Arsenal formally completed the signings of Jon Toral and Héctor Bellerín today, with their Barcelona contracts expiring last night. The deals were done months ago, and with the dust now settled after their difficult departure from La Masia, attention starts to turn to their debut campaigns in London.
The two Spanish Under 16 midfielders both come with good reputations, but not much else is known about the duo Arsène Wenger caused a row with Barça in signing. On top of that, what part can we expect they’ll play in the short term?
Jon Toral
Toral is seen as the best equipped to settle quickly. His English connection through his mother and good physique mean there won’t be too many surprises, which should allow him to blossom earlier. On top of that, Jon has always admitted his desire to play in England, despite his parents and coaches trying to put him off. A move to Arsenal came naturally, despite Spanish media claims of the club poaching him.
A tall, strong and physical midfielder, Toral can play pretty much anywhere in the middle, but some have already suggested he may take up the holding role in front of the back four. His good vision and ability to pick accurate and incisive short and long range passes will make Toral a solid asset, but both Steve Bould and Neil Banfield like balance, and being left footed, a place in the ‘Jack Wilshere role’ seems more likely.
Héctor Bellerín
Bellerín is perhaps the most exciting signing. A fast winger who can play in a variety of forward positions, his excellent delivery, skillful approach and superb technique make him a real danger. Héctor turned down a new contract in Catalunya to join Arsenal, and after some brilliant performances in the Caspian Cup with Spain’s Under 16’s, he’s arrives in top form.
The 16-year-old can play as an out-and-out centre forward, where he has a reputation for being a goal poacher. Héctor has also filled in at right back, but it seems a role on the wing will be his true home.
Both players are expected to start off with Steve Bould’s Under 18’s, then move into Neil Banfield’s Reserve team as the season progresses. Toral already arrives with a slight ankle injury, but he’s expected to shake that off and begin pre-season as normal.
All in all, Arsenal’s latest Barcelona recruits look set for a promising debut campaign.
Before they’re transported back to Catalonia via their Barcelona DNA.
HOPE THEY WILL STAY LONGER THAN FAB.
I’m looking forward to seeing them develop, especially Héctor Bellerín. We lack pacy wingers in the reserves level.
give it a few years and they will be back at barca,heccy has already spoke about that.in arsene we rust.
is he really said that or is it just your thought that he’s going to barcelona one day?
i hope they can brake into the reserves this term… they are still very young, so maybe U18 looks more likely but we’ll see… i expect bellerin to blossom quicker, cos of his position, but i hope he won’t turn up as a player with barcelona DNA in him… anyway, i wish good luck to both, and hope they make at least a few reserve appearances…
i thought i would have been the first to mention “the pissing off back to barcelona part once theyve made their name here” but ive been beaten to it.
glad you are all being so positive that we have signed 2 great youth players by the sounds of it! if they do return to barca like you are so sure, we still have the 30-50 million profit aswell dont we?
Even if they do come out with the Barca DNA thing, we’re getting them for free so we’re not really losing out. If we got a couple of decent seasons out of them both then sold then to Barca for a profit, its still a good deal.
We can’t look to only buy 16 year old kids that we think will be here for their entire career as that is rarer than rare.
we are not getting them for free
You can’t give a thumbs down to fact. We have to pay compensation which is supposedly is about 750,000 euros for the 2.
still way cheaper than english kids. so please stop moaning!
Just as I was thinking……….
what to expect from the catalan kids? I would say more genetically modified football. by the way doesn’t barca care about merida’s DNA
He had Madrid DNA. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t the REAL genetic trait he probably wanted (pun intended.
Maybe if he’d stayed longer/been given more chances here and broken his way into the 1st team (he was well capable; an extremely talented young footballer imo), barca would have eventually gone after him as well.
there probably both better than chamberlain, or at least when they were the same age and we’re meant to be paying 10 times the money for Alex O’C which is only due to him being English and more than likely over rated as are most English players who can kick a ball.
If nothing they will add more fluidity to our youth teams which can only be a good think. People must understand that with the Fabregas situation it will be hard for some of us to get over excited about this move mainly because it is starting to feel like we are now a selling club rather than a building club and not everyone is going to be able to just have blind support. People see what is going on.
You are right shane but you can never say never because fabregas case may not be the same as their own also you cannot say what will happen when they are ready to play for the first team because i believe arsenal will be wining trophies by then which in the case of fabregas is not, and for me he has never thought of going back to barca if not he would not have sign a very long term contract that can last his whole career, but lack of trophies at arsenal make him to start look at barca since they are winning trophy and is his former club as well as his home land.
And how do you figure we will be winning trophies by then? That is the whole thing, we are about to start the whole process over. You don’t win trophies by selling your best players (especially for cheap). Now the issue is how can anyone possibly trust the system? We wait on the next batch and for Wilshere and Ramsey to hit their prime and all of us fans are blindly following the hope that we are building towards success but knowing we have just been down this exact road. I have always stood up for the team and preached that we are building for success but then this comes and it is like as a supporter you are stabbed in the back. I am not sure how any true fan can be so optimistic about the situation for the next several years. The reality of it is we have signed ourselves up as a training and selling club.
By the way, it is not just Fabregas but Nasri looks to be out the door too.
fabregas and nasri leaving emirate is never a threat to us.there will always be a replacement i trust wenger for that
i strongly believe the boys will win us trophies
those two kids i
believe will do wonderfully well at the Emirate.
Wenger should protect thos kids from barcelona.
i haven’t made any comments on these issues because all of these things are speculations… plain and simple. I am yet to hear from the mouths of any of the horses involved in this cesc/nasri saga. I do not believe that Arsenal as a club would be that stupid to let go of two of your best players although i am of the belief that nasri is overrated. Dont get me wrong he has improved tremendously but he still has a way to go. I’m sure he knows that as well. He is no Cesc. Now dats what i call unreplaceable. We can get someone similar but its just like saying we can replace Bergkamp….. Dont think so. When we know for a fact that they are leaving then we can all start moaning. Hell i’ll buy a bucket for all the tears. Lets face it the media has a hard on for arsenal. Its been that way for at least the last five years. Finally on the barca talents…. I say this, if after two years they have the looks of stars… Renegotiate their contracts within the second year… tie them down for 6 years minimum… negotiate for 5 but put your foot down. If they decide they want to leave let barca pay through their you know what… I dont care. I have said time and time again loyalty in soccer is DEAD. money is the motive. Unless that player is grounded in every aspect of their lives.
now for all the we are a selling club mongers…. what are the attributes of a selling club? 99 PERCENT of the time they are in the red. we are not…. we are financially healthy. We are in the rare grey area where our players do not want to play for arsenal… you could say because we lack trophies…. you could say we dont pay as much and for both you would be right. Once we win…. watch the number of players lining up to play increase…. the truth is the level of decent in our club is unreal… check them at the front door. let them know they play for arsenal period. any level of disrespect suspend them with wage garnishment and if they want to go let them go. We need structure. wenger is a players coach. He truly loves his players but he should stop hesitating to bring the rod to the party and smack em when they mess up.
Now, the attributes of a selling club is if they sell their players before or in their prime. Whether you sell them to stay a float or you sell them to profit, you are a selling club.
barcelona are a big attraction to any player in the world right now, but messi, xavi, and iniesta will be long gone by the time bellerin and toral hit their peaks with us. i think by that time arsenal will be more successful than barca. what’s happening at barca only happens at the same clu once every couple of decades max.
Not even they bring in the best. Trust me with Messi at his peak for another 5 to 6 years and the players they are adding, they are not going anywhere unless debt actually starts to mean something. Fabregas and Thiago can take over for Xavi and Iniesta and the ball will keep rolling. People are focusing on the wrong part of the situation. If Barcelona was offering us 50 million for Fabregas then I would not give a shit. They are trying to punk us. Giving them Fabregas are the bargain would be a massive joke and a huge mistake just like it was to let Nasri’s contract run down to 1 year. Also for the people that argue that one player can not change history at a club. Ronaldinho almost single handily put Barcelona back on the map. Johan Cruyff changed the history of Barcelona. Yes football is a team sport but certain players and certain transfers that did or don’t happen can drastically change a club. I truly believe that Fabregas is one of these players. He was the guy along with a Nasri and Wilshere that was going to take us to the next level. We are not going to just be able to replace Fabregas and even worse, we are just setting Barcelona up for another 8 to 10 years of football domination. You can try to deny it but it is the truth. You are going to be putting the guy that creates the most goal scoring chances in Fabregas with the guy that scores the most in Messi. Good luck competing with that. Instead on our end it would have been the generation lead by Fabregas, Nasri and Wilshere who are all going to be the main pieces for their countries over the next 7-10 years. It is like we were going to have Zidane, Scholes, and Xavi all on the same team and even better at a club like Arsenal. We will be looking back on this after all 3 of their careers go down in history thinking about what if. I am sorry but I just don’t think people capture what a defining moment this transfer window could be for this club.
Barcelona have an amazing “production line”. Toral and bellerin may have been among the best of their age group, but their not the only talents they have. Barca would have kicked up much more of a fuss were it not for the fact there are a few more in that age group alone who are considered to have world class potential.
They have thiago, dos santos and quite a few more, including a couple of defenders, who are on the fringes of their first team now who are just excellent players. To put it into perspective, they gave giovani dos santos away for practically nothing, and he was one of the better players in the last world cup at 20/21; certainly mexico’s most consistently impressive attacking player.
How if from now name of Arsenal changing to be Barca Reserve Team. Or Arsenal Football Club to be Arsenal Player Breeding.
@shane,never has so much sense been spouted on these pages.I completely agree,selling cesc,nasri and clichy will lead to more and more of an exodus too,maybe not straight away but cone next year when van persie and Walcott are in the same situation of having one year left on their contracts are they gonna re sign?doubt it.Infact I’d be very surprised if bacary sagna wants to see out the best parts of his career either,I’m sure he’ll be feeling pretty annoyed about what’s going on.I really don’t mind young players being given a chance but it’s clear even to the AKBs that we have a plan to make a substantial profit come the end of each summer transfer window,it’s happened for the past 10years!Each year we hear the usual crap “the defence is the priority” “I’m going to the world cup with my cheque book” and this classic “we need more experience for next season” so getting rid of our captain,most creative player and first choice left back for the last 7 years and replacing them with gervinho,a 17year old and sticking Gibbs in at left back doesn’t exactly strike me as gaining experience,same sh@t different day comes to mind,deja vu.Time we either our board man up and tell us all straight where their priorities lie exactly or they actually do what they say they’re gonna do,it’s no good saying we’ll be buying big or buying experience then come august saying we “couldn’t find the right players” or things like “denilson/bendtner/Gibbs/etc have impressed me in the match against Malaysia 11 so there’s no need to buy as they’re like new signings” if I hear any of this rubbish anymore I’m gonna seriously flip out,I don’t blame wenger anymore,I honestly believe he’s the boards puppet right now and I feel for him,they’re too busy lining their pockets with cash that’ll never be reinvested in transfers to keep us up with the rest of the league,it’s like every year it’s fingers crossed we can get away with it,not good enough!I was stuck in an arsenal kit by my uncle within a day of me being born,he and my grandad drummed it into me how much history we had as a club from an early age,I fell in love with it all,watching the repeats of the arsenal man u cup final gave me goose bumps,being just old enough to remember the title win at anfield,seeing us win both the fa and league cups in the same year,the cup winners cup heroics of David seaman,a man that played with broken ribs!Tony Adams last minute goal to win us our first premiership title still brings a tear to my eye,winning the title at spurs unbeaten,all these types of moments gone and I don’t think we’ll witness any of it again,we were a club of history and tradition and now we’ve turned into a joke,our own players slate our club and nothings done(diaby,denilson)young players demand to be in the first team where as same age players are more than willing to respect the manager and club and wait and earn it ie man utd,give us our pride back arsene and tell hill-wood,kroenke,gazidis and whoever else will listen that we want answers and not a chart detailing how much profit we’ve made at the end of the financial year
I am not a person that had any issue with selling players like Adebayor for massive profit to help pay off the stadium and replace them with cheaper but even better players. We have been great at that and it was pushing our club forward. I completely supported the way things were being ran for the most part because I always believe that we were building a great team for success in the long term. Things change though when we now are going to sell our best players. (if we do) You can no longer tell me we are building a great team if you are selling our best pieces and like I said, on the cheap makes it worse. If Nasri and Fabregas go then the trust is gone for me. Even worse, they are going to be charging fans more for tickets yet they are selling our best players.
I still trust Wenger…I don’t think he would sell Nasri and habregas if he at least didn’t have a replacement picked out for at least one of the two. I think he will replace Nasri and put the onus on Wilshere and Ramsey to create the goals from midfield to compensate for the loss of Fabregas. This isn’t the ideal situation but it’s hardly the end of the world!!! I expect Ramsey to have a MASSIVE year next season. He has shown signs of real quality in his matches with Wales and it looks like he’s getting it back!!! Yes we might be selling our best players, but I think we can find more who might add something different to the mix. They won’t be the same as Fabregas and Nasri but that isn’t a bad thing all the time is it???
Yes that is the thing. You don’t just replace Nasri and Fabregas with Wilshere and Ramsey. It is going to take them 3 or 4 years before they reach that level which brings us to the exact same point as we are now. How can you have any confidence that we will pay them the wages and not sell them? Also how can you have faith when someone at Arsenal let Nasri’s contract run down to the final year which from what I hear, it is looking like we will be in the same situation next year with Walcott and RVP. Look, we have been preached to that we were building a team to win trophies and most of us understood that because of the stadium situation and it was great for the club. Now what do they say? Oh, we are building another team again? Like I have said, if we got proper value for Nasri and proper value for Fabregas and then had that money to put back into the team then ok but that is not what looks like is going to happen.
By the way, I am not putting everything on Wenger. I have know clue who is dropping the ball on these things. Wenger does not negotiate transfer prices or contracts so I don’t think it is him.
@ Shane. Im not one to go back and forth to nitpick every small detail but i would go ahead and clarify. Firstly, I would appreciate it if you can give me 10 teams out of every league in the world that has a balanced book and still sells their players since you contend that lack of funds is not one of the criteria of a selling club. Secondly i must reiterate that selling clubs do so because they do not have the funds to stay afloat so they have what could be considered a farm system. Raise the cow from a calf and sell it at its max size. We raise the players we buy for peanuts and sell them when they are at their best. Now let me go back to why arsenal is nothing close to that. first kolo demanded a trade plus in house chaos that was caused between gallas and kolo led to their expulsion. Adebayor showed a lot of decent to get a ticket out of arsenal. He wanted more money, was disrespectful and openly flirted with other teams… which is why i emphasized that wenger needs to be a bit more of a disciplinarian. For all we know Fabregas, season after season has openly stated that he wants to go back to barca, Put on the barca jersey, denied making statements even though the tabloids have consistently made the transcripts available, openly slammed not even criticized his fellow players… went to go watch a matador and attend other events in spain while we played our final game. Gave players departure gifts, twittered about his non approval of our tactics i mean this is about half of what adebayor has done. He is the Captain of our team. the CAPTAIN…. let it sink in CAPTAIN and we wonder why there is this level of unrest in the team. He is a great player but not greater than arsenal. He has done enough to let us know he does not want to be here and i have less respect for him because he says one thing goes somewhere else and says another. Final thing on this cesc matter. Remember wenger had to reassure him last season right? do we know what was discussed? what if the agreement was one more season? why do we need to negotiate staying with a player under contract? we have bent over backwards to kiss his rear end. I dont think arsenal would take kindly to being bullied and that has been the case in the past. Which leads me to believe that Cesc has let them know exactly where he stands if they are sitting and hashing out details. Once again arsenal are not selling for profit. They are selling because they understand management dynamics and the delicate balance between team and talent. Nasri is a contract rebel. He does not want to sign a contract. With the time left on his contract and understanding that he is replaceable Arsenal might be willing to pull the trigger. A selling team sells irrespective of if the player wants to stay or not. It is clear that the aforementioned players do not want to stay. Why arent we trying to sell wilshere or walcott or ramsey? Im tired of labels especially when they are stupid.
If you listen to what I said mate which I have said it a bunch…being smart and cashing in on replaceable players like Adebayor does not make us a selling club. Selling your best players before their prime does. I don’t care what Fabregas says, selling a 50 to 60 million pound player for 35 million would be ridiculous. Letting Nasri’s contract run down to the final year is ridiculous. Yes if we got some amazing over the top offer for a player like someone just offers us 100 million for Wilshere, then selling is just being smart. When you start selling your best players for normal fees then you are a selling club. Not that hard to get mate.
By the way, on your comment about “lack of funds”….yes lack of funds can be one reason a team becomes a selling club. I said that, but there are other reasons too.
Its so silly to talk about ‘selling clubs’ .All clubs sell players at some stage .Barca , Madrid and Utd sell .Utd didnt want to sell Ronaldo .It could be that Fabregas wants to go and his heart wasnt in the club last season .Arsenal need to get as much out of Barca as possible .The Nasri situation was preventable as far as we know.Perhaps he wouldnt agree to sign a new contract earlier .How do we know? Dont get caught up in the usual summer hype and negativity surrounding everything Arsenal .Its quite amusing to see some prominent commenters on this site gradually being sucked into the newspaper trash and the paranoia .Theres a long way to go in this transfer window and i for one believe theres lots of life in Arsenal yet.
You have said it a bunch that we should not be bullied. Agreed. Point is i am not even talking about how much we sell him for. My point is it is time to let him go. How much he goes for is up to the board. I am not talking about letting Nasri’s contract slip…. that is spilt milk. If he wanted arsenal anyway that would not be a problem… rooney was in the same position and he resigned. enough said. Yes rooney was asking for a lot more but he was willing to listen to Man Utd. as i said and i will say it again… a selling club or a club with that label in all cases have no funds and that IS the primary reason. Others are peripheral (getting rid of dead weight, players asking to go and so on). One last thing on cesc. Ronaldo, Kaka and most of the top transfers did not spite their former clubs while at the club, ask for transfers or even have meetings to force through transfers. they let the clubs handle the business part. Take a look at Gervinho… he understands the business end. He stated clearly i want to go but i would let lille do business with arsenal. That’s how things are done.
I agree more with rashonwenger. At this point we are fooling ourselves if we still think that Barcelona somehow ‘forced’ this transfer of Cesc. It was Cesc all along pushing for it. I sensed it last summer, even though the player was too respectful to come out and publicly say anything that would offend us, I’m 99% sure that he told the club he wanted to leave.
I think what happened is that when the new President of Barcelona came in, Rossel, he made a deal with Wenger to delay what was a done deal for a year so that it would be ‘his’ signing, instead of the old president Laporta’s, who is his mortal enemy apparently. In fact, I’ve long suspected that this deal was already in place and all that we’ve heard about negotiations this summer was just a show put on for the fans in both camps. Call me crazy, but I even think that Toral and Bellerin might be a part of that agreement. If true, this would explain why Cesc was so down this year, I think besides the fans, he was the one most screwed over by the two Presidents.
Hey guys lets stop jumping to conclusions for goodness sake.. we cant listen to all the bullshit in the media! Fabregas is contracted to 2015 and wenger said he has no intention of selling him. With nasri i hope he stays, arsenal just featured him on their july magazine yfrog.com/h4wc5isj and he was in the away kit shoot. I still believe wenger will make the right signings his taking long but he knows what his doing.
if clichy left i wish we could sign aly cissokho, strong n quick LB
You know what, I am going to leave this subject to rest for now until something official happens. cheers and lets hope for the best.
If the suspected players leave heres our squad without any additions.
Almunia, Scezsny, Fabianski, Mannone.
Sagna, Jenkinson, Eboue, Vermaelan, Koscielny, Squillaci, Djourou, Gibbs, Traore.
Song, Wilshere, Ramsey, Diaby.
Walcott, Arshavin, Rosicky, Vela.
Van Persie, Chamakh.
Also depending on who Wenger promotes we could have Lansbury, Bartley, JET, Coquelin…….
It looks like we are going to get Gervinho which is good, but definately i think central midfield is the weakest point if we lose all these players we really need at least one real quality central midfielder and hear Arturo Vidal could be one maybe and this guy is a good tackler and a very good passer which qould suit us greatly. WE could then play Wilshere Song and Vidal which is a strong midfield. If we get a centre back thats good but at the same time im actually not too worried if we dont because if Vermaelan stays fit Koscielny can partner him and also it gives an oppurtunity to Bartley. Im unsure if Gibbs has the quality at the moment to replace Clichy, but he is old enough to make the step up. I think also Wenger is going to sign two wingers i.e. Alvarez and Gervinho so he can put Walcott as a striker which i think is a great move.
Shane>
I don’t see your point at all. Surely it’s possible – even likely – that Arsenal don’t yet have the cash to go toe-to-toe financially with the likes of United and Real Madrid, and so must continue building the club up as best we can? If we can’t afford to keep the Cescs and Nasris – which I think will turn out to be tabloid bollocks in any case – then that’s just the way things are. Sure, we could piss money we don’t have up the wall trying to keep up with richer clubs, but that’s neither sensible nor sustainable.
You seem to be suggesting that Wenger’s not getting the most out of the resources available, and that this should be fixed by increasing the amount of resources – spending more money. That simply doesn’t make sense.
LOL….I am trying to leave this alone but it is tough if people keep making comments towards me. I already said, the worst parts are that we slept on the ball and let Nasri’s contract slip to the last year so his value is so low and the price being talked about for Fabregas. Barcelona are trying to bully us and have been tapping him up for years. If we sold a 50 million pound player with 3 years left on his deal for 35 million then that is another massive joke. We obviously are not hurting for money so bad sense we signed him to an 8 year contract so I think we can afford to keep him. My point biggest point about the transfer is what is the point in all of this if clubs in debt are going to be able to keep spending money like it is nothing. Barcelona is 442 million euros yet they are still able to keep signing players like it is nothing. Also we have always kept our top talents and we have been preached to that the project is about building a team and you don’t do that by selling your best players (especially for cheap).
Not sure how you can not keep up with that mate. Now I am going to try my hardest to leave this alone for now. cheers
One more thing on your last comment? How do you figure. I just said last week that we are 1 or 2 players away from winning the title. If we sign Gervinho and a defensive mid then and Nasri and Fabregas, we would win the league and the champs league this year. Wenger was doing an amazing job but if these 2 players leave then we are almost starting all over again. You can’t replace these 2 quickly.
I’ve translated Bellerín’s latest interview (for Spanish TV channel ‘Punto Pelota’) here if anyone’s interested:
http://www.arsenalreport.com
He said that: “[Playing for] Arsenal can guarantee that I rise to the top very quickly” and went back on his statements about Barca, saying that “right now, I’m not thinking about returning”.
How come it’s always the same tabloid speculation surrounding us during summer? You never see this kind of inflated media crap about manu or Liverpool?! chelski and shitty is understandable since they have billionaire pockets. I don’t think the cesc, nasri and clichy stories are any sort of “problem” in the club. Would be surprised to see any of them leave. Nasri is doing the Rooney bullying, cesc is happy and actually trying to get some real rest (regarding matador stories) and Clichy will either sign a new contract or Wenger is letting him have his last year to let him go for free. (he cost us practically nothing)
It’s all just blown up hysterical transfer speculation put out by the tabloids – because it’s “believable” stories but really? Theres nothing to it.
Shane>
The only point I was trying to make is that you shouldn’t believe what you read in the papers – because that’s straight-up the view that you were putting forwards. Wait and see how things really turn out…
That is why I kept saying the word “IF” but yes, that is also why I said I am going to leave this discussion alone for now until something official happens.
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11670_7014997,00.html.. Bellerin says wenger promised him 1st team n premier league action in near future sounds like he might be fasttracked ?
Well they don’t tell the players they have no shot when they are trying to sign them. If he is good enough, he will definitely get his shot tho at some point.
Another article in the media saying rvp and walcott to follow others out the club. For #%*@!!! what a lot of bullshit, i really wish we had won the carling cup to shut evryone up.
everyone being the journos
Man we got some really positive people on here lol. Some of you would say everything is ok if we sold Nasri, RVP, Fabregas, Vermaelen for 20 million total and fired Wenger and replace all that with Rafa Benitez and a pack of skittles. I am a supporter but not a blind supporter.
Had some time to think about this more rationally outsides of emmotion and i say keep cesc even if he whines about it keep him and continue to build the team till we dont need him and sell. Im not one for the rebuilding process. it took us five years to get here. I hope Cesc can commit to arsenal. The realist in me believes otherwise. If Cesc and Nasri stay, I firmly believe we win next year with two or three new players. Even if the cookie crumbles…. im still an arsenal fan. There are teams that would die to be where we are but it does not mean that we should handle business like we want to get rid of our position. Ivan Gazidis needs to step up and ensure that our players are not going into the last years of their contracts because this is getting pathetic…. shoddy business tactics if you ask me.
Cool off and be rational and not be influence by the media noises.
I don’t credit this article taken from this source but you get what I meant
http://www.footballfriendsonline.com/blogs/2011/7/3/wenger-we-trust.html
A person who loves to flirt with the media, has an eye for young talent, has the capability of a true army general who has passion and love for the same football club as you do … so why are you so reluctant to show your faith in him.
It’s just something that Arsene loves to do, hold the cards in his hand till the last moment and that’s what he will do in this year’s big transfer market. He is a tactician and it should not be a forgotten fact that he took the most difficult task in the days where the entire world’s economy was on a low, of building up a new stadium and still keeping Arsenal in the most elite group of football clubs, the Champions League. It took some bad decision making in the Champions League to beat the world’s youngest (Arsenal) where Arsenal FC took the game to the world’s best (Barcelona) and not to forget the world’s best were not even matched by the world’s most expensive (Real Madrid) when it came to playing football.
Logically keeping your options hidden is the right thing to do as there are certain players which are required to be shed from the team and incase their replacements are made imminent earlier than their sale this could be the key factor over negotiation of selling price for such players. I personally believe that Wenger’s philosophy is to hit the opponents on the patience meter, where whoever falters first has to pay the asking price for the other teams’ player. In different geographical locations across the world the power lies with different people who are attached to a player, sometimes the effecting party is the football club to which the player is attached, sometimes it is the player’s manager / family, sometimes it is the buying club as the player happens to be a fan of the club since childhood, and so on an so forth. The point is to identify which factor can be the deciding factor to change a player’s decision.
There is a list of players circulating on various websites and tabloids who are thought to be a surplus to the club (Arsenal in this case) but all those players cannot be sold that’s a common understanding where even some of these players can be used as substitutes or replacements to the more efficient of players in the same position i.e. utilizing the less efficient set of players in matches which are not so important, in order to shield the key set of players. As under usual circumstances Arsenal FC plays around 60 games per season and as it was seen last season that as the climax arises the time interval between matches grow shorter and shorter and player’s fitness is tested more and more not to forget that each match is played at a different geographical location. Therefore a fully fit team is a key requirement to provide the finishing touches to all the effort that is put up since the start of the season.
In short Wenger will hold on to reveal his signings till later July and during this period will try to offload the players, who are reluctant to be part of the squad next season, are wanted at a reasonable price by other clubs or are a liability to the club. It’s all a patience game, till then read all, hear all but believe only what is confirmed officially.
Wenger Out
@ Angry Fan …. you are another arm chair commentator so who to replace? The board need some replacement as well as Wenger sorting the training strutures to deal with different teams playing styles.
@Arsenal… cheers mate. angry fan? you make me laugh. Dont take this the wrong way you are quick to make fingertip on keys judgement because you took 30 seconds to read my comment and now you know me. I am passionate about arsenal and would not go through the motion of explaining just how passionate, but angry no. disappointed maybe…. and last time i checked you seem to be one of us “armchair commentators” and you know what i commend you though. you care about arsenal just as much as we do. If not you wouldnt care to get on this blog. Glory arsenal!
@Arsenal…. I stand corrected. I thought you were referring to me… did not see the posting right underneath mine…. I sincerely appologise.
@ rashonwenger – cheers mate,
@ Angry Fan …. Need a bit of sense. Everyone needs to look at the facts. The fact is Arsenal already have 26 players over the age of 21. This means as it stands the board will not sanction any more purchases of players over 21 until some are sold or have agreed season long loan deals. United have only signed 3 players one is under 21 the other 2 are only possible because 6 players have left the club, 4 permanent and 2 on loan. The other spaces have been taken up by players becoming 21. So until they sell or arrange more loans they will not buy anymore either. This is why the transfer market is a little slow. The 25 man rule is really having an effect for the first time. Next year it will be even slower, we will have another 7 players joining the 25 man squad, so they has to be taken into consideration as well.
Dear Mr Sanderson, I haven’t been through all of the comments so I am sorry if I’m repeating an earlier question. I was just wondering if there is any truth to some reports I’ve seen that suggest Barca are trying to get £6M knocked off of the Cesc deal as a means of compensation for these two players? Cheers
Just cuz they’re from Barca doesn’t mean they’ll go back. Not everyone is Cesc. Keep building AFC!
have we done a DNA testing on these lads to see if Barcelona is in their DNA?
the mirror claimed that they want to factor the two players in a deal for Fabregas. They value the two players at 7 mil. Is this true? has the deal already been done with the compensation and is the mirror just fabricating news? I know i have posted this comment before, i just needed an answer.
is the deal done, or is it true that Barcelona want to make this apart of the Fabregas deal?