Sing a Bassong of Sixpence

By: Martin | June 10th, 2009

Well, the rumor mill continues to run, and the hot rumor at the moment (see here and here) is that Sebastien Bassong is headed to North London. It’s not quite clear where in North London, however, since apparently both Arsenal and Tottenham are trying to pry the center back away from recently relegated Newcastle.

The rumor is that Newcastle is asking somewhere in the neighborhood of £12 million, although I would guess the final winning bid is more likely to be around £10 million. Since Mike Ashley is actively shopping the club, Newcastle may be what is known in the real estate world as a “motivated seller,” since if he is sold now Ashley could pocket the money as profit or use it to pay off debt, whereas if the club is sold, the profit would go to the new owners, or the new owners may decide they want to hang onto the young Frenchman.

I think Bassong would be a good fit for us. Frankly, he was far and away Newcastle’s best player last year. Now, that is a bit like saying someone is the world’s tallest midget, the valedictorian of summer school, or the least metrosexual member of the Spanish national team, but still. The fact is that Bassong played very well in a very, very bad situation last year. He’s French-Cameroonian, and I think he would fit in much better at Arsenal, with its French manager, many French players, and many African players, including Cameroonian Alex Song, than he would at Newcastle or even Spurs. Plus, he’d get to play in the Champions League with us, something Spurs can’t offer.

While I’m not quite sure Bassong is worth 8 figures, he was very good last year with Newcastle whenever I saw him play. He’s young (22), tall (6′2), and has already proven he can play in the Premier League. All in all, I think I’d be quite happy if this transfer were to go through.

But whether it goes through or not, this has other important implications. Assuming the Vermaelen deal will go through, the fact that we’re apparently still looking for center backs says to me that either Gallas or Toure, if not both, are gone sometime this summer. It’s simply hard for me to imagine that we’re going to have a squad with Vermaelen, Gallas, Kolo, Bassong, and Djourou (and Silvestre and possibly Hoyte and Senderos). Basically, I think Wenger is looking to add one quality center back to the squad–if just Vermaelen is coming in, I don’t think that necessarily means anyone is leaving the Emirates. But if Vermaelen and someone else is coming in, I think it does.

The question, then, is who that person will be. Gallas and Toure famously don’t get along, so I definitely think one of those players will be leaving. I’d like to think that Toure would stay given his history at the club. He’s our longest serving player, and last link to the Invincibles side that dominated the Premiership. But I think he may be leaving, and I’ll tell you why.

He did turn in a transfer request to Manchester City in January, so we certainly know he’s at least considered leaving the club. More worryingly for me, though, is the recent news concerning Kolo’s brother, Yaya. As you know, Yaya has often been linked with Arsenal through the years. But Yaya’s agent recently came out and said that his client was thinking of leaving Barcelona, but would definitely not be going to Arsenal. It was an odd thing to say. If nothing else, as an agent, you’d think you’d want to keep up the appearance that your client was thinking of going to a big club like Arsenal just to force other teams to bid a little higher and put more money on the table. But one explanation would be that Kolo is unhappy at Arsenal, has expressed his frustration to Yaya, and convinced Yaya that he doesn’t want to play at the Emirates. They have both been mentioned in the same breath as Manchester City, so they could both be showered with Big Daddy Oilbucks money in the near future. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

As for Gallas, I still think he’s likely to leave. But as each day passes, I think he’s more and more likely to stay. The fact is that after crying on the field in the Birmingham game, criticizing his teammates openly, getting stripped of the captaincy, his inability to get along with Toure, etc., I thought he’d surely be gone. But in the spring, he seemed to buckle down, keep a low profile, and really went about his work. I thought he was our best center back this season. Despite being over 3 years older than Toure, he certainly looked like the younger player this season. If you pair him with a center back who’s a little bigger, more physical, and better in the air, I still think Gallas can play very well at this level. At some point I imagine he’ll move to one of the non-elite Italian clubs or one of the major French clubs, but deep down he probably knows that from here on, he’s only moving on to teams of lesser quality, and he’ll never have as good of a chance to win a major trophy as he will at Arsenal. If he can manage and get along with everyone else, why wouldn’t he want to stay in North London for another season or two? And more importantly, why wouldn’t we want to keep him?

On the other hand, no one really covered themselves in glory at the center back position last year. If we were given the option of selling Toure AND Gallas, using that money plus the money the board had made available for transfers to buy Vermaelen, Bassong, and, say, Hangeland, would you do that? I think I would, so there may be a chance that both Gallas and Toure move elsewhere, and we see an all new center back pair starting next season.

We shall see. Oh, and scary moment in the Spain game yesterday as Cesc got a head wound that was bleeding pretty profusely on the field, but it turned out he was fine after a couple of stitches. Phew.