Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does » 2010 » June » 08
By Walter Broeckx
If you type in the words “Wenger should buy” in Google, then you get some 44.500 hits in the last 24 hours. If you take the last week you come up with some 177.000 and 426.000 in the last month.
If we include the words “AW should buy” we get another 70.800 hits in the last 24 hours and 328.000 in the last week and 695.000 in the last month.
So this means that in the last month, since the end of the season Arsène Wenger received the staggering amount of some 1,121,000 pieces of advice (or on occasion orders), to buy someone.
Now lets us imagine for a moment that Arsène Wenger would do nothing all day but look at the internet sites to see what the fans want him to do. This would mean that in the last month he was told every 2 seconds whom he should buy.
So is it realistic to think that all this advice are read and noted by someone? Let alone that this person would be Arsène Wenger. Or would he just be sitting all day, without sleep and adding up the numbers. Something like: “Ah, the fans want me to buy Gourcuff 10.217 times, oops 10.218 times – just a new order arrived – so I think I will go for him…”
Yes the idea alone is laughable but yet almost every second somewhere an Arsenal fan feels he is as knowledgeable as Arsène Wenger, and qualified to give Wenger the best advice in the world. I didn’t do the research to find out how many hits you get after the words “Wenger should buy X” when there comes a sentence something like : ‘Or he has lost it” and “or he is a c*nt” and what about “he is a stubborn fool”.
Even the first words, “he should buy” are, in my opinion, a bit arrogant – and yet that is what most of the anti-Wengerians call him most of the time. But the second part is even more than arrogant if you ask me. Because you can put any name behind the “he should buy” part without knowing anything at all.
But let’s try and do this is in a realistic manner, starting with the most important thing: is the player for sale?
If the player is out of contract than it is up to the player to decide what he is going to do. If he is under contract it is in the hands of his current club.
The second question is : Does his club wants to let him go.
If the club says “no” then you can do nothing about it anymore. It is the right of his current club to say no. Just like we consider it our right to tell Barcelona: NO. So if we get a NO, the dealing is over.
Of course we could get a “No, not at that price” answer. Then there could be a deal but if the other team asks an insane amount of money would it be wise to go along with them? I mean if Lille wants 40M euro for Hazard should we pay this amount of money for a 19 year old? I can imagine some of the fans screaming abuse at Wenger for buying another unproven kid (in the EPL) for such a price tag.
But let us suppose the clubs agree a fee. Then comes the second part: the player has to agree with the transfer. Now maybe in the years that have gone by there has been some buying and selling players against their will but I think it is fair to think that most players are strong enough to say NO if they don’t want to join a team. And if this should happen I think this player should go to a court somewhere and sue a few people for human trafficking or slavery. But in reality I think those days are gone.
So if the player wants to come to the club, the deal can be finalized if we meet him on his wages. Let us suppose that Lille goes down some £10m for Hazard but that Hazard wants a weekly wage of £150.000. You can imagine what the answer would be from Arsenal I guess. No deal will be done and rightly so. We are not going to risk our whole wage system for a 19 year old.
But let us pretend we live in an ideal world and Hazard agrees the terms Arsenal proposes. Only then we have our player and even then it all could fall to pieces. Just imagine that in a medical we find out that this player has something wrong in his body somewhere. Don’t say those things never happen as it did last year when a Porto player didn’t pass a medical test in Italy because he had problems with his teeth.
So only when all this has gone right we finally have our player. I think you can imagine that this takes just a tiny bit longer than writing down: ‘Arsène Wenger should buy Hazard, or he is a……….”.
And yes I would like it if Hazard were come to The Arsenal. But please let us keep in mind how many obstacles there can be between writing “AW should buy” and really doing the deal.
None of us knows what is going on. Arsenal could currently be negotiating with 5 or 10 players or with none at all, we just don’t know it. And I can be mistaken on this but I think that the official international transfer period is from 1 July until 31 August. So in fact I think no transfers can be done officially before that moment. The only deals that could be done are between English clubs for the moment as the system in England is different from the other big countries in Europe.
So blaming Arsenal and Arsène Wenger for not signing someone now looks at bit stupid if you ask me. Unless you want him to buy some good old fashioned, strong and hard tackling English centre back. Why don’t we advice Wenger to buy Shawcross then?
I know that the transfer period is a difficult period for most of the football fans. The rumours, the fake stories, the lying reporters, the inventing of new gossip every day just to get hits and newspapers. I think we all hate it, I do anyway. I can only ask people to keep their heads. No need to risk a heart attack because of newspaper the Daily Lie tells us that player X will be sold tomorrow. This transfer period will be no different from the others: all our players will be sold at one moment by the newspapers but when we come out at the start of the new season we will see most of them back in the red and white we love.
I can only ask for common sense and some fair play towards our club from our own fans. If at the end of the transfer period your dreams haven’t been fulfilled you can be angry and blame the manager if you really want. But now? Who and what is there to blame thus far? Don’t make yourself sick during the transfer period by believing all the rumours that they spread.
As for those who still really want to say: “Wenger should buy….” I would suggest that you go to the sites of the club from your favourite target, look for the telephone number, pick up the phone, ask the manager and tell him you want to buy player X and ask how much you should pay. Or better, just say, “I would like him to buy player X if he is available and at a decent price”. Because calling out some names is just to simple and it doesn’t work that way.
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