Weekend News Roundup

When there’s no match to preview, what do you do? News Roundup!

Well, to be quite honest, at the time of writing, there is a scarcity of meaningful Arsenal news this week. The few morsels are of the “brush aside after skimming” quality, but the show must go on. We’ll start with the type of news every single Arsenal fans love to hear about- transfer rumors!

Earlier this week, much was made about Barcelona’s rumored interest in our beloved #13, Wojcech Szczesny. Of course, this is the kind of story that simultaneously provokes annoyance, anger, and deep inside, fear within Arsenal fans, so safe to say, any kind of denial towards this story was in due order. Things didn’t really get better when SZCZ did an interview in Standard English Tabloid, basically saying that he couldn’t say for sure that he was staying at Arsenal for his entire career, but that he would like to. He also mentioned how he was quickly becoming a leader within the team, and the he would very much like the honor of captaining the Arsenal one day.

Of course, the sports media, being the sensible, objective, cautious news medium that they are, wasted no time in spinning his remarks to claim that he was “demanding” the Arsenal captaincy and the further continuation of the Barca rumors. So SZCZ, being the awesome guy that he is, personally went on his Twitter to refute the rumors. As always, a Gunner through and through.

Another transfer story was floated this week, but it did not end in such a happy resolution. Robin van Persie was interviewed by Another Standard English Tabloid, and was obviously asked about his thoughts for his future, including if he would leave Arsenal. He basically said that he wouldn’t rule out leaving Arsenal for another English club once his contract ran out, and that while he “debuted with a win against City, times had changed”, in response on him leaving for Manchester City. He also said that he liked England, and didn’t really want to leave the country.

It is depressing to hear, and I get the feeling that a lot of Arsenal fan and supporters don’t want to hear it or are just pretending that it doesn’t exist, but at some point, you have to notice that huge elephant in the room, especially if he’s ruining your furniture: as things stand right now, it’s highly unlikely that van Persie will re-sign a new contract with Arsenal. At his age and with his injury record, he knows that the next contract he signs will be the last major contract of his career. And basically any wage we can offer him, a club like City or even Chelsea can match and supersede, so if van Persie’s motivated solely by money, then we’re going to have to say goodbye to him come summer.

But, and bear with me, I just don’t think van Persie’s in it just for the money. He has ambitions to win trophies and be successful, and let’s face it- Arsenal, at the moment, do not look like winning anything anytime soon. And while you could successfully argue that Nasri’s move was motivated by money, on evidence that he stalled his contract talks before our spring collapse in 2010/11, van Persie has the weight of all that has happened since losing the Carling Cup Final to back him up- the aforementioned spring collapse, an awful summer in which two of our three world-class players leave, one for a criminally undervalued sum, a lack of meaningful investment in the transfer window, and now our pathetic form and style of play this season. All of these things, in one way or another, have contributed to van Persie feeling that this club just isn’t moving Forward anymore. And unless we manage to dramatically improve our league form right after the international break ends, I just don’t see us being in the mix for the top 4 come January. Which means that in order to have any chance of van Persie signing a new contract with us, one of two things (or preferably both) has to happen: 1) Arsenal re-invest heavily in January, including the purchase of a world-class player, and make top 4 because of said investment. 2) Arsenal win a trophy, at this point either the FA/Carling Cup, in order to show van Persie we are still able to win and catapult ourselves into loftier ambitions.

Neither of those two things look very likely to happen right now (look at Gazidis’ comments on the club’s finances for proof), so unless we start playing awesome soon, I think we’re going to say goodbye to van Persie come next summer. I hope I’m proven wrong, but this was a situation Arsenal could have entirely avoided. Oh well.

Moving along from the transfer rumors, most of our Gunners will be involved, and in most cases, have been involved in international duty with their respective NT’s this following week. Here’s the full list of who’s involved:

Aaron Ramsey: Wales (Euro ‘12 Qual.)
Theo Walcott, Kieran Gibbs: England (Euro ‘12 Qual.)
Robin van Persie: Netherlands (Euro ‘12 Qual.)
Park Chu-Young: South Korea (Friendly & WC ‘14 Qual.)
Laurent Koscielny: France (Euro ‘12 Qual.)
Johan Djourou: Switzerland (Euro ‘12 Qual.)
Marouane Chamakh: Morocco (AFCON ‘12 Qual.)
Per Mertesacker: Germany (Euro ‘12 Qual.)
Andrei Arshavin: Russia (Euro ‘12 Qual.)
Lukasz Fabianski: Poland (Friendly)
Yossi Benayoun: Israel (Euro ‘12 Qual.)
Tomas Rosicky: Czech Republic (Euro ‘12 Qual.)
Alex Song: Cameroon (AFCON ‘12 Qual.)
Gervinho: Ivory Coast (AFCON ‘12 Qual.)
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain: England U21’s (U21 Qual.)

Wow, that’s a long list. For all the talk people have given in recent weeks that the international breaks would be welcome by our team, in the thought that players would have more time to recover, most of our first team is either injured.. or playing in these “breaks”. Naturally, this only increases the chance that one or more of our players will be injured, and with the size of our current injury list, that is something we cannot afford to do.

At the time of writing, most of the players listed have already played once. It kicked off on Thursday, where our beloved Ox got himself a hat-trick, a career first, against the Iceland U21’s. By all accounts, all three goals were stupendously taken, and good on Ox on having such a great start to his season. Yesterday, the majority of our European players got involved in some way or another. Among the notable contributions were Aaron Ramsey, who got a goal as Wales beat the Swiss 2-0 and ended their qualification hopes, Theo Walcott, who got an assist in England’s typical 2-2 draw with Montenegro, Tomas Rosicky, who continued to put in a good shift as the Czechs succumbed 2-0 to a half-sleep Spanish side, and Park Chu-Young, who got a brace in South Korea’s friendly 2-2 draw with Poland. Wenger, why the hell not give him a minute or so?
Laurent Koscielny and Johan Djourou, who were reportedly injured as far back as the Spurs game, did not see any action with the French and Swiss NT’s, respectively. Make of that what you will.

And that’s pretty much it. Gervinho will be involved today, for the Ivory Coast in an AFCON qualifier. As far as I know, none of our players got injured yesterday in their internationals (knock on wood). There will be a new post between tomorrow and Monday. Have a good Saturday!

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Category: Arsenal News