Yesterday marked the first signing of the summer and it was Charlton’s right back Karl Jenkinson. We brought him in for £3million off the back of 9 appearances in League 1. Now, in Wenger money, that seems quite expensive. Speaking to people across the web, there seem to be many mixed views. Some Charlton fans think he’s an excellent prospect, some other Charlton fans seem to be pretty non-plussed about him.

Particularly interesting are the comments on Young Guns extracted from Charlton’s youth writer…

“He’s a gamble, he’s not not as proven as Jonjo Shelvey was at first team level, but one worth you taking I think. With better players around him, who are more comfortable on the ball, you will see him pass the on the floor and show his real quality.”

For me, that’s hardly high praise. Being comfortable on the ball in League 1 is hardly an achievement so I won’t be getting too excited about his arrival at the moment. He sounds like a pretty average stop gap but looking at the bigger picture, it tells us a couple of things.

1) Eboue is finally on the way out. Karl is a tall right back by trade and hopefully this means the end of Eboue’s career.

2) Wenger might have recognised that you can find good defenders in the lower reaches of the English football league as well as other leagues in Europe.

3) Wenger is serious about addressing our height issue.

4) Wenger is learning the hard way that crap English players have more resale value than average foreigners (He’s Finnish by passport, English by birth place).

In other news, Manchester United have pipped us once again to a target. This time they beat us to the signing of Phil Jones of Blackburn Rovers. We were interested in signing him last year when he was available for £8million, we told here that we had been scouting him, as usual though, we dithered, then apparently we bid for him yesterday but unsurprisingly he opted to move to Manchster United and has tied up a deal worth £16million with them. When you’re a pro footballer and the money is the same, you’re always going to go where the trophies seem most likely. We’ve lost out twice to United with defenders and I can’t help but think the biggest reason is because 1) We wait too long 2) We are ridiculously gamble averse unless it’s a kid.

Liverpool also tied up a deal for Jordan Henderson yesterday, spunking a cool £13million + N’gog in the process.

Now, I don’t want Arsene Wenger to go out there and waste money on an average player, but the very fact Kenny Dalglish is prepared to go out and make bold signings like that makes me very jealous. What he’s doing, regardless of what we think, is injecting some excitement into Liverpool again. Players will be boosted, fans will be thrilled and there is a very high chance Liverpool will be the main challengers to our top 4 dominance next year over Spurs.

Apparently one of the best attributes of Henderson is his attitude, he very nearly didn’t get a pro contract at Sunderland, but his work ethic earned him that and apparently, he’s all about the staying after training to practice his weaknesses. I like the sound of that and wish some of our more talented players shared those values.

I’m not on the bandwagon that says our rivals have bought big and we’re buying out of the League One bargain basement. I don’t believe that’s a sign of our summer to come, it’s just how the cookie crumbled yesterday. Eboue is a very poor player and he needs to go, we’ve signed a promising under 21 to replace him. That works for me. What the early signing does prove is this incessant nonsense I hear during transfer window about it ‘only being 1 day old’ is a load of rubbish. The season has been over for more than a day, the deal for Jenkinson has probably been in place for a while, so there is no excuse for us not to get our business in order nice and early.

If Wenger is on holiday letting deals pass him by, that is disgraceful, the same happened last year and look what happened.

We should not be leaving all our business for mid-August, it’s disruptive and it smacks of bad planning. United won’t be doing that, nor will the others. We need to sort our squad out early.

Listening to Theo Walcott having a moan about not winning things at Arsenal hacked me off. What is it with our squad? Do they not realise the reason they’re not winning things is down them as a collective? I’ve watched Theo serve up a speciality of knock, run, fall over for 5 years. Now he’s had one good season where once again, he didn’t manage to play 30 games, he’s talking about the need to win trophies? Do me a favour Theo. Come back with nonsense like that when you’ve actually done something of note in a season. If you’ve got beef with your team mates, why don’t you man up and tell them on the pitch?

This is where my problem comes with Arsenal at the moment. We’ve got a squad of bickering children with no one forcing accountability on them. It’s like the players are all losing respect for each other and I can’t see that Arsene Wenger is the man to restore it. Still, don’t worry about it, Gervinho could be on his way. Another midget to add to our attacking arsenal! If we’re seriously considering him at £15million, you’d again have to ask what Giles Grimandi was doing last year when he was begging for a move to us from Le Mans?

“My mind is made up, I am leaving.

“I have made my mind up. I will soon meet the club and let them know, but they understand my feelings that I want to prove myself in a top league in Europe.

We’ll soon see whether it’s us or Newcastle he’s heading to… I hope it’s the Toon, this guy seems like a massive risk for the price.

It’s very easy to get beaten down during a transfer window, Liam Brady reckons we’re going to spend some serious money this window, I’m pretty sure he told us that last season as well. It’s my understanding that the coaches are not made aware of Wenger’s plans, so I wouldn’t get too excited about his comments. At least we know Arsenal are active and that a big bid was placed for Phil Jones, it’s exciting to know also that Wenger can tell us all next year how he nearly signed him. I always love hearing those stories!

Thanks for all your questions yesterday, I’ll be pulling them together later on and I’ll send them off to Arsenal tonight.

Today’s task for you is to remind me of your best and worse memories of Emmanuel Eboue!

See you in the comments… which you may have noticed now lets you post under your Facebook profile, or your twitter profile! Exciting stuff, make sure you take advantage and say hi this summer!

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