Sneaky Wenger 2 September, 2006

Arsene actually brought in three new players on deadline day: The Beast, Gallas and Denilson. He’s the captain of the Brazilian under 19 team and the reason we didn’t know about this transfer yesterday was because he was waiting for international clearance from Sao Paulo. He’s set to be the replacement at The Grove for the ageing Gilberto Silva, he’s the same sort of player, a defensive midfield playmaker linking plays together. And he’s Brazilian. I’m looking forward to this guy, if he’s captain of Brazil now at hi level, imagine what he’ll be like in years to come…

Two of our new signings have spoken to the press after their moves, Baptista has said that he’s come here to bring the title back to Highbury and Gallas has been talking about his relief to have finally left Chelsea. Apparently the Russians aren’t very happy with the deal and Mourinho is said to be fuming! Apparently Kenyon was under strict instructions from Jose not to give Arsenal Gallas and he did. It now leaves Chelsea with 3 centre backs and Gallas was probably the best defensively of them. Also there’s talk about whether Chelsea actually needed a left back with Bridge on excellent form and then Gallas a strong back up option. It seems we got the best deal out of the two club but visit Gunnerblog for more on this.

On the final day there were loads of signings: Villa got Petrov, ‘Boro got Huth, Euell and Woodgate, Pompey got Andy Cole, Spurs got Chimbonda and Malbranque and got rid of Routledge, West Ham obviously got Mascherano and Tevez. There were others but that’s a few of them. The West Ham deal is looking very dodgy though and the group MSI who owned the players apparently still do and still pay their wages and if they wanted to withdraw them from the Hammers whenever they wanted. And when they come to sell them on which will probably be forced on them in a year MSI will get if not all a massive chunk of the fee. There’s talk of Roman Abramovich being one of the owners of MSI but nothing has been confirmed. It’s a real mess West Ham have got into here and I’m glad Wenger avoided it. Now the Hammers have announced they’re under initial takeover talks, they haven’t said it’s MSI but it’s bound to be.

There was no other major strengthening of teams on deadline; I’d say out of all the teams it was actually Arsenal who made the best signings. Oh apart from Roy Keane’s Sunderland who bought about 10 players. Mad.

Right I’m off now, England play today, not that any Arsenal players will feature…see ya later!