Did crafty Welshman play mind games with Emirates target?
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Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger missed out on signing Mark Schwarzer in a £4million deal – as Fulham failed to grab two possible replacement keepers.
The Gunners were turned down by their London rivals despite frantic negotiations about the veteran Australian until the last hour of the window.
Fulham were turned down by Crystal Palace when they made a move for Argentinian Julian Speroni – with the Eagles looking for a £1.5m fee.
And then an attempt to land Brazilian keeper Alexander Doni from Roma on loan for the season could not be done in time, leaving Schwarzer frustrated by the late collapse. (Daily Mirror)
Like most Arsenal fans I am quite concerned that Arsene Wenger failed to bag a keeper before the transfer deadline passed and like most of my fellow supporters I can only hope that Manuel Almunia is a stable pair of hands for the coming months and that he manages to prove his many doubters wrong rather than pulling off blunder after blunder. I am also asking myself some other questions.
We were told that Fulham had started to look at bringing in alternative keeping options yesterday. That Mark Hughes was hoping to first to buy Palace man Peroni and then failing that attempting to get Brazilian Doni on a season long loan, both ‘bids’ failed.
I have to then ask. What happened to the Craven Cottage boss’s stance on Mark Schwarzer. All the way through the last couple of weeks he had stated that he didn’t want to sell the 37 year old Australian international, a stance I could respect. The stance that one would expect from a boss looking to keep his best performers. Obviously we made a bid because we wanted him but it failed.
So why then was the Welshman scurrying around for a new keeper on deadline day? Or more accurately, was he scurrying around at all? If Hughes really wanted to bring in another keeper then I would imagine he would have started pushing for a new capture a lot sooner. Were his attempts to bring in a new custodian merely a way to make Schwarzer feel that his boss was trying to accommodate his desire for a ‘dream’ move to the Emirates?
Seems awful fishy to me. Somewhere along the line we are supposed to believe that Hughes was ready to sell us the player he has specifically said he didn’t want to sell? Well its clear he wanted Shay Given but that deal fell through but then all that crazed fumbling (not talking about Flapianski) came to nothing because lo and behold Fulham failed to nab another keeper and Schwarzer is still at the club. Were these simply mind games? If they were then the former United striker can thank his former boss for teaching him the tricks of the trade.
Mere conspiracy or could I have a point?
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