Posted on Sunday, 3rd June 2012 by The Goon
I recently read, in the Metro, that Barcelona are ready to sell playmaker Ibrahim Afellay and will apparently accept offers in the region of £6 million this summer! Now I don’t know about you guys but this is a deal Arsene Wenger must pursue and seal this summer.
The 26-year-old joined Barca from PSV in January 2011 for £2.3 million, but the midfield maestro has struggled for game time at the Camp Nou since, featuring just the five times last season for the Catalan club following a chronic knee injury which ruled him out for approximately seven months.
Despite this though, Arsenal should seriously consider the prospect of signing Afellay.
Barcelona will be desperate to sell the Dutchman in order to raise extra transfer funds this summer, and the Gunners could certainly do with a creative midfielder after losing both Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri last year.
I still firmly believe that this issue has not been dealt with by our club, despite Alex Song’s assist rate last season. We still lack someone in the middle of the park that can turn a game on its head and produce some magic when needed. Afellay is this type of player and our club would be foolish to look elsewhere.
We shouldn’t have a problem with the financial aspects of this deal, as he pockets around £80,000-a-week at Barca, which we could easily match, especially if we offload some deadwood. In addition, £6 million in transfer fees isn’t a lot to part with either; in fact, it’s a bargain price for a player of Afellay’s quality.
The potential signing of Afellay could also persuade Robin van Persie to commit his future to us, as they are very good friends, so Wenger should do all he can to acquire the former PSV man, especially if Barca are only asking for £6 million!
Tottenham, Liverpool and Newcastle are all believed to be interested in signing Afellay, but with the only team out of the bunch offering Champions League football, we should easily fend off the abovementioned clubs for his signature this summer.
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Tags: Arsene Wenger, Barcelona, Ibrahim Afellay, Robin Van Persie
Posted in View From The Sphere | Comments (26)
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June 3rd, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Bet Spurs will now bid then buy him
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June 3rd, 2012 at 4:58 pm
chronic knee problem??!!!
This may explain why he is being offloaded for just £6m
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June 3rd, 2012 at 5:17 pm
he has most of his short barca career in the treatment room hence the low price.
we have enough of those players at Arsenal dont need anymore.
i dont understand the clamor for more midfielders we
we will have jack back and diaby will surprise all imo.
we need to have more faith in our current squad and only need to sort out the RVP situ.
imo we should let him go if is getting a bigger contract that we cannot match.
hope its not citeh but if it is there is nothing we can do as they have money that no one else in the footballing world can match, no point in trying until football starts to feel the ill winds of the world economy going in to a major slump.
watch out for the spanish clubs going bust or being taken over by foreigners on mass.
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seagoon Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 9:21 am
Agree. The last thing we want is any more midfielders especially when we are desperate to have a back up to Schez with Fab wanting out. We need another quality goal scorer, even if RVP stays and we really could do with a class utility defender such as Vertogen who we seem to be letting slip to some smaller club.
But midfield? We are well covered with Jack to come back, hopefully Diaby to get rid of his demons, Arteta to come back. We have Tomas who has shown us what he can do when gets rid of his injury demon.We have Coqelin as backup & hopefully there is room for Lansbury somewhere.
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June 3rd, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Would love him at Arsenal, could see him doing very well. Great talent, and for around £6m he’s worth the risk despite his injury problems. If he’s on form and injury free for even just one season, the fee could be paid back.
I think he’s going to have an impressive Euros and attract interest from several teams, so his fee is likely to increase unfortunately.
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June 3rd, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Arsenal sighn giroud
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June 3rd, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Hmmm,every seconds,every minuite,every day nd every week we ave been linkind wit most player across the eropea. Pleas Le Boss shuld sign player nt 2 be trackin nd shout out players name.once we scourt a player den go for dat particular player instead of shoutin d players name.PLEASE LE BOSS WE FANS ARE NAVOURS.
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June 3rd, 2012 at 7:00 pm
this is not a matter of bargaining we need take the money and go for him we need him and marvin martin just
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June 3rd, 2012 at 7:02 pm
AFALLEY is a big talent and arsenal shud quickly sign him up
i see christiano ronaldo in him….his injuries are not chronic, he hasnt been lucky.
Am sure he will overcome this.
RVP is an example
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June 3rd, 2012 at 7:10 pm
One – He doesn’t have a chronic knee problem, he just had one, long injury. Two – He won’t leave for less then 10 million, and if he does well at the Euros, could quickly be 15 million.
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June 3rd, 2012 at 7:44 pm
I think he would be a quality signing but Arsene Wenger is sort of worrying me because he’s being interested in these player but he’s saying we are having a quiet summer and we’ve got Diaby and Wilshere coming back, how pants is Diaby, and Wenger is not patient enough with dealing with players to buy cause quality players are saying they will decide their future are the Euro 2012 had finished, that isn’t long so if we dont buy Giroud, Afellay, Belhanda, Martin, M’Vila and another CB Van Persie Probably won’t stay. Although he is injury prone, he may do well at Arsenal.
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AKA Jack Gooner RVP Reply:
June 3rd, 2012 at 7:47 pm
i mean we dont need another CB, cause we have, Sagna, Koscielny, Vermaelen, Santos. We only need 5 defenders in the 18 starting and bench players. Look at Chelsea they have already signed 3 (nearly 4) players. We have only bought 1 player Podolski, but he’s quality
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joonneessyy Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 2:01 am
We need another rb vand der wiel or debuchy wud b gd n we do need another cb if djourou leaves weve conceded more goals this season thn any i cn remember as we dnt have strength in depth if one of our starting defenders r injured were usualy fuukd
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June 3rd, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Is he better than ramsey, song, arteta, or aron? If no and if he only play a limited matches for barca last season, spent 7 months on d treatment room and at £80,000 per week, then we dont need him. What we need is qualities and not liabilities
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joonneessyy Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 1:57 am
Rvp has only played 20 games in a season twice in his whole arsenal career due too injury and hes a different style of player to our midfielders hes more of a classy playmaker like kaka type he cn produce moments of magic nt sayin wilshere or arteta or song aint world class bt afellay is more of a goal threat i yhink in our whole midfield arteta or ox is dangerous outside the box for shooting
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joonneessyy Reply:
June 4th, 2012 at 1:58 am
Sorry hes only played more than 20 games in a season twice
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June 3rd, 2012 at 9:50 pm
We talk the talk and Wenger do the walking, i can’t remember the last time Wenger brought a player of our dream! We chanted abt Babel,Joe cole,ashley young,cahill,samba,ribary,benzema the list is endless bt we signed no one, so let’s wait n see! Sometime we feel betrayed by Wenger arrogant bt history proves him right. Every player we buy him expensive they become a flop or headache.. Let us keep faith.
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June 3rd, 2012 at 10:16 pm
The best thing Wenger can do for me this summer is to sell Abou Diaby. I never saw the best of him and i don’t expect to see one either. Let off load liabilities in team & bring potential replacement if possible. I knw it’s hard for Arsenal to sign more established players coz what other teams offers is irresistable unless the player has Arsenal interest at heart. For Arsenal to attract interest frm good players, they need to review their payroll. I don’t expect RVP to sign a new deal when he knows how much Man City are willing to offer. RVP is now 28yrs old,he is running against time,he need titles n a good payslip b4 he hangs his boot. To be honest i worried abt Arsenal’s future if they can’t change the so called Wenger phylosophy. We will remain shopping center for the rich clubs & struggle to survive not to win silverware. All in all we have a good manager we can’t afford to lose.
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June 3rd, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Affeley’s injury problem can be a hinderance,but I think we need someone dt can play both MF & wings-dempsey.We got a lot of passers already- wilshere,arterta,song & maybe m’vila.A winger & GIROUD,will do just fine.
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June 4th, 2012 at 1:52 am
sign him marvin martin, van der wiel, thn mvilla and dempsey or giroud sell chamack, arshavin, vela, denilson, fabianski, bendtner and park if we dnt have im in our plans.
Loan out, ramsay, miyachi, giv ox i knw pll will disagree bt a short loan to gt continuos game time as wenger wnt giv it him too gather more experience like we did with wilshere before putin him in first team on a regular basis and frimpong and yennaris all loan out and if we can sign green or gordon as no.2 for scezny
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June 4th, 2012 at 2:31 am
I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that Diaby will be the surprise player for Arsenal next season. It unlike Rosicky was this year. Add in Affelay, Dempsey, and Podolski and we’ll have the depth we need to challenge in 4 competitions. Of course M’villa or De Jong would also be great additions and help with our depth. I’m worried that Wilshire is going to struggle to live up to expectations, but I’m looking forward to his season next year, along with the Ox. Maybe, just maybe Gibbs/Santos will provide acceptable cover on the left, but I’m very concerned about our lack of depth on the right now that Sagna has broken his leg twice in one season.
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June 4th, 2012 at 2:33 am
Uh, I was trying to say about Diaby, that I hope he will be a surprise player NOT unlike Rosicky was this year, but the word got mangled by iPad autocorrect.
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June 4th, 2012 at 7:10 am
I like this transfer becouse this player is good
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June 4th, 2012 at 11:17 am
we need quality players..afellay is one…xo wenger what are yoi waiting for??…snap up this guy..diaby to suprise you all next season..
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June 4th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
we dont need these Affellay
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June 4th, 2012 at 7:23 pm
Is it only me then that thinks he’s a right winger? And not a centre mid?.
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