I’m sure you’ll all agree that no time is a bad time to shoehorn in an inappropriate Musical Youth headline.
Yes yes, I know he plays on the right-hand side. And that ideally we don’t want ‘pass Debuchy on the left-hand side’ to be the opponents’ tactical Plan A. And anyway, why would Debuchy be passing on the left-hand side? OK, I concede, it’s awful. But I’ve mentioned Wenger on the beach, I’ve thrown a cursory comment or two towards the World Cup and with not much else to fall back on, I’m resorting to shambolic wordplay.
Of course, he’s not actually signed yet, there’s still plenty of time for the tits to head in a northerly direction, but there’s a lot of noise about this one and he could well be our first signing of the summer, paid for by selling a player who was no longer ours anyway. How very Arsene that would be.
You can see his stats over at Arseblog, and some almost entirely positive comment from an NUFC blogger (unless he’s doing an “I’ll drive you to the airport if necessaryâ€.)
He’s in his peak years, he’s used to the Premier League and he’s an established international. Nor, at £8m, is he expensive. So on the basis that this was a position that needed filling, but not the most crucial area of weakness in the squad, I think he’d be an excellent signing.
The Sanchez rumours bubble along too, and I’m hoping there’s no smoke without fire. It’s an ambitious one though, and as we saw last summer with ambitious attempts to land strikers, these things are easier said than done. What’s promising is that since last summer (let’s skirt over January for the sake of this point, y’alright there Kimmy) we’ve quite evidently upped what we can spend on players. £42.5m on Ozil buried our transfer record, with bells on, and the fact that we’re in for a £32m striker fills me with some confidence that, even if this one doesn’t quite come to pass, we’re no longer scrabbling around pretending.
An Englishman abroad
On another note, I see Ashley Cole is off to Roma. Now, as you know, we’ve not got a lot of time for almost-swerving-off-the-road left-backs in this part of north London, but I’m glad he’s decided to go there. English players have many faults, and one of them is parochialism. I know they earn good money here – better money than in most places – but the more English players that go abroad to learn both football, and to experience another culture, the better it will be in the long run for England.
Right, I’m going to make a cup of tea and watch the transfers roll in*
*Slash, just make a cup of tea.
Debuchy’s a good signing.As goood as Sagna? I have my doubts, but then they’re aren’t many Sagnas to go around.
Sanchez ? Not sure. VERY good player but do you think he’s a striker ? I have a fear that this is classic Arsene.ie everyone’s telling me what I need so what’ll I do ? I’ll buy yet Another small, skilful, attacking midfielder. It’s his equivalent of George Graham’s inability to not buy a centre half every time one appeared on his radar. I fear we’re still not going to address the dm & striker needs and the other signings will remain irrelevant..
If we do buy a real striker in addition to Sanchez surely someone’s leaving ? Poldi ?
Debuchy’s a good fit I think. And it seems like he’s got better over the last 18 months.
As for Sanchez – all I can point towards is the fact he scored 21 goals, mostly from wide positions, for Barca last year. He’s quick and powerful by all accounts. Exactly the counterweight to the more traditional target man type striker than Giroud generally is. Massively excited at this stage!
Hugely excited by Sanchez too but lots of work still to do for Arsene for Sanchez to be the icing on the cake of a wonderful summer or just a vanity purchase for Arsene in a distressing summer of the same flaws not being addressed..come on Arsene – prove this new contract wasn’t a huge mistake !