It’s January and for football, as well as the rest of us, it means the sales are on. Lots of the stories floating around revolve around transfers.
William Gallas doesn’t believe Arsenal need to dip into the market to cover the absences of Kolo, Eboue and Song. He says:
I don’t really expect us to sign anyone. I think everything is fine. Kolo is very important for the squad because he is very strong. But we have good players in the squad and someone else will be able to play.
The two Swiss defenders will be looking to take their chances when they come having struggled for form this season. Philippe Senderos and Johann Djourou are both capable players but both still very young for centre-halves and I suppose apart from goalkeeper it’s the one position where mistakes are most likely to be punished.
There’s speculation about some of our players going out too. Mathieu Flamini has yet to sign a new contract and is now at a stage where he can quite legitimately broker a Bosman deal with another club. Juventus are said to be sniffing around and I have to say the situation is worrying me a bit. There’s every chance he could leave the club in the summer and after the way he has established himself in the team this season that would be a real shame.
Meanwhile Barcelona are said to be fluttering their eyelashes at Alexander Hleb. A spokesperson for them said:
Hleb is an interesting player whom we have watched many times but any new signings will be at the end of the season.
It seems they’re looking to replace Deco and would give him that central role he likes so much. Anyway, at this stage it’s all speculation.
Elsewhere Arsene Wenger is looking at a load of Spanish keepers, Matthew Connolly has joined QPR for an undisclosed fee (good luck to him there), while Jay Simpson will see out the rest of the season on loan at Milwall where he has scored 3 goals so far.
Speaking to L’Equipe Arsene Wenger has called Gael Clichy ‘awesome’, ‘rad’ and ‘sick, innit’. In seriousness though the young man has been fantastically consistent this season and is now beginning to add something to the offensive part of his game. He’s a bit John Jensen in the way he’s yet to score for the club but one of these days one of those forward runs will see him clatter his way through and poke home his first. Defensively he’s been first class this season as well.
The boss has also spoken about Theo Walcott who in two years at the club is yet to score a Premier League goal. Given the fact he’s only 18 years of age I don’t think that’s really a worry, to be honest. Theo strikes me as the sort of player who still has a bit of growing to do physically and when he does that he’ll become a real asset. I think as well as that we’ve come to expect young players to all be like Cesc whose development was freakishly early. Give him time, I say. Time. That article also references the Carlos Vela story from a couple of days ago.
Right, not much else to talk about this morning. I suppose I had best start getting things ready for the first Arsecast of 2008.
Till tomorrow.
