• AJ

  Did love the brouchure…

• Pete

  According to The Mirror, Brede Hangeland’s Fulham future is in doubt after the Norway centre-back rejected an offer to double his wages.

  Manager Roy Hodgson last season said they would “fight tooth and nail” to keep Hangeland (left). But the 28-year-old has turned down a new four-year deal which would have paid him £30,000 a week instead of the £15,000 he earns now.

  Fulham are in talks to sign Poland international Pawel Brozek. The striker’s 42 goals have been a major factor in Wisla Krakow’s back-to-back domestic title successes.

• Pete

  Should be great seeing Eduardo and Rosicky back training again with the rest of the lads. And it’ll be Thomas Vermaelans first session as a Gooner too. As Dev said, we’ve quite a plethora of defenders now, as well as attackers, but still not many DM. Hopefully this week we’ll see another good signing (please God, let it be Cana!!! lol).

• Pete

  Also looks like Melo is staying in Italy.

  Arsenal target Felipe Melo has reiterated his happiness at Fiorentina despite continued reports linking him with a move to Emirates Stadium.

  The Brazilian international shone in Serie A last season and subsequently drew admirers from some of Europe’s biggest clubs.

  Gunners manager Arsene Wenger was said to be keen on bringing the 25-year-old to the Premier League to add some much needed bite to his midfield but his efforts were rebuffed when the former Cruzeiro ace signed a new deal in Italy.

  Despite Melo extending his stay at Fiorentina last week the Italians were reportedly interested in taking Emmanuel Eboue in exchange for the player just a few days ago while a move to Juventus has also been mooted.

  But the player himself, who is holidaying after helping Brazil to Confederations Cup glory this summer, said he does not want a move away from the Stadio Artemio Franchi.

  “I come back to Italy when I end my holidays,” he told Lancenet.com.br.

  “I have a contract with Fiorentina in which it was written that should I have a good first season, the club would have the possibility to extend my contract automatically from five to six years.

  “They utilised this clause and I am really happy.

  “I owe Fiorentina a lot. I arrived and I immediately became a regular. I have never been on the bench.”

• Yemi

  How much will it cost us to get matt flamini or lass diarra back ?

  I would love to see any of the 2 (esp flamini back), in the absence of any of the two of them, then cana is it. No to melo, fiorentina are trying to scam us out of cash (cash + player(s)) by extending his contract.
  I hope we can still get hangeland since he rejecting the offer given him by fulham.
  Etoo to man u, heard about that ? how true ? terry to man city 300k per week, any truth therein ?

• zohaib

  If we’re not getting Cana, we might as well get Flamini back and either keep the strikers that we have, because I think we’re fine without replacing Adebayor, or replace him if we must. I’m not sure how good Chamakh is though. So unless he’s better than Ade, what’s the point in getting him.

  And if it’s true that Hangeland has rejected a new deal, we should probably get him too since Gallas and Sylvestre are two defenders that are getting old. It’s probably their last season. We’ve got one replacement in Vermaelen, and we need one more. Although didn’t we hear Hangeland had already signed a new deal back in May ?!

• Yemi

  Zohaib, maybe he didn’t sign then. So much uncertainty and unverifiable news in the media (hughhh).

• Jimmy

  we have put a £40m price tag on fabregas, we cannot sell him, he is our captain.
  i also think we should get hangeland and melo. they both are realistic.

• TheSKAGooner

  @Jimmy -

  No, we didn’t put a £40m price tag on Cesc. The Sun “reported” that a “Gunners insider” told them something. The Sun reporter, Anthony Kastrinakis, seems to have extrapolated that into this so called £40m price tag.

  Firstly, Kastrinakis is completely full of sh*t.

  Secondly, it’s The Sun.

  Thirdly, Arsenal do not ever discuss fees in the open like that. Especially to a reporter who has such an anti-Arsenal bias like Kastrinakis.

  Lastly, were we to actually put a price on Cesc, it would be quite a bit higher than £40m.

  So, just chalk it up to The Sun needing to fill column inches and make some cash from web hits. Nothing more than that.

• Arsefan101

  So quiet today, you feel something is going on in the background don’t you… like a Melo or Cana deal?

  Apparently, Man United want Obertan (remember he was linked with us) and Yaya Toure!?!?!

• Pete

  It’s funny you mention that Arsefan, because Marseille seem to be looking to buy a central midfielder, effectively replacing Cana. And as you said it is quiet, and we know thats the way Arsenal like to conduct their business, so who knows, maybe there’s something in it. Hopefully we’re not reading too much into it though lol.

  If Hangeland is still a possibility then we should definately go for him! Him, Gallas, Toure, Vermaelen and Djourou is more than enough cover, as well as plentiful in quality. Don’t think he actually signed a contract earlier this summer Zohaib, I think it was just negotiations.

  As for Yaya Toure, I think a move for him depends on whether Mascherano joins Barca or not. Would actually be pretty cool if we got Mascherano if he’s up for sale but thats definately not happening lol

• JDD

  i dont think there is any point is selling adebayor because

  1-i think he wants to stay
  2-i think that the pressure eduardo,bendtner and vela(maybe walcott but hes better on the wing) put on his starting place might make him play better because he would have to fight for his place
  3-man utd got 80mil for the ronaldo the best striker they could get was michael owen so what good strikers(better than adebayor)is their left to buy.im not sayin owen is good striker im sayin that this shows their are no top class strikers left to buy for a reasonable amount of money

• zohaib

  Zokora costs 8.6 million pounds apparently. Much less than Melo, Cana etc. He’s got enough experience and I think he’s better in terms of quality. He’s not as young but we need an oldie with experience. We’ve got enough youngsters. He’s African, so he’d probably be away in January, but why aren’t we buying him ?! Sevilla have almost got him. We should’ve got him. Out of all the names that have been talked about this summer, for the DM position, for me Zokora is by far the best in terms of quality. He’s got a great engine, he’s a box to box midfielder, he’s good going forward etc etc.

  I don’t understand why some folks here haven’t seen him as an option. What is it about him that you don’t like ? (Let’s be grown-up about it and not moan about him being a Spurs player).

• zohaib

  And apparently, AC Milan have tabled bids for Fabiano and Huntelaar. So they’re definitely not going for Adebayor after publicly stating that they’d had talks and that he was the alternative to Dzeko. Strange…
  They even considered Eto but his wage demands were too high.
  Then there’s Amr Zaki who wants to remain in the Premier League. I’d completely forgotten about him this past month. Forget Chamakh. Let’s get us Zaki.

• Berth

  Zokora is far from what we need at the moment.Personally his aright, but we are clearly not interested in the guy. Lets for now see our targets as Flamini, Melo or Cana. Wenger should just get one of the three.

• JDD

  zokora???????????
  have you all gone mad he is a load of rubbish are current midfielders song,diaby and denilson are better to partner fabregas plus he plays for the scum

• zohaib

  Berth and JDD, my question was, WHY is he ‘far from what we need’ ?

  We need a DM. He’s an experienced DM. How is that far from what we need ?

• zohaib

  And JDD, honestly speaking, from what I’ve seen of Zokora, if you put all three (Song, Denilson and Diaby), then probably they’ll be equal to Zokora.

• Berth

  Zohaib, we need a good and aggressive DMF. Not that he (Zakora) is not okay in that aspect – I just feel he can’t be the chosen one. I personally want something different, someone who can give me a trophy; who can dominate a match like Arshavin; Zakora is not that player – he shouldn’t even cross your mind. Am sure Arsenal is above the guys standard – belief me. Same question you ask yourself why have we not got Papa Diop or Faye is the same question you have to ask of Zakora -in truth he hasn’t got that X – factor so has Diop and Faye.

• Berth

  Its important to note that when you want to buy try to buy Possibility as opposed to probability when you raise players.

• Mehedi

  zokora >>>> laughing

• manoo

  apparently juve are now favourtes to sign melo as fiorentina have signed (co-ownership) of Marco Marchionni from juventus, allowing a sort of swap deal. hopefully this is just hype, and eboue is enough to lure melo away from fiorentina, apparetly maybe even swapping gallas as well as eboue. Bad news, but we’re also interested, as you prob no, in cana, inler and matuidi. Although we are the only club with officially registered interest in Melo.

• tom G

  does anyone know whether there’s been confirmation of RVP signing new contract? surprised more hasn’t been made of it.

• Fabrez

  Similar thoughts here Tom G…not seen it on the official website…

• zohaib

  Berth and Mehedi – you’ve still not given me any footballing reason why we shouldn’t sign Zokora. He’s much better than Faye and Diop. Those two are average players. You obviously haven’t seen Zokora play, which is why you’re not aware of his quality. Trust me when I tell you, he’s better than Melo or Inler.

• Mehedi

  The reason :

  Tottenham : Scum
  And it’s never gonna happen
  I hate everything about Tottenham

• zohaib

  Mehedi – don’t you read man ? I said footballing reason. I also asked for a grown-up response. Not some childish b.s. about how Tottenham = scum. And you’re also forgetting he’s African. If he was English you might have had half a point.

  What did you think of Sol Campbell btw ? You do know he was from Tottenham don’t you ?

• Berth

  Dev we need to talk

• CON-MAN

  @ tom g and fabrez: Im not sure of RVP signing a new contract I mean look at the fuss made over walcott, wilshere n ramsey getting new deals. You would think it would be all over SSN if we had locked RVP down

• Gooner Get Ya

  It’s getting a bit heated in this post…why is this Zakora thing so important when there has not even been a whisper of such a move, only speculation that we are looking at Melo/Cana any way.

  We could name\argue about ton of players that could fit the DM role and completely waste our energy. Lets just wait until AW signs a complete unknown from the back of beyhond who ends up being better than Viera.

• AJ

  Lol! Ah this blog can make me laugh at times, but on another note, say we were to Sell Adebayor, what would you guys think about Guiza from Fernabache? (I can’t spell the name of their club) because he wants to leave after he had a bad time in Turkey, but before that, in his last season in Spain he finished as top scorer

• Berth

  Gooner Get ya this is a forum and everyone has the right to express what he thinks is fair and right for the club.

• Berth

  Tell me we don’t have gold in Arsenal – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zlbxsSds1M&feature=fvst lease VP sign

• CON-MAN

  on another note heres some pics of arsenals 1st pre season training session

  http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/training

• Pete

  Blaise Matuidi has said he’d like to move to Arsenal.

  “Playing for Arsenal would be fantastic but I can’t say anything about that yet. Everyone knows their wonderful style of football.”

  Also, according to SSN, it looks like Hangeland will be staying at Fulham afterall.

  “I’m very happy at Fulham and would like a new contract, but then we must agree on something that both parties can be satisfied with.”

• Gooner Get Ya

  Berth…come on fella I was merely pointing out they are getting all wound up over a fictional argument!!! I know people can express there opinions freely but I don’t like to see fellow gooners having a pop at each other over something so pointless.

• Pete

  Guys, check out Arsenal.com for pictures of the squads first training session! Eduardo, Rosicky, Vermaelen, Gallas and Seneros all feature

• Yemi

  RVP has not signed yet according to his agent but is optimistic that something will happen this week.

  I also read something arshavins agent welcoming offers from barca for the guy.

  Es for zokora, even though he is experienced, i dn’t think he is that much better than either song or denilson. What we need is a match winner like arshavin. Someone that can dig deep and bring out something when all is not going well. Like yaya, mascherano, flamini, essien, gilberto and more. Zokora is good but i don’t think he is exceptional.

  I have seen utube videos of cana and melo but i dont like the fact that melo signed a new contract when we were interested. I think it is a bid to squeeze funds out of any prospective buyer or to drive buyers away so i dont wnat him. If barca really want mascherano, then yaya may be up for sale.
  I heard etoo has rejected the 2 yr contratc offered him and he wants to move to man u.

  Any news on Ade ? is he bckling up or leaving ?

  On second toughts, what about jay simpson ? is he back ?

• AJ

  Yemi, Arshavin doesn’t have a agent, about a week or maybe a bit more ago, he terminated his agents contract. Mind you that maybe of been rumours too, but I don’t think it was, think it was on his official website, but I don’t speak russian so I can’t check that.

• Yemi

  Thanks AJ

• Mehedi

  I am sorry zohaib, it was a little childish response
  To tell you the truth i really don’t know about ZOkora that much
  Lets face it he is not that good.

• fan

  why not Zokora? Because he hasn’t score a goal in 3 years! We need somebody more productive than that.

• zohaib

  Fan – We’re talking about a DM ! That is Defensive Midfielder.
  We’re NOT talking about getting a goalscorer. We’ve got plenty of those. To put it even more simply for you to understand, a defensive midfielder’s job is NOT to score goals. It’s to provide cover for the defence and help to the midfield defensively.

• zohaib

  AJ – I was thinking the same thing mate – Guiza. I was aware that he’d just moved to Turkey so I didn’t expect his name to be in the market, but as you say he’s apparently unhappy. I think it could be a good buy. He’s an out and out striker. He’s not really someone who can move around into different positions and play link-up football, the way we like it at Arsenal. But maybe I haven’t seen enough of him. Regardless of whether he can or cannot play link-up, I think it’s about time we got an out and out striker. We have too many who can play everywhere and sometimes it gets a little too confusing. There is one thing however, about Guiza that I’m not sure of – that’s his attitude and the fact that he looks a bit like Diaby, Song and Adebayor – in that they all look like they’re ‘druggies’.

• zohaib

  Gooner Get Ya – it’s not getting heated at all. You’ve misunderstood the argument. It’s very healthy, and to eliminate the misunderstanding I’ll tell you that I have no issues with Mehedi or JDD. All I said was, they haven’t given a footballing reason why they think Zokora is not good enough.

  Yemi – I think you’re doing a great disservice to the footballing quality of Zokora and over-rating the quality (or lack of) of Denilson and Song. They’ve hardly had one proper season of first team football.

  The reason why we’re talking about Zokora is because I brought it up and I did so because he was available. And obviously because in my book, he’s the best of what’s currently available and being talked about.

  Also, we like to do our business quietly, so just because you’re not hearing rumors about something doesn’t mean it’s definitely not happening.

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