Andy Carroll to Liverpool for £35 millon? The world has gone mad, although not quite – as some would believe – as mad as Arsene Wenger who has ended the transfer window without bringing in any new players.
Whilst our league position is healthy, the amounts of money being splashed about by Liverpool and Chelsea and Manchester City will see them as a real threat to our and Manchester United’s title ambitions, and a finish in the top four to secure a Champions League berth for the 2011/12 season. Defensive frailties were exposed yet again on Sunday versus Huddersfield when Gibbs got himself in a mess which ended up with Squillaci bringing the player down and getting sent off.
Squillaci hasn’t exactly set the world alight and with Vermaelen out of action until at least March it was thought that Wenger would bring at least one centre back, even if just on a loan deal to see us through the hectic schedule that February will bring us. The moaning back in the pub from some of The Railway regulars after the Huddersfield match saw Denilson come in for untold amount of criticism. It seems even a win to send us into the 5th round of the cup can’t cheer some people.
Only time will tell whether Wenger has done the right thing and not bought anyone in during the window. A new goalkeeper defiantly needs to be something addressed this summer; Almunia and Fabianski are quite simply not up to the standards that Arsenal need to be challenging for the title.
Whilst Szczęsny seems a good prospect, I feel that we need a new number 1 whilst keeping the young lad as back up. An obvious choice would have been Shay Given, but I have it on good authority that Wenger went for him whilst he was at Newcastle but he didn’t want to uproot his family from the North-East to London.
One thing that has come out of this transfer window I feel is that if Cesc Fabregas decides to leave us at the end of this season, just what is his transfer value now? Because if players like Darren Bent are worth £24m and Andy Carroll £35m then surely Cesc should be worth at least £50m if not more?
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