Nine Jimmy Rimmers – Arsenal and Football

Well that was certainly a big finish!  Five players brought in over the last three days.  Two of them confirmed in the final hour.

Arsenal’s summer transfer story came in three parts: the pre-planned deals, the Fabregas/Nasri saga and the frenetic final sprint for the line.

Arsene Wenger clearly had the Jenkinson and Gervinho deals well in-hand before the window opened.  This part of the story was completely under control and to a plan.  Both players have already shown great promise, although obviously Gervinho is much more the finished item than Jenkinson.  Both have shown a bit indiscipline too, but I think these are probably just early mistakes and they will do well.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was also clearly part of a plan, but he took a little longer to land.  Just about every pundit agrees that he has great potential.  Perhaps more than previous Southampton recruit Theo Walcott.  But by this stage there were rumblings, surely we needed some more experienced recruits?  After a season where we were up for so much success and then choked, surely we weren’t just going to bring in more ‘stars of the future’.

This part of the summer can be judged a fair success, but we will how good the plan was at that stage, because the rest of the window was taken over by the fight for Cesc Fabregas and, to a lesser extent, Samir Nasri.

Much had already been written about this and there are still unanswered questions about Barcelona’s behavior, whether Arsenal could have taken more initiative to control the situation and who was really calling the shots at the club.  Arsenal has a culture of being very discreet about the way it goes about its business, but from the public comments that were made, there was clearly tension and disagreement in the management team.

Whatever the reasons, it put Arsenal in a precarious position.  The very late decisions on Fabregas and Nasri meant that potential recruits thought they might as well wait a few days more and see whether Arsenal’s Champions League status was secure.  By that time, Arsenal also had to attend to preparing for one of the biggest fixtures of the season with a mounting injury list.

Part two of the summer story was an undeniable shambles that destabilised the club.

So, on to the final part, three days to strengthen the squad and restore confidence in Arsenal and Arsene Wenger.

Clearly Arsene Wenger will have had a list of targets in mind, to go after once Champions League football could be promised.  But the humiliating result at Old Trafford must surely have stiffened the resolve.  As the game went pear-shaped and Arsene looked at the options sat around him, he must have felt pretty desperate.

The result of this mix of fore-thought and desperation is actually quite impressive and most fans will be feeling relieved this morning.

We wanted solid, experience.  Players who could come in and make a difference straight away.  That’s what we’ve got.

Per Mertesacker – 26, club captain with 75 games for Germany.
Andre Santos – 28, with 22 games for Brazil.
Park Chu-Young – 26, captain of South Korea.
Yossi Benayoun – 31, experienced playmaker with 83 games for Isreal and 163 in the Premiership.
Mikel Arteta – 29, now Arsenal’s most experienced Premiership player with 173 games.

I’m not going to hide from the fact that I’d hoped for better in midfield.  We have lost Cesc Fabregas and dreamed of Hazard, M’Vila, Kaka, Snjeider and Schweinsteiger.  But some of these great players probably had no intention of moving and if they did then United, City and Chelsea would have been there with cash too.

But Arteta and Benayoun are quality, experienced players, who together add considerable depth to the line up of Ramsey, Rosicky and Wilshere.  Mertesacker and Santos fill big holes in our defence.  Park has the potential to be a great impact player and to share Van Persie’s workload.

So not a dream finish, but a pretty damn good one that I think does enough to restore confidence.  Time will tell of course but today, we are back in the game at least.

Today we should see some official announcements as the better quality rumours of yesterday are turned into solid stories.  We should see confirmation that Park Chu-Young and Andre Santos are now Arsenal players.

Both of these deals represent some rapid footwork on Arsenal’s part, in stark contrast to the rest of our dealings this summer.

Fenerbahce’s punishment for match-fixing was announced last week, creating the possibility that they would be open to deals on star players and that the players themselves would want a move.  Now Santos is an Arsenal player and Traore is being offloaded to QPR.  Nice work for a change.

Some quick work also allowed Arsenal to hijack Lille’s deal for Monaco’s Park Chu-Young and secure what looks like a very decent back-up striker to Robin Van Persie.

Of course, that still leaves the long drawn out saga of filling key vacancies in central defence and midfield.

So what are the quality rumours of today that will be the solid transfer deals of tomorrow?

Over the last twenty-four hours, Arsenal have been linked to loads of players as the media and players’ agents try to help spend the sizable transfer budget.

In the last twenty-four hours, Arsenal have been linked with:

Eden Hazard, Yossi Benayoun, Gary Cahill, Leighton Baines, Marouane Fellaini, Alex, Kaka, Eljero Elia, Park Chu-Young, Yann M’Vila, Mikel Arteta, Adam Johnson, Mateo Kovacic, Mario Goetze, Florent Malouda and Sol Campbell to name but a few.

Most intriguing perhaps are the three Chelsea players.  What’s going on here?  Presumably, someone has leaked some sort of contact with Chelsea but nobody really knows who it is about.  Or is Arsene about to play some kind of Chelsea Supermarket Sweep and have them all!

Or is it just simply made up stuff from journalists who haven’t got any copy and so they’ve trawled the list of out of favour players.  Of course there are plenty of out of favour players, just at Chelsea and Manchester City.  The combination of huge budgets and rapid turnover of managers has left quite a few decent players warming the bench at both clubs.

As far as a central defender goes, I still think there is a good chance that we will see a deal for Gary Cahill.  Despite the hostile rhetoric of the last few weeks the logic is there.  Bolton need cash to bring in a striker, they are massively in debt.  We have the cash and Cahill could leave on a free next year.

There is some talk that Spurs want him too, but nothing of substance and at the moment Arsenal could outbid them if we really want him.

Benayoun or Malouda?  I can’t see that Malouda has anything that Gervinho or Park don’t already bring.

Benayoun as Fabregas replacement?  Maybe. Not as good obviously, but the endless saga of Cesc’s departure has probably blown the chance of an equal replacement.  There is also an argument that spreading the budget over more than one replacement could give Arsenal a more balanced side.

We shall see, and soon now – less than two days to go.

Arsenal have money to spend and gaps to fill, so the media is hard at work trying to figure out who’s in and who’s not.

The Mirror kicks off with  a double raid on Lille for attacking midfielder Eden Hazard and defensive midfielder Yann M’Vila, plus another crack at landing Everton’s Phil Jagielka.  Meanwhile various on-line sources say we are in for Lazio’s Argentine striker Mauro Zarate.  It’s going to be a long week, but at least the gossip is about the right sort of players.

Except for the Kaka story that is!  That’s almost as pluasible as Arsene Wenger claiming that he didn’t no exactly what the rules are for a touchline ban.  Which is why he now has a ban for the next two European games as well.

Caught Offside would have us believe that Arsenal have offered Nicklas Bendtner to Werder Bremen as a swap for Per Mertesacker.  Per Mertesacker says that he’s staying where he is. Nicklas Bendtner appears to have stopped listing all the clubs where he might be headed!

Meanwhile, many are reporting Mancini issuing an ultimatum that if Nasri plays in the Champions league for Arsenal then the deal is off.  The real question though is why it hasn’t already happened.  Most popular speculation is that Manchester City are bulking at the Agent’s fees involved.  On the one hand this seems odd given the that City have so much money, but you could see their point.  Given that they are shouting from the rooftops about who they want to buy and offering mountains of gold, what exactly is there for an agent to do?

According to The Mirror, Barcelona are confident that this is the week they finally get their. Strange that they want him with that injury heh?

Well yawn, yawn I guess, this after all has been how every week has started this summer and last. And yet, and yet, it all feels a bit more real this time.

What’s a decent price for Cesc and will Arsenal get it? In an open, competitive race, the price would have to be £50, £60million. Think Ronaldo and Kaka. Trouble is, Fabregas is either playing for Arsenal or Barcelona next season. No-one else and Barcelona know it. Which probably means £30 to £40million. Is that enough to say yes?

Wenger faces a grim choice, keep Fabregas, body but not soul; or take the money and remodel?

The only other stories out there today seem to be Arsenal’s supposed interest in Estaban Granero and more speculation about Downing.

The Granero story is only on Caught Offside. The Downing story? Surely he’s not worth £17million, even as an overpriced Brit?