The ones that got away
68 comments October 4th, 2006
Arsene is so bored during international week that he took time out to take part in an Arsenal.com webchat. It’s a good read, but there are no real surprises. The part of the interview that grabbed the most headlines was Arsene’s admission that he regrets missing out on the talented trio of Petr Cech, Claude Makelele, and Samuel Eto’o.
“Well there was [Claude] Makelele who was close to signing, [Samuel] Eto’o too, they are two who would have done well here. I have missed a few, I was offered [Petr] Cech, another player who could have done well. Makele was [available] straight after Vieira arrived when he was still in Nantes. Eto’o was when he joined Barcelona, it was between us and Barcelona.”
Steve Stammers, a well connected journalist who wrote for Arsenal magazine and the Evening Standard, was always publishing articles documenting Arsene’s interest in Eto’o. I’m sure Real Madrid would rather have sold the Cameroon striker to us rather than Barcelona, but the player’s interests won through in the end.
Makelele would have been fantastic, but then of course we would never have seen the great Petit-Vieira axis. Indeed, central midfield is one area where Wenger admitted a mistake:
“Well, I felt that for us to lose Vieira and Edu in the same year [2005] was one player too many. That was not really planned. They were two fantastic players and losing them at the same time when Cesc was still very young and I could not give him a breather, maybe that was one too many.”
It’s nice for us fans to see that our manager is big enough to hold his hands up when something goes wrong. We were light in midfield last season, and it’s good to know that Arsene wasn’t blind to that.
Our midfield is much stronger now, though it is probably still behind our defence in terms of the depth available. The news that both Philippe Senderos and Gael Clichy returned to action this week will only bolster that department.
And now, back to the newsless abyss of international week…
