Arseblog News – the Arsenal news site
Arsene Wenger says he was interested in signing Demba Ba, but last summer, not during this transfer window. Instead, Arsenal paid Montpellier £12m for Olivier Giroud and the Arsenal manager says it was a case of one or the other.
There were doubts about the Senegal man’s knee, having failed a medical at Stoke (in fairness this could be down to the fact that the Stoke doctor still uses leeches and poultices), but that wasn’t a deterrent for Wenger.
“Some people say he didn’t manage to pass the medical at Stoke but the last things I heard it’s quite positive for him,” he said. “I’m sure Chelsea will have a check on that and if they sign him it is because the problem is not as big as people say.
“I like Demba Ba personally, he is a similar type to Giroud who we just bought. It was one or the other one.”
Of course, there’s no reason why a squad would have to have one or the other, both is a concept that works, but maybe he wants to bring in a different kind of striker. Which is fine, once he brings in that kind of striker.
The manager also spoke about how much more competitive the scouting world is. Arsenal were famed for bringing in a players from France who flew under the radar, now the players arriving are one-winged retardosparrows at times.
“The competition is high on the scouting front. The country where we were really, really competitive was France. They produce less players than they did 10, 15 years ago at top, top, top level in France.
“The emerging countries that are producing players look to be Germany and Spain and they have many good young players. They have taken over.”
“We are trying to diversify much more where we are looking. I find that a new market that is very interesting and very competitive is the Japanese market. Look at the number of Japanese players who play now in Germany for example.”
Hey, we went there first, and surely this is proof positive that our big January signing will be the return of Junichi Inamoto!
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As much as I love both Wenger and Giroud…
Ba is ahead of Giroud, cheaper and a better player.
I know many won’t agree, but we shall see.
ATM….I also agree but that has to do with the fact that Ba is a proven premier league marksman. Giroud on the other hand has just moved in from france and hopefully within a year or so he’ll have established himself. Promising signs atleast.
Also Ba can get the fuck out, decision changing club rogue.
aye sure girouds *only* scored 9 goals in all comps in his first season in the prem. useless cunt, a? year younger, no dodgy knee either. probably less wages.
oh and with his FIVE agents all wanting a million each ontop of the buyout of 7m, as reported here, he cost at least the same.
Chamakh had more goals in his first 20 games. so what?
Giroud is decent back up but will never be our main striker. Not good enough.
So let’s improve our scouting network in Germany and Spain then!
Exactly what I’ve been saying for a year. We honestly only need to be bringing in players from Spain or Germany. Top talent in terms of world football.
We can’t afford the top young players from Germany and Spain. To me the most interesting bit of Wenger’s comment, which this news item leaves out, is that we’ve been largely ignoring the cheaper players from the less significant clubs – Michu being an example – because of fan pressure to sign someone they’ve heard of and can be excited about. Mmm.
The day a manager starts allowing fans to influence his decisions is the day he ought to retire. I acknowledge the pressure Wenger is under. The absence of trophies, the need to sell season tickets, the financial difficulties the club has at the moment (that 18m operating loss), the best players wanting to be somewhere else – all of it must be undermining his confidence and making him ever more desperate to please. But it’s not an excuse. There are no excuses. Wenger is being paid very highly – higher than any other manager in Europe, I think – for his knowledge, experience and judgement; he’s not being paid to capitulate to what he imagines to be fan opinion – which fans anyway? the ones who get to go to supporters’ dos, the ones here, at le grove?
I dunno. Perhaps this is just another of the meaningless pronouncements that’ll be contradicted tomorrow like others we’ve been offered this week – We’re going to strengthen from top to bottom; we’re not going to buy anyone till we’ve sorted out Walcott’s contract … Perhaps in saying he needs to please the fans Wenger is just trying to, well, please them and get them to sympathise with his problems.
so… you complain when he ignores you, and you complain when he does pay attention.
go on…
I don’t complain that he ignores me. That’s precisely my point. The last thing any club needs is a manager who feels under such pressure he makes bad decisions to humour a section of fans. Same with a manager who puts loyalty to his employer above loyalty to what he believes to be in the club’s long-term best interest. Managers who want to be loved and who try to cling on to their jobs at all costs aren’t the ones most likely to do a good job. If Wenger really has reached this point, it doesn’t bode well for him or for Arsenal. A sad end for a once successful and principled man.
Wenger should try and get Schrulle, fantastic player.
i’m not sure who that is. if you’re referring to the supposed Chelsea target, I don’t think Wenger knows who that is. He has less knowledge of talent and players than most fans.
fact!
@Alex how is that a fact…..twat!!!
*sigh*
sometimes sarcasm doesn’t hit everyone the same way. Of course Wenger is aware of Shurrle – it always amazes me when fans start giving him suggestions, as though he wasn’t aware of the existence of certain high-profile players.
he probably isn’t reading arseblog comments, but i’d suggest that people might be giving him suggestions out of frustration at the fact that he keeps signing people who are a bit shit and a downgrade on what we’ve got/had
“waits for a list of the invincibles*
Junichi!! I was racking my tiny brain for days trying to remember Inamoto’s first name, determined not to use the internet, but as this information has made it’s way to me via this medium I am happy and will claim to my mates that I remembered it all on my own.
I’m hoping my mate will now change the name of his new Banzai tree from Yoko to Junichi.
Cheers.
Heh.
He has more world cup goals than the current England frontline combined.
haha…bonsai?
spend da ting
Well it’s too fucking late now isn’t it.
Did you read the article, or did you just skim the headline before jumping to the comments section in a state of apoplexy?
Rick rolled his eyes at this one
I may still be hungover but I am certain its only the 4th of January.
and I’m certain Chelsea have signed him
It is best not to think very hard about whatever Wenger says, if you’ve been listening the last 6 years years you should know not to believe a word of it and expect a fair bit of psuedo-intellectual garbage about the economy, or the “super-quality” dilemma, always followed by several mediocre signings, such as Park, Santos, and Squillachi.
It is hard to see a way out of this mess, what super-quality would want to join this squad now?
It is going to be a difficult January
I find keeping my expectations low is best for my happiness, right now I am assuming we’ll be out of the FA cup and pick up a maximum of 4 points in the league. Walcott will sign an improved contract and then play like shit and we’ll sign Lampard.
For a neutral, you are quite negative.
for a Harish, you’re quite bald
I don’t think comments about the economy being in the shitter are pseudo-intellectual, nor are the comments that we can only spend what we have or his super-quality rhetoric; in fact using the phrase ‘pseudo-intellectual’ there is probably quite pseudo-ntellectual.
Now, if you’d have said Wenger is economical with the truth, never tells the whole truth or just flat out lies, I’d be on board.
Actually you can spend more than you have, and that’s what we’re going to have to do if we ever want to compete for the league again.
this policy is never going to pay off. does anyone really believe that after the stadium debt pays off we’re suddenly going to zoom up and compete? Our means will still be miles off Man United’s, Man City’s and Chelsea’s.
The fantasy of self-sustainability being a good idea depends on two assumptions:
1.) we’ll still be a PL and CL force by the time the debt’s paid off
2.) all of the sugar daddies will ‘lose interest’ and leave.
both of those look highly, highly improbable. Let’s be clear, if we’re a mid-table team with this squad, we won’t fill the stadium (certainly not at current prices), we won’t have impressive sponsorship deals, and the endeavour will have been utterly, utterly pointless
The only way out of the mess is for Wenger and the Board to go
Lets hope Ryonaldo is good enough to get a crack at first team for next season.
First he needs to get off the wigan bench.
Is there an option to swap Ryo and Gerv?
First he needs to make the Wigan bench.
Btw , is anyone from Australia here , or all you guys British ?
I’m Australian.
I’m Spartacus.
ǝʇɐɯ ʎɐp,פ
Hang on, let me throw another shrimp on the barbie. I think a passing kangaroo swiped the last batch.
I’m piers Morgan. I enjoy being miserable.
I’m fat and old.
Yes, Aussie here. Having a shrimp on the barbie as we speak.
Kiwi. Lived a mile or so from Emirates for 7 years though, moved back to NZ couple of months ago. Ironically I can actually watch more Arsenal games now because we don’t have wierd viewing laws that the Brits do. It’s also much warmer when watching, though also really early.
Kiwi living in Western Australia. Die hard arsenal & arseblog fan! COYG!
If I had to choose between the two, I’d ask myself this : if I had a sister, who would I prefer to be her babby daddy, Giroud or Ba?
Perth?
Starting to get very bored and frustrated with AW’s comments. Coming across quite patronising. Constantly on the defensive and it seems he makes excuses before he’s done anything to cover his own back. Agree with the Arsecast about AW’s contradicting comments. I know its difficult because it’s almost like anything he says now is under scrutiny by everyone. Yes, we can’t read too much into his comments about transfers (‘cards close to chest and that’) but there is a line.
Agree to a point Big Dave, but we mustn’t forget he’s responding to questions and talking to a group of people who are largely a bunch of cunts.
You only need look at the presser the other week where he was getting quizzed on his subs to see where his relationship with the press is at, so it’s no wonder he comes out with some weird stuff.
That’s not absolving him totally of blame, but when you get the purely press generated fury of Ian Holloway, after AW basically only said that Zaha (I think) is not a bad player, it’s not surprising.
Spend some money now.
He probably bought a coffee today, that satisfy you?
……………….. I was talking about arsenal as an club not Wenger as an person.
I remember when I was a youngster going to Barnet Underhill to wathe Arsenal youngsters, Junichi Inamoto used to bring in loads of Japanese fans who use to sit in the stands on their laptops! At the end of the game I got Ray Parlours signature who must have been coming back from injury, my mate for some reason unknown went to get Junichi’s signature but his pen ran out and Inamoto ended up carving his name into the paper. I guess the moral of the story is also bring a spare pen, that and I’ve seen a lot of shithouses play for Arsenal over the years and I’m only 20!
Heelo. Arsenal Wenger had choice. Sign me or thee argentinianan from the leetle team in catalan. Made the right choice, eh?
So giroud and Ba are similar hence we decided not to buy Ba. Funnily enough we keep buying lightweight technical midfielders inspite of already having many of them.
Wenger’s comments translated:
“Basically our scouting network is poor, we only ever look at Ligue 1, and even then Ligue 1 is so poor that good players are average by the time they reach England. By the time we spot anything decent in Germany or Spain it will be too late because we have neither the cash nor the will to sign quality players, instead letting the likes of Newcastle and Swansea get ahead of us.
And did I mention our scouting system has been poor lately? Yes, my judgement sucks too, and I can’t seem motivate the highly paid slackers we have hanging around London Colney, despite being paid £7million a year to manage a football team.”
Did you use translate.nitwit.com/ for this?
To the people who gave me thumbs down, clearly you are Arsene’s groupies. Here’s one specially for you from my patented AKB statement translator device:
Wenger can do no wrong = We’re so blinded by our love and loyalty to him that we can’t even see what a mess him and the board have made for the last 7 years.
He’ll get it right = Even though he’s had 7 years to get it right we’ll just turn a blind eye to his glaring inability to address consistant problems
He’s constrained by finances = Even though he could do better with the players he’s got, we’ll just ignore his recent inability to motivate them for every game
So, is it that our poor scouting of affordable players leads to a weak squad or that Wenger can’t motivate a squad of decent players to play at a decent level? Because, top four finishes and CL showings don’t suggest that it’s both.
I agree that Wenger has his flaws and that we shouldn’t be happy with where we are. How would you like this ‘mess’ to be sorted, other than simply “buy better players and make them play better”? If we were to bring in another manager, what approach would you prefer him to adopt.
I would like a stronger scouting network, though having said that, youngsters have come in from Germany and Spain recently, with decent expectations.
I, personally, would giver Wenger more time. Having explicitly stated we have more money to spend, I want to se how he spends it, particularly considering that we seem to be supplementing a more more mature squad with younger player now, rather than the other way round (as was, possibly, dictated by finanical constraints).
Also, apologies for the nitwit comment, probably not the most constructinve.
Apology accepted.
The poor scouting is open to debate, but I do think we could be finding better players. Gervinho was considered a top player, along with Park, in their respective league. But this is the problem, I just don’t think Ligue 1 is a strong enough league for us to consider recruiting players from all the time. And time has proven that with Chamakh, Park, and Gervinho. The EPL is a massive step up, and quite literally only the strong survive.
If we compare this to Everton and Newcastle who were able to identify quality players for reasonable fees in the last few years, we are doing something terribly wrong.
Wenger has made some massive mistakes and taken some huge gambles. This adding of older experience to supplement the younger players is about 4 seasons too late. This should’ve been done when we had the core of Cesc, Nasri, Van P, etc. before they were sold, but instead his vision and ego took over and he insisted on having a young squad with little experience. The club had always maintained there was money available for the manager to spend should he want it. Believe me, I remember. Every season since 2005 we have been told this. So who’s lying, and who’s telling the truth?
And not to mention the diabolical ‘big contract for potential’ situation we find ourselves in with the deadwood players. And he’s repeated this gamble again by rewarding potential in the form of improved contracts for Gibbs and Ramsey. We don’t win anything on potential, and history has proven this.
When you think our wage bill is only 12% less than Man Utd, then we are seriously misusing the finance and resources availble to us considering how far apart we are come the end of the season.
And as far as footballig matters go, Wenger’s had his time. I wouldn’t even want him to spend anymore money if he’s going to waste it like he has so far. He just dosen’t get the best out of the players he has, and this season has so far shown he’s just not able to motivate them to compete consistantly. His squads in the last 7 years have always been missing something, and I’m afraid it has to come down to him and his poor decisions on and off the pitch.
He has made massive mistakes in Summer, and trying to fix these issues in January is simply not going to happen. Top four is possible of course, but the gamble is getting bigger and bigger with each season our rivals get stronger.
Last season’s finish in the top four was more about the Spur’s collapse than our strengths.
Would rather have had Ba.
Ba would of never have got near Theo’s cross for the Handsome man’s epic header against the Geordies. Plus I now don’t get frowned at by the other half for switching off East bloody enders and putting the footy on, once again a miraculous transformation due to the handsome man which ba would of never accomplished. Come on you Giroud.
From Germany we got Mert and Poldi. Both are ok. We also have youngsters Eisfeld and Gnabry, so our scouts there didn’t do that bad.
For Spain, Santi is class, more like him please, but before that Squillaci was signed from there too, so mixed business.
From France, nice to hear that Wenger too sees the problem… We got good and bad ones recently in equal measure: Kos and Giroud are ok, but Gervinho and Park clearly not.
Mert hasnt got pace so we cant play a high line, and Poldi is OK but wasted on the left for me.
As for Eisfeld and Gnabry, where have they been? Started off promisingly but nowhere to be seen now.
I kind of like the idea of having ‘a big lump’ to throw in at 70 or to play in very physical matches. And so far I get the signing of Giroud – and to some degree why Bendtner was sent away (certainly not because of his abilities on the pitch, but more because he is, essentially, Bendtner.
But if we can assume that the squad is to be strengthened in the attacking department, I don’t find it exactly unreasonable to suggest that AW is looking for “something else” – probably a more diverse kind of player. And so much likely to be the first-selected ahead of Giroud.
The idea of Walcott in this regard is not encouraging, as he is a not-so-many-tricks-pony.
But is it even possible to buy good, diverse strikers in January?
In answer to your question: Not really.
It’s important to realize that while we have no idea what Wenger will do, the other clubs also have no idea what Wenger will do. He’s a hell of a negotiator and I personally don’t care that he doesn’t pander to us, uninformed masses.
Even Wenger has no idea what he’ll do.