Marouane Chamakh Is Finally An Arsenal Player

by Rachid

He's heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!

In typical Arsenal fashion, the signing of Marouane Chamakh was drawn out and became an uneventful matter but it finally took place today.

Chamakh signs for us on what Arsenal.com refers to as a "long term deal", which I'm guessing is 4 years. He'll be wearing the number 29.

About the deal, Arsene Wenger says: 

"We are delighted that Marouane Chamakh has joined us. He is a player we have admired for some time now and I know he will provide our squad with great quality. Chamakh has proved he is a great player with his performances for Bordeaux and Morocco in recent seasons and we’re all looking forward to him joining us.

"Chamakh is a striker of real quality and has all the attributes suited to come to England and do very well. He is also a fighter, not only a good football player, but a fighter as well. He is very good in the air and also a good team player. He is a great addition to our squad.”

Chamakh had a few words to say too:

“This is a dream come true and a great joy to be joining Arsenal. My goal was always to play in the Premier League and Arsenal was the choice of my heart.

“Without any hesitation, Arsenal was my preferred club. The team and history of Arsenal, they make me dream. My goal was to join Arsenal out of the all the English clubs because it is a club that makes me dream and I have been a fan since I was a child.

“I’m very excited about playing at Emirates Stadium in front of the Arsenal supporters. I have heard many great things about the stadium and I cannot wait to be playing there in an Arsenal shirt.

“I will give my best to this Club, the Club that I used to support. We have many great players at Arsenal and I will be giving everything to help the team win trophies next season.”

Now while I'm obviously delighted we've signed a player this soon and we're showing early intent for next season I'm curious about the role Chamakh will play. I've seen him play for Bordeaux in a 5-4-1 formation in two different roles. He can be employed as a wide right or left striker, much like Cristiano Ronaldo but he can also be used in a target man role in the center of attack. It means he's a very versatile player and I look forward to that.

I hope Arsene Wenger doesn't use him as a target man unless necessary. By that, I mean I don't want to see him competing with the likes of Bendtner and van Persie for the target man role and he should play it those players are unavailable. Chamakh is a lot like Nicklas Bendtner as a target man. He even misses sitters just like he does. What I'm saying is that we need to add to this team - add things the team doesn't already have.

We need more consistent wide players as the likes of Theo Walcott and Andrey Arshavin have days where they perform and days where they go silent. Chamakh's pace and technique on the wings would be very useful to us because his crafty footwork makes him a bit of an unpredictable entity in our team. Do I think he has all the technical abilities of Thierry Henry? No I don't. I don't think we can bring back the flair to the team Henry has for a while but I think Chamakh can go a long way to provide that 'something out of nothing' to our football that it's lacked since Henry left. This is of course, if he's allowed to play a wide role where he's free to roam the pitch a bit. He's very energetic and I believe his work rate will allow him to be more consistent than Walcott and Arshavin have been for us over the course of the season. I'll even go out on a limb and say if used correctly in a wide role, he could do for us what Ronaldo did for Manchester United.

I'm very excited about this signing and I can't wait til the preseason matches start to see exactly what role he'll be playing in this team.

Are you excited too? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below and follow the blog by hitting the 'follow' button to the right of the page. Until next time, dust!