€30m Balotelli Bid? (+ post-Chelsea arsecast)
Add comment December 1st, 2009
Goal.com (that most reliable of sources) says that La Gazzetta Dello Sport (that most Italian of sources) says that Arsenal have bid a whopping €30m for Inter Milan’s stroppy striker, Mario Balotelli.
I have to say I’m more than a little skeptical about this story. Not only is Arsene spending €30m on any player about as easy to imagine as Le Boss naked, but the manager is also a stickler for application and attitude. Balotelli’s talent has never been in question, but his mentality has.
Mind you, the stick Balotelli gets is very similar to that which dogged Robin van Persie’s time at Feyenoord. At 19, there’s plenty of time to set him straight. The key difference, I suppose, is that gambling on Robin cost just a couple of million.
The Daily Mail is somewhat less inventive with its transfer story, linking us with a £10m move for Yaya Toure. With Alex Song in tremendous form, it’s hard to see us moving for another African holding midfielder. If anything, we need to purchase someone who can cover when Song is away at the African Cup of Nations.
If we do sign anyone in January (and Bacary Sagna is reportedly keen that we do), you can bet we’ll have to pay out a hefty chunk of agents fees. Between Oct 08 and Sept 09 we shelled out £4.8m to agents. Something tells me a large slice of that might have been on the tricky deal that brought Andrey Arshavin to the club, but that’s just idle speculation.
Mark Hughes has confirmed that Emmanuel Adebayor is likely to start tomorrow’s Carling Cup tie at Eastlands. With City on a dire run of draws, they badly need a win, so will go with pretty much their full strength team. For us, the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere may be joined by the experience of Fabianski, Senderos, Silvestre, and perhaps some of the players who didn’t start on Sunday – Rosicky, Vela, maybe even Walcott.
Finally today in the light of the defeat to Chelsea, arseblogger convened a special arsecast with myself, the worthy man from East Lower, and the esteemed Goodplaya. We chatted about the match itself, the squad’s chances for the rest of the season, and the January transfer window. Click here for a listen.
