Nicolas Anelka
Various sources are reporting that West Ham have completed the signing of
Paul Kitson from Newcastle and are turning their attentions to our
own Johnny Hartson. According to one of the Teletext services,
Wenger has even said that he will use the money raised to buy a
(continental) replacement.
There are also reports that we've put a bid in for Marek Citko. The story is
that, now that Blackburn have beaten his fee down from 4million to
a reported 2.8, Arsenal are back in the hunt and may try to gazump them.
This one looks very much like his agent trying to bump the fee up again
at the last minute.
(More on the ANR pages)
See also yesterday's ArseWeb News Review for more transfer talk.
Pascal Bedrossian, 22, is a former team-mate of Patrick Vieira (who played for Cannes before his brief spell at AC Milan). Bedrossian came through the youth ranks at Cannes and has been a first-team regular for the past three seasons (according to Soccernet that is, I can't find mention of him on any of the French Footy web sites).
The Marseille-born forward, rated at around £1.5million, played for France at youth level but has chosen to represent his parents' country, Armenia. He is currently on trial with a view to a permanent move which may happen before Arsenal's next match, at West Ham on Wednesday.
Bedrossian is reported to have a relative called Alain Boghossian, who plays in midfield for Napoli and who we believe to have played for France a few times before Armenia's independence in 1991.
Pascal came off the bench for Armenia in the recent 1-1 draw with Northern Ireland. An correspondent (spud) who's seen him play a few times rates him highly. His strike rate for Cannes is not spectacular, at 5 goals in 60 appearances (see ANR) leading some to speculate that he's really a midfielder. He's certainly been listed as such on Rete's Cannes page. However reports from the Arsenal training ground suggest he's playing at centre forward in training for us, although it's possible that the big French-speaking player was someone else. (There's a lot of it about at the moment.
Meanwhile, Arsenal have denied recent reports linking us with a bid for Guiseppi Signori. Wenger's recent announcement that he would like to sign players before the end of the season seems to have sparked some crazy rumour- mongering, with us having been linked with Signori, Stoichkov, Schillaci, Costacurta, and Thierry Henry, and that's just in the last 3 days! The latest one is this morning's Mirror saying that we're going to pull out all stops to sign Patrick Kluivert in the next couple fo weeks. Believe it when you see it! And meanwhile, Arsene Wenger goes out and quietly picks up a couple of relatively cheap, exciting, and YOUNG prospects.
Nicolas Anelka
Yesterday Anelka made his debut for Arsenal in a reserve match.
Apparently he only got to play the second half because he didn't
get his international clearance through in time for the kick-off!
He forced a save and hit a post with a header in a 3-1 defeat to
Norwich.
He'll probably be making his first team debut against Forest on Saturday.
Thursday 23rd January 1997
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