News round up: Akinfeev, Fabregas & more 26 July, 2010

There’s not much going on at the moment as the players knuckle down on getting fit. There are a few quotes from players out in Austria that I will get to in a minute but we don’t look close on any signings at the minute. We play SC Neusiedl 1919 tomorrow, which is our last game of the camp, and then it’s back to London ahead of the Emirates Cup this weekend.

The pre-season camp in Austria is a testing time for the players with two sessions a day in order to get match fit. I suspect Wenger is more focussed on seeing out the remainder of the camp than bringing anyone in at the moment. I think hope that Arsene will do most of his work in the transfer window when he gets back to England this week. We have about 3 weeks until the season kicks off for us at Anfield so there’s still time to do some business.

The latest story is an interesting one though, Igor Akinfeev, CSKA and Russian no.1 has declared his interest in moving to England after talking with Andrey Arshavin:

“Arsenal and Manchester United are two of the very best clubs in the world. If both of them are going to be looking for keepers this summer – or even the next summer – then of course I am interested.

I have spoken with Arshavin about Arsenal and London life. He has only had good things to say about the club and the city. He said some very nice things about me going on to be the best goalkeeper in the world – and that he would like me to reach that goal at Arsenal with him.

He went on to say that it would also be an honour to play for Man United and there could be interest from Juventus but Arshavin has sold Arsenal well to him and believes it wouldn’t be a problem sorting out a move away from Russia.

Good work Andrey! Akinfeev is only 24 but he is a top level goalkeeper and the sort of signing that would bring a lot of confidence to Arsenal fans. At the moment this is just idle talk but hopefully Arsene will look into this and Andrey Arshavin can work his magic on Le Boss too! As I said, there’s nothing in this story yet but I’m hoping there might be in the near future.

There are more quotes coming out of the Barcelona squad about Cesc Fabregas but it actually seems like they’re finally understanding the situation now. Andres Iniesta has been saying that he thinks Fabregas will remain at Arsenal for now and actually wishes him well here! I know, unbelievable! I didn’t think they were capable of talking about Cesc this way but here you have it:

“Cesc wants to be with us, but he told me how close the Arsenal fans are to his heart. He is a special player and I hope he wins the title at Arsenal this season. For them to win Cesc will have to stay fit and injury-free but he deserves to finish with a title. For all the work he has put in at Arsenal it would be a shame if it was all fruitless.

Cesc is such a special player that he could carry a team to the title on his own and I hope he does it this coming season. It would be brilliant if Arsenal’s hero could lift the title as captain during his last season. I think that it would be fantastic for everybody.”

It’s a bit shit him talking so confidently about this being Fabregas’ last season at Arsenal but he’s right. It’s about time we all come round and understand that this will be his last year as an Arsenal player. He’ll give his all this season, I have no doubt about it and I’m sure he’s on the same wavelength as Iniesta there in that he’d love to end his time with us by lifting the Premier League title. It’s a dream and it’s going to take a lot of work to get there but it’d be nice if he went out on a high note.

We can’t just expect to win the league though, it’s going to take months and months of focus and determination but not only that I think Wenger needs to add a couple of signings to turn this into a side really capable of winning the league. Akinfeev would be a big step towards that; him plus a central defender or defensive midfielder would be perfect. Thomas Vermaelen is the type of player we need to fight for a challenge this year and he’s been talking about his title ambitions. There’s no point in judging the team yet because there’s still time to go but as it stands I think we’re going to fall short of the top but a couple of quality additions and we’ll be well up there.

Vermaelen’s defensive colleagues have been talking too, Koscielny has been saying he likes the physical side of the game despite looking one of the least built players in the squad. He still has time to bulk up though and maybe he uses his brain and skill to his advantage to make up for his lack of size, we’ll see. Also, Djourou says it’s time for him to make the first team and he also talks about adding a bit of aggression to our game. I’m really looking forward to seeing these two battle it out for a first team place, they really are in direct competition with each other with neither having any right to Gallas’ vacancy. I saw them both at Barnet the other week but that was very early days, I’ll be at the AC Milan game on Saturday, by which time both should be fit to compete and I’m interested in seeing how they do.

So, we’ve got that match tomorrow at 6:00pm against SC Neusiedl 1919. They’re in the third division in Austria so really we should be knocking quite a few goals past this lot. Seeing as there’s not much else going on I might do some designing for the blog, so look out for that.

Thanks for reading.