by Rachid Parchment
According to Tim Hager, the agent of 19 year old Paris St. Germain defender Mamadou Sakho, Arsenal and Bayern Munich are hot on his trail.
“He will be moving clubs this summer. Arsenal are interested, but the club are too cheap at the moment,” said Hager .
“Yes, I think a transfer will happen soon. He wants to play football in England and Arsenal are a good club but Manchester United is a better club.
“But the most interested club is Arsenal, they want him the most. Bayern Munich is a top European club, so I think it will be Bayern or Arsenal.”
From what I’ve been reading around the internet it seems a lot of people want this guy to join Arsenal – the same people who are vehemently in opposition to us signing Thomas Vermaelen. Many claim we’ve been lacking experience (which is true) yet they want us to sign Sakho, who’s only 19 but not Thomas Vermaelen, who’s 23. Many also say Vermaelen is too short to play for Arsenal but they’re fine with us signing Sakho when Vermaelen is 6’1″ and Sakho is 6’1 1/2″. How much of a difference is half an inch? Why is it that Vermaelen would be such a bad signing for us, according to many, while Sakho would be perfect? Is it the fact that he’s Black? I think that’s exactly it. The fact that he’s Black and African descent suggests to many that he just has to be a great defender, while Vermaelen, who’s White and European, just can’t be as good. Here’s a quote from the web blog “Oh To Be A Gooner” that sums up what I’m talking about:
“Now regardless of how much truth there is to those claims, Sakho is the type of player Arsene should buy. In fact, Sakho ticks all the boxes. He’s French, he’s athletic, he’s of African descent and he has an outlandish hairdo. Not to mention the fact that he’s still a teenager.”
The first fact pointed to there is that he’s French…well yeah, so’s Mikael Silvestre. What’s your point?
The fact that he’s still a teenager means he doesn’t have the experience we’re looking for. We need men in the team who have big game experience. Johan Djourou is 20 years old and has played important Champions League matches for us as well as World Cup matches. Sakho doesn’t have the same experience.
If Aidan (the writer of the article) is reading this then I’d like for him to give me an explanation of how him being an African makes him such a good candidate. Seems very racist to me.
Every thing positive mentioned about Mamadou Sakho can easily be attributed to Thomas Vermaelen. I’m not saying Aidan from Oh To Be A Gooner is discrediting Vermaelen but a lot of people are and are comparing him to Mamadou Sakho, saying Sakho is better for the reasons I mentioned above. If your belief is the same that we should sign Sakho but not Vermaelen, I’d love for you to leave a comment below explaining what makes Sakho so much better than Vermaelen.
You can also come by our forums and join the discussion about both players there at www.arsenalaction.com
Bye for now.
