Could This be a Big Week of Transfer Action?

gervinho is really a great signing for arsenal, I think he brings alot of pace to the team up top and can certainly finish.

Im from Bayern Off side, any truth in Arsenal chasing Franck ribery

Watching Uruguay, I feel Alvaro Pereira might be a decent left back option. He is quick, comes forward well, and tracks back great too. Could even been a decent Song back-up. I do hope he is amongst the players Arsenal are "privately working hard" on, as Gazidis claims. 

What about Melo?  He's saying he's leaving Juventus this week.  Seems like an obvious pickup, unless someone just offers him a ton more than we would.  Short of splashing big money for a real fighting midfielder like De Rossi, i think Melo would be next to perfect next to/competing with Song.  

I'll try to touch on that in my next blog.

Ok.. amazingly I have a few min. to post something... seeing Peru in the semis is more than making up the 3+ years of Arsenal failure (let´s hope they reverse it this coming season!).. Hopefully the blanquiroja can go all the way, lord knows I want a team wearing a white and red strip to win something.
Also, not just Peru, but also Paraguay and Venezuela! As well as the initial shock at seing Argentina and Brazil knocked out in quarters.. that is until you look a little deeper and see that they are coached by buffoons. To put it in perspective, it is like the EPL top 4 reading Blackpool, Everton, Stoke, and Sunderland. Simply shocking.
Still reading the blog, and still hoping we get to sign someone like Mata or Subotic. Also, Denilson´s gone! Yay.

According to Gunnerblog, who has been on top of this story from the outset, the Campbell deal has fallen through. Apparently Campbell and his father were set to meet with an Arsenal official to try to finalize a deal, and Campbell and his father were no-shows, which led Arsenal to pull the offer off the table.

Assuming all this is true, I have to think that means another club (Liverpool?) got to him and made him an offer he liked better. C'est la vie.

What a poor way to go about turning down a club, if true. Show some class atleast

well, what can you expect...he's Costa Rican hahahhahaha.

Yep. I think the silver lining is that at least we found out what his character was like before we signed him. The last thing we need is to have a teenage prima donna who thinks he's bigger than the club before he even signs. Better off without him if this is how he's going to act, as far as I'm concerned.

He's 18, considering a massive life decision, and likely doing whatever his dad tells him to. Let's not be so quick to condemn his "character".

We can condemn his father for being a prat and not even bothering to show up though. That's poor form, no matter who you are.

Sure, rip into his father all you want. But the only problem with an 18-year-old's character that we can guess at is whether he's headstrong enough to stand up to his controlling father. 

Yeah, doesn't look good.  But I didn't expect anything from him this season, so I'll try not to be too concerned about it. 

Interesting alleged quotes from Gervinho in the papers this morning. 'I came to Arsenal to have a chance to work with AW' & ' I think AW can improve my game and move it to the next level' Nothing about wanting to play for Arsenal, just Wenger. Sounds to me suspiciously like another Adebeyor, looking to use our club as a stepping stone to RM, Barca, Utd, City or Milan, where the big bucks are. I will not judge Gervinho on possible mis-quotes and hope the guy really wants pull on the red jersey, but I have an awful feeling. One & half seasons of effort and goals and then looking for a bigger move?

Well, there were also quotes about how he's dreamed of playing for Arsenal, so I think he likes the club, too. But it seems a little unrealistic to expect someone we just signed to be claiming undying loyalty to the club he hasn't even started playing for yet.

I would also note that if he plays a couple of years for us, scores a bundle of goals, then we sell him for 25-30 million to someone else, well . . . that's not exactly the worst-case scenario.

On an interesting related note, think about what it says about the enormity of the EPL.  A guy leaves the champions of France for the 4th place team in England, and it's a "dream move" and so forth. 

Don't jump to conclusions friend. How about we give him the benefit of the doubt for actually wanting to sign up with Arsenal regardless of his reasons, see how he plays, and then make our judgements on him.

I love how everyone loved Arsenal's youth system and prudence in the wage structure two, three years ago, and now suddenly Wenger/Arsenal are sheer stupid for their philosophy.
This backwards thinking on history is really quite annoying.

Yep -- and if Arsenal wins a trophy this year, everyone will congratulate Wenger for proving "the haters" wrong and claim that they never doubted him or the system.

Kind of sad that all we look for now is "a trophy".....
Shouldn't we expect more from The Arsenal!?

Well, considering we've won more than one trophy exactly 4 times in the last 40 years . . . no, we really shouldn't. Expecting a team to do something every year that they've done roughly once per decade during a period of great general success just seems baseless and delusional, and setting yourself up to be disappointed.

I guess there are two ways to read what Felegy wrote.  One way is to think he expects more than one trophy in a season.  The other way to read it is that he expects more than just "a" trophy, because the Carling Cup is "a" trophy, but doesn't do a lot for some people.  And some fans and players are hoping just to win "a" trophy of any sort, even if we're not competing for the Champions League or EPL title.  So I would agree that I'd like for us to compete for more than just "a" trophy, in that sense.

Exactly Homey--I would be less than happy if we won the Carling Cup and finished fifth for example.  We need to win the EPL or Champs League (maybe FA cup) for me to be truly happy with the result.  I should have been more clear I guess, "a" trophy is not enough, I want this team to win "a meaningful" trophy like we all know they can.

Ah. I misunderstood.

I don't know where I stand on this. If everything last season had gone exactly the same as it did, but we hadn't given up the horrendous cock-up in the Carling Cup final and had gone on to win it, I'm not sure how I would feel about last season. Better, certainly, I'm just not sure by how much.

Agreed, I'm not saying that winning the Carling Cup would be meaningless.  I would have been super pumped had they won this past season and had they won I think the rest of the season may have played out differently.  I just don't want to see Arsenal putting too much emphasis on the CC and FA Cup at the cost of the league or CL--just to be able to say that they won a trophy.

We could feel like Portsmouth or Tottenham

"Well we suck... but atleast we won the trophy no one cares about!"

what i simply believe is sheer stupidity on wengers behalf is his refusal to pay players like nasri and cesc salaries of up to 120k a week yet he is happy to pay players like denilson and diaby more than double thier worth. you hear with wengers comments about all players being captains that he believes in a collective effort and eqaulity and sharing the burdon and distributing the wealth across the sqaud. whilst wenger distributes the wealth the burdon is not shared. players like nasri, van persie and cesc carry the team whilst players like denilson and diaby simply go for a ride as they are passengers yet wenger tries to treat the players as eqauls. its a flawed system. its communism/socialism. that failed miserably in the cold war and lead to the collapse of the soviet union. other clubs like united and chelsea pay thier players based on their contribution. work hard, play good – get a pay rise. play poor – no pay rise of even contract extension. this is capitalism. a system that rewards effort and talent and punishes mediocrity and laziness. wenger needs to start governing the sqaud in a capitalist way.

While the analogy to political ideologies is bonkers, I agree with the sentiment, which is what Homey wrote about a while ago. I think when we look at the value of Denilson to the club, it's bizarre that he's making even half as much as Fabregas. 

How is that bizarre? It's part of Arsenal's youth development strategy. Sometimes it produces players like Fabregas, sometimes you get guys like Denilson.

If it means we can't keep players like Nasri, it's a system that needs overhauling. Did Denilson really need 45k/week to entice him to play for Arsenal? He had only played something like 12 first-team games for Sao Paulo. 

That's ridiculous backwards thinking. Denilson's wages are not what is preventing Nasri from signing. I'd love to know where you find out what he is making now, and what he made then as well. You seem to forget that when Denilson came to Arsenal, most gooners were relatively impressed and thought he would come quite good. And it just never happened. Arsenal offer very high wages to all potential youngsters to entice them to their club. Denilson is included in that. We are just experiencing one of the drawbacks to the beloved Arsenal youth strategy everyone used to love and gloat about. And now it needs an overhaul?

I understand that it's part of a bigger system. And that some people think it's a great system. I think it's a very good system that needs some kinks worked out, and that maybe this is one of those kinks. 

Presumably there is an absolute amount that we can spend on wages in any given year. If Denilson is making 60k/wk (EDIT: apparently he's on 60k pounds/week, or about the same as Nasri. That's the flaw in the system), that is 60k/wk that we can't pay to other players, including Nasri, Cesc, etc. Paying him less per week would free up that money to pay to our good players.

Now, whether we could have signed him for less would be impossible to discover, but I find it hard to believe that Arsenal, ostensibly one of the better clubs in the world, need to offer particularly high wages to entice young players to come play for us. Perhaps there are tax issues, perhaps the climate dampens their desire to learn from one of the best coaching staffs in the world, perhaps the night life in Spain is too much to resist, I dunno.

I hope you read my July 5 blog on that same topic.

I believe your the stupid one, Cesc is the highest paid player, why because he is or best player and he does not want to leave because of the money he wants to leave because he misses home or something like that, Nasri want to leave because he wants the same money as Cesc, since he not on the same level as Cesc how can he get the same pay as Cesc

If every player demands the same pay as Cesc what you saying we should just give it to them

So i don't understand your point, your saying other clubs pay players on there contribution
that's exactly what we trying to do but yet you still have a problem

On an unrelated note, who here bet on Peru to advance further in the Copa America than Brazil, Argentina, and Columbia?  I bet JG is pretty pumped right about now.  Too bad he's not able to blog about it from Lima.

That was sooo not expected, really, we were all down here expecting to see big names winning, Uruguay all the way now!

Why are we flipping out about not getting Alvarez because he scored a goal? Carlos Vela scored 1 and assisted 1 in a friendly, and most people want to sell him. They're friendlies people, let's not get out of control.

All quite true.  Alvarez may end up being a bum.  I'm just hoping we don't regret it, so we'll see. 

check this out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

So is that you in the video?  Why can't we see your face?

I'll show it in the next one, had my sis tapping and i told her to focus on the shirt

and also this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Gervinho photo shoot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

As I was searching for Gervinho photos today, I saw one of him holding the flag of Ireland, which seemed odd.  :-\

Why is such an idiot blogging for this site?

Im not sure if this was supposed to be funny or not. And not sure if I hope it was.

My clever, dry wit is lost on some people.

Take a closer look at that flag......

More likely it is the IC flag, which is the same colors.....

Ahhhhhh, ok.  Now you know I was just trying to be clever with my comment, thus the use of the :-/ face.  In the pic I saw, he was holding it up behind him as he walked.  So as you looked at it from the front, it did look just like the Irish flag.  I thought I could play like a dumb American and see if anyone would correct me.

No, I promise, it was a green bar, then a white, then an orange.  So it was the Irish national flag.  I mean, what else could it have been?  :-/

Given to Villa.  May not hurt now but it sure will if Szczesny goes down for any extended period of time.

Fabianski had a pretty good run for us last season before he got hurt. 

Soooo... you're saying you're not a big fan of Flaps?

Completely agree about Eboue, he definitely should not be sold. Everyone forgets that he offers something very different offensively. Yes he will lose the ball more often than most, but he is direct, pacy and not afraid to dribble. Often the directness especially we have really missed.

Eboue situation: exactly, I think you explanied that better than I tried around here haha,

I would not like Eboue to leave. The guy is fun, loves the club and, mind me repeating it, is used out of position. Get him as a fake winger like he did (even though he wasnt playing that) vs Porto two years ago.
About Alvarez...did we really miss him for 2 millions?? just to wrtie AW a little letter here...
About a signing from Costa Rica.....well, I would not be thrilled, but if the man scores the winning goal at some point to some trophy, then, maybe, I can be thrilled :P

Hey is there a way to check the links without leaving the page? sometimes I am wrting and like to go back and then miss all I was writing (lucky you guys hahaha).

Right click on the page and click the option open on new tab, assuming your using Modzilla or internet explore

just hold down ctrl and click on the link!

Yeah, I am like 80 years old when tech stuff goes further than the word "internet" haha,

Yes, I wish I could make the links create a new browser page, so you wouldn't leave this site to view them.  But I think that's just the way the admin page is set up, and I know nothing about tech stuff anyway.  I'm happy I can just post links in the first place.

Can a basic user post links now? I still go about posting them the disqus bootleg way...

I have no idea about all the tech stuff.  Fred Jacob has been posting pretty easily though, so I guess you can try and see what happens.  My frustration is that I can't use moderator status to "unspam" something you try to post.  So if it won't post, then it's lost. 
Plus I keep hoping to have a cool blue star by my name, but that's hasn't happened yet either.  Oh well.

Notepad is a user's best friend. Anytime I have a post that is more than a sentence or two long, I write it and then copy & paste it into notepad, in case disqus decides to eat it for dinner. When that happens, I just order up a nice plate of paste...

No.

Happy birthday Sairax, you're missed here!

Thank you!

Happy Bday sairax! (how did you know?)

Thanks Gigi! (Don't get too down and cynical about Arsenal or I may have to come back here and smack it out of you :P)

come, come, smack me! hahaha...ah my dear mommy, its so hard not to get down and cynical during this period ayayayayay

Everyone wish Sairax a happy birthday today will ya? She does read, if not comment.
Also, anyone know what ever happened to Peevish?

Thank you! And you, JG, Homey, and Brenton keep up the good work :)

I wanted to pass this nice little ditty Iain Macintosh wrote over at SI...RESPECT:

http: / / sportsillustrated dot cnn dot com /2011/writers/iain_macintosh/07/13/arsenal.crisis/

(remove spaces, change 'dot' to a period, etc.)

Here's the link Peter wanted us to view

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c...

I haven't watched any of it, but from what I'm hearing, Joel Campbell was pretty impressive at the Copa America, and held his own against some of South America's best. So he may be closer to being ready to play at the top level than we think. Earlier today his Wikipedia page noted that he had signed with Liverpool FC. It's since been taken down, and I haven't seen it anywhere else, so I assume that was just a prankster's hack, but there are reports that another big English side have come it, so you never know.

As for Gervinho's number, I think it may weirdly hinge on the Campbell thing. Reportedly Campbell is adamant that he be allowed to wear # 12, and this was a real topic of discussion during the negotiations with Arsenal. If we don't end up signing him, I would think # 12 would be a good fit for Gervinho. Although # 9, traditionally a striker's number, is open as well.

How does the Martin still get more inside scoop than I seem to get?

Cos you're kinda incompetent.

:/

And yet you keep reading.  So what does that say about you?  =)

that guy was drop on his head as a child, so just ignore him

is that rely called for

wonder what number Gervinho wearing #4 or #8

I really don't like this guy.

Well dude he's an Arsenal player know so i like him & if he scores around 15 goals and add in some assist i will be loving him

I'm talking about you, FredJacob. I really don't like you.

I laughed really hard at this comment...genius, pure genius.

Not quite Arshavin level of genius, but close.

Andrei is in a league of his own.

lol

Likely neither.