The Sound of Silence (Transfer Window in Review)

By: Martin | September 1st, 2009

Well, that’s it. The transfer window has come and gone, not with a bang but a whimper. No signings, no sales, no loans to report on the last day. For better or for worse, this is our squad until January.

To review, we sold or released three players over the summer–Amaury Bischoff, Kolo Toure, and Emmanuel Adebayor. Bischoff was clearly never going to feature in the squad, Toure wanted out and looked suddenly very old last season, and Adebayor was . . . well, he was Adebayor. We raised £40 million total from sales this summer.

We also sent four players out on loan–Henri Lansbury, Jay Simpson, Havard Nordveit, and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas. Promising players all, but none figured into our plans for this season, so this doesn’t hurt us in any competition except the Carling Cup.

In terms of players we brought in, our only purchase was Thomas Vermaelen, who looks a bargain so far at £10 million. This, despite media reports linking us with scores of players over the course of the summer, most notably Felipe Melo and Marouane Chamakh. Other than that, the only player we could claim as an “import” would be Phillipe Senderos, who returned from his year-long loan spell at AC Milan.

So we lost three players, got back two, and made a profit of £30 million on the transfer market. Now, I can’t think that Wenger doesn’t think the squad couldn’t use another player or two, but despite making a large profit, he made no move. I don’t want to beat this drum yet again, but I honestly believe that Arsenal’s finances are substantially worse than they’re claiming, and the board feel they need that profit to cover real estate losses or interest payments on the Emirates loans. The only other explanation is that Wenger really believes that the squad doesn’t need any more players, which would also be very concerning for different reasons.

Anyway, the loss of Adebayor doesn’t worry me–we’ve still got Robbie, Arshavin, Walcott, Eduardo, Bendtner, and Vela up front. Replacing Toure with Vermaelen was definitely an upgrade, and with Djourou and Senderos providing cover before Silvestre sees action, we’re not in terrible shape at the back (make no mistake, I think we could have used someone like Bassong for extra cover and to provide some pace, since Djourou and Senderos aren’t all that fleet of foot–I just think it could have been a lot worse if, say, Senderos had gone to Everton).

The middle of the field is the one area where I really would have liked to see one more quality player come in for cover. With Rosicky, Nasri, and Cesc all currently injured, we’re having to make do with Diaby, Denilson, and Song. Behind them, all we have are the talented but extremely raw teenagers, Ramsey and Wilshere. We’re an injury or two away from having a real mess on our hands, and don’t forget that Song will be out for virtually all of January at the African Cup of Nations. A guy like Felipe Melo really would have been a perfect fit, I have to say, and I think there will come a day when we’ll all really be pulling our hair out that we didn’t pony up the extra cash sign him when we had a decent chance.

Still, though, Arsenal is a good team, and an improving team, that I think can take us on a fun ride this season. They’ve proven this season that they’re going to be a force to be reckoned with, let’s hope that despite the lack of reinforcements, they turn that promise into silverware between now and May.

Back to the international break monotony, I’ll post if anything happens over the next couple of days.