Hello everyone. It's been quite some time, but not much was happening, to be honest. In a few days time this last Interlull will be behind us and we'll be able to get down to real business.
For now, however, we'll have to contend with whatever bits and pieces the press feeds us. Not exactly the most reliable source, but still, it's something. Better than nothing, I guess. Probably.
The most interesting bit, is that we've signed Szczesny. There were some worrisome reports of the two parties not being to reach a consensus due to the Poles`s salary claims. As I understand, Arsenal have given in and offered Wojciech what he wanted. Which is good, no doubt about it.
Our policy of penny-pinching has become notorious down the years, with Walcott becoming the first player to earn a hundred grand a week. Now Szczesny joins him. I'm not sure, how much we pay Ozil, but it's good to see we can tie down our key players by meeting their demands.
And make no mistake, Szczesny is one of our key players right now. There was a lot of scepticism surrounding Walcott`s new contract, especially as his form dipped right after he put his signature on the dotted line, but Szczesny seems worthy of this kind of money.
Sure, he's young (23, can you believe it?), he still has a lot to learn, but the signs are encouraging. Last season Wojciech became complacent mid-way through the campaign and found himself benched in favour of Fabianski. Fabianski, fresh from injury, who got his first bit of competitive football in a year against Bayern, at Allianz Arena. It sent out a message.
Szczesny grasped the meaning of that message and, as soon as his older counterpart sustained yet another injury, stepped up, gunned and ready. He became an indispensable part of our machine during the run-in, made a string of important saves that bagged us the points and, generally, was near impeccable.
Wojciech carried this fine form into the new season, restricting Fabianski`s playing time to a couple of CoC appearances and making Viviano a third-choice keeper. One of my acquaintances lamented this fact, rightly pointing out at how good Viviano was last season, when playing for Fiorentina. It gives you a clear picture just how good our Number 1 is right now.
Wojciech became focused, goal-driven, yet kept that attitude of his that makes him likeable a person. So we definitely did the right thing by acknowledging his form and paying him top dollar to maintain his services.
In other news, Oxlade-Chamberlain suffered a setback and, though he was due back in mid-November, he will now make a return in 2014.
This leaves us in a bad spot. Walcott is back, but Podolski is not, so we only have the Englishman and Gnabry as natural wide players. This inability to stretch the opposition's defence was clearly visible against United, so I think we need to address this matter in January. Another flank player won't hurt, especially taking Podolski's injury record and Gnabry's inexperience into account.
And to end it all on a lighter note, Bendtner tipped himself for a move to either Real Madrid or Barcelona. His humility is really quite fascinating. What a guy.
I'll leave at that. Until later