Walcott’s Central Role

With only 12 months left on Walcott’s current contract Wenger is understandably anxious to tie him into a new one. On Sunday he said that Theo is close to signing, but no agreement has been reached yet. So is this uncertainty delaying Arsenals attempts to sign a new striker?

With Theo not yet having signed a new contract Wenger may be thinking that bringing in another big name striker may not help the situation. Walcott is desperate to show what he can do in a central role, and the arrival of someone like Benzema would surely see his chances in that role limited further. Wenger has said many time that he does not want to lose a player that he believes is entering the prime of his career. So he will probably wait till he gets his signature before doing anything to upset the apple cart.

Theo is a clever guy though and he knows another striker coming in is a strong possibility. He therefore may be waiting till after the window has shut to sign a new contract and see who or if anyone comes in.

I don’t think Wenger will wait that long though if he can bring in another world class striker ie Benzema. Llorente has been strongly linked but he will not improve the squad, and I get the feeling this is just an agent angling for a move rather than real interest. Wenger tends not to sign many players whom are already over 30.

Whatever happens I don’t think we’re likely to see much happening till closer till deadline day. If Benzema is to come Real need a replacement and that has not happened yet. If Walcott signs and Madrid get a new striker then maybe just maybe…

In Off The First Post

So here is my first ever blog post. If you wanna know a bit more about me there’s a little bit in my about.me section. Let’s get straight into the football then shall we?

As you’ve probably noticed we’re still in preseason, so all anyone really cares about at the moment is who are we gonna sign next. I’m not going to pretend I have some secret sources, or a direct to Arsene Wenger like about half of twitter claims to have. All I can do is analyse what the club has said and whats in the media and try and tease out what might be likely and what’s just rubbish. So what do I think we’ll do then?

Well after yesterdays comments by Arsenal director Lord Hall it seems like we’re in the market for a striker. In my opinion Benzema seems like the most likely option. We know Wenger is a fan and has made attempts to sign him before. I think his already established relationship with Ozil would also be a big plus in signing him. Lacazette would seem to be a typical Wenger signing so is probably the second most likely option. The last couple of days have seen a lot of speculation about Fernando Llorente being signed for around 8 million. I’m not sure about this on at the moment but could be possible if Wenger doesn’t get his main target. At 30 he would bring experience and maybe cover enough time to allow Akpom to develop. I would suggest the rumours of Lewandowski and Higuian are just paper nonsense.

All this talk of signing a world class striker makes for good back page headlines and is always exciting for supporters, but is it what we really need? I’m not so sure this is our weakest area that needs strengthening first. For me we need another defensive midfielder. Coquelin had and excellent second half of the season last season but he can’t be expected to play every game. Also half a season does not ‘maketh the man’, many players have suddenly improved and impressed for short periods in the Premiership only to fall away again. Relying on him to perform consistently could be a gamble. Behind him we have Arteta and Flamini both well past the 30 mark and only Flamini a true defensive midfielder. Though for me he spend to much time shouting at others telling them what to do, than doing it himself. Prehaps why it seems he may be out the door soon to Galatasaray. I hope Arsene will address this before the window shuts. I would love to see William Carvalho be the man brought in, he was very impressive during the recent Euro U21 tournament.

All this said though it would not surprise me at all if our only major signing this summer turns out to be Cech. Wenger seems happy with the squad generally and has repeated this many times during press conferences. He has form for this as back in 2003 his only signing was a goal keeper, Jen Lehmann, and Arsenal went on to win the league and complete the Invincibles season. So maybe not such a bad thing then?

Later today we have the annual Emirates Cup tournament. Arsenal play Lyon at 4.20pm today and it’s on BT sport. I will be tweeting updates during the game from @theweaponscache so feel free to join me there. I post my thoughts on the game on here after the match too.

Thanks for reading my first post, hope you found it interesting. Comments are always welcome.