Quick post today because I absolutely hammered your reading eyes with 1800 words yesterday!
So, the main news yesterday was two-fold. Firstly, Chelsea beat Manchester City. David Luiz put on a masterful performance and showed Arsene Wenger the way in the, ‘this is what spending money gets you’ stakes. A clean sheet from Chelsea and a goal from a player who looks like a bit of a unit at the back and a threat going forward. Was his availability a mystery to all in world football? No… We’d spoken about him on here before. Was his price prohibitively out of our range? Nope, we had £40million available. Was there any desire to buy him?
No… as always.
The other news was that Liverpool beat Sunderland 2-0. Liverpool are starting to look like a threat again and Kenny Dalglish, against the odds has started to restore a bit of confidence to their shaky squad. My old boss who is a Liverpool season ticket holder said that Kenny Dalglish would show the players what it meant to play for Liverpool. Well, he’s certainly done that and the signing of Luis Suarez appears to be a masterstroke. I had my doubts, being good in Holland means nothing generally. The main ingredient he has over the likes of Alves, Kezman and other top scoring Eredivisie flops is that nasty streak. He has that same spark Robin and Bergkamp have/had…
Again though, if there’s a chance of picking up a player on a free after 18months… we’ll take that option everyday of the week. Chamakh is a good back up striker, but for me, he’s far too similar to Nik B. You can’t have a 1st team striker and two 3rd choice strikers.
When the summer comes, we need to make moves for a top striker to compete with Robin. He needs to be fit, creative and hugely aggressive. I’m gonna put it out there… we need a player like Adebayor… you know, the player who was fighting for recognition and a contract. Not fat on praise Ade…
We need a top notch back up defender. Ideally, I’d love someone like Gary Cahill. He’s English, he’s good on the floor, good in the air and hungry to prove he can make it at the highest level. He’s a great option because he’ll cherish being at a club as big as Arsenal and it’s highly unlikely he’ll ever harbour ambitions to play for Milan or Madrid!
Also, if I was allowed to complete my fantasy summer, I’m going for a hard tackling, dynamic, pacey central midfielder. We need someone with experience of winning, around 26 years of age and a leader. Sorry to say it people, but I’m struggling to see past Bastian Schweinsteiger. We heard that we were interested in him last summer and we made a tentative enquiry, so we know the coach rates him. A year on after signing a new deal, Bayern have had a shocking year by their standards, the coach is leaving at the end of the year and we know they’re very interested in a Bendtner. The classy German won’t have too many chances to move, he’s already admitted he like Arsenal… could there be an opportunity to sign him if we raise £30million through sales and offer the greatest player since Pele in exchange?
Who knows… what I am convinced of is that the feeling of the fans won’t have gone unnoticed by the board members at Arsenal. I’d imagine anyone reconsidering renewing a box will be asking Arsenal what their plans are with players in the summer… there’s nothing harder than filling a fifteen seater box, believe me, Geoff had problems during the good times, people baulk even at a free ticket. Corporate buyers won’t want to lay out money for wasted seats… hopefully they’ll communicate their concerns to Arsenal.
Hopefully Gazidis and Tom Fox will have a quiet word with Wenger about his squad plans this year…
In other news…
The Olympics haven’t contacted us about PR for their football, obviously a London based football blog wouldn’t have thousands of people interested in information about tickets to the biggest show of 2012, so I thought I’d take some initiative and tell you about the opportunities as my brother left a letter addressed to him lying around the house!
The application for tickets to the football has already started and runs until the 26th April. Prices start at £20 a go up to £50. Kids under 16 get a pay your age tickets, so if they’re 8, they pay £8! I think that sounds like a bargain and I think if you live near the venues in Manchester, Newcastle, Coventry, London, Cardiff or Glasgow… you should support it and take your kids if you haven’t. Find the tickets here…
Jack Wilshere escaped punishment after attempting to spit at a cabbie wearing a Spurs hat. Now, whilst I understand the urge, we’re supposed to be civilised and actions like spitting really are deplorable even from a player I love as much as Jack. Be careful son, you don’t want to get a reputation like Andy Carroll or Diouf.
Anyone hoping Jens could save our season had their hopes dashed yesterday.Wenger had this to say of mad Jens…
‘He looks like a guy who’s not been involved for a long time but has kept his body fit. He has the basic physical fitness but he lacks a little bit of decision-making and practice in goal’
Ha, ha he just described Almunia didn’t he!
Interesting to hear Bob Wilson being so vocal about Arsenal being a nearly team? I thought anyone who questioned Wenger was a traitorous swine? Maybe Arsenal have told him they’re dropping his Charity…?
Cesc and Theo should be back after the international break and hopefully,Alex song will return to the fold. Blackburn should be a walkover, mind you, I thought that about West Brom! Anyway, International week… about as welcome as a cup of warm goats milk after a 5k run. News stories are going to be at a premium… anything content ideas for the week, please let me know in the comments!
Finally, I’ll end on a wallet busting note… but it looks like our new strip has been leaked. They’ve gone to town on the design and basically changed nothing. I’m hoping if they’re replicating the blue lightning strip for the away kit, they’ll add some hooped socks for the home shirt. If they don’t, I’d really feel a bit miffed if I was a parent looking down the barrel of another £60 replica shirt…
The joys of being an Arsenal fan eh?
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Woah I haven’t been checking on the stats but are those Arshavin stats real? They’re pretty good
Jimbo
forget it, it isn’t the point i was trying to make.
just saying i don’t particularly enjoy it when i hear the media and the ex players talk about arsenal. Especially when they’re not working for the club, hence it’s just another opinion
gambon – Depends on the rest of the team really, Arshavin takes plenty of shots, same with Nani he’s a greedy little shit, I bet there’s others in the team that don’t take as many shots.
Arshavin is good. Very good.
We need to keep him, or replace him with a player who can score / assist. NOT someone like Eden Hazard (who is v. talented, but 2-3 years from really impacting the top level).
Rohan
I’ve said many times that Nasri can be as good as he wants to be. The problem is I don’t think he has the right mentality.
We only really “crab” as such when Cesc is missing or when we don’t have an outlet to stretch defences or when teams just play with 10 men behind the ball and usually all 3.
When Theo Cesc Nasri and van Persie play, we don’t seem to have the same problems do we.
Nasri still hasn’t come to terms with playing centrally and pulling the strings there. He needs more time there as Pedro said.
For us to stretch defences, we need someone like Theo or a hungry Arshavin…. That’s why I’d like to see some more pace injected into the front 3 with Hazard giving the likes of Theo and Arshavin some more competition.
i am 21, mid 90′s is hard to remember. he started his career in the late 70′s/early 80′s hasn’t he?
Arshavin’s supposedly only taken 63 shots for his 6 goals.
Let’s be fair to nasri, if you’ve got B52 trying to put the ball in the net your not going to get many assists
Rohan u sounding more and more like A these days
first is Bastian wont fit our system
now its “its Theo that creates Nasri space”
i might have to remind you that most of the goals NAsri have scored this season have been spectacular goals as a result of his individual brilliance and not Theo creating him space. I can remember a few goals right of the top of my head.
Dude was been marked by 2 or more people
remember the 2 goals against Fulham
off to bed, night
Also how have u worked out that Samir hasnt linked well with Van Persie?
theo doesn’t create space Rohan, he runs toward the corner flag
gambon – What mentality does he need ?!
Gooby – he was here for almost 20 tyears
basically a one club player.
I never said that Bastian wouldn’t fit in our system. Stop twisting my words. All I said was that he’s too similar a player to Wilshere and I’d rather we bought someone else instead of wasting our money on him and killing “one of our best players”.
Franchise – Exactly, go to the Fulham game, watch both those goals.
Arshavin creates the space for the first runs at the defence and puts them out of position, and then watch Van Persie’s pass for the second one, he’s still got a lot of work to do, but it’s because the defence is out of position watching Van Persie in the first place.
How many games have you watched us pass it across the defence, it’s because you need to pick the right ball at the right time, and that comes with experience.
They have mental strength and very short backlift, they’ll win the league
nite
Van Persie’s supposedly had 50 shots for his 11 goals.
Rohan
no one is going to kill wilshere, he’ll be better than bastian anyway.
——wilshere—song–bastian—- —
rambo, frimpong, lansbury, diaby off the bench. that midfield seems balanced, strong, technical, creative,
Rohan watch this clip of NAsri’s first half of 2010 season and you’ll see that most of Samir’s goals didnt involve Walcott but Van Persie and Arshavin. IN fact I dont think Walcott featured in the video at all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7wyHLop8iM&feature=related
my point is let us seperate fact from fiction
Samir is off form and it has nothing to do with Theo
We miss Cesc as a team we also miss Walcott
but it will be silly to blame their absences for NAsri’s poor form
You will think in Cesc absence Nasri will start to chalk off some assists even if the goals dry up but it aint happening
Just from what I’ve seen, Fran. van Persie likes to drop into those pockets of space that Nasri likes to occupy and start making his runs from.
The Fulham goal was as a result of van Persie creating space for Nasri to run into with a dummy and sliding a pass in. Either way, right now he’s not making those runs into the box.
Don’t think he’s in poor form either Franchise.
rohan compared to before January yes he is off form
or should we start counting how he assists the assister?
anyways im off to bed
have a good night guys
Franchise the assist stat is bullshit, because you rely on someone else for you to gain that stat
Most of his goals are as a result of space opening up and him running into the box.
For some reason, he’s struggling to make those runs and that’s because he’s forced to go deeper and deeper into midfield to get the ball because Cesc isn’t there to thread the ball forward and orchestrate play.
Franchise – I don’t think you understand what we’re trying to say.
You need to stop making up your own fiction, if we miss Cesc and Theo as a team then obviously it will affect Nasri.
Where did Nasri play against West Brom ? Wide right, he had Denilson, Wilshere and Ramsey to feed off, they didn’t create much of anything.
In the second half he dropped in midfield to partner Wilshere, what did you expect from him there ? He kept the ball moving, raced back to stop counter attacks and unlike the first half made sure the front 3-4 had enough of the ball in the right areas.
It’s not really poor form, more that Nasri has had to change positions and play a different role, he needs to learn it before he becomes truly effective.
This season Walcott and Nasri have scored more goals, and yet Fabregas has scored fewer, they’ve all missed games.
He’s more than contributing to our team imo. Doesn’t look out of sorts at all and has been one of our best players. Been compact efficient. Hardly in poor form.
Cheers Franchise.
keyser its not like Cesc has been missing since December
the goals have dried up for Nasri the assists are not there
he is off form. i hope u know CM is his preferred position as a no 10.
night
Franchise – He was sitting deeper than Wilshere against West Brom, you can say he’s off form, just don’t make stuff up.
The number 10 position is usually attacking mid or just off the striker, at least that’s what I think you mean.
Anyways Good Night.
Nasri is one of or better players who should take a leaf out of Messi’s book instead he frustrates when slowing the game down.
The problem with the whole attack of the team is the balance isn’t right.
Arshavin, Van Persie, Cesc, Theo all want to get forward fast with quick pass and moves. Sometimes Van Persie frustrates too as he dwells to long on the ball.
Then there is Denilson,Song,Nasri,Diaby. They all want to hold the ball to long and pass sideways or even backwards. Lastly how many of this team can actually dribble the ball?
I read earlier the raving Manc cunt comments about how they beat us with a shit back four.
I will tell you how. It was in fact a shit back eight as far as I can remember. Yes they won but they played with almost everyone including the fat pikey behind the ball. They played a team who just lost a cup final and took a beating at Barca, they played a team with the spine missing a team without a Keeper. They played at home where they haven’t lost for months. Yes they played at home with a back eight yet their keeper was still MOTM.
We lost again to them and their Manager outwitted ours yet again but I watched the so called best team in the country defend for their lives agains a so called shit Arsenal who were missing. A keeper,Song,Cesc,Walcott and played an unfit RVP.
However I see it doesn’t matter as we lost again but lets also see that they and every other team we play change their style when they play us.
I see that as a compliment and something we need to improve on to make them think again about defending with all defence and midfield on the edge of or inside their own area.
With our better finishers playing and a keeper who the back two have confidence in we look great but when we get a cunt like the Clown in goal and Denilson,Diaby,Clichy etc fucking up again things just don’t change.
Why does Clichy escape criticism yet again as he was the start of the total fuck up goal at the Albion when he bottled a challenge on the edge of their box.
This fella is another we could do with letting go.
we outplay them yet can’t hit the back of the net
el tel, Ferguson knew his team wasn’t as talented as ours. Arguably, nor is his squad. I think it is a fair claim that we have the best starting 11 when fit in the Prem.
However, Ferguson knows how to beat us because we only play one way. We have very little width, even with Walcott, and we don’t produce quality balls into the box as our wing backs are unable to clear the first man. We hardly ever score from set plays, so they can foul us in the middle with impunity too.
And we have long since ceased to be an adept counter-attacking side, because 1) We have no speed up the flanks apart from Theo, who prefers to run for it rather than with it as I can see and 2) we don’t have a speedy forward to take the defenders away with midfield runs.
I wouldn’t say Ferguson’s tactics spoiled us. On the contrary, it shows how naive he thinks we are: he was convinced that if he killed our central midfield play, that we would never score. He also knew if he got one or two strikes on goal then he would score one or two goals. He was right on both counts. It was a version of what Wenger tried to do against Barca, excpet Man U can keep a clean sheet and we cannot.
I just had a thought, reading back through some earlier comments, and it relates to potentially what is the most frustrating thing about our team.
Is it not essentially academic to spend time discussing Nasri, Fabregas and Arshavin’s best positions when we have Coco or 37 year-old Lehman in goal? Like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, or a monkey with makeup…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Our first 11 is world class.
your right rohan, so is the manager, its just a shame the manager sent his sanity on a long holiday, probably with the 1st 11, as i cant remember them ever playing together!
http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Arsenal-Blunder-keeper-Manuel-Almunia-has-promised-Gunners-fans-their-title-hopes-are-safe-in-his-hands-despite-his-costly-clanger-against-West-Brom-article716201.html
why cant the players just have a big cup of shut the fuck up……doing it on the pitch and then speaking is what you should do, this will go down as one of the biggest footballing embarrassments ever!
Moray,
you have to use your players to their strengths, simple as that…
sure, there are a few criminally bad apples in the squad but there is nothing we can do about it before the season ends, hence we should just use the good ones where they work the best, as it improves the odds of outscoring the other team if nothing else…
off to work, have a good day, y’all
The UN says if it captures Gaddafi they’ll put him where he can’t do any harm to anyone. Up front for Arsenal!
from twitter LOL
Rohan
I think what you mean is our firxt XI was world class in one game vs Chelsea in December.
vs barca at home
va mancity @ home
vs Birmingham away
gambon those were world class performance too
Morning all, I’m still hurting so I collected my thoughts and decided to say what I feel for once, enjoy! New post.
NEW POST!
Arsene is assassinating Arsenal
By Echezona Asuzu
I am one out of millions of Arsenal fans who are currently in painful quiescence. My heart bleeds for Arsenal not because of our streak of poor results, especially when it matters most, but because our wounds are largely self inflicted. It beats and bites me that Arsenal has gone six years without a single trophy. Could there be a better assassin assassinating Arsenal than Arsene? In football, your pedigree is as good as your last result; I wish it were about the last result for Arsenal. Six years without a sniff at even the community shield…I need a break! Arsenal is a big club in the class of Man U, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Liverpool and the rest yet Arsene Wenger’s philosophy of “cosmebabyish” football has drained Arsenal of every iota of ambition. What can you ever achieve in life without ambition? When you see Arsenal players on the pitch, it is so obvious that they lack the hunger to do that extra thing that would always make the difference when the going gets tough.
Added to lack of ambition is the obvious plummet in quality. In the hey days of Arsenal, when Arsenal combined football athleticism with flair, no Man U or Chelsea player could be so inflicted with “oral diarrhea” to look Arsenal in the eye and declare “I will beat you silly”. No longer! They said it last weekend; they did it once again on Saturday in the FA Cup quarters. Since Arsene started considering the turf at the other side of the Nou Camp fence greener than the one at the Emirates, he foolhardily abandoned a brand of football that produced results for him and Arsenal, with silverwares to boot, and started pursuing Barcelona with their so called sexy football. Has he ever beaten Barca in this game? The last time it happened, even Wenger and his players were so thunder shocked, they were shaking their heads in absolute disbelief!
In Wenger’s illicit romance with a brand of game that is not his and can never be his, he pretends to forget that the football culture in Spain and the one in England are not the same. The system in Spain encourages sexy football but in a physical environment like England, you need more than flair to survive. If you are in doubt, watch the glorious 2003/2004 Arsenal team that went the whole season unbeaten and the current Arsenal squad, you cannot help but weep for what Arsene has done to Arsenal in the last six years. Yet, a clueless board has gone dining while Rome burns. Now, it is becoming clearer why people like Dein left Arsenal. Indeed, where there is no vision a club perishes. How has the mighty fallen!
Apart from running after a brand of football he does not fully understand, at least to the point of producing results, like Barca does, Wenger’s declining touch in transforming young players to gem stones has continued to show. Gone are the days when certain starters like Viera, Henry, Pires, Campbell, Toure would be transformed under two years into world beaters under the tutelage of Arsene. The difference between now and then is that something terribly and fundamentally wrong has gone wrong with Arsene’s abilities at talent spotting, grooming and deployment. The last of his product is Cesc Fabregas and the young man is already tired of the charade currently going on in Arsenal. All the stars that made Arsene’s hey days at Arsenal have been equally frustrated out of the Emirates. The so-called rookies in Arsenal are obviously stunted by both dearth in talent depth, poor grooming and lack of ambition as induced by a systemic complacency duly professed by Arsene and irresponsibly certified by a snoring board.
They say Wenger makes tons and tons of money for Arsenal. At what and at whose expense? It even gets super ridiculous when some Arsenal fans, especially the Nigerian genre, join the “wishy washy” debate of how much profit Arsene has raked in for Arsenal. Is Wenger now an investment manager or a football manager? I am so heartbroken that it is so difficult for Arsenal fans to see through the antics of Wenger…”keep buying rookies and blame their inexperience for an obvious decline in managerial quality.” Arsene Wenger is actually on a rollercoaster downhill and he is poised to take Arsenal down with him. What is happening to Arsene is what is called “the law of diminishing returns”. Wenger of all people should understand this better than some of us; at least, I don’t have a Masters in Economics! If there is still some honour left in Wenger, he should kindly resign NOW, at least, for the sake of millions of Arsenal fans who will never benefit a dime from the ‘penny wise, pound foolish’ profits he claims to be making for Arsenal. I do not think a club like Man U would allow Sir Ferguson with all his loads of success at Old Trafford (something Wenger, not Arsenal, can only dream of) to stay longer than a minute if after three years, Man U keeps telling tales instead of showing trophies.
One more thing before this ink runs dry is that Arsene Wenger has refused to accept his mistakes instead chooses to revel in buck passing foolhardiness. He blames everyone but himself for his woes. Nobody succeeds with that kind of attitude. The worst harm you can ever do to yourself is to explain away failure. For Arsene, its either a certain Buscaca ruined his team even when they fail to fire one single shot at goal or that a certain Stoke team is too physical for his frail boys as if football has become volleyball or that the pitch at Wembley is too slippery as if Birmingham players played on a different pitch or … it just goes on and on annoyingly. Unfortunately, many Arsenal fans have bought into this laid back approach to life. It might just suffice to advise that such mentality should be left behind at the turnstiles of Emirates Staduim…dare take it into town and you would definitely get beaten blue black!
What is the way forward? The earlier the sleeping board members at the Emirates wake up from their suffocating slumber, hand an ambition-less Wenger a golden handshake and recruit a hungry hand to run the club, the better for all Arsenal fans. A stitch now would save Arsenal from “Arsenic” assassins from within. A word is enough for the wise!!!
•Echezona Asuzu
echesuzu@yahoo.com