Wenger Confirms Arshavin Inquiry

What up hoes? So I said I wouldn't post today if the news was only about Arshavin, but of course it is and I am still going to do a post. Why? Because today Arsene Wenger confirmed what we have all long suspected, that we are in talks with Zenit for him. He says we aren't close to signing the player at the moment, but the negotiations are ongoing. He finished by saying that he is very hopeful. I'm very hopeful too. I hope it doesn't end up like the Xabi Alonso deal in the summer where we wouldn't go higher than 12 million and they wanted 14 million so we just got nobody instead. We won't pay the 20 million they want so I'm thinking it's probably a similar bid to Nasri's, 12 million or so.

Meanwhile, Arshavin's agent, who in typical agent fashion has been ridiculous throughout this month, says there won't be a move this week but is hopeful about next week.

"It looks like nothing will happen this week now, but there may be some movement early next week."

So we'll ahave to wait and see but it looks like this one might very well get done. I still think defensive midfield and defense are more pressing issues but it's typical Arsene Wenger. We need help in defense and in attack though so I can see how maybe if we help the attack it could help the defense along with it.

We play Hull this weekend and it's a game we absolutely must win. They beat us 2-1 at the Grove in one of the worst home results I can remember (losing to Sheffield United a few years ago and the first loss at the Grove to West Ham spring to mind also) and so we need to avenge that defeat and also just because we really need the points. Villa haven't been losing very much at all so we need to match them win for win and when they slip up we have to take advantage. Hull is one of the teams that we really should be able to get six points a year against, yet we've lost three of those already, so we have to turn it around. Luckily, we haven't lost since we played Middlesbrough at the end of November, so we are on a bit of a hot streak. It's going to be tough without Cesc for the next couple months but the Champions League qualification is still a goal we have to achieve. Hopefully bringing in a player like Arshavin will make up some for Cesc's absence.

Roy Hodgeson says it will take "something special" to get Jimmy Bullard from Fulham. I would think something special wouldn't be more than a couple million quid. Fulham aren't exactly loaded with cash and they aren't going to be contending for top honors anytime soon. If we want him, we can get him, but you can never really tell who Arsene wants.

I've added a nice little widget to the side panel from Footbo.com that has the upcoming fixtures for Arsenal. It's pretty nice and I like looking at it, so if you like looking at it consider checking out Footbo.com. It's a football community website and has prediction games, things where you can pick your all time and current Top XI, and a lot more. I don't get paid for telling you to do this either I just think it's a nice site. You can even friend request me on there if you want.

That's all I've got. I'll get back to you all tomorrow with some more exciting Arshavin news, woohoo! Cheers. Also I've changed the banner for the top of the page, which really shows how terrible I am with graphics. If anyone is good with graphics and feels like touching that up to make it look a little better, that would be awesome.

Is Arsenal Destined To Be A Selling Club?

Morning all. I've been out of town all weekend so sorry for no blog but I had no computer. I'm sure you all survived. If you didn't, then you wouldn't be able to read this anyway.

So while I was away it doesn't appear I missed all that much, so today I've decided to cover possibly the most controversial comments of the whole transfer season (and that's saying something.) Many people are worried because Arsene Wenger reportedly said that Arsenal were going to have to be a selling club for the next seventeen years. The quote reported in the article (from News of the World) was as follows:

'The strategy of the club is to sell every year and to buy less expensive players. We manage at Arsenal to maintain all our football ambitions - national and European - while having to free up - for 17 more years - an annual surplus of £24million to pay for our stadium. 'The club's strategy is to favour the policy of youngsters ahead of stars and to count on the collective quality of our game.'

So if you go directly by the quote and don't go with what makes sense and read between the lines, you'd think Arsene meant he was going to sell Adebayor this year, Cesc next year, and Nasri in a few years from now. But I do read between the lines and this makes perfect sense to me what he's saying here. Arsenal have a 265 million pound debt that they want to pay off. They have a 20 year fixed interest rate on the loan they took out (thanks Arseblogger) that they want to pay off on time. The loan started two years ago and Wenger is saying we need that 24 million quid surplus each year to pay off the rest on time. That isn't unreasonable. While ManUre and Liverpool are sidled with debt we are trying to pay ours off. At the end of the day football is a business and a business needs to pay off their debts to be successful.

I don't think Arsene Wenger means we are going to be a selling club for the next seventeen years, I just think he means business will continue in the way it has at Arsenal for many years under his watch. Buying Anelka for 500 thousand pounds and selling him for 25 million, selling Vieira and Henry when they were past their primes and bringing in Eduardo for much cheaper. In this way, Arsenal under Wenger have always been a selling club. Our record transfer fee is still 14.5 million for Sylvain Wiltord as far as I can remember. Our transfer sales usually outweigh our transfer buys, that's just how the club has been run.

Just look at last year for an example, when we lost Thierry Henry. We sold Aliadiere, Henry, Reyes, Ljungburg, Muamba, and lost Lupoli on a free for a total of 31 million pounds. We brought in Eduardo, Sagna, Diarra, Nordtveit, and Fabianski for a total of 23 million pounds. Can anyone say that our team got worse? No, in fact the team did better statically. Yet the club made an 8 million pound profit on our transfers. Would you say that we were being a selling club or improving the team with those moves? I don't think many would. While nobody wanted to see Henry go, it was a shrewd business move to sell him because Arsene could tell (as most people can now) that his best days are past him.

So does it make a little more sense now? Arsenal have a debt and want to get it paid off. Does it mean we are going to sell all of our best players in their primes to pay it off and have a mid-table team for the next seventeen years? Not at all. We're going to be sticking with the same system that has worked for Arsene his whole career here. A lot of people are making this out to be worse than it is, but remember: 1: Arsenal is never been a club that spends more than everyone else, they are shrewd businessmen, and 2: The source of this article is News of the World. Not exactly the most respected of journalistic enterprises.

Hopefully this clears up what this all means, at least in my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong and we'll sell Cesc tomorrow, but I certainly think I'm right on this one. It'll definitely give you all something to debate on the forums and comments at least, but I wouldn't let it worry you. Business at Arsenal will continue as usual.


The other main news of the day is Mr. Aaron Ramsey, who I call Mr. because he seems to deserve it. These quotes demonstrate that:

“Obviously the plan for me is to have a good pre-season and try my hardest to get up to the fitness levels the Premiership requires,” said Ramsey in the South Wales Echo

“I will try my best to get in the starting line-up at the beginning of the season against West Brom."

Perfect statement Mr. Ramsey. You have the right mentality exactly. He's been here two weeks at age 17 and is already talking about making the starting lineup for Arsenal in the first game of the season. Spectacular. I love it. I don't think there is much chance he makes it into the starting lineup for the very first game of the season but who knows? Maybe he really is that good. It's only 11 days until the first friendly of the season against Barnet. We get to see him in action on that day and I can't wait. Hopefully Nasri will be here by then too because I really want to see these new signings plus all the youngsters. Football is in the air again! I can't wait.

Cheers all, comments, forums, email (arsenole{@}arsenole(.)com), all that good stuff. Till tomorrow!

Also, in non-Arsenal related news, I have recently acquired a new domain name (http://worldcupUS.com). If anyone can put together a website idea for me I would be willing to pay someone to design a page to put on that domain. Please let me know if you can do anything for me.

Fiszman Talks Arsenal

Morning all. Today we're going to be continuing our non-Samir Nasri coverage, so let's see what other news we've got.

A lot of the post today we're going to talk about Danny Fiszman's question and answer session he had last week. Fiszman is the Arsenal director and is at the center of most of what Arsenal Football Club does.

So here are some of the questions he was asked and how he answered:

Are you pleased with the progress the team has made this season?

"Yes, I am pleased. If we look back where we were last year and what the fans would have settled for we have taken great strides. The critics wrote us off and gave us no chance of qualifying for the Champions League but the team proved itself competitive. Four points is a lot but in the context of the season we came very close and we are disappointed we didn’t win it but we have made a constant improvement and that is what we seek always."

He makes a fair point here. Remember last summer we had the departure of Henry, which led everyone and their mother to predict that we wouldn't finish in the top four. Shite even Tottenham thought they would finish above us, and that never happens. The team really did do more than was expected of them. Topping the table for over half a season raised expectations to where it was such a horrible blow when we didn't win it, but would you have taken 83 points before the season started? I know I would have. I'm as disappointed as anyone that we didn't win anything, but I do think the team made a lot of progress this year.

There have been a number of matches where the team have played beautifully, is there a particular highlight for you this season?

The big highlight was beating Milan. It is one game that got our players to believe they were a team to be proud of, a team who could beat anybody and I was sure, having beaten Milan, that would see us through to beat Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool to win the Premier League. I think, very much in the way we beat Real Madrid, it reinforced the belief the youngsters had in themselves.

Again, I have to agree with him. The Milan match really looked like it could be a key turning point for the squad. Unfortunately the momentum didn't carry on from that match into the Premier League, but it still was a memorable night.

Are you confident for next season? What are your hopes?

To win four competitions, for the Ladies to win four and for the youth team to win too. We have great belief in our manager and his methods. There is great belief in the boys that we have. No doubt the manager will strengthen the team and we will improve again.

Now THAT is optimism. It's what you want to hear though from someone so heavily involved in the club. Wouldn't that be something to win four competitions in a single season? I think I would have to stop watching football after that, because it could never get any better. But really think about how close we were to winning the league, how close we were to advancing in the Champion's League, and think back to our Carling Cup run to the final the season before this past one. We've been doing well in the competitions and we're keeping that team together and adding to it. The future of the club is bright.

Does the manager have a specific budget available? Is there a set amount?

There is no set amount. But as I said we have always supported Arsène, we have never said no to him and have no intention of saying no to him.

So as it has been said, the manager does have money to spend. Remember though that Arsene is a realist. He's never going to go spend money that will put the club in financial difficulty. So just because there is no set limit doesn't mean that he's going to go out and spend Chelsea or ManUre money to keep everyone happy. It is good to know that money is available though.

Keith Edelman left the Club a few weeks ago. To clear something up, there have been suggestions his departure was linked with disagreements with the manager over players’ wages, transfer budgets and the like. Was this the case?

Absolutely not. Keith was not involved with Arsène in any way. As I have said before we supported Arsène with everything he wanted. Keith Edelman was in no way involved with the discussions with Flamini or Arsène. That was Ken Friar’s responsibility. So the speculation is absolutely incorrect.

So that whole rumor about Edelman not allowing Arsene to spend money is apparently bollocks. He wasn't fired for not giving Arsene money, he wasn't fired for not re-signing Flamini, they just decided to go in another direction.

You can read the rest of the article here but I think those are most of the main points.

So now on to some quick other news, Wrighty7 thinks Barcelona signing Keita could lead to Yaya Toure heading to Arsenal. You already know I love Yaya and would definitely want him at the club. We'll see what happens.

Johann Djourou says he could fill the gap left by Matt Flamini. I think it's a possibility too. He says he plays at his best in the holding role and that even Arsene Wenger tells him that too. I'd like to see him get a try there at least in the pre-season or something and see how it goes. Good luck to Johann.

Well that's all I've got today. Hopefully it didn't bore the shite out of you. Comments, forums, all that good stuff. Cheers.

Hleb is Leaving, Let Him Go

Morning all. The main news this morning is that Alex Hleb will not be back at Arsenal next season, and while it's not 100% that Inter Milan is the club he'll be joining, it's about 99.130958203598% that he will. Hleb's agent, Nikolai Shpilevski (sounds like a shady character), had this to say today.

“Alex is preparing to make one of the most important moves of his life.

“He is leaving even though Arsenal want to offer him a new long-term contract.

“Only time will tell if it is the right decision but there’s no way back now. Everything will be settled in the next two weeks.”

He sounds so proud of it doesn't he? So it's certainly looking like he's definitely going to be gone, and to be honest I'm not all that bothered about it. With Flamini I'll admit I was constantly checking headlines to see if he had signed a new deal with us or someone else, but with Hleb it doesn't feel like much of a loss. He's probably had his best season for us this season and still only got three goals. Freddie and Pires used to be able to score in the double digits from the same spot. Hleb was never a natural winger, so even when he got the ball out wide his game wasn't about crosses and making runs, it was just cutting inside and generally losing the ball or passing it to the other team.

So how is he making the move? Well he could be doing a Webster, buying out the last two years of his contract in order to allow him to move for free. This would pretty much piss Arsene off so much that he would report Inter for tapping Hleb up and probably never do business with them again. Or maybe, just maybe, Inter will give us a fee for him. This is highly unlikely as Wenger has said he wouldn't be letting Hleb leave so it's pretty clear that he wouldn't have accepted a bid just a few days later. So Hleb is gone, probably for free, and we'll probably become a better team without him.

The question now is, how do we replace him? Wenger made it clear he was only prepared to lose Flamini this offseason, and now he has lost Hleb as well. That means he could be prepared to bring someone in to replace him. God help us if he decides to start Eboue out there every week because I think someone would be forced to run him over or something just to prevent it. I don't think the boss thinks Theo is ready for the full season playing every match, but I certainly think he's ready to start most of them. The problem there is I think Wenger sees Theo more as a striker than a winger. Who do you think can come in and play right winger?

More transfer rubbish before the season is even over as The Mail has said that Adebayor is demanding 80,000 pounds a week and he'll leave if he doesn't get it. Adebayor immeadiately came out and said that was complete rubbish and the Mail can shove their bollocks up their arses.

"I am very happy here. Reports which suggest I have threatened to quit are rubbish."

"I love the club and the fans."

"We have a great set of players here with a fantastic team spirit.

"We have had a good season, but next year we want to go one better by winning a trophy."

And that's why I love this man. He isn't worried about getting a pay raise, he's worried about getting the team ready for next year and going out and getting a trophy. You Adebayor haters can piss off honestly because Ade is one of the most committed and best players we have right now. You all loved Flamini so much but hated Ade...well who's turned out better for Arsenal now? Sorry that was a bit of a mini-rant but I still hear people all the time who talk about how shite he is. Nicklas Bendtner's father also says his son will not be going anywhere either.

Looking ahead to the Sunderland match this weekend it's going to be an even younger squad than we have had for the last two. Fabianski, Denilson, and Bendtner look set to continue with starting spots and Mark Randall and Kieran Gibbs could also be involved. Gibbs looks an especially promising player that can play on the left wing so I'd like to see him start on the left with Theo on the right hopefully. It looked like Jay Simpson might also get a chance in the first team, but Young Guns now says that he'll have to look for a new club.

Vital Arsenal makes his case for not bringing back Gilberto Silva. I'd personally like to see him back though.

That's about all I've got for you today so have a good one and I'll get something together at some point tomorrow. Cheers!