Gunnerblog

Read Arsene’s comments on Arshavin

402 guns January 9th, 2009

This morning Arsenal.com have released an interview with Arsene Wenger in which he talks about the Andrei Arshavin transfer rumours.  Read on:

There are stories in the papers about Arshavin.  What’s the state of play there?

It’s the same as with the team: don’t talk too much and deliver on the pitch… and that’s what we try to do: not to talk too much about who we want to buy and who will come in, but try to deliver, and at the moment I cannot announce any good news… and in this job as well, no news is good news - it means nothing has fallen through aswell.

So it’s fair to say that you are talking about it?

We are on alert in the transfer market.

Because in a press conference last week you were asked specifically about Arteta, Given, and Arshavin, and you said “No” to Given, “No” to Arteta, but Arshavin you said “No news either way”, which is a different answer…?

Exactly, exactly.  I maintain what I said last week.

Ok.  You said you might get one player in if it was a special talent - now Arshavin is that - but would you still be after someone in the defensive part of the midfield if you were to get him?

Well, I believe we have to go first for the priority and then to go for the second target, you know.  At the moment I believe that we need more… with the players coming back and the players that have moved into the team since the start of the season in the defensive area, I don’t think we have a big need… we are at the moment short because we planned at the start of the season for a player like Rosicky to play in 80% of our games - he has not played at all and we feel we need somebody more in this area.

So there you have it.  It’s clear to me that the interest is real, and furthermore I maintain my deep-rooted suspicion that if Arshavin arrives, he may well be our only signing of this window.

To hear me talk about Arshavin, Kolo Toure, Saturday’s game with Bolton, and the ‘Inter-est’ in Emmanuel Eboue, listen to today’s arsecast.

Ciao for now.

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