Friday Update: Arshavin, Cesc, Kroenke ups stake & Cygan 10 July, 2009

Lots of little stories to talk about today so I’ll just get straight into it. Arshavin has denied any link with Barcelona and has said it’s nothing more than just a rumour and is looking forward to the new season with Arsenal.

I was never worried about him going to Barca this summer. It just started off a load of crap in the tabloids which Dennis Lachter caught on to and invited them to make a bid. This all after Andrey told us he’d sent a letter to Lachter saying he was no longer required as his agent. Well a couple of days ago Lachter told us that he is still Arshavin’s agent despite what he thinks. If you missed it, here’s what he said:

“We have a contract; this contract will be finished in one and a half years. Until then, I am the manager of Andrey Arshavin.

He sent me a letter, absolutely. Listen, it’s like entering a contract with Arsenal or anybody else; there are obligations. If you think that you can just cancel this formal relationship between two parties only because of a newborn baby it’s…what can you say…well you can’t do it. That’s it. I’m his agent.

And then he went on to respond to the allegations he invited Barcelona to make a bid for his client:

“This is the first time I’ve heard anything about these comments. I haven’t spoken with anybody and it’s quite strange to hear. It appears I’m getting quite famous again, but also that somebody is just trying to use my name.

I’ve never spoken with Barcelona and I think that somebody is just trying to get a story. All this stuff is made up. Two months ago I heard a lot about some kind of conflict between Arshavin and other Arsenal players. It’s bullshit you know. I would say that it looks like your media colleagues are just trying to find some hot news.”

Well I just don’t know who to believe. It seems you just can’t trust anyone so I’m not going to bother going into it. Arshavin will still be with us come the end of the transfer window and that’s that. Well, until January, then next summer, then the January after that, then the summer after that and on and on and on…

Barcelona president, Joan Laporta has said they will try and sign Fabregas if they cant get Franck Ribery. Well that’s just fantastic. He says they want to take Ribery off Bayern Munich but they don’t want to sell so they’re going to move on to Cesc. What, because we want to sell him do we? No, no I don’t think we do. I hate the way Barcelona and especially Laporta just stroll around like some kind of arrogant prick just assuming everybody wants to jump at the chance of joining Barcelona. Don’t get me wrong, they are a great club with incredible players but the way they act off the pitch doesn’t gain any respect from me.

Even if Barca did come in with a bid for Cesc then I don’t think he or we would allow it to happen just yet. There is an absolute minimum of one more year in Cesc’s Arsenal story. I was thinking earlier whether I want Barca to get Ribery or not so they don’t bid for Fabregas and I decided – I don’t care. I hope believe Cesc would politely tell Barca to fuck off (again) and insist he is staying at Arsenal. You never know, he might get so fucked off with it all that he says he will never return to Spain and will just stay at Arsenal forever. Yeah that last bit might just be me praying but we’ll see.

Stan Kroenke has increased his shares in Arsenal to 28.58% moving him closer to the magic 30% mark which requires him to make a bid for the whole lot. It’s a bit scary that. I don’t think his intentions are to complete a takeover of Arsenal but he is getting closer and closer to that 30% after his latest £1.36m purchase. There’s no hint that Kroenke is going to stop buying up shares but in the recent interviews with Ivan Gazidis, he said the club are quite happy with Stan Kroenke and the club is in a very stable position.

There’s some strong quotes from Manuel Almunia today. He’s been saying how we need to gain some more experience and ‘youth doesn’t give you titles’. He says we need to put more effort in if we are going to start winning things too. It reads quite blunt but I don’t expect Manuel to make such a harsh statement about his team mates like that, I’m sure it’s all meant positively. Every year we are becoming more and more experienced and gradually edging closer to that first trophy since 2005.

So Almunia wants to see a bit more experience in the side. Well who better than 35-year-old Pascal Cygan? He’s been joking about an Arsenal return saying Wenger told him the chance to return was always open:

“And as for teaming up with Wenger? He told me that if it went wrong in Spain, the door would still be open. Now I’m awaiting his phone call”

It says he was laughing as he said that but I hope he was actually joking. God could you imagine him coming back to Arsenal?! It would cause chaos. Actually you never know it might work in our advantage, Spurs might do their usual trick of finding out who we’re interested in and claim they’re after them too. Then who’d be laughing?

Ok that’s it for today. Nearly one week until our first pre-season game, can’t fucking wait.