I’ve got to say, out of all the many weird and wonderful rumours I have encountered as an Arsenal fan, I cannot remember a much stranger one than this morning’s rumour about Mikael Silvestre, Manchester United’s long time injury prone squad player, is wanted by Arsene Wenger.
There are many strange thingsa about this whole proposed deal. First of all, and most worryingly, is these quotes I have found in many of the sites reporting the story:
Wenger wants to integrate Silvestre into a defensive unit that already contains Frenchmen Gael Clichy and William Gallas. The arrival of Silvestre — if the transfer goes through — would also probably spell the end for Arsenal’s unreliable Switzerland centre back Philippe Senderos. (Daily Mail)
Wenger does not regard the former Internazionale defender merely as a squad player, or as a back-up for Gaël Clichy at left-back, but as a first-choice centre-half alongside William Gallas. (Guardian)
Arsenal will expect to pay United around £750,000 for a player who moved to Old Trafford from Inter Milan in the 1998-99 season and will offer him £50,000-a-week. (Daily Mail)
Now call me suspicious, but Wenger refused to pay the wages that Adebayor wanted for large parts of the summer until coming to a conclusion that his wage demands were eaier to accept than losing our top scorer and one of our few non-injury prone players to boot. We did not want Arshavin, because of his wage demands. We have NEVER paid ridculous sums except to one Thierry Henry, probably the best player Arsenal have ever had. So £50,000 to an injury prone player Man United, our benchmark, do not want or need seems a terrible waste of money to me.
The rumour about us wanting Sendeos out is also stupid, and can’t be true. Why would be buy extra cover for the defence, something most would like to see, only to then sell a younger, better, and less injury prone player to make our defence light on numbers once more….?
Then the whole “first choice centre half” rumour crops up….. WHAT??! No way, if Wenger is to buy Silvestre, there is no way he could then decide he is better than Kolo Toure, or Senderos, or even Djourou as a center half for a club of our quality.
Now I would welcome this rumour to an extent, but only if most of the above rumours are false. Having lost Hoyte, to gain Silvestre would be a step up. Silvestre is versatile, can play all along the defence and is undoubtedly more solid as a full back as the departed Hoyte, as well as the very raw Traore and the out of position Kieran Gibbs. So yes, he would be a step up for squad depth and with that I can accept his signing.
As a first choice centre back it is a joke, at £50,000 a week it is hypocritical, and to sell Senderos due to Silvestre’s signing would be nothing short of pathetic. I can’t see any reason for around £2m or less, we could find a better, fitter, slightly younger and in the long term cheaper back up for defence, complimented by the signing of a Gokhan Inler or Xabi Alonso.
