Brazilian interest mounts | Who is your Arsenal nearly 11? | Roma star linked

May 11, 2011

There’s nothing quite like a night of free booze to kick off your morning… so this is going to be quick—ish.

First things first, we always have that moment in a season when Arsene tells us that he missed out on the seasons sensation 3 years ago because Peter Hill-wood left his biro at home. Well, this morning, Alex Ferguson has revealed that he nearly joined Arsenal way back in 1986 after Don Howe. He didn’t in the end because Arsenal had a plan b and insisted on an answer he couldn’t give.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we were that cut throat now instead of waiting until the last minute to told no?

Imagine that? Alex joining the Arsenal… things would have been different. I’m not sure he would have had quite the same success. After all, George Graham didn’t exactly do a bad job at the start. I believe that fate sent him the way of United and he was the perfect match for them. I don’t think he’d  have come to us and offered us the same consistency. It’d be interesting to do the greatest team of players we nearly bought… and the best managers we nearly signed.

Off the top of my head… Bobby Robson, Christiano Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, Bixente Lizarazu, Patrick Kluivert, Michel Platini, John Barnes, Ronald/Frank De Boer and obviously Wayne Rooney. I’m not sure if I told you last year that we were in for him? Well, if I didn’t, apparently we were in for him before United and he even came down to the training ground. I’m pretty sure I was told he undertook a medical as well?

I definitely told you Joe Hart was deemed ‘not good enough’ when he was at the Shrewsbury or wherever he was!

Put together your greatest team of nearly signings and see where you come out!

In other news, it’s that time of the season where agents start threatening their players clubs with a move to Arsenal. Standard is that Melo, after another crap season could be on his way to Arsenal. I really liked him at the world cup last year. He’s a bit mental, he’s very fast and he’s very good at picking up ridiculous red cards. That used to be the Arsenal way!

Sadly, I don’t think we’ll ever see him at the Arsenal… I’m sure my Italian friends would agree that’s probably not a bad thing.

We’ve also been linked to Jeremy Mendez of Roma. I can’t even muster a comment about that. Fact is, if I haven’t heard of him in the LG comments section, I’m not going to google his wiki. That is one thing I’ve learned through my blogging career… our commenters are some of the best scouts around… if I was working with Arsenal, I’d suggest dropping their own expensive network and crowdsourcing players from Le Grove. Not sure how that’d go down!

Vertoghen is being linked with us and Manchester City this morning. Off the record, I heard the other day that Manchester City’s chief scout actually doesn’t do that much work. He finds out who we’ve been monitoring for 6 years and makes a judgement call from there. If Harry Redknapp is to be believed, City are going to sign some mega players this summer. I’m not sure who they’ll line up to manage them next season. Maybe after Peter Crouch gifted Mancini 4th place last night he’ll keep his job. You have to laugh though… they’ve spent a gazillion pounds on talent and they play like Stoke. How embarrassing for the Arabs!

How about Spurs though? Things have really turned sour for them recently, Liverpool might ruin their Thursday nights next year by stealing their European place! That really would be hilarious. No Europe with players as big time as RvDV, Bale and Modric… whatever will they do? They’ve also lost out on the Olympic stadium which is hilarious from a future revenue point of view. Oh, and Harry still hasn’t been to court about that unpaid tax bill.

Club in crisis?

Absolutely.

That sort of news gets me out of bed in the morning. Oh, and going to a Fashion and Beauty PR seminar… I can’t wait to do loads of learning and stuff.

Right, I think that’s about it… I’ll be going to the final game of the season, so if anyone wants to hang out and drown their sorrows with Peroni, I’m sure there will be some Grover’s meeting after the game, keep your eyes peeled to the comments section! Also, I have some people looking to loan season tickets next year, contact me if you’re interested!

Have a great day and remember to drop your nearly 11 into the comments!

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

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

Is Arsene Wenger a bad manager?

May 10, 2011

‘We have our plans and we know what we will do’

Is the above quote the one we’ll all hang from this summer? It’s a familiar line, one I’d throw on the pile with, ‘I’m taking my cheque book to the finals’, ‘You’ll be a very surprised by what I’ll do (then sign Silvestre)’, ‘We have the money to compete with Chelsea’, ‘I’m in for super,super class players’ and ‘We need to look at the defence (said for 3 years on the trot and it’s actually getting worse)’

Arsene Wenger is the master of inaction. Speak to any supporter of any other club and they’ll mostly say the same thing…

‘How can a manager as good as Arsene Wenger make the same mistakes every season?’

What did Einstein say about people making the same mistake twice? It could be however that he isn’t that good any more, like boxers, managers can’t go on for ever, they don’t improve with age, and don’t say Ferguson, he has a big budget so he’s no different to the chavs or City.

Football is a cruel game, it doesn’t work off sentiment and it doesn’t allow you to become complacent. The fact is, Wenger isn’t dynamic as a coach anymore. He doesn’t adopt best practice as a manager and his training techniques are dated. Even his style of play is now being out witted by managers like Tony Pulis. Being a trailblazer is only ever good long-term if you develop your ideas with the times.

Steve Jobs didn’t sit back and live off his success with the first ever home computer, he constantly challenged himself and his team to better themselves. He added strings to his bow and brought in the best talent from around to globe to help his firm develop. Now they’re the most valuable brand in the world.

Arsene Wenger took the Premiership by storm. His ideas on diet, fitness and style of football were ground breaking, we’d never seen anything like it over here. 16 years on though, it’s all looking a bit flat. He has demotivated players on huge salaries, he has a style that was figured out 7 years ago and he’s talking about a season of desperate under achievement like it was a good one.

If you tell your players 3rd is a trophy and this year was progress, what desire are they going to have to kick on? And don’t forget, it may well be 4th. We said months ago, never mind winning the title, be more concerned about the chasing pack.

People can marvel at his lack of spending in the transfer market, but then they should look at his wage bill. David Moyes may have spent more over the past few seasons, but Arsenal’s wage bill is almost £50million more than his. If you’re working off Wengernomics, then you have to include salary in your transfer budget.

Arsene shouldn’t just be coaxed into signing players, he should be sat down and told in no uncertain terms he’ll be out of a job next summer if he doesn’t rectify the problems in the team that are so glaringly obvious.

It’s no good saying,

‘On set-pieces we have been caught and Jones didn’t even have to jump to head the ball – that is something to correct’

‘It is the easiest thing to correct in the game, but you still must understand the flight of the ball and want to be first and have some experience’

If it was that easy to correct, surely someone should have been correcting it before we became the worst team in the league for conceding set pieces? Surely our analysis team should have flagged this in December and suggested the coach either bring in Steve Bould to help the defence or bring in a defensive coach from elsewhere to help out?

Jeez… it wouldn’t take much to lure Tony Adams back from Kazakhstan!

All our problems are based around bad management. Wenger, for all his past glories, is at the moment, showing himself up as a poor decision maker and man blinded by his own arrogance. Blame the players, sure, I’ve no problem with that. Trouble is, only one person puts them out on the pitch every week. Only one person renews their contracts. Only one person ignores talent in the transfer market because he has faith in what he has.

Wenger isn’t making the right noises about turning it around either. He’s happy with his squad, he thinks sorting out the problems is a simple exercise and he’s talking like he does at the end of every season.

It’s embarrassing and painful to listen to… I’d love to think he’s bluffing, but it’s the same story every season. We argue all summer about it and people say,

‘Honestly, he’s been really let down this year, he knows what’s wrong with his squad and I think he’ll surprise us’

‘We’re only a month into the transfer window, jeez, give him a chance’

… then before you know it, it’s August 28th, we’re quibbling over £2million and our squad looks much the same as it always does. Under strength, too young and filled with the same mediocre dross that delivered us zero success the year before.

One last thing, and I could be wrong, but we are treated like special needs donkeys that just keep doing what they are told, as Peter Hill-Wood recently said, those stupid people. However, I couldn’t help notice on the Arsenal home page that they were displaying the new kit, but forgot to put their captain in it, now that’s something I don’t ever remember happening, so I know we are all a bit slow, but that suggests to me that Cesc is already on his way.

Now if that is the truth, and if the manager has anything left for me to respect, then he’ll go out on day one and buy what he needs before he has the ready made excuse that everyone knew he had money from the sale of Cesc and the price went up.

Maybe a swap deal, Ozil and Benzema??? Anyone??? Oh to be an Arsenal fan eh?

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

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

So this is the best squad you’ve ever had eh Arsene, can’t wait till next season then!

May 9, 2011

So we officially have conceded more goals from set pieces than any other team, and Wenger thinks that this is the best squad he has ever had eh? So from what he says it means we’ll be bringing in no monsters at the back as we don’t need to, after all, Vermaelen will be back next season.

We started off with a 4-5-1 and conceded from the first set play after a silly and needless Arshavin foul, never mind though because at that point we had 78% possession and we only failed to score away from home at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge.

Shortly after that we gave the ball away just outside the area to ex-player Pennant, he had a speculative shot which hit Djourou and looped over the keeper, who dived backward and even though he’s 6’5″ tall, and much taller than the goal at full stretch but he still missed it, diving backwards and not upwards must be a Polish thing. Great, and we have two of them!

Then we go into half time 2 down, not to worry, we still have another 45 minutes to turn this around, then we bring Bendtner and Chamakh on, we take off Arshavin and Ramsey but all I’m thinking is at least we can now go 4-4-2 or even 4-3-3.

Well apart from 2 nil to the rugby team and Swing low sweet Chariot continually being sung by the illiterate black country bozo’s you wouldn’t think anything would annoy me would you?

Well first of all a big thank you to our hapless manager for giving them the ammo to sing that song, secondly a big thank you to our hapless and clueless manager for teaching our players how to not have a shot, that really is some feat, and finally a big thank you to our hapless manager for ensuring we have a team of over paid, under achieving losers that don’t give a rats arse about winning.

I was joking about thanking him by the way, I expect Robin Van Persie will get fined for not only hitting a shot from the edge of the area and scoring, but he did it without receiving it from another player, he created and buried it himself.

Watching a lanky hopeless Dane and a free Morrocan must have delighted Arsene Wenger, 45 minutes and neither of them could get the keeper to make a save, but who cares, they cost us nothing except for their massive overpaid salaries.

I’m just numb now, I’ll give that team a collective 4, Wilshere a 7 and Robin an 8, at least those two tried.

Someone said in the blog last week that whatever I say, the board deserve massive credit for our move to the Emirates as It was the right thing to do in order to compete.

Ok so if they deserve credit for all that then why did they spend all that money building a new North and South stand just a few years before we moved? That makes no sense to me, if they were so clever then why did they waste all that money only to tear them down a few years later, not to mention the money we lost when they were being built and no one was in them.

And that my friends has never been commented on by anyone at the club or anyone in the press.

And that my friends is the Arsenal disease, no one at the top is ever wrong, no one, so how on earth can the manager ever be wrong. He can’t put simply, but if he doesn’t go out and buy someone to play with Vermaelen next year, then expect another season of zip.

Have a great day Grovers, it will soon be over, let’s just hope that at least
we finish above City, but don’t hold your breath people, don’t hold your breath!

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

423 Comments | Match report, New Review | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Geoff

New Arsenal Away Shirt sneak peak | Turkish centre mid available | Targets play well!

May 8, 2011

Stoke away in the Premiership. Never a nice game. According to those in the know, not only are they one of the nastiest clubs in the league to play against on the pitch, they’re also one of the most unfriendly off it. The dressing rooms are pokey and horrible, they don’t give you any match balls to practice with and the worst part? The ground is in Stoke. I’ve travelled to many dumps in my career, but let me tell you this, Stoke is world-class when it comes to being a dump… and yes, I have stayed in Barnsley.

We head up there without Captain Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri. The Frenchman is chained to a desk in north London basted in goose fat. Opposite him are 3 caged rottweiler’s with a timer counting down. To his right lies a mont blanc pen and a contract worth £120k a week. If he wants to escape, he only has one choice. I trust he knows what to do… mwhahaha!

Sorry Sammy... but you've had 6 months to think about it

I think it’s a good thing those two aren’t there today. Cesc has been a bit of a drag on the team this year and it’ll be good for Jack and Rambo to play together again today against a really horrible bunch of the thugs. I totally agree with Wenger when he made the comparison to a car crash and Rambo’s injury. He just has to throw on a tape of Roy Keane and Alf Inge Haaland and run out onto that pitch pumped up like Maradona in the 1994 world cup.

If we want to play against Stoke, we have to give it some back early on. We have to harass the referee every time a decision goes against us and as a team, we all have to fight for a each other. They’re just men at the end of the day, they’re no stronger than our boys and they’re no fitter. If they hit you, hit them back harder 10 minutes later… they’ll soon learn.

Chezzer

Sagna Kozzer JD Clichy

Jack Song Rambo

Arshavin RVP Theo

We need to be as direct as we were against United. I’m hoping we’re going to mix up our play and take a few shots here and there. Taking a gamble is what made players like Thierry, Bobby and Freddie great. We don’t have enough of that in our current squad. For me though, that type of attitude is contagious, if you see Aaron fire in a 30  yarder and you’re Jack, you might fancy a piece of that action. Winning should be a collective effort, so should our approach to attacking. Robin isn’t the only player in our team who can fire a freekick 40 yards over the bar, lets mix it up and stop trying the same things over and over again.

We go on about football intelligence like the bum down the pub goes on about an IQ test he aced back in 92′. We’re playing the Premiership dunces today, lets show that we’re the sharpist cookies in the jar of football with a super win.

There are a few rumours flying around on the web about the various players that could be on their way this summer. Leighton Baines seems to be one that just won’t disappear. He’s the Everton left back who occasionally lands a game for England. I’m not sure he’s Arsenal calibre and I’m sure someone told me he isn’t the paciest. He is 26, but for me, we wouldn’t be improving on Clichy. The other Everton star we’re apparently looking at is Phil Jagielka, this story won’t disappear either. Though I will say, I think this is just papers rehashing a Mike Parry comment from last week.

I’m out in Spain at the moment, I would learn to speak the language purely for the reason of reading the football newspapers everyday. Apparently Madrid are after Bayern Munich centre midfielder Hamit Altintop. He’s 28, he has 60 caps for Germany and he scored goal of the year this season. He’s the sort of steely midfielder we should be looking at to compliment Alex Song. Last summer, he went to Bayern on a free. He is the type of player our scouting network should be picking up.

Another player we should have looked at signing in January was Chris Samba, he had an absolutely belting game against West Ham yesterday and I really think we missed a trick not signing him in January. Not all our defenders have to be cut from the same technically gifted cloth. Sometimes you need to have a plan b for defending. If we had Samba, we’d have a specialist who could come in for the games against the bully boys and dominate (…and let’s not kid ourselves, there are plenty of those games each year). He is almost unbeatable in the air, he has a great presence and he’s a leader. I think he’s underrated on the ground as well, but to be honest, Sol Campbell was hardly Zidane on the ball, so that doesn’t worry me too much anyway.

As much as I like Koscielny, I do think his clumsy play and propensity to drop a clanger in almost every game is sometimes over looked because he is classy on the ball. Potentially, he could turn into a really good player, at worst, we’ve just landed ourselves an average defender who can do a job when called upon.

The other player who did really well yesterday was Ashley Young, he scored a freekick he perhaps shouldn’t have, but the fact he landed it on target is an achievement I’m not sure Robin Van Persie has managed this year. If we could pick him up for a decent price, he’d lift the team and he could take over the vacant winger role Nik B will be leaving.

I saw the media landed themselves in a bit of bother yesterday, media darling Charlie Adam makes a horrible challenge on media darling Gareth Bale… it was like a stalemate, virtually no coverage in favour or against. I hope the little monkey is ok, regardless of who he plays for, you always want to see the best players on show in the Premiership.

QPR and Norwich were promoted yesterday. Congratulations to those two. It’s amazing what a billionaire’s backing can do for a points deduction eh? It was quite funny to listen Abel Taarbt tell the BBC he might not be at QPR next season. Classy stuff, you can tell he took his footballing education at the University of Spurs!

Yesterday I was drinking beer in Puerto Banus. I saw a 78 year man driving a £600,000 Zonda in the Port with a 23 year girl in the passenger seat. I’ve never been to a place where older men do so well with the ladies… those guys must have some excellent chat up lines.

Chat up line: Look out the window babe, this won't take long...

Finally, before I leave to track down some old man knowledge, someone posted this in the comments… check for the new away kit in the back ground…

Some great detective work there from MIG Arsenal!

Have a great day Grover’s!

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

1,162 Comments | New Review | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Pedro

Wenger: If I buy, I kill a player | RIP Seve Ballesteros, a true legend of sport

May 7, 2011

Oh Arsene, give it a rest. No one is going to fall for your nonsense this year…

‘We have mixed messages from people because we are always told to buy but then I’m told I don’t play my players enough. If I buy a few I will have more frustrated players.’

Is this like the message you always have to buy £60million players? You know, the message no one else seems to read apart from you? I’d be very interested to know who is doing your press clippings because I don’t believe I’ve read too many articles slating your decision not to play Gibbs. If anything, I think people have probably saluted that decision. The boy has been Kieron Dyer whenever I’ve seen him this year and for me, the fact he hasn’t been given games is a positive step.

Reward progress… not mediocrity. That’s how a top class football club should work.

As for Andrey, no one minds that he hasn’t started every game. Why? Because we can all see that he’s a touch over weight and we all know that in Russia, they clearly don’t play 90 minutes! I love Andrey, I really do. He’s delivered more than almost every player in the league this year whilst receiving a huge amount of criticism. He’s like the kid at school who never revises for exams yet still aces them… you know there is so much more in the locker. Trouble is, Arsene plays him out of position, he certainly doesn’t give him the same love he’d give a player he was the king-maker for and he’s 29, so his attitude won’t change.

I’d be sad if he was off in the summer, however, if we dispatched with his services and bought Ashley Young or Eden Hazard, I’d be able to deal with it. Young has landed 44 assists and 36 goals since 2007 in a poor Aston Villa team. He has pace to burn, he can take on players and he’s a proper winger. We could easily pick him up for £12million because he’s in the last year of his contract and he’d be comfortable playing out wide. He could be our English Nani…

Incidentally, does anyone think Nani is hugely underrated because he looks like an extra out of Lord of the Rings? His stats are twice as impressive as Gareth Bale’s  yet he’s received hardly any attention from the media? Don’t get me wrong, I know Bale is also a monster, but when you’re British you generally get a pass… One to ponder I feel…

Back to Arsene and his process of guilt tripping us into not spending…

‘I will talk to all the players at the end of the season. I spoke about Nicklas Bendtner because it’s true he didn’t get enough games. Personally I want him to stay because he’s a young striker with top quality – but I have to sit down with him.’

I was out with a Leeds fan last night and he was talking very frankly about our set up as a club. He reckoned it’s been obvious for years that the problem with our side has been a lack of spine. Now, remember he’s used to watching poor football but he has witnessed league winning credentials before.

‘You have a keeper that is too young, you don’t have a centre back who talks, you don’t have a battler in the middle and you have a striker who never plays’

It’s quite hard to argue those points. I did challenge the keeping issue, but I think Leeds are in a similar situation. Kasper Schmeichal is a very talented youngster, but he makes mistakes. Whatever way you look at it, our Carling Cup challenge was part ended by an inexperienced keeper. It’s even harder to argue that our Champions League campaign wasn’t ended because Nik B took a heavy touch and missed a fantastic chance to put the game out of reach for Barcelona. Pep Guardiola said,

‘We’re in the Champions league because of a poor touch by Bendtner’

So when Arsene talks about his ‘top quality‘, it kind of makes me laugh. He’s 23 now, he’s regressed this season and he hasn’t delivered in a very public manner. He’s clearly not top quality at the moment, so if after their chat he states he wants to go… don’t worry about it. He’s been given more than enough chances to shine and he’s failed. Move onto the next up and coming youngster or sign a player who can deliver.

No one cares about young players career progression anymore, Arsenal isn’t the University of football. We pay too much to watch apprenticeships played out in front of our eyes and as a club we moan about money far too much to be paying a poor player £50k a week.

Arsene, your media tricks are boring now. Give it a rest on the ‘killing players careers’ front and sign up some top class talent. You won’t be afforded another season of inaction on the transfer front. Patience is running out with you already and it’ll run out a little quicker if you have another typical frugal summer…

Right Grover’s, that’s it for today… I’m off out to pick me up some sun burn!

Have a great day!

P.S. Big love to Seve Ballasteros. He sadly passed away last night. He was an incredible golfer, a fanstastic personality and a fighter until the end. He’ll be sorely missed…

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

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

Cesc to Madrid: The low down | Young Brit linked with Arsenal | Dirty UEFA

May 6, 2011

As this post flies out, I’ll be heading out to Puerto Banus to drink beer and play golf for the weekend.

Gutted if you’re stuck in an office. You deserve it.

Just kidding of course!

I read that Blackburn’s Phil Jones has been making eyes at us. In typical love struck teen fashion he said,

“I think Arsenal play the prettiest football in the Premier League.”

You little slut…

I told you last year that Arsenal were monitoring his progress as well as a host of other defenders. If we’re looking to add an additional body to our back 4 roster, I’d be fine with us adding a player being mooted as the next John Terry… lock up your wife Eboue!

He’s a powerful centre half who has been trained in the art of filth by experts such as Sam Allardyce and Mark Hughes. He’s good in the air despite being under 6ft and he’s probably been wet willied by Chris Samba more times than I care to mention… things like that only make you appreciate the South more. I’m sure he’d have no qualms fighting it out for a place in our back 4. I’d still prefer someone taller, but whatever, as long as they are more able than Squillaci, I’m fine…

Bacary Sagna has pledged his allegiance to Arsenal nice and early this year. I’m not quite sure why some clubs are consistently linked with our players, but Roma seem to be the fantasy destination of Sagna. A bit like Juve for Clichy and Bayern for Bendtner. Anyway… the right back has been fantastic for us this year and I’m chuffed he’s staying on. He’s a regular for France and it’s been a joy to watch him return to 2008 form.

Did you hear what Emmanuel Frimpong said? It was ever so sweet…

‘I was worried I’d be left behind’

Ahhhh, bless… I think someone needs to have a word in his ear. No Arsenal youth players are EVER left behind, even if they’re crap (Even Mark Randall is contracted). I hope that’s what pulled him through his injury… just a little glance over at his Denilson poster,

‘If you can play 150 games for Arsenal, anyone can.’

I read that Madrid are going to prepare a bid for Cesc this summer. Now, this is something we told you last year as well. Rumour has it that Madrid called Ivan G and said whatever Barcelona offer, we’ll offer more. Arsene Wenger is of the stand point that if Barca don’t offer his valuation, he won’t be sold. If Cesc continues to stamp his feet, he’ll be put out to auction. Regardless of what people say, that boy isn’t going for anything less than a whopping fee. Wenger has a taste for the big money… you don’t sell your two wheeled tricycle for £42,000 (Adebayor) and then cut a deal on your Aston Martin for £800 because your skint neighbor likes the look of it.

If watching United cruise into the Champions League final wasn’t vomit inducing enough, news that once again, a governing body is taking tax money away from the UK coffers surely would tip you over the edge. According to Dunham Consultancy UEFA won’t pay any tax in the UK despite the final being held at Wembley. So what exactly is in it for the British fans? We’re financially hammered buying the tickets, our transport is screwed for an evening, we pay for the clean up operation, we pay to police it and all for what?

A few chip shops doing a roaring trade… nice.

When are the people going to start standing up to these practices? What did South Africa gain out of one of the most profitable World Cups in history? What are the British people going to gain out of a tax-free Olympics next year? So far, all I can tell you is that my trains are ruined nearly every weekend… and guess what, I’ll be paying tax on the games until I die…. and guess what else? I think athletics is for girls…

I wouldn’t mind if I thought the money was going towards making people’s lives better, as far as I can see, all it goes on is dodgy deals and jobs for the boys. It’s criminal what people will turn a blind eye to for a big event…

I’m not leaving you on a sad note, not on a Friday… so how about a bit more from the people trying to sell you the dri-fit dream?

Theo...

Shoulder....

Training shirt that should have been home shirt

New logo up close and horrible...Alex Song... at Geoff's request! Looking good son!

Finally, check out the video and the official press release on our tumblr account.

Right, I believe that’s it!

Have a great Friday and remember, if Chirs Samba knocks on your door, run upstairs and hide in your room… he’ll leave eventually.

P.S. Check out Craig’s piece comparing the invincibles to the current Barca crop here.

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our mailing list

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

Arsenal run over the golden goose, then reverse back over just to make sure

May 5, 2011

So Arsenal press ahead with the 6.5% increase in season ticket prices we told you about first a few months ago. Disappointing that the club that can’t stop going on about how classy it is decides that hitting the fans in the pocket is what it’s all about this year. Not just that, they’re also putting the price of your program up… and finally they’re also rebranding the home and the away kit rendering two £60 strips obsolete.

Arsenal are a never-ending price rise machine. They never tire thinking of new ways to bleed the average fan dry and the sad fact is, they have absolutely no shame in doing it.

Is this is what the self-sustaining business model is all about, because I tell you what, it’s not sustainable for the average fan anymore. It’s a sorry state of affairs when you start pricing the middle class out of going to the football. Still, how can you expect a CEO who takes home £1.7million a year to understand fan sentiment? He has no idea what it’s like to struggle, he’s probably never struggled in his life. He’ll look at 6.5% and laugh at the moaners. Trouble is, despite his AST letter protestations, he hasn’t a clue about the simmering anger…

Gooner’s spanning all different generations are disgusted at what’s going on at the club, trouble is, what can we do? At the moment, Ivan Gazidis and his £15million corporate team have us. They know whilst the treasure chest that is the Champions League is still on the table, they can replace a large chunk of the fan base if they decided to leave. My worry is what happens when the Champions League dries up, what happens when the corporates don’t want a piece anymore, where do the club turn then? They’re alienating the home base by pricing them out of the club. Trouble is, the new crowd who are just there for the good times won’t be there when the worm turns…

Hopefully it won’t come to that but all the ingredients are there. A manager who doesn’t answer to anyone, a board too scared to tell him what’s what and a raft of teams around us willing to invest millions to over take us.

Arsenal FC have let us down again. Perhaps they’ll dodge the bullet this time, but continue down the rocky road they’re heading and the goose that lays the golden egg will soon stop laying… then there will be trouble.

I wonder what Wenger thinks when he’s watching the Mancs enjoy another day out in the Champions league final? I wonder if he thinks that maybe spending some of what he did on worthless players contracts could have made the difference this year if it went on new blood, I doubt that, he’s way too self obsessed.

Geoff will be going to the final to watch the Mancs and has a real dilemma, who to support? It could have been us, but once again Fergie bought new players that strengthened (Hernandez) his team and that’s the difference, we fiddled and they didn’t, in a year when they were deemed weaker, we failed to beat Birmingham in the Carling Cup final.

He’ll be pulling for Barca by the way!

I was watching Perry Groves on Sky last night and he said that he and 57,000 Gooners at the Emirates will be praying for a centre back that is a leader, get praying Perry, we’ve been doing that for years! I love that guy, I hope Wenger was watching.

I don’t know what you all think but I would sooner have Vermaelen back unfit and injured on Sunday than Squillaci.

Enjoy your day, maybe the Chavs will draw, we’ll beat Stoke and they will both screw up in the last few games, don’t hold your breath though!

For all those of you out there that are going to pay the extra good luck, you must have the money, let us know if you are and why, it will be fun to debate the ones that do and why the ones that don’t, won’t!

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

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

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it Arsene?

May 4, 2011

We have the money so will we finally spend it? What do you think about this?

Sell Eboue to the Italians for £9 million. Then we could buy Matuidi. Then buy Eden Hazard and Sakho. Now you all may think that would cost us a lot of money and there are better options and you may also say these purchases are knee jerk and even if I say with these buys we could have won the league this year you could all say it’s easy in hindsight.

Trouble is this was all said in August 2009 by me, go check the archives, they don’t lie, I also posted a comment at 15.53 that day, check it out, now what I’m saying is that was 2 years ago, now Wenger will say he can’t afford to buy any of them, back then we could had had all 3 for £15mil, now they’d be that each, now does that make me a better manager than Wenger? Or does that make him a lousy businessman. You decide, either  way we called it back then and  we also said that Denilson, Senderos and Eboue should be sold as they were not good enough.

So we got another 2 years of those two, plus we were raised with a Squillaci and a Chamakh and kept Almunia and Bendtner. And guess what, we’ve won nothing since that post.

I’m also sick of reading Wenger comments that no one expected us to be in a final or third in the league, of course we didn’t becausehe failed to act in two transfer windows, the really talented players we have are propping up the shite ones, anyone with a brain can see that. Even your old favourite Petit is saying you have no leaders and you need to buy three players. No one thought we’d win this season.

I move on to the Season ticket hike, smart move Stan, that’ll work, people are losing their jobs and you put the prices up, add that to the fare increases and wham!

I know inflation has gone up and I know that we’ve had no rises for 3 years, so what? Prices were already higher than anywhere else in world football, we were already getting skinned, add to that Arsenal’s income has increased, all we seem to be paying for is that mass wage bill that keeps going up past inflation on players who aren’t worth it.

Stan, you lost me, I can’t stop being an Arsenal fan but I won’t continue to add to Wenger’s salary with nothing coming back, I would be daft to do that, I hope you get all the season ticket holders to renew, I suspect at the end of it we won’t have a waiting list but you won’t have my money, you have taken greed to a new level and the fans are no longer your first concern, the managers ego is.

We beat Barca and they are in the Champions League final, we beat the Mancs and they are probably going to win the league, we smashed City and they are no doubt going to win the FA Cup and we’ve yet again won nothing, all the world can see what we lack and as my August 2009 post clearly illustrates so do we, had you acted last summer we could have won the lot.

Thanks Arsene.

Have a great day grovers, Pedro’s first day in his new job went well and he’ll be back to entertain you tomorrow.

605 Comments | New Review | Permalink
Posted by Geoff

Talented RB/CB deal mooted | Rambo possibly the future…

May 3, 2011

So… nothing to moan about.

How boring.

Just kidding, it’s been a rough old couple of months for Gooners up and down the country… even around the world. The good news is the big game hoodoo won’t be quite so bad at the start of next season. The even better news is that Aaron Ramsey looks like he’s going to be able to play top class football at the highest level for a few years. Well, until that Cardiff DNA thing kicks in…

It’s quite an exciting prospect really. His inclusion over Denilson clearly says to me the Brazilian’s career is fast approaching an end. Geoff thought he might have a Flump (Flamini like jump) in ability, sadly, down to a lack of application and perhaps an environment not suited to him… it just never happened.

Now we have the tantalising prospect of having Jack, Cesc, Song and Wilshere to choose from in the middle of the park. I really don’t hold out much hope for Diaby ever maintaining fitness long enough to complete a warm up, but at least he’s showed flashes of being a top player when he’s been in the team. If we could bring in a couple of more experienced head into the middle, give Lansbury the chance to sink  or swim (noting he was omitted from the Norwich starting 11 last night) and give Frimpong a few chances… we could have quite a good midfield going into the next year.

I think Aaron Ramsey is going to play as a box to box midfielder. I think he’s more clinical in front of goal than Jack and I think he has a keener eye for a pass than the Englishman. I said last year that the staff at Arsenal are very excited about the Welshman, his stats are supposedly exceptional (Better than Denilson’s legendary numbers) and it is believed by some he is a brighter prospect than Jack. He covers loads of ground, makes loads of tackles, he’s fast and he carries that British aggression and passion we all love.

Good to have him back in the side, I can’t wait to watch him progress into a proper player.

In transfer news, about all I could latch onto was Mike Parry’s contact at Everton who has told him Jagielka is on his way to Arsenal. It’s a ‘done deal’ apparently. Now, Mike Parry is a very funny broadcaster for Talksport, but he’s known as a bit of a boozer… and I’m not sure many would trust him with information of that sort. I’m also not sure if we’re out there looking at players now… though I’m mindful that…

1) Gazidis is going to want to have a player to convince the disgruntled fans their season ticket price hike is worth it before the AST Q&A.

2) I told you last summer we enquired after him last year but were unsure about paying £15million for a player that had just recovered from a serious injury.

Well, this year he’s managed 30 appearances all together and he’s starting for England. So he might be an option. Personally, I’m not really sure we want a 5ft11 centre back with a tremendous leap again. I think we should go out and sign a big dominant defender who can deal with lumps in the league now. I’d prefer Cahill as he’s younger and I think he’s a better player. I also think at 28, Wenger would probably prefer to spend £15million on Sakho and take a risk on a top young prospect.

Arsenal are probably going to be dropping season ticket renewal notices through people’s doors very shortly, it’ll be interesting to see if they power on ahead with the proposed increases or if fan pressure from groups like the AST will prevail. It’ll also be interesting to see how much support there will be for other pressure groups off the back of a victory against United.

Next up for us is Stoke on Sunday. A horrible place to go but hopefully with the back drop of an FA Cup final and not much else on the Arsenal front, they’ll let us dominate them and score 4-5 past them to keep our mathmatical advantage going… yeah right!

I’m starting my new job today, it’s going to be twitter and comment cold turkey for a while… I’m going to have to start smoking or perhaps utilise my toilet breaks to get my fix!

Enjoy the sun and your 4 day week!

See you in the comments!

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

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

Arsenal restore a bit of pride… things still need to change though

May 2, 2011

Having a season ticket can be a slog at times. Going to see your team turn in poor performance after poor performance can be quite a struggle when it’s a consistently bad run. I appreciate we don’t have it half as bad as other clubs, but really, the expectation level isn’t there with other teams. We’ve not been watching poor players playing badly, we’ve been watching very talented players capitulate and ignore the basics for the past 3 months.

Yesterday restored some pride to Arsenal’s weak season. Yesterday was what having your season ticket was all about. Today, my hangover tells a beautiful story!

The big news before the game was that Cesc Fabregas had pulled up with an injury. This injury is real, so no conspiracy theory there I’m afraid. Aaron Ramsey slipped into the middle with Song and Wilshere and the rest of the team picked itself. The atmosphere around the ground was more relaxed that usual, we weren’t really playing for anything and I think that showed in our play yesterday. It was a pressure off exercise, the sun was shining and the fans were there picking up a nice tan even if the worst happened!

We started well, controlling the tempo of the game, Jack pulled a shot wide of Edwin’s post. Clichy skipped down the wing and slipped a lovely ball into the box… Theo could only fire over.

Down the other end, Fabio waltzed into the box with almost too much time, he cut back to Chicarito but Sagna read the danger and snuffed it out before he was given the chance to pull the trigger.

Song was lucky to avoid trouble when he threw himself studs first at the United player but was so slow him missed both ball and player by quite a margin.

Rambo broke up play in the middle nicely, Walcott flew a cross at the head or Robin and Vidic took it off him using his hand. Very cheeky and obviously missed by the referee…

Speaking of whom… he was doing his best to get in the way, interrupting 3 of our plays by being in the wrong place. We all know refs help United but rarely quite so blatantly…

The second half started and Andrey came on for Nasri.

Song gave away two freekicks in quick succession. He really is a dope out on the pitch and he puts us in all sorts of problems with his clumsy play. The first kick was well saved by Chezzer, the second went just wide.

Then our goal arrived,  Song intercepted an aimless ball and cut it to Ramsey, he released Robin outwide, the Dutchman sauntered into the box, he cut back three times with no outlet then he spotted Rambo screaming for the ball, laid off a beautiful pass that Rambo slipped past VDS. What a super goal! Direct, quick and a well taken finished. 3 passes from our half to the goal!

Could we hold on was the question?

United faced a three on one situation, Rooney picked out Valencia who struck his shot well but Chezzer dealt with it comfortably.

It has to be noted that Andrey was fantastic when he came on, he was putting his body on the line, causing mischief and he was more of a threat than Nasri was in the first half. Love to see the Russian pulling his weight…

Rooney chipped a through ball for Owen in the box, Clichy appeared to lightly stamp on Owen’s leg, the Englishman went down, Chris Foy, true to form, waved play on!

4 minutes went up on the clock, nerves packed the stadium. Things weren’t being helped by Chezzer who was doing really well to waste time in our box picking up the ball, not so well when he’d launch his kick so far down the other end, no Arsenal player could retain it.

The last big moment was a freekick won from a good Rambo slide tackle on Rooney. Nani hit the wall, the ball was headed into the box, Chezzer gathered it easily and launched it to RVP… the whistle blew, finally, our 4 game losing streak against United was over and we’d given Alex Ferguson a massive headache going into the last few games.

The title is over for us, make no mistake about that… but we’d given a good account of ourselves, even if the game didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things for Arsenal fans.

Conclusion…

I thought we controlled the match in the main. The exclusion of Cesc didn’t seem to cause too many problems and if anything, the extra mobility of Aaron Ramsey did us a favour. He loves the hustle and bustle of a tough midfield battle, mixed in with Jack Wilshere, there was some real bite out there. Alex Song still infuriates me, his clumsy tackling and some of his wayward passing does frustrate me… sure he makes some nice passes, I just find him a struggle.

In defence I thought we did really well. United didn’t have too many clear-cut chances and in the main, Wayne Rooney was constrained to mostly hand waving and referee harassment. I thought the boys played like a unit and the midfield certainly didn’t shirk their defensive duties.

Up top I still feel Robin is too isolated at times. Theo Walcott caused many problems for United with his pace and some of the balls he was whipping into the box. I thought the introduction of Arshavin really gave us a threat in the second half. He seemed more hungry than Nasri to impress and he really did put in a shift. I wasn’t happy about Eboue being introduced at the end, he’s a liability even if he is supposed to be able to defend better than Theo. Squillaci came on for the injured JD, hopefully that’s nothing too serious, even though it shouldn’t matter considering the run in we have!

Arsenal need to build on that performance and remember that we can win in the big games. The manager also needs to remind the players quite how average that United team are compared to us man for man. He really needs to drive home that this season was supposed to be ours and that the difference in mentality is in the main, what has cost us.

If we’d had a proper keeper in from the start this year, we could be a minimum of 8 points better off, if we could defend from set pieces we might be 9 points better off, if we could occasionally score from set pieces we’d give ourselves a better chance and if we showed the attitude we showed yesterday for every game… we’d certainly be showing off a trophy at the last home game of the year.

There are many things for Wenger to consider this summer. If he has a reshuffle, does things a little differently and stops treating every summer the same, we might find ourselves competing for longer next year. We have many players to feel excited about at Arsenal, they need guidance though and they’re not going to find that guidance from the current crop of mentors.

I’m proud to be a Gooner this morning but I won’t be letting a win like this change my opinion on what needs to be done in the summer…

See you in the comments!

Follow us on twitter @LeGrove

Follow us on Facebook

Subscribe to our daily e-mail

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

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 553 other followers