Arsenal Sign a Savic
Funny thing about the transfer window, right after it closes there’s always a spate of stories about x-team signing y-player. This year it’s Arsenal and according to multiple sources they will pen a pre-contract with Montenegrin teenage defensive sensation, Stefan Savic.
According to the English papers, the young fella is quite the talker as well having the following to say about signing with Arsenal, training, and the boss at practice.
There were offers from Tottenham and Birmingham City, but once a call came from Arsenal, I had no more doubts. Arsene Wenger made sure my papers were arranged for and my work permit extended so I can be at more training sessions. A pre-contract will be signed on Thursday and then I will return to Belgrade and join BSK for their preparations. I will be staying with BSK until May.
I was on the terraces and it must have been hard for the lads on the pitch, United had a terrific game, especially Nani. Wenger was extremely mad during the training session on Monday. This defeat means the league title will be extremely hard to reach right now.
Wenger is the man. He has incredible authority at the club – everyone listens to him, assistants lead training sessions and he just supervises. Nothing can escape him.
So there you have it Kickers, Arsenal have signed a 19 year old center half who likes to talk to the press and will be joining the team in the Summer. My money is on one (or more) of Sol, Silvestre, and Gallas leaving the club this Summer and this young fella backing up Djourou and Vermaelen.
Let’s just hope he can live up to his name, Arsenal have been missing a savage in defense for quite some time.
Comments
If he can have Balkan killer cold eyes like Vidić has and we can combine it with our Belgian assassin glance, then we’d have two most deadly hitmen in central defense of the league.
Gallas isn’t going anywhere.
@Patrick, you and ivan doin the negotiations?
Hang on. I’m on the phone with Stan.
@Patrick, stan collymore more like
Wanted your take on something Tim and thought it’d be interesting from someone who had sufficient distance from proceedings to have a cooler head (it wasn’t pretty at the Grove on Sunday)…I know you religiously follow the Arsenal, but do you follow other teams as much. I’ll be honest I don’t watch the other teams really unless they are playing us or it’s a particularly intriguing encounter. I mean would you watch Sunderland-Stoke. I don’t want to re-hash everything in blogosphere but we have obvious deficiencies. I was talking to my mate and reckoned we needed nastiness in defence (gary Cahill), bite and size in midfield (Fellaini) or Melo, width and penetration N’Zogbia. I also know we need a striker of pedigree but the WC will be a good shop window.
We’le lent Wilshere to Coyle and we could feasibly give them a couple more for next season. Melo is a red-card machine and frankly we need some aggression, and he’s having a mare at Juve. Fellaini is a teamamte of TV5 and looked goof for Liege before Moyes got stuck into him. N’Zogbia is one of the most under-rated and talented player in the EPL. He is also versatile, can play LB, CM or on the wing, and we know Arsene loves that (the spendthrift). Have any of these players registered on your radar bcz the guys I go to games with don’t seem too enthused by my choices. I don’t think any of them are unrealistic.
@Gooner Mike, melo is getting over run in serie a christs sake,hed b destroyed in the prem
@Gooner Mike, I watched the Sunderland-Stoke game. We have the talent and what we need is for the whole team to play committed like we were at the start of the season. That means snapping into tackles, running the whole 90, marking Drogba (etc etc) out of the game, challenging bravely for headers, etc.
You can buy one of those players, Loric Cana for example, or you can instill that in the current squad. There’s no reason why Denilson couldn’t be more aggressive ala Stephen Hunt. Diaby’s been known to put in a nasty challenge, Eboue is harder than we give him credit, sometimes Wenger holds them back, I think. It would be nice if he really turned them loose. And who better than the pack of thugs and cheats disguised as England’s future at Chelsea?
This season, this squad has more bite to them than I’ve seen since Paddy left. Given the comments of Mr. Savic above I suspect that we’ll see Arsenal unleashed on Sunday. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain and it sounds like Wenger has given them a good old fashioned ass reaming in practice.
Touching wood that’s the case.
@Tim, totally agree. With Cesc, Song and Diaby all switched on to max aggression and dedication we can have a midfield which would be not only unmatched footballistically (™ by AW), in terms of creativity (which is not Cana’s virtue if you ask me) but also hard enough to stand up to any opposition. If only front three can also perform in the heart ripping, throat (ankles in Shava’s case) biting, I’ll-suck-your-blood-and-won’t-let-you-cross-the-center-line way, we’ll be fine.
I’d be shocked if Gallas went anywhere. He’s been very good this year, aside from a few bad tackles and slow reactions. He’ll be resigned before the end of the year.
I think Wenger may ship out a few of the lightweights at the end of this year. My list would include, Clichy, Denilson, Almunia, Walcott – small, injury prone, gaffe prone and mentally a drag on the club. Replacements – Gibbs (already have him), Matuidi, Lloris and Hazard. There’s your 30 million right there.
@BrahmaBull, I agree about Denilson, Wenger will have a real hard look at him between now and Summer. I also agree about Almunia, he’s almost certainly gone.
Clichy? Probably not, though the boss can surprise.
Walcott? Absolutely not. Wenger is going to try to turn him back into a great player at least for another 2 years.
@Tim, I don’t understand why everyone is on Clichy’s back. He finished the last injured. Has been injured for quite sometime this season. Give him a decent run in before you start judging him!! Besides Gibbs is a good crosser but a horrible defender. I wouldn’t want him taking over Clichy’s role any time soon.
I would argue that we’ve seen Clichy, even healthy, make too many mental gaffes that cost the team. Nani splitting Clichy and Nasri on Sunday to set up the first goal wasn’t down to Clichy lacking fitness, it was an error in defending. Clichy stood there paralyzed by indecision when Park was running on net for the third goal – why didn’t he realize he should cut out the run first and foremost, not worry about marking guys who may or may not connect with a passed ball?
Gibbs has shown he can get stuck in, and yes, he’s a good crosser – Clichy sucks at crosses (so does Sagna). For me, if Real Madrid come calling again and offer anything near 10 million for Clichy, I let him go.
@BrahmaBull, I dont think Gibbs is ready yet, defensively atleast to fill Clichy’s shoes!! Besides we should be worried about the left back’s defensive qualities first and then their crossing. Remember we got skinned against ManU cos our left and right backs could get back in time for the 2nd and 3rd Goal.
In my opinion, we got skinned off two corner kicks because we lack any kind of consistent aerial threat on set pieces, and deliver them poorly to boot. So we flood the 16 yard box with our two central defenders and everyone else and hope that something hits us. And we leave Sagna and Clichy to guard the back – one gets beat and it’s a break… Everton, Man U, Aston Villa, all lived for the counter on set pieces. When Wenger accused the team of being “naive”, he needed to look in the mirror – if we had better quality corners and an aerial presence in the box, we could leave an extra defender at the back to hold the ball up.
I pick on Clichy, because there was a rumour that Real were interested in him during the summer. He’s not worth keeping if the offer is decent, we have quality behind him.
We could still keep Clichy if we got someone to teach defensive skills to our players. All our players are making stupid mistakes because they’ve been focussing on going forward. We need someone like Keown to come back and make the defense strong again – that’s it.
Oh, and we need to sell Almunia and buy someone decent.
@connolysagent, why do Australians misspell focusing too?