Arsenal are in talks with Fulham for their highly rated England Under 21 centre back Chris Smalling with a view to loaning him back to the Cottagers until the end of the season. SkySports suggests a bid in the region of £7 million will be lodged if they can get the green light from both player and club.
The 6’4 (194cm) defender made his first Premier League start for Fulham since joining from Non-League Maidstone United in 2008 at Stamford Bridge in their final game of 2009. Smalling’s imposing frame and rugged play caught the eye as the Fulham back line kept out Chelsea until John Paintsil was forced off injured. The game was decided by an unlucky own goal from the prospect but many believe he has a bright future in the game.
Already an England Under 21 international, Chris has previously played alongside Kieran Gibbs for his country and he boasts some Europa League experience having featured briefly this term. Arsenal have been keeping tabs on the youngsters development for a number of months but a move will come as a surprise especially after the recent acquisition of Sol Campbell.
More to follow.
Article By – J.Sanderson
Hodgson seems to disagree… So K is this genuine or did you just copy Skysports?
Phil D , My deepest condolences to you, I am so sorry for being pleased an article has one hundred comments, and I apologise that I have ruined your day by commenting, Thus making your boring day at a boring job disappointing by lulling you into a false sense of illusion that there were more comments ( which there were). I can assure you I will return my medal immediately , and return a much more humble, modest , cleansed man like you.
Again, my sincere apologies to you.
Signed ,
The Critic
( This message is meant to be read as If I were speaking in a soft, quite tone)
:)
Hoped it made you feel better Phil, no hard feelings .
how pathetic
Ali, Im know im being pathetic,
hodgsons denied this today
A bit of inside info here. Smalling lives in kent where i am and he went to Chatham Grammar School for 6th form and was incidently in the same class as my brother for P.E. He also for a short period was part of the school football team. I herd about him and went to see one of their games (yes my brother played with chris smalling). He stood head and shoulders above all the players (ok its not professional) but the thing that most stunned me was his touch. It was outstanding, Anything that came at him with pace was just killed with one touch. And on his height, i was 6″0 and he was at least 2 foot taller than me then, considering ive grown to 6″2 and a half im sure he has surpassed 6″4, bearing in mind this was 2 years ago. And the other thing i noticed was his immense strength (and he has bulked). I did not however even dream that he would play for ARsenal, such a thought just doesn’t enter your mind but i definetly believe that he can more than make it here.
Thanks G4Eva , he seems grounded and not to cocky, so I hope he joins up here,
Glad you have more info on him, it is all relevant.
Cool!!
Well i got some more inside info that i’ll gladly throw out there to you guys and we’ll just wait and see if it’s true or not. Last night, my mate went to the FA Youth Cup game between Millwall and Barnsley (Millwall won 5-4 aet) at The New Den. Smalling’s agent was there and he knows my mate. He said that Arsenal have in fact made a bid of £5m. He didn’t disclose whether or not Fulham accepted the offer but he did say that it looked very promising and that he is very confident a deal will be tied up by the end of next week. That’s what my mate told me earlier on today.
how does he kno the agent and if it is actually smalling’s????
not half the player of bartley or nordtveits ability. would be a total waste of money
that sounds pretty credible TJ
thank you for the info
If he is such a good prospect, and I trust Wenger, I’d be suprised if Fulham let him leave though.
Because Smalling has the exact same agent as a certain Millwall youngster who was playing last night who my mate knows, and who he was actually there to watch in the first place.
At the end of the day, it comes down to this. Arsenal are very interested in acquiring Smalling’s services. So much so that they have actually made a bid and talks are underway to get the deal done. Whether or not it actually goes through is another story.
Of course, all this would be deemed completely irrelevant if the agent thought he’d have a bit of fun and talk some shit to further stir things up amidst the rumours but i really, really doubt that. Also, what AW said on the matter leads me to believe that we are really trying to broker a deal for him.
Sharpovic – Considering they got him for peanuts and they could be making such a big profit on a relatively unproven youngster, well that wouldn’t surprise me too much. :)
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/-no-truth-in-smalling-link-at-the-moment-
Hmmm..
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As much as I can understand right now, I think you’re right!