Alex Chamberlain Having Arsenal medical

The Southampton winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is undergoing a medical at Arsenal ahead of a potential move to the club, according to reports.

The 17-year-old, who turns 18 next week, will reportedly cost an initial £7m with a further £5m in performance-related add-ons.

Oxlade-Chamberlain had been chased by Manchester United and Liverpool too but the winger made it clear that he wanted to follow in Theo Walcott's footsteps by moving from Southampton to Arsenal.

The winger will be Arsenal's third signing of the summer after the striker Gervinho and the youngster Carl Jenkinson and the club's manager Arsène Wenger said recently that he understood the fans' impatience for more players to be added to the side.

"We work very hard, we are non-stop working throughout the summer," said Wenger. "I am positive because we have good quality and a style of play that is known by the players. So we want to add not quality but super quality."

Arsenal are interested in Bolton's Gary Cahill and have already had a £12m bid for Everton's Phil Jagielka turned down.

source: sky sports

Could be a good move for the lad, wonder whether Wenger will try and get him loaned out for the first season.

if he's good enough he'll go into the 1st team like fabregas did play in the carling cup etc

I wonder who is leaving then

Must be so frustrating being an Arsenal fan.

Arsenal weren't miles away from being a title winning side last year. Meanwhile Wenger buys 2 kids that are a few years away from doing anything and a guy from France. Meanwhile Fabregas is still pining for a move away and Nasri can leave for nothing in January.

great move for oxlade, an absolute stonker if ur an arsenal fan. This is a shocking move, not for the player i think hes a great young talent but this is not what arsenal need. they need a quality centre back n an absolute power house in the middle. sadly for arsenal none are coming but as a nufc fan - great

Southampton are pumping out wonder kids these days.

I think as an Arsenal fan I'd definetly have mixed feelings about this move, while he's a promising youngster yadda yadda yadda that £12 million could have been better spent on somebody who could add something to the first team NOW.

God, if I was an Arsenal fan I would be so p'd off right now.

Why don't they try signing a player for the present rather than for 5 years time!!

Not a clue, its always tomorrow with Arsenal, but someone should point out to Mr Wenger, that tomorrow NEVER comes!!

Another established star there...

He will be a good player for the future, but at some point you need to stop looking at the 'future' and actually focus on the now. Don't write it off yet, but Arsenal still have work to do in this window, no question.

sodhat wrote:Arsenal still have work to do in this window, no question.

Yeah, trying to explain why selling Fabregas and Nasri is a good option to their furioius fans most likely.

I think at this point I'd be surprised if Arsenal made any big signings for their side. They're more likely to sell now.

I think this is a good signing, having signed Gerviniho, who looked very sharp in pre-season, we have Gerviniho, Arshavin, Walcott, Nasri (though I prefer him in the centre) who can play wide (I'm not mentioning Vela), and then Gerviniho, Walcott, RVP and Chamack who can play up front in different styles - we can then add a very fast and exciting Oxlade to it, while not needing him to play all the time - then if (and I hope to god we do) sign a defensive player - either LB, CB or DM (or 2 of those 3), then we'll be looking really good.

Though in dreamland I would have loved for us to get Benzema

invincibleILeak (CL-6WF) wrote:

sodhat wrote:Arsenal still have work to do in this window, no question.

Yeah, trying to explain why selling Fabregas and Nasri is a good option to their furioius fans most likely.

I think at this point I'd be surprised if Arsenal made any big signings for their side. They're more likely to sell now.

I'd be very suprised if they didn't sign at least one more and I'd be equally suprised if Nasri goes (if Fab goes I reckon we'll sign someone like Parker). Especially from the noises coming from Wenger and Grazdis(?).

I think if Fab goes, you'll lose Nasri, whether that be this summer or next.

I'm just not convinced that Wenger will be willing to spend any more money this summer, not at least without selling somebody, but at the moment he'll be leaving it really tight.

He always leave it tight and (the club) never leak any transfer rumours, which is one of the reasons why being an Arsenal fan is so frustrating - the other is getting so close to winning trophies every season, much closer than most of the clubs around us who spend far more, and then being just a few players away every season.

But I do reckon he will - Not Cahill, as I think Bolton are far over valuing him (though you could say if he is the difference between us winning or not then we need him more than we need £20m, but i'm not totally convinced).

But we'll see, there's 3 weeks left

He's signed for £15M.

Anyone see this guy getting many Premier League games?

Nope, hes not ready. Carling Cup, FA cup and reserves I imagine.

Seems like a waste of £15million to me, he may be one for the future and you would rather have in your team than one of your rivals, but Arsenal need to focus on their premier league team for this season not the team two or three years down the line.

JDandfries wrote:God, if I was an Arsenal fan I would be so p'd off right now.

Why don't they try signing a player for the present rather than for 5 years time!!

Not a clue, its always tomorrow with Arsenal, but someone should point out to Mr Wenger, that tomorrow NEVER comes!!

Not really.
Wenger is being consistent with the way he's always behaved, he believes that he has an obligation to manage the safe keeping of the clubs future and this is what he does better than anybody else. Seriously, there isn't another manager in the world who could have achieved what AW has with the financial restrictions the club have worked with in recent season (I'm thinking more 4 years ago than this year).
The problem with football is the 'must win now' mentality driven by irrational fans who merely want bragging rights in the playground/pub.
I am extremely concerned that still we have no centre back and TV is now injured again, but I am also one of those fans who believes that AW is still a genius and everything he does is done for a reason, and rarely does he get it wrong.

So in 2-3 years time we should really be expecting Arsenal to start winning some trophies again?

invincibleILeak (CL-6WF) wrote:So in 2-3 years time we should really be expecting Arsenal to start winning some trophies again?

I don't subscribe to the view that you judge a clubs success by the number of trophies they win.
Abramovic has spent a billion quid in 9 years and got a few trophies, if he walked away would they sustain success ?
Man City will no doubt win things with the money they're throwing around, I don't think it matters how well run Arsenal are it will be difficult to win in that kind of market.
Utd have done unbelievably well in recent seasons although they too have spent substantial sums to keep up with/keep ahead of the others.
I just want Arsenal to be a top class football club with a healthy balance sheet in years to come, maybe I've done my time of cheering trophies the only thing that matters is that my club are still in existence in years to come which is something very few fans of other clubs can be sure of.
Though I do accept that I'm probably in the minority of Arsenal fans who hold that view...

You may be in the minority grizzly - but I'm in that same minority

OK so I'm "only" an armchair fan - but if I was in a position geographically and financially to but a season ticket for the Emirates, I'd be pretty happy with the way the club is run - guaranteed top 4 position (at least up to now), attractive football, always in with a shout come the thin end of the season (even though we haven't crossed the finishing line for a while)

I'd be quite happy to accept that amazing stability rather than a championship one year and a fall from grace like Leeds, Blackburn (and you could possibly even add Liverpool to that list)

Davie - the examples are worse that those, where are Luton, Oxford, Bradford, Swindon, Grimsby, Sheff Wed, Sheff Utd etc ?
Dropping down a division after a bad year is understandable but those above have slid 2 or more divisions over a few years, the likes of Leeds and Southampton are on their way back having slid down 2 divisions and of course there's Portsmouth who may/may not be around come May.
I'm happy to be in a minority.....

Grizzly and Davie...Im an Arsenal fan of 40+ years, and im the same as you...I would love to win everything we enter, but at the same time, I am very happy with Arsene, and i think most so called Arsenal supporters will only realise how good he is, when hes gone!!!
I am DREADING that day.

John

'i think most so called Arsenal supporters will only realise how good he is, when hes gone!!!'

Totally agree

Well said both of you about Wenger.

In regards to Chamberline - I reckon he'll take the same path as Walcott, play some Carling Cup and FA Cup games, and come on and offer something different with 10 mins to go if we're struggling to break teams down for the first season, then develop from there.

(I mean imagine teams having to deal with the pace of Walcott and Chamberline running on to balls from Fab/Nasri/Wiltshire/Ramsey)

The funniest part (and rather annoying at the same time) about this transfer, is that I went to college with Alex in St. Johns College, Portsmouth. I was on the college's football team as the goalkeeper, when Alex tried out for it. Our coach turned around and told him he wasn't good enough. Obviously, that was the turn point in his life and made him want to prove a point. Fair play to Alex for getting this transfer to Arsenal, and I hope that it does wonders for his career.

There is no denying the guy has a hell of an amount of talent but surely that was 15million that could have been used to buy a solid centre back that you have been screaming out for years?

There's plenty of money available Steve, just a question whether Wenger relents on his policies and accepts that getting raped by thieving clubs and agents for average players is par for the course these days.
Personally I agree, would prefer to have seen Jagielka come in for £15m which is a figure we'd likely get him for....

You have to question these policies surely if he is missing the point that you aren't exactly strong at the back and won;t do anything about it?

I also couldn't help but laugh when once Chamberlain had signed, it was a sign he was going to replace the out going Nasri. Is there really any comparison just now?

AberdeenSteve wrote:You have to question these policies surely if he is missing the point that you aren't exactly strong at the back and won;t do anything about it?

I also couldn't help but laugh when once Chamberlain had signed, it was a sign he was going to replace the out going Nasri. Is there really any comparison just now?

For £15million Arsenal could have bought Roger Johnson, with enough money left to pay his wages during his time at Arsenal, could easily get many others who would help improve the defence.

Who said he was replacing Nasri?

Ah its not that bad a signing....i mean you could have beat our tool of a chairman to sign Obertan!

As a Saints fan I still can't quite believe we've managed to get 15million for a player who has never played above League 1 before, but I guess you have to pay top dollar if you want one of our boys!

Shame to lose Chambo because he'll go on to be better than Walcott IMO, but not the end of the world as he wasn't the best player in our team last season or this. We didn't miss him at all for the last 3 months of last season and we didn't miss him against Leeds United last weekend.

If he gets the right amount of first team experience (not just playing for Arsenal reserves) then I think he has the potential to be an absolutely brilliant international player. Lightning quick, has a fantastic cross with either foot, and can finish. And if we're going to compare him to Walcott I'd say Chambo has a much better footballing brain and his decision making is a lot better.

Good luck to Oxlde-Chamberlain, and thank god Arsene stayed away from Lallana.

Do you reckon Arsenal might loan him back to you for the first year so that he's still getting regular football?

invincibleILeak (CL-6WF) wrote:Do you reckon Arsenal might loan him back to you for the first year so that he's still getting regular football?

Nah. Nigel Adkins is very keen that everybody "in the building" is very much "on the bus"... in other words 100% committed to playing for and being a Southampton player. He's already faced questions on that possibility and wasn't keen on the idea.