Welcome Dudu

Or Eduardo Da Silva. I hear though that he prefers to be known by his nickname, Dudu, and failing that, then at the least Eduardo. I guess we’ll see Dudu on the back of his shirt next season. So who is he you ask? Well you might recognize Wenger’s latest signing for, incidentally, he actually scored the first competitive goal at the Emirates, back when we hosted his now former club Dynamo Zagreb in the Champion’s League third round qualifier. We went on to win the game 5-1. He also scored against England in that rather disappointing 2-0 defeat to Croatia.

Who would’ve guessed, after being linked with several strikers, based on idle speculation quite more than anything else, with the likes of Anelka, Martins, Owen, Tevez, Trezeguet and a whole bunch of others tagged as Wenger targets, that we’d sign a bit of an unknown, someone a bit out of the blue. Well he’s not completely unknown, as I mentioned, he’s already managed to score against both Arsenal and England, but when I woke up and switched on Sky Sports New and saw the familiar yellow ticker suggesting we’d signed Eduardo Da Silva, I did have to rack my brain a bit and pondered the question who the hell was he before getting a little excited and researching Arsene’s third purchase of the season (Fabianski and Nordveit the other two.)

I’m not too sure about how much he’s set us back in terms of money because as always, official word from us is ‘an undisclosed transfer fee.’ There was some confusion though because the Dynamo Zagreb President appeared to suggest we’d shelled the same sum as Barcelona had done for Henry – £16M. It was later suggested that that was wrong and the fee was more likely to be in the £7-8M mark, which does sound fair. Not only did he put pen to paper on an incredibly lengthy ten year contract ensuring Zagreb were always going to get the maximum for their man but he boasts a fantastic goalscoring record, for both club and country though admittedly plying his trade in the Croatian League takes something away from a 34 in 32 record (7 in 12 for Croatia) – still impressive though. Scoring goals seems to be his main talent and he’s been described as something of a goal poacher which would do us fine. That of course won’t be a wholesome solution to our failing to convert the majority of our chances last season, but it will help.

Now it’s inevitable that Eduardo will be compared to Thierry Henry, but he isn’t an immediate Henry replacement. Van Persie’s more likely to shoulder the responsibility of being our star striker while it’s likely that we’ll see this new fella rotating withAdebayor and Bendtner being fourth choice. Or maybe he’ll be utilized on the left wing, where he’s played before. Maybe he’s seen as someone who can get goals and add width to the flanks, which is something we’re also craving out for. Or maybe a bit of both, like Reyes. I dunno, I guess we’ll have to wait and hear what Wenger has to say on the matter or just wait until we sign someone else, a likelihood as we’re supposed to be interested inBakari Sagna and we could do with another winger, or striker, and then once we’ve signed everyone we have to sign we can consider who’ll play where.
It’s a signing I’m pleased with, anyhow. The guy excites me and looks capable of great things. I’ve a feeling he’ll go on to do quite well with us, more of a hope probably. All the best to our new signing anyhow and here’s to hoping he enjoys a similar goalscoring record to the one he enjoyed last season, though that’s unlikely given that the Premiership will surely prove a tougher test of his abilities.

And in other news…

• Real want Reyes, it would seem, but they want him cut-price and on the cheap. £9.5M’s quite cheap enough considering the player they’d be getting, a very good one who looked on the road to making a success of himself with us until he decided he didn’t quite like it here in England.
• Cesc’s agent has clearly said that Cesc isn’t interested in moving to Barcelona or Real Madrid and is quite happy where he is. I didn’t think he’d be off this season myself and if he does ever leave it won’t be for a while, I’d expect, though maybe a bit dependent on the future of Wenger.
• Arsene Wenger is expected to increase his £6M offer for Auxerre’s Bakari Sagna, a player who I’m not even sure why we’re interested in what with Hoyte and Eboue here already and both having very recently been signed to long term contracts.
• There’s talk we’ll look to beat Tottenham’s offer of £6M for West Brom’s Curtis Davies although I really can’t see such a transfer going ahead unless we was to see someone leave the club. For the moment, the central defense -Toure, Gallas, Senderos and Djourou – looks rather strong and is in no need of strengthening, even with the prospect of losing Toure for a short time to the African Nations Cup in January for we have Gilberto to rely on in an emergency.
• Aliadiere’s move to Middlesbrough is now officially official, having been confirmed on the official Arsenal website. That’s old news though.
• Birmingham are said to be interested in Mathieu Flamini who would be a good signing for them, a really good signing. It’s a shame that because he can buy out his contract we’re likely to receive nothing for him.
• Oh and I got my chance to see Carlos Vela for the first time tonight. He’s playing for the Mexico U20 side in the U20 FIFA World Cup. Mexico won the game 3-0 against an impressive looking Gambia side and I thought Vela looked very tasty, showing glimpses of what he was capable of, the highlight being a scorcher of a shot that flew just above the crossbar.

Woo-Kash Fab-Yan-Ski

As has already been reported by the media, we’ve managed to snag Lukas Fabianski. Only, this time it’s quite official. From what I’ve seen of him he doesn’t seem a half bad purchase either. He looks comfortable catching the ball and seems very much an excellent shot stopper, managing to keep efforts out of the net that you don’t expect to be saved. He’s made four appearances on the international scene and he’s been voted the best goalkeeper in the Polish Premier Division for two seasons running. Obviously there’s a slight difference in quality between the English Premiership and the Polish equivalent but he’s only twenty-two and that’s quite a feat. However poor the league may be, you can’t do much better than be named the best in the league for two years running. I think he sounds like a talent and one that could potentially replace Jens Lehmann and what’s more, at twenty-two, solve our worries about the position for some time to come.

The other news on the goalkeeping front is that Mart Poom has paid a trip to the departure lounge and has made a move to Watford. With three goalkeepers on the books already (Jens, Almunia and Poom) and the arrival of Fabianski it was inevitable that someone was going to have to make way. I thought it would be Almunia, in that he had a much better season this time round and proved himself capable enough to play a regular role in a midtable side. With the competition of Fabianski, I assumed Almunia would be off and Poom would remain a third choice, and would be lucky were he to put in another performance for the first team, ever. Although, there’s still time to see off Almunia and it’s certainly something of a possibility. Wenger could turn to Vito Mannone, the young Italian, to play Poom’s role. Mannone spent three months of the 2006/07 season at Championship side Barnsley. He’s barely nineteen but has himself acknowledged that keepers tend to break into first team football later than outfield players and will wait for his chance. With a bit of experience now under his belt, he could be ready to be called upon if needed for the first team squad, though even then it’s unlikely Mannone will get much first team playing time.

It’s difficult to predict what role Fabianski will play this season. If Wenger does intend to keep hold of Almunia, it’ll mean some strong competition for Lehmann. Fabianski is seen as the more likely successor and the prospect of a starting berth in the Germany squad for Euro 2008 will mean motivation for Jens. I think Almunia’s performances will have attracted attention though and the addition of Fabianski could see him being all for a move to pastures anew. I’ll speculate further on what roles our goalkeepers will play in the coming season once we know just who we’ve lost and gained. As yet, I’m not entirely sure business is done for Wenger in the goalkeeping department. So it’s a good luck to Mart Poom who might not have played all that much for us but was there if we needed him and a warm welcome to Lukas Fabianski.

And in other news…

• Barcelona won’t rule out the purchase of Henry says Sky Sports News, which is fair enough. They might well be interested. I doubt highly of course that they will get their man. Last season he hadn’t decided on his future, he hadn’t signed a new contract. This time round both he and Arsene Wenger have consistently told us that he will be going nowhere. He stayed with us last season and I don’t think we’re about to see him do a U-turn in the near future.
• Rio Mavuba has said, in response to speculation linking him with a move to Arsenal, that there’s much competition for a place at Arsenal in the role he plays and that he’s looking for first team football so as to earn himself a place in the national side for Euro 2008. Not that I see it happening anyway. As good a player as he sounds, there is already enough competition and you’d first have to  see some players going the other way before we consider signing him. I’d be all for him staying at Bordeaux another season and keeping tabs on his progress though, something which could well be on le boss’s mind too. Gilberto Silva’s not getting any younger after all.
• According to The Mirror, we’re after Joao Moutinho. A very promising talent, I‘m sure there are a number of clubs out there keeping an eye on him. Word is that we are preparing a £15M bid. He can play pretty much anywhere in the midfield and that will be seen as a bonus. Position wise, he‘s more often than not employed as a central midfielder though of course Wenger could always convert him to the wing if he saw potential there. Reports coming in suggesting that he’s signed a six-year contract at Sporting however kind of dispel this rumour, which quite probably had little truth in the first place.
• Nigel Reo-Coker’s handed in a transfer request. We apparently had a bid for his services rejected in January but even if that was true, I doubt now, with the emergence of Denilson, Wenger will look to further strengthen the central midfield.
• Bayern are supposedly leading the race to sign Franck Ribery. They’re rebuilding the squad after a disappointing fourth place finish and it’s being touted that they’ve made the first bid for his services. The sale of Hargreaves will provide them with some well needed funds and along with a host of other clubs, Bayern have reportedly been looking to sign Ribery for a while.
• Lastly, Togo have lifted the international suspension of Emmanuel Adebayor and two of his team-mates. There was an argument over bonuses owed to the players for reaching the finals of the world cup which now would appear to be resolved, or more to do with Togo not wanting to lose their best players as the African Nations approaches. That’s bad news for us by the way, meaning we’ll end up likely losing another playing to the tournament which runs in the early part of 2008 and could result in losing certain members of the team for a period of up to six weeks.