The Deadline Day is upon us and we are no closer to signing any players in any of the positions of which we are in desperate need. Late yesterday BeIn Sports, a television news channel in France, reported an exclusive saying Tiote will be an Arsenal player imminently. Nothing has materialized and the news hasn't seemed to spread so I expect that one to be a non-flyer. This morning I woke up to a piece of news so utterly disheartening. We are asking Chelsea to loan us Micheal Essien. Is this what it has come to? Asking a direct rival to loan us one of their bench player when we have approximately 30mil available to spend. This is Arsenal Football Club people! We should be in for a top class defensive midfielder. And we should have been in for one before we sold Song, not on the last day of the window. I don't know what Wenger has been playing at but this happened last year as well. What possesses us to wait so long? Clubs won't sell their best players with no time to find a replacement. Its just common sense.
On a more positive note, we are close to offloading 3 deadwood strikers in Chamakh, Bendtner and Park. All had absolutely no part to play last season which indicates none will be replaced. I say this because in Wenger's presser yesterday he said that if players going out never played last season, they would not be compensated for. Which worries me. Last season we were extremely lucky that Robin played in every single Premier League game without getting injured. We didn't have any back up options. This season we only have Giroud as a pure CF. Podolski can play there. But if the aforementioned 3 strikers leave, we will have absolutely no back up for those two. You'd think Wenger has to buy a striker, but I have a sneaky feeling he has promised that role to Walcott. That's Wenger's bargaining tool. He has told Theo he will play striker more often this season and he thinks this will persuade Walcott to sign a new deal. Speculation but very possible.
As I write this Fulham have accepted a 7mil bid from Aston Villa for Clint Dempsey. He won't go there though, it would be a major step down for a player who was looking for a Champions League club. I expect Liverpool to make an offer. I am hopeful we will make one too, but don't get your hopes up. We first and foremost need a defensive midfielder. Names are running out. Capoue and M'Vila aren't coming. Lars Bender, who has been linked over the last few weeks, isn't coming. I wouldn't think we would pay the 25mil asking price for Tiote. Essien is looking more and more likely unfortunately. To be honest, I would prefer Steven N'Zonzi who was a class act for Blackburn last year. Available for 5mil. Why not?
Praying for a successful day. I said last week that the next week would determine our season. So far we are top 4 contenders. If Arsene surprises us, we could be title contenders by this time tomorrow.
'Till Tomorrow
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