With all the transfer talk about young, exciting – and expensive – strikers that could be on their way to the Emirates this summer, there’s been little said about one particular forward who was generally supposed to have been on Arsene Wenger’s radar in the last January transfer window. I’m talking about Barcelona’s David Villa. Yes, he’s 31 years old and has been blighted by injuries recently, which have contributed to his sporadic first-team appearances for the Catalan giants. But he has a wealth of experience and is still Spain’s all-time leading goal scorer.

In a recent interview in Spain’s “Sport” newspaper, Arsenal legend, Robert Pires spoke about his desire to see Villa in an Arsenal shirt. He said: “Villa is a very good player, scores many goals, his time at the club has been hard, complicated. Coming to Arsenal will be very easy to adapt.”

He went on to suggest that a move to the Emirates and a chance to play in the Champions League could be just what Villa needs to revitalize his career, which, fitness permitting, probably has a good 3 or 4 years left to run.

I’m not suggesting that David Villa should be the sole addition to Arsenal’s strike force this summer. I’d still like to see a player like Benteke or Higuain come in. But Villa could be a useful squad member and a handy sub for the last 20 minutes of a game against tiring Premier League defenders. We know Arsene Wenger is a fan of the player and he wouldn’t have to dip too deeply into the coffers to acquire his services. Perhaps the gentle cajoling of his compatriot, Robert Pires, will have some effect.

If nothing else, it would be worth snapping up the Spain striker just to deprive the spuds of one of their stated transfer targets.

Frank

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The recent stories about Wayne Rooney moving to Arsenal are very surprising but also welcome at Arsenal. As I have been saying for ages now the club needs to make an impact and show the top clubs in Europe that Arsenal will spend money on top players to compete for titles and trophies.

The whole situation with Rooney being linked with Arsenal started when he handed in a transfer request just two weeks before Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement. I won’t go into possible reasons why he wants to leave or if he will stay, this article is about what will happen if he moves to Arsenal and how it will benefit the club.

Now, I personally am not a huge fan of Rooney because I am constantly disappointed at his England performances and remember how he was tipped to be the best striker in the world which he definitely isn’t. However I am confident that Rooney would be a better player at Arsenal than he ever was at Man United. He is the kind of striker who likes to be involved in link up play but also loves to be in the box to score goals.

In the last season at United he has been used as a support striker for the traitor Van Persie and has been frustrated at his lack of opportunities to take control of an attack and fire in some goals.

The style at Arsenal is different from United’s in the fact that at United, the defenders are expected to defend, the midfielders are expected to help out the defence and the attack and the strikers are supposed to be there to score goals. This differs from Arsenal in my opinion because at Arsenal the team is more fluid and Wenger expects everybody to score goals. At United RVP’s job was the goalscorer, at Arsenal it is everybody’s job to push forward and score goals.

Rooney at Arsenal along with a couple of new signings would be a vast improvement on any team at Arsenal in the last few years.

Do you agree that Rooney would be a good fit for Arsenal because of the freedom he would have to be the top striker and continue with the link up play that he is so good at?

Arsenal are in a strange phase at the moment and they have been for the last few years. The fans and neutrals are scratching their heads as to why the club can not challenge for trophies anymore, despite the stacks of cash the club apparently has in reserve.

Every summer fans claim that things are going to be different this time, but they never are. It has been rumoured that the club is going to go out and spend £70 Million this summer which everybody can only hope is true. The whole situation made me realise that if Arsenal can’t change things this summer, they are going down the same road Liverpool did from 2009 and onwards.

Before the rise of Manchester City and Tottenham, it was Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool who were not only always in the top four but they were all challenging for the title down to the wire for a number of seasons.

From the time of Mourinho all four of these clubs were fairly equal compared to now. You went into a new season and could expect any of these clubs to win the league but then things started to change for Liverpool which altered the whole dynamic of the top four.

Rafa Benitez’s departure signalled a downfall at Liverpool where they began finishing lower and lower in the table starting with fourth (sound familiar). The club then got new owners who intended to spend lots of money to get back into the top four, but the signings were all pretty much terrible except Suarez (when he’s not banned).

The kind of transfers that Liverpool made when they were in this situation are the kind of transfers that Arsene Wenger likes to make. They were pretty much all average players who had yet to prove themselves which is the kind of player Wenger buys every season.

What I am getting at is, if Arsenal do not invest in world class players this summer who are Champions League quality players then the club is going to go the same way as Liverpool. You can not deny that Liverpool have fallen from being just a few points away from Premier League champions to 7th or 8th place at the end of the season and they are no longer considered a top English side. Can Arsenal avoid the same thing happening?

Many people recently have criticized Arsene Wenger and his transfer policies, they say he is too stubborn and won’t sign the players that Arsenal need. I used to agree with this opinion however after watching us finish fourth last weekend, I still think Arsene Wenger is the man for us. Dont get me wrong i certainly dont believe that 4th place is the limit for Arsenal but now we have a springboard that many of our competitors dont have. You look at the landscape of the premier league next year and we are in very good shape. We have something that no other club near us have – long term managerial and financial stability. Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City all are going to have new managers, we have a manager that knows how this works and has guided to Champions League football year after year.

Dont get me wrong Arsene Wenger’s job is not done, we have nearly completely paid off our stadium but now need to act smartly in this transfer window. In my opinion this transfer window is about two things; firstly getting the finished article, we need players who are ready now not in a few years and secondly we should sign early, i would love to see deals done June, early July and allow our new squad to gel because in my opinion it took a while for this current crop of players to gel – and if you are talking about winning things you cant start slow.

This Arsenal team, although not the most talented, has undoubted spirit. Unlike recent Arsenal teams this team is ready to grind results close 1-0s against the likes of Fulham, Sunderland, Swansea and Newcastle, when it came down to do it this team did the business. I think Arsene Wenger has bred this spirit and finishing fourth is a good achievement but we must push on and live for now and not in the future, because Arsenal is a big club and should be experiencing success with trophies.

In my opinion the reason that we aren’t challenging for the titles is because of the big games, the games where you can’t just have spirit, you need widespread quality. You look at the teams we have dropped points against; Tottenham, Everton at home and away, Man Utd at home, Man City at home, Chelsea at home and away and Liverpool at home. If you want to win titles you need to win these big home games.

To conclude Arsene Wenger has spent 9 million pounds of nett in 10 years, and has qualified us for the Champions league every season for 16 years, he has led us through the payment of a massive stadium, We must really believe in him now, a few shrewd signings and we will be contenders next year, COME ON YOU GUNNERS!!!

WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?

Calum

So then, what will be in store for the Gunner faithful this summer? Arsene has this massive 70 million warchest. There is absolutely no way that with that much money to spend, the pressure that has been building on the club, the high ticket prices, etc., we aren’t going to make a dramatic shift in philosophy and bring in some “top, top, top” players over the long break, right? I am inclined to say “no.”

Why am I so cynical? Because I (as many of you) have been paying attention. So far as I can tell the only difference this summer is that we don’t have any world class players to sell. The only player we have been linked to that has any credence is some young kid named Sanongo? Or is it Sadongo? Point is I have never heard of the kid. This is the only player I feel up to this point we may actually sign. It’s the prototypical Arsene signing – young guy with lots of future potential (and value to sell).

Haven’t we heard the same song and dance long enough? Every time a transfer period approaches we hear about money available and “the full support of board” and all these other things that really only serve to instill a false sense of hope in fans (and sell season tickets). The fact is Arsene does not operate in the same capacity as other managers. He “builds” great players. He doesn’t “buy” them. He is extremely stubborn and is always somewhat vindicated with his “trophy” he consistently wins – as he has done again. This always leaves the window open for telling everyone that the team he has assembled is good enough. It also serves to keep the glass-half-full supporters consistently satiated. Nothing irritated me more than when he kept reiterating in the face of logic and reason that he didn’t need to add players because he couldn’t find any quality players better than what he already had. And on what planet is the team we currently have too good to improve on? How many trophies did we win the last eight years again?

We will not see a Cavani, Falcao, Higuain or Lewandowski in an Arsenal jersey. We will once again be placated with a couple of new signings, but they will not be groundbreaking names.

I love Arsene but a time comes when you either have to change your approach or move on. Let’s hope it’s the former not the latter.

I have a stirring feeling of deja vu swelling up all of the sudden. Getting a little queasy…

Sincerely,

The Redneck Gooner

I don’t know how many times I have read that the Fiorentina striker Stefan Jovetic has signed a pre-contract agreement with Arsenal and will join the Gunners when the transfer window opens. I’ve even seen Photoshop pictures of Jovetic edited in an Arsenal kit, yet now all of a sudden the story has gone cold. However, now there are reports that once Juventus declared an interest, Jovetic would like to stay in Italy.

Jovetic’s agent stated; ‘Stevan prefers to stay in Italy rather than move away.’

This comes after Jovetic reportedly stated he’d be interested in an English club’s approach and this claim wasn’t helped yesterday when a Juventus official stated that the club don’t need to talk about him (with the media) they just need to sign him. Which basically displays they have a strong interest even if no formal contact has been made.

I have never been over hyped on these Jovetic rumours. In one sense I felt that the transfer may be following in the path of an early agreement like it did with Lukas Podolski last season, however now it seems no more like a Yann M’Vila situation all over again.

Be sure, that there may still be interest in the player, for all we know we may have agreed personal terms with the player, but are not willing to pay the £25 million or so that Seria A side Fiorentina are demanding for their Montenegrin striker. Which, on that note I think is an extortionate amount of money for a striker that in my opinion has struggled in his own league let alone in the Barclay’s Premier League. Scoring 34 league goals in 115 appearances isn’t exactly great in my opinion, especially for someone who is demanding such a high transfer price.

So I guess we will have to wait on this one, if you were to believe everything you hear and read on the internet then you could say that in the matter of a few days Jovetic had started planning his new life in London, then suddenly wanted to move across Italy to Juventus, one thing that can be almost certain is that there is no pre-contract agreement in place.

Obviously, Arsenal’s transfer policy and constant antics in the market have not exactly brightened up the average fan’s day, but it has a reason. As many criticize “Silent Stan,” and “Ivan the Terrible,” there are very specific reasons for their actions.

Many think because Stan Kroenke, Arsenal’s major shareholder, hasn’t spent ridiculous money, that he is unwilling to spend and does not have the clubs best interests at heart. This statement is absolutely ridiculous and preposterous. As we all know, Arsenal have gone through a change in stadium and this has left the club with huge financial restraints. This does not necessarily condone becoming a selling club, but it does explain it. While the likes of Man City and Chelsea currently flourish, in truth, they are horribly run businesses. They each lose close to 100 million pounds a year, and while we all understand that their owners are pouring huge sums of money into the club, a business cannot survive forever like this. Eventually, Man City and Chelsea will fall off the map, because of the business side of football, not the playing part. While it is impossible to predict when, it’s easy to predict it happening at some point. Stan Kroenke and Ivan Gazidis have helped keep the club afloat financially during a transition of stadiums, while also being able to maintain a squad that can keep constant Champions League revenue flowing throughout the club.

As many of you may know, Manchester United’s stocks dropped over 4.5% after Sir Alex retired. Obviously, they will try to over compensate by purchasing stars at an extremely inflated price, which is just bad business. Arsenal on the other hand, have set themselves up beautifully for this up and coming transfer window. With the new TV deal and Puma Kit, along with Champions League football, Arsenal have the money to compete with the big boys again. While many fans will urge Wenger to spend absurd amounts of money on players like Stevan Jovetic, Gonzalo Higuain, and Remy Cabella, I get excited about something different. I get excited about the Yaya Sanogo’s. While nobody is saying he is going to be the next Drogba, he could be. And for less than half a million pounds. That, is what separates Arsenal. Manchester United may buy Ronaldo. Chelsea may buy Falcao. Arsenal buy Yaya Sanogo. While many will scream out at me yell about the difference in quality, you are definitely right. But these players Wenger picks out, he does it for a reason. Because that’s who they can be. While I am sure that Yaya Sanogo will not be the only player Arsenal buy, and I definitely would love to see top players like Higuain and Jovetic in any Arsenal side, they are not what makes Arsenal different. They are not why Arsenal will prevail in the long run unlike all other nouveau riche clubs. The Yaya Sanogo’s of the world are…

Onto Gazidis now…..

He may be the most controversial character of them all. You all hate his answers, but they are not wrong. While a club like Arsenal should never be celebrating the way they did over 4th place, we are currently in that situation. Many of you think that this summer will be different, and that may be true, but I think it is doubtful. Arsenal are the best run club in football, and with in my opinion, the best chief executive in football. Not many men could have guided a club like Arsenal through financial hardships they were going through. Just remember, Gazidis and Wenger will not buy just to buy. There has to be a purpose. I will call it, the Fabregas purpose. When Arsenal bought Cesc Fabregas from Barcalona for 1 million pounds, many did not even turn a cheek. 8 years later, and he was sold for 35. For a club in financial crisis, to be able to turn a profit like that is magnificent. At this moment in time, Yaya Sanogo is this player. I expect it to be different this time. Arsenal are not in a financial crisis, they are in a financial heaven. Expect this new group of Gunners to develop together. Don’t expect them to be sold. Expect them to flourish together. Many of you will say, “If Arsenal are such a good business, they why wouldn’t they just sell everyone for a profit?” The answer is because at this moment in time, that is financially stupid. Of all people Stan Kroenke probably watches the stocks the most, and I don’t think it would be a pretty picture if what has happened over the past 3 years happens again. My point, in the future, that would be bad financially, and the only reason Arsenal did what they did at the time was because of financial distress, and the hidden gems Wenger finds will help elevate Arsenal over the clubs that splash around money like they are in a pool.

I am very excited for this next wave of Gunners and for what next season holds. This season could bring Arsenal to the top, or out of contention. It will all depend on smart, savvy buys in the market. We all know Arsenal have money to spend, but let’s see how Gazidis. Kroenke, and Wenger spend it. Oh, and everybody, look out for Yaya Sanogo.

Arsenal will prevail, and when all others fail, Arsenal will stand alone.

After Benteke’s comments yesterday about Arsenal, I’ve seen fans calling for Wenger to sign him as if he was the world’s best player stating that he always dreamed of playing for Arsenal, however he’s not. Back in reality he’s a 22 year old striker for Belgium who had an exceptionally good season, but is he really what Arsenal need right now?

Now I do not doubt that Benteke is a great talent, he’s tall, strong, athletic and powerful. Clearly he has got a good shot on him having scored 23 goals last season and he does have that Premier League experience but I just feel like we should be aiming higher. Despite my comments I would like to see Benteke come to Arsenal because I think he will be a truly fantastic player in the next few years, but I feel we should look to sign another striker alongside him.

But will Wenger be willing to sign two strikers without any going out. Well it seems pretty likely that Bendtner, Park and Chamakh will be gone this summer but that still leaves us with Giroud, Podolski, Walcott, Gervinho, Sanogo and Afobe as realistic striking options. Sanogo who is reportedly soon to be confirmed although the player himself has announced it, will probably go out on loan, as will Afobe which is a shame because he’s coming to the age for Arsenal development, where if he hasn’t broken into the first team squad then it’s becoming increasingly unlikely he will. But still, even with these two options maybe leaving it would still leave us with four striking options and then six if we sign the two I think we need if one of them is to be Benteke.

Anyway even with this, do we really want a player who seems like he could be a bit of a disturbance on and off the field? Great player but his comments did remind me a bit of the likes that have left Arsenal in a bad way in recent times.

“There is no point me getting into a tug-of-war with Villa,” said Benteke, “and I don’t think there is any need for one. If the chance comes up for me to join a club like Arsenal, I am convinced that we can reach a compromise where everybody comes out a winner.”

It’s disloyal and disrespectful to Villa on their part. It’s the typical scenario of a player that has had his best season and suddenly he seems to forget about other people, the other players, the manager and most importantly the fans. We have slaughtered Van Persie, Nasri and others for doing this and now we are getting excited about a player doing it in order to push a move through to Arsenal. It’s a bit of a contradiction don’t you think, so I’m not getting over hyped about him right now, especially as he isn’t quite a world-beater that the Arsenal fans have been calling for.
As stated, I would like to see Benteke at the club but only if we signed another attacking option as well, however I don’t see how Wenger would cope with having possibly 8 potential strikers at the club so until he finds a solution I wouldn’t get too excited about anyone coming in. What do you think>

It’s a pretty well-known fact that in order for Arsenal to improve then we need to ship out some of the ‘deadwood’ and replace it with talent that can seriously build on our team and make it a strong competitor. If I’m honest I really don’t think we are that far off a great team, we have the buildings of it already at the club, we just need to go out this summer and buy, in my opinion 3, maybe 4 top quality players.

Champion’s League football will allow us to once again attract the big names, the only issue now is the money in terms of player wages. We may have the 70-80 million budget that people have mentioned, however how much of that is put aside for wages and other transfer expenses.

But this shouldn’t be a problem because the real solution to the problem is to get rid of the players that really have little chance of playing for the club.

- Squillaci is reportedly on £50,000 per week
-Chamakh is reportedly on £60,000 per week
-Arshavin is reportedly on £70,000 per week
- Bendtner is reportedly on £50,000 per week
- Santos is reportedly on £40,000 per week

And of course there are many other players you could add to the list but in that alone there is £270,000 worth of wages being spent on players that will probably never play for the club again. Squillaci and Arshavin’s contracts run out so that’s already £120,000 gained, which is the amount that one top class player would probably demand. In fact if all those players listed were to go we could probably get £10 million in total as well as gain those £270,000 wages and in my opinion that could free up wages for 3 top quality players.

We don’t need to sell our best players in order to advance in the transfer market, maybe we did before because of financial restrictions and stadium debt but now with that very close to being paid off we need to take advantage of this summer and get the players we want, all of top class quality.

Ash

Arsenal have managed to consistently compete at the highest level on a relatively low spending budget. It was recently announced that In English Premier League History Arsenal have spent £406,690,000 on incoming transfers, which may seem a lot to you but when you think that it’s over the entire course of the premier league era, it’s a very long time and in comparison to other clubs we are 6th in the spending table, behind Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool, United and Spurs. (They are actually ahead of us in a final table for once!)

So then to recognise that we have competed at the top level of Champions League football every year and brought many honours back to Arsenal, although not in recent years, it still shows that money isn’t everything and that we’ve remarkably managed to keep up with the big spenders of this new money revolving football age.

Famously Gary Neville said something about Arsenal that I’m sure all fans will recognise as the truth and truly fantastic;

“They’ve spent £9million net in 10 years and maintained the level of consistency of getting in the Champions League. They’ve built a football stadium, they’re paying off their debt and they’re nearly there. If they move up now it will look like one of the most magnificent managerial performances when you look back in history.”

“Half the Arsenal fans are annoyed because they think they should be doing more and should be doing better, but of all the madness and debt that surrounds football, what they have done is absolutely the right thing. What they now need to do, having nearly paid off their debt, is they need to go now. I think he knows, Arsene Wenger, that moment is now.”

Neville made these comments after the Newcastle game in which we secured Champions League qualification on the last day of the season almost a week ago and he’s completely right, and the figure spending backs up his point. I completely agree with him that now we are in a better financial position and no longer have the great stadium debt looming over our heads then now we need to go out and have a big spending summer, because sadly I think Arsenal’s future for the next few years lies in the hands of these 7-8 weeks. Spend and we could realistically challenge alongside Chelsea, City and United. Have the same mentality that we normally do during the transfer window – and you may find that we go the same way as Liverpool. We are extremely lucky to be in this position this year and to have Champions League football in expense of our North London rivals.

Let’s hope that we can take advantage of that and have an excellent summer.

He told Marca, “There is nothing done yet with Juve. The Player rights belong to Real Madrid and the first thing we need to do is meet with the club.”

It may still be true that the Argentinean international would prefer a move to Juventus in Serie A, but Real Madrid and the player have to agree to the terms offered by the Italian club. It appears that Real Madrid are not satisfied with the deal so far, which could open the door for Arsenal again. They are also waiting to see if the new manager wants to keep him.

Juventus officials are in Spain at the minute, but they have not struck a deal yet. All they have done is find out that Higuain would be amenable to a move. There could be further complications, according to AS, caused by Juventus’ inability to pay the transfer fee in one go. The paper reports that they want to pay less than Madrid value the striker at, while splitting the payment into four annual chunks. I don’t think Madrid are going to snap their hand off on that deal, if it’s true.

Juventus have spent heavily recently and are struggling a little financially at the moment. Hopefully, Arsenal can take advantage of this because we are in a very strong financial position. Don’t give up on Higuain just yet, Gooners.

The concept of a football captain as being an inspirational figure, a natural leader and on-field representative of the team’s manager is probably more of a British phenomenon. I think back to such iconic captains as Billy Bremner, Billy Bonds, Bobby Moore and our own Tony Adams. Players who commanded respect from their teammates and who could be relied upon to dish out a few verbal brickbats where necessary.

But there aren’t so many obvious examples of this figure among foreign clubs. In other countries, the captain’s armband tends to go to the oldest or longest serving player, even if that’s a goalkeeper – witness Dino Zoff with Italy or Iker Casillas with Real Madrid and Spain. These appointments seem more like an afterthought, or long service reward than a tactical decision. After all, there’s a limit to how much inspirational impact a keeper can have on the field of play.

Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger might harbour some of these European sensibilities in his own view of the role of captain. He’s never really appeared, in my view, to buy in to the concept of a team captain as the British game understands it. In recent years the armband at Arsenal has gone to players he’s wanted to appease – Thierry Henry and RVP, for example – rather than to those with clear leadership qualities. But whether by luck or design, I think he’s now stumbled upon a true captain in Mikel Arteta.

On the field, Arteta’s an inspiration – always talking to and encouraging those around him. He has the experience and ability to command the respect of every player. And his attitude is exemplary. Just listen to what he said recently in an interview posted on Arsenal.com when asked about taking on the role of defensive midfielder: “In my mind, I think ‘How can I make the players around me better? How can I make them feel more comfortable?’ I am talking about Santi, Aaron, Jack, Tomas Rosicky – players like that.” That’s captain talk. And being given the acting captain’s role in the latter part of the season has had a positive effect on his own play, indicating a footballer who relishes responsibility.

Arteta comes across as an intelligent and thoughtful student of the game. He puts the interests of the team above his own and understands what his role is on the field and in the dressing room. Much as I’m a great fan of TV5, I believe Arsene Wenger should now make Mikel the full-time Arsenal club captain. The armband seems to make him and the team better, while Vermaelen and the team struggled. Do you agree?

Frank

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