Arsenal in the transfer market 1

This is an important summer for my other obsession Arsenal F.C. of north London. Personally, if we can make big money off of Adebayor, I say let him go. A $40-45 M profit (what we paid versus selling price) from him and $10 M could be used to grab David Silva and another striker. The biggest issue for us is that Adebayor allows us to play a 4-5-1, which is good for the Champions League. I’d also really like to see us sign Jeremy Toulalan who I think could be a great defensive midfielder so that we could operate in a 4-2-3-1, which is the formation I like the best.

We also need a top notch defender. I have Micah Richards in mind. He has expressed interest in Arsenal and he could be the player that shores things up. He won’t be cheap, but the Arsenal board really need to suck it up and spend. It would be nice to get a world class keeper, but that doesn’t look likely. Shea Given could be nice, but what we really need is someone imposing physically and Given is very much like Almunia.

I really like the signing of Nasri. I’m not sure where he fits in, hopefully as the successor to Robert Pires who has never been adequately replaced (which may actually be impossible). Not sure about this Bischoff guy, but no one had heard of Clichy, Sagna, or Fabregas before Wenger grabbed them, so we’ll wait and see.

A lot depends on how 3 key players recover from injury and whether they can stay fit. We’ve yet to see the rampaging Rosicky from the 2006 World Cup. He may end up being too fragile to the EPL. Van Persie is another very important cog. He is one of the most outrageously talented technical players in the world. In fact, Thierry Henry once said that he was the only player he has ever played with that was Zidane’s equal in that regard (he said this before playing with Messi though). The return of Eduardo is another very important development. I admit, I was unconvinced by his early displays, he seemed off the pace and lacking in skill. I think I was wrong about that. Once he got his sea legs, he just started scoring. He didn’t always light things up in build-up play, but

The two players we need development from are Theo and Diaby. Theo’s run against Liverpool was a thing of beauty. I’m hoping that Wenger gives him a chance to play more regularly this season. I see Diaby as the successor to Viera, with a box-to-box mentality. In some ways he is more skilled than Viera, but he doesn’t seem to have the tactical nous or the defensive sensibilities. We’ll see.