One In, One Out?

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Arsenal’s summer business didn’t take long to get going, did it? Tomas ‘Rocky’ Rosicky has joined, while Robert Pires looks set to finally leave for sunny Spain, six productive years after he joined us.

He’ll be missed if he goes – a quick look at his stats proves he has been a major source of goals for us in his time here. In the last four seasons he has scored 16, 19, 17 and 11 goals, a return that some strikers would be pleased with. But he’s 33 now, and as they say, he’s just not getting any younger. In fact, he’s getting older. By a year every year. And last season, despite a strong end and a memorable tackle on the Patman, Pires by his own high standards was often disappointing.

Still, so was the team as a whole in some games, so he can’t shoulder all the blame. For me, Wenger was right though; one year would have been great, but two might have been a gamble.

I read somewhere that Wenger is keen to get all his transfer activity out the way before the World Cup, if at all possible. I suppose you could say that if he and his staff have done their homework already – and I suspect they have – then he already knows who he wants. And if you leave it till after the tournament, not only do you get inflated prices, and mad scrambles from desperate clubs, but you also suffer from the syndrome whereby players who have raised their game for the World Cup cannot keep that up, and end up disappointing.

And it’s a big night tonight for teenage non-playing Arsenal player Theo Walcott, who will surely come off the bench for England. I’m looking forward to finally seeing him and finding out what the fuss is all about.

Tomas Rosicky – does he look a bit like that little bloke in Take That? Please not.

And finally, congrats to you gazzap on the birth of your little boy, Charlie George.

Man, that name is inspired.

Jim

Arsenal since about 1979. Thick, thin and all that.