Diarra - Harry will play me
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Lassana Diarra believes his expected move to Portsmouth may come as a 'shock' to some people.
On Wednesday that the France international has agreed a switch from Arsenal to Fratton Park.
Diarra has reportedly agreed personal terms and passed a medical, and is set to be unveiled as Pompey's latest signing later this week.
The 22-year-old, who only joined The Gunners from Chelsea last summer, was desperate for a move away from Emirates Stadium following restricted opportunities in Arsene Wenger's starting XI.
Diarra, though, is confident will he find regular first-team football under Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp.
"My choice will shock and surprise people. Portsmouth is not Arsenal or Chelsea. But I know what the big clubs are," he said.
"I know the trainer of Portsmouth and I know that he will play me. Everything has been very clear."
Fed up
He added in L'Equipe: "I need to play. I am fed up of pleasing people. I am 22-years-old and the most important thing to me is football, my job, my passion.
"Portsmouth is a respectable club, which has achieved a very good start to the season.
"I have absolutely nothing against Arsene Wenger. Arsenal is achieving a great start to the season, so Arsene is right. I just hoped to make a name for myself.
"Some people say I made a mistake by joining Portsmouth considering Les Bleus. I don't think so. I thought a lot. I will play more often."
Diarra went on to admit that Lyon made an approach, however the French side failed to match his wage expectations.
"About the interest from Lyon; I will be very clear. At first England was my priority. Then in France, they could not pay my wages," he concluded.
Meanwhile, reports in France suggest that unsettled Lens defender Lucien Aubey could be heading to Portsmouth or Birmingham City.
Djimi Traore is also being linked with a January move, with rumours suggesting that he could be set for a loan switch to Rennes. -
Gunners sell unsettled Diarra to Pompey
Portsmouth have completed the signing of France midfielder Lassana Diarra from Arsenal for an undisclosed fee.
The 22-year-old only joined the Gunners from Chelsea last summer but has been frustrated by a lack of first-team opportunities at the Emirates Stadium.
Diarra will join his new team-mates for training tomorrow and could make his debut in Saturday's Barclays Premier League match at home to Derby.
Paris-born Diarra began his career with Le Havre before moving to Chelsea in 2005.
He was named the club's young player of the year after his first season but made just 31 appearances in two years and agreed to a £2million move to Arsenal.
Redknapp believes he has pulled off a coup in landing the player.
He told the club's website: 'He's a fantastic midfield player.
'In my opinion he's already one of the best midfield players in the Premier League and has the ability to be one of the best there is.
'He's strong, powerful, quick and can pass the ball. You don't play for France for the last nine or 10 games unless you're top quality.
'I'm delighted he has decided to sign for us rather than a host of other clubs. It's great news for Portsmouth Football Club.' -
Hmmm... Arsenal sold him for an undisclosed fee... That means probably not much since his salary quite high...
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DIARRA: I'II STILL BIG IT UP
Diarra... new £5m Pompey signing
LASSANA DIARRA last night completed his £5million move to Portsmouth from Arsenal — but then warned he still fancies playing for a bigger club.
The French midfielder, who has signed a 3½-year deal, said: “The people at Portsmouth know I will not spend my life at this club.
“If I shine, if a really big club wants me, I know already that everything will go well. I’m just 22 and the most important thing for me is football — my job, my passion.”
Diarra had only joined the Gunners during the summer from Chelsea.
He added: “My choice could shock people but I know the Portsmouth manager. I know he is going to play me.”
ARSENAL manager Arsene Wenger says his boys are hungry for silverware.
The Gunners, who travel to Fulham tomorrow, remain in the hunt in four competitions.
And Wenger said: “There is a real hunger. We’re all on the same wavelength.
“We have the same love for the game and that drives you on.” -
wow....
arsenal like that also can earn 3 million pounds(5 mil - 2 mil)...
super good investment for only 6 months -
fantastic midfield player? Among the best in BPL?
I tink harry is crazy. -
nah he is right Diarra is really a good playerOriginally posted by pierre^^:fantastic midfield player? Among the best in BPL?
I tink harry is crazy. -
but if he is that gd, he would be in arsenal 1st teamOriginally posted by ghimpheng:nah he is right Diarra is really a good player -
Richard Williams
Thank heavens for little boys who just want to play football
Lassana Diarra chose to proclaim his intention to leave Arsenal on the morning of last month's home match against Chelsea, a vital fixture for which it would be fair to assume that every scrap of the club's collective concentration was required. He did so in the most noticeable manner available to a French sportsman, via an interview in L'Equipe, and having read or been apprised of its contents some of us sat around the press room at the Emirates Stadium that afternoon concluding that the 22-year-old had made a bit of a prat of himself.
After joining Arsenal in September, already he had grown frustrated. The lack of opportunities coming his way repeated his experience under Jose Mourinho at Chelsea, where he had found himself behind Michael Essien and Mikel John Obi in the queue to understudy Claude Makelele. "When I signed with Arsenal," he said, "promises were made. But since the start of the season I've only played in League Cup games, or in Champions League matches of no significance. I'm not a player who's just come out of the academy and I'm not happy to wait around for someone else to get injured or suspended before I get my chance. It's a tiresome and dispiriting situation."
Ah, le pauvre petit garçon! Why on earth, we asked each other, had he not followed the example of Mathieu Flamini, his compatriot and club-mate, who came to London from Marseille in 2004, at the age of 20, and endured three seasons of apparent neglect before making his mark?
On several occasions Flamini had made noises about wanting to leave the club, most notably after Arsène Wenger redeployed him as an emergency left-back. His reward has come this season in the form of a regular starting place in his favourite role as the team's holding midfield player, at the expense not just of Diarra but of the much more experienced Gilberto Silva - the current captain of Brazil, no less. Couldn't Diarra see the lesson in that?
He couldn't. He persisted in demanding a move and last week joined Portsmouth for an undisclosed fee believed to be at least twice the £2m Arsenal paid Chelsea for his signature six months earlier. Portsmouth, he said, knew the score: a clause in his new contract said that, if he did well and another big club came in for him, he could go. On Saturday he made his debut for Harry Redknapp and by all accounts acquitted himself well in a 3-1 victory over Derby.
It was while the move was being negotiated that I began to see Diarra's point. As a child he was told by Nantes that he would never be tall enough to make a professional footballer (he is 5ft 8in). At Le Mans, his next club as a junior, he was simply neglected. Not until he got to Le Havre was he taken seriously and once he had been given his chance he did well enough to earn a couple of dozen Under-21 caps for France. Even at Chelsea, where he had only nine league starts in two seasons, he impressed Raymond Domenech enough to be given his first senior cap last March, and he has now participated in nine of France's last 10 matches, most of them as the replacement for perhaps the most effective specialist holding midfield player the game has ever seen.
"He panicked a little bit," Wenger said when the move had gone through, and for once the Arsenal manager got it wrong. Maybe Chelsea and Arsenal do have better holding midfield players. But Lassana Diarra, 22 years old, doesn't want to pick up a couple of million quid a year, or whatever it might be, for sitting on the bench and being tossed the consolation prize of a League Cup medal. He wants more than the money and the flash cars and clothes and girlfriends. He wants to play football and he wants to represent his country at the Euro 2008 finals. And now some of us, having come round to his point of view, will be cheering him on. -
ok noted.
But Arsenal's interest comes first. End of story.