The Madness of Spaniards Apparent Once Again

by Joel Martin

According to Sky Sports, Villareal is apparently looking at buying our own reserve goalkeeper Manuel Almunia in the summer. Almunia, who has never really impressed since joining from Celta Vigo in 2004, apparently wishes to become our number one in the near future. The Yellow Submarines would be doing us yet another favor if they brought Almunia off our hands this summer. They’ve already taken in the sulky Robert Pires and the unexplainably-terrible Pascal Cygan off our hands, and now they want Almunia—who is strictly o.k., but only when he can cover the near post (which is never).

Almunia moving back to Spain could result in Wenger making one of two possible positive moves:

1.)He would be forced to keep Lehmann around. He is one of the best keepers in the world, and his presence helps instill confidence in our young defense.

2.) He would be forced to buy a quality keeper. Almunia is not anywhere near a World Class goalkeeper, nowhere near the quality a world class club like Arsenal needs in goal. Hearts’ Craig Gordon name has been mentioned, as well as Celtic’s Artur Boruc—both of whom havwe very promising careers ahead of them and would be good buys. Another route could be to sign Ben Foster or Scott Carson, although ManU and Liverpool may not be very apt to sell their young talents cheaply.

So, Villareal, if you want Manuel Almunia so badly, take him. We only will become a better team by losing him.

In a related story, related solely because it involves Spaniards looking to buy useless players, Rafa Benitez has signed Bayer Leverkusen striker Andriy Voronin on a pre-contract. Rafa is getting unbelievably good at buying players for too much money that are well below Liverpool’s standard, and Voronin is just another name on the list that includes Bodo Zenden, Craig Bellamy, Mark Gonzalez, Javier Mascherano, and that useless giraffe: Peter Crouch. The best complement you can give to Voronin as a player is that he played a good second fiddle to Dimitar Berbatov a couple years ago. He isn’t Liverpool-quality.

If their current squad remains in tact, Voronin would be in the running with Robbie Fowler for the fourth or fifth striker. Combine that with the return of on-loan Djibril Cisse, whom Benitez claims to still have a future at Anfield, and the apparently imminent addition of what Benitez claims he needs to challenge for a Premiership Title: a guaranteed 20-goal-a-season striker (nevermind his horrible goalkeeper or painfully-slow defense). Speculation has been directed at Valencia’s David Villa, but who knows? If Benitez’s spending habits can be characterized as anything they’re unconventional and unpredictable.

Purchases like Benitez’s “capture” of Andriy Voronin show me how lucky we are to have Wenger. Instead of buying 27-year-old second-tier strikers we go out and find wonderkids who grow up and mature in our youth academy into first-team stars before the age of twenty. We’ve got one of the smartest minds in the world managing our club, and his wisdom will only lead to great success in the years to come.