Nine Jimmy Rimmers – Arsenal and Football

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.

It looks as if Arsene Wenger’s target striker is South Korea captain Park Chu-Young. The Monaco striker was half way through a move to Lille, but Arsenal have hijacked the the deal it seems and apparently he is in his way to London for a medical.

Park Chu-Young has been at Monaco since 2008 and his strike rate has been steadily improving.  In 08/09 he scored 5 in 35 starts, in 09/10 it was 9 in 33 starts and last season he was up to 12 goals in 35 starts.

Usually Arsene Wenger says very little about transfer plans.  But this hasn’t been a usual summer and now he has said exactly what he wants: a striker, a midfielder and a defender.

The defender that he’s been pressing for over the last 48 hours is obviously Gary Cahill. Equally obvious, despite the hostile comments of Coyle and Gartside, is Bolton’s need to sell.

Like Nasri, Cahill is a valuable asset a in the last year of his contract.  Whilst Arsenal could have taken the risk of Nasri leaving on a free, it made more sense to take the money.  The same applies to Bolton only more so.

Although Phil Gartside showed a complete lack of class in retweeting that abusive comment, he’s probably hoping to drum up some rival bids. The problem he has is that other wealthy clubs have already bought central defenders.  So Arsenal have probably done no harm by starting with a relatively low bid.

Rumour has it that the alternate to Cahill is Raul Albiol who is apparently surplus to requirements at Real Madrid.  I don’t know how solid that rumour is and you always wonder about a player that is being offloaded.  But he’s experienced and we certainly need someone.

Some French media sources claim that for all the public denials, the move for Lille’s Eden Hazard is definitely on if a price can be agreed.  But that price could be £35million.  Well if he’s the right player, we’ve got the money.

I’ve no idea who the striker will be.  It’s clear though from Wenger’s comments that he is expecting Bendtner to leave.  We he a striker, he said, to cover us when Gervinho and Chamakh are both away at the African Cup of Nations.

After all the waiting, the last few days of the transfer window could be exciting.  Let’s hope there is actually enough time to get the deals done.

Meanwhile there’s the small matter of taking on Manchester United tomorrow!  Choosing the squad will be easy, step forward anyone who isn’t suspended and is actually fit enough to step forward.

The obvious hole is holding midfielder, with both Song and Frimpong unavailable.  The two options are probably Djourou or Vermaelen.  Johann Djourou used to play as a defensive midfielder and Thomas Vermaelen clearly has the mobility to cover there too.  That’s assuming Vermaelen has got over the knock he took on Wednesday.

The key to this decision is most likely to be which one of them is needed alongside Koscielny at the back.  My guess is that having the strongest back four will take priority and so Djourou will cover for Song.  Does completing that strongest back four mean Jenkinson or Traore?  I think it was significant that Wenger started with Jenkinson for the must win game against Udinese, with Traore coming on later.  Plus there is talk of Traore spending the season on loan at QPR.

With no Gervinho I guess Arshavin will start.

So I’m guessing:

________ Szczesny _______
Jenkinson _ Kos _ Verm _ Sagna
_________ Djourou _______
_____Rosicky _ Ramsey ____
Walcott _ Van Persie _ Arshavin

What do you think?

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?

Lille General Manager Frederic Paquet has told a French radio station that there will be talks with Arsenal soon about a potential transfer of Gervinho – according to reports running on the BBC.  Looks like a pretty solid story.

In another quote though he describes Eden Hazard as ‘untransferable’.