According to the Birmingham Mail, West Bromwich Albion are weighing up a move for Kieran Gibbs.
Arsene Wenger has already indicated that the 27-year-old is surplus to requirements at the Emirates having left the player out of his squad for Arsenal’s pre-season tour of Sydney, Shanghai and Beijing.
Gibbs has spent the last two seasons as back up to Nacho Monreal but has been pushed further down the pecking order by the arrival of Sead Kolasinac from Schalke. With young Cohen Bramall waiting in the wings, the Gunners are well stocked at left-back and eager to cash in.
It’s expected Arsenal could receive anything between £8-15 million for the England international who last month was linked with Newcastle United.
It would be somewhat ironic if Gibbs ends up at the Hawthorns given it was the venue for arguably his most important Arsenal contribution – a stoppage-time tackle to deny the Baggies an equaliser that would have cost the Gunners Champions League football in 2012.
Several other squad players, including Mathieu Debuchy (Nice), Calum Chambers (Crystal Palace), Wojciech Szczesny (Juventus) are also being tipped to move this week as Wenger looks to slim down his squad and cut the wage bill before the start of the season.
Would be a shame to see him go, though lots of competition now.
He’ll always be an Arsenal lad.
He was always fairly solid defensively. many times he saved us off the line.
But distribution, decision making in final third never seemed to progress and not helped by his injury issues in a typical stop start career afflicting sadly many of our players.
Plus that’s gotta be about £200k off the wage bill if Szcz, Mathieu and Gibbs all move on. I got a lot of time for Gibbs, he’s never bemoaned his lack of playing time and always looked up for it when given his opportunity. Just a shame he’s just that couple of percent off being a really, really good footballer. All the best KG!
Don’t think we’ve been paying any of Szcz’s wages.
Risk of him waLking for free in 12 months if we dont capitalize.
Yup, real shame. Injuries did their bit too. Was really happy to see him captain the team a couple of time. If he does go, would love to see him get a warm welcome in his first game back..
Absolutely, I’ll be sorry to see Gibbs go but it feels his time has come. Wish him well, and hopefully a couple of injury free years of regular football. Re. the other 3. Deduchy can go. Things could have bbeen very different has Arcuntavic not been a cunt, but it seems some of that cuntiness rubbed off. Asking for a move to utd… unforgivable. Sir Chesney. I’m devastated at how this appears to be going but he is holding all the cards. We should sill get mre than 10 million though. Chambers story must be BS. Stones 50m, Walker 50m,… Read more »
He would do very well for himself at a mid table/higher mid table side. He’s got tons of experience. It’s easy to forget that we’ve actually relied on him a lot in the closing stages of games where we’re just trying to see it out.
He’s a decent player and deserves regular football. He just seems to have stalled in the last year or two since Monreal became incredibly consistent.
Good luck to him wherever he goes and thanks for that clearance against Hull. That was Gibbs’ place in Arsenal history cemented.
Pity. Genuinely exciting to watch him in the Emirates Cup all those years ago. All the best to him (if this goes through).
Wonderful professional. Will miss the lad, but would also love to see him do well for a mid-table team in the PL.
Good lad but didn’t cut it. I won’t miss him picking up the ball on the corner of the penalty are, waiting, then passing inside over and over again.
.. and the number of goals conceded at his back post. Did make a couple of important goal line clearances but let opposition into area too often.
Those two comments above can fuck right off imo.
Care to offer an alternative view? Or are you just into denigrating others?
I was not “denigrating others” just commenting on the comments as I always play the comments and not the man.
We’ve had a good tradition of local lads at Rback from the unmentionable Cashley to Gibbs (and Dixon of course forebearer)
Cohen Bramall is potential to continue the line.
…I mean Lback of course.
Somehow we never seemed to have local lads at Rback. We tried with Jenko but no quality all heart.
I’m not sure Manchester is that local to London. Lee Dixon was also a right back. You might be thinking of Nigel Winterburn (but again, he’s from the west midlands, so not exactly local).
Gibbo epitomizes the typical perfect son-in-law Arsenal player (like Walcott, Ramsey and Ox) who wouldn’t do what it takes to reach the next level. In football, it is not good enough to be a”Just another day in the office” kind of guy.
Our squad is massive.
Gibbs
Chambers
Debuchy
Ospina
Szczesny ( unfortunately )
Jenkinson
Ospina
Wilshere
Perez
Walcott
Campbell
Akpom
All need letting go and this is before we even look at buying anymore players, meaning more will have to make way.
This summer isn’t just about buying first team 11 quality it’s about having a mass clear out of deadwood
Wow you really want Ospina gone don’t you.
You’ve basically just listed our B team there- and a pretty good B team at that. Doesn’t mean they’re all dead wood, need to be a bit more pragmatic than that
Hardly…
Gibbs replaced with Kolasniac
Chambers was out on loan
Wilshere out on loan
Szczesny out on loan
Campbell out on loan
Akpom out on loan
Perez was bought because Welbeck was injured
Walcott replaced with Lacazette
Ospina wants out
Ospina wants out
Jenkinson would have been sold in Jan and hardly featured
Debuchy hardly featured
That still leaves us with a first team squad of 24, 20 of which are full internationals.
Makes a whole lot more sense when it is further analysed. I see you got many more thumb-ups than earlier. Lol.
Nice response Rich. A fuck load of youngsters to fill the gaps then?
Actually looking at the youngsters not such a rediculous idea …
Maybe not a ‘fuckload’ but 1 or 2 at least …
I was being serious and just asking a question.
I’d keep Clean out of that lot.
I’d keep *Chambers out of that lot.
Damn autocorrect.
Massive squad. Considering BOTH Leicester and Chelsea squads were much smaller when winning the title but then again they did not have Europe to deal with. I expect the Europa will not attach as much importance but we still need optimal rotation. 1) Ospina I think is staying. Szsc likely gone, I don’t think Ospina and the club were impressed enough by the offers tabled. 2) Alexis is 95% out of the door. I think we are dragging on it to see if PSG, Inter (or for that matter Milan), all teams want for reconstruction and flush with cash, may… Read more »
I didn’t finish your statement. I stopped with Elneny. I don’t think you are the real Santori. Elneny is average? When did he become average? He’s always been mediocre in your opinion. Where is the real Santori?
Our first two teams and reserves are currently: Cech Ospina Szczesny* Emi Bellerin Debuchy* Jenkinson* Koscielny Mertesacker Mustafi Gabriel (injured) Holding Chambers Monreal Kolasinac Gibbs* Cazorla (injured) Xhaka Ramsey Coquelin Oxlade-Chamberlain Elneny Wilshere (injured/physio) Maitland-Niles Alexis Özil Walcott Welbeck Iwobi J. Campbell* (injured) Lacazette Giroud Lucas* That’s about 33 players, and no bigger than your average top squad in the Premier League. Keep in mind 3 are notably injured right now and I’ve used an asterisk to show 6 are likely to leave or not games by suggestion of being left out of the pre-season squad and history. This leaves… Read more »
Considering our injury issues, this could be a reason why we are a little heavy.
I think we have space for 2 players in every position (20) plus 3 keepers and maybe 2 spares (treatment room rehab fills)
If you had put numbers next to their names we could have ordered them or not, just like a Chinese menu. Missed a trick there mate imo. 🙂
You can only register 25 PL players, 8 of which must be home grown.
Then as many under 21s as you like.
I would keep Chambers & Szczesny and bin the rest. Shame about Jack but he needs to play in a less intense league. The rest really are not needs.
Always liked Gibbs, local lad, great work ethic but just been usurped by better players.
I have also liked Gibbs as well. 🙁
You’ve been liking him for quite a while
This is true my friend.
Absolutely mate!
Not surprised they’re interested- he’s a quality player who’s only a run of games away from getting his confidence back. £15m is a bargain for him
I think the bigger issue which limits his price is his injury record.
As far as his best moments he also scored a pretty late equaliser vs. Sp*** a few seasons back. Sad that he never quite made the step up though.
We need to keep a few guys for the EL surely?
Arsenal through and through but in the end hasn’t been able to step up sufficiently.
Kolasinac looks quality form the glimpses so far. Fantastic reading of the game.
We know Monreal is still excellent if maybe not matching Gibbs for pace, reads the game very well and delicious distribution.
Bramall also looks very promising.
If Gibbs can find a decent team, he will still be an asset at 27/28yrs
Shame to see The Ox go, but Calum Chambers? Madness
When that happened I shouted at the TV “how the fuck can mark clattenburg get that so wrong?”
Deserves better then playing for Phallus.
Was wondering why no one mentioned it before.
He can go of course but I would wish him another club which tries to play some football at least.
Well, he might be their star man, their Özil if you will ?
I am waiting for the bid. €10 and a packet of chips. Thing is, another decent but average wingback just sold for 50 million quid. He probably didn’t have a year left on his contract, but you get my point.
No matter where he ends up, I’ll always be thankful for his header to clear the ball off our line to prevent a 3-0 Hull lead in the 2014 Cup.
…and the last minute block/tackle against West Brom to make sure we beat Spurs to 4th place that year.
A couple of memorable moments after a decade just isnt good enough. Makes me wonder why the player stayed so long. And makes me ask if he would have survived this long at City, Chelsea, United or Liverpool. We need to be more pragmatic. The players usually act in their best interest. Why does the club get sentimental on the other hand?
Feel sorry for the lad, he must have done something terrible in a previous life to be forced to play under Pulis next season.
I remember a while back a lot of the English guys signed extensions and AW said something along the lines of them being half the England team in a few years. Not looking likely now and will be a shame if Chambers, Ox, Gibbs, Wilshere and Jenks all go. Not sure if this is misjudged potential, mismanagement or somewhere in between. Still, the manager needs to be ruthless and the Ox is the only one who really looks like he could do big things in the future.
Thanks for linking to THAT tackle. Exactly what sprung to my mind when I saw Gibbs in the same sentence as West Brom.
Still no word on Jenkinson. Hard to believe he would place pay over play at his age.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! 🙂
Gibbs has done some great stuff for us and I hope he is reading these comments. He may not be top top quality but I would be very proud if he was my son.
I like Gibbs and always have.
Sorry to go on, but do you all remember when nearing the end of matches when we were one or two goals up and Arsene used to “launch the Gibbs” to just create havoc? It was great and so was he!
I can see your thumb down Jeorgebird, why would you take that stance, please explain?
Slightly off topic but there is reported interest from PSG in signing Sanchez, now that would be good if true!!!
I like Gibbs too. Good attitude, happy to be playing for Arsenal. But the time is probably right to move on. Arsenal get a decent fee and don.t have to commit to a new contract and the player gets to play more regularly elsewhere.
Glad to see Debuchy is almost gone..about bloody time. Hope Theo is next
Model professionals like Gibbs, Walcott, Monreal, Gabriel is what makes a good team, maybe not their ability per se, but their understanding of the team. They know the arent the key boys, they are happy to play as well not starting games, doesnt moan, complain, low profile off pitch, just a traditional player helping out.
Meanwhile theres players like Rooney who knows hes no longer a key player but wants to play every match and demands a 300k salary
I really hope we keep hold of Chambers! Would be a mistake to let him go imo… We need depth at cb playing with three at the back and he did well enough at boro and kept Holding out of the u21s. And don’t forget he’s only 22 (I think) and we paid a shitload of money for him back in the day…