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Saturday Ticker: Barca land Song, Zenit eye Nani, and more

AlexSong (Getty)

The plundering of Arsenal's roster by Europe's top teams continued on Saturday as the Gunners agreed with FC Barcelona on a £15 million to transfer midfielder Alex Song.

Song joins Robin Van Persie, Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri as top Arsenal stars to leave the Gunners in the past two summers, though the transfer fees acquired in those deals have left Arsenal with a sizeable amount of transfer revenue to work with for the second straight summer.

The Gunners, who tied Sunderland, 0-0, on Saturday, recently landed Spanish star midfielder Santi Cazorla and have been linked to a possible loan move for Real Madrid midfielder Nuri Sahin.

Song joins a Barcelona midfield that needed some more defensive midfield cover after the departure of Seydou Keita and the unsuccessful bid for Javi Martinez, who is heading to Bayern Munich.

Here are some other stories from Saturday and Friday evening to get you through the day:

ZENIT EYEING BIG STARS, INCLUDING NANI

The arrivals of Robin Van Persie and Shinji Kagawa to Manchester United has left the Reds with a glut of attacking players, and the chase has already begun in the quest to try and pry away some of the surplus talent from Old Trafford.

Nani is one of those players being targeted, and Zenit St. Petersburg has gone public with their interest in the Portuguese winger, with manager Luciani Spalletti revealing that the club has targeted Nani for a transfer move.

QPR SIGN BOSINGWA

Queens Park Rangers have had a busy summer transfer season, and they kept up the roster overhaul with yet another acquisition on Saturday, as former Chelsea defender Jose Bosingwa joined QPR on a free transfer.

Chelsea released Bosingwa after winning the UEFA Champions League Final (Which probably had more to do with him not being good enough than him hogging all the photos in the Champions League trophy celebration).

QPR added a boatload of new players this summer, including Park Ji-Sung and Fabio Da Silva from Manchester United, Andrew Johnson, Ryan Nelsen and Junior Hoilett. All the new signings didn't keep Mark Hughes' side from posting a 5-0 loss in their season opener against Fulham.

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What do you think of these developments? See Song making an impact with Barcelona? Think Nani will leave Manchester United?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. You realize that Houston only has one right now, and he’s only a do because if transfer fee (not salary)? They have the lowest payroll in the league.

    Reply
  2. I was thinking the same thing. Not sure how he fits into their style, but Giroud and Podolski didn’t fit the style today at all.

    Reply
  3. Fair enough.

    While I did note that, I don’t believe the projection. This year, two years from now or five years from now.

    Reply
  4. Vic, you are right but here’s the problem….only some of teams will take advantage of the extra DP. We pretty much know who those teams are. Most DP’s wanna go to the teams in big TV markets and some of posters in this forum seem to have a problem with that.
    LAG will have 4
    NYR will have 4
    CHI maybe 4
    Montreal 4
    Vancouver 4
    Houston maybe 4
    Toronto 4
    DC maybe 4
    Seattle 4
    NY Cosmos will have 4 when they come in the league and the haters are out already.

    The rest of the teams will barely get on TV and you’ll have to watch them on MLS/KICK. or go to the game live.

    Reply
  5. Sure are.

    Unfortunately, I don’t exactly have faith Wenger will use it successfully. Then again, the transfer market is a crap shoot at times anyhow.

    With 50 mil, he can surely raid Ligue 1 for a handful of prospects.

    Reply
  6. I don’t want to sound ridiculous but Mls needs to raise the salary cap in a big way and maybe add another Dp to have 4 per team. Either 4 or 5 dps sound perfect, i say 4 and 5dp with regulations. The reason why because Mls can easily steal stars Europe, not super.young but maybe 28 and above. Nani can be one of them for example or even kaka

    Reply
  7. “QPR added a boatload of new players this summer, including Park Ji-Sung and Fabio Da Silva from Manchester United, Andrew Johnson, Ryan Nelsen and Junior Hoilett. All the new signings didn’t keep Mark Hughes’ side from posting a 5-0 loss in their season opener against Fulham.”

    Huh?

    Reply
  8. Great move for Song. I’d be that in two years he will be the best all around center mid in the world. Could have as big an impact as Makelele.

    Reply
  9. All the new signings didn’t keep Mark Hughes’ side from posting a 5-0 loss in their season opener against Fulham.

    Uh… that was Norwich.

    Reply

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