Morning all and welcome to another day and another load of transfer balderdash, with the news that we’re supposedly interested in Yann Sommer from Borussia Monchengladbach, which would be one of the oddest moves I could imagine.
I mean I get that Cech is being linked away from the club. We’ve signed a £22million ‘keeper and even in today’s market that is a farcical amount of money to spend on a deputy. Even Juve – who had a clear succession plan for Buffon and Szczesny – still only got the Polish international for £13million and he’s now their number one. So the idea that Leno isn’t going to be number one within the next 18 months to two years means that to get a second ‘number one’ in just doesn’t make sense. That’s what Sommer will want and at 29 he’s just about to hit his peak as a ‘keeper so that’s what he should be expecting.
There was rumours about Chelski being back in for Cech but again I just don’t see it. If they sell Courtois then they’ll be back in for a number one and at Cech’s age he has only a few year’s left back in him. Chelski stuck all of their ‘keeper eggs in the Courtois basket and that’s why Cech joined us in the first place so quite why they’d want to go back is any guess. From what we’ve seen of Cech he’s still capable of great games but more and more mistakes crept in to his game and we all know that when a ‘keeper starts to reach 36 their level starts to drop. It happened with Lehman and it happened with Seaman. Tech has given us a good few year’s but it makes sense to look for a new ‘keeper to challenge him and potentially take over within the next year or so. What doesn’t make sense is offloading Cech and brining in a 29-year-old to challenge Leno.
Sommer is a good ‘keeper and perhaps better than Leno based on last season’s showings, but we’ve made our decision on our ‘keeper situation and it is Cech and Leno, so I’d be stunned if the Sommer links (and I’m not hyperlinking any of the media outlets running the stories because I don’t want to be funnelling traffic their way) were anything other than Sunday rag gossip to sell a few more papers. I haven’t even mentioned that they’ve just signed Dejan Illev to a new deal. So with him, plus Martinez on a long-term deal, this feels like a load of old tosh.
Hey, I guess it’s given me something to talk about on a pretty quiet Sunday morning though, so that’s something.
The only other bit of news is around Chuba Akpom most likely to be showing the door permanently. It’s not really a surprise. He’s nowhere near the first team, he’s been serial loanee whilst at Arsenal and the only time any Arsenal has really got worried about him is that time his contract was coming to an end and supposedly he was interested in a switch to Dortmund. Suddenly Arsenal fans – and me too if I’m honest – found ourselves nervous that we might lose a raw talent to the Germans and he promptly signed a new deal. Obviously in hindsight that wasn’t the best idea by Arsenal and perhaps it was another example of an agent playing a blinder, but here we are about three year’s after those rumours surfaced and he still hasn’t broke through.
Then when you add in to the mix that we picked up Auba and Lacazetter in the last 12 months, that Welbeck is there and there’s also Lucas Perez back in the frame, it really doesn’t look like we’ll see anything happen with Akpom in an Arsenal shirt. Hopefully he can restart his career and at 23 he still has time to go somewhere and make a good fist of a career.
Knowing our luck though he’ll blatantly disappear abroad for a couple of year’s and come back to England as a 30 goal a season machine, signing for City and scoring against us in the FA Cup final…
Anyway, that’s it for today. It’s another sunny one in Britain so i’m going to bust out the strawberry daiquiri’s and sit in my garden.
Laters people.
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