Nine Jimmy Rimmers – Arsenal and Football

Two bits of solid looking news so far.  The first is that Arsene Wenger has categorically denied the Bendtner for Arteta story.  I am relieved to hear that as, although we desperately need a creative midfielder, I think Arteta’s time has passed.

After the United game, Wenger was asked whether there was any truth in the story and he gave a one word answer – ‘No’.

The second bit of news is more weight to the Park Chu-Young story.  Most papers are running the story that a medical for the South Korean captain is imminent.  I think that Park looks like a good back up striker and would be a welcome addition.  But that still doesn’t deal with the real priorities.

Last night I wrote that Arsenal must sign new centre back and a creative midfielder as an absolute minimum.  Frankly, we need another left back as well, but time is short and the first two might just be enough to restore some confidence.

There is a report that the centre back won’t be Scott Dann because he is going to QPR.  I don’t mind that as i don’t think he’s the answer.  Although the day after we’ve conceded eight goals it’s tempting to say buy anyone!  There’s also a report that Arsenal have been in contact with Chelsea over Alex, but not a lot of evidence to back it up.

So the main prospect is still Gary Cahill.  Bolton are definitely ready to sell and apparently need some of the cash to bring in David N’Gog from Liverpool.  Let’s hope we hear something concrete on that today.

Which leaves the creative midfielder issue.  Nothing new on that at all today.  Just some reheating of Eden Hazard stuff.  The Belgium midfielder does seem the most likely.

Two and a half days to go.

Arsene Wenger says that his main focus is on a new defender but it isn’t easy. No kidding. I’m sure he’s right but then again he’s a top manager so that’s what he’s there for!

Defender talk in the Sundays is about renewed bids for Jagielka or Dann.

At his last press conference Arsene Wenger appeared to rile out Mata and Jadson. I think he was quite explicit on Mata, but all he said on Jadson was that no bid had been made. Doesn’t mean no discussion.

Anyway, the papers today are concentrating on midfielder Marvin Martin from Sochaux and winger Andre Ayew from Marseille. Both interesting prospects but I would have thought we had wingers a plenty now.

Interesting to note that the stumbling block to Adebayor’s loan move to Spurs is his £160,000 a week salary. Spurs want City to carry on paying more than half. That’s the trouble with inflating the market as City have been doing for the last three years. It makes it more expensive to move on the out of favour players because, naturally, they don’t want a pay cut.

To my mind, the root cause of Arsenal’s transfer deadlock this summer has been the way Barcelona gave behaved. What they have done over Fabregas has been straightforward extortion. But the Arsenal management’s handling of it hasn’t been too clever either.

I appreciated the decision to hang tough on the price, but the price that has been achieved isn’t that brilliant. If reports are accurate it is still short of want Cesc is worth. Now, given Fabregas’ own position, and likely motivation to play another season for us, a sale is the right choice. But you can’t help thinking that this price might have been achieved earlier, which would have freed up Arsenal’s transfer-making earlier than the day before the first game.

Did Arsene Wenger believe that Cesc could be talked round again? Did the new relationship between Wenger and Kroenke lead to dithering?

Likewise on Nasri. Did they think he was equivocal about where he played the next season? Whatever. They are now going to have to get a wriggle on. The tentative deal options they will have set up need to be pressed to conclusion double-quick.

Whatever the problem has been, this is a transfer window where you feel Arsenal have had little real control over events and with so little time left I fear it’s going leave us with a big hole somewhere.

The media seem convinced that the players on question are Mata, Dann and Brazilian midfielder Jadson. I’ve reservations about Dann but the clock’s ticking and Vermaelen needs a better partner than he has.

The good news is that the injury list for tomorrow is apparently shorter than feared. Only Wilshere joins Diaby on the sick list.

There’s a lot of chatter out there today but not a lot of hard news. Take your pick from the Dann, Cahill, Jagielka and Mertesacker exclusives, but they’re all reheated leftovers really.

There’s a new element to the Nasri story with Laurent Blanc confidently saying that he will be moving very soon. If Manchester City are really offering £20million or more Arsenal should take it.

Poor old Ian Wright has had to stop reading his Twitter messages because Arsenal fans have been giving a hard time. Sadly he will still be writing his Sun column. Well I say writing, I suspect he just has to dictate it to some junior hack who sits there encouraging him to say something more controversial. Still nice work if you can get it.

My own criticism of Ian Wright’s columns is that the are usually dull statements of the obvious. Apparently, if it all goes wrong for Arsenal and they crash out of the CL and top four then Arsene Wenger will be under great pressure. No shit Sherlock.

Nicklas Bendtner says he’s definitely leaving, still, he just can’t confirm which of the many clubs who are after him will win out. Andrey Arshavin on the other hand says he’s going nowhere despite all the Russians after him.

Quite a lot has been written about Arsene Wenger’s return to pace, with Miyaichi and Chamberlain joining Walcott. Whilst we have definitely lacked some pace recently, I’m not sure how much of the two teenagers we’re going to see on a regular basis. I’m assuming that two out of Arshavin, Gervinho and Walcott will be the usual starters.

That’s about it really. Hopefully there will be a defensive signing soon to add to the new found pace out wide.

So, I’m back in the reach of modern communications and what has changed?  Distressingly little it would seem!  Arsenal have let another lead slip, as you were on Fabregas and Nasri, the media say were interested in a bloke called Cahill and we’re about to sign a teenage winger.

Nothing wrong with signing young Oxlade-Chamberlain, if this is true, the kid clearly has potential.  But with five days days, count them, to our evening kick-off at St James Park there is still no firm sign of the defensive reinforcements we all crave.  As well as the Cahill mention, some journos are reheating the Per Mertesacker story, variously claiming that he has issued a ‘come and get me plea to Arsenal’.  Reading his actual words bring you down to earth, but it does seem clear that both he and his club are open to the idea of a move.

I’ve said before that he isn’t the most impressive central defender who ever pulled on his country’s shirt, but aside from Vermaelen he’s better than what we’ve got.  Better than yesterday’s favourite, Scott Dann, as well.

I see that Barcelona have broken into another piggy bank and offered a little more loose change for our captain.  Still nowhere near what he is worth.  Seems to be a battle of nerves now.  Can Barcelona even afford £40million?

Another dog day on transfer news. With the trail going cold on the Jagielka and Mata stories the media have stuck a couple of other names under the grill with speculative pieces about Scott Dann and Eden Hazard. No new details though.

Barcelona’s determined stalking of Fabregas and equal determination not to pay the going rate is surely the key to it all. Arsenal could have tentative deals under wraps for several players but obviously don’t feel they can jump first without knowing if Cesc stays or goes.

Barcelona, already champions of Europe can just sit and wait for Arsenal’s nerve to crack first. Today, Arsenal will put Fabregas in the official team photo, goodness knows how many they will have to take! “One more please, there’s still someone not smiling.”

Will they put Fabregas in the team for Benfica though? Maybe not, but presumably in this big poker game they must name him in the Champion’s League squad.

Meanwhile away from that hand of cards we still need a central defender. I’ve nothing against Scott Dann but I’m hoping for better.

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!’

Bits and pieces of gossip around today, some of it from fairly dubious sources.  It generally pains me to type words like ‘according to Caught Offside’ but heh, it’s the middle of July and I’ve already used up this week’s Barcelona rant quota.

Anyway, at least the gossip around is about the sort of player I think Arsenal should be buying.

So, according to Caught Offside (ouch) Arsene Wenger is back in the hunt for Scott Dann because he’s so frustrated at being unable to seal a deal on Gary Cahill. Hopefully they’re not uncharacteristically right on this one as I don’t see Dann as being any better that what we have.

More attractive is the idea of Simon Kjaer from Wolfsburg.  He would cost a bit more than Dann but I think he’s a lot better player.  Sadly this tales a bit tenuous as well as it seems to be solely based on a comment from the club that they may have to sell players after a rough season.

The third central defender linked by the media to Arsenal today is FC Copenhagen’s Mathias Jorgensen.  This one’s been knocking round a couple of days now and Arsenal have been interested in the past, giving him a trial before he went to Copenhagan.

Aside from these, the Express does a reheat job on Jagielka and Cahill, yawn!

As well as another central defender, I think Arsenal need some serious cover/competition for Alex Song.  A few European press websites link Arsenal to the St Etienne player Blaise Matuidi.  Apparently the club want to cash in to the tune of £13million.  An interesting prospect, but quite apart from the thin nature of the, I’m worried that nothing’s going to happen in the Arsenal midfield whilst the Fabregas saga.

That’s about its for Arsenal tittle-tattle this morning.  Have a nice day now!

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.