Marouane Chamakh Rumoured To Join Arsenal, Cesc Fabregas Barcelona-Bound?

I delayed my blog today in the hope that there might be an announcement on the arrival of Marouane Chamakh at Arsenal from Bordeaux on a free transfer.

Chamakh is apparently at the club at the moment as talks are ongoing, though his club isn't altogether happy with Arsenal over the transfer as they find it hard to understand how he has become so interested in joining the Gunners without ever meeting their boss.

Bordeaux president Jean-Louis Triaud has said that the only other difficult transfer he has had since he arrived at the club was Sylvain Wiltord, also to Arsenal, questioning the Gunners' transfer methods.

I'm not too sure what to make of what he says, but I suppose if us Arsenal fans were to lose someone who had come through the ranks since he was a young player on a free transfer, we wouldn't be too happy either.

No matter how honourable our boss may be, there isn't an agent in the game who wouldn't do absolutely anything to get his client a move and himself a nice slice of money, and we have had players leave us on a free transfer in the past. It simply hurts when you know how much money may have been raised from their sale.

Hopefully there will be some developments today and we will have some photos of Chamakh at the club in an Arsenal jersey.

Elsewhere we are rumoured to have had a bid for Liverpool keeper Jose Manuel Reina turned down, and if he did join he would certainly be better than our current custodians of the onion bag.

Apparently we are now pursuing Gianluigi Buffon, Hugo Lloris, and Andriy Piyatov as alternatives; if any of these rumours are true, Buffon would be my personal choice. I haven't seen much of Piyatov, and although I thought Lloris was an excellent alternative, I wasn't too impressed with him in the Champions League knockout stages this season.

Besides that, the media is absolutely flooded with stories of Cesc Fabregas' supposed proposed move to Barcelona. With their league title secured on Sunday, Barcelona have turned their attention to summer purchases and David Villa's signature is apparently imminent with Fabregas as their next target.

Personally, I don't think that Cesc is going anywhere, but it seems to be a really concerted effort by Barcelona, and the speculation about Fabregas looks like it will reach a level that it never has before.

We need a statement from Arsenal saying that Cesc is not for sale and we do not want any offers for him, as he is our captain and star player. We also need the club to state that they are fed up with Barcelona-led media speculation to unsettle the player, and if it continues then we will take the matter further.

I know that none of that will make a difference as to how Barcelona operates, but it has to be done to show how highly we rate Cesc and how much we want to keep him. I also know that, even if we had video and audio evidence of Barcelona making an illegal approach to Cesc, UEFA wouldn't act on it, as there is nothing in it for them.

The manager has spent five years building a team around Cesc, and he cannot be allowed to go anywhere before some return is gained from all that work. I know we will recover if we sell him, and we have sold others who were as valuable to us in the past, but I thought the likes of Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry were sold after we had got the best out of them while Cesc still has his best to come at his age.

Obviously we would get a huge amount of money for him if he were sold, but who do we buy to replace him? Any player in which we show an interest would immediately double in value, and even if we tried to sign him, the likes of City or Chelsea would offer him higher wages than we can afford to pay. 

I'm not looking forward to this summer, as it's only just over halfway through May and the heat is building up on Cesc. With the World Cup coming up, we can expect the other Barcelona players to be in his ear about joining them for the next two months, and it is going to be painful for us Arsenal fans to listen to and read the incessant reports on his imminent departure.

I know Cesc is a very strong young man and I only hope he is strong enough to keep his word and stay with Arsenal, because if he asks for a move, that will probably be what he gets. The manager will not want to hold on to a player who wants out, and it would be a disaster for us, in my opinion.

That's it for today.

Here's Pt. 2 of all of Henry's goals for Arsenal:

See you tomorrow.