Staying or Going?

What’s going on?

Reports are saying that Henry is going to Barcelona for around £16 million.

If it is indeed true, then Arsenal have a knack of letting quality players at the wrong time. Last season Henry could have fetched around £40 million and when Vieira left, he ended up going for £13.7 million when the season before Real Madrid offered £23 million.

And if all the reports are to be believed, then I’m just confused about why Wenger would let a 30-goal a season man leave the club.

At least when Vieira left Fabregas was waiting in the wings.

Who can replace Thierry Henry?

Who has been more influential in Arsenal’s successes?

But of course, it is Barcelona doing all the talking so it could be complete rubbish. But with all the media coverage at the moment about the move it doesn’t look good.

Do you believe it’s actually going to happen?

You would have to think Wenger has something up his sleeve if he has decided Henry doesn’t fit in with his plans.

We know players don’t leave unless Wenger has given the go ahead but £16 million isn’t worth much in the transfer market these days.

Are you saying Darren Bent is worth the same as Henry?

None of this makes any sense!

When I heard about it I thought this is just the Spanish Media playing games again and I suppose until we get an official word from Arsenal we’ll be kept guessing about whether it’s actually true.

Old captain Patrick Vieira has come out and said Thierry Henry will probably leave Arsenal if they don’t bring in some world class players to match Henry’s ambition to challenge for the top honours.

God that never gets boring.

You think Vieira would know how Wenger works by now. He rarely splashes out on players, and the most successful players at Arsenal are the young ones Arsene has brought in.

Patrick Vieira, Kolo Toure, Thierry Henry, Cesc Fabregas, Gael Clichy, Freddie Ljungberg, Nicolas Anelka and countless others have come in young and proven to be excellent for Arsenal.

Then you have players who Arsenal have spend decent amounts of money on – Richard Wright, Francis Jeffers, Sylvain Wiltord, Alexander Hleb and Gio Van Bronkhorst – who you could hardly call fantastic successes at the club, despite being likable by the fans (except Richard Wright obviously).

Arsene is building his 3rd team at Arsenal and like Alex Ferguson, will need at least 3 seasons to come up with a team that is ready to challenge for honours.

Who knows? Arsenal might be ahead of schedule and be fighting for the Premiership season, if they can keep free from injuries.

And it’s hardly straight-forward to sign established talent anyway, with Chelsea and Real Madrid always having a knack for going for players we’re interested in. Baptista anyone? How about Shaun Wright-Philips?

If Arsenal can have some luck in the injury department (which United had last season) then there’s no reason why we can’t get some consistency and fight at the top of the league. The only positions we were struggling at in the last campaign were in the wide areas, although next season will be a big one for Rosicky and you know that I think Hleb can be excellent as long as he plays with Henry and Van Persie.

We’ve all heard the opinions of Henry, Vieira, E’eto and all these other players adding to transfer speculation but the only man we should be listening to is Arsene Wenger.

What the hell is going on with Thierry Henry?

AC Milan registered their interest in Henry and what does the Arsenal captain say? He says he’s flattered! Even Milan boss Carlo Ancelotti admits it would be difficult to get Henry anyway but does Thierry help the situation?

Hell he does.

All these ambigious comments about his future at Arsenal are just ridiculous!

He is ‘flattered’ about interest from AC Milan as well as it being ‘great to hear’. And he has also come out and said that ‘for now, I am an Arsenal player’.

For now? Brilliant.

Even the Barcelona ‘transfer’ was not denied by Henry – it was his agent who came out and said he is going nowhere.

But seriously, how hard is it for Henry to just come out and say he’s staying at Arsenal?

He is commenting on things he shouldn’t be, including David Dein’s departure from the club and how he is ‘so devastated’ about it. We know that Dein’s son Darren is close to Henry and all this nonsense is obviously some kind of plan to give the impression the club is in turmoil without the messiah that is David Dein.

Thierry talks about speculation never stopping but that is complete b*llocks.

How often do you hear about Ronaldinho leaving Barcelona? And Kaka from AC Milan for that matter?

All these vague comments about his future just lead to more speculation – including Bobby saying he should move to Spain and Rosicky coming out saying he hopes Henry stays. And of course the yearly story of E’eto saying how great it would be to play alongside Henry at Barcelona.

Henry professed his love for Arsenal when he signed the contract extension last season, but it’s pretty obvious the guy just loves himself.

P.S. Is it just me or does next seasons old-style away kit remind you of when our old captain Patrick Vieira was modelling our redcurrent strip? Looking at those photographs you can’t help think that the retro-kit has a curse against our captains and Henry might not be in it next season!

I haven’t been looking for Arsenal news recently because the season is over, and I know most (if not all) of this ‘transfer talk’ it is complete rubbish. The problem is now it seems to be getting worse and worse.

Franck Ribery has moved to Bayern Munich despite everyone thinking he was Arsenal bound. Well I didn’t for one minute.

And now we’re apparently going to scupper Liverpool’s bid to sign Malouda.

Well here’s the inside scoop – Arsenal won’t be getting him!

There’s so much crap flying around at the moment – we’re ‘apparently’ linked to Saviola, Richards, Malouda, Ribery, Babel, E’eto and god knows who else.

People are forgetting about who will be back next season.

Henry and Van Persie should be back and fully fit, so along with Adebayor and Bentdner we have enough cover up front. In midfield we have Gilberto, Fabregas, Denilson and Diaby who can play in the middle as well as Rosicky, Hleb, Freddie and Walcott who can play wide. Walcott will be big in the next campaign if he stays injury free and is obviously a major part of Wengers plans next season.

Why would Wenger buy Malouda or any other winger like Ribery when he doesn’t need them?

No doubt that Arsene will bring in new players over the summer, but they will be 17 year olds from Spain or South America who will be groomed for the future.

Wenger knows Arsenal are in huge debt and won’t be splashing out in the transfer market on players who ‘might’ improve the team to make the financial situation even worse. Any ‘super-super’ players Arsene has talked about will be snapped up by the likes of Chelski and Real Madrid who have a bottomless pit of money to spend.

It’s going to be a boring summer so just put your feet up.

Just come back and read this when the summer’s over and you’ll get what I mean.