Good night, good luck

How was your weekend? I've had a heavy one. Late nights and alcohol throughout and so, as I sit on the third floor of our building on Pentonville Road, I feel fairly well shredded.

The news that Kolo Touré looks set to join the latest blue revolution to flood the Premier League has me feeling philosophical. £15m is a lot of money for a player who, in my opinion has seen his best days come and go. I didn't think Thomas Vermaelen was coming here to sit on the bench and, I'm sorry, it makes no sense to sell William Gallas.

Touré wants first team football, he has a chance for a massive payday and after 7 years of, mostly, stellar service, I don't begrudge him that. If he goes, then good night, good luck to him and thank you very much for all the memories. Particularly that own goal at Aston Villa, a hilarious moment in Arsenal history.

I jest.

Speaking of Thomas Vermaelen, it seems that if there was a "Become a fan of Thomas Vermaelen" group and Bacary Sagna was on Facebook, then our dreadlocked little terrier would be signing up to it. I was going to provide a link to the story on Arse.com, but it's a short one, so I'll precis... Very good, good passer, good left foot = Happy Baccy.

Meanwhile, the most recent signing before Jean Claud - er, sorry - Thomas Vermaelen, is showing the kind of fight that has made him such a huge hit with the Gooner nation. The very credentials, in fact, that lead Dennis Bergkamp to believe that in Andrey Arshavin, Arsenal have found the missing link and a player that could write himself in Arsenal history. And I don't think Dennis means in the way that Adebayor just has. Arshavin himself is thinking about winning the title for Arsenal, dismissing both Adebayor's departure as neccessary and Manchester City as title challengers. He seems to talk a lot, does our Andrey. Talk is fine, as long as you walk the walk too, Andrey has no problems with this, so neither do I.

Last week, I mentioned the prospect of Nicklas Bendtner going to Milan. The player himself has dismissed such notions, hailing Arsenal as a "special" club - you see Ade? That's how to deal with these things. I did read that Arsenal were looking to include Bendtner as a makeweight in a deal to to bring the Roma striker Vucinic to North London. But given the fact that we've just got rid of one striker, not to mention Bendtner's progress last season, that seems a touch unrealistic.

Emmanuel Eboue, I read, may well be off to Fiorentina. I've made my feelings on this one clear, but what all this movements points to is a clearing of the decks, before bringing in some fresh, and hopefully suitable, faces to take the club up a level. I don't believe that the club are sitting on their hands, thinking that the current personnel is at a sufficient level to win the title, and I find it difficult to imagine that anyone else would either.

I find it as difficult to believe as anything that Farhad Moshiri says, in fact. If his grasp of maths is as shaky as acclaiming Adebayor as averaging 20 goals a season appears to indicate it is, then forgive me if I'm not taking his word on the bigger financial picture.

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Our players deserve better

Posted on 28 Jul, 2009 at 07:03 AM - Reply

why is it that some fans in arsenal are quick to dismiss proven servants like Toure for the sake of unproven new guys? We can lambast Adebayor all we like but he told us the truth. We treat our players badly. If its not the fans its the club. Gilberto, Eboue, A.cole, Adebayor, Lauren, Pires, Viera, Wiltord, Lehman, Eboue, Bendtner have all come under some bad treatment from the club or the fans one way or another. And now the fans new target is Kolo Toure. What the hell has the man done than serve our club?? And now you want him flogged off? What? He isn't even good enough for our bench? Toure is a top defender. I must admit that whoever started this 'Toure has dipped in form' campaign has been very succesful. Especially if you think that there has never been any statistics given to prove the allegation.

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