Cazorla Want Is A Signing, Wages Mating Dance & More

So the Malagese deadline passed and the Spanish FA then extended it. No sign of Santi Cazorla at Highbury House but they couldn’t find the keys to the broom cupboard under the stairs. With the keyholder on holiday, Ivan may have to wait until tomorrow to be able to peak and see if the Spanish midfielder got caught up in the cleaner’s mops and buckets. Santi’s choice of disguise was better than that of his agent. According to Daily Mirror spies, Julio Llorente was seen in London thrashing out personal terms for his client. Thrashing in London? Was the meeting in Soho? Or just with a group of ex-public schoolboys? Or both?

Anyway, this one has the legs to run and may well be into next week before the game plays out. New owners coming in, bills to be paid, sheikhs whose rattle and roll betrays their empty pockets. It is the makings of the another Arsenal footballing novel. With that in mind, Arsène‘s words strike a chord that Chuck Berry might have enjoyed,

Overall we are not mega-rich because we do not have unlimited resources. A club can buy players like PSG has done or Manchester City or Chelsea, with unlimited resources, but overall football suffers.

Europe at the moment is like the Titanic but we live in football like nothing matters. More than ever we have to run our club in a strict way because it looks like everybody suffers in Europe. I would be surprised if football is not touched by it at some stage.

If you look at debt in football across Europe at the moment it is quite massive and we have to be responsible. We have to be ambitious but also make sure we are not getting in trouble financially.

There is nothing new in the mantra; self-sustaining is often confused with parsimony and profits. It is neither; profits are reinvested at the moment in the playing staff. The derision that the policy brings obscures issues, how the club invests this money and the salary policy whilst inter-related, can be dealt with separately. Ivan has stated that the salary structure is being re-aligned but with players on contract, that is not an easy task since the club is legally bound to honour those terms.

It has caused problems in selling those surplus to requirements, notably Sebastian Squillaci whose move to Bastia fell through because they could not afford to pay him that which he desired. Resolution of this will take time and in today’s world, that is a precious commodity. Too many blithely dismiss this by telling us that if we got rid of the ‘deadwood’, we could pay Robin van Persie what he wants. Were that it was that simple.

My view on that is shifting somewhat. Instead of strengthening an opponent, I would rather Arsenal kept the player for the final year of his contract, forcing him to see it out. Anyone who believes we owe him his freedom has forgotten the nature of his website statement. It doesn’t matter if Vos or someone in his employ wrote it, Robin takes resp0nsibility for that. Or sacks his agent, if the intent behind the statement did not represent his own views. He will be thirty by the time his contract ends and as such diminishing returns set in over the coming season. It might be that next summer he decides he wants to stay and that fits with Arsenal’s plans. If he goes, he goes. A disaffected player can be disruptive; van Persie strikes me as too professional to be that. I could be wrong but that is my instinct.

As it is, Arsène has bigger fish to fry but offered some warning that ransom demands won’t be met,

It is difficult for us because the wages in some other clubs are very high. But of course our players quite rightly compare themselves to the players of the other clubs.

In other words, we have our salary cap and won’t go above it. International football has long been a place for sowing the seeds of discontent. Players talk about their wages, you only have to read any book by footballers from recent times to know this practice still goes on. It gives them the chance to gauge their own value and to put out feelers if they are unhappy, knowing that an international colleague will make that discontent known.

A lot of figures are thrown around without any substance. In the case of Theo Walcott, the current favourite conspiracy theory is that he wants the same that was offered to Robin van Persie. I suspect that is not the case although he probably would not turn it down if offered. And let us not forget that this is the mating dance, posturing to show the world their feathers. The clubs do it by claiming poverty, the players do it via their agents drumming up feigned interest from other clubs and the media mix it all together for the public to lap it up.

Elsewhere, Steve Kean is eager to prove his managerial aptitude by signing Park, Mamadou Sakho is going to leave PSG with Arsenal amongst the usual suspects put on ‘alert’ by this news. God forbid that the player’s agent might have already contacted Dick Law. Meanwhile Yann M’vila has been heavily linked with bastions of multiculturalism, Zenit St Petersburg as Arsenal’s interest in Victor Wanyama is prolonged by his agent. More I am sure will emerge over the next twenty-four hours. God I miss Soap.

’til Tomorrow.