After Manuel Almunia went down a few games into the season with a “chest infection”, and last season’s number two, Lukasz Fabianski, was also out with a long term injury, we had to hand the gloves over to young Italian Vito Mannone. For most of us this was pretty nerve-wracking, having to turn to an untested twenty-one year old. However, after a shaky initial performance, Mannone has turned in one spectacular performance and a string of consistent, largely mistake-free performances between the posts.

His stock has risen, no doubt about it. I think he has the most potential of our three keepers, and his performances to date this season mean that he may very well have usurped Fabianski as our “keeper of the future.” But I don’t think anyone really thought that he would take over as our number one keeper.

And, to be clear, I’m not saying that he has. But you have to admit–it is all a bit curious, isn’t it? Almunia has missed a lot of time now with a mysterious “chest infection.” He’s been in training, and is supposedly back to fitness, and yet there he was, sitting on the bench against AZ while Mannone started in goal yet again. Perhaps most puzzlingly, though, is that Wenger hasn’t come out and clearly stated that Almunia is the number one and the job is his. Addressing shareholders yesterday, he was asked about our goalkeeping situation, and his statements, while positive, were very vague–he talked about how our keepers (plural) were good enough to win, but singling out Almunia by name.

Now, maybe this is trying to see something that isn’t there. Maybe Almunia really did have some kind of weird chest infection that kept him out for a long time, maybe he wasn’t quite match fit on Tuesday, and maybe Wenger was just speaking of three keepers as a collective unit even though he still views Almunia as number one. In fact, that is probably exactly what’s going on. But it is curious nonetheless, and Sunday will tell us a lot–if Mannone once again starts, I think it’s fair to say that Wenger has either replaced Almunia as # 1 or is rotating keepers, which would seem to be disastrous.

But it would be exceedingly weird if that was the case. Wenger is ordinarily very loyal (sometimes to a fault) to his players, and unlike the Lehman/Almunia scenario of a couple of years back, it’s not like Almunia has made any bad or high profile mistakes in the net. He seems well-liked by all his teammates and has worn the captain’s armband on a few occasions. So I think he’s still our # 1, and if Wenger was going to make a change, it’s hard for me to see him doing so in such an unceremonious fashion. But maybe Mannone has done just well enough to give Wenger some pause about reinstalling Almunia, and he’s trying to play it close to the vest until he makes up his mind.

At any rate, who starts in goal will definitely be one of the more interesting subplots of Sunday’s match from an Arsenal perspective. West Ham preview coming tomorrow.

UPDATE: As soon as I post this, I see that on the official site, Wenger has essentially confirmed that there is uncertainty about who our number 1 keeper is. Wenger said, “I wouldn’t say Almunia isn’t first choice. But Vito has come in and done well.” To me, that indicates that he’s leaning towards playing “the hot hand” with Mannone until he falters.

I’ll just go ahead and say it–I think this is shortsighted, and I disagree with it. I like Mannone, and he’s done well, but I really don’t think we’re going to win major trophies with a 21 year-old first-choice keeper. And whatever you feel about him, it seems grossly unfair to Almunia, who has been nothing but a class act throughout his tenure at the club, to all of a sudden lose his spot in the starting 11 through illness, not any mistake or fault of his own. The job should be Almunia’s until he does something to show Wenger he doesn’t deserve it. And you can’t really say it’s unfair to Mannone, who, at 21 and the third-choice keeper, can’t realistically have expected to become number 1 this year. But I can see this being a divisive issue for the team, and bad for morale if a player has to worry about being replaced every time he gets injured or sick. I hope I’m wrong, and that we see Almunia back in action on Sunday.

What’s he doing to celebrate? Probably having some kind of big, lavish party, with Elton John playing songs while young starlets mill around drinking champagne? How about it, Arsene?:

No, I have nothing to celebrate. It will be very quiet. I have the AGM. We have a big game on Sunday again and Thursday night is the Europa League with the new fifth referee system. They are responsible for my ageing so I have to watch that!

Well, there you go–addressing the shareholders and watching some exciting, exciting Europa League action. What a wild and crazy guy…

UPDATE: Football 365 has compiled their “60 Favorite Arsene Wenger Quotes” in honor of his 60th birthday. It is well worth a read. Some particular favorites of mine:

–[In response to Sir Alex Ferguson's claim that he possessed the best team in the league despite Arsenal winning the title in 2002] “Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home.”
–[On Jose Mourinho after the then Chelsea boss accused him of being a voyeur] “He’s out of order, disconnected with reality and disrespectful. When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent.”
–[On Emmanuel Adebayor's stamp on Robin van Persie] “I watched it when I got home and it looked very bad. You ask 100 people, 99 will say it’s very bad and the hundredth will be Mark Hughes.”
–”We do not buy superstars. We make them.”

And, of course…

–”I did not see the incident.”

It’s worth noting that at the time, most pundits thought this move was a bad one on Arsenal’s part. Wenger had started out at French side Nancy, where he was unsuccessful in three seasons at the helm, the last of which culminated in relegation and him being sacked.

He was shortly thereafter hired by Monaco, where he made his name, winning the league in 1988 and the domestic cup in 1991. After leaving Monaco in 1994, he headed east. Way east. To Japan, where he managed Nagoya Grampus Eight for 18 months. During this time, he befriended former Arsenal chairman David Dein. Before the 1995-1996 season, the club spoke with Wenger about the possibility of taking over the reins of the club, but the position was eventually offered to Bruce Rioch. When Rioch was sacked early the next season due to a dispute with the board over transfer funds, the job was given to the unproven Wenger.

You’re probably generally familiar with Arsenal’s accomplishments under Wenger, so I won’t recount them in any great detail here. Three Premiership titles. Four FA Cup titles. Runner up in both the UEFA Cup and Champions League. The only unbeaten team in Premiership history.

He is Arsenal’s most successful, and now longest-tenured, manager. Just as impressive as his victories, for me, though, is how he has won. Arsenal under Wenger has always played beautiful, free-flowing, skilled, attacking football. He is probably more responsible than anyone else (although Ferguson is admittedly a close second) for bringing English football into the modern era through an influx of international talent and a modern understanding of fitness and nutrition.

He made the club fun to watch, and I would suspect it’s largely the reason many of us became Arsenal fans. I remember when I first started following the game in the late 1990s. I had really gotten into the 1998 World Cup, and after it was over, I wasn’t willing to wait 4 years to watch more football. But I didn’t know much about the game (that’s putting it mildly–replace “much” with “anything” and that sentence would have been more accurate). All I knew is I liked it, and as the World Cup went on, I had kind of adopted the French team as “my” team. I really liked a lot of the players from the team–Zidane, Trezeguet, Thuram, Petit, Blanc, Vieira, and this young Thierry Henry fellow. Unfortunately, following European club football in America in those days was nearly impossible–it was the early days of the internet, and you could usually find out who had won the game and who had scored. If you were really lucky, you could find a game recap in English. I have to admit, I wasn’t instantly an Arsenal fan. I did like that both Petit and Vieira played for this English club with the strange name, so I started following Arsenal results a little bit. But I really liked Zidane, who played for Juventus, and was very happy the following season when Henry joined him there, and actually thought that Juve was going to be my team.

It was a few years later when it all fell into place. There was a local bar which I found that opened early on weekends and would show some English games off of some satellite feed, mainly to British ex-pats. By this time, Thierry Henry had moved onto Arsenal. I decided to start going in and watching some Arsenal games. It was pretty much love at first sight. That Arsenal team played with aggression, skill, and flair. Henry. Bergkamp. Kau. Wiltord. Vieira. Adams. Keown. Seaman. Cole. Ljungberg. Parlour. Pires. The battles with those great Manchester United teams. And running the show was Wenger, the shrewd, cosmopolitan, inscrutable Frenchman.

I can’t say Wenger was the reason I became an Arsenal fan, then. But I can say I think he’s the reason I stayed an Arsenal fan. It wasn’t until following the club for several seasons that I realized quite how responsible he was for all the things I loved (and still love) about the club. The attractive, attacking football. The truly international make-up of the squad–remember, this was at a time when most English clubs were still comprised of predominantly British players. The willingness to give young players a chance to compete at the highest level of club football.

One by one, those players moved on from the club. But Wenger brought in new players to take their place. Sol Campbell. Kolo Toure. Jens Lehmann. Gilberto Silva. Mathieu Flamini. Robin van Persie. Aleksander Hleb. Gael Clichy. Cesc Fabregas. There has been complete turnover in players from the Arsenal club I first started to follow and the club I follow now. And you know what? I love the club more than ever. And you know why? Because the values of the club then were the values of the club now. Attacking football. International flair. Young players proving themselves. Genius transfer moves (Football365 recently did a retrospective, in honor of Wenger’s 13 years at the club, of Wenger’s “13 best and 13 worst transfers”–seriously, take a look at the list and name one manager in the world with such an amazing record in the transfer market) And that all comes down to Wenger.

He’s been much less successful in previous years. It’s been four years since our last trophy, and it’s been several years since we’ve finished as high as second in the table. Whereas we used to duel with Manchester United for which club would be England’s top side, we’ve seemingly been overtaken by Chelsea and Liverpool in terms of silverware the last couple of seasons. Now Tottenham and Manchester City are gunning for our place in the top 4.

Because of this, Wenger has come under a lot of criticism from Arsenal supporters. Some of them have even called for Arsene to be sacked. Frankly, it’s ridiculous. He has his faults, and certainly shouldn’t be immune from criticism, but I honestly don’t see how you can call yourself an Arsenal supporter and call for his head. When you look back at how much he’s done for the club, and the great teams and great times for which he is responsible, it seems downright ungrateful for any Arsenal fan to want him to be given the boot.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m Arsenal for life largely because of him, so he should be Arsenal for life as well. He gives everything he has for the club, and has turned down overtures from “bigger” clubs to stay here and win trophies here. He loves the club, loves the players, loves the fans, and his values have become the club’s values. People who have supported the club much longer than I have may have a tough time understanding this, but it’s almost literally impossible for me to imagine Arsenal football without Wenger. Hopefully that’s not a dilemma I’ll have to face anytime in the near future.

There’s only one Arsene Wenger. And I’m so glad he’s ours.

Arsenal Holdings, PLC just released a summary of the financial results for last season. It all seems to be good news, and it sounds like the club improved in pretty much every financial category over 2007-2008:

–Overall income increased to £313.3 million from £223.0 million the year before, largely due to deep cup runs and increased merchandise sales
–Overall matchday/ticket revenue increased to £100.1 million from £94.6 million the previous season.
–The sale of some of the Highbury apartments contributed £7.8 million to the operating budget.
–Overall operating profit was £35.2 million, up from £25.7 million the season before.

Hmmm. 35.2 million. So, um….why didn’t we get Felipe Melo again? This is all well and good, and I’m glad the club is doing so well financially, but the fact of the matter is none of us are Arsenal fans because the club is well-run or profitable. We root for the club because we want the club to win matches and trophies. On the pitch. We’re not jumping up and down in bars high-fiving each other because the directors are getting higher dividends this season.

It’s not that simple, of course. The club does still have quite a bit of debt from both building the Emirates and developing the old Highbury property. And if and when that debt is paid off, the club is going to be a real cash cow, and hopefully at that point there will be more money going into the club’s on field product. The club is saying all the right things–Chairman Peter Hill-Wood says:

This is excellent news although I should perhaps stress that making and reporting profits is not in itself the primary objective for the directors. First and foremost we are supporters of this great football club and, as such, our main goal will always be the achievement of success for Arsenal on the field. The Group’s profitability is important because it is a by-product of running the Club as a solvent and successful business, which in turn allows us to maximise the level of investment in the playing staff and in the future development of the Club.

Wenger echoed a similar sentiment:

I am encouraged by the fact that the financial results are good because on my side I try to contribute to that. I am quite proud that I work in a company that is in a strong financial situation. I have always worked in clubs which make money and I would not feel that I do my job well if we lost money at the end of the season. However the sporting side is always the most important thing. To be completely happy you have to do well on the sporting side but never, no matter what happens, can it be accepted from any manager that to do that you put your club in trouble.

I guess I see their point, and I don’t necessarily disagree. It just seems like a club in Arsenal’s position can do one of two things–either (1) keep the profit within the club (I’m assuming it’s staying in the club, and not going straight into the shareholders’ pockets, which may not be a sound assumption) to guard against a rainy day when some debts get called in or the club fails to make the group stages and loses a lot of revenue; or (2) put the money back into the club, by say, buying Felipe Melo and Marouane Chamakh, and try to reach even greater heights–after all, if Arsenal were to win the league or Champions League (or even, to a much lesser extent, the FA Cup), it would greatly increase attention and marketing revenue.

The club has clearly chosen to be risk-averse and go with option (1). And I can’t say that it’s wrong. But of course, from a fan’s perspective, it is deeply unsatisfying to have a team on the precipice of great things, the money to improve the team in a way that could potentially put it over the top, and yet the team sits on its pile of money, arms folded, and still says with a straight face that the on-field product is the most important things. Sigh. I guess Biggie (R.I.P.) was right…

The reason for these inquiries is that both clubs allegedly signed young players who were under contract (or “precontract”) with another club at the time. Therefore, since another club owned the rights to the player, any club who wanted such a player must first come to an agreement with the player’s initial club.

The initial reaction, of course, is to revel in Chelsea’s misfortune. Chelsea is an aging team who is very dependent on spending money in the transfer market, so this ban stands to hurt them badly if it is not reduced. And it’s always fun to see Chelsea hurt. Ditto Manchester City.

But after some reflection, this could be an ominous sign of things to come for Arsenal. It’s not that I think we’ve committed any infractions, although the signing of Fran Merida from Barcelona was pretty similar to the incident for which Chelsea was punished. But generally speaking, the young players we have signed for free (Cesc, for example) have been players who are not under contract at a club. And the young players we have gone after who have been under contract at their clubs (like Theo or Aaron Ramsey), we have negotiated a deal with the club before bringing the players in. We seem to have followed the rules within the system, and I don’t see us getting in any trouble for our transfer policy.

Where this is a problem, though, is that Sepp Blatter has said that he would like to end all transfers involving players under the age of 18. Under his proposed system, every player under the age of 18 would train with their initial club until that point, and only then would they be able to switch clubs.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that no club in the world is as dependent upon bringing in young players from other clubs as Arsenal is. It’s the cornerstone of Arsene Wenger’s transfer policy. So if this were to change, then, Arsenal would be substantially affected, and have to seriously re-think our way of doing things.

I’ll say at the outset that from an objective viewpoint, Blatter’s proposal is shortsighted and badly flawed. The idea is that local clubs should be able to hang onto the players they bring in until the players are substantially developed, instead of having their best starlets picked over by bigger clubs. The idea is not without a certain simplistic appeal.

Where it falls apart, however, is its implicit assumption that players will develop roughly the same no matter which club they are with. This is, obviously, completely and utterly idiotic. The big clubs have spent tens of millions of dollars on their training academies, and can boast world-class facilities and some of the finest coaches, trainers, and instructors in the world. Smaller clubs cannot. It only stands to reason that players will develop better and more quickly with better coaching, equipment, and medical care. Therefore, it is only logical to say that if you take a player from a smaller club in Africa at the age of 15, he would develop into a better player by the time he was 18 than he would if he was forced to stay in Africa.

Or think of it this way–if you have an academically gifted 15 year old from a very bad inner city area, should he stay at the dilapidated, overcrowded, high school, being taught by teachers more concerned with maintaining order than communicating ideas? Or should he be transferred to the magnet school across town, reserved for the best and brightest students, where he will be taught by the best teachers in the district, at a higher level, and surrounded by students of roughly his level of intelligence? Does anyone honestly think that the student wouldn’t be better off academically by the time he was 18 going to the magnet school than staying at his public school? Does anyone honestly think that learning about math is any different than learning about football in this respect? So one hugely negative result of Blatter’s proposal would be that, on the whole, many players would not receive the level of training they otherwise would have, and will not be able to realize their full potential.

Blatter’s proposal also completely misunderstands one of the most fundamental notions about football as opposed to other sports, which is that it is the ultimate team game. By this, I do not mean that each individual player must shoulder his burden equally–while this is true, it’s equally true of other sports. What I mean is that each player must buy into the team’s system more than probably any other sport. Most teams (well, most successful teams, anyway) have a distinct and particular strategy and approach to the game, and in order to succeed, all 11 players must fill their role within that system. In other words, a left-back for Arsenal has a very different job than a left-back for Chelsea or Stoke. If someone is a very good player for one club, he will not necessarily be a very good player for another club, because his new club may play completely differently and have completely different demans for a player in that position than his old club (see Shevchenko, Andrei).

There are two ways to have a team that plays well together. One is through scouting established players–you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of their skills and abilities, and determine whether the player can fulfill a particular role within your club’s system. By and large, this is what clubs like Chelsea and Real Madrid have done, to great success. The other way is to teach all of your young players in the academy to play that particular style, so that by the time they are ready to step up to the first-team, they have been playing the club’s style for years and are well-acquainted with its demands and goals.

What Arsenal does is combine the two–we find teenagers who have the potential to develop into world-class players and we teach them from a young age to play football “the Arsenal way.” After 3-4 years in the academy and reserves, they are typically prepared to have some role in the first team, and have thoroughly developed an understanding of the way Arsenal play and what their role in the system should be.

However, they younger you are, the easier it is to teach you new things. It’s much easier for a 15 or 16 year old to adapt to a new style of play than a 20 year old. If Arsenal is limited to bringing in players of over 18 or more, Wenger’s transfer policy is simply not going to work anywhere near as well as it has thus far. And I happen to believe that clubs like Arsenal, or Manchester United, or Barcelona, who train young players to play within a certain system and then use the players to implement that system on the club level once they are ready for the first-team should be rewarded, not punished, for doing this.

But in the end, my views on whether this proposal would be good or bad for the game are immaterial. What we can all definitely agree on is that it would certainly be bad for Arsenal. Arsenal’s advantage has long been the ability to identify, train, and develop young talent. This has been the main way Arsenal has been able to stay competitive with clubs who spend a lot more money on the transfer market than we do. This proposal would partially negate that competitive advantage, and make it that much more difficult for the Gunners to succeed.

To illustrate, the following Arsenal players were brought in before their 18th birthday:

Fabregas
Senderos
Vela
Walcott
Ramsey
Djourou
Clichy
Mannone
Gibbs
Traore
Merida
Bendtner

That’s 12 out of 29, or 41.4% first-team players. All of whom Arsenal would not have been able to sign (at the point when they signed for us, anyway) had Blatter’s proposed system been in place.

Such a system would be bad for the players, bad for the game, and most importantly, bad for Arsenal, so here’s hoping it never comes to pass. But it’s definitely something that bears watching.

–He believes that a unified world government is necessary and unavoidable, and will happen within the next 50 years or so. Ummm…I’m just going to let that one alone.

–He believes Arsenal, by operating within their means and not spending more than we bring in in income, is doing things the right way, but that he is not jealous of Chelsea or Manchester City.

–He defends his policy of letting young players develop into their roles by saying bringing in experienced talent would frequently block younger talent. He uses the example of Jack Wilshere, saying that if he brings in someone this year, they would help us win, but by this time next year, when Wilshere is ready to make the leap up to the first team and regular action, he would be blocked, become dissatisfied, and want to leave the club. I don’t know about this, actually–it seems like there are plenty of clubs like ManU who balance experienced talent with bringing youngsters along.

–He thinks Arsenal will win the title this year.

–He said he turned down Real Madrid because it would have been a betrayal of his principles, and he wants to finish the job he has started at Arsenal.

–He refutes the knowledge that if Arsenal had a little bit more steel and grit they would win more–he points to Brazil as the # 1 ranked national team in the world, and Barcelona as the # 1 club team in the world, as evidence that attractive, exciting football is very often successful football.

–In possibly the most fascinating part of the interview, he talks about how focused he is, and while it’s hard to summarize, he really kind of comes across as a football ascetic. He says he essentially watches football all the time, does not drink because he feels it would distract from his focus, and admits that he is a “robot” in his slavishness to his routine. He admits that he sometimes questions whether it’s healthy for him to be so obsessed.

–He also says he learned about “politeness” from his time in Japan, and says that he learned from Japanese sumo matches, where afterwards it was impossible to tell who had won and who had lost, how to act in victory and defeat. He claims he tries to always keep his emotions inside and maintain a constant exterior, although he acknowledges that this is probably not healthy.

–In the sound bite that’s getting the most play for the media, he admits that oftentimes when he has claimed he did not see an Arsenal foul, that he was lying, but didn’t want to address it out of protection for his players.

It’s worth reading for yourself. I honestly don’t remember reading such a revealing interview in the past, because I think this gives you a pretty good view of Wenger as a man and a manager. Today’s a busy day on the site–we’ll have the conclusion of our season preview stuff today, and then an Everton preview either later this afternoon or evening.

One of the strongest reasons to believe in the validity of the rumor is that neither Toure nor the club has come out to deny the possible sale of the Ivorian to City. Wenger’s remarks to Arsenal TV were as such

“We have many centerbacks, seven centerbacks and I’m in a position where we have to play some in midfield… but of course Kolo is a very good player – we’ll see what happens in the next 24 hours.”

There is truth to his claim of having a number of centerbacks, further evidenced by the play of Senderos in the midfield to get him minutes on the pitch. And Toure, while a solid player for this club, appears to be on the down side of things. His spat with Gallas last year made you think that one or the other could be headed out of town.

The glaring concern here is the fact Arsenal is strengthening City. And when they could be a challenger for one of the top four spots, it makes you stop and think as to the wisdom of a decision like this — especially if Wenger goes forward without buying a proven midfielder.

We’ll see how this one plays out. Stay tuned, and leave your thoughts below.

The big news, though, was Adebayor’s transfer to Manchester City finally going through. Many Gunner fans (me included) think this was a good move for the club, although some think we should have hung onto him. That’s all irrelevant now, though. Now, the question is what to do with the money. We had a poll on the site recently, and opinion seemed to be pretty split–some of you thought we should immediately reinvest the money in a big name striker like Huntelaar or Eto’o (though we could never pay Eto’o’s wages), others thought we should get a lower profile organizational soldier type like Chamakh and use the leftover cash to get a much-needed holding midfielder.

But the bottom line is this–at the beginning of the transfer window, most of us were talking about how, unlike in many past summers, this might be the transfer window in which Wenger actually spends more money than he brings in. By and large, in past years, he has had to pay for his own transfers with an equivalent value in sales. Now, no one thought we were going to suddenly turn into Chelsea or Madrid, but I think most of us thought this would be the summer we actually spend some cash to improve the team.

But here we are, into preseason training, and thus far we have a £15 million surplus (£25 million for Adebayor-£10 million for Vermaelen). Wenger has said we don’t necessarily need to replace Adebayor, and that we still have plenty of options in attack. We all understand that this is what he has to say–to come out and say “we desperately need a replacement! If I don’t buy another striker we are totally screwed!” would just make him look desperate, and other clubs could take advantage of this at the negotiating table and jack up the price on anyone we’re interested in.

But we’ve heard this before and tried to assure yourselves that “he’s just saying that–he knows we need more players and will go out and buy them,” only to see a transfer window pass us by with no significant reinforcements. Wenger has said all the right things this offseason, but saying all the right things has never been his weakness. Doing what needs to be done has been. But I think I, like most supporters of the club, think this is a club only a player or two short of being very competitive in all competitions, and it would be a shame for us to come up just short of trophies again because we were playing a makeshift backline or makeshift midfield, which is what happened at the end of last season.

So Wenger has a dilemma. He’s got a good nucleus of young players that are on the doorstep of winning something, and he’s got cash to spend. But it’s not immediately clear that he has any targets he really likes out there. So does he: (a) spend the money, knowing that’s he’s probably overpaying for players and not getting players he thinks are great, even if they’ll still provide some depth and quality to the club; or (b) hang onto the money, and not spend it until January or maybe next summer, but spend it on the right players he believes capable of providing valuable contributions to the first-team squad, even if that means in all likelihood the squad may come up short of winning anything again this season?

I’m inclined to say he just needs to spend the money and improve the team. Even if he’s not convinced Blaise Matuidi or Lorik Cana can be first-rate players at this level, they’re relatively affordable and will certainly be better than playing guys out of position or calling up some kid who’s not old enough to drink from the reserves. But I think Wenger’s philosophy has always been option (b), so it will be interesting to see if he really is committed to winning this season or whether he sticks to his views and principles in all circumstances.

At first glance, this is a puzzling move, as City rewards Adebayor for what many regard as a lackluster 2008-09 with a contract paying him £170,000 per week. That is what is perplexing. Knowing that Arsenal already rewarded him last season with an improved contract, it’s still somewhat sad to see the typical greed come forth in footballers.

That being considered, the sale would be a massive coup for Wenger — if he moves to replace Adebayor with a cheaper striker like Marouane Chamakh, and also uses that money to invest in a central midfielder. While Chamakh is a unproven entity in England, what Arsenal fan won’t trust Arsene Wenger’s opinion on a talent in the French league? One needs to look no further than Bakary Sagna as his last successful signing out of the continent.

The other concern of letting Adebayor go is the lack of goals. He’s tallied an impressive 46 goals in all competitions the last two seasons, but I don’t think that would be hard to replace. With the re-signing of Van Persie, the improving health of Eduardo, a full season of Arshavin — heck even through the often-maligned Nicklas Bendtner. The Dane tallied one goal less than the Togo striker so it’s not to say his contributions would be missed.

A forward line lacking Adebayor won’t hurt this team. Not if the right signing is made in central midfield. And with this sale, Wenger could easily afford going after an Inler, or perhaps a bigger name. Aside from Chamakh, another name out there is Klaas Jan Huntelaar — though he looks set for Stuttgart. Whatever happens today, keep checking this space here. Martin and I will have the updates as they come in.

Most of this summer transfer stuff is made up by the media, but given how many stories have been posted on this, the fact that Vermaelen himself has come out and said it’s probably going to happen, and no denials from Arsenal, I think it’s fair to say that there’s probably something to it. I would also emphasize that this doesn’t mean that Vermaelen will be joining us soon, if at all. It’s possible that it could happen within the next couple of days, but remember how much time elapsed between us agreeing a fee with Marseille and actually signing Samir Nasri last summer. It could take weeks or months for us to agree with Vermaelen on a contract.

I thought it might be useful, though, to just talk about Vermaelen. If you’re like me, you hadn’t even really heard of this guy until about a week ago. So who is he?

Well, the basics. Vermaelen is Belgian, is just 23, and stands 5′11. He has played basically his entire senior career with Dutch powerhouse Ajax, and has been a regular the last couple of seasons. Beyond that…I don’t really know. Unlike strikers or playmakers, I don’t think there are any stats that can measure quite how good a defender is. In terms of team stats, Ajax has given up quite a few goals over the last couple of seasons, and could hardly be classified as watertight at the back. At his height, Vermaelen certainly doesn’t fit the mold of a big, physical defender with an aerial presence, which I think is really what we need.

Still, while Ajax isn’t nearly the club it was 15 years ago, they still play a very high level of football, and it’s impressive that Vermaelen was able to play so much at such a young age for the club. While it isn’t quite the same, having experience playing in domestic cups, top of the table battles, and European knockout competition will be good preparation for the young man should he in fact play at the Emirates next season. Most impressive to me, though, is the fact that Vermaelen was Ajax’s captain last season, a season in which he turned 22. The club must think quite highly of him to give the young man such a leadership role–as we’ve seen with Cesc, I think it takes a lot of both character and talent to appoint someone so young to lead your team.

I’ll go ahead and give my usual caveat about how I’m not a scout. And I’ve never seen this guy play. So I have no idea about whether or not he’ll be a good player for us or not. Anyone who tells you otherwise is almost certainly lying.

So my take on this transfer, which now looks pretty likely to go through, is simply this. I would have preferred a more physically imposing defender, because, as I’ve written ad nauseum in this space, I think we can really use that kind of player to pair with Gallas and/or Toure, smaller guys who use pace and positioning to defend. Vermaelen seems like a similar player to those two. However, this guy’s track record really does seem to mark him as a very promising young player entering his prime, and the kind of player who has earned the respect of his older teammates. So he will hopefully end being a good player for us.

If nothing else, I think this is encouraging in that it’s pretty definitive proof that Arsene Wenger really is going out and spending some money, and specifically spending some money on a center back, which I think everyone will agree was our squad’s single biggest weakness last year. Wenger took a lot of flack near the end of the season for saying there wasn’t that much difference between us and United. But the fact is that the statement wasn’t that ludicrous. In the league, United scored 68 goals. We also scored 68 goals. While they beat us in both legs of the Champions League semifinal, we beat them at the Emirates in the league, and got a draw (in a game in which we outplayed them) at Old Trafford near the end of the season.

The big difference between the sides, and between us and the other teams that finished ahead of us, is defense. They only gave up 24 goals, as did Chelsea. Liverpool only gave up 27. We gave up 37. And while our midfield didn’t always do a great job of providing the back with cover, I think Song is coming into his own and up to the task next year if he can stay healthy. So I think we have to look at center back. Manchester United have Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic. Chelsea have John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho. Liverpool have Jamie Carragher and Martin Skrtel/Daniel Agger. At the end of the year, we were pairing Kolo Toure and either Alex Song or Mikeal Silvestre. I think it’s fairly easy to see where the problem is. If we can add another top quality defender or two, I really think Arsenal can be right there in the mix next season.

Hopefully, if Vermaelen does eventually sign with Arsenal, he fits that description. For all the praise rightfully given Arsene Wenger for being to identify and develop young talent, his track record with defensive players has always been somewhat mixed. The backline stalwarts of Wenger’s early Arsenal teams (Tony Adams, Martin Keown, etc.) were already with the club when Wenger arrived, and some of the more successful additions to the later teams (like Sol Campbell and Kolo Toure) are rumored to be guys that David Dein really discovered and brought in. For this reason, I think this is a big offseason for Arsene–he’s put together the core of a team that is good enough to win trophies, but he’s got a backline not up to the task. He knows he has to improve this, and he has money to go out and do it. To put it simply, there aren’t any excuses for Arsenal not to improve their defense next year–”we’re still young and developing” and “we don’t have any money” are not going to cut it next year. But for what it’s worth, here’s hoping that Arsene is right about Vermaelen, and we won’t have to use any excuses next year.