We Might Buy In January! (Unless We Don’t!)

Arsène Wenger no doubt sent a lot of Gunners into an armchair manager’s frenzy yesterday with his announcement that the club have money if they want to buy in January.  As always however, Wenger, chose his words very carefully saying the club has the money and maybe will buy if an opportunity arises.

Now, this will likely get used against him and the club when Wenger likely doesn’t buy in January.  Wenger has rarely bought in January since he generally buys from outside of England and is a believer of the “needing time to settle” philosophy.  So, in his view unless a very good deal happens to fall into his/the club’s lap he is usually against Winter window buys because by the time the new player gets acclimated to the club and country, the season is almost over

Wenger’s exact words per Arsenal.com:

"“We lose players like Chamakh and Gervinho to the Africa Cup of Nations, so hopefully touch wood we do not get any injuries to our strikers,” he said. “But if an opportunity turns up in that department then we will buy.“The situation, I must say, is a bit special. Economically the whole environment has changed and people suffer more. The clubs will suffer more financially and it’s much more difficult.“Maybe we will have some opportunities because we are in a good financial situation.”"

Clearly, you can see he is saying that they can buy if they want and not saying that they will definitely buy which, no doubt, some people and journalists will read the latter into his comments.

With Marouane Chamakh and Gervinho leaving in January for African Nations’ Cup duty some people will no doubt call for purchases but Wenger will likely start using Chu-Young Park  at that time plus maybe that means more playing time for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and a league debut from Japanese teenager, Ryo Miyaichi.  It also might mean possible debuts from the likes of youngsters Benik Afobe, Chuks Aneke and Luke Freeman, as the latter two will be returning from loan spells in January.

But that’s still a few weeks away and in the meantime we have Man €ity on Sunday in the league and a rendezvous with $amir Na$ri.  However, Gaël €lichy will likely miss through suspension after getting sent off against Chelski on Monday.

Speaking of the meantime, enjoy Helmet’s “In The Meantime:”