and that made it a very difficult decision. It’s a chance that doesn’t come around very often but I am only 20 and I have to keep improving and I want to do that at Arsenal. I have every confidence that the manager will sign a new deal.

Ok then. So he spoke to Real Madrid? Surely Arsenal didn’t give permission for that. Most odd. Can’t we kill Madrid, fatally, for that kind of thing? Cesc’s agent, Joseba Diaz, said:

Wenger met with him yesterday and convinced him to stay. It’s like a father and son relationship. We would like to thank Real for the interest they have shown. President Ramon Calderon and sports director Predrag Mijatovic have been very good to us and it is the second time Real have shown an interest in the player. Maybe they will get lucky the third time.

Well, firstly let me say that I wouldn’t thank Real for the interest so much as break a wine bottle and shove it repeatedly up their arses and this ‘maybe they’ll get lucky a third time’ comment is a bit of a load of bollocks, isn’t it? Sort of like a husband telling his wife he didn’t cheat on her with the hot secretary at the Christmas party but then saying ‘There’s always next year!’.

I’m glad Cesc is staying, we need him but the interest from Spain is not going to go away. I wonder if the whole thing hasn’t been overplayed a bit though. I can’t imagine Arsene Wenger spending most of yesterday convincing Cesc to stay, more likely it was a case of Arsenal telling him that he’s going to be an important player next season and that any chance of a move is well and truly off. Agents like to make sure doors are never closed though. What this will hopefully do though is put an end to these stories until next summer at least. Hopefully.

I did like Cesc’s comment in the Sun about trying to sign Eto’o saying he’d be the perfect replacement for Henry. Who knows what might happen there?

Now on to Bacary Sagna. He was officially announced yesterday and will wear the number 3 shirt. It looks like he’s here to play right back, at least that’s what he assumes anyway in this official interview in which he welcomes Arsenal fans to Arsenal. Erm, right. He said that Arsene Wenger and the French connection was a big factor in his arrival to the club and it’ll be interesting to see what happens with Hoyte and Eboue now that he’s here.

Gilles Grimandi says the club have watched him over 40 times in the last three years. So, signing number 4 on top of Fabianski, Eduardo and Nordveit. I think there’s still some work to be done though. Another couple need to come in to provide the quality and depth that the squad needs to challenge for the biggest prizes.

Barnet tomorrow should be interesting as we’ll get to see Eduardo and perhaps get a clue about where he’s going to play. Also, no doubt someone will get one of those snippets from Wenger where he says something about transfers and everyone tries to make sense of it. Unless he says something like “Yeah, I’m after another two players”, which he rarely does, in fairness.

The Mirror has two snippets. One a fairly speculative article about Carlos Vela, who I thought was going to spend next season with Levante but obviously nothing’s been fully decided yet. To be honest I’d be surprised to see him here this season, another year playing first team football somewhere will do him the world of good. At the weekends though someone needs to get him climate controlled and ready for English weather.

The other story is about José Antonio Reyes and they say we’ve agreed a £6.5m deal with Real Madrid. We’ll have to just wait and see but it just shows how completely fucked up the transfer market is this summer. £11.5m for Babel? Madness. £6m for Diomansy Kamara from West Brom? Lunacy. £5.3m for Koumas? Poppycock. Based on those figures it makes what we’re getting for Reyes seem very small but we’re in a bad position as everyone knows he doesn’t want to come back to Arsenal so we’re pissing in the wind a bit.

Now, this.

Right then, in this week’s Arsecast brought to you by OleOle.com, there’s a blogchat with Goodplaya in which we discuss transfer and the way Arsenal do business, there’s no Man in the Bar sadly, he couldn’t be found, but David O’Leary is there will some more self-help and there’s some other waffle to keep you mildly entertained this morning.

To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes – click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (12.2mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here. And you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

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And that’s that. More tomorrow.

Thursday piffle

With all the in-depth preparations underway for Saturday’s game against Barnet it appears to have gone fairly quiet in terms of news. Most of what’s out there centres around Freddie Ljungberg.

The Independent reports that his wages are proving a stumbling block to his move to Fiorentina. £70,000 a week is a bit rich for their tastes although they are, apparently, trying to negotiate sponsorship deals to make the deal more attractive to Freddie. However, The Sun reports that Manchester City held talks with Freddie and his agent on Tuesday night and a £6m move could be on the cards. There’s the added attraction of playing for fellow Swede Sven, if that kind of thing makes any difference to him.

Marca’s front cover today suggests that Arsene Wenger will take Cesc to Barcelona when he becomes the new manager at the Camp Nou in 2008. But it doesn’t stop there. Wenger, being a man too clever to close any door fully, will also listen to whatever offers Real Madrid will make in retaliation. It’s funny, isn’t it? Arsenal fans haven’t heard a peep from Arsene Wenger for the last few weeks, bar the usual guff about welcoming new players, but Marca have an inside track in which they know exactly what he’s going to do a year from now.

Marca also reports that after meetings between Reyes, his agent and Arsenal, that we’ve agreed to sell him to Madrid for €10m. Given the fact Madrid just spunked €30m on a centre-half yesterday I think we should twist their arm a bit more. I mean twist it in that way bullies twist your arm and make you say things like “I love Leeds United” and you say it because you think your arm is about to break and then you develop a hatred of all things Leeds and watching them nearly go out of existence is hilarious and makes you think ‘Serves you right for twisting my arm, you cunt’.

Spare a thought for poor Gilberto. He’s charging around Venezuela as Brazil captain but he’ll miss the final of the Copa America against Argentina on Sunday due to suspension. Bummer.

Talk of Bakary Sagna’s arrival has led to rumours of Justin Hoyte being a target for Reading.

Not much else happening. Hopefully we’ll get an idea of what kind of squad will face Barnet and possibly a few words from Arsene. Until tomorrow.