The North Bank – “It’s got va-va-voom” (An Arsenal blog)

Good morning to you all. Hope you have had a nice weekend so far.

Friday saw the official unveiling of Fran Merida as an Atletico Madrid player and he was full of kind and respectful words for Wenger and the club, and rightly so. Like Cesc, we took him from Barcelona and gave him a real footballing education. It is nice to see that even though he is just 20yrs old, he still has enough intelligence and good grace to leave the club with his head held high which, again, is the complete opposite of players such as Cole and Adebayor.

The Evening Standard is persisting with linking us with Brede Hangeland, but John Cross of The Mirror is fairly insistent that there is absolutely nothing in this link. Time will tell, I suppose. To be honest, I would prefer to see someone like Chiellini sign for us rather than Hangeland. However, I would definitely prefer Hangeland over Newcastle’s Taylor. The latter being a player I have always loathed, so I am praying that we don’t sign him.

7am kick-off has an interesting take on the detestable ‘transfer linked’ section on the official website. I really do hope that the club sees some sense and takes it down soon. Though if, as 7am kick-off hypothesizes, their idea is to put it there just to throw lazy journalists off the scent of our true targets it would be a surprising move by the club. I don’t feel that having transfer speculation and gossip on the club’s official site is a good idea. The official site should be bigger and better than that.

Elsewhere, Paul Merson has had a bit of a pop at Walcott and his lack of any real improvement. He does have a point, to an extent, but I don’t think that he should be too hard on Walcott as he has spent much of the past two seasons out with injury and therefore hasn’t had a good period of fitness in which to get a proper run of games and training together in order to make the desired improvement. Given a full season of injury-free football, the Holy Grail for any Arsenal player, I am sure that he will improve and develop into the player that we hoped he would be when we first signed him. It’s too early to write him off just yet. Hopefully the help and tuition from Beckham at the World Cup will result in an improvement in Theo’s delivery of the final ball.

There is no further word on the potential signing of Joe Cole as mentioned by Arseblog the other day, but it is a possibility especially as he is going on a free. To get two free players in one summer would sort out the attacking element of our team nicely and still leave Wenger with a sizeable kitty to reinforce the defensive side of things. So, we’ll just have to wait and see. Though if Man Shitty step in with a contract offer, we won’t be able to come close to matching it.

Reading this article about the debt at ManUre just serves to highlight and reinforce how lucky we are that the board of our club act as custodians and run things in a self-sustaining manner. It also places more importance on the final destination of the shares of Lady Nina. We need those shares to go to someone that feels a responsibility towards the club and its fans, not to someone that will try and leverage any buyout against the club in order to sell that stake on at a profit at a later point and walk away leaving the club in a debt-ridden state like ManUre or Liverpool.

Reuters reported yesterday that Diaby is keen to step out of Vieira’s long shadow, by which I hope they are talking in terms of the metaphorical big boots that Diaby has to fill, and not the long shadow that Vieira was famous for while at the club.

Mark Schwarzer gave a less than convincing denial of the current rumours linking him to Arsenal. It was a typical move by a footballer to stay on the good side of his own fans but also leaving the door ajar for a possible move, should a formal offer be made. While not being an earth shattering signing, he would certainly be an improvement over what we have, for a year or so anyway.

Barcelona have said that they won’t break the bank to sign Cesc. Fair enough, then you should just abandon your plans now and sod off, as you won’t be getting him on the cheap. When you see how much money they blew last summer on the likes of Ibrahimovic and Chygrynskiy, then they can’t start acting all ‘we won’t pay above market value’ now. Besides, they aren’t being asked to pay above market value, they are simply required to pay what Cesc is actually worth. If they won’t, or can’t, do that then they should shut their mouths and sling their hooks.

The News of the World is linking us with a young Crewe player called Nick Powell. I don’t know much about him, to be honest, but what with Arsene’s love of signing young players and the new 25 player squad limit and 8 homegrown player quota requirement, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this young player sign for us. Yet another player for the future. It’s what we do. I really hope that we go out and sign some proper players before signing any more kids, though.

If you are having serious Arsenal withdrawal symptoms, then I suggest that you download and listen to the podcasts of Arseblog and It’s Up For Grabs Now. Both are very, very good and funny to boot. So, either click on the above two links or go to iTunes and subscribe to them there, though there probably won’t be any new episodes until pre-season gets underway. But, the episodes from the season just gone are well worth a listen.

For those with more general football, and premier league, withdrawal symptoms, two more that are well worth a listen are the Guardian’s Football Weekly and Chappers’ Premier League podcasts, both of those are funny and informative. You could also check out the BBC’s Five Live Football Daily podcast, too. Though beware, the latter often has the half-witted opinions of David Pleat, approach with caution, but on the upside it often has Perry Groves on, too.

One final thing, check out the comment at the bottom of this earlier post. It has some interesting information about that Uzbek that we all love to hate.

That’s that for today, enjoy the rest of your weekend. I’ll leave you with a classic Highbury moment in front of The North Bank. It’s very nice to have a non-Cesc dominated post, hopefully no news is good news on that front.

***UPDATE: Arseblog has linked to a picture of the back page of today’s Star newspaper which states that Joe Cole will sign for us on a free. Interesting, if true. It would be a very typical Wenger signing, in that while we all think that he should sign a defender and keeper, he goes out and bolsters the attacking side of our team… If it is true, I guess it means that our next signing after that MUST be on the defensive side of things.

A very short post today.

Reports are emerging that Cesc made his decision to leave after the comments Peter Hill-Wood made regarding his belief that Cesc may not actually be good enough to get into the Barcelona team were he to join them. Not that he was saying Cesc is a bad player, but there would be a lot more competition for places at Barcelona than he currently has at Arsenal. At the time, The Mirror reported that this had angered Cesc and there are now claims that he has told close friends that this was the tipping point in him making his decision to leave. This was confirmed to me as being more than just speculation by a journalist from the Express.

It will mean an awful lot of flak will soon be coming Peter Hill-Wood’s way and I would like to see him put to pasture if his comments contribute to our best player leaving the club. Better that Peter Hill-Wood move on than Cesc move on. P.H.W. needs to learn to keep his views to himself.

I think that Hill-Wood meant well when he made those comments. I believe that he was just trying to reassure the Arsenal fans that we would be keeping our best player this summer. However, he really did put his foot in his mouth by making that statement. Hopefully it won’t result in the exit of Cesc. To be honest, I would be really disappointed if this is the reason that Cesc uses for wanting to leave the club because nobody attaches a huge amount of weight to Hill-Wood’s recent year comments.

Arseblogger has a good take on what may be happening with regards to the reasons behind today’s Cesc-related story and possible behind the scenes machinations.

There is nothing else to report on the transfer front.

The only other piece of Arsenal-related news is that Walcott sees Beckham as his ideal role model. Hopefully he will use this inspiration to work on improving his final ball.

There, I told you that it would be a short post. Perhaps it’s the shortest one that I have ever written.

Have a good Friday. Unless something major happens in the next 24hrs, I will make my next post on Sunday.

I was going to start off by saying that there was some lazy journalism going on today, but taking a look at the Mail, it is more a case of unintelligent journalism than lazy journalism. Today, they again say that Barcelona will launch a £30m bid for Cesc. Well, if they seriously think that Arsenal will sell their best player, who is on a long-term, protected contract for that fee, then they really are a bunch of fools. Regardless of whether Cesc wants to leave or not, it would be madness to sell for such a paltry fee, especially when you see Aston Villa turning down £20m for square-headed Milner.

Newcastle are targeting Jack Wilshere for a season long loan for next season. Whether it is Newcastle or Bolton that he moves to for the season, the most important thing is that he plays plenty of games and gets some more vital experience under his belt. If he went to Newcastle, he would get some good experience of regularly playing in front of a large crowd that places high expectations on their team.

One other player heading for the exit door, albeit on a permanent basis, is Fran Merida. I wonder is he regretting that decision a little given that Cesc is vying for a move away. Anyway, it’s a shame that he has decided to go and all we can do is wish him well for the future. He is 20yrs old and you can’t blame him for wanting to play regularly.

It was good to hear Wenger say yesterday that one of the reasons he signed Chamakh is that he ‘is the right age.’ Fingers crossed that the other players we sign this summer will be of a similar age, too. Cross every appendage that you can that those signings will be a keeper and a central defender.

Having Van Persie up front with one of Bendtner or Chamakh will leave us with a strong aerial presence whichever combination of the three we play with. That is a good thing, as long as we actually manage to get our crosses past the first man and into the box. It will also give the defending team something else to think about against us as the ball may not necessarily be played in to feet, as has been the tendency in the past. Some crossing training will be required in the summer, methinks. Having someone that is both big and strong up front will also help with holding up the ball to allow support from midfield to get forward. One thing I liked about Chamakh’s ATVO interview was that he said that he sees himself as being the team’s first line of defense as well as being a striker. Hopefully he will work hard for the team both offensively and defensively. That would be a nice change from the likes of Adebarndoor.

With the attacking side of the team sorted for the summer in terms of additions, we can now look forward to seeing what defensive adjustments and additions are made.

The Sunday newspaper websites don’t have a whole lot of transfer news regarding Arsenal. It’s nice to not be linked with Frey etc for at least ONE Sunday. There is an editorial in the Online Gooner that says that Wenger missed a UEFA lunch in Madrid yesterday as he was busy dealing with transfer business. The article speculates that it is probably the Tantric Cesc saga, but I prefer to think that it is more related to a new signing instead. Recently, Wenger said that things should be mostly wrapped up by the time training kicks off in July and, what with the World Cup taking up most of the next four or five weeks, it may be that he is trying to get another one or two in before the World Cup gets underway. Better to be optimistic than pessimistic.

That’s about that for today, it’s just gone midday here in Yokohama so there is a chance that more stories may appear over the coming hours as day breaks back in Europe. Enjoy what’s left of your weekend.

Just a short post today as there is absolutely nothing new to talk about. I talked about the obvious one yesterday. But, last night, I was wondering would the sale of Cesc make the share price of the club drop?

If he were to be sold and the share price subsequently drop, that would make a potential takeover move much more attractive and therefore prompt an earlier than planned move by Kroenke. Of course, that is assuming that Kroenke Tonk Stan actually intends to make a full takeover bid for the club. I can’t imagine him building his holding to 29.9% and then not make a takeover bid at some point.

If Cesc leaves, I am fairly sure that it would adversely affect the value of the club as we would have lost our best player and therefore have a smaller potential to be successful, depending on which players that Wenger signs between now and that point.

It’s all a bit speculative, I know, but what with Lady Nina whoring her shares to investors in China and Asia, it seems that a takeover attempt could come sooner rather than later. Adding to this is the fact that Kroenke Tonk Stan can now pay £8,500 per share, instead of the almost £10,500 premium he paid a little over 12 months ago.

Key to the takeover battle will be the destination of both Lady Nina’s and Danny Fiszman’s shares. I am certain that Danny would only sell his holding to Kroenke Tonk Stan. Would Lady Nina even entertain the thought of selling to Kroenke given the way that she was ousted from the board in order to allow for the integration of him into the club?

We find ourselves hip deep in a pool of deep uncertainty right now, both on and off the field. I am worried that, to a certain extent, Barcelona may be throwing Cesc to the wolves. They seem to be getting him to agitate for a move, which in turn is making Arsenal more resolute to stand their ground. Also, it is debatable over whether or not they actually have the cash available to push through the signing of Cesc this summer. One thing I know is that they can go f*ck themselves if they think that they can sign him on the cheap just because he was at their club until he was 16. That makes no difference whatsoever to his value now. Arsenal have made Cesc the player that he is today. If he moves, then Arsenal should receive a fee that is reflective of both the current level and future potential of a player that, at 23yrs old, has his best years ahead of him. Anyway, we will see what the weekend brings in terms of more endless speculation about Cesc and the usual lazy journalism transfer gossip in the weekend papers.

Have a good weekend. I’m going to go outside now and enjoy the 30C Friday afternoon sunshine.