Author Archives: Michael Roberts

Mikel Arteta To Arsenal? Don’t Bank On It

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With only a few hours left of the transfer deadline at 11pm, the strongest stories at the present moment are the potential signings of Mikel Arteta for around £10 million from Everton, and Yossi Benayoun from Chelsea, possibly on loan.

The problem is, the signing of Arteta goes against Arsene’s whole transfer policy.

Over the last 7 seasons, Arsenal have brought in:

Hleb, Diaby, Mannone, Bendtner, Adebayor, Walcott, Rosicky, Baptista, Gallas, Fabianski, Eduardo, Nordtveit, Sagna, Diarra, Vela, Ramsey, Nasri, Bischoff, Silvestre, Arshavin, Vermaelen, Chamakh, Koscielny, Squillaci, Jenkinson, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gervinho, Joel Campbell, Chu Young Park, Andre Santos and Per Mertesacker.

The common theme?

The players are either from the lower leagues or abroad.

Apart from Diarra, Gallas and Silvestre, all of the players we’ve brought in have been from outside of the Premier League. So clearly this is a conscious decision made by Arsene and his team.

Why is this?

Maybe he feels Premier League players are over priced? Whatever the reason, bringing in other players from teams from the Premier League is something that Arsene clearly likes to avoid.

So don’t bank on the Mikel Arteta deal to go through.

And the rumours are that Arsenal are offering £10 million for his services. Although Arteta is obviously not in the same league as Cesc, £10 million is under-valuing him if you ask me and we saw what happened when Arsenal tried to get Jagielka for a similar price.

Arsenal can always say they tried to sign a creative midfielder later on in the season if Arsenal struggle to score goals or have to play the younger players in midfield.

Transfer Deadline Day: Any More Additions?

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Arsenal have already wrapped up the signing of Chu Young Park, and look to complete the signings of German defender Per Mertesacker and Brazilian Andre Santos from Fenerbahce.

But will there by any more additions to Arsenal today?

The rumour mill has been going into overdrive today (unsurprisingly) and we’ve been linked with players such as Keisuke Honda, Eden Hazard, Yossi Benayoun and even Everton’s Mikel Arteta.

While they all seem a bit pie in the sky, the running theme with today’s rumours (with two defenders already snapped up) is that Arsenal are after a creative midfielder.

Will I be surprised if Arsenal’s spending stopped at the three signings we made yesterday? No, but adding any kind of strength to the midfield would be fantastic and give Arsenal a far better chance of making a go of this season.

So who would you like to see Arsene buy today?

Are Arsenal Just Panic Buying For The Sake Of It?

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Thankfully, I have been away for a week in sunny south Spain for the last six days and was fortunate to miss the shambles that was the 8-2 defeat at Old Trafford on Sunday. I did manage to avoid all of the football results and catch MOTD2 on Sunday evening and I was, quite frankly, unsurprised.

Arsenal have a threadbare squad, we all know that. Our best players don’t believe in Arsene and his methods anymore, we know that. And we also know that however optimistic I may have been during the start of the season, the best we can hoep for is 4th place this season.

Moving on though, and finding the silver-lining from the humiliating defeat against Manchester United, it seems that it has kicked Arsene and Arsenal’s arse into gear in the transfer market.

We have completed the transfer of Chu Young Park from Monaco, and are currently trying to obtain the signatures of Andre Santos from Fenerbahce and Per Mertesacker from Werder Bremen.

But don’t these signings reek of desperation?

No offence to Chu Young Park, but I’ve never heard of him before, and from what I’ve read his record isn’t great. Andre Santos you can put in the same category, and Mertesacker is known to be a solid but slow defender.

From the rumoured “war chest” that Arsenal have which is believed to be around £35 million, plus the £25 million for Nasri, £35 million for Fabregas and the rest from the sale of Eboue, then we should be a healthy position to buy more established, and more importantly, experienced Premier League footballers.

We all know about the desperate situation Everton are in, so why not try and get Jagielka and Baines? And the ridiculous saga with Bolton over Cahill is simply embarrassing.

The board keep on giving Arsene their support, but quite frankly they will continue to do so as long as the Arsenal manager continues to make them all a big profit, regardless of what happens on the pitch or how the Arsenal fans feel.

Arsenal Fans Need To Respect Arsene’s Project

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A lot of fans are disillusioned with the state of Arsenal at the moment.

From last season, where we capitulated in spectacular fashion after the Carling Cup defeat, and since then we have lost Cesc Fabregas, Carlos Vela, Denilson, Gael Clichy and Emmanuel Eboue to a combination of transfers and loans. Added to that, it is suspected that Nicklas Bendtner and Samir Nasri have played their last games for the club.

You almost feel as if the players mentioned have had enough with Arsenal and want to move on.

And if Arsene couldn’t think that things could get any worse, we also have Gervinho, Alex Song, Emmanuel Frimpong, Jack Wilshere, Laurent Koscielny, Sebastien Squillaci, Johan Djourou, Tomas Rosicky, Kieran Gibbs and Armand Traore all unavailable through suspension and injury.

So if you take into account that essentially 17 players are missing or not focused on playing for Arsenal, then that would cripple any football team.

And the fact of the matter is, in the first leg of the Champions League qualifier with Udinese, we scored a goal and kept a clean sheet, which is what we would have taken before the game.

So while things might seem bad, they could be worse. And if anything, this current Arsenal squad have exceeded expectations considering the major setbacks they have experienced already this season.

Strangely enough it was not the young players such as Miquel, Jenkinson and Frimpong that disappointed against Liverpool yesterday (in fact I thought they were all exceptional), it was the senior players such as Theo Walcott, Andrei Arshavin and Aaron Ramsey that let the side down. So you can’t fault the performances of the young players Arsene has recruited.

The fact of the matter is Arsene doesn’t have money to spend. There’s a reason why he’s reluctant to spend the money, and it’s because he doesn’t have it. Surely it would make his life easier if he did spend big money on experienced Premier League players – it would get the fans off his back, it would give him a far greater chance of success in terms of trophies and create a better feeling around the club overall. Arsene knows better than most about the animosity some Arsenal fans are displaying at football matches and surely he would like nothing more than to bring in players that would make a difference.

You have to ask yourself why isn’t Arsene spending the money? The only other explanation to not having any money to spend is that he wants to tarnish the legacy he has left our football club and get the sack. Does that sound likely?

The Emirates Stadium project was designed to give Arsenal a solid future and compete with the big teams financially and on the pitch. We are one of the few major football clubs that can balance the books and have also competed consistently at the top of the Premier League. We’ve come close most of the time over the last few seasons, particularly in the 2007-2008 season, and if it wasn’t for Martin Taylor I’m certain we would have lifted the title that year. And how about the Champions League Final in 2006? If we had a bit of luck there as well things could have been so, so different. With those two successes we could have really built on that and had even more success. But as so much in football you need that bit of luck which has deserted us over the last few years.

The model Arsenal are currently embarking on is designed to ensure that we are still a top club in 50 years time. Far too much in the Premier League era we’ve seen “big” teams like Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, Derby County and Coventry City reach the heights of success now to be condemned to the lower leagues.

Gary Neville, of all people, wrote this excellent article last week on Arsene Wenger and it makes so much sense. I’m sure you’ve probably already read it but if you haven’t I highly recommend you take a look.

In Arsene we trust.