I wrote about Scott Parker in my last blog which was at the end of last season. I am still absolutely amused/stunned/pissed that we haven't bought this guy. He has everything we need right now: he is English; he has a lot of experience; great player; and he has the fighting spirit we need, the guy doesn't back down. Considering that West Ham were relegated he won't cost more than £9-£12 million pounds. He should have been our first summer signing right after the season ended. I know Wenger does not like players above the age of 30 but we have enough young guys, we need some veteran leadership. The way it looks we have not shown any interest towards the guy so that leads me to believe that we won't buy him which is a huge disappointment.
The Cesc and Nasri sagas are also starting to really annoy me. I am a firm believer that no one is bigger than the club. If a player does not want to stay and wants to play for another club, sell him for the right price and buy players that WANT to wear the Arsenal shirt. I can understand that Nasri was not offered that great of a deal initially but we have improved the offer significantly since. If he is still not happy with it then it's time for him to go to City and play for money. Again, if those two guys don't want to play for Arsenal, sell them, and use the £58 million that we can get for both and go buy guys who want to play for us.I can immediately think of guys who we can buy: Wesley Sneijder from Inter is one of them. Great player with a lot of experience and a proven winner. We can also pay the £17.5 million that Valencia wants for Mata and get that deal done as well. I understand that there is a risk, that if you sell your stars and the replacements you want to buy refuse to come, then you will have a problem. But it won't be a bigger problem than keeping guys who are not motivated enough to play and fight for your club. And if you are that worried about it, sell one of them first and keep the other until you buy the replacements, this way you have somewhat of a safety net.
Now, a little bit about our only significant piece of business this summer: Gervihno. I haven't watched him enough and we won't know how good he is until the season is over and we can make an overall assessment. But from what i have seen/heard so far the guy looks like he can be a stud for us :). He scored two good goals against Cologne and he definitely brings some speed and quickness into our attack. Our left back Gibbs also said some good words for Gervihno and said they were getting a handful from him in training so he is looking good for us so far!
I am also going to mention the other signing we had this summer: Carl Jenkinson. I guess we are planning on selling Eboue, otherwise i don't know why we would buy another right back. Considering we sold Clichy, we need a left back to cover for Gibbs. I know Traore is back but i am not sure he is good enough. Jenkinson sounds really excited to be playing for us. I saw an interview with him and he said he was an Arsenal fan and his family is as well. So he was delighted to wear the Arsenal shirt, now he just needs to prove that he is good enough.
Now a little bit about players that are possibly leaving the club. I am not happy Clichy left and even though a lot of people are saying he waited long enough and deserves to go somewhere else and win some trophies, i believe he should have showed some balls and won trophies with us. He was definitely a good player for us, but he also had the tendency to make some sloppy mistakes. I really think if Gibbs can stay healthy we will be fine on the left. And now to a really good news: Denilson is out!!!! So happy that this clown is not gonna be around for at least an year. It would have been even better if we had sold him but understandably no club wants to buy him because he sucks. It looks like Bentdner is on the way out as well. Nothing is confirmed yet but we should be able to sell him somewhere and get around £10 million for him. I actually liked the guy and i feel if he played like a typical striker (not a winger as Wenger played him all year lol) he could be really good. But in all honesty he is nowhere near Van Persie as quality, and since he doesn't want to be a role player, it's better we let him go. Maybe we can use the money we get from him to buy another defender.
I probably won't write again until the Newcastle game and hopefully by then we will make some good signings and make Gunner nation happy. But if the Professor steps it up and makes some really good moves on the transfer market, i might get excited and throw in another blog entry :). Either way, i can't wait for the season to start! It feels like it's been forever since i last watched a competitive soccer game. My fantasy football team is all set and ready to go too, i just wish they allowed more than 3 Arsenal players per team.
