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.

And that’s that. More tomorrow.