Transfer Tavern - Who is to blame for Arsenal's nightmare summer?

By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88

The transfer window closes in 48 hours’ time and for most managers, it will be a huge sigh of relief.  Many bosses and even the UEFA president Michel Platini have called for a change to the current window regulations which see the start of the season seriously disrupted as the futures of many top players are called into question.

It has been a strange summer in that respect.  The football fan has had to put up with regular speculation surrounding Gareth Bale, Luis Suarez, Wayne Rooney and Cesc Fabregas to name just a few players.  As it turns out, three of these will be staying at their current clubs unless an extraordinary bid comes in before the 11pm deadline on 2 September.

One club though who have had a nightmare summer is Arsenal.  Gunners’ supporters have been left completely flabbergasted (pictured) by the lack of recruitment, despite having at least £70m at their disposal to spend this summer.  Manager Arsene Wenger had taken plenty of flak, but is he fully to blame. Is something else going on behind the scenes which the majority of us do not know about?

After scraping into the final Champions League qualification spot at the backend of last season with a run of eight wins in their last 10 matches, hopes were high for Arsenal to finally end their long silverware drought this season.  The debts that had limited transfer spending in recent years to complete payment of building the Emirates Stadium back in 2006 had finally been cleared.  This summer, there was meant to be no excuses. 

However we approach Sunday’s north London derby with the manager under great pressure to buy or face another frustrating campaign.  For far too long now, Arsenal have been trailing in the wake of Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea.  They might be regular Champions League qualifiers but apart from heartache in the Paris final in 2006, and defeat to Birmingham City in the 2011 League Cup final, there have been no major indications of trophies arriving in the cabinet of the new stadium.  The last trophy was as far back as the 2005 FA Cup.

Wenger does have to take some of the blame, even if he tries not to.  He simply isn’t strong enough in promoting the club to prospective players who might want to join.  He is always a tough negotiator as it is, as shown by his policy to only offer one-year contract extensions to current players over the age of 30.

He did do a good job to trim the excessively high wage bill at the club on wasted players like Andrey Arshavin, Marouane Chamakh and Sebastian Squillaci, but even that is only a minor crumb of comfort.

Arsenal have ended up missing out on several top targets.  Stevan Jovetic opted to join Manchester City, and Gonzalo Higuain who looked almost certain to move in late June to north London, headed to Naples to link up with Rafa Benitez at Napoli instead.

The club did themselves no favours in their pursuit of Suarez.  Two bids were rejected by Liverpool and Arsenal’s valuation of a player who is world class despite regular controversy was pretty derisory.  Their bid of £40,000,001 in an attempt to trigger a clause in the Uruguayan’s Anfield contract sounds like a joke.  It was a true bid, and a ridiculous one at that.  Whoever sanctioned this bid should be heading down the job centre because what did Arsenal expect Liverpool to do?  Owner John W. Henry’s response to the bid, saying on his Twitter account ‘What are they smoking?’ said it all. 

Arsenal also enquired about Brazilian winger Bernard, but he chose to join the South American contingent at Shakhtar Donetsk.  Lastly and perhaps most damaging of all, they missed out on signing Luis Gustavo.  The defensive midfielder turned down a Champions League chance after being deemed surplus to requirements at Bayern Munich.  Instead he chose to stay in the Bundesliga at Vfl Wolfsburg who are no more than a mediocre mid-table club. 

This suggests that fault shouldn’t all be laid squarely at the door of Wenger.  It indicates that the board dither too much over potential transfer targets and the scouting/recruitment team at the club are just not strong enough to compete with not just European superpowers, but average clubs.

Arsenal have signed two players this summer, but both haven’t cost a single penny.  Youngster Yaya Sanogo linked up in May from Auxerre, while Mathieu Flamini has made a sensational return to the club on a two-year deal this week following his summer release by AC Milan.  Flamini had been training with the club recently, and impressed Wenger with his work ethic.

They are hoping to tie up a deal for Newcastle’s wantaway midfielder Yohan Cabaye and are attempting to persuade Real Madrid pair Angel Di Maria and Karim Benzema to join up too, but this looks like a hopeful thought rather than a serious bid.

Ultimately it doesn’t really matter who is to blame at Arsenal.  The club is in a mess and the ones who have lost out are the fans.  They might play exciting football, but without the trophies to back it up, you simply can’t call them a top leading club, either in England or Europe. 

Across north London and Tottenham have taken their spending this summer to approximately £110m.  They have spent £25m on AS Roma’s 20-year-old sensation Erik Lamela who banged in 15 goals in Serie A last season.  This deal could rise to £30m depending on clauses in the payment structure.  The Argentine is seen as a natural replacement for Bale whose move to Real Madrid is looking increasingly like a case of when, rather than if.  Spurs also splashed out £11m on the creative midfielder Christian Eriksen from Dutch champions Ajax.

Chelsea have also been busy in the market this week.  After giving in on snapping up Rooney, Jose Mourinho has managed to persuade Willian to join his club rather than Tottenham.  Despite having a medical at White Hart Lane last week, Willian walked away from a move once he heard of the Blues’ interest.  The £30m move from Anzhi is currently joint biggest arrival of the summer in terms of cash.  Samuel Eto’o has also been added on a free transfer.  The 32-year-old played under Mourinho during his tenure at Inter Milan and says farewell to Anzhi who have to sell their best players after the Russian owner of the club decided to change his financial policy.

Other moves have seen Sunderland sign Ki Sung-Yeung from Swansea City on a loan deal.  The Korean becomes Paolo di Canio’s 12^th signing of a busy summer on Wearside.  Oussama Aissaidi has made a similar loan move this week, as he will spend the season at Stoke City after failing to make the grade at Liverpool.

This is the final Transfer Tavern of 2013.  The series will return during the January transfer window although there will be a round-up of all the deadline day deals on Tuesday evening.