Morning all,
there’s little but transfer scuttlebut to occupy us so we might as well get on with that. Both the Mirror and the Mail link us with Wolfsburg’s Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko. The Mirror says £8m, the Mail £12m, and both see him as a replacement for Emmanuel Adebayor.
I don’t know a great deal about him other than he’s had a fine season for the German side, scoring 26 goals to help them to the Bundesliga title. From what I’ve seen he looks strong and direct and a real threat in the air but then this is little more than rumour at this stage.
The Sun links us with Yaya Toure, again, but to be honest I can’t see why he would want to leave Barcelona to play for us. I know Kolo is with us but for a moment leave aside the fact you’re an Arsenal fan and put yourself in his shoes. You’re an integral part of a team which plays fantastic football, with some incredible players and which wins trophies on a regular basis. Why would you leave for a club which hasn’t won a trophy in four years? Whatever else happens this summer I confidently predict that Yaya Toure will not become an Arsenal player.
Emmanuel Adebayor’s agent says there’s been no contact from AC Milan but admitted other clubs have expressed an interest. Stephane Courbis said:
Yesterday I met with Arsene Wenger, but we did not talk about a possible sale because at the moment there is no offer on the table that interests us. The Milan owners have made no contact with me. There are other offers, but none that Emmanuel finds interesting. It is not right to talk about things at the moment because Ade is an Arsenal player.
He said talking about things. I do fear that Adebayor may try and hold out for a move which he think befits him rather than one which suits his actual ability but I suppose it all comes down to the manager. If Arsene tells him his future lies elsewhere then he may have to cut his cloth accordingly.
This morning’s AS in Spain reports that both Espanyol and Atletico Madrid are interested in Emmanuel Eboue but Eboue is not particularly interested in Espanyol because they won’t be playing in Europe next season. The Madrid side are erring on the side of economic prudence though and don’t want to pay too high a fee. Who can blame them?
Arsenal stats for the Premier League season were revealed in-depth yesterday. You can trawl through them yourselves but some interesting ones:
- Leading assist makers were van Persie and Cesc with 10. Cesc’s haul impressive due to the time spent out with injury.
- Following them were Denilson and Arshavin with 7 each although the Russian’s came in 12 appearances as opposed to Denilson’s 37
- Forward most offside was, unsurprisingly, Adebayor – a whopping 43 times which is almost 4 times more than the next player, van Persie, who was offside 11 times.
- Robin van Persie hit the woodwork 6 times
- Nicklas Bendtner played more games than any other striker and got a goal every 195 minutes compared to van Persie’s 201, Adebayor’s 191 and Arshavin’s 166
- Sagna made the most clearances, 44, while Gael Clichy’s 10 interceptions put him head of that chart.
- Manuel Almunia made a total of 147 saves and conceded a goal on average every 110 minutes.
You can have a look at the rest on the official site here.
And that’s about that. There’s no Arsecast this week due to there being not very much to talk about it. As soon as the news picks up the Arsecasts will commence once more.
So, have yourselves a good Friday, more tomorrow.
