Friday Evening News Roundup

By: Homey | July 29th, 2011

One Eyed Cat Sorry for the little delay there in blogging. I’ve been busier than a one-eyed cat watching two mouse holes lately. Sometimes that work thing gets in the way of blogging. Anyway, Brenton is handling the Emirates Cup stuff for the moment, while I talk about the silly season.

I guess we need to start off at the top, with some Cesc news. But it’s really about the same as it’s been for a while. Peter Hill-Wood recently confirmed what we already knew anyway, which is that Arsenal would be willing to sell, if Barca meet the asking price. But apparently that’s not happening, so no sale is happening. A few days ago, there were lots of reports that we were trying to get something like £25 million plus Thiago – something that was discussed in the comments’ section a while back. I was pretty hopeful that this would happen, but then I didn’t read anything more about it for several days. So I suppose Thiago decided he’d rather be buried on the depth chart at Barca, than to possibly start for Arsenal. But that’s just pure speculation on my part. At least we know that we’ll never hear another word about Barca if Cesc is still with us after August 5, since I’m sure they’ll respect our deadline date.

In other news that’s somewhat Cesc-related, the Mata deal was all over the news yesterday, but has somewhat cooled off today. It still looks like it will end up in a deal though – perhaps as soon as this weekend. I keep hearing various reports about the fee, but it does sound like it will be less than the £20+ million that we heard about a while back.

Assuming the Mata deal actually happens, what should we make of it? Well of course it would be natural to be quite excited about it, and also just the concept of spending real money on quality players. At the same time, I can’t see any way that we would buy Mata and not sell at least one of the following: Nasri, Cesc, or Arshavin. If we kept all of them, we’d have a huge glut of players at the forward/wing position. This would be especially true if Miyaichi is granted a work permit.

Based on all the stuff I’ve been reading lately, it would seem that we’re going to hang on to Nasri for this year, even if he doesn’t re-sign. It’s been well-chronicled that such a move would be immensely wasteful, but all the signs seem to point this way at the moment. The talk has been that Wenger might use Nasri and Mata at the central midfield position, and perhaps have them switch postions during a match at times. (All based on an assumption that Cesc is sold.) But let’s re-state the obvious here for a moment. Let’s say Mata signs, Nasri stays, and Cesc leaves. We’d have five quality options at the forward/wing position – Nasri, Gervinho, Walcott, Arshavin, and Mata. So the theory would be to move Mata and/or Nasri to the middle. But wouldn’t we be way better off getting £25 million for Nasri while we still can, and then buying (for instance) Baines and Honda? I think £25 million would just about do it, since I recently read that Blackburn bid merely £7 million for Honda. And all of that is without even dipping into the money we’d get for selling Cesc. If we did all that, the team would be in much better shape, but it seems I’m beating a dead horse again.

Moving on to St. Nick, there were many reports that he was on the verge of going to Sporting Lisbon. However, those claims have been dismissed by Sporting as “pure fiction.” So too bad about that, I guess. I’m sure he’ll still be sold, but I’d prefer to get that money in hand, so we’d at least have the theoretical chance of actually spending it.

Finally, Peter Hill-Wood also admitted that Arsenal made a bid for Phil Jagielka. So at least we know that much. There’s a lot of speculation that we’ve made an increased bid, or at least that one is coming shortly. This leads me back to two of my favorite rants. First, if we’ve decided that Jagielka is really the best central defender out there on the market, then I sure hope we don’t let a million or so pounds get in the way of it. Now I don’t see the sense in going up to £20 million for the guy, but please don’t let me hear that we let pennies get in the way of this signing. Second, and more importantly, it still drives me nuts that we’re looking primarily at a this position above other positions of clear need. As I see it, we have three solid options at CD. Another would be great, but isn’t a massive need at the moment. What is a massive need at the moment, above all else, is another left back. Are we really going to let Gibbs take that starting spot without any real accomplishments to his credit? And then roll out Traore as the backup? Seriously? And then if the rumors about Eboue’s departure are true, we’ll have another glaring deficiency at backup right back. I would certainly put those positions ahead of central defender at the moment, so we’ll wait and see. Just as with the Mata thing, I’m glad to hear we may be splashing some money and upgrading the team. I just don’t believe that Wenger is able to honestly assess the strengths and weaknesses of his roster, and then make appropriate moves. I’ve seen this happen too many times in recent years to have much faith in him right now.

So there’s the roundup for today. A bit of a mixed bag, really. I’ll try to be optimistic about things for now. But whatever happens, I really hope it gets wrapped up in the next week, so we might actually have a week to settle in before the start of the regular season.

In programming news, Brenton should handle a couple things for this weekend. And we’re planning a live blog for the match on August 6, but I’ll get back next week with more details on that. And then finally, I’m planning another pretty nifty Q&A sort of thing for about Aug. 8 or 9. So please keep reading…

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The sleep of a laboring man is sweet. Ecclesiastes 5:12a

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Category: Arsenal News, Arsene Wenger, Cesc Fabregas, Nicklas Bendtner, Samir Nasri, Transfer News and Player Movement

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Homey_Mills

What I'm really curious about is if anyone liked the one-eyed cat? Poor thing. I hope nobody thought it was too gross.
JG

I just noticed it when you mentioned it.
Homey_Mills

I was hoping to find something to go along with my quote about being like a one-eyed cat watching two mouse holes. So I did a search online for one-eyed cats. See, that's the sort of thing that readers come to appreciate. I think. Maybe.
J___V

Homey....you're never optimistic!
I Go along with your take on CB's. A better option to back up our first three would be nice but we're good to start and with one capable cover. Left back only concerns me in that Gibbs has proven to be injury prone. I think this also affected his form last season. Traore has never come close to convincing in a defensive capacity, so I'll agree that it's a concern but I suspect jenkinson may also cover there ad he's used to playing over on that side too.
But for me, the most important area to improve upon is our wide attacking areas. Walcott & Arshvin are too inconsistant throughout the game. Defensively, Walcott tries but is ineffective. Arshavin is actually far better at 'nicking' the ball away and regaining possession than will ever be recognised. This is mainly due to that fact that he can't be bothered to do it. The odd spurt here & there. He just doesn't get it that, if he were to work to the max for 90 mins, we would be so much better. So for me we need two guys to come into those areas. We dominate matches but don't punish sides. Consistently clinical is what we need, not patchy and wasteful. Oh, and nasri is better suited to playing centrally.
brenton

Can someone demonstrate somehow that Nasri is better centrally? I've read it, and I've thought it on occasion, but his best play last season came off the wing. When he played centrally we were far less incisive than we were with Cesc, and his passing was mostly short and sideways. Martin, do you remember writing about this?
FredJacob

i think meant when he is central he scores more goals, because if you realize when Cesc and Ramsey was in that when his goal dried up
FredJacob

that why we need Nasri to stay so he can be on the left wing, with Gervinho on the right and Arsha and Walcott as super subs
Homey_Mills

J_V... I'd like to think of it as being realistic.
And while I hear you about our wide attacking areas, it also seems to me that part of it is the natural trade-off you have when going to a 4-2-3-1. You're getting more players in the middle in that formation, as I see it.
And with Walcott and Arshavin... I hear you about Arshavin, but of course I'm a big Walcott fan. Still, my whole point was to speak in relative terms. In other words, it's not that we're perfect at the forward/wing spot. It's that compared to other areas of glaring weakness, it's not where I'd spend money first.
Aj Aj

You were doing quite well for a while and then you completely lost the plot!

Of course we need another CB. Did you not see Squillaci play last year?

Why do we need another right back? Jenkinson looks like a very good backup for Sagna.

Wenger is not capable of assessing his squad needs??? But you are??

Mata and Jagielka would both be good additions.
Homey_Mills

Lost the plot?
Ok, yes, I saw Squillaci last year. He was dreadful. No argument. My point is to look at where we're relatively decent, compared to where we're dreadfully bad. Last year, we had no Vermaelen, so Squizz played a lot. This year, he's running 4th or 5th on the depth chart. We have two starters plus one solid backup. YES, I want another CD. But if I could really really really have my wish, I'd spend big bucks on Jagielka's teammate, Baines. Or another really good LB. Gibbs has never proven he can be healthy, or that he's even that good. And we're one injury away from Traore. With Squillaci, we're two injuries away.
And don't get me started on Jenkinson. Not only does he have zero experience in a top league, but he only had 8 total starts for Charlton. Eight! His other experience came at Welling United and Eastbourne Borough. Have you even heard of those clubs? It's a total joke if Eboue is sold and Jenkinson is our backup to Sagna. Just mark my words.
And finally, I hear what you're saying about my thought that I'm better at assessing our needs than Wenger. But I'll stand by it. And I promise that if I set forth my ideas about how to spend our money and resources, the large majority of readers and fans would vote for that over what Wenger is doing. Wenger has been proving constantly for the last few years that he doesn't know what he's doing on the management of his squad and transfer windows. Two years ago, I was screaming from this very same blog about how we could enter a season with just Gallas and Vermaelen as central defenders, and Silvestre behind. That was a joke. Did Wenger fix it? No. Did Silvestre ruin our season? Yes. I could name many other examples, but I don't want this to turn into a blog all its own.
Anyway, sorry for venting. I'm glad you're reading, and hope you come back again.
FredJacob

Well Homey my vote is for what Wenger is doing lol
Homey_Mills

I hope by the "lol" that you meant your comment sarcastically. :-\
brenton

While I tend to agree re: the need for another centre back, the key point I think Homey is trying to make is that while we have three starters for the two centre back positions, we only have one for left back. If one of Vermaelen, Koscielny or Djourou get hurt, we have one to fill in. If Gibbs gets hurt, we are left with Traore, the equivalent to Squillaci.
Homey_Mills

You're much more succinct that I'll ever hope to be. But yeah, that was my point in a nutshell.
SJGgumby

Unless, of course, we buy that Wenger would be comfortable playing TV5 out wide. And hasn't Jagielka played wide sometimes (or am I making that up)?
brenton

Wenger said Vermaelen would be back-up on the left. A horrible idea, considering he's our best central defender.
Homey_Mills

I'm not too opposed to it, but let me explain. My first option, if we're not going to spend big money, would be to spend 5-6 million on Enrique or someone like that. Then see if Gibbs can earn the starting spot, and we'd at least push Traore down one level. But if you told me for sure that we would buy Jagielka but not buy a LB, I'd vote for moving Vermaelen to LB. Three reasons: One is simply that Traore would be pushed down, and I trust TV5 more than Gibbs. Two is it helps us get our best players on the field at the same time. Would we be better with Jagielka, TV5, and Gibbs, or Jagielka, TV5, and Kos/Djourou? Certainly the latter. Three is that if our biggest problem area is set pieces, it would add another big presence in the air on set pieces, to help deal with such threats.
brenton

For starters, I'm not so down on Gibbs. He impressed last season. He's clearly injury-prone, but he had enough fans last year saying he should replace Clichy as the starter. Jagielka and Vermaelen in the middle, Gibbs and Sagna out wide, and Koscielny and Djourou filling in as necessary. Sounds pretty solid to me.
SJGgumby

Which I agree sounds good - until Gibbs gets injured (or, even if he does stay healthy, who knows if he performs up to the glimpses of ability we've seen). So if we don't go in for a left back but buy Jagielka, we have to trust that Wenger is comfortable with Vermaelen on the left if Gibbs can't go and Jagielka and Djourou/Koscielny in the middle. I'm not sure that's unreasonable.