Bah, the sun is gone. So long summer, it was nice while it lasted.
A Sunday round-up for you begins with the Mirror saying Arsene Wenger has cut short his holiday to deal with the futures of Cesc, Nasri and Arshavin, all of whom could leave the club this summer. There’s a shock. I had no idea their futures were in doubt at all. Not sure how that passed me by, to be honest.
There’s a whole pile of stuff in there that we already know. Cesc and Barcelona, Nasri and his new contract, Arshavin and his little belly, none of it is new. The People runs with the Cesc story and speaks of a £50m bid from Inter Milan and also suggests Chelsea and even Man United could be ‘in the market’. Nonsense, really, there’s not a snowball’s chance of any of those deals happening. If Cesc goes it’ll be to Barcelona.
Speaking of which, their press officer, Xavi, has been speaking about the possible arrival of our captain, saying (Spanish):
The lad wants to come. He would be a great footballer for this team but the problem is money. He costs a lot because he is so good. 50 million euros. At the moment the club is not in in it’s best moment economically speaking. The problem is money. He wants to come and we want him here.
We’re heading back down the road of last summer where people are speaking for Cesc and that’s only going to make life more difficult in the end. On one level Xavi is right though, it’s all about the money. If they make an acceptable bid then I think a deal will be done. So they’d probably be well advised to stop talking it and just get on with it if they really want to sign him.
So far this list of possible arrivals hasn’t exactly got anyone drooling and that’s hardly changed today as the only player linked with us is former Gunner Seb Larsson. Has always looked a decent player to me but by his own admission he wasn’t good enough for Arsenal when he left. Maybe it’d say something about the quality of Arsenal now if there were any truth to it. He’s available on a free transfer but I suspect he’ll go somewhere where he’ll play regularly.
Beyond that we don’t have much to go on about possible new players and there’s really only one reason for that – nobody has a fucking clue. We know the club are traditionally keen on playing their cards close to their chest when it comes to new signings and I think that’s more true than ever this summer. The manager knows there’s a lot of work to be done and I think they’ll be super cautious about letting any info slip into the public domain which might affect any possible deal or alert other clubs etc.
Through the grapevine there are stories that the boss is in South America at the moment. Whether he’s there to sign that Ricky Martin chap or somebody else, I could not tell you. He might just be at home having sent an Arsene Wenger lookalike to throw people off the scent, like Obama’s two helicopters.
This is why whenever you see a story linking Arsenal with a player it’s Samba or Parker or Phil Jones or … well … that’s about it, isn’t it? Maybe there’s some truth in them or maybe we’re happy to let people think there’s some truth in them while we go about our real business. Time will tell, but many pinches of salt should be taken when these guys are mentioned.
Back to players out and Colin Wanker is apparently interested in signing Emmanuel Eboue for QPR. Maybe it’s just me but the idea of a Warnock/Eboue combo is just hilarious. In terms of character I just can’t get my head around the two of them. Eboue nodding intently at a Warnock teamtalk he’s pretending to understand, Eboue arriving at Loftus Road in his tiger suit. A match made in footballing heaven, that’s for sure.
I watched a bit of England v Switzerland yesterday. Young Jack was very good, Theo wasn’t, Djourou wasn’t either, but Senderos was. I’ll tell you who else wasn’t any good, Scott Parker. First touch of a rampaging, club-footed elephant he had. Anyway, isn’t Parker just a poor man’s Wilshere at this stage? Not saying our midfield doesn’t need a boost but I’m pretty sure he’s not the guy to do it.
Yesterday’s internationals were the final games of this season and now the players can go off on holidays, rest up, recuperate and get themselves ready for next season. Well for some, isn’t it? A few weeks on the beach, doing nothing, I could live with that. Fear not, however, I’ll be here. Every day. Every. Single, Day.
*weeps at lack of sand in mojitos*
Till tomorrow!
