Im with most people who thought this was crazy on first blush. And it probably is crazy. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed.. well maybe not THAT crazy. Sapong has a ton of athleticism, hes actually very good with the ball at his feet. Hes not polished, but if you asked me if he had the tools to play for a club like Arsenal, i would say yes. Just not the refinement in his game. But hes still pretty young, only 24 (late late december birthday)...if they can just polish his game up it could work... Probably not going to happen. Almost definitely not... but if it were to happen, I could see a logic too it.
I'm not saying Sapong can't still develop but 24 is considered 'old' for the big Euro leagues for someone to still be developing.
Arsenal have 3/4 younger players with Sapong's same skill set already. Why would they pay a high transfer fee and deal with work permits when they could just recall someone from a loan? It don't make sense.
Hes the same age Dempsey was when he moved over. I think 24 is really the start of a players prime. If you look at guys like Van Persie or Rooney, they really didnt become the productive stars they are today until the age of 24. The other thing is that he will still be 24 at the start of the next season. Buy him now, work with him for 9 months and see if you have the player you want by the 2013-2014 season. A few million pounds is nothing for a club like Arsenal. Finding a guy with CJ's tools who is polished is going to be astronomically expensive. So I could see the appeal of going for a rawer player who may probably wont pan out but is much much cheaper. This isnt a high transfer fee for Arsenal,its pocket change. Most of those players your thinking of could be sold on for a fee in this neighborhood. And you really think that Arsenal is going to be denied a work permit appeal?
Arsenal are denied work permits all the time. That's why Ryo Miyachi had to play in Holland and why Joel Campbell is in Spain right now. Carlos Vela had to wait as well.
Miyachi and Vela were youth players, and later were approved. Campbell just had a couple caps, and was playing for a smaller nation internationally then Mexico, Japan, or the United States. And let me be clear, I dont think this to be at all likely. Its pretty far fetched really. But if I were thinking of MLS players to link to Arsenal as a rumor, I could do a lot worse then going with CJ.
Since you're going to bring up Dempsey then we should point out that he had a much better goal-scoring rate with New England than Sapong (a center forward) does with KC. And someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Dempsey play almost exclusively as a midfielder during his time with the Revs? The point is that Dempsey was far more polished at that age than Sapong is now. He had already been an international for three years and even had a World Cup under his belt by the time he left MLS for Fulham.
There strike rates were actually fairly comparable. Sapong has 14 in about 4k minutes and Dempsey had 25 in about 6k. Little advantage to Dempsey, but its ball park. And Sapong in 2012 was comparable to Dempsey's best/second best season (10 and 8 respectively) in comparable minutes (2000ish). Dempsey played in the hole behind 2 strikers in New Englands 3-5-2 if memory serves. He wasnt a true midfielder really for them. I wont claim that Sapong is going to be a match for Dempsey, just that his credentials are better then most people are giving him credit for.
Wasnt their central midfield a combination of Dempsey/Hernandez/Joseph/Dorman over those years? I would hardly call Dempsey a deep midfielder in that group. I remember him having alot of opportunity to get forward and crash the box after his rookie year.
Players that have spent four years in college are usually late bloomers as far as reaching their developmental climax. Really American players in general, college or not, tend to be late bloomers when compared to their Euro contemporaries.
This has literally no chance of happening. Wenger is not about to spend that kind of money on a striker who only scored 9 goals in over 30 games last season, not to mention he wont get a work permit. And for those of you comparing Sapong to Dempsey, even if Sapong turned out to be the player Dempsey is today which is pretty unlikely, Arsenal had the chance to buy Dempsey over the summer for fairly cheap and they didnt do it.
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/01/3242721/sporting-kcs-cj-sapong-develops.html CJ isn't a heralded prospect like Carlito Vela was a while back but he is there athletically and, as been pointed out, Arsenal has been known to take a flyer on a prospect or two (Myachi was a high schooler). With his Ghana lineage, CJ can be loaned to a club in Spain or France for seasoning without counting as a non-EU player. Sure, it's remote but ... kind of possible.
Arsenal has made some odd signings recently, that are kind of in the vein of CJ Sapong. So I agree with you. It's remote.......but kind of possible. Take Park Chu-Young for instance. He was the 26 year old Korean forward that they signed from Monaco in 2011. He was good at Monaco, but nothing special if you ask me. He made only one league appearance for Arsenal (plus a couple of cup appearances), and they loaned him out. He's unlikely to play for them again. My feeling is that we actually don't want CJ to sign with Arsenal, because the same thing would happen to him. This is a club that couldn't find playing time for guys like Nicklas Bendtner and Marouane Chamakh this season.........so they loaned both of them out. Neither of those two are Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but they'd proven they were pretty good forwards earlier in their careers.
not necessarily. Sometimes guys need a little bit of time away to heal up or rest. Maybe going during the transfer window helps make something happen easier
His touch and feel around the area are actually pretty poor. The athletic ability is there. The approach work, work-rate, passing, and reading of the game are there. Could see him as a centerback project for a team like Arsenal. As a forward? Teal Bunbury beat him out for the starting cf spot until the acl injury. Most of his numbers(9goals and 2assists) from last season came from crashing in from the left wing spot in SKC's 4231ish formation. The more relevant(than to Clint Dempsey of all people) comparison would be Eddie Johnson and role he played in the last two WCQers playing as winger in 4411.