Morning All,
Yesterday was a busy day at the office, but also a little busy in the world which is the post season rumour mill…
The biggest sign that we may be signing Thomas Vermaelen was handed to us today by the player himself as he said:
“Moving to Arsenal is the right path for me. It is a great sporting challenge and I will also be financially better off. I think everything is going to be OK. In the coming days there will be more talks.”
And that backs up the recent discussions on the player and his impending transfer. Now that the player has pretty much said he is on the verge of a move, we can take a closer look at him. He started off at Ajax and has been there for the last 6 years, graduating through the academy. He’s had a loan spell with RKC Waalwijk about four years ago before establishing himself as the main centre back in the Ajax squad. He went on to become captain and despite his young age has a lot of experience, considering his captaincy and role for Ajax, not to forget his 21 caps for Belgium.
Of course, at £10m, the player will represent a lot of our transfer budget (originally £13.9m) although the transfer of Philippe Senderos may increase our budget again. With Milan receiving a world record for the transfer of Kaka – another transfer completed yesterday – the Italian team will have a whopping £56m to spend on players – £6m for Senderos and another £20m+ for Adebayor could now be on the cards.
But back to all things yesterday… Kieran Gibbs scored two goals yesterday and set one up and was also named man of the match (on his debut) as England crushed Azerbajan 7-0. The young left back has been very impressive this season and really taken the mantle and his opportunity to press ahead and one day he will become an Arsenal regular as well as a fixture in the England Under 21′s and then England’s first team. I wouldn’t be surprised if the young Englishman ended up going to the World Cup next summer… maybe I’m jumping ahead a little, but he really looks a good player.
Back to player transfers and apparently, Man City are looking to offload Micah Richards – and potentially a swap deal for Kolo Toure. Even though Kolo’s not had the best season, I’d still like him to stay at Arsenal – he genuinely loves the club and in this day and age, it’s important to have players who really want to play for your club. But the potential signing of Micah Richards is very interesting – I’m not sure why Man City would want to sell him – young and English, experienced International – but apprently Hughes doesn’t rate him. Maybe all paper talk? Who knows?
And finally, our CEO, Ivan Gazidis has been in the newspapers again re-iterating what he has been saying since his arrival. He’s basically outlined the season in a paragraph and also explained how he’s looking into the future…
“I arrived halfway through the campaign and obviously the first half was very difficult, losing five out of our first 14 games in the Premier League. We were struggling for consistency but then there was the period in the middle of the season when the team found that consistency. There were times when we were having trouble being really fluid and then of course the consistency came, the players started coming back from injury and everything began to look possible. We had a terrific run in the FA Cup and the Champions League and we were on the cusp of doing something very special with a young squad this year. Then unfortunately at the end we feel like we missed out on the prizes that we were aiming for. That’s a disappointment for us but there’s a lot to build on from the campaign. And as we look forward to next season we’re very optimistic.”
With Arsene definitely active in the transfer market, as it looks like we’ve all but signed Vermaelen and also interested in a whole host of other players, there is a case for optimism for next season – and to top it all off, we should have a fit Eduardo and a fit Rosicky to come back as well as all our young players will have a year of so’s experience.
News of another possible transfer target – Edin Dzeko – is holding a press conference later today to announce his move – rumours are that it’s Milan – and if that is the case, then I doubt they’ll be in for Adebayor…
More later mes amigos, more later…
