My take on PHW’s transfer talk
Add comment July 7th, 2008
Peter Hill-Wood can usually be relied upon to talk with admirable frankness about the goings on at Arsenal. With his comments on the possible departures of Adebayor and Hleb, this trend has continued.
When it comes to the issue of Adebayor’s potential move to Barcelona, the Chairman is unequivocal in his response:
“We want him to stay, definitely. Adebayor still has a long time [three years] left on his contract, and we have absolutely no intention of releasing him from that contract. You want to keep your best players and Adebayor is one of those.”
On the Hleb situation, he is rather less robust:
“Hleb has made it clear he wants to go. I think maybe he will go.”
As arseblogger points out, he speaks more openly about Hleb leaving to drum up interest, whereas with Adebayor the interest is already there – his resistance simply increases the price. But as I said before, PHW is a disarmingly honest man. I don’t think these quotes are pure game-playing from the Chairman of the Board.
Arsene has known for some time that Hleb would be leaving. He’s obviously fairly accepting of it, and has already moved on, making a swift (but since prolonged) move for a replacement: Samir Nasri.
But losing Adebayor was never in the plan. Last season, a style of play emerged at Arsenal that was undoubtedly superior to what we had seen in the previous two campaigns. It was a direct style based upon Cesc Fabregas playing early raking balls in behind for Adebayor to chase. The fact that Togolese forward was caught offside more than any other player in the Premier League is only partially due to a lack of footballing intelligence – it is due more to the sheer number of times we tried to release him.
Arsene will know that getting thirty million quid for Adebayor is all well and good, but only if you can replace him with someone of equivalent pace, power, and goalscoring capacity. Arsene is lucky that when he sold Henry Adebayor stepped up to the plate. To replace a thirty goal striker twice in two seasons might be a bridge too far even for Le Boss.
I also don’t think that Adebayor will kick up a fuss if he is forced to stay. He does love the club, the team, the fans. He just quite fancies trebling his wage. But he must also know that consistent form at Arsenal will provide similar financial reward further down the line.
If we can find a buyer, Hleb is gone. But if Adebayor goes, it will be because the manager has found a suitable replacement. Until he has that, the Togolese is staying.
