Arsene Wenger was interviewed after the friendly match with Neusiedl and during the session he was directly asked if he was trying to sign Per Mertsacker, and although he didn’t give a straight yes, he did emphasise that Arsenal still needed another centre-back.
He said: “There are people we consider and are analysing and we look at the financial possibilities,”.
“We are still on the search for centre-halves. We have three and we need at least four.”
I know its a case of stating-the-bleeding-obvious, but surely the “financial possibilities” are not a problem? Arsenal have a nett spend so far this summer of just 4m euros, and the wage bill has been significantly lowered by the departures of Gallas, Campbell, Senderos, Silvestre and Eduardo. If the £40m “war-chest” was anyewhere near the truth, then Wenger has more than enough financial clout to sign anyone!
Okay so Wenger didn’t deny that he was after Mertsacker, which is a positive sign, and it has been reported in the Sun this morning that Arsenal have also held talks with Stuttgart over the German international defender Serdar Tasci. He is a younger alternative to Mertsacker with probably more room for improvement, but the Sun says Arsenal have offered £10m but I doubt very much that he will come that cheaply.
His agent, Uli Ferber has played up the move: “Serdar admires English football and has huge respect for Arsenal.” he said. But with Tasci’s contract with the Bundesliga side running for another four years I reckon £20m will be closer to the asking price….
For no reason at all, the Portugese paper Abola has reported that Miguel Veloso has been negotiating to join the Italian side Genoa, but Arsenal are considering a last minute 13m euro bid to try and hijack the move. Veloso has been linked with Arsenal since the Year Dot so it’s no surprise that another link has appeared this summer. But I imagine it is just a ruse by Sporting to try and get his price up. Another report in Abola this morning says that Inter Milan are also making a bid….
This morning’s ITA Sport in Italy are saying that Arsenal are keeping talks with Fiorentina open regarding Sebastian Frey, just in case they can’t reach an agreement with Cagliari over Federico Marchetti. Although the Fiori have said that Artur Boruc has been bought to give some competition to Frey, I don’t believe that either of them would be happy with sitting on the bench next season. Frey MUST be leaving, but whether he comes to Arsenal is a different matter…..
The Daily Mirror also thinks that the Marchetti story is just a smokescreen, and their star football reporter John Cross says that Fulham’s Mark Schwarzer still remains Arsenal’s number one target. I personally am getting bored with these Schwarzer stories. If Mark Hughes takes over at the Cottage, do you really think he will let Schwarzer go? I doubt it very much….
From justarsenal.com
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