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Sunday, January 22, 2006

Arsenal sorta sign Walcott

Arsenal have confirmed a deal with Southampton starlet Theo Walcott which has no less than 84 different signatures to prevent competing clubs from sending the deal into arbitration.

Walcott, still only 16, cannot sign a professional contract for 2 more months, until he is officially 17. The would-be contract is for 4 ½ years. Walcott's arrival follows the purchases of Togo international forward Emmanuel Adebayor, 21, and the 19-year-old French midfielder Vasiriki Abou Diaby.

Arsenal have gone to truly amazing lengths to sign Walcott, more than I have ever seen for a player his age. The nasty saga between Manchester United and Chelsea over John Obi Mikel has made Arsenal very cautious, and you can see the long term effect of the Mikel mess being played out here. Ever more agents, ever more legal advice, ever more costs associated with drafting young talent into a squad.

Under British law there are many loopholes for other clubs to step in and negotiate until Walcott signs a professional contract. As Mikel showed, a club is exposed. At the moment Walcott can only sign as a scholar.

Is any of this likely, probably not, the youngster could have gotten a better financial deal at another club from the start, but chose Arsenal for footballing reasons, something Thierry Henry should also do.

3 Comments:

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

The money spent to buy out Walcott is clearly too much. Keeping in mind the facts that there is enough money needed to refresh Thiery Henry's contract for te next season and the dough required to complete the new stadium,the decission was quite stupid.
More than a forward we need a good midfield player who can control the game as Vierra did during his time,and a good solid defender(coz we all know that arsenal goes down in set pieces when it comes to defending)......

1/22/2006 11:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Arsenal should have spent that (what could be) 12mil last season and bought Maniche when they decided to sell Viera.

1/23/2006 2:04 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

''bought Maniche''

ahh the glory of hindsight, didnt eactly set the world alight at chelsea did he? and as for the other bloke i believe youll find diaby is the player who can control a game with his strength and he WAS brought in that window!

6/21/2007 7:07 PM  

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