Arsenal should say 'hello' to transfer kitty

Nine points from 3 games over the Xmas period, featuring two tough away games at West Ham and Newcastle and the difficult visit of the manager less Cardiff, trying to impress their manager-in-waiting, Solskjaer. So we can't moan, can we? Even Rosicky has had a man-of-the match performance (versus Newcastle away) so that's when you know anything is possible!
But when you're on the crest of a wave, that's when you've got to look out for the next trough. That possible dip may come in the shape of a lack of depth in the squad: quel surpris!
The scary thing about this is Arsenal being linked to Berbatov by The Sun. Yes, he has talent, but what would he do to team morale? I'd urge Wenger not to bring in the temperamental Bulgarian, who lacks the fighting spirit typified by Arsenal's 2013-2014 team.
However, it looks like Wenger will have to consider bringing someone in as a stop-gap signing to fill the boots of the injured Giroud and Bendtner. It's either that or we have to rely on the returning Podolski, who will take time to get back to his very best.
Other options are playing Theo Walcott through the middle, but Wenger's been reluctant to do this on a regular basis. I'd even consider put Gnabry there, but that might be too much pressure for the youngster to bear.
The best case scenario would be to buy Suarez from Liverpool, as he could play up by himself or behind a main target man like Giroud (when he returns to fitness). Somehow, I can't see it happening, so it's just wishful thinking, unfortunately. Our bid would have to be astronomical for the Reds to consider selling and, despite the Ozil fee, we generally do parsimony better than extravagance when it comes to transfers.
If there's any real chance of Thierry Henry coming back though, I wouldn't rule that out. It's always good to see Le Legend at the Emirates in the crowd, but the best place to see him is out on the pitch.
One thing's for sure: we need to do out business early with the FA Cup game against the revitalised Spurs upon us. My guess is we'll wait until transfer deadline day and reassess the situation then, before dipping into the transfer kitty. In fact, it's the sort of 'Kitty' we don't say 'Hello' to very often.

Arsenal legendary XI

I usually do this sort of thing in an international break, but for once I'll do it pre-match! As if we don't have enough to worry about with Cardiff away coming up! Nevertheless, here it is:



I didn't need much thinking time to choose Ian Wright and Thierry Henry. Wrighty smashed Cliff Bastin's goalscoring record and didn't care how he scored. With him in the team, I thought we'd always score. As well as that, he must have been a great character in the dressing room and if the going got tough (as in physical) Wrighty would never back down. A true legend and one of my favourite ever Arsenal players.

The same goes for Henry, although he would offer a different kind of threat. Even quicker than Wrighty in his prime, Henry would put on the after-burners and leave everyone in his wake...including team-mates, who wouldn't be able to keep up. Only he could have broken Wrighty's record!

On the left wing, I've plumped for Marc Overmars. What a lethal finisher, better than Pires in that respect, and quicker too. Impossible to play against. When I did my UEFA 'B' coaching badge, the FA coach trainer was telling us full backs should let a winger cut inside onto his weaker foot. 'Not if he's two-footed', I said, 'as he might shoot. Surely a shot is more dangerous than a cross'. That comment didn't go down well at all!

On the other wing, I've gone for Ray Parlour. I was tempted to choose left-winger Jose Antonio Reyes and put him on the other flank, but he was a bit lightweight for the English game, which is more about brawn than skill. 'Parls' or 'The Romford Pele' never stopped running and would offer defensive protection as well as something going forward.

In central midfield, I've chosen Manu Petit and Cesc Fabregas. Petit was one of the best defensive midfielders I've ever seen, while Cesc is probably the best passer I've seen in the modern game. I think the two would really complement each other.

Left back is Kenny Sansom. I had the pleasure of meeting him once. What a nice guy. A really quick full back with skill and incredibly difficult for wingers to get around. I did consider Ashley Cole or even Bob McNab, but it had to be Kenny.

On the other flank, I've got Viv Anderson. I always admired Viv, so I was really glad when we signed him. I was tempted to go for Pat Rice, though, who's been such a loyal servant to the club and is now battling against cancer.

My centre backs will be Sol Campbell and Frank McLintock. I had to put someone in from 'The Double' winning side of 1970-71, so Frank's the man. I'd make him captain too, as when he left to join QPR it was a long wait until the next trophy. He made that much difference. Meanwhile, Sol was one of the best value signing ever, especially as Spurs were adamant he'd never join us. How wrong they were!

Pat Jennings makes it between the sticks. He was cheap as chips from Spurs, so I'm not sure they valued him as much as we did. I know he's still a Spurs man at heart, but I'd still pick him as I reckon he was possibly the best keeper in the world when he was at his peak. This guy could catch a football with one hand! That's how big his paws were!

Top ten most exciting Arsenal arrivals

The lack of new arrivals at Arsenal this summer has prompted me to go back in time and think of signings that excited me, back in the days when we spent money.

Has this Arsenal transfer hibernation happened before? Check out the new book about Wenger's first season in charge! ARSENAL F.C. - A FOOTBALL TRANSFER DIARY 1996/1997 [Kindle Edition]

ARSENAL F.C. - A FOOTBALL TRANSFER DIARY 1996/1997 - Wenger's era begins [Paperback]

Top 10 most exciting signings:

1. Malcolm Macdonald - until he arrived at Arsenal, I was not a big fan of the gobby Supermac. But he could put his goal scoring boots where his mouth was, so I knew he'd score loads for us. It's a shame injury blighted his career, as he really was a proper centre forward.

2. Ian Wright - as with Supermac, I knew Wrighty would score loads for us. I'm not sure I could see him breaking Cliff Bastin's goalscoring record though. He turned out to be even better than expected.

3. Alan Ball - in my opinion, he was England's best player in the World Cup final of 1966 and what a signing he would be! Actually, not quite as good as I expected, but he was my hero when I was a kid nonetheless. He did the simple things well: the hallmark of an intelligent player. I was upset when he left.

4. Andrey Arshavin - it took so long to get the Russian genius, who took Rangers apart in the UEFA Cup final, I thought it would be worth the wait. Well, if he'd been played in the right position and had more opportunities to play, it might have been. His big mistake was to go public about Wenger's penchant for 70th-minute substitutions. Arshavin wasn't even bench-worthy in the manager's eyes after that little outburst. His 4-goal salvo at Anfield is a reminder of what could have been.

5. Marc Overmars - the Holland international winger was bound to be a success and he certainly didn't disappoint. It was such a shame when we sold him.

6. Dennis Bergkamp - a player of undoubted ability, but the question was would he adjust to the English game?
He'd had a tough time in Italy, so I wasn't sure. After seeing him play for Arsenal, I was instantly a Bergkamp fan, but the media were scathing about him in his early days. Once he completely found his feet, he never looked back. His only problem was missing European away days because of his fear of flying.

7. Thierry Henry - like Bergkamp, he'd not done as well in Italy as expected. Could we rescue his career? I thought so. I anticipated him turning on for us on the wing, not becoming a prolific goalscorer and beating Wrighty's record. Better than even I expected!

8. Pat Jennings - I couldn't believe we'd signed the world's best keeper so cheaply. This guy could catch the ball with one hand! He's more associated with Spurs than us, but their loss was certainly our gain. Although he was ageing, he oozed confidence and was a real asset. He was also better than expected.

9. David Seaman - a lot younger than Jennings, here we were getting a top keeper at the peak of his powers. I've always said a top keeper is a priority if you want to win silverware and Seaman certainly did his bit for us in that respect!

10. Brian Talbot - the midfield dynamo had been one of Ipswich's stars when they unexpected beat us in the FA Cup final of 1978. Funnily enough, I met the only goalscorer, Roger Osborne, and told him he ruined my life! Poor bloke didn't know what to say! Anyway, we had the last laugh, getting Talbot. I always like taking players from teams that comprehensively beat us! Talbot was tireless and a real asset to the team.

This top ten was hastily put together, so if you can come up with anything better, please post it below.

Sent from my iPhone

Why don't Arsenal sell players who won't re-sign with 2 years left on their contracts?

As the closure of the transfer window trundles ever closer, I thought I'd have a quick look at one sale that might or might not happen. Well, everyone else is doing it, so why not jump on the bandwagon?

For most clubs, one transfer saga would be enough. Not for Arsenal, though! As if Robin van Persie long-protracted departure wasn't enough, we've had the speedier departure of Alex Song, and now there's speculation about Theo Walcott's future.

I've always maintained that Theo would stay. He seems happy enough, which is strange given the undeserved flak he gets sometimes. The guy is match-winner getting played out of position. As a young striker at Newbury, he scored over 100 goals in a season. Yet some Gunners 'fans' claim Theo can't finish!

I admit that Theo lacks the 'football brain' of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, but Theo has a good attitude and will learn, if he gets the right coaching. The problem is how many wingers have Arsenal developed into better widemen under Arsene Wenger? I can't think of any. All the good wingers were good before they arrived. When they left they weren't much better than they were before they arrived, unless you include Thierry Henry, who ended up playing as a striker. Marc Overmars and Robert Pires didn't improve a lot at Arsenal, although the latter took a while to adjust, as they were already established internationals. Jose Antonio Reyes regressed at Arsenal, but I blame that on overzealous Premier League tackling. Freddie Ljungberg may have improved at Arsenal, but I didn't see enough of him before his arrival to be sure of that. Besides which, Freddie wasn't a traditional winger in the 'hugging the touchline' sense of the word.

So, I'm concluding that Theo's best chance of developing as a player at Arsenal would be to switch to the Thierry Henry role. Why does Wenger say he sees Theo as a striker and then not play him there? It seems like he's setting him up to fail.

How on earth Wenger can experiment with Gervinho as a lone striker is beyond me. The Ivorian is a tricky customer, but rarely looks like finding the net. It must be so frustrating for Theo, waiting in the wings (pun intended!).

If Theo does leave, I will lay a lot of blame firmly at Wenger's door. He's the one constantly playing Theo out of position. The rest of the blame will rest with the unappreciative fans. I guarantee that if we sell Theo to a Premier League rival that decision will haunt us.

Having said that, I'm not advocating we give in to all of Theo's demands. Our negotiating team of Ivan Gazidis, Richard Law and David Miles should give him £80k per week. Surely Theo deserves to get the same salary as new signings Santi Cazorla and Lukas Podolski? Our current offer is £75k plus a £5m signing-on fee, apparently. I'd up the signing on fee to around £7m, if necessary.

But then again, if Wenger's planning to only deploy Theo as a winger, it may be time to cash. There's still time to change Theo to a striker. He's still only 23, so probably 4 years away from his peak, lest we forget.

The club have to use these past two summers as a wake-up call. Last season, we were forced into selling Samir Nasri, more or less, has he entered the last year of his contract. Why do we continually let this happen? If the club refuses to be more transparent about these things, they will inevitably attract a lot of the blame.

Why don't negotiations begin when a player has two years left on a current deal? If the player won't sign then, we should start looking at offloading him. If that were the case, we should get more value-for-money for any subsequent sale that takes place, as we'll have more transfer windows to play with when it comes to finding the right deal.

The only other way of doing it, I can do it, would be to have a clause written into contracts, whereby the club can re-sign a player for an extra year when he's entering the last year of his contract. Manchester United did that with Dimitar Berbatov, see this article in the Guardian written back in February.

The club have to learn, as even though this summer was better than the last one (as we actually did some significant buying relatively early), we can't look back fondly on the departure under a cloud of two or three first-teamers. A change would make financial sense, I think, so hopefully our economics graduate of a manager will insist that the same thing doesn't happen again.   

Arsenal's Cazorla 'work' & Lloris 'wind-up' + ESPN's Kos criticism

This time my Dragon software converted "Hello again Gooners" to "Hello again during this", so if you see more typos you will know why!

When it comes to the name Santi Cazorla, I'm guilty of making a lot of mistakes myself! Arsene Wenger himself claimed he didn't know who Santi is, when asked by a member of the media in the UK. However, when asked a similar question by the Asian media he replied that although a deal was "not close" he was "working on it", allegedly. I'm never been one to doubt the existence of Santi, although I don't necessarily expect him to drop down Arsenal's chimney immediately.

This could end up being another transfer saga, but I think we will see movement on the Santi front by the end of the month. By then we will know if he is going to come to Arsenal or whether or not he will stay at Malaga. The Spanish club needs the money as their debts could result in relegation if not addressed on or before 31 July 2012. I cannot imagine Sheik Al Thani wasting his €150 million investment by allowing that to happen. That's why the Guardian are claiming it's a done deal, and the Sun says the deal will be complete before the weekend, while the Daily Mail has proclaimed: "Santi is coming to town".

Let's hope those media sources are correct as €20 million sounds cheap at the price for such a talented Spain international winger, especially as a buyout clause written into his contract is more than double the amount. His versatility and experience will be welcome at Arsenal and that kind of signing may convince Robin van Persie to stay at the Emirates Stadium. According to Sky Sports, Arsene Wenger has "re-irritated" his desire to keep the striker at Arsenal. An interesting slip of the tongue!

Meanwhile, Arsenal have been accused of a "disingenuous bid" for Hugo Lloris. All sorts of skulduggery may have gone on, according to Spurs, who are apparently accusing us of offering £16 million for the Lyon keeper. Of course, former Arsenal utility player Remi Garde is now Lyon boss and therefore has been implicated in this "scandal". Spurs are genuinely chasing the France international goalkeeper, where is our interest is just to inflate the price. Or so the story goes. We expect developments on this story on Saturday, as Lyon's chairman Jean Michel Aulas has claimed the decision about the player's future will be made by then. Lloris didn't exactly cover himself in glory during Euro 2012, so perhaps Arsenal should give him a wide berth.

Another player we won't be signing is Loic Remy of Marseille. The 25-year-old France international looks to be heading to Newcastle United £15 million. The Magpies should get half that amount for the sale of Demba Ba to Rubin Kazan.

A lot less money than that has been received by Arsenal for the sale of Pedro Botelho to Atletico Paranaense. The Brazilian left back was loaned out to all and sundry in Spain for five years, but has now returned year to his home country without making an impact for Arsenal. Let's hope a better fate awaits Joel Campbell.

Another player who could be on the way out, perhaps, is Emmanuel Frimpong. The popular Arsenal midfielder is in trouble again, due to something he wrote on his Twitter account. I don't disagree with most Arsenal fans who love the fact that Frimpong wears his heart on his sleeve, but he will have to be careful in future on social networking sites. I only hope he's learnt his lesson now.

Apart from Lauren Koscielny signing a new long-term deal, the other good news concerns our friendly performance against a Malaysia XI. Two goals in the final few minutes turned defeat to victory and the youngsters who performed should be very pleased with themselves. Thomas Eisfeld got the equaliser, which was good going considering the brevity of his cameo appearance. Chuks Aneke grabbed a deflected winner and it was "high-fives" all around, apart from in the case of Marouane Chamakh - who was largely disappointing, despite going close to scoring twice.

Abou Diaby played in fits and starts, yet the commentary team on ESPN were full of praise for the France international midfielder. Back in the studio, ESPN's Steve Nicol more or less said the whole Arsenal team were suspect, apart from Mikel Arteta. I wonder if Nicol has met Arteta, as both spent a lot of time in Liverpool, Nicol playing for the red side without Spanish maestro on the blue side.

Anyway, Nicol's praise of Arteta was far from shocking. However, I took issue with his criticism of Thomas Vermaelen and Lauren Koscielny, especially as the commentary team had revealed that this pair had made more last-ditch tackles than any other defenders in the Premier League. Those statistics speak for themselves and not in a negative way either.

To keep things on a positive note, I should mention the possibility of Thierry Henry returning to Arsenal as a coach. I suggest we get him to coach our strikers. He might even be able to get Chamakh scoring goals again!

That's all for now, up the Gooners!

Miyaichi is no Henry!

Of course, I want Ryo Miyaichi to become a legend at Arsenal. I have some very strong Japanese connections, so I’d love to see players from ‘the Land of the Rising Sun’ succeed in the UK. But we do tend to get carried away by good goals in this day and age, when few have enough time to attend games. In short, judgements are made from highlights and, based on that, you’d have to say Miyaichi’s goal for Bolton at Millwall in the FA Cup fifth round was reminiscent of the great Thierry Henry.

Miyaichi left a sleepy Millwall defence for dead and curled his shot around the keeper to score his first goal in English football. I felt very excited for him and thought he would now go on to give the Millwall defence a torrid time.

However, the talented teenager struggled to make a significant impact thereafter. He was hauled off late in the second half after enduring a heavy challenge from Alan Dunne and replaced by Chris Eagles. It was a decent enough display from Miyaichi, but does he really look like the new Henry?

I asked my dad, who attended the game with me. He should know a few things about wingers, being an ex-professional wideman (no pun intended) himself, playing in all four divisions throughout his career.

So what was his view of Miyaichi? My dad’s damning verdict was: ‘He’s got pace but he won’t make it in the Premier League. Ryo’s got some ability but Arsene Wenger hasn’t got a good track record when it comes to developing wingers. Look at Theo Walcott. That boy’s got a lot of latent talent, but has he improved much since arriving at Arsenal? I don’t think so.’

Arsenal's high point this season?

Watching Thierry Henry scoring the winner against Sunderland sparked such wild celebrations that I was forced into thinking it might be this season's high point.

When it comes to low points, there have already been a lot to choose from: the mauling at Old Trafford and other away-day defeats at Swansea and Blackburn also come to mind for me.

Yet it's some of the off-the-field activities that are angering other fans. They believe the directors are trousering the profits and/or watching their shares increase in value while the team grows more and more ragged around the edges.

Before the Sunderland game, this was the kind of thing the fans were talking about. How the high point was the Champions League final defeat against Barcelona and how it's all been downhill ever since. They put this down to a lack of investment in the playing staff.

It was hard to argue with that assessment, despite Arsenal dominating possession against a dogged and determined side like Sunderland. And when the Black Cats took the lead, thanks to Per Mertesacke tripping over his own legs, it looked like the faithful would have to swallow yet another inglorious defeat.

Somehow from the depths of despair came hope in the shape of supersubs. Subbing has never been Wenger's strong point, in my opinion. He sticks rigidly to the format of taking players off in the 67th to 70th minutes of matches. No doubt he decided that was the optimum time to remove players from the fray after years of meticulous research! Well, it's not a good idea to question that policy as Andrey Arshavin has found to his cost. After airing his disappointment that Wenger is inflexible in this area, the poor little Russian has seen his minutes on the pitch dwindle to nearly nothing. He is so far down the pecking order now that he seems more 'pecked at' than 'pecking', as Wenger's thinly-veiled criticism of his defending at Swansea would seem to indicate.

Yet the little Russian sparrow showed that he can still fly on the wing! Although he only had a few minutes on the pitch, he made his time on it count by supplying our strutting peacock of the past, Thierry Henry, with a goal on a plate. Henry wasn't in the mood to miss.

Before that another supersub, Aaron Ramsey, had pulled Arsenal level with a superb long-range strike that went in off both posts. He's been so out-of-form of late, he also seemed an unlikely saviour.

Most unlikely of all was seeing Wenger's subs work out so well. Normally it feels likes he's forced into subbing, as he was when Mertesacke went off or it's completely formulaic. If you do the same things habitually you're bound to get it right sometimes: like the broken clock that's right twice a day!

Time seemed to stop when Henry scored the winner. Let's hope that was not the high point of the season, as Arsenal have still got the FA Cup to play for starting again at The Stadium Of Light.

One thing is clear though: it will be tougher without Henry, who will be sorely missed now he's returning to the MLS. Like Berry Gordy's tongue-less peacocks of the past, this proud exponent of the beautiful game has never been too loud for his master. Hence, Henry has always been revered by Wenger and treated like the legend he still is.

Meanwhile, our little Russian sparrow will have to learn from the legend and be a bit quieter if he wants to earn more game time at Arsenal. He is our classiest player and somehow Wenger needs to get the best out of him, if Arsenal are to remain fourth and challenging for silverware in the cups.

Arsenal: Ask uncle T!

I'm really sick of Wenger whingeing. He moans about refs a little too much and now he's on about the fixture list. I wish he'd just get on with his job and sign some players to strengthen our push for a place in the top 4, as you might not believe it but the transfer window of opportunities is open!

Like our finishing of late, it's often a window of missed opportunities. We got so close to signing Chris Samba last January but it inexplicably fell through.

At least Thierry Henry did not slip through our net, which is just as well given his heroic cameo performance against Leeds. When our other stars were fluffing their lines, Henry kept his cool when all about were losing theirs and passed Song's through ball into the net. He made it look easy. A lesson for our strikers.

Henry may have lost his pace but he's perhaps more of a team player now. He was humble enough to call his man-of-the-match award a 'joke'. The guy is a living legend and we're lucky to have him back.

When he left to join Barcelona I thought it was the right time. His teammates seemed intimidated. He wasn't the encouraging 'uncle T' we see now. He was an ego that needed feeding good passes that we were less and less able to supply after the departures of Vieira and Petit amongst others. Henry felt understandably frustrated.

Now he's back and has added patience to his many attributes. I'm not sure how much difference he'll make in league games but I'm glad he's back. I just wish it were for longer.

If this is our only January signing then the club should hang their heads in shame. Hopefully we'll get a decent left back on loan and maybe another striker. If we're serious about doing well this season that's the minimum we need. Ask uncle T!

Fulham fallout - profits before points again

We should really look no further than the club itself if we want to recruit a successor to David Dein. You know, somebody who could actually make deals happen. Not sure the club want that. Why? It might eat into their profits. Better to lose points than allow that to happen. But some bright spark at the club knows we need to reinforce and that same person posted pics of Henry up before a deal was done. Good on yer mate! You're in the wrong department though. You should be bringing players in for us instead of just posting pics and whatever else you do.

The relevant department would rather drag transfers out. Seems pointless given we'll only have Henry for a short time even if it does go through. Please number crunchers explain why it couldn't be done 1st Jan when the transfer window opened? Seems a pointless saving delaying transfers as we found out literally against Fulham, that's if Henry could have made a difference. But if not, why sign him?

Fulham were our banana skin waiting to happen and now it's happened. A defeat we could ill afford. A dot on the cards, of course, with a makeshift defence. We might get by with one player filling in, but two! Coquelin, at left back, failing to track back for Fulham's winner, like Rosicky, who should know better. Poor marking like that makes me feel there's a serious malaise at the club. I hope I'm wrong. Wenger seems in denial, blaming ref Lee Probert. I'm not so sure many refs would have awarded a penalty when Gervinho went down in the area under a clumsy Senderos challenge. And Djourou getting his marching orders for 2 yellow card offences. Well, some pundits say they saw it coming. The only thing Wenger could have done to pre-empt going down to 10 men would have been to replace Djourou with Miquel, but that would mean 50 per cent of the back four would be woefully short of experience so I can see why he persevered with Johan. But really, once again we're counting the cost of a lack of transfer activity.

We're in January and the only player joining us is Henry. I welcome his return though we shouldn't expect too much from the living legend. If only Wenger could bring back the solid full backs of yesteryear. Dixon and Winterburn should be wheeled out of retirement perhaps or if not that, at least bring in someone who really cares for the cause. Coq didn't show that enough yesterday but we'll put that down to experience.

Someone who does care is Frimpong and now he's at Wolves. Well he needs game time so I wish him well. I think Coq has the edge technically and is more versatile so it made sense to let ef go out on loan. Let's hope he returns as an even better player.

We can't expect the same of Henry so I hope the crowd and teammates don't heap too much pressure on his shoulders...although if anyone can handle it, it's Le God or should I say mon dieu. I was startled to read that Henry laid into Song verbally after a poor showing at Craven cottage back in the day. A lot of the fans did the same. I can't understand that although if someone continually screws up I do tend to stick the boot in! Ask Flapianski!