We should start this morning with the story that broke last night on BBC London who claimed that Arsene Wenger was set to stay with Arsenal and that a board meeting had been called to ratify the promotion of ‘Director of Football’. It does look as if it was a little premature but the general feeling is that Gilles will be appointed some time soon and the idea of Wenger leaving after making such an appointment is not really his style.
We did hear earlier in the week that the boss was taking a little holiday and he could still be enjoying the many and varied delights of Butlins so we’ll probably have to wait a bit, but my thinking on the whole thing is that Gilles will move up to that position and that Arsene will extend his contract. Some people were a bit worried yesterday when Capello was sacked thinking AW would be a target but I don’t think that’s an issue at all.
Sam Allardyce has been fretting about the release clauses his two main strikers have. £13m for Martins and £9m for Owen. They’re not very good at this negotiating contracts thing up there, are they? This morning’s Sun says United are after Michael Owen which might mean their interesting in Nicholas Anelka has cooled.
Bakary Sagna appears larger and larger on the radar even though he’s nominally a right back and we already have two of them (three if you count Gilbert) and both of them have extended their contracts recently. We know the boss has turned midfielders into defenders and defenders into midfielders. Perhaps he sees this guy as a right sided midfielder rather than a full back?
Carlos Tevez, a player Arsene has admired publicly, has turned down Inter Milan. He’d be a good addition to the squad, I think, but as mentioned previously his situation is complicated. The bloke who owns him is an Arsenal fan though.
£16.5m for Darren Bent? Ludicrous, ridiculous and hilarious at the same time. And people wonder why Arsene rarely buys English.
Now, to the Arsecast.
This week in the Arsecast, brought to as always by OleOle.com (who have lots of Copa America coverage if you’re looking for a football fix), features a blogchat with Amy Lawrence in which we talk about Thierry Henry, the Man in the Bar has a player history, there’s a new educational feature and an old friend returns.
To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes – click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (15mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here. And you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.
[audio:http://arseblog.com/podcasts/arsecast_episode34.mp3]And that’s your lot my Arseloving friends. Until tomorrow.
