Thanks to Arsenal I look forward to watching England again!

February 9, 2011

Now that Jackie boy, Theo and maybe even Gibbsy will be regular starters for the England team, I can finally come out and watch them again, during those dark days of Sven and the wags, through to the Capello years of giving Beckham 45 second caps, I just had no interest in watching my national team, a team that my brother and I travelled all over to watch, in 1986 I even went to Mexico, how’s that for a supporter!

Anyway, now there are a few Arsenal players on show, I can finally take an interest again. Though the picture of Jack in the Metro today and on Sky News last night showed him in the tightest shorts you can imagine, not a good look jack, you need to sack them, it reminded me of Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle!

It appears the Spanish have called time on the Cesc deal because of the money, they were apparently shocked that the chavs (who Bruce Buck said were going to be self sufficient by next season, oops) £50mil purchase of Fernando Torres, and said he wasn’t worth it. Rich of course coming from the slimebags that paid €67mil for an unattractive Swedish substitute forward. Anyway, they said they can’t afford him and the deal is dead, good, it was getting boring and he still has a contract with us until 2015. So come back in 3 years and we’ll have a little chat.

I was musing over the hypocrisy in football and the media, a couple of weeks ago I was defending Arsenal hating Sky pundits Gray and Keys, over their female lino comments and their subsequent sacking.

Well yesterday I find out they have pitched up at radio station Talk Sport, more commonly known as Talk Shite, what a line up, they joined a radio station that employs a drunk who thinks Joe Barton tackles are acceptable, a dogging woman beater that thinks he deserves a second chance (Peter Sutcliffe thought he did too) and amongst others, a failed politician that supports countries where women have no rights, still with their views on females they will feel right at home, good judgement call boys, says it all really. I am sorry I defended you.

Then I read that Mad Jens says he rates all three of our keepers, that’s not what he said when he was here, maybe he sees something in Almunia that he missed before.

I would like to end this post on a positive and cheerful note, it seems that star centreback Johan Djourou isn’t as injured as rumour suggested and he could be back for the Wolves game, I hope so for two reasons, one we need him, it will be a disaster without him, secondly it will show that his crock days are behind him, because if it was his knee again, it would have been curtains, we can’t afford a ‘will he, won’t he?’ situation in that position, far too risky, come on Johan, hang on until Vermaelen comes home, we need you.

Have a great day Grovers and enjoy the game tonight!

446 Comments | New Review | Permalink
Posted by Geoff

Theo aims to prove Capello wrong and I’m glad Nikki B is unhappy, I wish a few more were.

February 8, 2011

Theo aims to prove his omission from the world cup squad was a mistake, NEWSFLASH Theo, it wasn’t, you were hopeless.

Now that may seem strange coming from the man that once dubbed Theo ‘The saviour of England’ the same man that has never doubted Theo as a future Arsenal great, even when many fans thought him overpaid and over rated.

Let me explain my twisted logic here, Theo has always had bundles of talent, trouble is he’s rarely shown it for us or for England, this is the guy who scored a hatrick against Croatia and then nothing, playing him out wide hasn’t helped and if you saw his goal on Saturday, you may have noticed it was Owenesque and down the middle, where by the way I see him playing his best football.

However he wasn’t doing it for England and I think that Capello made the right choice, those that went ahead of him were even worse, but that’s another story, Capello not taking him was the toe up the arse this precocious and highly overpaid young man needed. Having spent his whole young life having smoke blown up his arse, he came down with a bump and probably realised he needed to start paying back those with faith in him, in this case, Arsene Wenger and me!

Well this season he started injury free and on fire, he has now added consistency to his repertoire and we are seeing the benefit of Capello’s snub, so a big thank you to the other overpaid person that is the England manager.

The great thing about having Theo is we have years of him to come and he will only get bigger and better, fantastic!

Nikki B on the other hand has dropped behind, I like Nikki but for me he won’t get better until he gets older, I think one day he’ll be a superstar, but I’m guessing he won’t wait that long, he sees the Afobe’s and the JET’s lining up and knows that he can’t hold them off and jump ahead of Chamakh, so unless he has a change of heart, I see him going in the summer, I like the fact that he’s upset though, perhaps if Denilson, Eboue and Squillaci weren’t happy being back up they might be better players for it.

If Wenger asked me to come over in the summer to wield the axe there would be carnage, he won’t though and I suspect few will go, I said in pre season that Denilson could have a Flamini season, sadly he didn’t and has proved beyond all reasonable doubt that he never will, shame, he wasn’t cheap, has cost us a ton and like Senderos, Hoyte and Aliadiere before him will no doubt just drift away into the sunset never to be seen again, I wonder how many points that lot have cost us?

So we have Djourou, Nasri and Vermaelen out, two of them our best players this season and one of them our best player last, what to do with Barcelona coming up?

Here’s my idea, what do you think?

Chezzer

Sagna Kozzer Clichy

Song

Theo Wilshere Cesc Arshavin

Robin Bendtner

Flood the midfield and play three at the back, now Sagna and Song have played centre back before so we have cover at set pieces, but with that team we can keep the ball and save us from the horror of playing Squillaci again.

Dalglish played three at the back and had Anelka, Drogba and Torres coming at them and they won that one, so what have we got to lose trying it against Wolves, who knows, it may be enough to turn Barca over, we know the alternative, we had a glimpse of that against Newcastle.

Have a great day Grovers, I hope I have given you all food for thought.

454 Comments | New Review | Permalink
Posted by Geoff

Arsene, the standard of the league is a god send…

February 7, 2011

You are very lucky, I would have taken a draw at Newcastle, but not after we were 4 up at half time. We now have to take all the stick of off every supporter we play as the only team in history to lose a 4 goal lead, thanks a lot!

Let me start by saying that because of a few weird results my shockng weekend wasn’t made worse.

We have said here on Le Grove that we are where we are because the competition have got worse, some may say that’s unfair but the Mancs going down to bottom club Wolves kind of proves my point, the chavs at Stamford Bridge used to be a scary prospect, now they don’t look anything other than a top 4 side, at best. Well Liverpool just beat them didn’t they, and they lost their best player, who by the way played for the chavs. But you all know that!

We may well have improved in some areas, Song, Djourou, Theo, Kozzer, Wilshere, Nasri and at last a keeper in Chezzer, but we have trod water as a team because we have gone backwards with the inclusion of Squillaci, Eboue, Rosicky and Denilson.

Diaby I have always said is one of the most skillful players I have ever seen, as well as being an awesome finisher, but he is also a crock, a thicko and a player who can have a mare as easily as he can have a blinder, after getting a red yesterday I have to question having him in the side, he didn’t act like Vieira like some suggested, he acted like a remedial child, like a spoiled brat who has no control and not only let his team mates down, he let us, the fans down. Squillaci, Eboue and Rosicky ensured we lost the 4 goal lead as did Wenger by sending them on.

Don’t forget it was the hapless Squillaci that passed to Diaby in the first place.

A mate of mine in Diamond club said he didn’t blame Diaby as he has had so many morons trying to injure him, he just reacted badly.

I said, have you ever killed someone mate? He said he didn’t think so, I said the reason you don’t kill people if they annoy you is because there are consequences, like going to prison etc, so when really annoyed or threatened you walk away.

I haven’t ever seen a player lash out and not get sent off (not since Charlton and Osgood anyway), no argument he had to go and he knew it, the only surprise was why didn’t Nolan go for his similar outburst against Chezzer, again shite refereeing, but we won’t go there, what’s the point? It doesn’t change the result.

Anyway as I said, by a freak of footballing nature we have  closed the gap, kept our invincibles tag for another season and aside from shitty and the spuds, no damage has been done, but mentally I am spannered, losing a 4 goal lead has made me a bedwetter again and I thought I left all that behind in my twenties.

Diaby won’t be back to bother us for a while, Squillaci, Eboue and Rosicky will though, I would sooner Miquel got a go rather than watching that useless bottler again.

I also pray that Song comes back from his little deadleg quick as well, the sight of Denilson trotting out again is enough to make me become a bedshitter, never mind a bed wetter.

Some of you may say did you see Torres, yes I did, but I also said I thought he was overrated and certainly overpriced, I didn’t want to break the bank Arsene, I just wanted a reasonable centreback and a tough DM to replace Denilson and Squillaci, and now we have Vermaelen and Djourou out. Once again we failed to act and once again it has cost us points.

It happens too often to say it’s just bad luck.

Yes we can still win the league, but why don’t we just make it easier, Denilson and Squillaci are not good enough, Rosicky has sadly had it and Eboue is a cheat.

But we go through this every year don’t we, I’ll have money you never saw Squillaci play before Gilles Grimandi told you he was worth a punt, because if you did, you must have had a bag over your head.

So next up, Wolves at home, a sure fire 3 points is there ever was, but I really hope you bollocked them Arsene, and I hope you docked their wages, because losing a 4 goal lead at this level is totally unacceptable and was right up there with some of the classic collapses over the last 3 seasons, Tottenham 4-4 and 2-3, Wigan 2-3 and now Newcastle 4-4, still at least we didn’t lose. At least we’re still in with a very real chance of doing something injuries pending.

On a very positive note it was great to see Ramsey get the assist in Cardiff’s win over rivals Swansea, great to see him smiling again, get him back boss, a one legged Ramsey beats a two legged Denilson anyday, or maybe we should play 3 at the back like Liverpool did and flood the midfield, could be better than Squillaci in there again. And safer.

Have a great day grovers, it’s going to take me a while to get over this, it was all so unnecessary, we should have been purring after the fantastic play of the first half.

P.S. Pedro has just had the pleasure of Irani and Brazil in the car. One of the presenters of Talksport is the most regressive, ill informed pundits around (that really is an achievement in our media), the other is there just to be the muppet. Imagine the indignity of letting another bloke call you Chicken Biryani? Humiliating. Mind you, nothing is more humiliating than listening to the average ex-cricketer talk about the beautiful game…

I digress…

The jist of today’s ‘debate’ was that bad tackles were ok in the seventies and Diaby is just a moaner. It was a great tackles.

So, today, I’m condoning drink driving, the removal of seat belts and I’m also encouraging players play football smashed out of their brains on drink and other illicit substances.

Just like in the good old days…

Anything else we were doing in the seventies that you’d like to bring back? Let us know in the comments section, we’ll put together an e-mail and fire it over to Talksport in the morning!

P.P.S Fair play to Darren Lewis for sticking up for Arsenal and saying that the presenters wouldn’t have the same opinion if United were on the recieving end of such a tackles. He also said, ‘there is this idea in the media that a bad tackle on an Arsenal player is acceptable, that’s not on.’

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

 

537 Comments | New Review | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Geoff

Disgusting Dowd ruins game but Arsenal let themselves down badly

February 6, 2011

Yesterday’s result will do one of two things to us.

It will build resolve into the squad and we’ll use the injustice to kick on and win the league.

It will destroy our confidence and we’ll stutter to a top 4 finish.

This is a tough match report to write. There are 3 areas I’ll discuss.

1) Our superb 1st half

2) The terrible officiating

3) The collapse

Arsenal started off with a bang, we were one up within about 40 seconds. Diaby passed to Arshavin, he guided the ball through to Theo who beat his man and slotted past the keeper.

A few minutes later Arshavin slipped a delicious freekick into the path of JD, the Swissman powered a high header just under the bar. A great delivery, a great finish. 2-0 up within 5 minutes.

In-between this early demolition, Chezzer made a superb catch from a high looping cross, he also dealt with a shoddy back very well.

Theo was tearing Newcastle a new one with relative ease, he sauntered into the box, picked out Robin who buried it past the hapless Newcastle keeper. This was incredible. 3-0 up with ease!

Sagna was next up with the great deliveries, he fired a cross into Robin with Postman Pat like precision and the Dutchman made it a brace with a simple header past Steve Harper.

Could you hear the Geordies sing? I couldn’t. Not a bloody word.

Koscielny made a couple of super clearances.

The half ended on a bit of a sour note. The filthy pikey that is Joey Barton took time out to Pole axe Andrey Arshavin, the little Russian didn’t seem too bothered, nor the referee for some reason, a sign of what was to come.

The second half kicked off and we were immediately in trouble. Our rock at the back JD pulled up immediately with an injury. We took him off and brought on the hapless Squillaci. Cue immediate panic.

For all those people who naively asked how we’d possibly cope keeping 5 centre backs happy, well, there’s your answer, most of us with half a brain saw this one coming.

Anyway, it didn’t take long for the dopey Frenchman to put us in trouble, his sloppy pass to Diaby created a loose ball, Diaby made it there first, Barton launched himself at the Frenchman’s leg, connected nearly snapping it in the process. Abou jumped up, grabbed him by the neck and pushed him to the ground, then a snarling Kevin Nolan ran over and Diaby shoved him.

Straight red as expected. Joey Barton, not even a yellow, as expected.

No we were missing out best defender, we’d just lost an important midfielder and the referee had taken his Arsenal hating pills.

Leon Best scored the first goal for Newcastle goal in their come back, he beat Clichy at the back, the second ball bounced nicely and he reacted quickest and finished.

The next goal came from a penalty. Koscielny was jockeying best in the box, the Newcastle man was leaning into him, a stray leg went through his leg, Best went down like a hooker on a promise, Dowd blew up instantly. Joey Barton of all people buried the penalty.

The Newcastle fans woke up after realising they’d scored a couple of goals. Greatest fans in the world if there is a chance they might get something out of a game.

Arsenal were in free fall, the loss of JD was evident, we couldn’t win anything in the air, the organisation at the back had disappeared and no one seemed to be taking the team by the scruff of the neck and dictating how we should play. We have superb on the pitch intelligence for breaking down teams, not for defending leads.

Their third goal came from a horribly bad decision. A high ball flew into the box, everyone missed it, Thomas Rosicky and LK challenged for the ball and the referee blew up and pointed for a penalty like he’d just seen someone bottle a Newcastle player in the box.

The most bizarre decision I’ve ever seen. Someone from the referees association needs to sit down and explain how that was given. It was the decision of a man on the take, someone so petulant and pathetic all he cared about was ruining Arsenal’s season. Truly awful.

Barton stepped up, and slipped it down the middle. Of all the scumbags?

Finally, our afternoon was killed off when Tiote, an incredibly average footballer, volleyed a cleared corner back past Chesney from about 25 yards in most spectacular fashion.

Robin Van Persie had time to have a goal disallowed for offside, obviously.

Our afternoon was already over. What a shocker. What a disgusting display of refereeing, what a piss poor display of shutting out a game, what a great example of why signing players when you need them is a great idea and what a bad day for injuries.

The Rant

The fact is, sh*t happens in football, things go against you, you pick up injuries, unnecessary red cards and the referees sometimes seem like they’re being paid off by undercover NoTW reporters. It’s how you deal with those issues that decides whether you’re a champion or not.

Arsenal fans have a habit of being excuse makers and angry excuse makers at that. Lets look at the facts, how many teams in Premiership history have conceded a 4 goal lead? None.

Squillaci has got to be one of the worst signings of Wenger’s reign, he doesn’t even have being geriatric as an excuse. It was his poor pass to Diaby that led to the Barton challenge, it was his introduction that led to panic across the backline. He’s an awful player and I can’t believe we’re now facing an extended period of time with him at the back (Like I predicted).

David Wheater would have cost us £3million, he’s 6ft 4, Premiership tried and tested, a potential international and he’s super in the air. Would we have been dominated in the same had we had him to call on? I’m not so sure…

Phil Dowd is a major talking point as is the standard of Premiership refereeing. Last week against Everton we were on the receiving end of an outrageous offside goal. Not to mention all the poor decisions that went against us during the game. Luckily we won, however, that didn’t stop David Moyes coming out and making false accusations against one of our players.

Was that on purpose? You bet your bottom dollar it was. There is an old boys club that bend over and take it from United (and enjoy it, ‘What can you do against United, they’re just superb’)… then when it’s us, they take it up the back passage because they have to, but then their managers use the press conference to level accusations against us. Have you ever seen that happen to United? Of course not, Allardyce, Moyes, Pulis, Steve Bruce, McCarthy, Hughes and Mcleish all eat out of Ferguson’s backside as does everyone in the media.

Remember how badly Rafa Benitez was mocked in the media for taking on Ferguson when he was bang on the money?

Sadly, this United old boys clubs extends to the referees. When was the last time you saw a shocking result go against them? What happened against Blackpool last week? A scandalous penalty they didn’t deserve kick started their victory.

What happened against us yesterday? Well, Phill Dowd for starters. The same referee who awarded Spurs the penalty from a Cesc handball. Ok, the handball was the right decision, was the freekick in the build up? Definitely not. How about the Sunderland goal in the 95th minute? The one where he let play roll on and on until they scored.

Yesterday, to me, he looked like he was on the take. His standard of refereeing was so shocking it was tantamount to cheating and apparently they said as much on Irish TV. Arsene Wenger should have come out after the game had a proper rant and took a fine because truly, refereeing like that shows the game is rotten to the core.

Questions for Dowd

1) Why didn’t you punish Barton for ploughing through the back of Arshavin

2) Why didn’t you send Barton off for his horror challenge

3) What were you thinking for the 1st penalty?

4) Why didn’t you send off Nolan off for head locking our 6ft 5 keeper to the ground

5) What in god’s name were you thinking for the 2nd penalty? Singularly the most bizarre penalty decision I’ve ever seen.

You’re a disgrace Dowd and the sad thing is, nothing will happen to you except a big pat on the back from your Man United loving old boys club.

For me, the referee should be accountable for his decisions. He should be forced to answer question about his performance and after a shocking game like that, he should be suspended for 6 weeks. It’s simply not acceptable to call yourself a professional and embarrass the Premier League like that with amateur decisions that smack of bias. Failing that, our game should be opened up to European referees. There is far too much United cronyism and there is clearly a dislike for our foreign players.

Joey Barton’s challenge on Diaby was disgusting, that could easily have been a sending off. If Joey Barton had done that to me, I’d have punched him. However, it has to be said, I’m not paid £60,ooo p/w (I know, can you believe he’s on that?) to be professional and not react. Ultimately, his sending off played a massive part in us dropping the 3 points.

<iframe title=”YouTube video player” width=”480″ height=”390″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/w897VuJfXQI” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>

Still, Barton’s just a bit passionate, he’s not that sort of guy and he thinks challenges like that are fine. So maybe I should leave this one alone? I wouldn’t want to dirty his character.

Leadership was once again raised as an issue on the pitch. We don’t have  it when our backs are against the wall. We absolutely were on the receiving end of some shocking bits of misfortune, however, you make your own luck in football. We should never have been under that much pressure and a team as good as ours should be more than capable of holding their own against an average team with one more player than us.

Wenger had a need that was well documented by him. He had £40million to spend. He didn’t spend it. We’re 6 days past the closed transfer window and guess what? We’re down to 2 centre backs, one whom I struggle to recognise as a proper player. This situation was entirely predictable and for me, Wenger’s inaction amounts to footballing negligence.

Still, like I said, it’s all on his head. There can be no excuses now. There were players available, like there always are and we chose to sit on out hands… like we always do.

The Good News

Thomas Vermaelen is doing really well in training. The bad news? Well, when we had JD and Kozzer doing fantastically as a partnership, there was no rush to bring back the powerful Belgian. Now we’re facing 3 weeks with Squillaci at the back, there is every chance we’ll rush his rehab. That’s a very dangerous position to be and there is no avoiding the cold hard facts… this is all on the manager and he was warned.

Alex Song was out yesterday because of a dead leg, he’ll be back for the next game. Samir Nasri will be fit for the Stoke game at home and hopefully JD won’t have a serious problem. Did I not mention Denilson? Oh right…

With a little bit of luck, we can avoid an extended amount of time with Squillaci in the side.

Finally…

United posted a loss. Incredibly, they actually lost to Wolves and they fully deserved to. There’s more though… Rio Ferdinand pulled up before the game and could be out for a number of weeks! That my friends is fantastic news.

We all know what losing a winning run does for confidence, United have Man City, Crawley, Marseille, Wigan, Chelsea, Liverpool, Marseille and then Bolton.

Those are some tough games and if things go the way they went with Cheslea, we could see points dropped in a few of those games, then we’re right back in it.

Basically, United losing restored our chance of winning the league in one glorious swoop.

Keep them crossed for the injured players, keep them crossed for the boys gaining an us versus them mentality and for gods sake people, keep on believing!

COME ON YOU REDS!

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

728 Comments | Match Preview, New Review | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Pedro

Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas’s vile tirade at the ref was disgusting…

February 5, 2011

… did we forget to mention it wasn’t at the ref?

So now we have the real version of Cesc’s disgraceful and foul mouth tirade at the ref, it’s easy to see how Arsene Wenger said there’s no way our captain confronted the ref in the tunnel.

That’s because he didn’t you ginger muppet!

Yesterday I called for the truth to out, I said there’s no way they could all be telling the truth, well obviously David Moyes read the article because he came out and said that Cesc’s foul mouth outburst was in fact calm, it contained no foul language and it wasn’t even to the ref, it was to the 4th official, and it wasn’t even a tirade, Cesc apparently asked the said official if he was paid by Everton, good question and to my knowledge that question wasn’t actually answered.

If David Moyes got upset with that comment, he has led a sheltered life and he quite obviously didn’t hear what I was saying about their offside goal! What a complete wa*ker, perhaps if he is so perfect then perhaps he should tell us all why they got rid of their Chief executive without an explanation? Now that would be interesting.

So today we face Newcastle without Andy Caroll and the other guy that sounds like a disease, Shola Amoeba. Well Andy Caroll wouldn’t have played anyway, still it would have been nice to see the most overrated player in the history of football play today!

A lot of people blame Koscielny for their goal last year, me I blamed Fabianski, he was on the wrong side of Caroll and at 6’4″ tall plus 3′ arms on top of that, he really should have cleared the long ball, he didn’t, his fault. Anyway, today gives the team a great opportunity to set the record straight, after all love is never having to say sorry.

We need to keep winning if we want to win the Premier league, there is no better way of showing that than in fact winning today, so I expect nothing other than a win, Diaby and Arshavin to get the first two and Robin to score the third, so yes, 3 nil to the good guys.

This should be the line up today.

Chezzer

Sagna Djourou Kozzer Clichy

Wilshere Cesc Diaby

Walcott RVP Arshavin

So a good day for the travelling fans should be on the cards, Arsenal, I still haven’t forgotten the shabby way you have treated us with this so called ballot and I’m still waiting for the email telling me why my £5k didn’t warrant me getting a cup final ticket.

On my desk by Monday morning please Ivan…

Have a great day Grovers, we need to keep the pressure up, nothing less than a win will do today!

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

1,838 Comments | New Review | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Geoff

Arsene Wenger is influenced by the fans, it’s official and the ballot. What a joke Arsenal.

February 4, 2011

So read the above story and see why Arsene is at last listening to the fans, not that I haven’t been saying for years playing the youth team will not only win nothing, it will kill their confidence, also winning any type of trophy will send a massive boost through the squad.

Now Mr Wenger is saying the squad need a trophy and it will be great for confidence and once we win one, we’ll win another, how funny is that, about turn, well done Arsene, all we need now is a centreback and a DM. Oh and maybe you can tell me I was right all along, because I was.

I have never ever doubted Arsene Wenger’s ability as a coach, his teams play great football and if we can keep hold of Cesc, Samir, Robin, Ramsey, Theo, Wilshere and Vermaelen we will go far.

What I have always doubted is his philosophy of investing in youth at all costs and dissing trophies, I also questioned his bonus scheme but now that Ivan has refuted that I will believe him, so on that one I was wrong and apologise, but I was right about winning trophies and what it does for a teams confidence.

I also hope I was right about Koscielny and if he continues to improve then maybe we only need one more centreback as Johan and Vermaelen are good enough.

However you aren’t right about Denilson, Squillaci, Eboue or Almunia and they have to go with at least 10 reserves. That should finance a couple of world class stars.

Now onto something more important, the Carling Cup final, Oh how long we have waited to go back to Wembley, 1998! To be fair we did go to Cardiff a few times but to be back at Wembley is just the bollocks, then I start reading that people with seasons are going into a ballot and only getting one ticket instead of two or in some cases, none at all.

WHAT BALLOT ARSENAL???

Now me, I have Platinum membership, so no problems, there’s only 8,000 of us so out of an allowance of 32,000, no problem. So I got in touch with Arsenal and they said sorry, you missed the ballot, no tickets for you. WHAT? WHEN DID YOU TELL ME I HAD TO SEND IN A REQUEST? You send me a million season ticket renewal reminders and not one for the Carling Cup final, so that’s it, you rotten bastards, 6 years wait and I get sod all.

Fortunately for me I have a great mate who has 15 coming his way so I am going but what an absolute joke. Thanks a lot Arsenal.

Onto the Cesc debacle and Moyes the madman from north of the border, either Cesc is lying, Wenger is, or Moyes is, they can’t all be telling the truth can they, now if Wenger and Cesc are telling the truth, they should take Moyes to court for defamation and subpoena the officials, I’m fed up with all the lies in football. Time to make an example.

Next up Newcastle, and a Newcastle team without their star £35million player, Andy Caroll, and another example of lying, he says he was forced out, Ashley and Pardew say the complete opposite, someone is lying, mind you, what a mug Dalglish is, Caroll is like a combination of Peter Crouch and Niklas Bendtner, I’m looking forward to playing them at the Grove, happy days, enjoy today, tomorrow we get to collect another 3 points!

Last thing, Samir Nasri got injured last weekend and after the game the manager said depending on the severity of the injury, he could be out for 3 weeks, well a week  on and the manager says he’ll be out for… …3 weeks, hmmm, this sounds like a Rosicky/Vermaelen thing, I hope not! Gell well soon Samir, your football club needs you!

399 Comments | New Review | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Geoff

Exclusive: Record Arsenal profits to disappear + Wenger’s contract clarified

February 3, 2011

So, two days into February and I’m already treating you up to some exclusive information I’ve weened from my new best friend Tim over at the Arsenal Supporters Trust. We’ve batted a few e-mails back and forth over the past few weeks and one of the topics of discussion was whether Arsene Wenger is financially incentivised to earn profit for the club.

This topic of discussion came about after Wenger said this in late January 2009 in an interview with the Guardian…

‘”I am on a very good contract. I am one of the few managers who makes money for my club every year. That is the most important. I tell you something, if I would not make money for the club, I would not be on a very good contract.”‘

Was Arsene Wenger’s new-found obsession with youth and saving money driven by personal gain? Had Arsenal incentivised him to post profits during the tight years in a bid to keep the ship afloat? An entirely feasible possibility… but would we ever find out the truth?

Well, Tim has only gone and flat-out asked Ivan Gazidis as part of a round of questioning for the AST, so here’s the gossip.

“Arsenal have confirmed to the AST that Arsene Wenger does not receive any bonus or financial reward linked to Arsenal’s commercial activity or profits the club makes. His contract is related to football success only. Additionally, I raised some ownership issues with Arsene last year when promoting Arsenalfanshare.com and he said that he had never bought, or taken shares offered, in Arsenal as he felt to do so would conflict with his role as manager. His case was that he might then be motivated by the share price and not the football performance. So that should clear up the debate”

So that settles that one then. Any decisions Arsene Wenger makes on signing players is entirely based on his gut feel and penchant for a bargain. Basically, he’s Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, guardian of £15.7billion, driver of a clapped out 15 year old Volvo.

The man loves to save, he loves the balance sheet and he gets off on sensible numbers. Regardless of whether he’s right or wrong, at least we know he only has the clubs best interests at heart.

If you think that’s all the goss we were told, you’d be wrong… Tim also had this to say…

“It is also the case that Arsene is one of the very few managers in football who attends all of his club’s Board meetings and contributes to the overall strategy including its financial direction. He is committed to the self-sustainability principle and is clearly respected and trusted by the Board for this approach which of course relates to why they choose to remunerate him extremely well and allow him autonomy over the football side of the club. So while he correctly isn’t incentivised by financial performance he is totally committed to and sets the club’s objectives in this area”

Good news.

Onto the not so good news and a point that hasn’t really been picked up by too many people.

Last summer was the first time in an absolute age that we didn’t sell a major player. Whether this was by luck or by design is very much open for debate, but I can exclusively reveal to you that this years financials will NOT be receiving the usual open top bus parade.

We will not be posting record profits and there are, according to the AST, a number of reasons for this.

1.       It’s the first year (ever) that we haven’t sold any major players

2.       The Property at Highbury Square is now almost done, so there are few sales coming through and Queensland Road not sold yet (It’ll be worth about 1 Andy Carroll when it is)

3.       The wage bill has risen (17 new contracts) as have the various bonuses and signing on fees and as Geoff keeps pointing out, we have a very large squad

4.       Commercial deals still locked into low revenues

So perhaps Wenger’s reticence to touch the £40million war chest is related to worry about where the next batch of money is coming from? Or maybe he just didn’t fancy anyone this particular window.

Does this mean we’ll look to shed the dead wood around the squad? Or does it merely suggest that we’re now on a stable footing going forward and that we’ll just have to wait it out until we can renegotiate our dismal commercial deals (2014)? It’s going to be an interesting few years on that front and it’ll be interesting to see exactly how low profits will be.

Remember, Gazidis himself said that now all the urgent debts have been taken care of, profit can be used purely for squad strengthening. However, if we’re kicking around the £6-7million area, that leaves us sniffing around the bargain basement players or resorting to selling before we can buy.

My big worry is that the AST worked out there was roughly £40million to spend on players this transfer window. That’s about the amount of money we received for Adebayor and Toure.

Are we only posting profits when we’re selling houses or important players?

The information we’ve received from the AST is more about clarification opposed to them gushing about how amazing Arsenal’s corporate team are at running things. For me, that’s quite important, it’s good to know that we have a supporters body that is challenging the accepted practice at the club… like disrespecting trophies etc. They went to the effort of identifying that we had around £40million available for players this window and keep it on the down low, but I think Tim and a number of the AST members were just as keen as we were to see a centre back arrive.

Keep that quiet though.

Finally, for those who say that complaining on the internet has no impact on the club, well, apparently, you are wrong.

The AST held an online survey about the club, which you can read here. Section D is about winning trophies and one of the main AST member gripes last season was that Arsenal were not focused enough on winning them. Apparently this document was passed around at board level and to Arsene Wenger. The conclusion, factoring in what the marketing team also read on the blogs, was that this year, things needed to change and so they have.

The power of the web and the power of a fan collective put to fantastic use. We’re looking extremely good now for a possible cup double. That gets the monkey of Wenger’s back, it gives the supporters something to cheer about and most importantly, it teaches the kids what it feels like to win a trophy!

I thought that was a pretty damn interesting read, I want to say a big thanks to Tim for sharing the information with me and I’d like to thank the AST as well.

If you’re lucky, we might find some more exclusives heading our way as the month goes on (some based on questions asked in the Le Grove comments), so keep posting your thoughts because rest assured, they’re important to Arsenal and I’m pretty certain some of them are read by people in high places (yes, maybe even God).

Have a great day, I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments!

P.S. If you want to use any of this for your own site, feel free but please backlink us and the AST, it’s common courtesy even if you’re not a fan of LG.

Follow Tim from the AST @timpayton

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

872 Comments | Editorial | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Pedro

Arsenal deservedly turnover Everton after shocking referee decision

February 2, 2011

Arsenal battled back from a majorly offside Louis Saha goal to win an incredibly important game at the Emirates.

The Frenchman put Everton ahead in the first half after straying a yard into an offside position, picking up a poor Kozzer clearance and banging the ball in with an incredible finish. He was clearly offside, it clearly doesn’t matter that Kozzer touched the ball and the officials totally embarrassed themselves in the way they handled the situation.

I mean what the hell is it with men? Can’t they do more than two things at once? Is it seriously that flipping hard to watch a game and manage a flag at the same time? Where’s a good woman when you need her? Where the hell was Sian Massey to right their wrongs!

Anyway, the goal stood and we had a game on our hands.

We struggled really hard in the first half to make any head way, our poor football from the weekend was on show again and we were finding it hard to get a foothold in a game against a team that sets up not to lose first and foremost.

Theo Walcott went close but had his shot blocked by Tim Howard. A bit later Kozzer failed to connect with a flicked JD header from a Robin Van Persie cross. Hardly inspiring stuff from the boys… half time was met by jeering. No one likes to see a transfer window close with no activity only to be met with an abject display of, ‘I don’t fancy it.’

The second half needed something inspired, like perhaps bringing on that Russian chap everyone gives a hard time?

On he trotted, Cesc picked him out with a chipped pass that was just high enough to cause Rodwell to glance it into the path of Arshavin, who watched it all the way and side foot volleyed past Tim Howard.

That is what you pay your money for, that finish was exceptional, that is why I love him. I also heard he’s not having the best time of it in his personal life, I hope anyone who has abused him over the past couple of months now really bad, you know, that kind of guilt you feel when you see a tramp drinking something  other than Peroni.

Anyway, we weren’t finished there, barely 5 minutes later, Robin Van Persie whipped in a trademark corner (that he pretends is a freekick) that looped high and towards the back post… who was on hand? Kozzer was… he buried home the winner expertly from 6 yards!

Is the boy turning into our Vermaelen in the second half of the season? Improved performances at the back and a penchant for a goal!

The game played out, the Emirates crowd went home happy and all that was left to mull over was the sad fact that we’ve now lost Song. Does that mean we should have rested him for tonight or does it simply mean that you can’t predict when players are going to pick up problems? It’s the latter incase you were thinking too hard about that one. What this does is create a horrible situation where we’ll have to play either Denilson or Diaby for some important games.

Chances are it’s going to be Diaby with Denilson out with a hamstring injury. That said, we all know how quickly players like Denilson recover in comparison to players like Cesc, Song and Robin. So I wouldn’t hold your breath.

I said yesterday that I think we’re going to take the cup double this season and that there is a strong chance that if we remain injury free, we’ll win the league. Already though we’re under the kosh. We have an exceptional first team, but our second string has been a problem. Song and Nasri are part of our spine and without them, we’re not going to look the same. Song is the real worry though… he’s taken his game to another level over the past few months and it’s crucial he isn’t out for too long.

So, Arsenal win ugly against Everton. After the run of games that we’ve had, I’m not too fussed about how we played. The three points are the important thing. Coming back from a hotly disputed goal also pleases me, in years gone by we’ve been prone to feeling sorry for ourselves, not last night, we took the game by the scruff of the neck and made the result happen for us.

There is a lot of moaning in the press about Cesc’s attitude towards the referees. How many times have I said we should treat the officials with the same contempt other teams do? There is no advantage to be had in being the nicest team in the Premiership. I’m glad Cesc gave it some last night.

I read an interesting article in the Evening Standard featuring Denilson. If you read between the lines, it reeked of PR intervention, clearly the new corporate team realise he’s not a fan favourite so they’ve sent him to a reporter for some positive press coverage… of which I have to say, was very good to read. The jist was that he stayed on to fight for the team at the weekend, he doesn’t mind being dropped for players he trusts and he’ll always go to games regardless of whether he’s in the squad.

The article also alluded to Arsenal’s youngsters being galvanised by great cup runs this year. Now, we were a lone voice (in the blogosphere) on that front for ages… now I’m hoping we’re starting to see the benefits of being competitive and wanting to win everything. If you think we should flunk competitions to rest players, you’re missing the whole point of sport. That sort of attitude breeds complacency, a problem our first team has certainly moved away from this year.

Lets keep our heads up, be thankful for a win and move onto the next game. The title is United’s to lose, the longer they go unbeaten, the harder it’ll hit when they lose their first game.

I’ll have an exclusive for you tomorrow, no, don’t worry, it’s not a story about how we nearly signed God on loan at 2200 yesterday, it’s an actual exclusive that you’ll find interesting if you follow the site and the comments.

Speaking of which, get yourself in there, it’s more fun than a pack of smarties.

To celebrate the fact that I believe LG is the best place to talk about Arsenal on the web, I’ll be trial running the following feature!

Let me know what you think of…

Comment Corner

Supergunner07 says:
February 1, 2011 at 23:25

Well done to the stewards in the blue quadrant exactly opposite the red action groups 4 allowing our section to stand up to sing. It created a great atmosphere, we sang the boys home.

patthegooner says:
February 1, 2011 at 21:44
Arsene, feel free to go on about Mental Strength tonight, for once we f*cking had it in fucking bundles!

Raynor says:

February 1, 2011 at 22:24

Great to see Koscielny have another corker. For the few mistakes he made initially (which you really have to expect coming into a league that has a clear jump in pace and quality) he’s been pretty good. The great thing is he’s clearly improving in terms of positioning. I think he may just be Vermaelen’s partner…I think JD looks a little less composed as our new fave defender.

Bengali Gunner says:
February 1, 2011 at 22:42

Clichy’s been excellent recently. I’ve always liked him. He seems to have worked on his defending, much more aware and his aggression and strength seems to have improved.

Walking Wounded says:
February 1, 2011 at 23:06

Moyes is a miserable c*nt.

What a grass, takes the flak off of his team, by jumping on the “jump on Cesc” bandwagon

Whatever was said in the tunnel, was both justified and as long as it was not to the referees face, perfectly fine.

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

630 Comments | New Review | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Pedro

Arsenal smash all records on deadline day, they didn’t disappoint!

February 1, 2011

Frank Lampard guards Arsene's millions

So we loaned out 3 players and got shot of one that we had been waiting for to be a star for what, 5 years? And for nothing, great.

We were the only Premiership club to get no one in, not even on loan, the only club. Now whilst I don’t sanction the utter madness of spending £35mil on a striker who has been in the EPL for 6 months, or the Chavs trying to buy their way once again to success, I do believe that if you need players to help the team, you should buy them, if our manager thinks the likes of Eboue, Denilson, Diaby and Squillaci are good enough to challenge for trophies then he must be seeing something we are not, clearly.

Yes we are in a final and that’s fantastic, but let’s not forget we played an understrength Spurs, and understrength Newcastle, a crap Wigan and lowly Ipswich, not hard really, the other trophies though need a good solid first eleven, and that we have, but only when all fit, the second string are simply not good enough.

We supply the footballing world with players, 18 loanees is simply stupid, how many of them will ever make it, 18 for goodness sake, it’s madness. It like going to the bar and ordering 42 pints when you’re alone, how many can you fit in for goodness

Still we’ve once again failed to act in a window and we will no doubt suffer in May, but will anyone be judged, no, never. Here we go again.

Onto tonight, I refuse to let him get me down, I am an Arsenal fan, was before he arrived and will be long after he has gone.

As usual the boss has told us how good Everton are, read all the pre match reports from Arsenal this season and every team we play are dangerous, still he doesn’t write a blog and couldn’t really say we should tear this mob a new ‘r’ sole could he, but I can.

I think we’ll win this one 3 zip. Even without our Samir, Everton are dangerous but we are the Arsenal, and as many say are second in the league and are still in all the cups, we didn’t strengthen so we have no excuses if we come away empty-handed.

This would be my choice for tonight.

Chezzer

Sagna Djourou Koscielny Clichy

Wilshere Song Fabregas

Walcott Robin Arshavin

That should get us three points we need and providing they all stay fit, we should be in a good place later tonight. We do have a wonderful team and hopefully they will get us the results we so badly need, there was talk about bring back some loanees, JET, Lansbury and Ramsey spring to mind but I don’t think we have, lets just hope we don’t need them for a while.

Pedro has some interesting information from our friends at the AST which he’ll share later in the week and as I understand it, those questions many of you were putting forward in the comments section yesterday stand a great chance of getting answered by Arsenal at some point this week, that should hopefully clarify the many concerns that were raised on here, let’s not spend hours debating it today, we’ll find out soon enough, if they are answered of course.

I expect a real full house tonight and I expect a lot of noise, as for Eden Hazard joining us next season, you can now forget that, the amount of money that changed hands last night will ensure he goes for £200mil in the summer, out of our league of course.

I really don’t sanction the sort of money that was spent, yes Suarez was a good deal, but the others were madness, utter madness and I’m glad we don’t do that, but there were a good few centre backs for sale that were good value and we didn’t act, let’s hope the boss is right this season and it doesn’t come back to haunt us, either way, he has no excuses now.

Over to you Arsene, have a great day grovers and enjoy the game.

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

1,497 Comments | New Review | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Geoff

Next Entries »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 553 other followers