Arsenal prepare spending spree

Here we are, just over one week to go and we still have the same problems regarding Defence, Midfield and Attack, basically all along the spine and throughout the team needs strengthening.


Former legends at the club have advised Arsene to go out and spend on experienced players form George Graham to Robert Pires.


Finally though, Arsene is about to open his chequebook and spend some of the approx.100million pounds we have. The boss said:

“Yes overall we will buy. Maybe people feel I am stubborn, but I am not, I just want to do the best for the team and buy the right players. If I have shown one thing in the last 15 years, it is that I have brought in good players. We will bring as well experienced players. People just say 'buy' but it is to buy the right player which is difficult.”

All well and good comments there, but ideally we should have done this business in June and July, not with just over a week left in the transfer window.


We have now launched a repeat bid for Jagielka, with Everton having to sell to balance the books, and it should be around the £15 million mark. However Everton manager David Moyes has stated "It will only be if Everton want to do it, I certainly don't want to do it, neither does Phil." We are also monitoring his team mate Leighton Baines, who would cost a similar amount but is one of the best left backs in the league, as Traore edges closer to a QPR loan deal.


Also on Arsene's radar are two of his most monitored players over the last few years. Both quite young and form the French league, but both quality players and could be world class.

Yann M'Vila has been making steady progress in the French national team and has attracted Europe's largest clubs in recent years. The Guardian today reports that we have launched a 12 million pound bid for him, although other sources say we have had a £20million bid rejected.


The Rennes president has said that M'Vila is not for sale, but that means little in football these days. Arsene has previously said exactly the same thing for both Cesc and Nasri and what's happened with them. If we pay the right money, we can secure anyone.


Eden Hazard is the other player we are interested in, and being the best play in the French league we will have to pay £20+ million for the Belgian international. Hazard's transfer will have to depend on us beating Udinese though, as he feels he has to be playing Champions League football after winning the league with Lille last season.


If we signed those four players we could really press on and, despite our slow start, challenge for the title. Hazard has tremendous creative qualities from the wing and in central positions, whilst M'Vila, Song, Frimpong and Coquelin bout enough strength to deal with the hardest of opposition.

In defence Jagielka is one of the most underrated players in the league and his leadership and experience will work wonders for the rest of our inexperienced squad. Along side him Baines is the Sagna of Left backs and is always dependable, although he can actually cross a ball and gets many goals and assists from his set plays.


Breaking News is that we have also made a bid for Sochaux player Kevin Anin, who has previously has a trial at Tottenham. The player apparently went on strike this weekend when news reached him of a possible deal to Arsenal. Having not seen him play, I cannot say if he will be a good addition to the team.

Jagielka vs Cahill

Given all of the talk surrounding these three player sand the likeliness of their transfers to Arsenal, surely one of them will be joining the Gunners this summer?


All the are quality Premier league defenders and regularly give nightmares to rival attackers (especially Arsenal) but which one is the best defender? And which one is most suited to the way Arsenal play and the defender we need?


In this article I aim to answer these questions by comparing their stats and styles of play to come out with some answers to these and other similar questions.


A week after Arsenal made a £10 million bid for him, lets start with Phil Jagielka. The Everton man is 28 years old, and is set to be 29 in August so is the oldest out of the defenders, but also the most experienced and has 428 career appearances for Sheffield United and Everton, scoring 26 goals in the process. Jagielka stands at 6 ft tall and although not tall, he is more than comfortable at defending balls in the air, something Arsenal defenders are not comfortable with. He also has excellent positioning, which has improved with his experience making his one of the best defenders in the Premier League.

The Manchester born player is the more versatile defender and is known to play comfortably in midfield and occasionally at right back, as well as his main position in central defence - he is also handy when he needs to go in goal. A former Championship player of the year, Jagielka has 8 caps as a full England international, although personally I think if he had been at a bigger 
club (like Arsenal) he would have far more than that.


Valued at 18 million pounds, Arsene would have to break the transfer record to buy the Everton man, who has 4 years left on his contract, though having been a fan of him for some time he may be willing to pay that price.


Gary Cahill has been the other target Arsenal have been linked with over the last few years and many cite his as being the answer to Arsenal's defensive problems. The Bolton player is 6 ft 2in and is stronger in the air than Jagielka, although I think Jagielka has better positioning.


The 25 year old defender - 3 and a half years younger than Jagielka - has amassed 182 career appearances for Bolton and Aston Villa, as well as on loan at Burnley and Sheffield United. He also has 3 England caps and is seen as the future heart of the England defence as Ferdinand and Terry's careers begin to dwindle. 

Cahill is the heart in Bolton's defence and his excellent performances have saved Bolton on many occasions and nearly helped them to a Cup final place. Cahill has only one year left on his contract, but Bolton will still demand 15 to 17 million for their star player.


Jagielka's Everton (a better team than Bolton) conceded 45 goals in the Premier league last year, whilst Bolton conceded 56 goals. However, if you compare the players' aerial duels Cahill has a 66% success rate in his 563 duels compared to Jagielka's 58% success rate in 215 challenges.


Both players though compare well to Arsenal's defenders though, who struggled with high balls in the air especially last year with Vermaelen out injured. This is shown as the club allowed opposition sides 82 headed shots last year, a 52% rise form the 2009-10 season.


 Only Djourou (61%) and Vermaelen (60%) have higher success rates than Jagielka and both are less than Cahill's. Koscielny and Squillaci have only a 53% success rate, which explains the unsuccessfulness of their partnership last season. However, arguably the best defenders in the air - Vidic and Samba - have above 70% success in Aerial duels, in some cases 20% more than Arsenal's defenders.


Jagielka (6716minutes) has played a lot less football over the last few years than Cahill (8794), due to severe injury problems. Given these injury problems, as well at his age, Wenger may decide to go for Cahill, who will offer more years playing at the top level.


Both players will improve our defence immensely, and ideally i'd like to sign them both, but that's just not going to happen. Given the news that we've had a bid rejected for Jagielka and are preparing a new one seems like we have gone for him, but I wouldn't rule out Cahill just yet. Hopefully we sign one of them soon.

Transfer Update - Jagielka,Mata,Cesc+Chamberlain

So following up from my last post, it looks like Wenger has gone for Jagielka as the man to amend our defensive problems. Well, at least according to the press.


Apparently we've made a £10 million bid for the Everton man, which is £2million less than what we bid for him last summer. Surprisingly a large number of Arsenal fans seem disappointed that we seem to prefer Jagielka to Cahill, Samba or even Mertesacker, and I cannot understand why.

Jagielka is a proven quality defender, with all the attributes needed to be an outstanding defender at the highest level. He is even underrated by many and carries a lot of experience which will benefit our defence more than we can imagine. Cahill is another quality defender, and would also improve our defence and Samba has all the attributes that most of our defenders lack and Mertesacker has also looked great for Germany whenever he plays. 


However compared to Jagielka, they come up short. Cahill is probably the closest to him, but even he's involved in a leaky defence at Bolton which conceded goals last season. Samba's team Blackburn also have a terrible defensive record over the last few season, and him and Mertesacker seems to lack the pace and technical ability that all of our defenders need in our high line. Per has also had a terrible season for Werder Bremen and reports from Germany say he's not the player he used to be.


Incidentally, Simon Kjaer looks set to be playing his future elsewhere and could be available for 15million euros. He may well be an excellent choice for a new defender, although that looks highly unlikely.

There has also some movement regarding Cesc, as he looks set to miss the squads trip to Cologne. apparently Arsenal and Barcelona officials had some discussions yesterday, although no bid was made. Later on, Barca completed the 26million euro signing of Alexis Sanchez form Udinese, meaning they lost a significant chunk of their transfer budget.


With the exits of Bojan and a few other fringe players, added to the remainder of their 45 million euros budget for this summer they should have 30-35million left for Cesc. But that still comes up short of our £40million valuation. However, considering the difference is only about 10million euros, i'm sure if Barca truly want their man - and that's what every single player, coach and even the mayor have said - they will pay the extra. So watch this space.


If Cesc does leave, we may well step up our attempts to sign Juan Mata, as we will need some more attacking prowess and creativity in our side. Mata would not take up the "Cesc role" but is more likely to take a place on the wing, with either Ramsey or Nasri taking up the vital space in our team.

Meanwhile, Chamberlain has apparently been fined 2 weeks wages for say he wants to move to the Premiership, which is frankly absurd if you ask me. It will probably speed up his transfer out of the club, although if we are interested I think we should sign a centre-back first. And should we sign him anyway, £12million on a very young winger who wont be ready for our first team for years, that money could be reinvested in the first team to much better effect.


I'll leave you with some great stats form the excellent Orbinho on Jagielka vs Cahill. Very interesting.


Cahill-Jagielka Aerial Duels 563-215 Aerial won% 66%-58% Tackles 158-173 Clearances 1169-736 Blocks 107-79 Interceptions 160-158 Fouls 78-33

Transfer Targets: Jagielka, Jorgensen, Cahill or Samba?

One cannot argue with the fact that Arsenal need at least one new defender this summer. Our Achilles heal has continued to hamper our chances of success through needless defensive errors. We lack communication at times and leadership too, although Vermaelen's absence last season may change that.

At the moment we have 5 Centre-backs at the club in Vermaelen, Koscielny, Djourou, Squillaci and the young Kyle Bartley. Vermaelen is proven class and won many fans as he starred in this debut season at the club, although after missing the whole of last year with injury, he may suffer little injuries as he returns to peak fitness.

Koscielny and Djourou are different, they both had excellent spells at times last year and occasionally looked like a solid partnership. However, they do both make silly, schoolboy errors at times and cannot be called proven Premier league players yet.

In Squillaci we have a former French international who looks like he's forgotten how to play football. Everytime he plays, we know an error is not too far away and he brings up memories of Silvestre's spell at the club. he may improve next season, but I for one don't like seeing him wearing the Arsenal shirt.

Kyle Bartley may even be ahead of Squillaci. his excellent but short loan spell at Rangers showed he is a classy player, with all the attributes needed to succeed in the Premiership. he may be the answer, but he looks like he may be loaned to Rangers again.

So who are the targets to improve our much maligned defence?

Phil Jagielka -

The 28 year old Everton centre-back is a quality player, and has been an outstanding performer in the league for the last few seasons. The 6 foot defender shows excellent positioning and power and aggression when in the tackle. He may lack the height that we so desire but, like Vermaelen, he is more than capable in the air.

Having recently become a regular member of the England set up, he wouldn't come cheaply, but at a reported £15 million pounds he is not overpriced in this market. With Everton's recent interest in Bendtner - and former interest in Rosicky - we could even knock off a significant chunk of his price too.

Mathias Jorgensen -

Jorgensen is another mooted target, and is a lot less well known than either of the other three I am looking at. The Copenhagen player is the youngest too at 21 years old and lacks experience that we need, having only made 92 career appearances in a lesser league.

At 6 ft 3in he is tall and seems physically ready for the Premier league, although he would take a while to settle in. He also seems composed in possession and can be seen as the "typical" Wenger signing - young, cheap and full of potential. At £4 million he is cheap and may be a good option, but not my preferred choice.

Gary Cahill -

We all know a lot about Gary, having been linked to him constantly over the last few years. Having had certain doubts over the 25 year old's ability in the past, last season he really matured and showed why is feared by the Premier league's strikers.

Similarly to Jagielka, the 6ft 2in Bolton defender has recently been admitted to the England squad and has seemingly improved as a result of this. He has the needed Premier league experience and power that us fans want, and also the technical ability that Wenger needs in his defenders.

Cahill has only one year left on his contract, but Bolton remain bullish over his price and want £17million for their star player. Loan deals for Lansbury and Miquel may sweeten the deal, but as Cahill could star in our defence for the next 8 years, I think we should pay the £15 million needed to land him.

Christopher Samba -

Samba looked very close to joining us earlier in the summer, but that was probably all fueled by the constant speculation. The 6ft 4in giant is probably the most powerful player in the Premiership and has been the fawn in our side whenever we come up against him.

The Congolese and Blackburn captain has amazing power and experience in two of Europe's biggest leagues. His technical play is also underrated and he continues to improve year on year. Samba is one of those players that opponents fear, and that is something we have missed since Vieira, Keown and Adams' departures.

Samba has not hidden his desire to leave Blackburn, but having already sold their other main defender, Blackburn will fight tooth and nail to keep their captain and thus his price will be driven up. We could land him for £12 million pounds, although I presume Wenger wants to spend no more than £10million for the 27 year old.

Overall, all of these players could improve our defence in some way (who couldn't) but in Jagielka and Cahill we could really improve with proper organisation and leadership. My next choice would be Samba, and due to his price being cheaper than the others he may be a more likely option.

Here's to next season!