Not a huge amount of Arsenal interest in the paper news this morning as the big stories surround the clubs most likely to get big names this summer – Man City, Manchester United and of course Real Madrid.
Still there is a few pieces of news to bring you from the gossip columns.
Firstly the Mirror reports that Kieran Gibbs will be rewarded for his efforts towards the end of the season with a brand new, long term contract more fitting for Arsenal’s second choice left back. Gael Clichy’s understudy enjoyed a run in the team after the Frenchman’s injury and backed up his managers faith with several high quality displays.
Despite an unfortunate slip in the CL Semi-Final and several moments of unease defensively Gibbs showed himself to have the right ingredients to become a very good Premiership player in the near future. He has followed that up with 3 starts for the England U21s, including 2 goals against Azerbaijan in the warm up game for the main tournament. And despite being the youngest of the team he has played excellently with arguable MOTM performances in each game.
And now he is set to be offered a better pay deal to keep him from any potential suitors and to assure him he has a bright future at the club.
Next there is news of potential incomers to the squad, starting with the latest on the ongoing Chamakh speculation:
I am really struggling to understand why Arsenal would be interested in Chamakh unless one of Adebayor and Robin van Persie is to leave the club, but the Moroccan has rarely been out of the news in recent weeks and the last bit of news was that Arsenal need to bid more than 10 million Euros to get their man. This came from the Bordeaux president and this morning in an interview with Le Parisien Chamakh has hinted that he wants to leave the club if an acceptable offer is made.
“If an offer is interesting for everyone, then I hope that my directors will be comprehensive,” he told Le Parisien.
Whether this means Arsenal remains to be seen, but if Arsenal do make their interest in the form of a bid then there is no question one of our strikers will be leaving in a move that would significantly weaken out attacking options in my opinion.
Finally this morning there is a fairly obvious bit of journalism from the News Of The World detailing our interest in Brazilian midfielder Felipe Melo:
26 years old, a regular now for his country and a player who impressed hugely this season in Serie A Felipe Melo ticks all the boxes for me. He gets stuck in and adds presence to the midfield while still having the talent to spread play cleverly. These attributes and the discipline he shows in sitting back is probably what we need and with not many other alternatives out there availble for less than £15m I would be very happy to see this happen.
The NOTW’s take on it is much the same as the Daily Mail’s earlier this week, saying that want away defender Senderos could be used as part of the deal that brings the Brazilian to the Emriates and this does seem logical although much would depen on whether or not Senderos feels he could do better than Viola I suspect. Personally I think if we get Melo in and lose no one vital it could be a very successful summer for us. But how many times have we said that only to lose a key player straight away? And with rumours surrounding Van Persie, Adebayor, Gallas and Toure with three of them coming to the end of contract I won’t hold my breath for an ideal summer just yet.
And for anyone yet to see the Brazilian in action he should take part in a clash between the Italians and Brazil tonight. The BBC streams Confederations Cup matches live on their website for anyone interested.
