Wenger will not walk away.
Arsene Wenger has reiterated his commitment to continuing in his position as Arsenal manager, despite being faced with a monumental challenge to turn the club’s floundering fortunes around, Sky Sports has reported.
Following a pre-season dominated by speculation surrounding the sale of Cesc Fabregas – who has now moved to Barcelona – and Samir Nasri, Arsenal’s start to the season has seen them pick up one point and fail to score in two Premier League outings. Yesterday’s 2-0 defeat to Liverpool at the Emirates was a stark illustration of the current shallowness of the Gunners squad. However, Wenger has no desire to leave, but instead to focus only upon preparing his players for the upcoming second leg of their Champions League Qualifier against Udinese.
“There is no chance of me walking away. The chance I have is to give my best for the club but we are living in circumstances where every defeat is seen as a disgrace, an earthquake,” a philosophical Wenger said, before adding: “I always feel under pressure but now no more than usual. We have a massive match against Udinese on Wednesday night in Italy. So the important thing now is to lift the players.”
Scroll down for rest of article
Nasri’s City move remains on.
Samir Nasri is still set for a £23m move to Manchester City despite a hold-up in the prospective transfer, which facilitated his involvement in Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat to Liverpool yesterday, BBC Sport has revealed.
Nasri’s unexpected appearance against Liverpool coincided with claims from French broadcaster Canal+ that the midfielder’s City switch had broken down, meaning he would remain an Arsenal player for the season ahead. However, the belief is that City have agreed on the structure of a deal for Nasri with Arsenal and the two clubs are now in negotiations to establish the financial details of this deal before finalising it. It was these ongoing negotiations which enabled Arsene Wenger to call upon Nasri to help-out his depleted squad yesterday.
However, City boss Roberto Mancini is optimistic of getting Nasri onboard “very quickly” with the threat of the player playing in the second leg of Arsenal’s Champions League Qualifier against Udinese on Wednesday, which would make him ineligible to play for another team in this season’s competition.
Gunners linked with Kaka.
The loss of Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona and faced with the prospect of Samir Nasri departing for Manchester City, has resulted in Arsene Wenger exploring the possibility of loaning Real Madrid’s Brazilian star Kaka, according to The People.
Real would prefer an outright sale of Kaka, but the Spanish giants desire to recoup £30m of the £56m they paid AC Milan for the player in 2009, combined with his £9m annual salary has put potential suitors such as AC Milan and PSG off a move. Given Wenger’s unwillingness to pay high transfer fees for older players – Kaka is now 29 – the Arsenal boss would also be reluctant to fork out a large portion of his transfer kitty on the Real playmaker. However, with Kaka not featuring in Real manager Jose Mourinho’s plans, the club will allow the Brazilian to move to a club on loan conditional on their willingness to pay his wages in full.
Subsequently although such a loan move for Kaka would mean a break from Arsenal’s wage structure, Wenger may request authorisation from the Arsenal board to do this out of his need to recruit a player capable of sparking a revival in Arsenal’s form.
Can Arsenal win the Premier League next season? OLBG.com lists them at 9/1 to take home the title. Click the highlighted link for the latest odds and pick up a free bet while you’re at it!
Don’t forget to check out the Arsenal page, updated daily here at A Different League for the latest in-depth analysis.
