Arsenal coach (possible pedophile) Arsene Wenger recently expressed his keenness for Chelsea winger Salomon Kalou. And Kalou, following his performance in Wednesday's Champions League match vs. Juventus (that I already raved about) suggested that he would like to join Adebayor, Toure, and the group at Arsenal under Wenger. He hadn't seen consistent first-team opportunities until Hiddink's arrival and that is still in its beginning phases, so we'll see how he feels at the end of the season. He is showing continual improvement and I hope Chelsea can keep him as a part of the young nucleus of that team.
There are two problems with this transfer:
a) Chelsea would likely charge a huge sum of money for a young, talented, and raw player like Kalou. And we all know how Arsenal feels about big signings.
b) The second is that he's 23. The last player Wenger signed was Aaron Ramsey (17) and Jack Wilshire (16) plays in his first-team squad. I believe the last time he signed someone who could legally purchase tobacco products was 2006. So this would be a big change of heart for Wenger.
Silvestre? Gallas? Nasri (21 year olds can buy tobacco) as well. Fabianski was 22 when he was bought. Then just a couple of years ago he signs Hleb. Wenger has even bought players over the age of 30 such as Davor Suker (1999) and Mart Poom (2002).
ReplyDeletewell I said in the past few years (since 2006), since Arsenal has cranked down on the big spending.
ReplyDeleteYou have a point for Fabianksi (22) and Nasri (20) and I completely forgot about SIlvestre (my fault). But, Hleb was signed in '05, and Gallas was prior to the '06 season (sort of counts).
My point is though, that other than Nasri, Arsenal hasn't really made any big moves for established, expensive players over the last few years. And if Kalou continues to get the playing time he has been getting under Hiddink, and continues to improve, then he will have proved himself, and he will cost a large sum of money.
But, props for doing way research than me.
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