July 22nd
Ah, Friday. The day of after work beers and being asleep by 9.30. Gotta love it.
Beastwatch©®™: So Arsene Wenger told us something we didn’t already know. He says we’ve got a 50-50 chance of signing Baptista. So we’ll either sign him or we won’t. According to the boss “It is down to him. He might stay where he is or go to another club in Spain. The sticking point at the moment is secret, if you can keep something secret in football.”
He went on to say “However I feel we have the players we want. You have seen that tonight when we did not have the likes of Gilberto, Fabregas and Van Persie. If we can add one more we will but if it doesn’t happen then it doesn’t happen.”
Now, for some people that means we’ve chucked in the towel and we won’t be signing anyone and we’ll be bending over and taking it in the arse from Chelsea and United and Liverpool and probably Wigan too. However, there’s still plenty of time before the new season starts and I think the manager knows he needs to spend some money. We’ve lost too much experience not to strengthen the squad but he’s certainly being very guarded about his intentions. A couple of weeks ago we were going to sign two or three, then he says we’re maybe going to sign one, and next week it’ll probably be something different again. I think AW is as honest a manager as they come when it comes to talking about the games and anything else for that matter but when it comes to transfers I’m not sure I believe a word he says.
Robert Pires has been offered a one year deal by the club and the manager wants him to stay. AW says “I can understand that he wants an improved contract, but it has nothing to do with Patrick leaving. My situation is very clear: I want him to stay. But I cannot stop there being interest from other clubs or speculation in the newspapers.”
That’s one year on top of the year he already has left so it’s not as if we’re hanging him out to dry or anything. Reports yesterday suggested we were after Olivier Dacourt to add some experience to the midfield while Pascal Cygan will not be returning to Lille, certainly not when the future of one of our central defenders is less than clear.
So another week over, no new signings and just a couple of healthy wins in our friendlies to cheer us up. Personally I think we should sell all our players and replace them with infants. Let them gain experience and by 2016 we’ll be rocking again. Oh yes.
