The ins and outs this summer; Chamakh plus cash for Jovetic?

Sincere apologies for the late post, there are problems with the wireless connections.


Good morning and welcome to the beginning of the start of the beginning of the season. Players are welcomed back for pre-season training, only 5 days before the first pre-season tournament against Anderlecht and Southampton. Of course, there will be no players there who took part in the Euros and there will be no players there who are going to take part in the Olympics. There will however be Andre Santos, who appears to have no idea that Yossi won't be there as nobody informed him that he was only loaned from Chelsea and not bought. He tweeted that he will see him at training today. You can't blame him for that mishap such was the rush to get signings completed on August 31 2011. 

There are reports on Twitter that say Stefan Jovetic's agent is in London for meetings with Arsenal. The source of these reports is Coriella Dello Sports. However skeptical I may be about these rumours, I always get that childish excitement which ends up getting crushed when Arsenal sign the unknown alternative from Ligue 2. And that Alternative is reportedly already being lined up as M'baye Niang of Caen has been invited for a trial. The 17 year old striker made 17 appearances for the French side, scoring 2 goals as Caen got demoted to the second division.The little sprinkle of hope in the Jovetic story is that Fiorentina have made an offer for flop striker Chamakh of around 4mil. Could there be a Chamakh plus cash deal happening here? Jovetic is reportedly valued at around 22mil, so 17mil + Chamakh wouldn't be totally off the mark. 

In other news, Jan Vertonghen completed his move to the undesirable side of North London as Ajax agreed a deal with Sp*rs. If I am to put my hate for Tottenham aside for the next few seconds, I would say that they have done some good business so far. Sigurdsson and Vertonghen are solid, if not spectacular, additions. Obviously Arsenal have done just as well if not better so far, and with both the clubs' star men in Modric and Van Persie about to leave, there is still much to do yet... Okay, I hate them again. 

All this transfer talk inspired me to do a little exercise where I predict what happens at Arsenal this summer in terms of ins and outs. Since we have started the summer so well with the signings of Podolski and Giroud, it seems stupid to let Robin Van Persie ruin it. Anyway, my plans are as follows:


Take into account the fact that we have already spent half of our budget on Podolski and Giroud.

The 'to do' list for Arsene:

A - bolstering our midfield.

B - buying a goalkeeper.
C - possibly finding a utility defender.
D - possibly replacing Robin ( I said yesterday that Giroud was likely his replacement )

Selling/Loaning:

Now lets see who is most likely to leave this summer and their approximate sale prices.

A. The 'deadwood' list is rather long:

1. Sebastian Squillaci (free)

2. Marouane Chamakh (3mil)
3. Park Chu Young (1mil)
4. Nicklas Bendtner (5-6mil)
5. Denilson (out on loan)
6. Carlos Vela (2mil)
7. Andrei Arshavin (5mil)
8. Lukasz Fabianski (2mil)

B. The young players who are not yet ready for the first team squad:

1. Joel Campbell (loan, Real Betis)

2. Ryo Miyaichi (loan, not yet decided)

C. The players who we loaned from other clubs last year, but have now returned to their parent clubs:

1. Yossi Benayoun

D. The first team players who want to leave:

1. Robin Van Persie (20-25mil)

Now I determine whether players above will most likely leave permanently or on loan (chances are above 80%):

Sebastian Squillaci (permanent), Marouane Chamakh (permanent), Nicklas Bendtner (permanent), Denilson (loan), Carlos Vela(permanent), Joel Campbell (loan), Yossi Benayoun (permanent), Robin Van Persie (permanent), Park Chu Young (loan), Arshavin (permanent), Fabianski (permanent)

That leaves Arsenal with a grand total of 30mil from player transfer fees alone, excluding wages. I have only taken into account 15mil of Robin's transfer.

Buying/Promoting:

We have a budget of 55mil (25mil +30mil).

Attack (Wingers, Strikers)

Every year Arsenal decide on Reserve/Youth players who are good enough to be included in the first team.

This year we have Benik Afobe who I think is ready to play a part. Therefore I conclude that Chamakh is replaced by Afobe. Podolski is replacing Park. Giroud, as I mentioned yesterday, is replacing Robin. 

AFOBE > CHAMAKH


PODOLSKI > PARK


GIROUD > VAN PERSIE

This to go with Gervinho, Walcott, Chamberlain, Ryo


Therefore our attacking options are:


Strikers:
Giroud, Podolski, Afobe
Wingers:
Walcott, Gervinho, Chamberlain, Podolski

Midfield (Central Defensive, Box to Box, Central Attacking)

This is an area of debate among most Arsenal fans. The problem with our midfield is not our lack of depth, it is that this is the area where most of our injuries occur. 

We only have three midfielders who were most consistently available, and therefore made the starting 11 for most games: Alex Song, Mikel Arteta, Aaron Ramsey. Alex Song is not a typical Defensive Midfielder, he is simply our most defensive midfielder, and therefore I moved him into the box to box category. Therefore, we need a proper defensive midfielder and Yann M'Vila has been the candidate most heavily linked with a move. As that is the case, I will say he will move to us in a 15mil deal. 

Central Defensive: 

Emmanuel Frimpong (long term casualty)
Francis Coquelin (injury prone)
-- Yann M'Vila
Box to Box:
Mikel Arteta (fit)
Alex Song (fit)
Abou Diaby (injury prone)
Central Attacking
Tomas Rosicky (injury prone)
Aaron Ramsey (fit)
Jack Wilshere (long term casualty)

 As you can see, most of our midfielder are either injury prone or have been long term absentees and therefore will take a while to be properly match fit. 

If possible, I would buy another attacking midfielder but I will only do so if we have the funds available at the end. 

Defense (centre backs, full backs and goalkeeper):

The greatest cause for concern among Arsenal fans. We have great individual centre backs. Koscielny, Mertesacker, Vermaelan, Djourou are all very good players. When put together though, something doesn't quite work. Whether it was the injury problems last year remains to be seen, but I think that this is an area which needs to be worked on in training. 

Right Backs:
Bacary Sagna
Carl Jenkinson
Centre Backs:
Laurent Koscielny
Thomas Vermaelan
Per Mertesacker
Johan Djourou
-- Abdennour
Left Backs:
Kieran Gibbs
Andre Santos
Goalkeeper:
Szczesny
Mannone
Martinez
--Craig Gordon

In my opinion, we definitely need another Centre Back and Right Back With Carl Jenkinson too naive to play regularly and Bacary Sagna suffering 2 broken legs, we need reinforcement. Therefore, in order to cut costs, we should buy a defender which can play centre back as well as right back - Ivanovic-esque. I cannot think of any except Abdennour of Toulouse who was named in the Ligue 1 team of the year, we could probably snap him up at around 10mil. 

Fabianski is going to leave, so we need an experienced back up keeper to keep Szczesny on his toes. 

Craig Gordon is my choice on a free. Longer term options include Hugo Lloris, who is a waste of valuable money as well as Butland, but Martinez is around the same age and there are high hopes for him at Arsenal.

So we had 55mil to spend, and we've spent 15-17mil on M'Vila. That leaves us with 28-30mil. Minus the Abdennour's fee - around 10mil - and we got 18mil to spend. Perhaps on an attacking midfielder? I also feel we should be signing a striker who is comfortable playing just off the more physical Giroud. This is where Jovetic would be a great signing.  
That was a long one today. I guess I got a bit carried away. I know that a lot of what you have just read will turn out to be off the mark, but I gave it as good as I got. We should not think that Wenger doesn't know who's available and what Arsenal need. He is after all a professor, Le Professeur if you will.

'Till tomorrow