Wage policy and the definitive transfer list

It’s March, Arsenal are out of all competitions and fighting for a top 4 place which can only mean one thing…. it’s transfer rumour time.

Usually the rumours that start flying about in March/April are full of fan wish-lists and agents trying to build interest from the money men by using Arsenal’s “interest” as a selling point.

Florentino Pérez once famously said that Real Madrid’s recruitment policy was going to be “Find out who Arsenal and Arséne Wenger want to buy and pay more”.

I have previously blogged saying that we only need minor tweaks and will Podolski being all but confirmed by Arsenal it seems we finally mean business this summer.

Apart from buying new players I still think we need to have a massive clearout but such is the size of squad we can afford to lose 10-12 players and only buy 3/4. We don’t need to buy superstars in every position because we have such fantastic players coming through the ranks from the boys in the first team like Wilshere, AOC, Ramsey, Jenkinson, Gibbs, Szczesny and Coquelin to the guys on the periphery like Ryo, Afobe, Campbell, Eisfield, Ozyakup, Miquel, Henderson and maybe even Lansbury.

What Arsenal have now is a core group of players that are experienced and talented whereas before we’ve only really had the latter. Sagna, Vermaelen, Mertesacker (who I believe all Arsenal fans will come to appreciate over the next season for what he brings to the team), Arteta, Rosicky and RVP are all experienced and talented players who at some point or another over the past 3/4 seasons we haven’t had or haven’t had fit. We can now add Song and Koscielny to that list.

We are now starting to look like a team with enough experienced players to start sprinkling in some exciting youth for balance and flavour. A luxury we’d had forced on us over the past 6 years and you know what they say about too much of a good thing.

With all of that in mind I don’t think the squad needs too much adding to it. What we do need to do is get rid of the dross and bring in a few talents players to un-dilute our talent pool.

Podolski’s arrival has apparently brought about a change of direction in wage policy but I don’t think that is the case. Arsenal have always had the capacity to pay big wages, our wage budget definitely allows for this but Wenger’s stubbornness and refusal to pay players what they are actually worth has led to this myth that we cannot afford big wages.

We all know that we over pay some players like Almunia, Squillaci, Chamakh, Park and Denilson. Then there are the players like Diaby and Djourou who at some point showed enough potential to be a £50k a week player but have ultimately under-delivered or been perpetually injured. We then have players like AOC who is probably on £20k a week on a 5-6 year contract who we will offer £50k a week to in the summer to extend his contract by just one year (probably). AOC is worth big money but not at his age, he needs to just play before we make his life about money. Why not wait until there are 3 years left on his contract then extend it to 5 years and pay him £50k then? By the time he is 25 he will be on £100-150k a week anyway so why pay it all out so early and lose him to City when we can’t increase his wages up to £200k a week? Why not show him that his value increases the more he performs rather than the longer he has been here? Influence not length of service. Alas I digress.

It looks as though we will finally make a concerted effort to move on these players freeing up big salaries for RVP and Podolski but who else do we need to get in?

Here is my definitive transfer list:

GK – Schwarzer. We need an experienced pair of hands to help bring out the best in Szczesny and keep him on his toes without giving him the impression that his long term no.1 spot is under threat. If we signed a De Gea for example (not that I would) he would have a battle on his hands for 10 years and might look to move on. A Schwarzer would be a 1 year battle at least and we would also benefit from the experience and knowledge of an Elder Statesman.

DF: I’ll get some stick for this one and I’m open to similar players but I’d say someone like Ivanovic (although I’m not saying actually him). What Arsenal need is a versatile defender who can slot in at RB, CB & LB when there are injuries. Vermaelen and Koscielny can fill in at full back but that means we lose our best central defenders. Having an Ivanovic means we have a solid performer who can fill in where needed allowing our best players to play in their best positions. Vertonghen is versatile, is supposedly open to a move to Arsenal to join his good friend TV5 but why would Arsenal pay out big money for a defender who is going to be 3rd/4th choice.

MF: I think we need one player. I’m not going to say Gotze or Hazard even though they are quality players and I’d love to see them in an Arsenal shirt but we have Jack, Ramsey, Rosicky, AOC and even young Eisfield for midfield talent and incisive passing. What we don’t have is a powerful box-to-box midfielder like Diaby was supposed to be. The player I think we need is Javi Martinez. This guy is basically Patrick Vieira which Diaby was supposed to be but turned out to be more Darren Anderton (or Amaury Bischoff if you want an ex-Arsenal player to compare him to); always bloody injured! Martinez is tall, powerful, fast and averages about 5 goals a season but he has mostly been deployed as a holding midfielder or as a defender which is a total waste of his talents.

ST: We all know that Podolski is coming so I need add nothing more.

So there you are; Schwarzer, Ivanovic-type-player, Martinez and Podolski. Simples