By: Martin | February 9th, 2011
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A couple of stories today:
First, the good news. As I mentioned in the comments section yesterday, the injury news on Johan Djourou is better than initially feared. He suffered some bruising on the knee, but it’s not though to be serious. According to the physio from the Swiss FA:
The player suffered very painful bruising on the knee but, if the healing process runs as it should, he could probably begin training in less than one week.
And that is good news. He may even be available for the Wolves match, but I suspect he’ll miss that one and hopefully be ready for the Barcelona match midweek.
Elsewhere, Nicklas Bendtner has opened his mouth yet again in the run-up to today’s friendly match against England. This time he has said that he might consider leaving Arsenal this summer if playing opportunities don’t improve:
I have a lot of feelings for Arsenal and it means something great to me. I would be sad to leave it, but you have to think about yourself and, with the career goals I have, I cannot be sitting on the bench. That’s the way it is. I will do my best for Arsenal throughout the season. Hopefully I will be there next season as well but we have to wait and see. But, if my situation at Arsenal doesn’t change, I will have to look at it because I want to play football. I am at a stage of my career now where I think I should play every game and I should develop and score goals.
And for me, I think that’s fair enough. You can certainly understand where he’s coming from. I know he has his detractors, but the bottom line is he is a 23 year-old who has scored 54 goals in English professional football (13 of those in the Championship during his loan spell at Birmingham City, 41 for Arsenal over the past 3.5 seasons). He scored some important match-winning goals which kept our title hopes alive last spring, and has scored a Champions League hat trick, something many great players were never able to do. He’s in his prime, he has proven that he can be an effective player at this level, and you can’t blame him for wanting to play.
But I’m not sure I see it happening at Arsenal, to be honest. I guess a lot of it depends on formation — as it currently stands, we only use one true center-forward, and that’s really Bendtner’s most effective role (by far). But as effective as he is, he’s not anywhere close to as good as van Persie, so Bendtner’s just not going to start in that role if van Persie’s healthy. And if Chamakh could rediscover his form of earlier in the season, I have to say that I think he’s probably a better bet than Bendtner, as well. The formation has been working pretty well, and I don’t see Wenger changing it just to accommodate Bendtner, which could very well mean Bendtner could leave the club this summer. I guess in the end it comes down to how much playing time he needs — because he does play virtually every game, he’s just not in the first XI and generally won’t start important matches unless we’ve picked up a couple of injuries. But you have to think that he would continue to get at least 15 starts and around 20 substitute appearances if he sticks around, so he’s clearly a player who Arsene Wenger has a lot of time for. The decision will be up to him.
But I don’t think he’ll have any shortage of suitors. Rumor was that Newcastle made a last-minute 15 million bid for him after finalizing the Andy Carroll deal. Elsewhere this 15 million number has been floated about as well. Not sure where it comes from, but if Andy Carroll is worth 35 million (he’s not really, of course), then I would think Bendtner would be worth at least 20-25 million. I guess we’ll find out if he decides to head elsewhere.
Finally, Barcelona director of football Raul Sanllehi was quite the talkative one yesterday. First he came out and said that the Torres deal was excessive, and that Barcelona would never do a deal like that. He’s probably right, but there is a certain irony in anyone from the club which paid 40 million + Samuel Eto’o for Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and the club that paid 25 million for Dmitro Chygrinsky only to sell him for 15 million the next summer lecturing anyone on fiscal responsibility.
More pertinent to us, though, he also apparently refused to tap up Cesc, which is a novel approach from them, and said that any possible deal for Cesc was “dead.” He then went on to say some actually kind of classy and gracious things about how Cesc would be welcomed back to the Camp Nou for the second leg, and how Arsenal are one of the main contenders for the Champions League and would be a difficult task for Barcelona. Here’s hoping he’s right about any pursuit of Cesc being dead — it sure would be nice to be able to go through a summer without all the nonsense we went through last summer. Count me skeptical, though.
(UPDATE: Goal.com (so take it with a grain of salt) is reporting Barcelona’s VP of finance stating that their summer transfer budget likely will not exceed 34 million pounds this summer. If true, I can’t imagine that amount would be enough to get Arsenal to part ways with Cesc, given that he has so long left on his contract with the club and could fetch so much more elsewhere — honestly, if Cesc is worth less than Andy Carroll . . . well, I just don’t know what. Of course, their war chest could be expanded by player sales (Dani Alves has been linked with an exit), but in that case, they may need to focus on buying direct replacements for the guys who leave, not buying Cesc to add to an area of great strength for the side. We shouldn’t take this on absolute certainty or anything, but the bottom line is that at the moment, things look pretty good for Cesc to come back to Arsenal for 2011-2012.)
That’s it — all those internationals are today, so hopefully our players will get through those without getting hurt.
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Some Related Stories:Wenger Gives Injury Update; Cesc Says Team Lacks “Winning Mentality”News Round Up: Who’s In for Chelsea; International Call UpsJET in Talks to Go to QPR on Loan; Vermaelen Injury Now “Long Term;” Cesc, Rosicky Talk Ahead of Man City ClashInternational Round-Up + Injury UpdateJack Gets Benched; Theo’s Footballing Brain Comes Back Into Question
Category: Arsenal News, Injury Report, Internationals, Johan Djourou, Nicklas Bendtner
Tags: Arsenal News, Injury Report, Internationals, Johan Djourou, Nicklas Bendtner
Tweet « International Round-Up + Injury Update | Home | Homey_MillsIn the Croatia/Czech Republic game, Eduardo and Rosicky have both scored one. Maybe that will get Rosicky going a bit.MartinYeah. I know it makes no sense because he's thousands of miles away, but in my mind's eye I picture Eboue jumping out of the stands to celebrate both goals.sonneveldYou guys have to remember they bought Afellay who has been playing well for them. He provides cover for Xavi and Iniesta so chasing Fabregas is probably over.Gigi_manMan just when I started having a weak for Nick he comes out and says things.
I dont blame him for his feelings, and I do recobgnize his form last season earned us some crucial points, but, I think you are as good as your last perf.
Speaking of which, his last perf on the wing made me think, maybe hes worth in that position, and I think AW is considering it too, but I also think Nick wants to be, no matter what, the center fwd, and as you say, he is behind RvP and (maybe, I am not so sure he is a better bet) Chamakh (I might lean over Nicj because he got better arrogance and thats something you need to be a striker).
If that is true about Cesc it would be the best news. But I am not buying it, it sounds like a "lets fool them and go back with a surprise" kind of statement.Homey_MillsI know this is getting ahead to things that might not happen, but I guess that's what we do best here anyway. I wouldn't mind seeing Bendtner sold for a nice sum of money, but only if we actually re-invested it. But I've seen that story play out many times, and we never re-invest the money. Wenger will just say he really likes JET and Vela and whoever else, and doesn't see a need to replace Bendtner. And so we'll sit on a bigger pile of cash.Fred Jacobwhat about Theo playing striker, Nasri on the Right and Arshavin on the Left when Van persie not startingPatoux21Thanks Martin great article. I mostly agree with you about Bendtner. He's not the quality of a starter but he's a very good bench alternative so I don't think he'll stay. My concern is that Van Persie often gets injured and Arsenal would need another striker who is effective in scoring goals and I believe Chamack is nowhere near this type of player. We actually have Carlos Vela on loan but for me he's not as good as I would expect.
On the other hand because of Arsenal style many midfielders are going forward and score goals so the biggest concern for next season would be to look and invest in defense especially at right back and centre. Hopefully the goalkeeping position seems quite good at the moment as Wojo is showing the quality we need.
Patoux21Thanks Martin great article. I mostly agree with you about Bendtner. He's not the quality of a starter but he's a very good bench alternative so I don't think he'll stay. My concern is that Van Persie often gets injured and Arsenal would need another striker who is effective in scoring goals and I believe Chamack is nowhere near this type of player. We actually have Carlos Vela on loan but for me he's not as good as I would expect.
On the other hand because of Arsenal style many midfielders are going forward and score goals so the biggest concern for next season would be to look and invest in defense especially at right back and centre. Hopefully the goalkeeping position seems quite good at the moment as Wojo is showing the quality we need.
Patoux21Thanks Martin great article. I mostly agree with you about Bendtner. He's not the quality of a starter but he's a very good bench alternative so I don't think he'll stay. My concern is that Van Persie often gets injured and Arsenal would need another striker who is effective in scoring goals and I believe Chamack is nowhere near this type of player. We actually have Carlos Vela on loan but for me he's not as good as I would expect.
On the other hand because of Arsenal style many midfielders are going forward and score goals so the biggest concern for next season would be to look and invest in defense especially at right back and centre. Hopefully the goalkeeping position seems quite good at the moment as Wojo is showing the quality we need.
JturphyI can understand maybe buying some cover at CB over the summer, but with TV5 coming back and Djourou looking so good this year, I would be very happy going into next year as them as our starters. Kos as a back up is pretty solid as well. So I don't think we want to invest too much at CB. And I would assume at RB you're saying a back up as well? We have the best RB in the league already.blog comments powered by Disqus
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