Teams News; Defensive Signing Speculation

Today the the media are all abuzz with the rumor that Arsenal are rumored to be interested in Wayne Bridge of Man €ity as a short-term solution for the shortage at left back at the moment due to the injuries of Kieran Gibbs and Andre Santos.

Ok, this is a little amusing, like most transfer stories since there actually is no credible links to this move so far, just the usual case of someone floating a name, the manager responds to it and the journos then run with a headline that takes out of context what was actually said.  I always get a kick out of this since Britain has tougher libel laws too.  But anyway, here is what Wenger actually said about a “possible Wayne Bridge move:”

"“I haven’t made any enquiry yet for Wayne Bridge or anyone else,” commented Wenger.“It is of course something we will look at but it depends on how long you have to take them."

So, you can clearly see Wenger really made no mention of actually signing Bridge other than just a name thrown out there as a possibility.  Besides, even if Wenger did float the name, we all know in the past Wenger can be sneaky and equivocal when it comes to whom he’d actually be interested in signing.  Wouldn’t be the first he’d have floated a name just to throw people off the trail off who he’d really be interested in.  But Le Boss is not against the possibility of a short-term move for a fullback according to Arsenal.com, so with Bridge being out of favor at €ity, he could very well be on the radar a bit.

Moving on to other team news Wenger says there’s no chance that a move for Gary Cahill is in the works which makes sense since we have options at center half these days despite The Verminator having to play fullback recently.

Bacary Sagna’s return has been placed on a January target date while Johann Djourou and Kieran Gibbs will definitely miss the game with Wolves with the latter likely out for awhile longer following his hernia surgery recovery setback.

Non-injury news sees Robin van Persie’s goal form the spot against Aston Villa saw the Dutchman tie Thierry Henry’s club record of 34 league goals in a calender year and puts him just 2 shy of Alan Shearer’s premier league record.  Not all of the goals here are from this year but it only reiterates that not only does RvP scores lots of goals, he scores pretty spectacular ones regularly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTBi76FA8sY

And even though we’re still a few days away form the Wolves match here’s a rundown from the BBC including a preview and some interesting match facts.

Don’t know if I’ll post tomorrow or Christmas Day, so if not, you lot have yourselves a merry one and be safe and jolly!