Doumbia linked with Arsenal & will FFP work?

Another day, another player: Seydou Doumbia is the latest name to be linked with Arsenal. While watching Sky Sports this morning I saw that the 24-year-old Ivory Coast international striker could be sold by his current club, CSKA Moscow, but it’s going to cost well in excess of £20m to get him.

Stop the press: make that two players. Ibrahim Afellay is also on Arsenal’s hitlist, according to the Metro, but not just Arsenal’s, the 26-year-old Holland international midfielder is also wanted by Newcastle & Spurs (who twice tried to get him on a loan-to-buy deal). He’s just got back in action after a serious knee injury so buying him could be a risk. Barca bought him for 3m euros and now they want £6m! Greedy gits! And if he plays well at Euro 2012 he might be even pricier! The Metro say Newcastle are favourites to land the winger, which is not surprising after they gambled and won in transfer market by signing Senegal international striker Demba Ba, who also had a dodgy injury record and has failed more medicals than we’ve had clean sheets with Lucas Fabianski between the sticks! Not really! A bit of poetic licence. Sorry!

Yes, he’s got a phenomenal goalscoring record, 33 goals in 53 games at CSKA is good going, as is 50 in 64 at Young Boys of Berne, but will Arsenal take the plunge? My view is not unless we can get him for a lot less money than is being mentioned in despatches. Doumbia’s international record isn’t so good: 1 goal in 19 appearances.  I know it’s not all about statistics, but if you’re a striker then stats are important . . . unless you’re stuck out on the wing like some of our strikers! In that case, more research needs to be undertaken!

Meanwhile, there was a piece on FFP or Financial Fair Play, which is relevant to us as we’re top of this FFP league! An expert was in the Sky Sports studio getting asked the questions and firstly he explained that in essence FFP means spending no more than you can afford and paying your bills on time.

He was asked if Uefa is going to enforce these rules? He replied that Uefa have spent a lot of time on this and clubs playing by the rules will get mad if clubs breaking them get away with it. He added that the rules are pretty detailed and it’s all about acting within the spirit of the rules. He predicted it will make an impact as big as the Bosman Ruling did. I predict it won’t. I think creative accounting will kick in and the rules will be unenforceable. Then we’re going to look pretty silly playing by a set of rules that no-one is abiding by. Anyway, we are a club of gentlemen, aren’t we? Principles are more important than points, especially when those principles are related to profits!

Other than that, Thomas Vermaelen says he wants to stay at Arsenal forever, but as I don’t want to go forever, I’ll leave it there, for now. Check out Le Grove for more details.

False economies @ Arsenal

As anyone that has read my musings or heard me mouthing off will testify, I've never been a huge fan of Arsene Wenger. However, I believe in giving credit where credit's due so when I hear the AST are complaining about players' salaries, I think they're barking up the wrong tree.

We are the fourth biggest wage-payers in the league, therefore we should expect to finish fourth. Where are we in the table? Fourth. So what's the problem with that?

I, personally, think we should pay players more. Then we'd get the best of the best. Instead, apart from a few notable exceptions, we have the best of the mediocre. That's a false economy, in my opinion.

Simon Hill's comment that Arsenal could fall foul of the Financial Fair Play rules are particularly interesting. He points out that if we do not qualify for the Champions League then our wage bill will suddenly be considered unsustainable. I'm not sure if there calculations are done on a season-to-season basis anyway, so more research is required, but FFP is so something of a red herring to me as I don't think it will ever be effectively enforced.

Nevertheless, Hill makes a good point, as the club are forever priding themselves on being within FFP guidelines, so it will be funny to some to see us slip outside primarily because of a lack of investment in the playing squad and perhaps in the back-up team as well. I mean, do we pay top dollar for Pat Rice? I would think not. Another Wenger saving perhaps. You could argue all this saving money is going to cost us a lot. It's has certainly cost us trophies but once the results of this ill-conceived policy finally hits the club's bank balance perhaps something will finally be done about it.

We've missed out on countless transfer targets because of our parsimony and surely the AST must admit that Wenger is solid when it comes to economics. The guy is well qualified on that front and no one can dispute what he has done. Yes, some players are overpaid, but you can't tell me some are not overpaid at Spurs too, despite their wage bill being 40 per cent less.

When it comes to players, you win some, you lose some! In short, it's a gamble! But on the financial front, Wenger has come up trumps more than any other manager I've ever heard of.