Right, well that’s the festivities, drawn out as they might have been, over for another year. 2009 begins in earnest now.
The teacakes are all eaten, I never even had a Christmas pudding so I can’t throw out the dried out chunk of it that’s left over, and the tree has to come down today. I might just set it on fire out the back to bring some warmth to the local neighbourhood – it’s freezing again this morning and one little pine tree burning in the garden is hardly going to make a dent in the environment.
Now the serious business of winning football matches and trying to win a trophy can get going again. We’re through to the 4th round of the FA Cup – an away tie against Cardiff the reward for the win against Plymouth. It could be an interesting day for Aaron Ramsey who could face the club he left in the summertime. That game takes place on the weekend of the 24th/25th January.
Robin van Persie is a man on a mission. He won the FA Cup in his first full season with the club, scoring one of the penalties in the shoot-out with Manchester United, but has won nothing since. He says:
When I arrived at Arsenal they were winning trophies for fun. They were champions when I arrived and in my first season I won the FA Cup. I was expecting that to carry on but it hasn’t really happened like that. But it’s not a reason for me to give up, it’s a bigger challenge to do it this time. We need to win a trophy as soon as possible. We’ve been very unlucky with injuries so we want to do something for the club and the fans.
A piece of silverware would go a long, long way at this stage. I know there are those who don’t consider the FA Cup a competition of much importance anymore, and perhaps in the era of Champions League its stature has dwindled somewhat, but for me it represents our best chance at winning something this season.
Whatever you might think of the FA Cup itself the confidence it would bring to the team if we won it would be immeasurable. They’d go from being nearly men to men who have won something and it does make a difference.
Anyway, the focus has to go back onto the league right now and the battle for fourth is well and truly on. We’ve got Bolton at home this Saturday while above us we have to hope that a Villa side which, seems to be getting all the dodgy decisions going their way, finds West Brom more of a struggle than most. Perhaps their UEFA Cup campaign will be a distraction – well, more of a distraction than our Champions League games.
There’s nothing new regarding transfers this morning. Arshavin is back on the agenda at £20m, apparently, but there’s so much smoke regarding this one it’s hard to see if there’s any fire. I’m sure we’d be willing to do business but not at that price. You’re buying a player from the Russian league, not from one of the top leagues in Europe, and as we’ve mentioned over the last couple of weeks I think the era of crazy transfer fees is well and truly over for most clubs.
The spectre of Webster looms large over the whole thing as well. At some point a high profile club and a high profile player are going to decide that it’s worth all the hassle to push through a move based on the Webster ruling. This means that players can, after a certain protected period, buy out their own contracts and move to another club for the cost of that contract.
I know for a fact that Hleb was considering doing it last summer but for whatever reason it did not transpire. I think at the moment clubs are unwilling to upset other clubs, clubs they may want to do other business with, to make these transfers happen. Players too have to give notice to their current team and I’m sure it’s awkward. You need to have some balls to do it. But at some point it’s going to happen and after that the floodgates will open, in my opinion. The transfer market will change dramatically.
Still, we’ve got to operate in the market that exists at this moment in time and if we want players we’re going to have to deal with the fact that buying someone like Arshavin is going to be costly. If we buy him, even for £10m, give him a three or four year contract with decent wages, it adds up to a lot of money for a player who will have little or no resale value.
However, you have to add that up against what he, or any other player, might bring to the team. Would signing him and paying all that money be worth it to assure Champions League qualification? Of course it would. No matter what the club might say about not factoring in the CL money it represents somewhere in the region of 12.5% of Arsenal’s football revenue (cheers Paul M), so going without would be a massive blow, both financially and footballistically, to use an Arseneism.
Of course there’s no guarantee that signing Arshavin would assure CL qualification, frankly I think there are other areas of the pitch that need more work, and I’m sure the boss is aware of that too. I suspect there’ll be some wheeling and dealing this January, not just from Arsenal, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a flurry of activity late in the month when clubs who are desperate to sell now become even more so.
Not much else to tell you, I’m off to burn my tree. More tomorrow.
