Part 1: Premier League Transfers
Arsenal
Arsenal have always been the team that has played some of the prettiest football, but never really managed to go all the way to win some major silverware. Arsenal have almost always boasted players who are amongst the best in the world with players like, Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie and Andrei Arshavin amongst others.
However one of the major problems that the team has had is when some of those key players get injured. Arsenal have almost always lacked in depth and have heavily relied on their primary players to do all the damage.
Another one of Arsenal’s concerns last season had been their aging defence that wasn’t able to cope with the pace of the game. There were fresh legs in almost every team that were able to break down the centre of Arsenal’s defence due to the fact that its central defenders were too old and far too slow.
Lastly, the other problem that Arsenal had was with their goal keepers. Their keepers were quite possibly the main reason for the team not winning any silverware in the recent past. Last season, only the keepers cost Arsenal around 21 points. If Arsenal had managed to get those points, they would have been easy leaders at the end of the season but that was not the case.
Arsenal managed to finish at third spot and concluded their season with no silverware to their name. Arsene Wenger went ahead and identified these problems and made dramatic changes to the squad.
Players who were brought into the squad included:
Marouane Chamakh, Laurent Koscielny, Sebastien Squillaci, Kyle Ebecilio and Phil Roberts.
Players that were allowed to leave the squad included:
Eduardo, Jay Simpson, Luke Ayling, Sol Campbell, William Gallas, Mikael Silvestre, Fran Merida, Philippe Senderos, Alie Sesay, Kyle Bartley (Loan), Pedro Botelho (Loan), Francis Coquelin (Loan), Sanchez Watt (Loan), Luke Freeman (Loan), Sam Byles, James Dunn, Kerrea Gilbert, Rhema Obed.
Wenger let more players leave than he signed. The reason for this move was the Arsenal brought in quality players rather than quantity players to the team. He strengthened the defence by bringing in younger players, who had the hunger and drive to go on and achieve something as compared to the older lot of player who had already won everything and were just playing to get paid.
He also brought in Marouane Chamakh who is the classic definition of a centre forward. He has helped the side get the much needed height advantage that they needed up front and his ball retention skills are arguably some of the best in the world. What this means is that the player is capable to hold the ball up front and allow for the rest of the team to catch up with the game and in turn causing the Arsenal attack to become even more lethal than it already is.
The only major concern that Arsenal fans have is the fact that no keeper has been signed as yet. Even though the team was heavily linked to numerous keepers during the summer, no deal has been materialized as yet.
Arsene Wenger will however be looking to make a last ditched effort to sign the likes of Shay Given who has been wanting to leave Manchester City since the start of the season and Mark Schwarzer who has been one of the primary targets of the team since the start of the summer. Most Arsenal fans and squad members will be hoping that a deal for a new keeper could be wrapped up before the transfer window closes later this week.
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