Traitorous Hleb Jumps Ship
Posted on July 17, 2008 - Filed Under Football |
Alexander Hleb has left Arsenal for Barcelona for £11.8 million. At 27, this makes him the best bargain for years in my estimation. Barcelona clearly think more of him than Arsenal did, since his buy-out clause has been set at over £70 million. While it’s true that he wanted to leave, surely Arsenal could have got more money for a player of his calibre.
Hleb’s departure leaves the Arsenal midfield in tatters, given that Flamini has already left for AC Milan on a bosman (a free transfer enabled by a player’s contract expiring with his club). There will still be hope for the team as long as Cesc Fabregas remains at the club, but him and Rosicky are pretty much the only decent midfielders now left in the side. Eboué is a constant disaster and liable to get sent off every second game, Diaby is promising but Wenger doesn’t seem prepared to play him in most games, Nasri is untested in a major league, and Denilson is still probably too young for a regular position in the first team.
Given the club’s notorious reluctance to spend money on highly-rated experienced players, I have no idea how Wenger plans to fix this problem before the season begins. Fabregas may be outstanding, but he can’t do everything by himself. Hopefully AC Milan will follow through on their bizarre interest in Emmanuel Adebayor and pay something like £20 million for him, even though that’s more than twice what I think he’s worth. Then the club can try and bring in somebody decent to bolster their midfield, which already looked shaky last season, before half of it left the club.
£11.8 million… Jesus Christ. That’s robbery. Whatever knave left him go for that price ought to be strung up…
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