The Sunday Mirror reckons Arsenal have already signed Dutch ‘winger’, Vincent van den Berg, 17, who left Feyernoord to go to Heerenveen. Other media are more circumspect, such as the Observer – ‘closing in on’. And Sky Sports also infer the deal hasn’t yet been sealed for the ‘midfielder’ – but likely as the player has met Wenger and Dennis Bergkamp and “has his heart set on Arsenal”. He was a member of the Dutch side who achieved a third-placed finish in the Fifa Under-17 World Championships in Peru last October.
The Sunday Times says Arsenal are one of a number of clubs who are looking at Eidur Gudjonsen. It says Barca have already bid around £7m. The Mail broke that story earlier.
However The People claims Wenger wants to replace Dennis Bergkamp and Robert Pires in his Arsenal squad with Valencia’s Jaime Gavilian, 21, on loan to Getafe last season, and Chile international Luis Jimenez, 22, from Ternana (on loan to Fiorentina while his club was relegated).
The same paper says Leeds have bid £500,000 for Ryan Smith, but Arsenal want more. And also says Franck Ribery is Lyon bound.
The Observer notes that Cardiff want Mart Poom and Kerrea Gilbert on loan for next season.
The NoW says it is now likely that Pascal Cygan goes back to France to St Etienne. He says they’ve been interested for three years, but now he’s interested too.
The Star on Sunday re-iterates that Wenger is playing a waiting game over Curtis Davies, waiting for another club to come in before bidding. And it also says he wants Olympiakos midfielder Yaya Toure. Sky Sports reported earlier that Wenger bid for him in the winter window, and a figure of £8m has been mooted.
His performance against Argentina, shows he has both the engine and quality to compete in the Premiership, along with the smaller Didier Zakora.
Meanwhile the Business section of the Sunday Times has a page feature on Arsenal md Keith Edelman. He says: “It [Highbury] will be a unique development. I don’t know of any other major stadium that has been converted into a residential complex.”
Edelman will present further details of the £150m development in a City roadshow starting this week. Arsenal’s plans include the building of 649 modern apartments using two of the old stands, the conversion of the old pitch into a communal garden, adding a car park and health club underneath, and social housing elsewhere.
The piece says the Emirates stadium that will give Arsenal the biggest match-day revenues of any soccer club in the world. Edelman puts the operational success down to project managers and contractors, and to the fact that decision making was streamlined.
He says: “the incremental value we get out of the new stadium – about £40m a season – far exceeds the debt repayment.”
And adds: “The issue we faced was that under the Highbury business model, not getting into Europe two years running would have been very serious financially – not so under the Emirates model.”