Gilbert Imbula? Just What Arsenal Needed

Another Youngster To Arsenal?

News has surfaced in the media that Arsenal are looking to sign Gilbert Imbula, a promising 20 year old from the French Second Division side Guingamp. I need not say more.....

I can never understand Le Prof. When we are 1st in the league, we go for an unknown French youth, when we are 2nd.....the story repeats itself.....and even when we are 3rd or 4th or 5th or 6th......same old story. Why can't we produce our own youths rather than buy them from elsewhere? So much has been invested...time and money on our academy and still we need to buy promising youngsters? Only Gibbs and Wilshere truly represent Arsenal academy at the moment. I do not see a "genuine" academy player coming to the first XI for the next 4 years! It is funny how Arsenal are lauded for their youth policy and actually we produce very few of our own. Aston Villa, Southampton, Everton and Leeds are way ahead of us in terms of actually producing good young players. We buy youngsters from somewhere else....they play for a few years in our team....and then they go back to their beloved clubs or somewhere else because they do not have a deep connection with our club.

 If we can produce more players like Gibbs and Wilshere through our Academy who are born and bred Arsenal players, they will stick with their club. Just look at how they signed new deals for staying at Arsenal without much fuss. We all know how Wallcot, a player bought from Southampton at age 16, almost dumped us. I don't need to say more about other players who were bought young before being sold off (Fabregas 16yrs, Nasri 19yrs, Adebayor 19yrs,Van Persie 19yrs........ Hleb, Flamini, Clichy, Toure...too many to remember!).

It seems Arsene will wait till the last minute of the transfer window to buy players because, as he admitted himself, the prices of players fall drastically in the last moments of the window. So, I would suggest everyone to be patient till the last second of the transfer window. Big names have been linked with Arsenal....Cavani, Zaha,David Villa to name a few. But we all know who we will get in the end. A promising youngster from the French......you get the point.