To keep, or not to keep..

Yey it's match day here's @SweGoon with his thoughts on Sami

Samir, Samir, Samir… What shall we do with you? Playing for the Arsenal not good enough anymore? Is it the money? The lack of trophies? Who knows? Whatever the reason Wenger faces a tough decision. He can keep Nasri and lose out on a transfer fee or he could cash in now. So what are the pros and cons of these two options? Well, this is the way I see it. If we keep him we obviously risk losing out on a transfer fee that could be used to replace him, however if Arshavin stays, Gervinho acclimatizes well and players like Ryo develop in a satisfactory way there might not be a need to replace him externally. Something else to keep in mind is that, even if we don’t get a fee for him, him leaving frees up wage space. Wage space that can partially be used as part funding of a replacement with lower wage demands.


We would also be keeping a quality player who knows the Arsenal way of playing, who won’t need time to settle in the team. Although, we risk being stuck with an unmotivated and underperforming player who will only, if we are lucky, generate a small fee in January. For the sake of argument we say he is motivated to stay one more season and Cesc leaves, which would render us a great opportunity to slowly integrate a replacement for Cesc while Nasri covers the position this year. For instance it could help Ramsey’s development tremendously or allowing a player like Mata to settle in England without the pressure to perform from day one. Another benefit of keeping Nasri is the signal it sends to fans, players and other clubs, selling him and Cesc might make it impossible to convince top players to sign for Arsenal.

On to selling him then, this would generate a transfer fee and wage decrease of around £25-30m. That money could obviously be used to bring in a replacement as well as part fund a deal for i.e. Cahill. In my opinion, selling both Cesc and Nasri would force us to do a mayor rebuild. It would give players like Ramsey a chance to do what Wilshere did last season, and if he steps up to the plate in the same way… Boy, he’s got even more talent the Jack, he would be a massive player. Sometimes you have to through people in the deep end for them to swim, the only problem is if they don’t they drown. If Jack and Aaron are to be our future midfield duo then maybe they should start playing together sooner rather than later. Downside is that if they fail there is no safety net as there would be with Nasri staying.

As you can see I’m quite torn over this. Wenger will soon make his decision and as there are definite positives to both I will choose to focus on them rather than the negatives. Whatever decision he makes I will support it, will you?

By @SweGoon