The Wayne Rooney to Arsenal rumours are starting to come in thick and fast now especially after Arsenal chairman Ivan Gazidis declared the Gunners as able to afford the expensive striker.
Since their move from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium the financial shackles have been tightly on Wenger, resulting in expensive player sales rather than acquisitions. This has been the sole reason for the massive 8 year trophy drought but Gazidis has hinted this is all set to change.
The sale of RvP last summer stripped the side of a bucket load of goals, while they were spread about last season among the new signings it is clear a proper goalscoring centre forward is required to compete with Olivier Giroud.
There are plenty on the market such as Gonzalo Higuain and potentially Stevan Jovetic, however there’s been one name that has been flirted with the Gunners more and more recently – Wayne Rooney. (Follow the saga here)
The experienced England international handed in a transfer request at the end of Manchester United’s trophy winning campaign and has since been linked with an extortionate £25 million transfer and a £200,000-per-week deal to switch to the North London side.
When quizzed by reporters over whether Arsenal can afford to buy Rooney Gazidis responded:
Of course we could do that, we could do more than that. We have a certain amount which we’ve held in reserve. We also have new revenue streams coming on board and all of these things mean we can do things which would excite you.
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We can think about all kinds of things, but we don’t think about what’s going to excite our fans for the next couple of weeks, we think about what’s going to excite them when we start playing in August and hopefully when we’re in March and April and competing.
For Arsene, it’s a question of getting the right players, the ones he believes in, not necessarily the players the fans want. He’s very disciplined about his beliefs and how he wants to structure a team. He has new tools available to him financially and I think he’ll make good use of them.
What you will see is certainly an Arsenal team that is getting better over the next couple of years unless we make big mistakes, but historically we have got a manager who has got a proven of doing this extremely well over a long period of time.
I think we deserve a little more credit than we’ve been given. Having said that, we’ve got more financial capability now and I’m sure that will help us to be able to secure the targets that Arsene wants.
My own view is we are moving into a new phase where if we make our decisions well, if we get the right chemistry, and if we do a variety of other things as well, not just the new players that come in but the right kind of things on the football side, that we can compete with any club in the world.
We’ve seen two clubs this year in the Champions League final and both of whom run responsible financial models. They are pretty fantastic teams and very exciting to watch. There’s no reason why we can’t do that.
I definitely accept that the right player has to be bought and not the most expensive. Many Gooners however struggle to comprehend the transfer of Wayne Rooney to Arsenal, there is plenty of history including THAT dive which ended our unbeaten run. However I personally have learned to back him on the international stage, so should he become a Gunner and help us lift a trophy then I’d be happy.
We do need this kind of marquee signing to lead us from the front, someone who can push RvP for the golden boot, inject belief that this club is heading in the right direction and has ambition on the field.
It is exciting to hear the chairman claim we can afford to sign the worlds best, but lets hope Wenger puts that into practice. Whether its Rooney or Higuain this has to be a big summer in the market.
Source: ESPN FC
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