So Ashley Cole … er … wait a minute. There’s nothing new about Ashley Cole. He’s still a wee cunt though.
Arsene has been busy talking at the Austrian training camp revealing that Tomas Rosicky is settling in well and that Freddie Ljungberg is likely to miss the start of the season with an ankle injury. It’s hardly a surprise about Freddie. He’s become increasingly injury prone and his stop-start seasons have not allowed him to find his game. It would probably have been a bigger blow in previous seasons but Hleb can slot in on the right hand side without any problem at all and he does link up well with Eboue who looks set to continue in place of the still injured Lauren.
In defence we’re still a bit short and the boss said he hasn’t found anyone yet to replace Sol Campbell. He’s interested in Curtis Davies but not for the money West Brom want. If anything was to show you the difference between buying at home and buying abroad it’s talk of £10m for West Ham’s Benayoun when we got Rosicky for £6m. Even look at Jermaine Pennant for £6.5m which could rise to £8m. That’s a lot of money for a bloke whose main achievement in football is being the first player to play with a homing device so his prison knows where he is.
Buying from English clubs, as Chelsea know fine well, means you pay well over the odds for players. That’s what’s happening with Davies and I think AW is right to resist paying more money for a player than he’s worth (and I can only hope Bastia paid us to take Alex Song).
About the defence the boss said:
We have Toure, Djourou, Senderos and Cygan. If we can find someone and we can get them then we will do it. But at the moment I have not found anybody. Remember these defenders went 10 games in the Champions League without conceding a goal so I cannot say they are bad.
What’s interesting, or what may be slowing things down, is that Djourou is extremely well thought of at the club and bringing in a central defender may hinder his progress. The fact that Senderos and Toure have been given 5 and 6 to me shows the AW’s intentions as to who his first choice partnership is with Cygan and Djourou as back up. Anyway, more for the boss to ponder.
Derby County want to sign Ryan Smith on loan while former Gunner and now manager of Sunderland, Niall Quinn, wants to take Fabrice Muamba on loan for the season.
And that’s it. The team continue training in Austria. I thought the fact I went out for the whole day yesterday with no web access would mean I came home to find the newsfeeds full of delicious news about signings.
Today I’ll sit staring at my screen. See if that helps. Laters!
