Mikael Silvestre? Arsene Your A Genius.

Yesterday evening Arsenal announced that they had signed 31 year old defender, Mikael Silvestre for a fee believed to be in the region of £750,000. The 31 year old French international, when fit, brings quite a bit to the team: his experience, height and versitality will all be welcomed in the Arsenal defence and not only that but he can offer cover for Clichy and push Kolo Toure and William Gallas for places. Furthermore, one could say that we’ve replaced Justin Hoyte with Silvestre, a man who has won four Premier League titles.

The signing of Silvestre not only brings his individual capabilities to the Arsenal defence but it will also leave Wenger with more options. It will allow him to push the likes Alexandre Song, who has been very impressive for Cameroon, into midfield and he may even opt to try Johan Djourou in the centre of the park aswell. I’ve seen talk of Toure being pushed into midfield and although his energy and strength are second to none, he, as third-gen said, does not have the brain for it.

Now, what I’m about to say next will probably leave me subject to some harsh criticsm and people using very colourful adjectives to describe me but I must make the point. No doubt you all know that Silvestre played for our title rivals, Manchester United, for a total of 9 years! The fact that Wenger would make such a signing will probably annoy quite a number of fans but personally I think it’s a stroke of genius from Wenger.

As I’ve previously mentioned, not only is Silvestre a good defender on his day but a man of his kind will surely motivate the Arsenal players. Silvestre probably spent most of his 9 years at United joking and laughing at Arsenal but now that he’s actually playing for us the players will be eager to to make a good first impression and he will be pushing hard to get off on the right foot with players and fans alike.

If the players are motivated by his arrival and Silvestre is willing to make a good first impression than I can only see it being a win win situation. Of course there is the chance that he will pick up a series of injuries and struggle tp string two games together for us but at £750,000, I think he’s definitely worth a punt.

Many fans and neutrals have failed to see any logic in the move and some are complaining about the fact that we seem to be just picking up the scraps from United but for Wenger to sign a 31 year old injury prone player he obviously sees something in him that most us don’t.

I hope this isn’t Wenger’s last signing but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. The coming weeks and months will be very intriguing.