It’s the 16^th of December today, 9 days to Christmas, but more importantly only 15 days and a few hours before the January transfer window opens. Personally I am not a great fan of mid-season signings as they often need time to settle and before they hit the ground we are at the end of season.

However, there are times, that due to various circumstances clubs need to strengthen their squads before the season is over. Arsenal have injury problems and if they want to win the league in May they probably could do with at least one signing. Chelsea have an Armageddon on their hands and need to buy big to avoid relegation.  Pool need strikers, Tottenham have no class, Leicester have no depth and might want to buy a couple peripheral players, and so on. It is going to be busy in January.

But never mind all the others, we have our own agenda. It has been widely reported that we want to buy a couple of Leicester players and not necessarily Jamie Brilliant Vardy. Mehrez who has no problem finding the net and Kante. Kante was Arsenal’s target before and could be brilliant alongside Ramsey and Ozil. However, the Foxes will be looking to buy, not to sell, so I think we can forget these two great players.

There are rumours that Arsenal are chasing Denis Cheryshev (24 year old Russian) the Real Madrid winger and Adrien Rabiot (20 year old gorgeous Frenchman) the PSG young midfielder as well as Alex Grimaldo (20) Barcelona B’s left back.

There are other names, other gossip of players who want a move to the Emirates as well as malicious rumours of Nacho and Alexis going to to Spain in January.

We know it is best to ignore any rumours, but there is no harm in expressing an opinion of which position we would like to strengthen.

Do we really need anybody else – the squad is formidable and the best since the exodus of the early years of the 21^st century. Do we need more strikers, given the brilliant form of Ollie? How about a couple more small Spanish midfielders?

You tell me

And finally I would like to congratulate Leicester City FC – well done guys! You make us believe in football again.

Written by Eddie

According to popular opinion this summer is going to be different we are told we have money to spend, we are told we don’t need to sell.

There is increasing clamour for expensive signings from the fans, the press are doing their best in fuelling the expectation further maybe with the clubs PR doing the briefing, who knows.

But let us learn some lessons from previous windows and reserve judgement until it closes before we declare it success or failure:

1) ignore all talk of “done deals” until the player is announced on the club website

2) if the quote used by the press is not attributed to anyone then ignore

3) similarly if there isn’t even a quote and the article implies a source or uses the words xxxxx understands that…. ignore

4) there has been much talk from football pundits that we need 3 players, some even 4…..these pundits have previously said we wouldn’t finish in top 4, that Spuds have the greatest side ever, and that Arteta was a spent force before he arrived and the BFG was the worst PL defender ever. Basically if we are listening to pundits to make football judgements we are listening to imbeciles (unless its Gary Neville)

5) We took 24 from 30 in our last 10 games, in fact we were second to ManUre in points haul in the last 20 games, how far away are we in reality?

So remember the above and relax through the summer transfer window, it’s a done deal when it’s a done deal, we are interested when the player is at the ground having a medical.

All other news is not news, enjoy the window….we get what we get.

Gooner in Exile

Last week I listened to a number of end of season podcasts. Needless to say the non-Arsenal assessments were damning of the team and in particular the podcasts made by professional journalists.(SkySports, Guardian etc). Almost to a man the journalists blamed Arsenal’s failure on Mr Wenger lack of activity in the transfer market and his reliance on his youth policy.Their reasoning was thus ….

Arsene is scared of buying because his record with big signings is very poor. They cited Reyes, Arshavin and Wiltord as evidence, stating  AW’s fingers were burned by their “failures”. Is this true? It must be if the Chief Football writers of The Guardian, Mail, NOTW, Sun, and Times are to be believed. Judging by the attitude of other journalists, they are in agreement. One of these men actually said that AW lacked “bottle”.

Total cobblers I say. Firstly, let us look at their examples:-

Reyes – cost an initial £10.5m rising to £17m if he achieved certain targets (which he didn’t).  After winning a PL title, and FA Cup  in his two seasons at AFC he was sold for £12m. Probably what we paid for him. A flop? Well, it was true  Reyes didn’t live up to our hopes for him, but hardly a disaster economically.

Wiltord – Club record signing in 2000 at £13m. Scored a goal every 3.5 games for Arsenal. Voted 33rd in the Best AFC Players of all time (madness!!). 2 PL titles and 2 runners-up, 2 FAC winners and one losing finalist. Played 175 games and saw out his contract prior to leaving for Lyon. Was he a success? IMO in a limited way, he rarely showed that he was proud to wear the shirt and was rumoured to be a troublemaker in the dressing-room, but the title winning goal at OT will live long in the memory.  A flop – definitely not.

Arshavin – 9 years after Wiltord, AW broke the record again, signing the Russian for @£16m. By the end of his first season AA was voted the PL most effective player (http://rt.com/news/arshavin-effective-imscouting-england/) . He continues to contribute scoring 10 with 17 assists last season. It is true that we hoped for more from a World Class player, but a flop? Hardly.

Is Mr Wenger’s record in the transfer market any worse than his direct rivals? Has he spent £100m + for players who sit on the bench every week like SAF. Or loaned out players with a value of over £150m because they aren’t good enough for the squad, like Mancini. Look at every Chelsea manager – how many can say they bought well in every case? For every Lampard there is a Shevchenko. And then there is Liverpool …… !

Spending Big money does not directly lead to winning trophies. It just doesn’t. Best teams in Europe this season? Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund – common ground – Youth Policies. Wenger’s reluctance to buy a proven player is primarily because he believes in the need to develop a player in the Arsenal way. As London wrote recently, MU will go down this road as they realise it is the way forward, and so will all the other top teams. This does not preclude signings but the basis of AW teams will always be homegrown.

So what are the journalists talking about? These men are experts, their job is to inform non-experts, their opinions should be valuable and yet they are completely ill-informed. Is this important? Yes it is, because the majority of football fans don’t accept the evidence of their own eyes, they believe what they are told by an increasingly anti-Wenger media.

What do you think, is fear the reason for Mr Wenger’s reluctance to buy?

Written by BigRaddy