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Of the many transfer rumours we've covered in recent weeks, the one with the most staying power appears to be Hossam Ghaly. As reported a month ago, he's an Egyptian midfielder currently with Feyenoord. Ghaly is said to have fallen out with manager Ronald Koeman and there's speculation that he'll be shipped out in the transfer window. The potential
problem is that this is the third coach in a row he's fallen out with, but one has to
have some faith that Wenger could bring the best out of him, he usually does.
The 23 year old joined Feyennord in 2003 from Cairo club Al Ahli, and has a
contract that runs till 2007.
We've had several emails on the subject since first mentioning Ghaly, the most
expressive of which comes from African football watcher Miester. He's been
watching Ghaly for 10 years and describes him as having unique flair and style
comparable with (if anyone) Johann Cruyff. Perhaps not the Vieira clone that
everyone (else) says we're looking for but the best young midfielder in the
world, apparently. There seems to be an accepted wisdom that Arsenal need
to spend on an established world star in order to persuade Thierry Henry to stay,
methinks unearthing another less well-known gem would do the job too. Personally
I suspect that it's just fear of not being in the Champs League again
next season that's worrying Henry, a fear that will hopefully be as
good as buried before long, but we're just going to have to wait and see.
Whatever, the truth is that a true "new Vieira" would be someone we hadn't
heard of before. We hadn't heard of Pat, had we?
Arseene Wenger was in Holland on Sunday to watch Feyenoord's goal-less draw with Vitesse Arnhem, but it
seems that Ghaly may not be the only object of his gaze. Feyenoord's big
striker Dick Kuyt reckons Le Boss was watching him.
Kuyt is 24 or 25 depending on where you look and since the summer has already
been linked with Liverpool, Tottenham, Man City and Everton. According to
the grapevine Liverpool came closest but didn't want to match Feyenoord's
price (having already splashed out on Peter "goal machine" Crouch). He's
become a regular for the Dutch national side alongside Ruud van Nistelrooy,
after scoring loads of goals (53) for
his club in the last 2 seasons. Not quite so unknown then, and as a result he's
being valued (by the papers) at £10 to £12 million.
Kuyt says, "I do find it special a top coach like Wenger takes the
trouble of coming from England to Rotterdam to look at me.... I wait
to see what happens. Arsenal are of course a great club to be connected
to. But I am not the type of person that goes crazy."
Seems like Feyenoord weren't in any hurry to sell him in the summer, so
perhaps it'd take a huge bid to tempt them now. It's hard to weigh up the
relative likelihoods here: on the one hand there's the fact that there
might be more competition for Kuyt and the fact that Feyenoord might be a lot less keen
to sell him. On the other there's the fact that a proven goalscorer has
definitely been on the wish list (although Robin van Persie may be in
the process of reversing that) and, a significant factor from my point of
view, the fact that when Dennis Bergkamp leaves (and assuming that Quincy
doesn't quite make the grade) Wenger might want another Dutchman to
keep van Persie company. He does seem to like to pair them up like this, so
don't ignore the Brazilian rumours either.
Actually, feel free to ignore all the rumours. It's just tittle-tattle.
Wenger (and his staff) go to watch lots of games and lots of players. Sky speculate that Le Boss could have had his eye on Romeo Castelen, Salomon Kalou and Jonathan de Guzman too. At the end of the day, he could have just been there to watch a game of football.
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