Arsene Wenger might as well hold a sign that says : Defender clear out! 2 weeks left! EVERYTHING MUST GO!

Toure has gone to Man City, best of luck to him (unfortunately injured in his first game). Rumour has it Senderos has signed for Everton some time before the Atletico Madrid game, and now apparently Eboue is being displayed on the Arsenal shopping window. Of course, before all these defenders Adebayor was sold to Man City (more on him later).

Basically, Wenger is trying to address our main problem from the past few years.

As seen from the table above, when we won the league in 04 in our unbeatable season, we scored most goals, and conceded the least goals during that campaign. We haven’t won the title since, but scoring has obviously not been our problem, as seen in the next part of the table, where we have scored almost as much as ManU have in the past 5 seasons. Our problem has clearly been in conceding goals, where we are far behind the rest! 170 goals against in 5 seasons compared to 133 and 111 is NOT GOOD!

Conceding goals is not entirely the fault of the defenders and keeper, it is a team effort in stopping opposition before they get that far. Gilberto Silva was a true master of stopping oppostion attack from the start. Every Arsenal fan and their mother has been calling for a central midfielder the past two years, and with all the recent and upcoming sales and the money incoming, I am sure Wenger’s priority will be a decent CM.

Wenger knows that more than anyone, and he seems to have gone for drastic changes in defence! A major shakeup might be exactly what we need in that department. Vermaelen from Ajax was his first import this season, and I expect at least 1 more defender / CM along with a striker to replace Adebayor.

Another good reason to sell Adebayor, Toure, and Eboue would be the African Cup of Nations. We suffered in the past with our players leaving for prolonged periods and sometimes coming back injured or sick (Toure with Malaria). Of course the ACN have the right to get their players for the tournament but what I don’t understand is that it is the only major continental tournament played every 2 years instead of 4! Anyway, losing three major players for 8 games during January is not a problem Wenger would like to face, especially this year with games against ManU, Everton, and Aston Villa during that period.As much as I like Toure and Eboue, I am excited about Wenger’s brave gamble, and I really believe it will pay off … we shall see in the next two weeks!