At the start of the season we had Flamini, Gilberto and Diarra…
Add comment April 27th, 2008
…by the start of next season, all of those players could be elsewhere.
It’s pretty remarkable. In August, we had six central midfielders for two positions. Fabregas, Diaby and Denilson made up the attacking contingent, with the aforementioned trio all fighting for the holding role.
At the very beginning of the season, Gilberto was recovering from the Copa America, whilst Diarra (poor soul) was still at Chelsea. This gave Mathieu Flamini the opportunity to stake his claim, and he did just that – his excellent form took him from third to first choice, where he remained for the rest of the season.
Meanwhile, Diarra and Gilberto grew unsettled. Whilst the Brazilian stayed (possibly because doing so allowed him to gain British citizenship), the Frenchman moved to Portsmouth in the January transfer window, citing limited first-team opportunities.
Flamini continued to excel, but as the season wore on, his contract remained unsigned. With Milan joining Juventus and Bayern in the list of illustrious clubs chasing Flamini, it’s not looking good. Within the space of twelve months, we may soon have gone from having three outstanding holding midfielders to… well, none.
You have to question whether or not Arsene was right to continually pick Flamini over Gilberto and Diarra when his future was far from certain. In the past, players like Edu and Wiltord were marginalised in the final years of their contract to prevent situations just like this one. Granted Flamini was the in-form player and deserved to be picked on merit, but perhaps involving Diarra or Gilberto more might’ve left them more inclined to stay – Arsene’s thinking was unusually short-termist on this one.
On the other side of the coin, I suppose that kind of short-term thinking is what many fans are demanding from Arsene. Whilst playing Flamini might not’ve been in the long-term interests in the club (certainly financially), Arsene did it anyway in the hope of providing trophies.
Anyhow, Le Boss is still hopeful he will stay, but admits Flamini would be making a “sacrifice” to remain at Arsenal. As much as we all want him to stay, I can’t expect him to “sacrifice” twenty or thirty or forty thousand pounds a week to remain in London. He’s not a supporter – this is his job.
Furthermore, I support Arsene’s policy of not breaking the wage structure to keep Flamini. Match the ridiculous sums he’s being offered on the continent, and our expenses will spiral out of control, and we’ll end up like Newcastle, paying Oba Martins £90,000+ a week.
Our other likely departee, Aleksandr Hleb, is none-too-convincing when asked about his future in The Sunday Times.
Look on the bright side: we’ll have to buy someone…
