Well, anyone expecting a signing anytime soon looks set to be disappointed.
We’ve heard the name Samir Nasri so often in the last couple of weeks it’s begun to stop making sense. Like if you say a word over and over again and it begins to sound ridiculous. The situation seemed to be that Nasri was pretty much a done deal, it was just a case of him putting pen to paper. However, Arsene Wenger, speaking to the French media, claimed that no deal would be done before the end of Euro2008 and hinted that money might be the issue. He said:
I hope I will do it after the Euros. It is more complicated now because the wage differences are not as big as they used to be.
Maybe Nasri and his people are thinking that a good showing at Euro2008 will increase his value and enable them to ask for higher wages from Arsenal. Or from other clubs. I’m not sure what the wages they pay in France has to do with anything though. The other complication surrounding this deal is the presence of Jean Pierre-Bernes, Nasri’s agent. He was involved in the corruption surrounding Bernard Tapie’s Marseille in the early 90s – at the time when Wenger was manager of Monaco. We know what AW thought of that, he’s been quite outspoken about it and it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest there are some personal grievances there, for sure.
Would it be possible that Bernes would be so petty as to put the deal in jeopardy because of this? Frankly a football agent is capable of anything. Killing their own mum, devouring their young moments after being born, listening to Phil Collins music, anything. So this is well within the realms of possibility.
So, for the time being it looks like this one is on the back burner. I’m maintaining my transfer chill-out zone though, it’s still way too early in the summer to get stressed about something like this.
Update: I have just been reliably informed that Arsene’s comments about money were in relation to a separate question asked by journalists about how easy it was to buy players in France these days. It had nothing whatsoever to do with Nasri, and the hold up with the deal is not money related. It has more to do with some legal mumbo-jumbo. So there you go.
Meanwhile reports in Spain say Alexander Hleb, the one we thought Nasri would be replacing, is moving ever closer to a move to Barcelona, althoug there’s nothing really new to report.
Ahead of Euro2008 Holland are waiting on the fitness of Robin van Persie. Now it’s a whole nation rather than just Arsenal fans. I suspect they’ll be waiting.
Yesterday’s barely coherent report in the Telegraph about Arsene Wenger going to PSG was dismissed by the man himself. It wasn’t supposed to happen until 2011 anyway so I don’t know what all the fuss was about.
Right, at this early stage that’s about it. It’s another glorious day here, a bank holiday too. Till tomorrow.
