By Tony Attwood
Loïc Rémy is a 26 year old striker who plays for Marseilles. Apparently Harry Redknapp went to see the player last weekend with £4m in a brown envelope, but no deal was struck. The press said the £4m was his first year’s salary but we all know that was a euphemism.
Marseilles are said to be willing to transfer him, and Arsenal look possible as the player is said to be an Arsenal fan. Although he cost Marseilles £14m in 2010 the current price is thought to be lower, as he has not had a great campaign and there was a scare about a heart condition at one time.
He was born in 1987 and played for Olympique Lyonnais youth team before graduating up and for a little while played alongside Sylvain Wiltord
He then played for RC Lens on loan before moving to Nice before moving on again, in August 2010 to Olympique de Marseille.
On the international front he has played for the France under 20 and under 21 team as well as the full national team.
For Marseilles he has played 68 league games and scored 27 goals but this season it has been just 8 league games and no goals, although he has played five in the league cup and scored four. Overall for the club it is 95 appearances and 39 goals.
The question is, how does he fit in? Is this enquiry just in case Theo doesn’t sign? Or is it to replace Gervinho? Or just another forward in case of injuries?
It is very hard to say: with a forward line of Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo and Podolski we look very positive – and that leaves out Giroud. So, do we really need another front line man, especially one not firing on all cylinders at the moment?
Quite honestly, as usual, I haven’t got a clue.
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The books…
- Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football – Arsenal’s early years
- Making the Arsenal – how the modern Arsenal was born in 1910
- The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal FC: crowd behaviour at the early matches
The sites…
- Referee Decisions – just what are the refs up to this season?
- Parent News – what is going on in schools these days?
- The weight loss programme: The only guaranteed way to stay fit
- The Arsenal History Blog from the AISA Arsenal History Society
OK I’m going to put on my sheeps clothing with AAA woven all over it and rant about this potential signing among other things:
Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!(this is their war whine/cry and always proceeds their moany,negative Anti-Arsenal shite) We want a real player worth 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 Euros, NOT another has been froggie that will make the Arsenal become Le Arsenal and besides he isn’t doing well and will end up worse off than Chamakh,Gervinho and Redknappy combined. Le frogprof is toooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cheap, toooooooooooooooooooooooFrench and too old……….we want Messi or Ronaldo and nothing else will do…wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (This signifies the end of their innane rant and the start of them soiling their diapers).
Now that that’s done my feelings about Remy is that he is actually surplus to requirements as we have better options than him. That said, he is a proven international and being French, he is familiar with Wenger’s style. If we got him on the cheap, so to speak and Wenger worked on developing him, we would certainly NOT have made a bad deal.
Early summer 2010. All the transfer news for AFC centred on two possibilities from Ligue 1. One was Marouanne Chamakh – the other, Loic Remy.
I was screaming for Arsene to sign Remy on the grounds that Chamakh simply wasn’t good enough for our club. But we signed Chamakh and in his first few games (before RVP returned) he did quite well. Then it all stopped.
The thing was, initially I thought I’d got it wrong. And it was only later that I felt vindicated.
So what has any of this got to do with Loic Remy? Well, Remy’s career has also taken a dive in the last six to nine months.
Is he better than Chamakh (2013)? Probably. But he’s not a class forward in any way, shape, or form. He’s the sort of player you’d expect leading the line at Wigan or West Brom or Birmingham.
If Arsenal signed Remy this transfer window then I’d probably fell very ill indeed.
If we really can’t afford the likes of Falcao or Neymar. And Isco and Cavani aren’t in our price range. Then we’d be better off with someone like Soldado or Negredo rather than Loic Remy.
But either way, it shows just how far Arsenal FC has fallen. And just how uncompetitive we’ve become in terms of the Premier and Champions’ League titles.
I would rather give our youth players a chance. As far as I can see he does not fit the bill as regards Wengers statement on only signing quality.
It is been long we sign quality players,enough of all these quantity players. The team that is still struggling to offload the unwanted players from the squad.
We can get needed players from premiership also solution to Arsenal’s problem is DM which I believe we can get it in our league. Tiote will be a good fighter for the ball or if we can toast Marounne Fellaini away from Everton Fc
We do need to go elsewhere searching for CR7,Falcao or Mercelo wwe can easily get them in our league EPL.
you need at least two reliable players in every position if you want to be serious. and you can’t double count them.
you say we have a front three of chambo-walcott-podolski plus giroud and that’s enough. is it? is it really?
first of all giroud’s the main man. walcott and podolski can sub for him but mostly they’ll play either side. gervinho can sub for either of them, but really that’s a pretty ineffectual set of forwards right now. we either a new cenntre forward to compete with giroud, or if walcott becomes that player, we need a new right side forward.
chamberlain is no forward.
and i don’t want remy either. a truly unexceptional player.
It is said in the French version about his career that he can play as a right forward also.
Am tired,why did arsenal link with every players which we can’t buy?
I admire optimism but to be confident that Arsenal have enough through the middle of our attacking 3,is blatantly misguided.If Giroud gets injured,who would you trust to step in and take his central position?Theo’s decent returns in that positon have come against defences that are weak to say the least.Most Arsenal fans doubt that he has what it takes to play in that role against organised defences.Please see his performance against Southampton,which was lightweight to say the least.Podolski isn’t trusted to play that role and starts wide much more often than not.Oxelade Chamberlain has not played thru the centre of our attack ever as far as I can remember,so where on Earth does your confidence that a Giroud injury can be adequately covered against decent opposition come from?,.we may see Sunday
I didn’t count Gervinho in that mix as in my 35 years of attending The Arsenal,I have never seen us pay so much money(football inflation built into the equation)for such an inadequate player.He can’t dribble,he can’t shoot and the only time he achieves anything it seems to be by fooling the opposition with a move that he didn’t mean to execute in the first place ie he fools himself as well as the opposition.He could experience an Eboue moment where his innadequacies are no longer tolerated any more.Please watch his 15 minute,headless chicken performance at Southampton to see how truelly woeful he is as a footballer…and we won’t even talk about Bradford.
A really good striker would be nice, but not one who is below par. For that we have Chamakh, B52 & Park! Why should we pay again to get same quality?!
I forgot about Park…Chamakh £60 k a week,Bendtner £52k a week,Park my guess £30k a week..add Denilson,Squilacci,Arshavin are also players that will never add anything to our team on the pitch again but someone really needs to talk to Ivan and Arsene before they lecture us on being responsible with The Club’s finances,as there is so much deadwood in our squad now,that accounts for our huge wage bill without adding any quality
If we buy Remy I assume he must be super quality as this is the only type of player we buy, Gervinho, Santos and Park notwithstanding.
But isn’t this a paradox as super quality players by definition are expensive and they go to teams like Manu, City and Chelsea? With the exception of Suarez who for some reason is still at Liverpool.
btw i see Nuri Sahin has been shipped out back to Germania!
I remember some folks having a cry and probably ‘locking themselves in a dark room’ becuase we didnt stump up £10m for him (plus wages too?)… And that is for Liverpool who you atm anyway, have not got a better side…
Maybe le boss can ‘forsee’ a lot of this kind of thing happening, so doesnt buy any tom, dick, harry that just scored the latest hatrick…
I hear both the Toure’s are at ACNACANCANC and Aguero is injured, this is goodfor us. We just need Giroud to heal that cut or go use a goats placenta or soemthing, it works on primitive mammals…
Don’t waste your time, we will not sign Loic Remy, especially if Theo signs. I have a feeling that aftern next week, we will either see Theo sign or be sold. I don’t see Arsene leaving him to run down his contract and leave for nothing, we will get some money however little it will be.If it comes to this, then Remy may sign. But we need a holding midfielder is all.
Wow. The negativity and whining in these comments is pretty pitiful. First of all, the January transfer window isn’t one that you normally sign multiple top players. We aren’t even half-way through the window and so many “supporters” are moaning and criticizing Arsene. We’ve lost out on this player, we’ve lost out on that player, the season’s over. People suggesting we should go after Cavani, Falcao, or Jovetic clearly know nothing about the club. I’m sure Wenger would absolutely love to have players like that at the club, but the board will never allow such transfers and other clubs would outbid us every single time. Wenger is brilliant because he’s been able to take lesser known or out of form players and turn them into stars. So when you go complaining about players like Remy and how they are more suited to “Wigna, Birmingham, and West Brom”, remember that Henry was the epitome of average before coming to Arsenal and he turned out ok. Btw Arsene has likened Remy to Henry and Remy is an Arsenal supporter. It’d be great to have some passionate players in the team like Remy
I would like us to get back to signing players with real pace – as Remy has. The Wright/Anelka/Henry type striker with fast wingers in support.
Podolski and Ramsey on the wings just is not good enough.
For this reason I think Remy would be a good signing – he could interchange with Walcott in a front three, or even play as a winger in a 442.
Sod Remy, let Akpom loose
Diaby hatrick! play him up front lol
this breaks the off-topic rule, but it’s worth it…vist arsenal.com now (12/01/13 – PM) for the picture of Vermaelen & Ramsey.
how long is Vermaelen’s left arm?
:p