Nine Jimmy Rimmers – Arsenal and Football

Every game counts.  Well of course they always did, but you know what I mean.  The bad start, being the media’s fashionable target, the fact that Man City have joined the top table.

Anyways, trips to places like Blackburn matter just as much as anywhere else, even when they are rooted to the bottom of the league.

Steve Keen is under pressure from the media and Blackburn fans after a weak start to the season:

Premier League:
Wolves (h) – lost 2:1
Aston Villa (a) – lost 3:1
Everton (h) – lost 1:0
Fulham (a) – drew 1:1

Cup:
Sheffield Weds (h) – won 3:1

Steve Keen and club captain Chris Samba have appealed to fans to show unity and support the team, but some are planning a demonstration before the game tomorrow.  Blackburn are hoping to have Junior Hoilett and Chris Samba back from injury tomorrow but could be without David Dunn, Ryan Nelson and Morten Gamst Pedersen.

So what about the Arsenal?

Definitely out of course are Vermaelen, Diaby, Squillaci and Rosicky.  Ramsey is doubtful too, leaving Arsene Wenger with the same midfield dilemma as the Dortmund game.  Back from suspension of course are Song, Gervinho and Jenkinson.

So will we see the team from Tuesday night run out again tomorrow lunchtime?  Without Ramsey and Rosicky, Wenger has to chose between attack: Arteta, Song and Benayoun; or defend: Arteta, Song and Frimpong.  I’ve given up suggesting that Arshavin could be tried in the middle as it never seems to happen.  I guess there has to be a question about how frequently thirty-one year-old Benayoun starts as well.

Blackburn is exactly the sort of team we have tripped up against in the past and we are still surely in grinding recovery mode.  So my hunch is that Frimpong will start.

The other selection issue that is getting aired around the blogs is whether Walcott would benefit from a bit of obvious competition for his place.  Arsenal now have a wealth of wide options with Arshavin, Gervinho, Miyaichi, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Park.  Chamberlain has been doing brilliantly for the England under-21s and will surely play in the cup game against Shrewsbury next week, but could he get a start this weekend?

I’m guessing not.  Walcott hasn’t been that impressive, but he has scored three of our seven goals this season and got some assists too.

When does Santos start?  Wenger hasn’t said a lot about him and he’s only come on a sub so far.  It’s a bit hard to know what’s going on there.  Is the Brazilian with 20 caps just there to cover Gibbs?

Anyway, with no great wisdom or even guesswork to impart over the leftback, I think were going to see little change from Tuesday:

_________ Szczesny ________
Sagna __ Merte __ Kos __ Gibbs
_____ Song _ Frimpong _____
_________ Arteta __________
Walcott _ Van Persie _ Gervinho

What do you think?

What should we Gooners make of the world today?  Yesterday Arsenal showed some promise, but some familiar frailties too.

The papers have dutifully filled their pages, but not with anything new.  Some bloke called Fabregas wants to go and may be replaced by some bloke called Mata.  But some other club may hijack the deal.  Meanwhile Arsenal are poised to sign Phil Jagielka, Gary Cahill, Chris Samba and Scott Dann.  But not today.

The Sundays get the best football material during the season but lose out on breaking anything new on transfer gossip.  Some have wrestled a highly non-committal Harry Redknapp quote into a North London blood feud, but Harry’s more likely to be wondering what time to light the barbie.

Presumably today we will see Szczesny, Sagna, Koscielny, Vermaelen and Gibbs at the back and they will show us a bit more nous and composure.  Which doesn’t mean that the likes of Jagielka and Enrique wouldn’t be welcome additions.

Most impressive pre-season displays so far have been Frimpong and Gervinho.  Frimpong looks like he’s going to make up for his lost season.  But he’s still young and there is every chance of him and Song disappearing to play for their African national sides at the same time.  What happened to that Biglia rumour that flashed around the web last week?

Gervinho seems to have great pace and passing ability.  I like the way that he and Arshavin keep swapping sides.  His assist for Van Persie yesterday was inch perfect.  More of the same please!

Apparently Arsene Wenger has told Paul Lambert that Henri Lansbury is staying at Arsenal this season.  It would be good to see him on the pitch today.

Enough already, time to make sure lunch appears before the Grand Prix starts and plan when to reveal the existence of the second Arsenal game of the weekend.  ‘But it’s not even August yet!’

It looks like the move for Costa Rican wonderkid Joel Campbell is back on. Nothing on the Arsenal website yet but there’s an interview here (in Spanish but you can Google translate the accompanying text) which says that the deal is done.

More importantly for the season ahead, as the young Costa is likely to go out on loan initially, there are also credible sounding reports of a move for Juan Mata and an improved offer for Phil Jagielka.  The new bid for Jagielka, covered in The Telegraph and elsewhere, is rumoured to be £15million.  That isn’t quite what Everton are reported to want, but it’s getting close and sounds like serious talk is going on.

As I’ve said before, I’m slightly surprised that Jagielka is the preferred target given his age and injury worries, but he is a good, experienced player and having him alongside Vermaelen would be an improvement.  For all our avid following of multiple transfer rumours, we don’t really know how serious the prospect of a deal for Samba or Cahill really is.

Whilst I think improving our defensive quality is the top priority, a move for a player like Juan Mata would be exciting.  He looks a great player and if Barcelona did decide to offer the right price for Fabregas, we will need someone with Mata’s creative ability to replace him.  But do Barcelona really have the cash?  There are lengthy quotes in The Star today from Peter Hill-Wood confirming that a deal with Barcelona would be done if they offer enough money.

So come on Barca – show us the money or show some respect!

There are also mixed reports out there that Nicklas Bendtner has secured a deal to go to Sporting Lisbon.  If the doubting reports on this transfer are true, the obstacle is Bendtner’s salary.  He may have to take a pay cut, or Arsenal may have to subsidise his wages.  Probably a case of Sporting trying to wangle the best price which is fair enough.

So at last we have the prospect of some real transfer action and not all of it though the exit door.

Much coverage overnight in The Sun and elsewhere of Christopher Samba’s comments. These are widely interpreted as a plea to move and the club he mentions is Arsenal.

On the other hand, Sky quote Samba playing all this down and saying that he has never mentioned another club.

We have to bring in a dependable central defender and although Cahill is probably the better ball player, that isn’t what we’re missing. What we need is strength, determination and good judgement about where the danger is – someone else can move the ball forward.

I would be happy to see Samba join. To be honest I’d be happy to see any decent defender join after last season!

Another big transfer story, pushed hardest in the Mirror, is that Valencia’s Juan Mata is in serious talks with Arsenal. The Mirror says that his entourage of family and advisers are in London now to talk terms. He looks a great player and well worth it, regardless of whether Nasri or Fabregas are to depart.

Various media tell us that Anderlecht’s Lucas Biglia is also a possible buy and that Real Madrid would love us to take Benzema off their hands. I reckon these two stories are still firmly in the ‘dubious’ column, but Biglia is the sort of player we might need if both Song and Frimpong get called up for the African Cup of Nations competition in the New Year. Plus I think that Song could do with a bit more competition than the youthful Frimpong. Alex Song is a great player but his devotion to the defensive midfield task is prone to wander.

Not sure where Benzema would fit unless you were going to turn RVP into a more deep-lying type forward. Rather see a new left back myself.

It looks like Gervinho could get an early run in the team with news that Walcott’s ankle is playing up again. Arsenal are being a bit vague about how long recovery might take and don’t have a great track record on predicting the return of injured players anyway.

Definitely out for months is Conor Henderson, who like Frimpong last summer, has damaged his cruciate ligaments. Not sure how many first team appearances he would have got this season but he’s clearly been getting close so this will be a big disappointment.

It’s been goodbye to JET who became a Tractor Boy this week. He has clearly not impressed the Arsenal coaching staff with his attitude even if he has the ability. This could be a crucial season for him. If he impresses at Ipswich he might get into a Premiership club and, no doubt, provide a ‘sell-on’ windfall for Arsenal. A season of anonymity will herald a decade of Championship football.

There we are, a round up of rumours and scraps – these are the dog days of the football year. Doesn’t quite feel close enough to the new season to quicken the pulse, need some exciting and genuine transfer news.

It’s a typical Monday morning on the papers and football websites.  According to one we are ‘moving ahead’ of Liverpool in the race for Stewart Downing, whilst another warns that the left winger is set to snub us for a move to Anfield. On the subject of ‘moving ahead’, apparently Tottenham now have the edge on signing Samba.

You couldn’t make it up, as they don’t say on the Sunday night shift!

The Telegraph has a slightly more convincing looking piece on possible destinations for Bendtner and Almunia.  Bendtner to Borussia Dortmund or Sporting Lisbon and Almunia to Malaga or Athletico Madrid.

As I’ve said before, I don’t find Downing that convincing and the prices being talked for his contract are amazing.  If every Englishman is worth upwards of £17million, how come England never win anything?  If Arsenal do have to spend over the odds, let’s at least spend where we need it most, at the back and some cover for Song.

When it comes to defenders, an old favorite returns to the rumor mill today – Per Mertesacker.  Despite not having a great season or world cup, the big German has some Arsenal fans.  My worry is that he isn’t particularly quick, either in a straight line or on the turn.  One of the main lessons of the World Cup seemed to be that as long as you can dominate the midfield and keep the ball moving you can get away with lower quality at the back.  Neither of Germany’s central defenders did that well but the team as a whole did.

But I don’t think that the same applies to a season-long league campaign.  As we found to our cost, teams that can’t defend get found out.

Mertesacker would add some height and experience.  I think he would be as good a choice as Samba, but not as good as Cahill.  But I’m still hoping that Arsenal will use what cash it has on a really classy central defender and a proper replacement for Gael Clichy.

This is supposedly the week we say goodbye to Almunia and Bendtner.  Let’s hope we finally get to say some hellos as well!

After two days of high temperatures it looks like the weather is going to break.  Could it be the same for Arsenal’s transfer window action?

The BBC are pretty sure of their story that Arsenal are prepared to deal on Fabregas if the price is right.  Part of me actually does want the price to be right rather than watch Arsenal forced into another summer of indecision.

Because for all the blathering on about Arsene and Arsenal being tightfisted or inept in the market, the truth is that it all hangs on Cesc Fabregas.  He is the best player we have, even with his injury record and his heart in Barcelona.  His presence in the team, or absence in the future, dictates the sort of players that Arsenal need – and how much cash is available to buy them.  Arsene Wenger probably has two pieces of paper, plan with Cesc, plan without Cesc.

Much as I’d like to tell Barcelona to get stuffed, reality calls.  You can debate whether Arsenal could have avoided this pass or whether Cesc’s desire to return and Barca’s seemingly endless capacity to borrow, meant we would always have ended up here, but this is where we are and now we need to be decisive.  Either we’re strengthening around Cesc or we’re re-shaping without him.  The players needed and the cash available are different in each scenario.

It’s a decision that even affects options on defenders.  Sifting through the various reports suggests that the difference between the likes of Cahill and Samba is about £5million.  Does it matter?  Depends on how many players we need, which depends on Cesc!

At the moment were stifled.  A big storm may scare the kids for a while but it may take us to a period when people can get down to some serious work.

As a footnote, the one thing I find odd about the BBC piece is the stuff about Lady Bracewell-Smith’s tweeting.  Are they sure?  I mean, this is someone who has notoriously said very little.  Now she is tweeting forthright views about Arsenal and its directors?  Hmm.

Well Arsene started it I suppose, promising a busy summer!  Did I miss anyone out of the Sunday paper rumour fest?

The stuff in all this that is most likely for real is that a deal is there soon for Gervinho and a deal for Samba is being contemplated by Arsenal and Blackburn.  Blackburn’s Chairman reveals that Samba ‘has an ambition to play for Arsenal’ and that they might reluctantly have to go a long with it.

You can understand that reluctance when they’ve already lost Jones.  I mean, it would be like us losing Fabregas and Nasri in the same window wouldn’t it?

If these two deals (or a different central defender) do come through soon it will settle nerves around the place as a firm signal from Arsene Wenger that he really does intend more change than normal this summer.

I’m not going to write a deep analysis of how Eto’o and Barton could work well in the same team, though I suppose stranger things have happened.  Inside I’m torn between the prospect of having to think positively about Joey Barton and the images of Arsenal heads dropping against bottom-half opposition!  I’m going to lock that all away in a dark corner for now as 90% of this transfer stuff is rubbish anyway.

Perhaps the sane thing to do is ignore all the Sunday papers in June and follow the example of of Arsenal blog ‘A Cultured Left Foot’ – which today spurns transfer speculation for an appreciation of Anders Limpar.  For more recent fans, he was sort of Andrey Arshavin in an earlier life.  Anyway it’s well worth a look.

Great memories, that dreadful ‘rag-doll’ away strip.  That game against Coventry with Limpar’s hat-trick – even Perry Groves scored, but mind you the Coventry captain got Arsenal’s first with a bullet header past his own keeper!  Brian Moore (?) described it as one of Arsenal’s most spectacular goals of the season!

The latest words from Fabregas and Nasri sources dampen down speculation of a move for either.  Fabregas say he is a happy Arsenal player and Nasri is apparently only talking to Arsenal.

Of course that doesn’t mean that both are definitely staying, but it does mean that neither is trying to ramp up the pressure.  Well who knows, but certainly the Fabregas to Barcelona story doesn’t seem quite as hysterical as last year.  For today I shall be optimistic!

Elsewhere there’s still plenty of bubble and froth.  The Mirror claim exclusively that Arsenal are swooping in on Jermaine Defoe.  I can’t see this myself.  How and why would that work?

According to The Sun, Sebastian Larsson is set to return.  Although I was surprised that he didn’t get more of a chance before he left Arsenal, this doesn’t sound that credible.  Sounds like more froth as agents for players in relegated clubs work to keep their clients visible!  Oh the joy of June, with the action on the pitch over but the transfer action not really in high gear.

By contrast with all the above, things seem to have gone a bit quiet on the central defender front.  What there is out there is mainly us Arsenal fans hopefully echoing earlier stories about Samba or Cahill.  No-one seems that taken with the idea that Roger Johnson and/or Scott Dann are the answer to our prayers at the back.  Of the two, I would favour Cahill, but could we get him if Manchester City open their mega-wallet?

Christopher Samba would certainly be a help on high balls and set-pieces.  He would be hard to bully as well, but I don’t think he has much pace.  I’m not saying that he’s Senderos or Cygan in disguise, but some nippy forwards are just going to wave him goodbye.  It would have to be mix’n'match with Koscielny I suppose, depending what the biggest threat was in a game.  But we definitely have to do something to cut the number of goals we concede.  Hope we get some real news on this front soon.

Anyway, that’s enough staring into the murky water for now.  Better go and earn some money.

Three weeks after the end of the summer and Arsenal have made one signing.  Judging by the reaction of some fans you would think that they’d also announced that it will be the only signing of the the summer.

Carl Jenkinson looks a decent buy to me, he’s there to keep Sagna on his toes and presumably to let Eboue depart for regular starts elsewhere.  Of course if he does turn out to be the only buy of the summer, that will be depressing, but there is plenty of time left yet.

Most pundits seem convinced that Arsenal have also tied up a deal to bring in Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain from Southampton.  Although he looks promising for the future, that doesn’t set the heart racing for next season – unless Arsene Wenger is planning to move Theo up front and centre straight away.

A few days ago there seemed to be a media consensus that Gervinho was definately on his way to the Emirates, but now they’re not so sure!  Happy to wait and see on that one as the real need is some better defenders and someone to back up Song when we’re clinging on to a result.

Over this weekend we’ve been linked with just about every conceivable English Central Defender plus Mamadou Sakho for good measure!

Apparently we’re in for Scott Dann and Roger Johnson from Birmingham City. I know we lost the Carling to them but really?

Alternatively we’re in for Christopher Samba, Phil Jagielka or Gary Cahill.  One of these is more likely and I think would be welcome.  I would hope for Cahill as the best option but if Manchester City are determined to have him as rumoured, there won’t be much Arsenal can do about it.  After that I would go for Samba over Jagielka.  I’m not sure that there is much between them on ability and Samba has more presence.

Most of the the Arsenal coverage though is about the apocalyptic exodus we apparently face.  I think that there will be a fair few on their way in this window but it’s far from crisis time.

Bendtner needs to leave for his own good and he won’t be overly missed.  If Clichy goes he will need replacing as I don’t think Gibbs is quite ready yet and seems a bit injury prone.  I had high hopes of Clichy, and his first season after Ashley Cole went promised a lot, but nothing much since and he seems to be in a rut now.  Leighton Baines has been mentioned by some and would be good.  But it’s hard to separate real stories from agent talk and page-filling at the moment.

So hold tight and don’t panic yet!

Denilson is widely quoted as wanting to leave Arsenal in search of regular first-team football that will, apparently, propel him into the Brazil team.  I don’t want to do the guy down, but I suspect it isn’t as simple as that!  But he won’t be greatly missed.  He showed early promise but his development seemed to stall and now Wilshere and Ramsey make him a distant choice.  At the moment he is only really getting in as less than ideal cover for Song. The Mirror suggests that Sevilla, Roma and Wolfsberg would be interested.

The Mirror rounds off its piece by tossing in the Sagna to Real Madrid story plus Chris Samba or Phil Jones coming in from Blackburn to shore up the defence.  Neither are bad players, but I’m not sure either would be the step forward we need.

According to The Sun, Arsenal have contacted Real Madrid about attacking midfielder Sergio Canales, but supply any real detail.

The Nicklas Bendtner exit story is in the Guardian today but it doesn’t seem to add any new information from yesterday.

The Mirror’s main Arsenal story is that Arshavin is going back to Zenit St Petersberg, or possibly Udinese.  I guess we’re going to see a lot of Arshavin stories, but will he actually go?  Wenger still makes positive statements about him and Arsenal won’t want to drop too much of the £12million he cost to bring in.  Plus he won’t want much of a wage cut.  I think he’s more likely to stay than go, despite his rather lacklustre season.

Over at The Mail they think that Arsenal are having a good look at Stewart Downing!  Really?  I agree with Arseblog on that one:  ‘if he were right footed, would be scratching around the Championship somewhere’.  Exactly so!

Day 2 – Tuesday 24th May 2011

In – (mentions)

Sergio Canales (1) from Real Madrid – Sun
Stewart Downing (1) from Aston Villa – Mail
Phil Jones (1) from Blackburn Rovers - Mirror
Chris Samba (1) from Blackburn Rovers - Mirror

Out - (mentions)

Andrey Arshavin (1) to Zenit or Udinese – Mirror
Bacary Sagna (1) to Real Madrid – Mirror
Denilson (3) to Sevilla, Roma or Wolfsburg – Various

In - (daily mentions since end of season)

Ricardo Alvarez -  1
Sergio Canales -  1
Stewart Downing -  1
Phil Jones -  1
Chris Samba -  1

Out - (daily mentions since end of season)

Andrey Arshavin -  1
Niklas Bendtner -  1
Denilson -  1
Bacary Sagna -  1