80million. 1 day to spend. No, that isn't the tagline of Arunachalam 2 starring Rajnikanth but the story of Arsenal's transfer deadline madness. 8-2 has led to a 5-2. 5 players. 2 days. No, that isn't the tagline of Invictus starring only 5 rugby players playing a 2 day world cup but the story of what Arsenal have managed to achieve in the last couple of days. Let's get cracking with the new arrivals.
1. A. Santosh: Those who saw the repeated violation of Armand Traore on Sunday would have been more than convinced that Arsenal desperately needed a left back. But knowing that summer is the time Wenger usually decides to put on his best Ebenezer Scrooge behaviour (Arsene, any truth to the rumours linking Arsenal with Hazard? AW: Bah humbug.) I fully expected us to end the transfer season without buying a leftback and instead pin all our hopes on permacrock Gibbs whose ankle injury is as recurring as 1/3. So I have to admit it came as a bit of surprise that we signed Santosh. Preliminary scouting reveals that he has averaged 1 goal per 5 games, which is a bit crazy for a full back. Like any Brazilian (no, not Denilson) worth his samba he is also a bag of fancy tricks and flicks. At 26, he also has some valuable experience but how good an experience provider the Turkish league is remains to be seen. Signing need at that position, signing delivered.
2. Per Moorthysekhar: As many have observed he does look like a stretched out version of Boris Becker. As many have observed he is slow, lumbering and lazy. As one person has observed, he is fvcking useless. But! But he is 6 feet 6 and that makes him the tallest person Arsenal has ever had. Immediately he increases the average height of our defence by about a km which could prove useful when dealing with all those balls from outer space. He is experienced and with numerous appearances (read cannot be bothered to loook up how many) for both club and country he adds a wealth of maturity to the team. He also has excellent leadership qualities (captain of Werder Bremen) and can work well as a part of team, is proactive, has strong analytical and communication skills and also was in the top 2% of successful candidates in German Admission Test. All in all, a step up from the Djourous and Squillacis we have at present.
3. Chu Young Parekh: Chamakh : Football as Fish: Bicycling. When all that a striker in your team can do after coming on to the pitch in a must score game is turn his back to the goal and pass it back to midfield, you know the time has come to buy a cyclist instead of relying on aquatic creatures to pedal. Chamakh when he came was a revelation. He scored numerous (that word again) goals at the start of the last season and won us some important hard fought games. But from the second half of last season he has been piss poor. No touch, no finishing, no hard work. All this has led to us buying Korean captain (leadership qualities: check) Park. Park sounds more like one of Wenger's purchases, an undiscovered gem from Monaco bought on a cheap deal. So as usual let us not hype him up or anything. 30 goals this season sounds about right.
4. Yossi Baraniyan: Our midfield lacked one thing that most midfields have: midfielders. Apart from that everything was okay really. If Yossi had been our only midfielder signing then I would have been rather unimpressed. You don't sell off Cesc and Nasri and replace them with a 31 year old injury prone midfielder. I have seen him play for Liverpool and Chelsea and know that he is classy enough to play in the Arsenal midfield. But he is too much of a Rosicky. Graceful in his passing and movement, but poor in penetration (no TWSS oneself now). He is a decent signing and with players like Wilshere and Ramsey around him he should be able to fit right in with our style of play. A lot depends on his fitness though; if he can stay fit for an entire season that it would be really awesome to watch the linkup between our midfield and attack. Will he be a starter or has the next and our final signing pipped him to the post? Remains to be seen what Wenger will do. Oh, he tweets in hebrew by the way.
5. Mikel Atreya: This was the clincher last night. The deal that took Arsenal's transfer day deadline from being a bit Meh to Woohoo. A deal story that was the stuff of hollywood thrillers (Return of the Transfer Agent). It was on, it was off and with half an hour to go it was on again! At 11.00 PM we managed to get his signature on the dotted line and fax it off to wherever these papers need to be sent. Arteta is no replacement for Cesc or Nasri. But then again read above about what our midfield lacked. I am sure no club in the world would be willing to offload their star quality midfielders for how much ever money on the last day hour of the transfer season. You cannot put a wad of money out in the midfield to play, although I suspect it could be better than Diaby. We had to make do with what we could get, and Arteta was the best we could get. A bit like the transfer season's Gillette. He has years of EPL experience and would not take the proverbial time-to-settle-in-the-fast-paced-EPL-game. He offers something new in the way of free kick and a good shot (something that we will get rid of in his first training session). Apart from all this he also is good quality and has the eye for a good pass. Let us be clear, he is nowhere near what Cesc was and I doubt, barring Wilshere, whether we will ever have another one like him. But Atreya is an improvement to what we put out on 8-2 day and that is reason enough to be confident. Oh, and he surely reduces our ugliness quotient that the other bloggerreader has been going on about.
The good and bad news is that transfer season is over. Proper football without the added trappings of "Kaka to Spurs on Loan" is back on. And that can only be a good thing for this blog. 1 blog 2 readers. No, that isn't the tagline of my sad life.
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