Looks like Arsenal will not be splashing the £20-25 million they just received for Robin van Persie on new players.
Asked by When asked by TF1 tonight whether he will sign another player to replace Van Persie, Wenger replied:
“We already recruited to replace him.”
Wenger added that the club had “no choice” but to cash in or run the risk of losing the striker for nothing next summer.
“It’s sad to lose a player of his quality. He had a year left on his contract so we didn’t have the choice.”
So if I read Wenger’s quotes correctly, he knew that van Persie would be sold this summer, and that is why he bought Podolski and Giroud. The combined transfer fees of them was £20.5m, which just about equaled the van Persie transfer fee.
The disturbing aspect of that, is that once again Arsenal have had effectively a zero transfer budget: £20m in and £20m out. The Santi Cazorla deal I believe was unplanned for, but I would venture a guess that if you add up the transfer fees that Arsenal will receive for Arshavin, Bendter and Vela, I would expect then to total close to £18m, the price paid for Cazorla.
It is getting harder to explain away some of the highest ticket prices in Europe, with a transfer budget that has been effectively flat for the last decade. There is no financial reason why Spurs can have a net transfer spend that is £190m more than Arsenal over the last decade. There is no reason why heading into this year, Arsenal’s net spent was negative in four of the last six seasons.
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Just imagine adding van persie’s 30goals to united last season, they’d have won the league. And imagine we deduct van persie’s 30goals from arsenal last season… Well, let’s just say it won’t be nice! Fingers crossed. Let’s see how it goes. One thing is clear, we lack ambiton!! No team can we a major title with a new strike force. Hope am wrong next year though
dis is a blow 2 d eye, sellin ur best player 2 ur great rival. Does wenger nd d so called board even think of d fans? Shame on wenger nd arsenal board, I dnt see arsenal winning any contesting 4 any title dis season. Is just 2 bad dat we sell our best player every season.
Why not addition to van pesie.
SInce Arsenal captains are now targets of big teams in EPL and across Europe, with huge transfer fees that come with it, I’d suggest Arsenal appoint either Marouane Chamakh or Park Chu-Young as club captain this season so as to attact interest/huge transfer fees from big clubs.
LOL. This could work.
RVP going to the spuds or Man City would be worse. Juventis or Real Madrid would have been better but whatever. ManU overpaid for RVP. Arsenal did well to bring in players early and we will be fine without him. When Giroud and Podolski are scoring goals and a 20million plus RVP is on the DL it would look like a great move. We have enough up front and 24mil for a player on his last year of his contract works. Sorry to use the term but it is good business. Arsenal have a very good team and will do well. Support who wants to be here. The ones that don’t? Don’t let the door hit them in the ass.
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