There’s nothing quite like the predictability of an Arsenal post match PR campaign.
‘We must win the next game for the fans’
‘The title is still on’
‘The players have the belief and will not give up’
Been there, read it, didn’t click the like button.
Whichever way you look at it this season has been a massive let down. Sure we’re still in with a mathematical shout of the league but nothing I’ve seen over the past 3 months has given me any hope that these boys have the back bone to kick on and win their final 6 games of the season.
I’ve seen great players over the years, I’ve seen battlers and I’ve seen bottlers. Out of this current squad, there aren’t many of the battling variety. I think Arsenal has come too early for many of them and they won’t appreciate what they’ve got until they’re waking up in Blackburn every morning in a shared single bed spooning with Chris Samba.
Players who have the requisite talent and mentality are as followed…
- Chezzer
- Sagna
- Vermaelen
- Kozzer
- JD
- Cesc
- Jack Jebb
- Nasri
- Jack
- Robin
- Arshavin
- Theo
- Lansbury (S)
- Frimpong (S)
- JET (L)
- Ramsey (S)
- Gibbs (L)
- Coquelin (S)
- Bartley (S)
- Miyachi (L)
The players with an (S) next to their names are good enough for the squad. The ones with an (L) should be sent out on loan next season. We can’t afford to keep allowing substandard youth ply their trade at our club. There are a few players not on that list, but again, let’s be honest with ourselves, for all the excitement, most of the kids that join us do nothing of note with their careers. Why waste 3-4 years loaning them out when we could just get shot of them early?
That’s 17 players I have there, now, I’m accepting we’ll probably keep some of the dross in the squad, but there is definitely room to go out and buy 3 or 4 top quality players from Europe. We could raise £30million by selling the players I mentioned earlier, we already have £35million in the bank. We could easily supplement our playing staff with players who are desperate for an opportunity as massive as Arsenal.
I don’t want players who say, ’there are 4 defenders at Arsenal already, why would I go and sit on the bench?’
I want players who say, ‘I want to compete with the best and I’ll do whatever I can to start in that side. When I get my chance, I’ll fight every second I’m on that pitch.’
That’s called a winning mentality and that’s what makes a team great. Anyone who tells you we can’t sign players because we already have players in their positions clearly doesn’t have an understanding of how top class sport operates. So don’t listen to them.
There are plenty of players out there ready to take that chance who have the quality to succeed at Arsenal. We need to start snapping them up with the same vigour we snap up youth team players.
Cahill will be available in the summer as will Sakho and Howedes. Up front there are strikers like Benzema, Adebayor and Gamiero who will no doubt move to alternative clubs. In defensive midfield competition could be spiced up with long-term target Mascharano, classy Italian terrier Di Rossi or perhaps curve ball acquisitions like French Under 21 captain Etienne Capoue or Yaan M’Villa.
My point here isn’t that I have all the answers, it’s merely that I am a spectator of the game and I can come up with names of pedigree that are attainable. If you’re interested in doing business, business is there to be done. When you have a war chest the size of Arsene Wenger’s don’t go to the shops and tell me you couldn’t find anything nice to buy.
On the management front, I’m pretty sure there is going to be some backroom staff movements this summer. I’d really like it if Wenger brought in a dissenting voice. He seems transfixed on this Stojkovic guy who is plying his trade in Japan. I’d really be against that. Arsene shouldn’t be picking his successor or a good friend to join him at the club. He should be bringing in an assistant who knows the clubs, knows our values… and one that will command respect.
We need a change, not more of the same.
I like the idea of Patrick Vieira rejoining the club. The man was inspirational as a leader, the fans love him and he’s young enough to be in the memories of the youth team players. I’d also love to see Steve Bould given a promotion. However, you’d have to question if that’ll ever happen. Since joining the club in a youth coach capacity, he’s never been invited to coach our defence. Talk about cutting off your foot to spite your shoes? From what I understand, he is outspoken, so the chances of him ever making the jump are slim to none… still, bigger surprises have happened, Denilson landed a long-term deal, Almunia became a professional footballer.
Still, Dragan Stojković sounds like a culture fit. He never showed his true promise in Europe due to injury problems. He’d fit in a dream with Diaby!
Before I go, I think it was me that stated the cult of Eboue was ridiculous and embarrassing. I hope those involved are now as ashamed as those that booed him all those years ago. He’s a dreadful player with a unethical approach to the game. He doesn’t deserve to represent the red and white of Arsenal on ability or attitude. The only commendable thing he’s ever done is tell my pal he reads Le Grove.
Anyway, that’s me done for the day, who would you like to see pull on the red and white of Arsenal and do you agree with my elite list of players? How about an assistant, what are your thoughts?
Let us know in the comments section!
P.S. LG went mainstream yesterday on Sky Sports News… more exciting than the time I went on Britain’s Got Talent with my blackberry post writing skills, not quite as exciting as having a wee next to Ray Parlour in the Romford Brannigans.
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thats why i want to see this Keyser for the rest of the season.
——szczesny
sags JD Kozzer Clichy
Theo Cesc RVP Diaby Nasri
——shava——-
allow him the deep lying playmaker role that doesn’t require too much pace, RVP in the hole feeding shava (foxing it) and theo marauding it.
fuck it I can put up with the risk of disappointment.
its like that line out of bandofbrothers… ‘if you commit to the idea that your already dead it becomes just a game and your more likely to succeed’, or something along that line anyhow…
There’s no defence there though, we need a couple of athletes that can come in and mix it between the other types of players we have.
Against Liverpool when we lost the ball, there was none of that organised pressing we did a few months back, it was simply track back in numbers, having to attack and create and then track back every time you lose the ball back into your own half is extremely tiring.
Remember around January we were beginning to show that we had a solid first team, that’s all gone now we looked without rhythm or momentum against Liverpool.
Liverpool looked disciplined and compact, we looked tentative and scared of the counter attack, I don’t even think Liverpool were that good, we just didn’t have the same confidence we’ve had at other points in the season.
Either we’ve had that battered out of us, or we’re really low on confidence.
The good thing about tomorrow is that Tottenham probably need the win just as much, just they’ve got enough pace on the counter attack to make it very difficult for us regardless.
Lurch LeRouge – Thing is with that line of thinking, you don’t achieve the end result any easier, you’re end result just comes around a lot quicker.
thats the point though, the scum won’t park the bus, they need the points so we go back to attacking the space like we did against blackpool, Liverpool didn’t come out of their defensive halves really so we had to play through them as per usual with shit crosses and no poacher in goal.
Diaby’s not doing a bad job in the holding role at the moment, so long as we press early I think that formation has legs. Its that or Cesc gets benched IMO and JW comes in and shava starts wide with nasri AM.
well its that or doom keyser, take your pick
I think Redknapps going to play it sly though, just wait it out, sit back for as long as he can, which I doubt we could do especially the way we’re playing now.
He’ll keep it tight and do the Fergie approach, with Bale and Lennon attacking space they’ve got a very dangerous attack.
We need to be clinical tomorrow and make whatever chance we get count.
Have no idea what the final score will be, could be anything.
im not sure Bale and Lennon are at full strength, with bale missing the most of the last couple of months and lennons bout of man flu.
I’d fear the set play more than anything, dawson or the freak Kaboul.
My brother went on Sunday, not sure if he’s a jinx, but anyway I asked him about the game and whether he’d rather not have gone to the game because of the result, he said Nah, the moment, we scored everyone went mad and it was one of the best moments he’s had at an Arsnenal game, everyone was loving it.
I asked him what the crowd was like at the end, he said he didn’t stick around long enough to find out, everyone had gone.
fuck it we’ll just have to wait and see, might have to have a proper media lockdown if we lose though.
seem to recall Big Dave saying it got nasty again in pockets.
I look at our fixture list and their mostly away games, which stands us in good stead with the glum atmos @ the grove currently. Flick the bogey off our back on foreign soil and the grove has a chance of lightening up.
gonna do one keyser, catch you tomorrow.
Don’t really care about everyone else, just glad my brother shares the same sort of love for the game I did when I was a kid, there’s always up and downs, hopefully he’ll never have to look beyond it being more than a mere spectacle, watching a team he enjoys watching.
Have a good day mate.
Keyser top posting…..
morning
have a snack:
http://tonabaki.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/pride-to-be-restored-blitz-the-yids-or-die-trying/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/apr/19/arsenal-cesc-fabregas-arsene-wenger
Interesting interview in the Guardian with Fab in which he is pretty critical about the Arsenal regime. Apologies if this has already been posted. Here are some choice quotes:
what the fuck?!
hehe
Cesc is spot on, but this article is just like a farewell, i.e. ‘don’t think I am the bad one, I’ve just had it with that fibbing French cunt just like you lot’
yeah, I guess so. Can’t blame Fab at all.
I will miss him, but he has certainly outgrown the regime at Arsenal. I think it was a tremendous error to lumber him with the captaincy, a huge oversight to fail to provide sufficient cover to protect him, and negligent to get rid of almost all the senior players and expect him to mentor the young kids at the age of 21 and 22.
Time for Fab to go off and find a club that can match his ambition. If he wants those photos back of him as a kid with red hair, he can fucking pay for them, however.
Fabregas interview with SPanish magazine: “From 2007 I had already started saying we’re not winning, but we’re playing well. And then you realise that’s no use.
“There will be a moment when you have to decide to take the next step – to win or not to win.
“The problem is that the team needs to win something and that’s why it was so important to win the Carling Cup [they lost 2-1 to Birmingham in the final].
“You have to make a decision: either go and win, or develop players.
“It’s clear that if you come to Spain and say to [Unai] Emery [the Valencia manager], [Pep] Guardiola or [Jose] Mourinho that they’ll win nothing in the next three years, it’s obvious they wouldn’t continue [in their jobs].
“But here it’s different. The boss is an intelligent person and the club values other things: that the team is always in the Champions League, that it fights until the end, that it brings young players through, the economic stability.
“I suppose for the board that’s important, although I imagine there will be a moment when you have to decide to take the next step – to win or not to win.
“The ‘Invincibles’ knew how to win games, when to dig in, when to attack,” he said. “They had a special intelligence to read games.
“Now we are very young – Robin van Persie has won an FA Cup as I have but there’s no more trophy winners.”
“You have to have patience with things and wait for the right moment,” he said. “The day that I leave Arsenal I will do it with my head.
“As well as that, who can be sure that you are going to play in a new team? Here I have the great fortune that at a personal level, despite not having won much, I’m doing very well.”
Moray,
as far as I am concerned, he earned the right to keep these and more…
fella gave his all, no two ways about it, I reckon the board will be in for a nasty surprise when it comes to adding up the ST renewal numbers after the deadline: a position in the ST queue costs £15, a ST costs what, a grand?
and in the current economic climate?
Dein was right all along!
SUGA3, it may be time – as has been suggested – to consider returning the grounds to (partially) standing. If the cost of season tickets is prohibitive, then it will discourage youngsters from getting a chance to experience the club at first hand.
If Fab and Nasri both go, then I think the season ticket list will have hit its tipping point this summer. It is not about supporting or not supporting the club, but more a question of paying huge sums of cash to see young kids walking round a pitch like they couldnt give a shit.
Also, I am in Asia and don’t see many Arsenal shirts out here. Not many at all. We have no presence in Asia, while our rivals do. Can’t help but think we are missing a trick here. Despite our supposedly “fantasy” football.
I’d complain, but who’s listen? Certainly not Barry Soetoro…
we can still do it, time to wake up gunners and deliver on the pitch
Moray,
thank you for confirming my belief that our presence in Asia is pretty much negligible…
once again, the buck stops with OGL for doing these poxy little boyscout trips to Austria instead, eh?
anyhoo, I am of to work, laters
COYG!
Mornin’ Bungholes!
So, are ya ready for yet more embarrassment towards the final slow painful death that is season 10/11?
Are ya?
haha morning DDM. One more kick in those nuts of mine and I won’t feel a thing any more.
This is the only game left that I care about. We will never overtake Man Utd, with our bunch of chokers, so let’s stop setting unrealistic objectives, and 2nd or 3rd means fuck all to me, however we definitely could knock the spuds out of Champions League contention for next year. That will be a big blow to them and even their unlimited funds will not be able to compensate – especially when Captain Twitchy goes to chokey-town.
Stop the negativity. Derby day i dont care if we win the league This is our biggest game of the season we have to beat the Coys!!!
You all think you’ve had it all but definitely havent heard this
I BLAME LEGROVE (esp PEDRO) for Arsenal’s failings
YES I DO……its always PEDRO writing all those lovely rip roaring troop rousing posts everytime. Dats why the boys perform woefully. Its HIM, its all PEDRO’s fault
YEAH Wenger, I want to see you top that EXCUSE.
You all think you’ve had it all but you definitely havent heard this
I BLAME LEGROVE (esp PEDRO) for Arsenal’s failings
YES I DO……its always PEDRO writing all those lovely rip roaring troop rousing posts everytime. Dats why the boys perform woefully. Its HIM, its all PEDRO’s fault
YEAH Wenger, I want to see you top that EXCUSE.
when is twitchy going to jail anyway? they can’t look him in soon enough
we can’t lose to these clowns tonight, it’s the tiny totts ffs
must be soon. There is obviously a lot of dirty underwear under that guy’s bed. Just look at the pattern of signings and re-signings. Just because the media loves him, that is no excuse not to throw the book at him. I suspect he is waiting to take over the England job, thinking that they’ll never charge the England manager. As far as I’m concerned, the Spuds now have the manager they deserve. I hope we destroy them at their own ground. Destroy them. And put them back in the UEFA Cup, where they belong. Let Monkey Boy show off how quickly he can run against second rate defenders. They are just lucky they didn’t come up against Barca this year. That would have been embarrassing.
Moray 5-0 is not embarrasing, but 3-2 is?
er, no, losing the game after being 2 up and cruising due to thinking that the game is already won is…
I thought for Spuds, 5-0 was probably a good result. Particularly as they were playing a defensive Real team. Barca would have put double that past them.
Remember, you cannot compare what is embarrassing for us and what is embarrassing for them. We are in different leagues
NEW POST!
http://www.footytube.com/video/fc-porto-v-sporting-cp-lisbon-79438?ref=wv_relbox
its that boy FALCAO again. He’s a proper CF. Gr8 movement to find space in the box..exactly what we need – I hope Wenger is watching before he gets bought by some Italian club