Morning all.
Reports this morning suggest Chelsea have increased their bid to £23m for Ashley Cole which, if true, is fantastic money and we should accept straight away. However, it seems to me that the source for this news is a typically dodgy Vital Football site and it’s been picked up by the Telegraph and nobody else. The Mirror say the Russians have upped their bid to £20m so there’s probably something in it. The sooner this is sorted out the better because the longer this goes on the less time we have to do something with the money his sale generates.
I’m told that if we do sell we won’t be buying a left back as the club still has high hopes for Gael Clichy who should be back in September and there’s plenty of cover through Flamini, Hoyte, Armand Traore and even Pascal Cygan.
With regard to José Antonio Reyes AS reports that the player will be reporting for international duty and does not want to go back to London. Apparently he’s been looking for a house in Madrid already but there still appears to be a difference between the clubs in terms of the offer. There’s been some talk that Baptista has been offered but the only name in the AS article is Diogo and he’s pretty crap. Marca says Dein and Mijatovic will meet again and Reyes could join by Thursday. Again, we’ll wait and see.
Thierry Henry has been speaking about the team, the new season and the mood in the squad in an article in The Sun. He seems quite upbeat and says the mood in the camp is much better than last year when Vieira was sold. Even though we’re about to lose two more players he seems confident and is very positive about the experience the young players picked up last season. Interestingly though he has mentioned transfers and in a little nudge to Arsene Wenger he said:
Before the end of this month, I really hope here will be some new arrivals to follow Tomas Rosicky.
Like all of us, Thierry. I think we have a squad that’s a bit thin but with massive potential. Signing a couple of quality players would really take us up a level, give everybody a lift (players and fans) and help us put behind what has been a very frustrating summer so far. There’s no question the young players will be better this season. Look at Cesc, for example. He’s now played 100 games for us, played in a Champions League final, played in the World Cup (like Senderos, like Djourou), and the faith that the manager has shown in him and the rest of them will be rewarded with more on the pitch.
What we can’t do, in my opinion, is settle for that though. If we can bring in a couple of quality players to augment what we already have then I’m going to go into the new season feeling very confident about us. We’re not talking about 4 or 5 players here, because despite what we’ve lost and will lose, we coped without some of those players brilliantly last season.
Dennis was peripheral in his last season, Sol Campbell was pretty much rubbish all season long and without him we set a new record for clean sheets in the CL and Cuntley Cunt was injured most of the season. Pires has been replaced by Rosicky, who we hope can match his goal contribution, while what happens with Reyes and his replacement remains to be seen.
So the losses have to be put in context ahead of arrivals but don’t doubt the benefit that a couple of quality additions to the squad would bring. Who? I dunno, that’s up to Arsene but with the money we have available plus the money generated from the sales of Cole and Reyes there’s no excuse for trawling the bargain basement when we can at least browse Marks and Spencers. Come on Arsene, you know you want to!
Maybe one of those arrivals is Curtis Davies as the Mirror says we’ll loan them Arturo Lupoli to sweeten a transfer deal. Johann Djourou might not be happy with such an arrival though as he is determined to prove his worth the team.
And that’s that. Have a good Saturday.
