The summer transfer window is a proverbial roller coaster of emotion for any sincere football fanatic. The back pages of all the English rags as well as countless websites are overflowing daily with rubbish manufactured primarily by well- placed flunkies of some quite influential agents to get the average fan salivating at the baseless prospect of one’s favorite club inking that missing piece that will make your squad whole again.
This is an unfortunate reality for any football fan ranging from the ignominy of a diehard Dag & Red fan in League 2, to the rarely disappointed bandwagon jumper who supports perhaps Chelski or Man She…... well you get the point.
Although the following opinion cannot be supported per se by any factual studies, I can utter with the straightest of faces that surviving “Silly Season” yearly is more difficult for a Gooner than for the fans of any other top 10 European side. We are four weeks into the official transfer window as of today the 27th of July and the extent of our record breaking summer splurge is a free transfer for Ligue 2 French Under-20 striker Yaya Sanogo.
This was supposedly the year that our beloved Arsenal got over the financial hump saddled on the fan base after the move from Highbury to the Emirates stadium almost a decade ago. We have been patient watching Chelsea purchase a myriad of talent essentially replacing us as United’s chief rival for the premier league title.
We have been patient as we have watched Sheik Mansour syphon off talent Arsenal spent years developing including Adebayor, Toure, Clichy, and Nasri. We have been patient watching Cesc, Thierry, Alexander, and Alex trade the Emirates for the Nou Camp, and last but certainly not least we have supported our beloved gooners in spite of the front office shrewdly sending RVP to United for 24 million pounds, instead of forcing him to honor his contract and winning the premier league last season.
We have stood by helplessly watching as Spuds have closed the gap calling into question not our dominance of Europe but of North London.
We have stood by and suffered through watching Gonzalo Higuain choose a transfer to Napoli, after supposedly being minutes away from an eminent transfer to the emirates at the end of June.
In addition, we have blown the opportunities to exponentially improve our defensive midfield situation by refusing to pony up the funds necessary to activate Marouane Fellaini’s release clause with Everton.
Victor Wanyama, an up and coming powerhouse operating in the same position was offered to us from Glasgow Celtic but we felt the 10 million asking price was too steep.
Ashley Williams, Adil Rami, Clement Grenier, Julio Cesar, Pepe Reina, Simon Mignolet, Wayne Rooney, Asler Illaramendi, Paul Pogba, Geoffrey Kondogbia, Etienne Capoue, as well as Bernard are among the names of current and future world stars from all corners of the globe mentioned with spectacular moves to North London which not surprisingly materialized into nothing.
As maddening as the aforementioned is to all of us the Luis Suarez saga is nothing short of criminal. We are slowly submitting bids to the only big club in England whose status is sinking faster than ours, Liverfool. They are slamming the door closed at every juncture of this process to buy time for two things to happen. One, Real Madrid is currently in the process of trying to lure monkey boy away from spuds with a reported 81 million euro deal. Ayre and Rodgers are waiting for the predictable refusal from Daniel Levy, for monkey boy so that they may sell Suarez to a foreign club for more money, while succeeding in not strengthening a club that has been keeping them out of the champion’s league for five years. Two, Rodgers will be armed with a boatload of fresh green to add more firepower to their already impressive summer haul of Iago Aspas, Kolo Toure, Simon Mignoloet, and Luis Alberto with Ajax’s Christian Eriksen and Valencia Roberto Soldado rumored to be amongst their current targets. After the Reds impressive winter window signings of Daniel Sturridge from CFC and Philip Coutinho from Internazionale, This essentially moves us into a battle with Everton for sixth place in the premier league.
I have been a staunch Wenger supporter since my love affair with the beautiful game began during the 98 world cup. I believe the Prof is without peer in his ability to maximize the potential in young players, and rising to the challenge of champions league qualification year after year with diminishing player personnel.
However, IF Wenger and Ivan the Horrible do not make a signing of either Suarez or Rooney, Fellaini or Kondogbia, Williams or Rami, and Cesar it will be time in my opinion for the clubs fan base to consider a unified financial boycott of support for the team in reference to any ticket purchases, shirt sales etc.
I understand this is unrealistic but consider a few facts before writing off this plan of attack. Arsenal fans pay the highest rate in England to enjoy a match live at the emirates. Ivan Gazidis and Arsene Wenger made it very clear to the fan base and the competition through several press conferences this summer that Arsenal were ready and willing to smash their transfer record, and restructure their wage policy in order to achieve a level of parody with United, Chelsea, City as well as foreign heavyweights Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus, and European champions Bayern Munich. Lastly we have idly sat by as City have purchased 100 million pounds of new talent for their new coach including our top off season transfer target Fiorentina’s Stevan Jovetic. Chelsea, Tottenham, and Liverpool have all spent over 26 million pounds with over a month left in the window. We have spent 0 pounds. We have signed Sanogo and a pair of teenagers to shore up our chances to make a run at next season’s nextgen trophy. It is Déjà vu all over again.
The bid for Suarez For 40 million and one pounds gives the appearance that we are aggressively seeking to improve the squad by signing world class players in their prime. However, unlike all other clubs looking to sign big transfer targets the articles pertaining to our pursuit of Suarez all elude to the fact that we are clearly his second choice and lambs to the Madrid slaughter should Florentino Perez decide to ruin a potential transfer to the emirates for the third time this summer. The writing is on the wall Suarez in a late transfer to Real Madrid, Bale remains at Totenham, Soldado and Eriksen to Liverpool, Arsenal promote Akpom, Eisfeld, Gnabry, Zelalem, and receive Roma’s Pablo Osvaldo in a swap for Gervinho. The bright side is we will have 100 million at our disposal in January to bone up for a serious run at the Capital one cup’s automatic Europa bid. We all know what a fan Wenger is of the January window. So without gilding the lily any further. I just want to say out loud for once what all logical fans of Arsenal FC worldwide are thinking. The board at AFC needs a shakeup. Ivan Gazidis needs to be replaced immediately as he is obviously inept and simply incapable of handling the day to day operations of the London football institution that is Arsenal Football Club. The board needs to spend every red cent in the coffers on transfer fees and wage increases to send a clear cut sign to world football and gooners everywhere that we survived the storm and came out stronger than ever on the other side.
Striker:Luis Suarez - 45 million.Wayne Rooney - 30 million.
Defensive Midfield:Geoffrey Kondogbia -13 million.Paul Pogba -15 million.Marouane Fellaini - 23 million.Etienne Capoue - 9 million.
Creative Midfielder:Yoann Gourcuff - 8 million.
Defender:Adil Rami - 8.5 million.Ashley Williams- 9 million.
GoalkeeperJulio Cesar - 3 million.
My choice for the best possible tandem of the aforementioned players is Luiz Suarez, Etienne Capoue, Adil Rami, and Julio Cesar. This would cost us a 65.5 million transfer fee collectively. In addition an 8 million pound transfer for Creative Midfielder Yoann Gourcuff. The total 73.5 million could be covered easily along with their wages. This would be a brilliant bit of business we would spent close to 30 million less than city and recouped double the quality. These transfers would give us our best shot at the premier league since the invincibles, and a team with good quality depth made to advance deep in the champions league competition. Let’s just hope we are not crossing our fingers for Diaby to be getting healthy in December. He’s like a new signing it’s Déjà vu all………
Source: Arsenal World
Source: FOOTYMAD
