Arsene Wenger confirmed last night to shareholders that there will be money to spend during the summer if he needs it. Wenger’s usual policy of signing prospects over experience has been questioned in the past but the signing of Andrei Arshavin in January went ‘against the grain’.
Arsenal continued their excellent start in the Champions League by crushing Fenerbahce in the Turkish sides’ hostile Istanbul stadium with some excellent personal performances from Fabregas, Walcott, Diaby and Almunia worth a mention.
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A bit of team news today ahead of the Fulham game tomorrow, lets start with the good news;
Alex Song is back with the Arsenal squad after returning from Olympic football duty with Cameroon, Nasri has apparently recovered from the slight injury he picked up before the France game (was he really injured or was he skiving off playing for his country already?[just kidding]).
And Robin Van Persie managed to play for Holland in midweek without getting himself injured.
Mikael Silvestre has a muscle strain so will probably not feature in the Fulham game, but when he makes his Premiership debut for Arsenal it will be his 250th Premiership appearance.
It seems Cesc Fabregas is still a week or so away from full fitness so he will probably not play, which leaves Wenger with the choice of Denilson, Song or Eboue in the central midfield.
All that said, I would expect Wenger to roll with a similar line-up to the team that beat West Brom last week, Fulham are a pretty physical side and Van Persie played in midweek, we could really do without him getting injured so it would seem wise to stick with Adebayor and Bendtner up front as well.
Wenger has given hope that he is not finished in the transfer market yet before the deadline passes on September 1st, he hinted in his press conference that he might yet snag a central midfielder but wouldn’t say who. Indeed Wenger has had some activity since my last update, loaning out Armand Traore to Portsmouth for the rest of the season.
Taking my cue from the most persistent rumours it would seem at this stage that it will be Alonso, Barry or Inler. Apparently Alonso had agreed terms with Arsenal but Arsenal only offered Liverpool £10million for him. With Barry valued around £17million by Aston Villa, I cannot see Arsenal forking that much for him, so the most probable seems to be Inler. There are only 9 days to go before the end of the transfer window so not too long to wait.
