Well, boredom strikes, already. I have 8 hours at work in front of me, and roughly 10 minutes of work to do... So I thought i'd take a look at the tabloid gossip... here's the stuff involving Arsenal, shamelessly stolen from the bbc gossip page, and my take on each...
Arsenal are eyeing £15m-rated Bayer Leverkusen attacking midfielder Arturo Vidal as a possible replacement for Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri.
Full story: Daily Mirror
Attacking midfielder? I always thought of vidal as defensive. besides, he may be good but can he really play 2 positions at the same time?
Barcelona will offer £35m plus incentives for Fabregas as they look to reach a successful conclusion to their long-running pursuit of the Spain midfielder.
Full story: Daily Mail
They'd have to be some pretty big 'incentives' to make up to a 10m deficit between asking price and offer
Or, Barcelona want Fabregas to go on strike in order to force a cut-price move from Arsenal to the European champions.
Full story: the Sun
well of course they do. d'er!
Arsenal themselves have opened talks with Bolton defender Gary Cahill, while Gunners manager Arsene Wenger is also interested in Birmingham's Scott Dann, Blackburn's Chris Samba and Everton's Phil Jagielka. (the Times - subscription required).
"we think arsenal want a defender, and wenger has said he wants to recruit from england... so we'll just link them to every centreback in england that might be available" most papers do it the same, but not all in one story at the same time!
Cesc Fabregas's days at the Emirates look to be numbered after he was left out of promotional material for the launch of Arsenal's new away kit.
Full story: Daily Mirror
To be honest, I haven't checked Arsenal.com as i can't look at it from work... but if it's true that the club captain isn't in the promotional shots, then it looks like there is at least a fair bet that they are expecting barca to come back in for him.
Todays Tabloid Guff
posted on 28/6/11
oh no i didn't see Van Persie(our vice captain) in the promo shoot, he MUST be leaving
posted on 28/6/11
oh no i didn't see Van Persie(our vice captain) in the promo shoot, he MUST be leaving
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fabregas has been in all of them for years, and is generally considered the face of the club, being the club captain, so it is unusual for him to not be in the shots.
That doesn't mean that it's by any means a certainty that he'll be going, but it's easy to interpret it as the club not being certain he'll still be here.
posted on 28/6/11
I heard the reason Cesc is not in the promo photos is becasuse he hates the new kit. He was hoping it would be blue and red stripes
posted on 28/6/11
Personally my favourite story is the one where Barcelona want Fabregas to go on strike. In what way would that make us sell him cheaper? Surely if you go on strike then you don't get paid? So basically we'd be about £100,000 a week better off and he'd just be losing match fitness and going nowhere.
posted on 28/6/11
Ye I dont see how vidal is a replacement for fabregas. Well not a direct replacement. I always thought he was primarily a DM. But apparently he is versatile. Think it would be impossible for us to replace fabregas with a equally experienced and of his quality, we would have to pay 40m plus for that type of player. Not saying we will become worse, just more that we would have to change our system a bit, may even improve us!
posted on 28/6/11
Ye I dont see how vidal is a replacement for fabregas. Well not a direct replacement. I always thought he was primarily a DM. But apparently he is versatile. Think it would be impossible for us to replace fabregas with a equally experienced and of his quality, we would have to pay 40m plus for that type of player. Not saying we will become worse, just more that we would have to change our system a bit, may even improve us!
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agreed. IF cesc were to go, i would favour bringing in a little more steel in the centre and utilising the wings more. it seem like too often everything goes through cesc, meaning if the opposition mark him out of the game they stifle us.