The worst thing about having so many transfer rumours right after a season ends is that they invariably occur at the same time as Wenger takes his short end of season holiday, thus meaning that we don’t hear from him. That all changed yesterday when the boss came out fighting in what was an impassioned reiteration of the club’s, and his, burning desire to keep all of our most important players at the club.
"What is important is that Cesc has a great World Cup and that he comes back to Arsenal with a great desire to do well for the club. We want to keep our best players – that’s my huge determination – I built this team for years from 16 and 17 years of age with most of the players. We want to continue to work with them because we feel we are very close, and strengthen the team in a very strong way."
I think the key part of that statement is his saying how he has been building this team since they were teenagers. This is ‘project youth’ and if he were to lose Cesc from this team then that would be the biggest signal yet that project youth had failed, although without it we would never have been able to build the Emirates. It would hurt Wenger deeply to see this team break up before ever reaching what he believes to be its true potential.
He also commented on Joe Cole, but only on his ability as a player not on a possible move for him.
"I like him (Joe Cole) as a player because when he played against us he always did a lot of damage. He can create impact through his creative play. He can dribble, he can pass, he can score goals."
Given our squad’s tendency to pick up a lot more than its fair share of injuries, the addition of Joe Cole to the 25 man squad would certainly bolster our midfield. He would also bring a winning mentality with him and the experience of having been there and done it.
On potential defensive signings he had this to say:
"The basic improvements that have to be made is defensive and with spending the right money. The right money is not necessarily quantity because you never know how much people want for the players you want. But what I mean by the right money is that we will not be scared to spend if needed."
I’m all in favour of spending our money in the right way, on the right player. As long as he is similar in stature and ability to Vermaelen, everything will be golden. If, on the other hand, we sign another Silvestre, I’d be a very unhappy camper. It may also be an indication that our likely additions will be more along the lines of a Koscielny rather than a Chiellini, price-wise. Wenger wanting to spend money carefully is something we have gotten used to since the heady days of blowing a fortune on Francis Jeffers. Lesson learned, methinks.
Apparently, Juventus are ‘days away’ from signing Gallas, news, I’m sure, that will have their fans clamouring to their nearest church praying for that not to happen.
Barcelona cunt presidential candidate, Marc Ingla, has said that signing Cesc would be like a dream and, let’s hope that for the next year at least, a dream is how it stays.
“Cesc is a marvel, as is (David) Villa. My only worry is paying over the odds, but I confess that my dream would be to unveil Cesc as president.
If he comes, I am convinced that Cesc will soon become the number one choice in his position. Anything between 25 and 35 million euros would seem suitable. Whatever the coaches decide will be fine by me, we won’t interfere in technical issues – that’s down to (coach) Pep (Guardiola) and (sporting director) Txiki (Begiristain)."
I do wonder if the prime quality required to be a president at that club is to be an utter shit-bucket. For him so say that Cesc is a ‘marvel’ and to then say that he is only worth the same as they paid for Chygrynsky last year is beyond insulting, both to Arsenal and, more importantly, to Cesc himself. To also be valued at less than the ludicrous deal that took Ibrahimovic from Inter just serves to rub salt into the wound. It seems clear that the reason that they are saying that they won’t pay above €30m for Cesc is, quite simply, because they don’t have the money. They are the guts of €500m in debt and blew the majority of what they had on Villa. Thems the breaks. They should change their famous stadium seat sign from ‘Mes Que Un Club’ to ‘Mes Que Un Ballbag.’
Right, that’s about that for today. The World Cup kicks off today and even though the kick-off times are rubbish in Japan, especially on a work-night, I will be hoping to catch as many games as possible. I’ll be able to watch all games from the Quarter Finals onwards as I will basically be on my summer holiday from work by the time they start, it’s the games before then that’ll be harder to see.
For those with an iPhone, open this link on your phone and it should put the World Cup game schedule, complete with localised kick-off times, into your iPhone’s calendar app. At least, it did for me, complete with JST kick-off times. A very handy and fast way to check out what games are on without having to access 3G or Wi-Fi.
Anyway, life is pretty good when all there is to complain about on a Friday afternoon is missing some World Cup games. Take it easy and enjoy the footy.
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The North Bank - "It's got va-va-voom" (An Arsenal blog) 
Was tempted to go with the ‘cunts’ one myself, but reigned in the swearing on it 😉
Mes que un crowd of cunts