Kolo Toure arrived at Arsenal from ASEC Mimosas in 2002 for a fee of around £250,000. It looks like he’s going to leave Arsenal for Manchester City for somewhere in the region of £16m.
It’s another incredible piece of transfer business from Arsene Wenger who has made this kind of deal his speciality. I don’t think there’s another manager in the world who has generated such profits when selling players. So from a business point of view it’s a very good move for Arsenal.
Of course as fans we’re not really that interested in the business side of things, more the football, but it’s difficult to separate the two. Back in January when rumours of City’s interest first became known I said that an offer of £12m would be far too good to turn down, here were in July and another £4m on top of that makes it even better.
So while I don’t believe there’s any real debate about how good a piece of business it is there’s certainly going to be a lot of chat about whether it’s good for us from a football point of view. Let’s try and examine that.
We know for a fact that Kolo handed in a transfer request in January. At that time he cited the breakdown of his relationship with William Gallas as the reason but the more info we got the more it looked like his head had been turned by the financial consideration on offer from City. And with Jonathan Barnett as his agent we have a man with some amount of previous in that regard. He was present with the husband of the X-Factor judge from Girls Aloud in meetings with Mourinho and Chelsea when the money on offer turned the head of a player who had been at the club since he was nine years of age.
Kolo’s request may also have been based on the fact he had lost his place as a first choice and in that regard I had some sympathy for him. I thought Gallas’ form was poorer as the defence struggled up until Christmas, but eventually the request was withdrawn (a move which angered City if you believe the rumours – they thought the deal was practically done), he declared his love for the club and said he was staying. He played regularly until the end of the season.
There are those who will question why we’re letting an experienced campaigner like Kolo Toure and go to a club which the manager has identified as a threat to our position in the top four. It’s a legitimate concern, no doubt about it. What I would say is that since his return from the ACN a little under 18 months ago Kolo has not been the same player.
He had a bout of malaria which certainly affected him, he didn’t seem as fit, he looked heavier, and the blinding recovery pace on which his defensive game was based seemed to have deserted him. Arsene Wenger is a statistician. He’ll have looked at Kolo’s physical performances over the last 18 months both on the pitch and in training and if he thinks the chances of Kolo finding his old form and physical shape again are unlikely then this will have played a large part in his decision to sell.
I’m not doubting the money on offer has been a factor too but whatever you might think Wenger is not stupid. He’s not going to sell City a player capable of the great things we used to see from Kolo Toure, nor is he going to deprive his own team of that talent and experience if he thinks he’s still capable of it. If he believes Kolo’s decline is permanent then that will have made his mind up, also taking into account he’d have been away for 6-8 weeks in the winter at the ACN again.
And when it comes to selling players heading towards 30 I think we have to trust Wenger’s judgement. He rarely makes a mistake in that regard.
Now, do I expect the manager to replace him with someone like Hangeland? No, I don’t. Yesterday he spoke about how having seven centre-halves at the club played a part in allowing Kolo to leave. You don’t use that as a reason and then go out and buy another one. He’s bought Vermaelen to be first choice, there’s no doubt about that in my mind, leaving Gallas and Djourou to scrap to be his partner. He seems to like Alex Song at the back, although I’m not convinced, Philippe Senderos is back at the club and I wouldn’t be at all sorry to see him stay, and then there’s Sylvester. Ok, the less said about that the better.
You may argue all you want about the qualities of these players but based on the way I think the manager looks at them I don’t think he’s going to buy another centre-half. I think rumours about Hangeland are just that, it’s an easy name for journalists to bandy about and make copy. I sincerely doubt we have any interest in him at all.
So now people will talk about Wenger having a £40m cash mountain to spend which I’m not sure is entirely accurate. Taking into account we’ve spent £25m since January on Arshavin and Vermaelen the Adebayor deal has balanced the books (we might assume that these purchases were made on the basis that the club was budgeting for the sale of Adebayor this summer), the Toure money would put us in profit. So I while I’m sure he has money to spend he certainly doesn’t have £40m. He hasn’t ruled out bringing in new players, telling Arsenal TV online yesterday:
Well at the moment I’m more focussed to get everybody fit for the start of the season. We are looking at opportunities as well but there are still some pre-season games to see what we really need and when the time has come we will do something.
Which is all a bit confusing. Surely he doesn’t need pre-season to tell him what he needs? Last season would have done that more than adequately I’m sure. So while he’s not ruling anything out it doesn’t seem as if there’s any deal close to being done, which I know won’t please many.
I think even with the Kolo departure we only really need one signing. We need to add some Arshavin-esque quality to the centre of our midfield. With that purchase I believe we can really challenge on all fronts but I can’t help feeling, and this feeling might be coming from the pit of my stomach, that he’s looking at Denilson, Song, Diaby and Ramsey, considering the football they played last year and banking on them being a year older, more experienced and better.
I think it’s a big risk to take if that’s the way he is thinking. We saw the impact signing Arshavin made on the team, that kind of signing in central midfield would certainly reassure fans and signal the club’s intent to challenge for trophies and not scrap for fourth once again. It’s clear he identified the centre of defence as an area that needed strengthening and he went out and did it almost straight away. If he believed the centre of midfield needed the same kind of investment wouldn’t he have done it by now? I know there were rumours about Melo but isn’t it just as plausible that Fiorentina fabricated some interest to push through a better deal with Juventus?
It’s certainly not impossible that these players can improve, they are all young and the manager has great faith in them, my worry is that if he chooses to go down that road and things go wrong then he’s on a hiding to nothing. People will point to the money raised by the sales of Adebayor and Toure and castigate him for not spending and for relying on players who did not produce last season. He is making a rod for his own back, so he’s got a big decision to make in that regard.
Nevertheless, he has said we’re ‘looking at opportunities’ so I’m hoping my gut feeling on this is wrong. I suspect he’s waiting, looking to see who might be available, and if the right player comes along we might buy. We’ve got just over a month until the transfer window closes. I suspect we’re going to hear a a few vague stories about how we’ll bring in the right player if they can add something ‘special’ to the squad, but at the moment, and this is just my own feeling on this, I’m not expecting anyone else to come in.
No doubt that’s going to prompt some amount of discussion so I might just stick my flak jacket on and have another cup of coffee.
Going back to Kolo briefly, it’ll be sad to see him go. He’s given a lot to this club, his enthusiasm and hard work endeared to him to the fans. I think it was very early in the life of Arseblog that he was tried at centre-half in pre-season (against Rangers if I recall correctly) and he was fantastic. If you look at the players he was coming in to take over from (Keown and Adams) it shows what a performer he was. He scored us some goals, some vital ones too, and he’s really the last full link to the invincibles side.
But that’s football, players move on all the time, in a way it’s a shame he’s going to that bunch of lottery winning knackers but c’est la vie. Thanks, Kolo.
There’s a game tonight, of course, we play Hanover 96 in the final game of our Austrian pre-season ‘tour’. No doubt we’ll get some more from the manager on the Kolo deal, and it’ll give us another chance to try and guess how we’re going to play next season. Although I think it’ll be the weekend and the Emirates Cup before we really get an idea of that.
Right then, have at it. More tomorrow.
