By Sir Hardly Anyone.
It looks like we have had a bit of an effect what with our reporting that only 3 in every 100 transfer rumours actually happen for I see it is being quoted elsewhere!
Perhaps as a result of our reporting (or perhaps it is just a coincidence) there is a change in the way transfer rumours are being reported. With reports from foreign bloggettas and free news sheets that no one has heard of largely being laughed out of existence (what with their failure rate being above average at over 99%) we now have an ever increasing amount of “This is what Wenger should do if Arsenal are to stand any chance” replacing the “Arsenal on verge of signing Ima Oldtimer”.
The approach of the bloggettas (defined as blogs which have articles with an average word length relevant to the article of under 100) is based on the fact that a properly run club can do anything it wants, have anyone it wants and off load anyone it wants. Unless it is Arsenal because Arsenal are useless at everything.
So who have we got now I hear you cry? And I shall tell you…
The New Arrivals!!!!!!
1: Juan Cuadrado
He could be sold by Juventus, according to CEO Bepper Marotta, and the Metro. “Arsenal reportedly failed with a bid for the pacey winger earlier this week but according the Juve man, he could still leave the club,” is their reportage. But in other reports “a £17.6m bid was rejected by Juventus.”
However we must note that “Arsene Wenger is reportedly on the hunt to find a replacement for Alexis Sanchez (whom he says he isn’t selling) and Juan Cuadrado seems like a perfect option, despite his failure to make an impact with Chelsea.”
And we are told that “At 29 with plenty of experience, Cuadrado is at the peak of his career, playing his best football.” So that’s all right then.
2: Mario Lemina
This one is less exciting at it is just that the player has been “linked” to Arsenal. But then every player has been linked to Arsenal – except those who are already at Arsenal who are linked to leaving. He’s a central midfielder who has played 29 games for Juventus since 2015. He’s 23 years old and before Juve was at Marseille.
3: Max Kruse
This is another “tracking” affair. But is tracking not another name for “stalking”? Max is currently with Werder Bremen, but already the questions are asked as to whether he is the right man for Arsenal, given that he has spent his entire career in Germany with the likes of Wolfsburg, Werder Bremen and Borussia Monchengladbach and thus doesn’t understand English football.
The 29-year-old forward made 24 appearances for Werder Bremen last season, making seven assists and scoring 15 goals in the Bundesliga. He was placed sixth in top goal-scorers list and he has a somewhat troublesome personality, having often been involved in incidents off the pitch. He even missed European Championship and World Cup for Germany due to said ‘incidents’.
I rather think this one has been set up so that next week we can have “Arsenal back off from accident prone German,” or some such.
4: Thomas Lemar
Because of the club’s slowness at getting its negotiators out of bed in the morning “Arsenal are facing competition from the likes of Liverpool and Juventus for Monaco star”. That comes from Telefoot, although I made the first bit up about the getting up to save the bloggettas having to think of it.
So this gives us Lemar, his team mate Kylian Mbappe and Alexander Lacazette as replacements for Alexis and Mesut Ozil. Not bad.
The Canon helpfully says “Liverpool are reportedly interested in apparent Arsenal target, Monaco midfielder, Thomas Lemar.” In other words they just made that up.
5: Simon Kjaer
Inter and AC Milan are after him but Arsenal are “reported” to have launched an opening bid to sign former Roma and Palermo star currently with Fenerbache and captain of Denmark. Takvim.com claim Arsenal have offered € 12 million to sign him. He’s a centre back and has played 47 league games since 2015 for his club.
6: Sander Berge
Now here is a man to solve our midfield issues, apparently. Except I am not sure we have any midfield issues, if you look at the figures for Xhaka in yesterday afternoon’s report, and recognise that it took him a while to get use to PL refereeing eccentricities.
According to reports in The Mirror, Arsenal are hoping to beat Everton, Monaco and Sevilla to the signing of £18m-rated Genk midfielder.
He’s a “highly-rated Norwegian star” who has been “watched by Gunners scouts for a number of months now”.
7: Marco Asensio
We’ve been a bit low on “red alerts” this time around, while last summer we were getting two a day. Anyway Asensio is demanding more playing time at Real Mad as Liverpool, Arsenal & Juve remain on red-alert. (See told you).
Here’s the thing: “After another scintillating display for Spain in their 5-0 European Under-21 opener against Macedonia, attacking midfielder Marco Asensio has reportedly told his Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane that he wants more game time at the Santiago Berbabeu next season.”
Now can you imagine an under 21 telling ZZ how to run the club? He’d have two black eyes and a broken nose in half a second. He has however played 23 times for Real Mad in the league.
But Diario Gol tells us that “the man from Majorca” (which I suppose is a bit like the Man from Delmonte only without the oranges) “is anxious to prove his worth at his current employers ahead of next summer’s World Cup Finals in Russia. Liverpool, Arsenal and Juventus have all been linked with potential moves for the youngster and all three are reported to be remaining on red-alert should he not get those guarantees from Zidane.” Ah. Red Alert Captain. Where’s Patrick Stewart when you need him?
(Huddersfield – Tony).
8: Nikola Maksimovic
Yes Arsenal are interested in Napoli centre back Nikola Maksimovic, and it’s all according to Radio Kiss Kiss
According our old chum R.E. Ports “The Serbian is currently on loan from Torino but will join the Partenopei permanently at the end of the month. The 25 year old was however not a regular in Maurizio Sarri’s side last season, making just ten starts and 12 appearances in total.” Sounds like a sure fire Arsenal buy in that case.
9: M’Baye Niang
Arsenal are reportedly chasing AC Milan forward M’Baye Niang according to reports from the Daily Star, which they tell us gives further reason to believe reports that Olivier Giroud could be on his way out of the club this summer.
Niang spent half of last season on-loan at Watford, scoring twice in 11 games – “was formerly a target for Arsene Wenger in the winter, and the Frenchman has now reportedly reignited his interest in the 22-year-old Frenchman.”
But we might recall that Giroud scored 12 in 29 league games, most of those games being as a sub, and as a winger put in a perfect cross to allow Ramsey to scoring the winning goal in a cup final for the second time in his life. So I ask you, “is this likely??????”
So there we are – nine more players we are getting in. The question is, how many players will we be tipped to be signing BEFORE THE TRANSFER WINDOW ACTUALLY OPENS???? 70 is not impossible!
Funny ol’ game this journalism lark. But to answer the headline, no, it isn’t happening to our club and yes, the news is unbelievable.
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Believe what you see and not what you read or hear half of those listed are gone bought or sold on but not to Arsenal. Seems to me its just to get Arsenal fans excited over nothing. See same old Wenger policy and in the same period Stan the main shareholder making money what a lousy agenda.
As usual Wenger wouldn’t sign any high profile player n would end up with the likes of some average players who are rejects of other clubs
All these rumours have to start somewhere.
My question is in order for a rumour to be a legitimate rumour does said rumour have to have been started by a fit and proper person such as a newspaper reporter or agent or blog writer, or can any old Tom, Dick or Harry start one?
If anyone can start one I might think of a good one and join in the fun.
John Kelly
By “Same Old Wenger” do you mean the one that just won his 5th trophy in 3 years?
Indeed, what a lousy agenda.
I’d much rather have Liverpool’s or Spurs’s Agendas as there obviously working much better.
Arindam, that is a very interesting comment. I suppose the “usual” you refer to in terms of no high profile players, would include Ozil, Alexis Sanchez, Per Mert, Petr Cech, Xhaka… yep those world cup winners in that list are pretty low profile, you’re right.
John Kelly I would love the same old Wenger policy of buying world cup winners and a top South American player to play alongside them.
Are you seriously claiming the Charity Shield as a trophy? lol
why not? Chelsea claims the shield as a trophy.
http://www.chelseafc.com/the-club/history/style/trophy-cabinet.html
ScotchEggsRule
“Are you seriously claiming the Charity Shield as a trophy? lol”
Well to be honest I wouldn’t of normally but if it’s good enough for the ‘Special one’ who is a mere mortal like me to argue?
James Ducker
25 February 2017
Asked at his press conference on Friday how significant winning his first trophy as Manchester United manager would be, Jose Mourinho corrected his inquisitor. “A second,” he said, politely but pointedly.
“We won the Community Shield, not a major trophy, but a trophy.”
As an insight into Mourinho’s mind-set, it was telling. To the Portuguese, every competition matters…….
Obviously not to you though, it seems Mr Eggs.
Same transfer window different year same old modern day arsenal getting left behind so sad to see my club act the same way over and over again brings a tear to my eye….
MickHazel
They usually start with agents.
ScotchEggsRule
Is somebody claiming the Charity Shield as a trophy? I must have missed that one again. I know it’s embarrassingly on the club’s role of honours, but most supporters only see it as a pre season warm up soon forgotten.
Right, so now we’ve got that little misunderstanding out of the way, perhaps Mr Kelly would like to explain what’s got him so upset about our 5 trophies in 4 years.
I did mistakenly say 3 but I meant 4 years, obviously, although of course we did sneak a runners up spot in there, which apparently, when Liverpool and Spurs do it is a magnificent achievement. Not when we do it alas it seems.
Leon
“Is somebody claiming the Charity Shield as a trophy?”
Yep, that Someone’s Mourinho. Who am I to argue?
Nitram
I thought ScotchEggs was suggesting somebody here & today was claiming this trophy.
He’s a refugee from The Mail’s comments sections though isn’t he, so any BS goes on there.
@Arindam Barthakur
I guess you have been watching Arsenal since…2016?
Dennis Bergkamp was mocked at Inter that, at some point, certain flop of the week column was named “Bergkamp of the week”. Bruce Rioch signed him from Inter and…you know what happened next.
Patrick Vieira was roting in AC Milan’s reserves despite being a Ligue 1 side Cannes captain at the age of 19. Vieira was signed by Arsene Wenger and…you know what happened next.
Thierry Henry was struggling for game time and with the wing position at Juventus of Carlo Ancelotti. He scored three goals during his spell at Juventus and Juventus couldn’t wait to get rid of him after just six months of football. He was signed by Arsene Wenger and…you know what happened next.
You see, three arguably best players in the Arsenal history (I don’t verify any choice that doesn’t see three of them among Top 5) were “rejects” of three greatest Italian clubs. What is even more fascinating, each one of them played their best football under Arsene Wenger and each one of them had played under top managers (for national team and clubs).
In a way, both Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez were respectively Real Madrid and Barcelona rejects. Same could be said for Petr Čech. If you asked an average Arsenal fan who are three Arsenal world-class players, these three would easily slot in Top 5 with Laurent Koscielny and Hector Bellerin (a Barcelona reject) probably having the edge over Čech based on the current form even if Čech won The Golden Glove in 2015-16.
That’s why I think you watch Arsenal since 2016.
Josef
Agree with much of what you say, but you’re putting Kos ahead of Campbell, Adams, Bould,,Keon & O’Leary. And Bellerin was only sixteen when we got him from Barca, so hardly a reject.
Sorry Jossif not Jossef
Wenger should by signing player not after good players are gone he will be telling us no good player in the market. Trophy is a trophy.
Leeroy, this time loop that you are stuck in… there must be some way out of it. I mean, most of us don’t feel it.
@Leon
Sorry, I meant three current world-class players.
The window is not even open yet and we are already condemned for not buying the better players.
I repeat what I asked a couple of days ago, in other words, how many of our signings in recent years have turned out to be bad players?
What makes one proud as a gooner is the fact that our business is conducted in private and time after time the players that we sign, whilst possibly not on the tip of the tongue of your average blogger, have turned out to be positive signings.
So, no doubt someone will ask, why have we not won the league? Good question.
Apart from Leicester, whose feat almost everyone agrees was a one off fluke, the title has been won by teams that have spent vast amounts indiscriminately, and have been able to fill their teams with large numbers of already established players.
By the way, there is no point in looking at net spend and suggesting that we have spent more.
Those teams have been able to keep their net spend down by selling the players they bought for a fortune, for a fortune.
Just out of interest, how many bloggers had heard of Santi Cazorla before we bought him?
This is a player who most gooners recognize as one of or event the best player for a number of years now and whose absence has made such a big difference.
I am heartily amused by people who seem to live in the internet world of instant gratification.
By virtue of their being able to win the league on their PS4 and sign the best players in the world at the drop of a hat, they seem to think the same should happen in the real world. It’s so sad to read the puerile nonsense spouted by some people who seem to have completely lost touch with reality. It seems thaye just cannot get to grips with the idea that the world doesn’t actually revolve around massaging their ego’s.
Solution: Mr Wenger really must get a PS4 (and a job in MacDonald’s) then perhaps he could be as good as them………
Now Messi has decided to follow Ronaldo and come to PL.
I will join Arsenal if he joins Manu, i will follow him, he cant run; “itt iss the only way to prove to im that i am ze best”, he said with a smile. 🙂
It absolutely is an achievement for Spurs to finish second and less so for Arsenal, simply because we are one of the top three clubs in England (alongside Manchester United and Liverpool), therefore are expected to win tin pots every season. Second isn’t really good enough if you’re the Arsenal, but for Spurs fans it’s a three day erection.
@ jjgsol
Quite agree with most of what you say. However, if you look at net spend and points gained, you will find that we have actually achieved much more under AW than those megabucks clubs!
Ozil wasn’t a Madrid reject, but he was a victim of circumstance. The option to purchase Bale became available and Madrid took that option, which required an outlay of 100 million Euros. They’d already raised around 60 from the sale of Higuain and others, but the additional acquisition of Isco, Casemiro and Carvajal necessitated raising even more funds. Ozil leaving didn’t impress the players and was seen as a surprise choice. Mourinho has called him ‘the best number 10 in the world’, and I’m sure Wenger was delighted to get him for that price; fast forward a couple of years and players who aren’t fit to lace his boots are changing hands for £40-45m.
@jjgsol
I had heard about Santi Cazorla before he signed for us. I still remember his last-minute free-kick at Santiago Bernabeu. It was an equalizer Iker Casillas, arguably one of the greatest goalkeepers ever, couldn’t stop. Ambidextrous wizard.
Speaking of ambidextrous wizards, how many people had seen Aliaksandr Hleb taking set pieces with his left foot while he was playing for Stuttgart?
Flares
“It absolutely is an achievement for Spurs to finish second and less so for Arsenal, simply because we are one of the top three clubs in England (alongside Manchester United and Liverpool)”
Depends what your parameters are for that statement.
Could you explain them?
and why no mention of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang?
surely the best available striker right now.
Flares – agree with your posts. The Club’s priority should be retaining it’s best players. Pay Ozil and Sanchez whatever it takes on a weekly; there is no transfer fee involved. There is no one available this window close to those two in ability and body of work. Without UCL football on offer AFC will have to pay over valuation to bring in a star player anyway. Who’s available? Lacazette? Can’t get a game behind Giroud for France. When is he first team for the Arsenal? Mbappe? Spend the money on Ozil, Sanchez and maybe the Ox. I’m sure the kid will be everything being said about him in time. Today, this minute, where do you spend the money- the kid or Alexis Sanchez? I know how I’d spend it but it’s not mine to spend. And where’s the next Santi if he can’t recover? A lot to be addressed before chasing ‘maybes’ in the window. unless there’s a Vieira out there.
http://www.totalsportek.com/money/english-premier-league-wage-bills-club-by-club/
This link will explain why Tottenham finishing 2nd is more of an acheivement than Arsenal finishing 2nd.
Matt
So Money matters then.
And for 10 years there I was thinking it didn’t.
Maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are.
Alan We started talking about him in May, and the trail seems to have gone cold. http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/61830
Matt
I don’t think I’m smart, maybe that’s just you?
Just wondered why you see money as relevant when for years it wasn’t.
Perhaps rather than sarcasm you could explaining that? Or maybe you cant.
Who said money isn’t relevant in football?
I have always believed there is a correlation between money and success. They teams that win more often than not prove this.
You should try Mindfulness it gives you perspective and make you realise that football in not worth getting angry about.
Matt
One minute you accuse me of thinking I’m smart, the next that I’m angry.
I should give up on the physco-analysis if I where you, because you know less about that than you do football.
Flares
I’m still waiting for you to explain your earlier statement that ‘Arsenal are one of the top three clubs in England (alongside Manchester United and Liverpool)’.
What exactly are you talking about?
Liverpool haven’t won the league for heading towards 30 years now, and have won 1 CC in the last 10. How does that qualify them as one of the ‘top 3 Clubs’?
I really am looking forward to your explanation.
Selling players would bring us more problems but buying a quality of one or two would now put us on the list of clubs who are ready to take trophies!