Ozil is better than Cesc \ Real Robin our Dutchman? \ Reserves banished… good

You might not like the headline, but it’s the picture we have to paint in the blogosphere if we want our Captain to stay. If Barca sign Ozil this summer, that freezes Cesc out of the set up for years to come. The Turk is a cheaper option, he is younger and hopefully he’d do a good enough job for Barca as their back up playmaker to mean Cesc isn’t an option… leaving the Spaniard all to Arsenal… for eternity!

Mwhahahaha!

So, if anyone Spanish asks you, Cesc is overrated… Song was the key man last  year, assisting the assister and Mesut Ozil is the man for Barca.

In fact, tell them Ozil is so good, he has his own character in Southpark…

Jimmy

Ozil

In other news, there are all sorts of fantastic rumours flying around about what the England players have been getting up to in their spare time. If you haven’t heard them, I can tell you one thing, they’re more debauched than a Sunday omnibus of Jeremy Kyle. If true, and I pray the rumours are… expect super knock on effects to some of our rivals! For what it’s worth, I have a buddy who knocks about with an England player who has confirmed that there is an element of truth in the stories… take that with an industrial sized bag of sea salt though.

Sometimes I’m glad Theo Walcott is a geek… right now, the thought of Theo staying in on a Friday night with a box of crayons and a colouring book fills me full of joy.

Young Guns have revealed that Arsenal are ditching the reserve team in favour of arranging friendlies. The best kids will go into the first team squad, the rest will go out on loan.

That’s a good money saving strategy in my opinion for something which seems to offer very little value these days. I hope that players that deserve playing time get it next year. You wonder how long a player like Jack Wilshere is going to sit warming the bench. I’ve heard that people around him have pressed the coaching staff for first team action this year. Fair play if that’s the case… I’d do the same if Denilson was getting the nod ahead of me.

My favourite non-starter for the reserves? Goal scoring sensation, Isaiah Rankin. Who is yours?

Carrying on from yesterdays post, I thought I’d flag a few points about season tickets.

Firstly, if you do the maths, £10k for that WM club works out at around £192 a meal over a 26 game season. I’ve taken ladies out to swanky restaurants before; I’m talking posher than the Mayfair Nando’s here, and I’ve never ended up with a bill that expensive… I can’t imagine the type of person who’d want to get to the ground two hours early for every game for a sit down meal?

I digress…

Geoff has said for a very long time now that seat up take at Arsenal would suffer if they didn’t address the squad issues. We’re not West Ham, you can’t pick up a years subscription to the Arse for £500. I mean, it costs £100 just to join the waiting list. Anyway, the point Geoff made was that being on the waiting list and actually putting your money where you mouth is come crunch time are two entirely different things.

We stated early in June that one Grover had dropped 30,000 places over 4 years. Other sites have claimed this was a lie, well, since then we have had confirmation from a Grover on twitter who has dropped 10,000 places in a season, guest writer Old Bird who has dropped from 39,500 to 15,000 in 4 years and one of our regulars has been offered an additional ticket by Arsenal this summer despite not even being on the waiting list.

Whilst I’m patently aware that this does not mean 30,000 people have handed in their season tickets, it’s a sign of the times that the waiting list is shrinking by 20% a year. Arsenal will always sell season tickets, but they shouldn’t be lured into a false sense of security because people wont pay top prices unless they are seeing top class football. In a climate where corporate excess is seen as vulgar and an economy where we’re supposedly about to lose 600,000 jobs an Arsenal season ticket begins to look like an massive investment that only works one way… becuase the club don’t match your outlay on players or competing on all fronts.

Arsenal beware… a Liverpool like season could cause real problems.

Anyway, we both renewed and we don’t have visions of 7th… but remember the old cliché… complacency killed the golden goose… or something like that?

In transfer news, how would you feel about our summer business if it looked like this?

• Schwarzer
• Chamakh
• Mertesacker
• Joe Cole
• Kozzer

Schwarzer

Sagna Mertesacker Verminator Clichy

Cesc Song Cole

Chamakh RvP Arshavin

I’d feel pretty special inside. I think those additions really could make a positive impact this year and give the whole squad the lift we need after a bit of a catastrophic end of season collapse. People talk about most of the above not being experienced winners, well, before we won our first title of the decade, we signed players like Freddie, Gio, Franny, R.Wright and Sol Campbell… they weren’t winners in the Premier League sense but they were quality.

The above players, bar Kozzer who I know nothing about, seem to have quality written all over them.

There are some interesting stories floating around this morning. One of the is that Rosicky has received interest from German clubs. If he was to be sold, that could make the Joe Cole capture look a little less frivolous. On the Englishman, apparently Milan have denied an interest and his agent has said he wants to go to a club with Champions League football in England. I’ve heard from people all over the place he’s going to sign for us, but you never know what a stupid signing on fee can do to a players decision making skills. It’s interesting that he wants a central role… I’m not sure he’d get that with us or Spurs.

A nasty story that has sprung from Spain is that Robin Van Persie has managed to sneak onto Jose Mourinho’s transfer list. A story that I imagine holds up considering the special ones admiration for our man when he was in Italy.

When I was at school, if you were called special, it normally meant you were a touch retarded. I find it amazing that Mourinho has built a brand off the back of what is essentially a back handed insult…

Jokes aside, Robin is Mr Arsenal for me these days, I hope he builds on his status as a fan favourite this season with an injury free, goal scoring, assist making, title winning season.

I’m starting to feel a lot more positive about the outcome of our summer and I’m hoping we’ll start seeing some transfer action over the next couple of weeks!

See you in the comments!

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P.S. Found this picture of Chamakh practising with Song’s imaginary friend… he looks good, doesn’t he (Chamakh, not Songs friend)?!