Don’t Call Us, We’ll Kalou
By: Martin | August 4th, 2009Well, the hot rumor of the day is that Arsenal has made a bid to Chelsea for Solomon Kalou. Apparently Arsenal are offering £6 million, while Chelsea are holding out for £8 million.
I have to say, I’ve never been all that impressed with Kalou, but he’s still young, he grew up idolizing Thierry Henry, and he’s basically a spare part at this point with Chelsea. And I guess at this point Wenger’s track record on evaluating young attacking talent speaks for itself, so he deserves the benefit of the doubt. We’ll see if there’s anything to it.
Wenger also spoke out again on Chamakh. The club had recently set a valuation on Chamakh of over £12 million, and said Arsenal were lowballing them. Wenger then responded by lowballing them even further, saying of his interest in Chamakh:
In five months Chamakh will be free to talk to other clubs and Bordeaux will be in danger of not getting anything. It is over. It is terminated.
I doubt his interest is actually “terminated,” but this kind of hardball tactic can be pretty effective in this situation. Arsenal won’t meet Bordeaux’s valuation for the striker, and frankly don’t need him for the coming season; meanwhile, Chamakh is upset and has said he has no desire to come back to Bordeaux, and has said he won’t sign a new deal with the club because he wants to play in England. You’d have to think Bordeaux needs to get some money for him while they can.
This is basically the equivalent of going car shopping, talking to the salesman, and telling him his price is too high, and then, when he refuses to budge, walking off the lot and saying you’re willing to look elsewhere. 9 times out of 10, he’ll come running after you or give you a call the next day offering a lower price.
Meanwhile, the Senderos deal isn’t official, but there is clearly something going on. Apparently the official website of the Swiss Football Federation announced the deal yesterday, but it hasn’t been officially announced anywhere else. I think it’s almost a definite at this point, though.
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Gooner, would you please stop crying about strikers, we have those to spare. We can sell two more and still have too much. Eduardo is a pure striker, The Dane is a pure striker, Van Persie can play that role if Arshavin plays support. We have a shitload of strikers. Wenger will get his man, the team has to realize that trying to inflate the cost of a player when Wenger is in the picture only makes your club look stupid when the player eventually signs for Arsenal (Zenit, here’s looking at you).
Just relax, I’m pretty sure in 13 years of coaching, Wenger has learned a thing or two about how to do his job.
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^^^^I fully agree.Good comment Zito.
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Our strikers are too injury prone. What will you guys be saying 6 months down the line when Van Persie, walcott and eduardo are injured. With only Bentner and Vela left left. Would you really put the rest of our season in two basically unproven strikers? Dont get me wrong I think both of these guys have bags of potential but having only these two strikers would give Arsenal a very transparent attacking combination. Maybe I’m wrong but I dont think buying Kalou would be the worst thing in the world; certainly better than Chamakah who is pretty much adebayor all over again. Do we really want another drama-queen who will walk out in a few years after contributing one good season? But if Wenger thinks Chamakah would actually be a good buy then I will support that.
And why are some people so against the signing of Viera? He’s a class act and on a pay-as-you-go deal both parties win. You cant say that having Viera back wouldnt scare the shit into some of our younger DMs and spur them onto greater things.
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GoonerBen,I dont think that we shouldnt buy a striker(kalou would be great) but I also think that first we should buy a new DM and maybe a CD and then if its necessarily a new ST.
Viera would be a great leader and a great mentor to the kids in the club.
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Enjoy Kalou. For the 7 goals he’ll score, he’ll make up for it in the number of grey hairs he gives you by being “Kalouesque”.
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Oh, come on guys, this rumour ain’t even worth writing about. The Sun said he is 28 years old, when he is actually 23 :> I reckon it’s the sort of “Torres to United” or “Rooney to Liverpool” bullshit. I hate these “newspapers” coming up with this nonsense, even knowing it’s the usual pre-season thing.
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Zito and Theo, first of all I am not saying that I want a striker. Instead I would want bendtner and eduardo fill in this space and I think they have the quality to score a lot of goals. What I meant is, if wenger is determined to buy a striker, why not get a good CF not SS, you dont know, maybe eduardo gets injured so we cant depend on him. A DMF on the other is so important, and I’d rather see good amount of cash spend on it.
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I don’t want to sound “let’s all be friends” but I think more or les we all agree: a striker is needed so we don’t depend on a few, or if injuries come along; a DM is definitely needed and Vieira is not a bad choice, although we all agree that Cana or the others mentioned would have been better; Kalou? why not…
I agree with Rosicky’s statements in the official website anyway, we are better at this moment than last year at this moment.Posted from
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I agree that a DM should probably be our priority hence I suggest Viera. We dont need to spend 15-20m on a top DM because all that will do is smother ther progress of our numerous youngsters.
If we could get Viera, another CB(not too sure on who we’ve been linked with) and maybe a striker( my preferred options being either Huntelaar or Kalou) we really should be looking to seriously challenge for major honors and end this crap that the anti-Arsenal media are sturring up about us not winning trophies.Posted from
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I just don’t see where Kalou fits in at Arsenal, surely we have enough players of his type and need to sign something different plus I don’t think he has shown enough at Chelsea
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Arsenal better than last year?
—>”I agree with Rosicky’s statements in the official website anyway, we are better at this moment than last year at this moment.”
>I don’t know about this. The team were struggling agaisnt Athletico de Madrid and they had lost their friendly game agaisnt Sunderland. So, I know we had a bunch of reserve player, but still, I’m quite perplexed about your aforementioned statement.—>”I just don’t see where Kalou fits in at Arsenal, surely we have enough players of his type and need to sign something different plus I don’t think he has shown enough at Chelsea”
>If Arsenal buy Kalou, I think Wenger would used him as a Cf rather than using him on the wing. The only striker capable of doing so is Eduardo. The problem is that he’s injury prone.
> Furthermore, Kalou would be able to operate on the wings because he has been playing there during his time at Chelsea. In a 4-3-3 formation, he might be efficient only if he can have a more clinical finish which it’s something he be lacking. But, nothing can be worse than Adebayor. The man scored 1 goal on 30 chances. With Wenger’s guidance, Kalou might step up.
>Nonetheless, Chelsea might be reticent to let him go to one of their direct rival so this possibility of him joining us is likely improbable.—>Kalou has 24 years old and is 186 centimeters long. He has the height needed to become a targetman.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_Kalou
>Statistically talking, Kalou does not seem like a great goalscorer. So, it would implicitly say that he dribbles around and assist the main striker. In other words, he’s like a winger\second striker which is a position that has already been covered up by Van Persie and Vela somehow.Posted from
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_Kalou
(I believe the hyperlink was not highlighted in my previous post and I don’t know if it will be the case in this post…)
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i think Kaluo would be a great signing.
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Xabi Alonso already a Florentino player? anyone knows if it’ confirmed?
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Very interesting article…
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Thx Theo!
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Great comment above, Third Eye. I’d love to see Kalou as a striker in 442, I think he could be much better.
As for the do we, don’t we thread about the sufficiency of our strikers, I agree with Gooner/GoonerBen. Last year Walcott spent three months out, and RVP was healthy for virtually an entire season for the first time EVER, and now Adebayor is gone (not that he didn’t have frequent injury spells). I’ve said it before I’ll say it again, injuries are Arsenal’s biggest problem.
Walcott will play on the wing, and perhaps make some showings up front, as he will need to do in the future and if Wilshere gets good enough. The cover behind him is Rosicky, the “ultimate question mark,” and Eboue, our utility man. On the left will probably be Arshavin, with Nasri out of the picture for now, and behind him, Rosicky. So up front we really only have RVP, an always-start, Bendtner, and Vela. The latter two may be great, they might not be.
I would only say we don’t need strikers if Wilshere has a break-out year. In fact, purchasing a striker/winger right now is a big risk. As Martin’s pointed out, we have so many young players in that position that buying another one would push another out. So let’s see how Wilshere does, and hold off from buying. For that matter, let’s see how Ramsey does.
Yeah, I changed my mind in that discourse. But not buying is a huge risk in the short term; that’s all I mean I suppose.
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Does anyone knows how many goals Simpson scored on loan last season?
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repoets say that Huntelaar will sign for milan tomorrow for 15 million euros
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Gigi:
I think just 2–one in a league game and one in an FA Cup game. He was only at WBA for half a season, but that’s still not a great return. I like Jay Simpson, and like it that he’s a London boy who came through the academy, but from watching the Carling Cup matches last season, I have to admit I’ve never thought he was Arsenal quality.
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Sincerely, Jay Simpson won’t make it. I largely prefer Sanchez Watt. He showed more skilled and character during pre-season. His perseverance allowed him to cross the ball at quite a closed angle.
“Yeah, I changed my mind in that discourse. But not buying is a huge risk in the short term; that’s all I mean I suppose.”
Don’t worry, I did too. I was interested in him, but when I saw his statistics and, moreover, when I thought about his style of play, I reconsidered. As Martin mentioned, Kalou’s arrival might hindered the young one development especially Sanchez Watt (as he seems to be that type of player) and Vela.
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The people at Gunnerblog said the other day that we may be sporting a 433 formation for the most part this season….any thoughts?
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Thx for the info Martin, maybe I turned on the games in which he scored
Myabe that he was a London boy also had an effect on me.
Is that Huntelaar thing true? Man we are running out of options.
In Wenger we trust… (don’t we?)Posted from
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Alexinho: In fact, it’s true. Wenger used that formation during pre-season. He worked intensively with it in order for it to be operational agaisnt Valencia. If it works properly, than he will used it agaisnt Everton.
He said that a 4-3-3 formation would tighten the midfield and allow player like Walcott to develop more their talent. He added that Walcott is a striker that needs space to operate such as Messi. Someone that cuts in.
Than, it would mean that our defensive midfield would be rotatin between Diaby and Song. The right midfield in the first “3″ would be Fabregas and the other one would be rotated between Rosicky, Nasri and Denilson. Arshavin would play up front in the second “3″.Finally, he said a 4-4-2 formation allowed him to cover more space, but needed the 4-3-3 formation to deploy the maximum of offensive minded player on the field.
—>Fans say that Arsenal were not built to play a 4-3-3 formation and copying Barcelona won’t make us any good. I think the contrary. this new formation seeks the maximize our attack force. We got to many offensive player and can not use them all. When all fit, Wenger will have a migraine to cope with all of them since most of them are played on the wings.
—>The disadvantages are that there will be an heavy burden on the holding midfielder. Touré yaya has enough power and stature to do it. Nonetheless, we have inexperience players to fill that spot.
—>All in all, it’s quite interesting to see that Wenger wants to change his tactics.
—>I recommend you this article if you want to know more about all the tactics and other stuff :
http://arsenalcolumn.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/the-subtleties-of-arsenals-4-4-2-formation/
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