Archive for June, 2007
June 22nd, 2007
Ryan Babel has confirmed that he has had no contact with anyone from Arsenal – as yet. It’s worth remembering that Arsenal do conduct their dealings with supreme secrecy – even if we were speaking to Babel, a condition of the deal would be his absolute discretion.
I have a contact who is scouting for another Premiership side at the U21 European Championships. He has confirmed to me that several Premiership teams, Arsenal included, are watching Babel. However, the pervading feeling is that he is not yet ready to sieze a first-team place: his final pass/shot is often inaccurate, and his decision making erratic. If he does arrive, it seems it will be as a youthful prospect rather than an immediate solution.
The same could be said of Wookash Fabyanski, who has been linked with a loan move to Racing Santander. I would say this was a good idea, but I dreamt last night that Manuel Almunia left to play for his cousin’s team in the Spanish lower leagues (?), so we’d better hold on to Wookash for now.
Finally, thanks to arseblog for bringing us this fabulous news:
Marca ran a story yesterday, by the mole faced little gimp Balague, saying that Arsenal have stopped producing ‘Henry’ merchandise like shirts etc. Funnily enough I got an email from somebody who works in the publishing industry last week and they said that they have been told not to include Henry on the cover of any of the official Arsenal books they produce. Of course this is all speculation so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Huzzah. Don’t you just love the summer?
June 21st, 2007
Next move for the board? Make Stan a director. Bring Stan over in October and sit him onstage at the AGM. Then the Yank is one of us. He becomes one of us. He becomes one of the family. He becomes real, someone the fans can relate to, rather than a mystery man from the Rocky Mountains. London is the world capital of presentation and Arsenal think they are pretty good at presentation and their message would be : We like Stan and and Stan likes us and we are all big sports executives.
Next move after that? Sell Arsenal to Stan in summer 2008.
A Yank owns the Bank of England club but it’s just a reshuffle in the family.
QED.
Now, unlike Myles I don’t neccessarily think we have to sell in 2008, but I agree that it is a ludicrous and untenable position two have to major shareholders in the club as “enemies”.
The recent softening of the board’s stance towards Stan suggests to me something that I’ve suspected all along: that he didn’t realise quite how underhand Dein was being in trying to sell him the club on the quiet.
The club are expected to release a statement soon on the meeting with Kroenke, and that will enlighten us further. The fact of the matter is that, like it or not, he is now “part of the family”. None of the current board have taken steps to buy him out, so it looks like he’s here to stay, in some capacity or other. We might aswell make things civil.
Finally, this absolute legend would be a pretty popular choice for Director of Football. Whether or not he’d be any good is a different matter entirely.
June 20th, 2007
Jeremie Aliadiere? Arsenal? C’est fini.
Real Madrid’s La Liga winning hero Jose Reyes remains unlikely to either stay with Real or return to Arsenal, with Athletico Madrid his most likely destination. Radio Marca says he is likely to complete a deal within a week: hopefully this will free up some funds for our own spending (perhaps on Bakary Sagna, a name that keeps reocurring in the French press).
We’re going to need to bring people in if we want to keep Thierry, says Patrick Vieira, who seems to be acting as Henry’s unofficial spokesman. After telling Ashley Cole to turn down £55,000 a week, Vieira will probably now choose to act as the deal-broker between Henry and Barcelona. Nice of him.
Freddie Ljungberg wants to stay. With no sign of anyone coming in, he might have to. However, if intrigue is getting the better of you, at 5.15pm GMT you can see Justin Hoyte up against rumoured target Ryan Babel. Have a butchers.
June 19th, 2007
When agent Barry Silkman stated on last Thursday’s Newsnight programme that he hoped to conclude a “big” transfer involving Arsenal football club “on Tuesday”, he inadvertently sparked a wild debate amongst fans about just who and what he was referring to.
Well, The Independent reckon, rather disappointingly, that it’s Jeremie Aliadiere’s switch to Middlesbrough. There’s a few hours left for that one to be tied up today.
I’d like to to be Miguel (as you already know), but that seems hugely unlikely. Wenger paying £13m for a defender? I just can’t see it.
Personally my money is on Chris Wreh making his long awaited return.
Finally, we’ve been turned down by Reading’s Nick Hammond for the new Director of Football job. Hammond is a good football man, and former Arsenal trainee, and it’s a shame we’ve missed out on his expertise.
Still, at least now Arsene can claim he did genuinely try an appoint an Englishman before plumping for one of his French chums.
June 18th, 2007
…he still wouldn’t be coming back. Even if a brief but dazzling performance impressed Arsene enough to want to keep him, in this age of “player power” (a concept so commonplace that the term has become almost redundant) there’s absolutely zero chance of convincing Reyes to return to London.
It’s a bit of a shame really, considering our desperate need for width and pace. However, the indications were that he would never really have settled here, despite glimpses of genuine talent. I don’t think Arsene ever really wanted to lose him – before reluctantly agreeing to the Baptista deal, he turned down various offers, including one that offered David Beckham in exchange.
A few words of sympathy for Justin Hoyte who was the victim of racial abuse against Serbia U21s. Remember: anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Except a lobotomy, perhaps.
Finally, Gilberto has come second in our Official Player of the Year Awards. Who the hell has won? Fabregas? Perhaps after using the captaincy to keep Vieira and Henry, we’re using the Player of the Year award to try and keep Fabregas.
Now that the Spanish season is over, Titi should be out the door any minute. Tick-tock.
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