Although not yet confirmed by the club… all major tabloids and news sources have confirmed that we’ve now signed the Ivory Coast player of the year, the Brazilian sounding Gervinho…
Let’s check out what the loathsome Daily Mail had to say…
Arsenal are finally set to deliver a piece of good news to their fans by confirming the £11.2m signing of Lille forward Gervinho. The Ivorian will finally be unveiled by the Gunners tomorrow after almost a month of wrangling with the French champions, and will jet off with his new team-mates on a tour of Asia early next week.
So if that’s to be believed, in absence of any official word from the club, then let’s presume it’s true.
Gervinho is confident in his abilities and unlike his French speaking fellow football player, Nasri, believes he can win things with Arsenal and is keen to do so:
“I chose Arsenal because it’s a young group within which I will be able to integrate easily. I could develop more over there. A risk? Not at all. I’m going to Arsenal to play. The best risk to take is to look to score goals and to play a lot. In football you have to take risks if you want to win. I’m going to Arsenal to win.”The Premier League is a notch above. It’s maybe the best league in the world. I want to live that sensation. I’m going there to play, not to be on the bench. Arsenal love the game. And I love teams that love the game.”
Picking up on the “I could develop more over there”, let’s hope when he has fully developed he doesn’t turn into an Adebayor or Nasri and seek pastures new when he’s ready for world domination… but having said that, listening to Phillipe Auclair on TalkSport (which is something I try not to do)… he was very positive about the player.
The points I took from it, were:
- Gervinho is smallish, 5 foot 11, but has very good upper body strength
- He doesn’t mind a challenge and tries to stay on his feet
- His coach Rudi Garcia called him “the most influential player in one-on-ones in France.”
- Gervinho contributed massively to Lille’s title triumph last season, its first since 1954
- The player scored 15 times and had 10 assists
- Only two players, Wayne Rooney and Didier Drogba, managed the same in the Premier League
- Rudi Garcia confirmed: “It’s those two statistics together that people fail to underline,”
- He is played out mostly wide on the right of a 4-3-3 (from which his 15 goals and 10 assists have come from)
- Doesn’t like playing as an out and out striker as likes to drift around
- Is very good at dribbling
Gervinho started his career at Le Mans, and Le Mans technical director Alain Pascalou had this to say:
“When he was playing for Le Mans, he was very young and still had inconsistencies, but since he’s been at Lille he’s shown he is capable of playing at the top level regularly. I think Arsenal corresponds to his youth and his mentality and on top of that, you have Arsene Wenger there, who would be like a guide to him, just as Rudi Garcia was at Lille.”
Whenever we sign someone you know that the next thing to do is, don’t you…. A YouTube video…
Blimey, this boy looks good!!
Welcome to Arsenal Gervinho!
