Why did Arsenal miss out on Ribery and Malouda?
Florent Malouda and Franck Ribery are two quality French wingers who left their old clubs this summer to go play for bigger teams (sorry Lyon, but you’re not there yet). The French connection (although with Henry gone is that less relevant?) plus the fact that Arsenal clearly need a quality wide player meant that these two were going to be linked with Arsenal for all that they were worth (13m pounds for Malouda, 20m+ euros for Ribery (I think)).
On the other hand, if you go by Arseblogger’s numbers, Arsenal have 12m extra from their transfer activities in recent months.
And it’s not as if those two are shite players (unless you consider that first-choice wingers for the French national team are shite - in which case why is the first-choice center-back and striker painted with a different brush?) - Malouda has shown in pre-season, Community Shield and on Sunday against Birmingham City that he’s a fast, powerful and talented winger. Ribery - from all that I’ve seen of him during the World Cup and then last season, is a quality player as well.
Plus with Henry going there was always going to be money available for wages and it’s not as if Ribery or Malouda were going to demand Henry-esque wages.
Need a winger - check.
Have the money - check.
Good player available - check.
Money for wages - check.
So why didn’t Arsenal move for either player?
Seeing that Arsene Wenger conducts his transfer business secretly, I suppose that if he had actually gone after either player, we wouldn’t have heard of it until he actually got them.
In that case, I’d rephrase the question - why didn’t Arsenal get either player?
Not good enough for Arsenal?
We’ve already established that as bogus - come on, if Malouda or Ribery had been playing on the wings for Arsenal against Fulham, Arsenal would have scored at least 3 goals thanks to the countless direct runs and crosses.
Outbid by the competition?
Possible, but with the money available to Arsenal it’s not as if Arsenal would have been unable to match whatever Chelsea or Bayern Munich were offering. Arsene has the authority and Arsenal have the money to go after big transfers, and both M and R would have given the side valuable experience as well.
Player chose the competition?
Possible, but isn’t this partially up to how much the club wants them?
I know that I’m just thinking out loud here, but the fact that Arsenal haven’t picked up a good wide player this summer is worrying - some may argue that neither R or M fit Arsenal’s style of play but that’s bullshit - hardly any player ever ‘perfectly’ fits the system from the go. They adapt, and these two would have adapted as well.
With 17 days to go, I doubt that Wenger would sign anyone else, but hey, Wenger’s always surprised people with his transfer moves and I wouldn’t bet against that happening again by the end of the season.
I’m devastated that Arsenal didn’t sign Malouda. He’s been by far the best signing of the summer, and I was saying that even before the season started.
If Wenger wasn’t interested in him (rather than not being able to get him), I’d hypothesize it’s because he’s 27 years old. I know that’s not very old, but Wenger seems to prefer to get the younger players and mold them to his style, rather than trying to fit someone in who’s already at (or near) his peak. Obviously there are exceptions, but this seems to work more often than not.
I’m not too upset about Ribery, though. He’s a freakin’ machine, but I don’t think he’s an improvement over what Arsenal already have.
Strikes me that there is now a good chance that Robinho could be on his way to The Arse now that Drenthe has gone to Real; wouldn’t that be a coup!
don’t be taken in by what hill-wood says.
of course there is money available, 5m or 6m pounds. now what did malouda go for?
if we qualify for the CL group stages arsene will have abt 10m to spend even with the surplus cash. that wouldn’t buy martins or anelka.
fiszmans will sell next year. thats why bernie and kroenke are hovering. they will not invest a penny. obvious.
so relax, lets enjoy 3rd or 4th, a contract for arsene, a possible cup run until better owners show up next year.
I agree with the bit on Ribery. He’s a bloody machine, all work, but nothing creative. I think Arsene didnt go in for a winger because he planned on putting Eboue on the flanks and he did do that against Fulham. Though what we saw was nothing spectacular, it was encouraging. Sagna looked more settled and Eboue came up a lot.
He was a bit of risk I believe and had we entered the market, Chelsea would have outbid us given the crazy money Chelsea has spent in the past.
But I dont think that Arsenal will go after even Quaresma / Moutino. I saw the match between Porto and Lisbon and both were useless at a price tag of 15M pound. I think Modric will fit well.
Or may be one of the surprise packages of AW. You never know but will always trust the boss and will always be supporting him.
I personally wasn’t bothered that we didn’t sign Ribery for that money as I dont think he’s all that. It’s a shame we couldn’t sign Malouda as he looks quality but as Wenger said a couple of years back if chelsea go in for the same player you’re after, you may as well forget it as no once can compete with the wages they can offer. Wenger has never been one to panic buy and we may see Armand Traore play left back with Clichy pushing up to left midfield if need be.
In answer to the article:
“Why did Arsenal miss out on Ribery and Malouda?”…
Simple.
BECAUSE WE NEVER MADE A BID FOR THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Wenger didn’t want them, he never has and has never made a bid for either of them. So stop wasting your time talking about players that were never even on the list.
Move On !!!
Malouda too old for price, Ribery and Babel price tags were too high. However Babel stated his desire to join Arsenal, and even went out to say he’d wait till next season to play alongside dutch international friend and team mate Van persie at Arsenal, where is he now…Liverpool, just could not wait i guess..Ribery went on again and again on why how much he wanted champions league football..where is he now..at Bayern..a team who didnt even qualify this year. So thats the transfer window nothing is possible or definate, if things had gone our way we could have a team with Cech, Kompany and Eto’o but you cant always be lucky. But one things for sure, Reyes and Freddie’s departure has left us a man short on the wings, Eduardo can play their but he’s more of a striker, Wenger’s choice replacement i think would have been Ribery but that was before he moved and before Henry decided to leave, now i believe its Gouffran, but only if Caen let him go this summer that is.
By the 31st, Flamini/Song out, Diarra in, Gouffran in and maybe seal a deal for Boruc/Akinfeev to join us next season, all possible with the money we’ve got this season i think.
Ribery - He looked like an Arsenal cert at one time and he has the pace and aggression we need on the wings plus he can play either side which makes him ideal. However AW was probably not interested at that price - he’s good but not THAT good so fair enough for not going in for him.
Malouda - He also has those qualities of pace, aggression and is very direct as we have already seen. I don’t think his age would have been too much of a concern because what we do need is at least one more experienced player in the squad. His physical presence would help us too as we still look very lightweight in midfield. One thing is certain about Malouda - he is a winner. So did we go in for him? AW was questioned about Malouda and he smiled knowingly and said that you will have to wait and see … that suggested to me that we were going after him and negotiations had started and were progressing well. At the time he was linked with Liverpool as well however in the end he went to the Chavs … for one reason: money. It just has to be down to that - they are probably prepared to pay him more than us but I don’t think that means we cannot _afford_ his wages it’s more likely that Wenger didn’t want to upset the wage structure at Arsenal. We do have very highly paid players and Henry was probably the highest earner but his wages were eclipsed by those of John Terry and his cronies [I think], so what happens inside a club when a player like Malouda comes in asking for big bucks form the get go … maybe a bit of jealousy starts to creep in and before you know it they’re all asking for bigger salaries and the team spirit starts to fall apart.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll get another two players in before the deadline closes, no idea who they might be because Arsene never ever seems to bring in the players we speculate about so why waste energy on that?
We’ll just have to wait and see …
Wenger out, Ahmed Bilal in !!
We didn’t buy because wenger is satisfied with what he has, plus why do some people think Hill-Wood is lying? Do they actually think Wenger would sit quietly if the board were purposly misleading the media? Please…
El Tommo, Malouda didn’t sign because of money. He signed because of Drogba cos they were friends, and also admitted that since Drogba joined Chelsea, he had followed them. So get your facts right before you jump to conclusions about players
I’d rather have Morten Gamst Pederson
frank Ribery is useless. He isnt a goal scorer to the standards of Ljungberg or pires. We already have a player of his style. He’s called Hleb. Malouda is a good player but we need someone with flare. Someone like the Kaka’s and Ronaldo’s of this world. I’m sure Wenger will unearth someone special soon. On a personal note the guy who write these pages sucks. Be more factual with your page you’re using the internet for christ sakes. I wanna see proper fact and figures. Maybe the odd correct quote too. cheese !!
Same here. Even I’d prefer Pederson for Gunners.
And Paul, thats what Malouda will say in public and thats what all the chelsea fans will say. Bottomline on why Malouda, Sidwell, Ashley Cole and many others go to chelsea is money…….
Arsene’s just being a cheap skate again, we all know that.
Chelsea wouldn’t have outbid because of their new policy. You have to go by what Arsene’s said in the past, which was that once Chelsea are interested he backs off.
Reason must be cos he feels they can’t compete financially but on that point I think he’s wrong. By matching the offer, where the price paid for Malouda was reasonable considering his credentials of French player of the year and had 4 championship medals with Lyon(Ribery was too much), the player surely would’ve chosen the French manager as compared to that prat Mourinho.
I’m sick of Arsenal losing out - look even at Babbel………….I just feel it’ll come back to haunt us, especially if we don’t have a good start to the season or tail off later because of no depth to the squad.
One of the things that got us so behind early on last season was the extra games congestion of trying to get into the Champion’s league in the first place!
if Malouda or Ribery had been playing on the wings for Arsenal against Fulham, Arsenal would have scored at least 3 goals thanks to the countless direct runs and crosses.
Well, they did have countless runs/crosses/chances against Fulham. It was a good-experienced finisher they actually missed.
I want MGP as well. He has a devasting left foot to match RVP and can deliver quality crosses and score goals at the far post. He is also a fairly big lad who works hard and puts his foot in. Only stumbling block is price and whether he wants to come-he has shown commitment to Blackburn in the past.
Well, we all know, Wnger only spends on players 25+ when there a real talent, and for a bargain price, Otherwise we go for the Youngsters, which is all good in 3 or 4 years but for now we need some great players. Should we have got Ribery or Molouda I tink the Premiership would have a 1/2 or 1/3 chance of comeing to the Emirates.
But we should have got “Scarface” and Molouda, because of the qulity players they are, Also bear in mind there still extremely young and havent yet reached there peak(s).
But, I have a bizzare feeling Ribery will leave the Allianz Arena, either at this seasons end or the in th enext 2 seasons after, Bayern really seem to keep there players for over 4 years, If that.
Now, I think good buys for Arsenal would be Huntalaar, Schweinstiger, Frings (Maybe too old, but still quality and has a good eye for golas, especcially from long range as he showed in WC ‘06) Owen (A Lot of injuries though), Martins hes a player for now and the future and also maybe somebody like Pederson or Sidwell.
i am sorry but i was bullied by dem communist’s to join dem , i had no choice they said they would kill me family. sacre blue i got to go i can here some one coming……
Im happy with the team.
I rate pederson and would be a useful player but even if we dont sign anybody we will do well. I watched all the games in pre-season and reckon the team does have soemthing this year. We can get results out of nothing.
End of the day 11 players against 11. Its down to organisation and tactics and not always individual skill. Although we have got plenty of that also
BTW Sidwell…..!!! you must be joking next youll say bring back Bentley……maybe upson?? We let them all go for a reason…
Can’t really shed any light on Malouda, but I do believe I know why we missed out on Ribery:
Without wanting to sound like some know-it-all with one of those completely unfounded and tiresome “my mother’s, sister’s, brother-in-law’s, pet cockroach’s uncle is Ribery’s dad and told my mate” stories, I do have some information on what happened with regard Ribery and Arsenal. I am French and this following info came direct from a friend of mine back in France who’s a sports journalist and knows a few people who work at l’OM.
After the World Cup last year, Arsene Wenger personally inquired to Marseille about the availability of BOTH Ribery and Samir Nasri, but Pape Diouf, l’OM President, told him they would only let one of them leave and only during the following summer at the very earliest, as he still held some hope that both players would stay if l’OM qualified for the Champions League that coming season.
Despite this, Ribery apparently still very nearly joined us in August 2006 but decided at the last minute to stay with Marseilles, namely due to a long heart-to-heart he had with Pape Diouf, who convinced him he owed Marseille one more year. But - and this is where it gets interesting - it was agreed that if Ribery did decide to leave the following season then Arsenal would have absolute first refusal on him at £14M (roughly 20 million euros). This was a deal made between Wenger, David Dein (who’s now left, of course), Diouf, Ribery and, most importantly, Ribery’s then (now former) agent Bruno Heiderscheid, who would handle any future negotiations. All the inside knowledge indicated Ribery would be offered to Arsenal before anyone else at the end of the season and due to Wenger’s long-standing interest, Arsenal would take him.
As an Arsenal fan I was fairly buoyed by this and went back to patiently waiting for Ribery to arrive the following summer…
So, when I heard about Bayern’s discussions with Ribery, I immediately rang my friend to ask him why Arsenal weren’t in the race and he bascially said that back in April Ribery parted company with Heiderscheid and signed with a new agent called Alain Migliaccio (very much in the money-hungry mould of Pini Zahvi). He’s also the same guy who masterminded Zidane’s switch to Juventus - at £55M.
Migliaccio didn’t care about the previous agreement with Arsenal as a) Dein Dein was no longer at the club to enforce it and b) the fundamentals of that agreement was made with Diouf and Heiderscheid, who was no longer representing Ribery, and so all Migliaccio wanted to do was sell Ribery for the highest price as, naturally, the more money Ribery went for the more money he would pocket out of the transfer.
Obviously the final decision rests with the player, and Ribery is said to have had his heart set on a move to Arsenal, instructing Migliaccio to make contact, which he did, and offered Ribery at the same price Bayern were willing to pay - £17M. Migliaccio soon dissuaded Ribery from the Arsenal move when Wenger told that him they wouldn’t pay above the previously agreed £14M (most likely because Diouf had broken his word on £14M - and you can’t blame Wenger - a deal is a deal) and that they couldn’t even finalize any potential deal at £14M for at least two weeks (I don’t know why, maybe because of the Reyes sale, who knows). As Bayern were willing to pay £3M more than Arsenal (don’t forget, 10% of all transfer fees go direct to the player, so 1.4M in Ribery’s pocket suddenly becomes 1.7M if he goes to Bayern; and it’s out of this fee that Migliaccio would take his cut) and willing to do business immediately, Migliaccio progressed for a quick-sale and persuaded Ribery that Bayern would be a much better option.
So there you go. Had former agent Heiderscheid still been in charge of the deal and had Dein still been at the club Ribery would have almost certainly become an Arsenal player.
My friend he’s also since heard (but admits he doesn’t know how much truth there is in this next bit) that losing out on Ribery really annoyed Thierry Henry, as Wenger had promised him Ribery was one of the “super, super-class players” coming to the club. I have to say, I can just about believe that as it was right after Ribery signed for Bayern that Henry started all of his “an Arsenal player FOR NOW” antics.
It’s a shame, because Ribery would have been perfect for Arsenal.
C’est la vie.
I still wouldn’t be suprised if bought someone in after the CL qualifiers, providing we do qualify! If your after raw talent, pace and skill and still under 25, Robinho?????
Hey don’t worry arsenal hav complited the signing of pedersen from blackburn on 8m but it will be announced tomorow evening good news, wenger does things secretly, thanks wenger.
i love watching ribery, but i do think he’s almost too similar to the likes of hleb and rosicky in terms of style–agile and rabbity and brilliant with the ball, but not such a scorer. do we really need yet another player like that? i don’t think so. sure, he’d fit in with arsenal’s stylish style–too well.
In answer to the article:
“Why did Arsenal miss out on Ribery and Malouda?”…
Simple.
BECAUSE WE NEVER MADE A BID FOR THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Wenger didn’t want them, he never has and has never made a bid for either of them. So stop wasting your time talking about players that were never even on the list.
Move On !!!
Yah good call!!!
willy thats what i said.
we do not have the money. thats how life works. if a player is in demand we have to match the highest bid and then leave it to the player to decide if he wants to play for arsene.
simple.
hill-wood is an etonian twat who can spin with the best of them. it will get better because i have been assured that fiszmans will sell next year.
so dein will be back.
arsenal missed out on these 2 cause we ddidnt want 2 sign them at 1st ribery wanted champ league we wud pay 10-13m but uefa cup bayern pay 17m and they wud gurantee him first team footy
as 4 malouda hes shit forget him waste of money pederson of blackburns is miles betta any1 malouda not even a winger hes more of a player who likes to play in the hole quresma is betta then all of these player i think rq shud sign 4 arsenal he wont join liverpool they got players real have jus bough drenh snijder robben mau and chelsea dont need him so hes a gooner 13m and no.8
moa, whoever you are dont give hopes. Last i heard, mark hughes wanted cash plus either bendtner(no way mr.hughes) or flamini(again no way, the guy’s done well in the first match). So please dont give false hopes. I’d be very grateful if you’d give your address…….(joke)…….
Arsenal don’t buy established players.