Arsenal to check up on Salamanca

 

Richard Law is set to visit UD Salamanca, the Spanish club that we use to loan out players who do not have an EU passport, this week in an effort to discover how much trouble Salamanca are in currently.

Richard Law, the Arsenal representative, has been very involved in the creation of the partnership between Salamanca and Arsenal, and the Gunners have sent him to find out how the current financial situation at the Spanish club lies. They hope to know first hand what the decision of Juan José Pascual will be regarding a possible sale of the club. Meanwhile, they will also check on Pedro Botelho’s progress, a subject that they are not worried about given the amount of first team opportunities that he is getting at the club. According to the article at www.nortecastilla.es, the intention of Arsenal is to loan out Pedro for another year next season until he recieves his EU passport, rather than perhaps loan him out to a La Liga club instead next season as we did with Carlos Vela.

The article also tells us that Arsenal will have to give Salamanca the loan of another player next season regardless of whether Pedro remains with the club, and if Arsenal fail to loan out a player to them, a part of the agreement that Salamanca have with Arsenal is that the Spanish club will get a fee of 150,000 Euros in compensation, something that the struggling club may indeed prefer given their financial difficulties. 

Diego, Grenier and Guzan all targeted for summer switch to the Gunners

 

Three very different transfer stories breaking this morning. One has quotes, one has a “source” and one is speculation, yet knowing Wenger the most likely of these is either the speculation about a new goalkeeper in the form of Brad Guzan, or the snatching of Lyon stralet Clement Grenier, and not the story with quotes about Werder Bremen star Diego.

So first to the most interesting transfer sory - Diego.

The excellent Brazilian playmaker has had his dad come out and say this morning that there are three teams that are definitely interested in his son - Real Madrid, Juventus and Arsenal. You can see what he said below:

“There are a lot of rumours and all of them are not the truth,” Djair da Cunha told Bild. “But Real, Arsenal and Juve want my son. By the way Juve sporting director Alessio Secco already came to Bremen to speak with Klaus Allofs.”

The Brazilian has a contract until 2011 with Bremen and with Juve and Real interested the price could be anything upwards of £15m. We need a purchase like this to help us gain ground on Man Utd ahead of next season, but I will be very surprised if we win this particular transfer battle due to Wengers strict regulations on financial outgoings on players. However, Diego is made for Arsenal in my opinion, he has the balance, speed of though and talent needed to succeed at Arsenal, and would almost certainly be converted into a playmaker/winger such as we have with Rosicky and Hleb, and to see a midfield of Fabregas, Flamini, Hleb and Diego would definitely be worth the ticket price alone.

Next we have a more familiar story - young Frenchman, hasn’t signed a professional deal and has been labled the “next ….”, meaning he has got to be good.

And according to a “source” from The Sun (and we all know how reliable they are, don’t we), good old Wenger is interested:

“Wenger is very impressed but Lyon told him to forget it. They want him to stay here a few years as they expect to be able to get a huge transfer fee for him.”

That’s all pointing out the obvious really, so I think perhaps The Sun should leave the sources out next time. All it means is that if he wants to join Arsenal and Arsenal want him, it’ll go to a tribunal and a fee between the teams will be established, as with Merida.

Lastly there is the story of Brad Guzan, an American goalkeeper. Apparently the 24 year old has already been the subject of a £2m from Martin O’Neil’s Aston Villa, but Arsenal have now joined the race for Guzan’s signature ahead of Lehmann’s probable retirement. I don’t really think we need to buy another goalkeeper though unless he’s a top class one who is going to go straight to number one. There seems little point in adding another back up when Mannone and Szcesny (spelling?!) are both promising goalkeepers and could step up to third choice. What we need is an Artur Boruc-type goalkeeper, a player who can be the difference between teams, not another potential number one. 

Match Ratings: Arsenal 1 - 1 Liverpool

 

Manuel Almunia - 6 - Didn’t have very much to do really, couldn’t have done much about the goal and was comfortable enough with the few crosses he had to deal with.

Kolo Toure - 5 - Doesn’t look at home at right back, but Senderos is looking better and better at Senderos and gives us a better combination in the centre, so Wenger has a dilemma on his hands when Sagna comes back. I really like Toure but Wenger isn’t going to drop our captain, and Senderos doesn’t deserve to be taken out of the side and that seems to leave him with no choice.

Phillippe Senderos - 7.5 - Couldn’t have done anything about the goal, was solid throughout the game and had one slightly edgy moment in the first half but other than that did well once again.

William Gallas - 8 - Played really well I thought, Torres was in his pocket to be honest.

Gael Clichy - 6.5 - Off and on he had a good game, possibly could have got the other side of Kuyt for the goal and showed more urgency in the opposition’s half at times.

Emmanuel Eboue - 4 - Poor once again. When is Wenger going to drop him from the team for the big matches at the very least he doesn’t offer enough. Walcott’s time has come.

Cesc Fabregas - 6.5 - Much better in the second half after a very disappointing first period. Went close a number of times when he came forward from a far deeper position compared to normal.

Mathieu Flamini - 7.5 - Worked very hard for the team as usual, was every where it seemed on the pitch. Lacking something in the final third to complete his performance though.

Alex Hleb - 7 - Very good in the second half, poor in the first. That dribble to get him the penalty appeal was brilliance, it really was. Just a shame the ref didn’t notice the blatant foul on him.

Robin van Persie - 7 - One of our best players in the first half, but he’s got another niggle just as he was looking sharper and had to be replaced. Shame and hopefully he’ll be back by the weekend as it didn’t seem serious.

Emmanuel Adebayor - 7 - Works very, very hard indeed and got the reward with his 24th goal of the season. When are Arsenal fans going to finally admit that he is an excellent player?

Substitutes:

Theo Walcott - 7.5 - Added urgency and direction to the attack. Had a brilliant strike go narrowly wide and worried defences. A bit less of a threat on the right.

Nicklas Bendtner - 5 - He must be unbelievably embarassed about his goal line clearance from Fabregas, he really must, but it was almost unavoidable as from the position he was in whichever way he chose to run he would have been given offside for interfering with play.

Unlucky Arsenal can’t get around the parked bus

Arsenal were robbed yesterday. We had 58% possession, thirteen shots and six corners to Liverpool’s meagre 42% possession, just four shots and three corners.

Yet we drew the game 1-1.

Yes Liverpool played the game with as much purpose as you see teams have in pre-season friendlies, but we let this style of football beat us by not getting the result that we wanted, and perhaps even needed ahead of next weeks return leg at Anfield. We have simply got to improve our conversion of chances that come our way if we are going to progress, and a little bit of fortune to favour us would be nice after seeing numerous obvious decisions somehow not being noticed in the last month or so.

We started well and van Persie had a couple of shots go close, Adebayor also getting half chances. And with 24 minutes gone it was looking good for the Gunners, having scored our first, first half goal since the game against Blackburn in early February, with Adebayor heading home a great ball from van Persie indirectly from a corner. Another surprising statistic (I’m on a bit of a run with stats today) is that the goal from the corner is the fourth successive game in which we’ve scored from that particular type of set piece, which is an encouraging statistic. Now all we need to do is remember how to score from open play and we’ll be alright….

Unforgiveable sloppiness almost immediately gave back the initiative to Liverpool, three minutes after the opener Toure and Eboue both got clear chances to tackle Steven Gerrard before the Red’s captain entered the penalty area and crossed for Kuyt to bundle the ball home to equalise. Liverpool then put a bit of pressure on Arsenal before half time, although no clear cut chances were made by them really.

The second half belonged to Arsenal with Liverpool retreating so far back into their shell I doubt they will be coming back out again until next weeks match, meaning we’ll get exactly the same situation to deal with on Saturday, which will be more good practice for playing against lower opposition. Walcott had replaced van Persie at half time and showed more reasons why Eboue should be dropped in favour of the young Englishman, out on the left he created several moments of danger including a brilliantly hit drive going narrowly wide.

Then the most controversial part of the match happened. Hleb skipped past the challenges of about half the Liverpool team and was bearing down on goal when Kuyt clearly caught hold of Hleb, bringing the Belurussian to the ground. Clear penalty, but not as the referee saw it, who had decided to keep out of any situation that may force him into action of any kind. He could and should have dished out several cards to Arsenal and Liverpool players but bizarrely didn’t, presumably thinking the game would flow better if there were no cards, but if there was no point to booking playersthen surely Fifa would get rid of cards altogether?

After that Arsenal fizzled out to a large extent, with only one more clear cut chance falling to Fabregas, who duly got the ball beyond Reina but somehow Bendtner managed to stop the ball on the line and was subsequently ruled offside.

So all to do at Anfield, but with the showing yesterday I believe that we have what it takes to score at least one goal there, particularly if the mighty Reds venture out of defence….