Arsene Wenger stayed good to his word, well almost. The Frenchman decided to dip his toe into the transfer market, to go against the popular consensus and not go for the obvious.
Banking on the return to fitness of Kieran Gibbs and Bacary Sagna, and a return to form of Marouane Chamakh, Arsene plumbed for ‘a young prospect with good footballing talent’ in signing the relatively unknown but highly rated 19-year-old German midfielder Thomas Eisfeld from Borussia Dortmund.
Described as an agile, creative and attacking central playmaker, who can also play as a striker or on the wings, Eisfeld fits perfectly into the Wenger player mould and presumably will eventually be used as cover for this years lucky winner of the converted ‘season out through injury’ prize Jack Wilshere.
‘He has the good ingredients that could allow him to integrate into the quality of our team – the basics are technique, good movement and skill. We believe that he has a chance to develop well here. We planned to get him at the end of the season but we got him a bit earlier because he was at the end of his contract. We will use this period for adaptation.’
Wenger also alluded to the reasons why January 2012 was 75% less than January 2011’s ludicrous £225 million spent by Premier League clubs in transfer fees:
‘I don’t know if you have seen the numbers in Europe but there are €1.6bn losses among football clubs, that’s not debt but losses. That is absolutely amazing. That means tomorrow if you had to stop your activity, half of Europe would be bankrupt. It means that football has to respond and I don’t know if financial fair play will come in, but it looks like economically the whole of Europe is becoming a bit more cautious.’
Maybe, just maybe, Arsenal’s policy of making superstars, not buying them, will come to fruition when half of Europe’s clubs go to the wall. And maybe UEFA will grow a pair and enforce THEIR financial fair play rules when they come into force.
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