Signings required, none expected.

So it’s transfer deadline day. Any deals must be completed by midnight and then we can put this torture behind us until January.

The main news this morning is that it seems likely that José Antonio Reyes will go to Real Madrid with Arsenal receiving €3m plus Julio Baptista. Personally I can live with that. Baptista is big and strong and can score goals, José is a homesick special needs kid who has burnt his bridges at the club. A proper shame but you didn’t have to be a genius to predict the kinds of problems he’s had in England. I think it’s safe to say the highlight of his Arsenal career was his first goal against Chelsea and a brief spell of sensational form at the start of the 2004-5 season apart he’s never really lived up to expectations. I wish he’d been a success but there you go.

So, Reyes out, Baptista in and we’re back to square one. Maybe we’re a little stronger due to Baptista’s versatility but I sincerely hope that’s not the end of the wheeling and dealing.

Ashley Cole could still move to Chelsea and his publishers will be hoping that happens so they can send his book to the presses so he can slag off Arsenal some more for not liking it when he and his agent went to meet Chelsea then lied about it then appeared on the front of the News of the World with a headline saying “I wouldn’t stay if they offered me £200,000 a week” and generally acting like Cuntley Cunts.

The Sun reports that Corinthians are trying to negotiate loan deals for Tevez and Mascherano. I’m really not sure that we need Tevez at all, especially when you can add Baptista to the list of players who can play up front, but I will be very disappointed if Mascherano goes elsewhere, especially when Wenger was very close to signing him in the summer of 2004 when it looked like Vieira was off to Madrid and then changed his mind at the last minute meaning we missed both the Argentine and a cheap Michael Carrick.

I think it’s just a shame we’ve gotten this far into the transfer window without doing any business. I said before that while there was tremendous potential in this squad, and I sincerely believe that, the gap between experience and youth is still off. We lack a midfield battler, at the very least. We’ve had all summer to try and find the right player. Maybe we have been trying. Maybe nobody, not one single club in the world, wants to sell to us.

Not sure I buy that though. We could go through today and lose Cole as well without the chance to buy a replacement or anyone else to bolster the squad and to me that would smack of mismanagement.

I think Arsene Wenger, if he doesn’t buy anyone (Baptista aside if that happens) is taking a massive gamble. I know he’s dedicated to his pursuit of youth and it’s admirable and I understand that it was borne out of the possible financial restrictions of the new stadium but we’ve had a long, speculative summer in which to add players to help the youngsters achieve their potential, not get in the way of them. Being brutally honest there are a couple of youngsters who have demonstrated that they actually need someone to get in the way of them because they’re just not good enough.

When Thierry Henry said some weeks ago that he hoped more players would arrive by the end of August that was, to me, an admission from the captain and one of the longest serving players at the club who has won titles with great teams, that this team is not capable of making a really challenge this season. If he feels we need new players to improve the squad then it’s a tacit admission of our weakness. We’re not good enough to win the league with the players we have.

Maybe I’m just caught up in transfer window bollocks but it seems like Arsene is determined to do it his way, that his kids will be capable of taking on squads who have strengthened considerably when we have lost Campbell, Pires, Bergkamp, Reyes and possibly Cole. We’re not stronger. We’re weaker. Some important players have left, some important players are out injured. We know he’s a stubborn man (witness the hapless Hoyte at left back ahead of Flamini who was so good there last year) and I would like nothing more than next May to write here that I was completely wrong and that AW is a true genius but I think unless we bring players in we could struggle more than we’d like this season. If we do struggle then I don’t think it will unfair to ask some questions of the manager.

A couple of late signings would obviously help lift the mood but I’m really not holding my breath. We’ve had months to do it now and any action today must surely be desperation rather than any long term planning.

I’m sorry for being so negative this morning but I’m genuinely worried about the season ahead.

Update: According to Tevez’s official site both he and Mascherano will be playing for West Ham. Fucking hell, I am lost for words.

Let Cole and Reyes go, bring anyone in

Well, top o’ the mornin’ to ya. Arseblog is in Dublin. I’m sitting here in a strange house with a cup of coffee and I’m really feeling the difference in temperature between here and Barcelona. It is very green though.

I’ll have to change the name of the site now too. Arseblog – “tis feckin’ excellent, so it is, ya big bollix”. Oh, it runs off the tongue so well.

So there are two working days of the transfer window left and nothing has happened yet. That Arsene is such a big tease.

The Sun reports our move for Carlos Tevez gets closer but at the same time says Javier Mascherano could move to Manchester United. I could live, I suppose, with us not signing Mascherano but not if he moved to United. I’d really have to question why, when every man and his dog reckons he’s exactly the kind of player we need, that AW would sign a forward instead and let his player seriously strengthen one of our main rivals.

The Sun also says Ashley Cole will stay because Chelsea would not let Arsenal have William Gallas. However, the Mirror reports that David Dein turned down a £21m cash offer from Chelsea and if that’s true then David Dein is a fucking fool. It would be a world record price for a left-back, Cole has wanted out of Arsenal for a long time now, the Arsenal fans have wanted Cole out of Arsenal for nearly as long and to reject that kind of money is just nonsense.

In the past I might have thought Dein was too savvy for that kind of thing but nowadays you get the feeling he’s trying to uphold a personal reputation as a wheeler-dealer ahead of doing the best thing for the club. If Cole stays, as looks likely, he is certainly going to be the most unpopular Arsenal player that I can ever remember.

To quote Peter Hill-Wood:

I hope his attitude is right. If he is going to be miserable and sour, there is no point. Hopefully, he will get his head right.

Exactly. And if he’s bitter at how he’s been treated or that a good offer for him has been turned down then his head is never going to be right.

Atletico Madrid have increased their offer for José Antonio Reyes to €20m according to reports. That should be enough to get him on his way. If our squad is going to be as small as we all fear it is the last thing we need is two players who just don’t want to be part of it and I’m not the only one who thinks that.

Anyway, I can only hope that coming back here brings us the luck of the Irish and Arsene gets his chequebook out between today and tomorrow. If not I have to say I’m going to start to feel uneasy about the season ahead.

Goodbye Spain, hello rain!

If all goes well this morning, although there is a large chance it won’t due to Spanish inefficiency and beaurocracy, this is going to be the last ever Arseblog from Barcelona.

I’m swapping the rain, cold and damp of this dark, dingy place for the sunshine, warm weathered, café society of Dublin! Hurrah. I am going to miss this town though and I won’t be here to gloat when we knock their football out of the Champions League this season. Revenge will be sweet.

Adios, Barcelona.

Onto football and Ashley Cole played for the reserves last night as they beat Charlton reserves 4-0 with 2 goals each for Adebayor and Aliadiere. Curious that Cole played though. If a deal was imminent there’s no way he’d have been risked so it looks to me like he’s staying. Further thoughts on that if and when it happens.

The Mirror links us with 17 year old Southampton full back Gareth Bale saying we’ll pay £4m for him and then loan him back to Southampton for the year. That would be just typical. We spend money on a player for next year.

The Sun, just days after linking us with a £16m move for Javier Maschero, suggest we’re going to make a £17m move for Carlos Tevez and go so far as to say the plan is to announce him as an Arsenal player before the Brazil v Argentina game at The Grove on Saturday. I really can’t see why we’d spend that much money on another forward when it’s our midfield that needs bolstering. Certainly if you asked me to choose between the two Argentinians I’d take Mascherano every single time.

I did what I had to do and nothing more. I spoke to Wenger at the start but I have spoken to him since.

José Antonio Reyes quoted in today’s Marca where he also talks about how he would be very happy to sign for Atlético but says no deal has been done yet. Dear me.

And that’s it. I can’t find anything else to tell you so I’ll be off. Fingers crossed tomorrow’s Arseblog comes to you from Dublin.

Until then.

New week, same old crap

Well, I’m still here although I’m expecting phone and internet to be cut off any time now so I might not be around tomorrow. Today I have to go see my landlord to sort out the bits and bobs about leaving the flat and hopefully I’ll be on my way back to Ireland tomorrow. That’s if all goes well. You know how efficient things are here in Spain so say a little prayer to whichever God you worship for me (unless your God is Phil Collins).

Not a lot happening as things have wound down domestically with the internationals on the horizon. José Antonio Reyes though says he doesn’t want to play for Arsenal ever again and that he’ll play for anyone in Spain. He says:

What I want is to come to Spain. I won’t play again in England. I want to return. If it’s to play for Atletico Madrid I say yes, if it’s to play for Real Madrid I say yes, if it’s to play for Sevilla I say yes.

I wonder would he play for Real Betis. Atletico have apparently come back with an offer worth €16m and are waiting for Arsenal to come back with an answer but the Spanish press report they’re not willing to go any higher. Real Madrid have gone very quiet on the whole thing and given their squad it’s hard to see where Reyes would even get a game. Oh well. It’s a shame José is so determined to burn his bridges here when there’s more chance he’ll stay than leave.

Apart from that, in this last week before the transfer window closes, we’ve been linked with West Ham’s Nigel Reo-Coker and Kilmarnock’s 19 year old winger/striker Steven Naismith is apparently coming for a two day trial.

And that’s it. With most of the first team players away with their countries the boss has plenty of time to get the chequebook out and do some shopping. Although we seem to have been saying that for a while now.

Fingers crossed. Till tomorrow (maybe).