I picked up The Sun this morning, turned to the back page and what did I see/read – ‘Gunner Gareth’.
Funnily enough, yesterday I had the daily banter with my colleague at work, who happens to be a Spurs fan, a deluded one at that, and sarcastically told him that I wouldn’t be surprised if Arsenal tabled a bid for Gareth Bale, as the Welsh winger wants to play Champions League football. Obviously, this is a deal which will never ensue.
But at quick glance at today’s Sun Sport, I saw the name Gareth and thought ‘hold up a minute’ and started to laugh. However, that laughter rapidly turned to confusion and disgust when I read that The Gunners are interested in 32-year-old GARETH BARRY!!!
GARETH BARRY? Really? Arsenal are reportedly in this Manchester City and England flop?
I really, really, really hope this is not the case and turns out to be nothing more than a very poor rumour by The Sun newspaper.
I mean, we are looking to build a top quality side to challenge for silverware this season and have been heavily linked with a number of well established players in recent weeks, like Marouane Fellaini and Gonzalo Higuain, and suddenly Barry’s name enters the fray.
I’d rather see Denilson back in the first-team mix than this guy! That’s how much I don’t want to see him at The Emirates.
However, if this is in fact one of Arsene Wenger’s real summer targets and the Frenchman actually signs the City midfielder for the reported £3.5 million fee, then I will officially lose all faith in him.
Hold on. I’m not saying he’d be the most inspiring signing ever, but is he really that bad? City won the title with him holding their midfield and he’d likely be brought in to be a squad player anyway.
Arteta and Ramsey were unbelievably good once they started playing together and I’m not convinced that Fellaini or anyone else would really improve on what they gave us towards the end of the season, but we really need a bit more depth in DM positions. I’m not a massive Barry fan but he’s a solid defensive midfielder who can play other positions if needed. Based on the run-in at the end of the season, the very last thing we should be doing is bringing in someone to usurp Ramsey – he ran those games and when Arteta went off in the final fixture, he continued to bully the midfield; a real midfield engine who has earned the chance to show what he can do next year.
The bulk of the money SHOULD be spent on improving the attack, and the rest should be used to provide depth in other positions because imo we have very strong starting players in most of them.
look once bendtner park, chamakh, santos and gervinho seal their moves away we will be left with just 17 players in our 25 man squad, plus 7 under 21’s. There is no way wenger will buy 8 players costing £25m a piece, so a few experienced players around the £0-5m mark could well be on the agenda, especially if we want to give all 4 competitions a shot. lets not forget who won the 2 domestic cups last season? we were certainly a better team than wigan and Swansea, yet won nothing, bcos we did not take Bradford and Blackburn seriously. there are players out there than barry and for that matter lescott and schwarzer. all 3 could be brought in for around £6m and are certainly more welcome than denilson, squillaci and mannone.
Cheap Arsene is usual working his way down the price ladder and ultimately the quality ladder. Start at Fellain – to expensive, next Bender – too expensive, Gareth Barry – just right. Barry is far too slow and unskilled for the Arsenal style not to mention he’s 32 so what are we going to do with a 32 year old whose skill set is arguably worse than what we already have?
Today, the sun has a story on Suarez coming to the Groove.
hi