Wenger talks transfers, departures and formations 24 June, 2009

Hello from very sunny Bournemouth, I’ve been down the beach today and it seemed like 30 degrees down there. Beautiful – doesn’t make you miss the city much. However while I was on the beach today I thinking how I can’t wait to be back watching Arsenal again. I’ll be there when we play Barnet in just over 3 weeks time and then again at the Emirates cup.

Arsene Wenger’s been speaking ahead of the new season on quite a few things so lets just get into it. He says he doesn’t want to lose many players this summer after what happened last year. He said losing Flamini and Hleb was too much and we had to rebuild. He’s not concentrating too much on just keeping the side together though, he wants to improve it too:

“I want to add to the squad and I have identified one or two targets. But identifying players and buying them are two different things.

Ideally I would like to bring everybody in before we start back in pre-season training in July. I don’t want to leave it until the end of August.”

However he doesn’t think the side needs rebuilding:

“We are at a stage were we need to convince people that this team does a lot of things right. It does not need to be transformed.

We don’t need that many players really, a defender (which we’ve got) a central midfielder and possibly another forward player if Adebayor leaves; more on him in a bit.

Arsene has also been thinking about a possible formation change. Next season we will have a lot of talent going forward – Rosicky, Arshavin, Walcott and Nasrito choose from. The boss thinks we might be able to pull off a 4-3-3 quite effectively:

“Next season we will play the formation and system that most suits the players and the balance of the team. That means it’s not rigid. It can evolve throughout the season, depending on circumstances and personnel.

If you play with Theo Walcott for example, you are more tempted to go for three midfielders because Theo is more of a forward than a midfielder in a 4-4-2.”

So don’t be surprised to see us shape up a bit differently next season. If we did go to a 4-3-3 then I guess we wouldn’t really need to add a quality central midfielder but it would be good to have one when we resort to 4-4-2.

He sounds positive about making a couple of signings but has cooled it down a bit reminding us we don’t have loads of money. He says we can’t afford to splash around £100m but we don’t necessarily need to. He believes in this side so much and every year they are improving so there’s no point in signing a £30m player if the next season one of our original players would’ve improved to the same standard. I’m still looking forward to a signing or two but I know that we don’t need very many.

Wenger’s also been talking about Nicklas Bendtner:

“When Nicklas is really switched on and focused, he is a handful for any defense in the world. He has shown that in the second part of the season. People forget how young he is, but I am sure he has won many people over in the second half of the season.”

He really did come on a lot in the second half of last season. He had a shit time at the start of the campaign then something just clicked in his head. Now he’s liked by a lot of the fans for his attitude and the effort he’s started to put in. He’s scoring too and if he can continue to improve next season I’m sure he’ll be awarded more performances.

Especially if Emmanuel Adebayor makes way and there’s some fresh news on that. His agent says he’s had contact with a ‘very important team’ but nothing from Chelsea, Man United or Italy:

“As of today, I have not even got evidence to speak of presumed interest from Chelsea and Manchester United. It’s a given fact that Carlo Ancelotti likes the player seeing that last year he tried to sign him for Milan, although Chelsea have not contacted us.

We have not received any calls, not from Milan or Ancelotti. Another team has contacted us, but I cannot say anything, it’s a very important team.

There has not been any meeting with Milan for Adebayor and lately I have not received a call on their behalf.

This doesn’t mean Ade is for sale to resolve Arsenal’s economic problems. I spoke with Arsene Wenger this morning and he told me nothing of the kind.”

Yeah, we know he’s not being sold for the money – it’s because he’s useless. I wonder who this ‘very important team’ is though. It’s not going to be another English club, I think he’s saying Inter and AC Milan haven’t contacted so it could be a Spanish club. I’m still not sure whether Ade is staying or not but to be honest I don’t really care. If he says then as long as he bucks his ideas up then I’m happy, if he goes then meh, whatever.

Right then I’m off to enjoy a bit more sun. Thanks for reading.