We’ve seen Arsene Wenger pull off some bizarre transfer deals in the past (remember the likes of Ju-Young Park and Mikael Silvestre?), but his deadline day swoop for Swedish midfielder Kim Kallstrom may just take the biscuit.
Arsenal fans spent much of deadline day with their fingers crossed hoping that Arsene Wenger would sign a striker, or that he’d bring the talented young German, Julian Draxler to the Emirates. As it happened, neither eventuality came to pass.
I can’t wait to see all the righteous anger erupt throughout this fan-base if and when Olivier Giroud, their only world-class striker, gets injured. If the Frenchman is forced onto the sidelines for any extended period of time, that could well spell the end to Arsenal’s season.
But let’s get back to Arsenal’s sole deadline day signing, the Swede who has an inordinate amount of pressure on his back (there’ll be more on this lad’s back later). With Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey and Mathieu Flamini all injured or suspended, Kallstrom was surely signed to help round out the squad during the next couple of months.
This will be the toughest period of Arsenal’s season and they need all the bodies they can get. It’s easy enough to see why Wenger wanted to add another midfielder to his squad, despite already having a fair few options in this department.
What’s not easy to understand, however, is why he opted to sign a player who hasn’t played for months at club level and who has a spotty injury history. Indeed, the 31-year-old made Arsenal aware of his back problems during his medical, but the club still put pen to paper on a deal.
It’s now believed that he could spend the next six weeks out on the sidelines. That’s right, the same six weeks that I’ve just labelled the toughest of Arsenal’s season. Indeed, by the time he’s in contention for games, Aaron Ramsey should be back on his feet, Mathieu Flamini’s suspension will be over and Jack Wilshere will have a few games under his belt.
If all these stories are true, then Kim Kallstrom must surely register as one of the poorest signings in living memory. In fact, The Mirror even claim that Arsenal are ‘already trying to offload’ the Swedish international and are looking for a loophole in his contract that will allow him to do so.
Perhaps Spartak Moscow (the club which currently owns him) will do the Gunners a favour here. After all, they did effectively sell Arsenal a player who had a major injury problem (even if it was just a loan deal). I won’t hold my breath, however.
Still it begs the question: what was Arsene Wenger thinking?
What’s your take? Can you make sense of the Kim Kallstrom deal?
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