Arsenal News 24/7Writer: Nick Simmonett 
Date:Monday July 23 2007
Time: 2:30PM
UK time is: 22:18:01
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'If It's Football, It's Vital'
Ljungberg Complete's West Ham Switch
Arsenal midfielder Freddie Ljungberg has completed a £3Million switch to West Ham United.
The 30-year-old Swedish international spent 9 years at Arsenal after moving from Halmstads in 1998.
Fiorentina and Machester City also expressed an interest in Freddie, but West Ham have won the race to sign him.
It's interesting that this has happened only 10 days after Ljungberg's agent ruled out a move to another Premiership club.
At the time Claes Elefalk told TT:'I haven't talked to Fredrik about that (interest), but he has earlier said that due to his respect for the Arsenal fans he can't play for another English club.'
Freddie had fallen out of favour with Arsene Wenger, and was likely to start next season as 4th choice winger behind Hleb, Rosicky and Walcott.
West Ham are only Ljungberg's third club since he started in football 25 years ago. He signed for Halmstads as a 5-year-old, moved to Arsenal some 16 years later, where he has spent the last 9 years.
Speaking to Sky Sports News during the press confrence Freddie said: 'I'm coming here because I want to build a great team.
'And why I want to join is because of Magnusson. He wants to bring them forward to be top of the country.
'He's willing to go to the transfer market to buy top players and mix them with youth players. West Ham have a great academy.
'He wants to help take the club up and take them to the top in England. It's a big challenge for me.'
All the best Freddie.
The exciting aspect of this transfer for Arsenal fans is the fact that Freddie will have to be replaced...but by who?
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Your Comments
Fantastic player for us for a long time, but it was the right time for him to move on. It's still sad to see him leave, but it's also exciting.
simmy8_2000
Strange thing is that the Arsenal official site says its for an undisclosed fee, while the WHU site the fee might go upto £3M. Best of luck to Freddie !!
prits
I may or may not get slated for this but.......thank **** for that. He HAS been a great servant for us, but he is also a HAS BEEN. Offered nothing to the team and now we got £3M and offloaded a 70K a week burden. Keep trimming that deadwood Arsene.
Rocky7
No, you're spot on boss. We all grow to love our players in our own way, but the club ALWAYS comes first. I said yesterday, that £70K a week is nearly a million in a season, a lot of money! With £3Million Wenger signed Toure, Fabregas, Clichy, Eboue, Merida, Djourou and Senderos - and still had change!
simmy8_2000
you done well to palm the little gay pants model of onto the spam imo.
locky
Yet again arsenal sell a player for well under his value, which raises the question why? Yes his wages were extremely high, but he made the club more in merchandising & he added to the squad in terms of experience even though he clearly wasn't the player from a few years ago....................If as was suggested above, he was the fourth choice winger, then why would Wenger feel the need to replace him? Surely he would think the club can save money by using a youngster such as randall for the 15-20 appearances he would've made. Finally, I would like to tkank Freddie for all he has done for Arsenal fc, he was a major part of our success & I wish him all the best, I just wish he had gone abroad!!
Ashburton Gooner
£70k per week = £3.64 million p.a.
GilzeanIsKing
I am surprised that he joined another Premiership Club after (allegedly) saying that he would not do so - I thought that loyalty from ANY professional footballer was asking for too much. Good business for you though if you get 33 million.
GilzeanIsKing
oh ***** year, I did £70K a month over a season! £2.8Million a season!!!
simmy8_2000
Following the recent trend of ex-players taking a pot shot at Arsenal, Freddie's comments also sound a little bitter. I dont see why players feel the need to do that to justify a transfer by talking down what Arsenal have done, rather havent done - i.e. not signing great players. He does say that he wanted to be loyal, which should count in his favour, I suppose.
prits
*£3 million *
GilzeanIsKing
You are not my Taxman by any chance simmy?
GilzeanIsKing
Haha. I'm sure you wish I was.
simmy8_2000
Well under priced AG? The dude is one of the mosy injury prone players for us over the last 4 seasons, he's been living on the back of his 2002 season. He's offered little since then and only scored about 3 league goals in 2 seasons. We've saved ourselves 6M quid. Good bit of business if you ask me. As for his experience........what use is that if he brings nothing to our game?
Rocky7
R7, so if we were in a vital game & there were 10-15 minutes remaining with arsenal winning 1-0, would you rather Ljungberg came on with his experience or Randall come on & give the ball away & try stupid things to prove he deserves to play?? I know which I'd prefer. As for saving ourselves 6 million quid, well two points, firstly Freddie wanted a 6 million pay off to leave, so can you provide evidence he didn't get it?? After all Campbell got a pay off to leave. Secondly do you know how much Ljungberg brought into the club yearly through merchandise etc?? I bet you haven't got a clue, you are just basing everything on his wages & can't see any further than that!! Why do you think so many clubs wanted a 30 year old injury prone player.
Ashburton Gooner
Thanks!
Adam Mansell
I don't know why, but I got the feeling that our Freddie was free-wheeling a bit recently, but rather than sell him I would have given him an almighty kick up the arse and got him to play better. I just don't like the thought of an ever-decreasing number of greyer hairs in teh dressing room.
Andy-bayor
I think we would rather Walcott come on. Dont use Randall in the point as that is silly. Of course we are going to pick Freddie. Walcott, Diaby, Hleb, Rosicky and even Eboue are above Freddie imo. This is good business and i expect a new player to be signed.
Goofle
And why do you Think it was WEST HAM who signed him? I bet he didn't bring much by the way of merchandise to us. I went to around 15 games last year and the only Ljungberg shirts I saw were old shirts. Henry, Cesc, RvP, Gallas & Toure shirts aplenty, hardly any Freddie. Arsene Wenger said that he wanted to keep FL, which means Freddie must have wanted to leave which inturn means he gets no pay out. Everytime Freddie got ready to come on the pitch I knew how it would end, with him on the floor. Why on earth would you prefer a player to come on the pitch, who's statistics prove his experience counts for nothing?
Rocky7
I dont thinkits rite slating freddie like this i remeber in the champ final how he ran his heqart out.....so let him leave gracefully.........and this ensures that we r defo gonna sign a winger.....we gotonly rosicky and hleb...since arsene suggests that walcott is gonna play striker..i think eboue is gonna push up.......and i hav a feeling ryes is coming back to arsenal..........so hum do u guys think we shud sign i say nuri sahin
karley
very sad to see another Arsenal player who helped make some of my favourite Arsenal memories but i think it was good business to move him on.
cheers for the memories Freddie now lets sort a nice new signing to look good in that famous #8 shirt!
Unwell
"very sad to see another Arsenal player who helped make some of my favourite Arsenal memories go"... i blame my keyboard!
Unwell
R7, I'm sure you went to arsenal games last season & spent your time looking around for people wearing Ljungberg shirts, if you didn't then your comment is pretty pointless!! Besides which I wasn't talking about shirt sales, I was talking about all the other deals Ljungberg had, which brought plenty of money into the club, some directly others indirectly. If however you want to speak about shirt sales, I bet the numbers in Sweden decline dramatically now he has gone!!..........Goofle, you expect a new player to be signed, based on what evidence?? If Wenger's plan is to play Diaby, Flamini or Cesc on the wing then truly he has lost the plot, because the team looks completely awful when they play those positions, all those players lack any kind of pace!!
Ashburton Gooner
It's called an observation AG. You telling me you don't look to see what people have on the back of their shirts? Wouldn't THAT be pointless to have names on the back if people didn't look at them? At the end of the day Ljungberg offered nothing, so he was sold. Do you honestly believe that the club would sell him for a certain price without doing the maths first? I do sometimes wonder AG, why you invest so much time into something that seems to make you so miserable?
Rocky7
we gonna miss u freddie...wish u all the best...hope u dont score against us when we vs westham...
fellow
been a great player to the club wish he didnt move to west ham tho wud of rather of seen him abroad than playing against us
Achilles
Thanks Freddie for the great memories. I do think it was time for him to go though. Also, if you read Freddies interview, why do all ex players have a go at Arsenals Ambition. Come on Freddie, I thought you had more class than that. Arsenal will be right up there this year and you know it, Just ask Sir Alex.
themadafrican
R7, no I can honestly say I'm not a 15 year old kid that worries what someone has printed on their shirt. It doesn't interest me in the slightest & whilst I buy the odd shirt myself I have never had any name or number printed on it, firstly because I support the club not a particular player & secondly because a player could leave at any moment rendering your top pointless............You also amaze me, just because my opinion differs from your own, I must be 'miserable'. Well actually I'm not miserable at all, I love arsenal fc & I will till my dying day, however that doesn't mean I stick my head in the sand & pretend everything's perfect like you seem to. I suppose if I had come on here & said I'm glad freddie's left because he was a pile of s***, did nothing for arsenal, will not be remembered & hopefully he will suffer a serious injury that rules him out for the rest of his career, then maybe you would've seen me like yourself as a happy go lucky kind of person!!
Ashburton Gooner
I don't worry about it mate, I just take notice of my surroundings. It's funny to note that when you make, for want of a better word, negative comments about our club it's because you don't have your head burried in the sand, yet when Ian Wright does so, he somehow isn't a Gooner. I will always appreciate what Freddie did for our club, but we have no place for sentimentality here, he's a rubbish footballer now and we don't need him, hence the reason we let him go.
Rocky7
Rocky and AG, now let us stop arguing among ourselves over something that doesen't concern us anymore. good luck to Freddie, he gave us many great years and some not so good, but whenever he wore the red and white, he always gave 110%, so i wish him all the luck and hope he has a successful career at West Ham. but his transfer has got me thinking that could it be that Reyes may stay back for one season atleast that Wenger allowed Freddie to leave? because it is really going to be difficult to find a winger in the market now. maybe we should go for Anelka now. he should be the number one target now..
luckys_10
I say good luck to the guy and thank him because he always applied himself. The truth is he's not been good enough now for some time, but I am worried that we are losing yet more experience and we should look to stem this tide.
Little Dutch
Whats left of the tide to stem, LD? There's only Gilberto and Lehmann left, and its only a matter of another year or two before we probably see them gone.
prits
u forgot toure prits and we know he'll be here for quite sometime.....neway guys.hum do u think we should sign........?Gamst pedersen anyone
karley
Toure is now our longest serving player, mind boggling really. I would really love to see Gamst Pedersen at Arsenal. And although it would never happen because his current club wouldn't sell, I'd love to see Wright Phillips here. I think we would make him a player again.
Little Dutch
bring in simao and puerta. try and sign quaresma but his price could b a stumbling block. maybe diego from weder bremen. as for any other wingers i don't really kno but simao would b ideal although quaresma would b immense. we need to sign two wingers as reyes will probbo b leaving too.
protocal
Hey AG & R7, both of you are right to some extend. First of all, I certainly would not want to raise any negative point here about Freddie since he was a gunner through and through. I bet he still is deep inside even he has left us. I remember pointing at the trend sometime ago that players who are approaching 30 & commanding among the highest wages would be the one to be leaving the coming season. I even mentioned Henry & Ljungberg & I was being criticised for being unfair. I agree with AG that we need some experience to effectively challenging for something the coming season. Look at Scholes & Giggs. They were still with MU after all these years when Arsenal are now in the '3rd generation' under AW literally. No doubt their influences have declined enormously but sometimes when the chips were down, they did turned up & turned the game around. Ljungberg did that too once in a while e.g the game against Bolton. Sometimes, it is this little thing that counts. On the other hand by offloading Ljungberg & Reyes, the probability of AW finally sign a proven winger that all of us have been yearning for is higher now. 70k/w is a lot though. I do not want to comment further on that except a sincere wish to Freddie; All the best, thank you for your loyalty & we love you
Joe_@**
R7, Ian Wright isn't a gooner which he said himself, whereas I don't claim to support all the clubs 'IN LONDON' so thats why a negative comment from me isn't the same as one from IW. He claimed "Chelsea is the place to be, if I was still playing & a club like Chelsea came in for me I would jump at it" that was when SWP moved there, personally that makes me a lot different to him!! I really am lost as to why you seem to need to attack anyone that dares suggest anything different to yourself, its a pretty sad state of affairs really, especially as you are the main one on here!! Maybe I should look for other sites that allow contrary opinions without the need for insults!!
Ashburton Gooner
Hold on one cotton picking minute, when did I insult you? If someone has an opinion that I don't agree with am I not entitled to question it? It seems that you don't like people disagree with you. I have never attacked anyone, and if you believe that thinking someone has a negative attitude is "attacking someone" then I'm sorry. Whether you feel the need to look for another site is entirely your choice, but I'd prefer it if you didn't.
Rocky7
Only difference between Ljungberg and Giggs & Scholes is that they still bring something to the team, where as Freddie didn't. Which is my point, experience counts for nothing if you don't put it to use. That doesn't detract from anything Freddie did, I'm just glad we don't have to put up with anymore of his recent performances.
Rocky7
We love u freddie...thanks 4 the great memories and all the best 4 the future...just a shame he never got back to his best...
KaoTeK
AG & R7, don't be so agitated. I don't wish anyone to leave this site. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. There's no right or wrong between you two. Move on guys
Joe_@**
* I don't wish anyone to leave this site, except maybe some sp*d
Joe_@**
Something I'm willing to do Joe, thank you. Back on topic. I've just read an article on SkySports that shows Freddie's return in his time at Arsenal. Last season he scored no league goals and no assissts, where as Theo scored no goals he grabbed a few assists, he also offers much more pace than Freddie. It was his time.
Rocky7
A1 servent,gooner at heart,but time was up good luck freedie- NOW lets sign a ready made replacement with a little EXPERIENCE a proven performer
highmark998
Yeah Rocky, those stats simply confirmed what we all could see, sad though as it was. 1 league goal in 2 seasons!!
prits
Ashburton Gooner, i now dont think we will sign anyone.
Goofle
To be honest I was giving him more credit than he was due, I thought he'd scored 3 league goals in two seasons. It just aint good enough.
Rocky7
He made his mark at Arsenal and with age not on his side he was bound to leave and enjoy his last playing days. Go well and all the best.
Zimbolicious
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