Citeh Takes the Early Lead in the Transfer Race

It’s a big day already as Manchester’s United and City have both penned deals with players. United took a pair of kids from Serbia or something and City kicked off the transfer merry-go-round with a £10m cash infusion to Chelsea for Wayne Bridge. There’s something ironic about the former Premier League big spenders being given a transfer life-line from the new kids on the block.

City are also reportedly favorites to sign Shay Given who has had his fill of being hammered by Newcastle’s pathetic defense. If it’s weekly salary that he’s interested in, there’s no doubt that City will win, if it’s a solid defense in front of him that he’s interested in, well Arsenal can hardly boast of having a solid defense can they? Arsenal’s defense is better than City at the moment but they have fired the first shot in that department by hiring Wayne Bridge. Our only hope is that Given sees that City would toss him aside like a used piece of fruit if they thought they could get Buffon or one of their other top keeper targets. At Arsenal, Given could finish his career and hopefully that’s enough to sway him our way.

As you know, City are also being linked to a £10m move for Kolo Toure which would give Arsenal some needed cash, according to Peter Hill-Wood.

Now see… I’ve said this before and been roundly criticized, but I honestly believe that the youth “revolution” is based more on need than principle.  Given their moves in the last few years and the fact that Peter Hill-Wood says incredible thinks like

One has got to look ahead – in the future there is probably not going to be much more money coming in. We have got money, but I am not sure we are going to spend it. We’ve got to continue to run the business in a sensible way.

It may sound boring, but we are not going to rush out and spend fortunes on people who won’t help us achieve anything better than where we are at the moment. Arsene has a lot of young, talented players at the club and I think he will probably give a chance to one or two of them.

I have to wonder if Arsenal really have all this cash that they keep claiming. Either that or Peter Hill-Wood was drunk when he said that.

I don’t know anyone who wants Arsenal to get stupid and bid £50m on David Villa but you certainly have to see that Arsenal’s defense is nearly as bad as the clowns down the Lane and needs a real asshole of a defensive midfielder to shield the back four. Now, I like Ramsey, I really do, but Ramsey is not going to come in and shore up the Arsenal defense and for a member of the board to make statements like that last one is really, really incredible. Which of our young players does he think is ready to be a starter on a top four club? Wilshere? Ramsey? Vela? Come on, Pete, get your head out of your ass and your hands off the purse strings: this team needs players.

I’ve been a staunch advocate of Arsene’s youth policy and I’m the first to defend the proper business practices of the club but even I can see that a club can’t lose quality players like Flamini, Walcott, Gilberto, Rosicky, Fabregas, and Eduardo and replace them with a couple of 17 year old’s. That’s just plain unrealistic.

Word is Lucas Neill is available on a free, how much you want to bet Arsenal sign him? It’s all we can afford, after all.

That’s all we got as far as transfer news this morning. If something happens, I’ll break in with another post but for now this is what you get AND YOU BETTER LIKE IT, SONNY.

Arsenal play Plymouth in the FA cup tomorrow and as far as I can tell there isn’t any television coverage anywhere. If anyone knows of a place to watch the match, please let us all know in the forum. If not, I guess we’ll have to see if there’s a stream online somewhere, UGH.

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