Evening all…
I’m back from my 3 cities in 3 days trip to Prague and Birmingham (quite a contrast I know) and back to London… apologies for the lack of WOA action in my absence but I’m back and scouring the world to see what is going on in the world of Arsenal. I did pick up a few newspapers on my travels and very interesting reads on various Arsenal related subjects.
The main stories I read were in relation with Van Persie and his love for the club – his past and his present – his highs and lows and how he wants to be at Arsenal and sees this as his home. He explains how working with Arsene Wenger has been amazing and he not only changed his footballing career, but also changed his life completely. At Feyenord, Van Persie had a stint in prison, had an affair, went clubbing on a regular basis and was known for hanging around with the wrong crowds. But now the Dutchman is a pure vegetarian, and someone who doesn’t drink and doesn’t go clubbing at all. He’s got a very strict diet, a great work ethic and has been getting better year by year – his lifetstyle by choice in a quest to be the best footballer in the world.
Most newspapers also touched on the stories linking Emmanuel Adebayor with Milan once again following a supposed conversation between Galliani and Arsene where apparently Arsene was “happy” in his discussions. As we all know, Ade would be happy if he left the club and fans would also be happy (mainly because of his disloyalty and courting of any club even thinking of possibly signing a striker) and it looks like Arsene is also happy… maybe? So the will he / won’t he saga that is Adebayor’s departure from Arsenal looks like it may happen, but who knows hey? If a club did come in and give us a decent offer – I could see Arsene selling, Inter Milan, Milan or Barcelona could be possible destinations – but I really don’t see the sense of selling Eto’o for £25m and then buying Adebayor for the same amount – it’s not good business…
We’ve been linked with Karim Benzema and a replacement for the Togan international – a story which has so little reality to it, it’s quite funny – some newspapers citing us as “front runners” because the French striker would prefer to join us and Man United and Real Madrid may not be able to afford the striker – due to debt repayments and high spending respectively. Really? Hmm, considering United have just sold Ronaldo for £80m and Real Madrid have just spent £140m on two players and were willing to part with another £37m for David Villa, it’s nonsensical to think a) we’re the front runners for his signature b) we’d spend anywhere near as much as those two on a young player like that and c) that we’re even really interested in the player….
We have just spent about £8.4m of our £13.9m budget (according to the figures that we know about) and are maybe trying to buy Felipe Melo with the remainder (plus Senderos), which are the two players we need – really, unless we sell Adebayor, we won’t be buying anyone else, and if we do sell Adebayor, we will surely look to may a profit rather than increase our debt…
Okay, time to get some zzz’s and recover from the jetlag, I’ll be back tomorrow…
