AST Meeting breakdown | Keeping Nasri for a 26% increase in season ticket price?

July 12, 2011

Good morning sports fans. Monday night beers eh? With hindsight, a choice poorer than a 5 year Denilson contract. I spent last night hanging out with the members of the AST and I have many things to report back to you…

Firstly, if you want the detail behind the members survey, you can find it all on the AST website.

I’ll run you through some of the highlights…

The amount of people who returned the survey was 382. Not bad out of 850 members. The split of people who returned it was quite varied as well, you had 213 Gold members, 73 shareholders, 82 red members, 11 overseas, 14 away scheme… even 3 junior gunners took time out which is very sweet.

On the self-sustaining model, 51% backed keeping the status quo with 38% looking for further investment by the major shareholders.

96% of Arsenal fans backed keeping Fanshare going, not surprising really, we all like having a say, that’d be diluted massively if we didn’t have Fanshare.

The AST have more shares than the board combined.

Interestingly, 70% of Arsenal fans surveyed believed Red&White should be invited to the board. That’s up a whopping 30% on last year when the same question was asked. The realisation that Stan Kroenke is the poorer end of the Billionaire spectrum is finally coming home to roost. Usmanov could buy our club with a cheque, Stan has had to beg, borrow and steal to push this deal through.

I think part of the above is also based on the disappointment of KSE keeping so damn quiet. He’s not made statement of intent since taking over and I think that worries people. 80% think they should be more transparent.

On the footballing side, 37% of fans are highly unsatisfied with what they’re being served up. Only 11% felt that way last year, that is a massive increase. Only 22% are satisfied these days.

69% of fans think Wenger’s footballing philosophy takes too much precedent over trophies. 69% would like David Dein back to bring in some checks and balances.

78% of fans disagreed with the season ticket price hike. Fair play, that’s to be expected. 96% think their club is in danger of pricing them out of going, which is a very sorry state of affairs.

Safe standing areas anyone?

47% still felt they were getting good value for money though!

51% do not feel they have a strong sense of belonging to the club. That disconnect from the fanbase is definitely something many people spoke to me about last night, episodes like Nasri and Cesc only go to further enhance that feeling.

Now onto some off survey stuff…

We’re now into the elite league of spenders. We shouldn’t be knocking around with the Everton’s and Villa’s, but we are bottom of the elite. We’re top 8 in Europe for spending power.

Ways we could have given ourselves more spending power last year would have been to have finished 2nd which would have given us £2million more. If we’d won our group and landed a quarter-final slot in the Champions League that would have been an extra £4-5million.

Our commercial revenue sits at £220million.

  • £90-100mill match day
  • £85mill TV
  • £45mill Commercial (£30 Commercial, £15mill Retail)

We have the 4th highest wage bill in the country. Traditionally that reflects your league position. If we finish above that position this year, we’ve outperformed financial expectations.

Saying we’ve got £100million cash in the bank is a fallacy. After all our expenses are taken out, we’re left at near enough break even. United earn a massive £50million more than us in commercial revenue, which is why there is such a massive shortfall.

Outgoings per years…

  • £110million wages
  • £20million loan
  • £50million other costs (electricity, hotels, merchandise, stadium costs)

The gap between the £170mill and the £220mill revenue isn’t liquid cash. So we’re roughly breaking even.

Stadium Loan Debt breakdown…

Total build Cost £440million

  • £220million Loan
  • £10milion from Supporters
  • £80million from ITV (10% stake in the club)
  • £90million from the Emirates
  • £55million from Nike (7 years with a 3 year contractual extension they took up) (The AST reckon the Nike deal at the time was a good one, others in the room disagreed)

Our current commercial revenue is £17.5 million a season. If we negotiated now, we’d be able to get and extra £32.5million a year.

Usmanov would and could come in a buy the club outright and pay off all the debt giving us a platform to compete. The AST say financial penalties make this a bad use of cash.

The AST were suggesting that in the 3 years we have to wait to renegotiate those commercials, it might be worth us speculating to accumulate. Nike aren’t going to want to do a massive deal with a team that isn’t competing at the highest level. Also, if we drop out of the Champions League, that would cost us a massive £25million a year.

Stan isn’t leveraging any debt against the club, but he’s also not investing a single penny of his money into the playing side.

On the salary side of things. We’re so high because we have such a massive squad and we pay the kids way more than they get elsewhere. Aaron Ramsey joined us in part because he was offered £500k more a year to join us over United. Sure, that looks like money well spent, but it wouldn’t if it were Denilson or the countless other failed youth products we have coming off the conveyor belt.

I actually asked what our wage bill would be if you pound for pound matched our squad with United’s. Apparently the AST know this wastage figure but they wouldn’t share it with me. It would be worth knowing wouldn’t it? If we didn’t work in this idealistic salary world that saw everyone kind of earning similar money, what would our wage bill be? £30million cheaper? That’d be a nice amount of money to free up…

Arsenal are at barely 20% of their commercial potential…

Manchester City doing that massive deal with Ethihad is causing concern because it effectively means FFP is dead. Are UEFA going to ask the questions they should be about that deal? Will they be kicked out of Europe? If they don’t, our self sustaining business model just becomes a best practice guide for business books. Not a competitive advantage. That would be a real shame.

Despite reports you may have read, 6,000 people haven’t given up their season tickets. What has actually happened is 2000 have sacked in their tickets and the normal 1 in 4 who take them up when offered has grown. People as high up as 13,000 on the list have managed to land themselves pairs of tickets this year. What the figures don’t take into account is the amount of loans and shares going on this year. My relatives found out the hard way what giving up your season ticket does when they packed it in after Zaragoza 95… people won’t make that mistake again so would rather sub out their seats until they see some investment.

Shows you that people are voting with their wallets… if the club won’t invest, why should the fans? What would that figure look like if we missed out on Champions League next year? We haven’t put a season ticket on general sales since we signed Bergkamp… lets hope it never gets to that!

£40million of Queensland money will work its way back into the club at some point… all profit

Nik B’s shirt number that was 52 represented the amount of pounds in thousands he earned a week last year. A pretty vulgar choice of number now I know that. Good riddance to him I say. I hope he has to share a bunk with Jan Koller in Germany. I know he’s retired, but Nik B deserves it.

My number is 12 Nik... guess why.

The two players every AST member singled out for departure if they mentioned names in the survey were Denilson… and Abou Diaby. Seems there is a lot of disdain for the Frenchman. That was a surprise to me!

Nasri & Cesc

There was a lot of debate around these two scoundrels. Basically, if we keep Nasri, that has an on cost of  £25million. Yep, that’s our transfer proceeds account for next year blown. I understand that Wenger is trying to make a stand, but for me, he should be doing that with a player he can keep and sell on next year. Making a point that ultimately will cost the fans money is ludicrous. If you think about it… a 6.5% season ticket price rise raised about £5million this year. Does anyone fancy footing a 26% increase in ticket prices next year?

Not me.

We did get a bit of debate going about Cesc. I’m still unsure why people think we have to let him go for £35million. Outside of sentiment, there is no reason. If Barca don’t value him like Madrid did Ronaldo, that’s not our problem. Have him when you do value him, like after a massive injury to Xavi.

#FanPerks was a lot of fun yesterday, here are three of the best…

Other than that, I don’t think I’ve got much else to share with you?

Le Grove held its own in the bar once again, last blog standing? I believe so. Hanging out with a Guardian journalist (@diggermattscott) with my iPad took my game to whole new levels. I want to say a big thanks to all the people I met last night, an absolute pleasure as always… and if you haven’t signed up for an AST membership, why not? There is so much value in what they do and as the survey pointed out, those who join feel more of a sense of belonging to the club than those who don’t… plus they give away free beer and bar snacks.

WINNER.

See you in the comments.

AST Twitter attendees for your consumption:

  • @TimPayton
  • @10akhil
  • @Darrenarsenal1
  • @pjbish
  • @David_0Leary
  • @StevieGooner

 

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Posted by Pedro

Another sensation to sign | Cesc and Nasri STAY! | One major Arsenal target missed…

July 11, 2011

So Cesc and Nasri are still umming and ahhhhring over whether or not to sign up. Wenger is adamant they won’t be leaving according to Sky Sports news this morning. This is great news and I’m happy Wenger is taking a Daniel Levy like stance on his wantaway stars. However, I think that there is more we can do as fans. After all, we were the people responsible for making players like Adams, Bobby P and Thierry Henry at the club for all those years.

Now, here me out here. For me, a job is not always about the direct benefits, you know, like money and a nice kit. Sometimes it’s about the perks outside the job. I get discounted membership to a gym I never intend on going to. If you were a footballer, surely you’d like perks outside the job as well? A lot of that will be about the fans. Obviously we are a great bunch of people. If you’re a season ticket holder the chances are you’re in a pretty affluent job. If you’re a Gooner in general, the chances are you’re probably quite intelligent, hell, possibly even quite good looking.

Now, I’m guessing that intelligent, employed, good looking fans probably have some sway in life. I know that I have sway. I live with a friend who manages a Co-op, so yesterday, I used my sway in a bid to keep Cesc and Nasri at the home of football.

Did either of those two ungrateful buggers respond? No. Perhaps my offer was unexciting. Today, on this boring Monday, I’d like to propose that Gooners with sway the globe over offer Cesc and Nasri perks that might interest them in exchange for their committment to the club. If you can offer the two a hair cut called the committment short back and sides, tweet them so. If you run a garage and you can service their cars for cheap, tell them so. If you run a Nando’s and you can give them the two stamps they need to claim their free chicken… let them know.

Hell, if you’re a student and you can sneak Cesc and Nasri’s laundry into your mums washer, offer that service up!

Now, the rules of this game are that both need to be tweeted the offer and they need to be hashtagged with #FanPerks. I’ll accrue the best ones tomorrow morning and hopefully, if your offers are good enough, we’ll have two of the best players in the Premiership playing for us next year!

Example tweet: @Nanas08 @cesc4official If you agree to sign up, I will give you two free portions of special fried rice at my restaurant #FanPerks

This is all about fan love… kill them with kindness, melt them with your creative offers, and they will be yours for at least one more year!

Youngsters…

Well, the season is nearing its preseason start, we have no players to excite ourselves over so what more traditional way to ebb our way into a season than to fawn over young boys. I’m getting quite excited about seeing our latest Asian import… and I’m not talking about the souvenirs in the Armoury… badum tscchhhh!

Nope, I’m talking about real life Japanese superstar. Ryo Miyachi. He sounds like a character out of the Street Fighter games series from my Sega Megadrive days, but sadly, he’s not. He’s the Japanese winger who went from school championship legend, to wing wizard in Holland. Now, I don’t want to heap pressure on yet ANOTHER potential superstar who could take over the world. But in the handful of games he’s played so far, he’s looked a touch special. Can he put his blistering pace to good use in the Premiership? Well, to be honest, there are plenty of half decent wingers in our league who do an ok job. He’s young, so providing we don’t become Ryo dependent, he could be a great asset to have off the bench.

I had similar excitement when I first saw Reyes play for us. He has that zip and buzz about his game all top wingers do. Don’t forget, despite what everyone said about the Spaniard, his statistics point out that he was a very talented player with the numbers to back up his ability. In his last season alone he managed 14 assists and 6 goals. Not many people outside Cesc manage numbers like that at Arsenal these days.

Hopefully Wenger sits Ryo next to Tubby Vela on the plane and he can tell Ryo all the things you should avoid if you want to land some game time outside Wigan in the Carling Cup. Point one I’d say would be refusing the job of social committee for the national team. Bad times.

I’m looking forward to seeing anti capitalist Emmanuel Frimpong get a chance. He’s a beefy looking defensive midfielder who from reports I’ve had, has all the heart and passion of Jack Wilshere, but far more of the defensive instincts he doesn’t have. For me, he has an excellent chance this season to carve himself out an understudy sport next to Alex Song and hopefully one other new defensive midfielder. Obviously he has to prove his fitness, but his love for the club and the amount of pitch he covers already stand him out as a good youth candidate.

Notable omissions from the squad are JET, who is probably resigned to a season out on loan at Cardiff again and poor old Henri Lansbury who appears to just lack that bit of spark you need if you’re an Englishman trying to make your way into an Arsene Wenger team. I’m a bit disappointed with Lansbury’s lack of love. I’ve always thought what he lacked in outlandish talent he made up for in work rate. Being average never stopped Denilson getting 160 games or Eboue. I’d rather have a squad player who cared about the club than you know who…but there you go. JET… well, firstly he can’t spell and secondly, his career died for me when he crashed his £300k Mercedes Macclaren when he was 17 years old. I’m not too fussed about him.

Other interesting bits…

Frimpong on predictive text is crimping. Any other odd conversions you know about will be welcome in the comments.

Jack Jebb finally made his way onto twitter, we can now track his every Starbucks coffee and punctuation error here @JackJebb08.

Peter Hill-Wood, my great-grandfather, has finally done something useful with his Daily Star contact by telling them we haven’t bid for Stuart Downing. King Kenny of cheque bo0k notoriety nearly had a heart attack when he heard we were interested and launched a £20million counterbid. Thank god for Kenny… thank God for nonsense news reporting.

We’re very close to signing teen sensation, Kristoffer Olsson. As you can imagine, a key component of next years squad and a vital use of Ivan’s time. Is that the 5th teenager we’ve signed this summer? Marvo…

Wellington boot has gone back out to Levante after his stunning success of warming their bench last year. Good luck to that man!

Guardian journalist and Gooner Matt Scott has written a piece that follows my train of thought on Cesc leaving, he’s laced it with some interesting stats that might ease the pain of our Barca bound captain. Good times, you know you’re getting good content over here when we’re matching the Guardian for vision. As a celebration, I’ve knocked together a chalkboard that acts as a visual metaphor explaining the pitfalls of communism using Arsenal’s complicated passing structure as the basis.

Literally

Compelling I hope you’ll agree.

Finally, I’ll be heading down to the AST meeting today for a run through about the survey results of its members. A wet dream for content, so stay tuned to my twitter account as I’ll be sending out important tweets surrounding the details like the type of beer they’re stocking, whether the air conditioning is cool enough and if all the press coverage of late has resulted in an influx of young attractive female talent to the organisation.

Oh, and some survey guff.

Here is the link to my account, click it, or don’t come back…

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Posted by Pedro

Arsenal transfers —> Who is in? —> Who is out?

July 10, 2011

Good morning Grovers!

The big news this morning is that Nik B and Mr Almunia have been left out of the tour. They’ve been cut, like a pair of fat kids in an American teen flick, will they go on to get laid this summer with the hottest girls at summer camp? Not if Almunia keeps wandering round campus with that stupid dog.

It’s good news that we’ve finally made moves to ship out those two, though it has to be said, what happened to Almunia’s contract running out? I thought he was off by proxy? Also, as much as I like the fact Nik B is off, it has to be said, he’s the last of our worries when it comes to the dead wood. The only reason he needs to go is because Wenger keeps playing him as a winger. As a third striker, he’s hardly the worst. Surely players like Squillaci, Denilson and Vela should also be staying at home? Surely someone has a spare £4mill for Eboue?

What’s the point in keeping those guys on?

The squad heading out to Asia looks very inexperienced. 2 keepers under the age of 21. One recognised striker. A midfield with an average age of about 14 years old. 2 shockingly inexperienced left backs.

Squillaci.

We’ve really done very little this summer to change the dynamic of the squad and whilst I love the idea of bringing Rambo into the fold, he’s certainly not the man who is going to change everything up this year. I still can’t believe Scott Parker is available and we haven’t tapped him up about a move.

Word on the transfer street is this…

1) City have agreed a £22million move for Samir Nasri. He’s asked his mum to pack his boxes while his away in Asia. Goal.com are the source, so take the story with a massive pinch of Pillsbury dough. The Independent reckon we’ve put a £25million price tag on him.

2) We’ve bid for 8 goals/7 assists in 39 games Stuart Downing. Apparently in the region of £17million. This signing makes little sense to me, though my Villa supporting chum thinks he is better than the overrated Ashley Young, he, like me can’t understand how Villa could justify his sale to fans who have been known to rampage. Maybe we’re looking at him and thinking, ‘We have strikers who can head the ball, we don’t have wide men who can cross the ball, Stuart Downing can cross the ball’. That’s as deep as the analysis goes this morning.

3) Guardiola has lost his rag with Sandro and demanded he tie up a deal this week with Arsenal for… £35million. Errrr, Pep, mate, buddy… I think the problem tying up the deal is because Arsenal don’t want £35million, they want £45million. Regardless of how stressed you are getting, unless you want wedge Barca some cash, or up the player plus to include a player born in the eighties.. we’ll probably be going back and forth all summer.

4) Arturo Vidal and his mooted move seems to have collapsed. Juventus are in for the £19million rated defensive midfielder. I like the idea of having a Chilean in the side, they’re always a little bit nuts. I remember Marcelo Salas from way back when… West Ham had him on trial and decided he wasn’t good enough before he went to Italy and ripped the league apart! Good news is if it’s true, we’re looking at competition for Alex Song.

Theo Walcott is eager to find out who is coming into the side this summer, he’s got Newsnow on the his iPhone, he’s been reading the stories, he’s hoping for a splash.

Aren’t we all Theo, aren’t we all…

Am I looking forward to Wenger blaming the preseason tour for his lack of signings this summer? You bet your ass I am!

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Posted by Pedro

Arsenal to end the summer +2 better off at best…

July 8, 2011

So after 2 months of pretty much silence, after a disastrous end of season where we were promised early signings, Wenger has come out and started the ball rolling for the usual disappointment. He’s missed out on 3 targets already and he’s gone into sulk mode. Yesterday on Arsenal.com, Arsene Wenger confirmed he’s working very hard on signing players, much in the same way a naughty school child confirms he’s working on his homework. He said,

 “For me, the best thing is not to talk too much about it. The more you speak about things, the less chance you have to achieve them. The only thing that I can promise you is that we will work very hard and we have had some long nights to achieve what we want to achieve.”

“I have said many times that we were very close to winning things last season, despite the disappointment we had at the end. I hope that provokes a response from my players. We were so close this time we want to come back and achieve it.

Uh oh… we were very close? 2 points out of the last 13 games Arsene? Finishing 4th and going on the worst run in your history? Second worst points total in your career and you’re talking about close? Jeez… this has all the ingredients of a ground-hog summer again.

“My responsibility is first of all not to lose players and then to add and make us stronger.

“Let’s hope we can bring in one or two more additions of top quality.

Fair enough Arsene, let’s concentrate on bringing in one or two additions of top quality. Firstly, we should be replacing the quality that just left to join Manchester City. Regardless of what you think of Calamity Clichy, he still made it into the Premier League team of 2008. We’ve shipped him out and instead of going out and buying some top quality, Wenger has confirmed that he’s replacing him with Kieron Gibbs. Now, the last seems nice enough but a few pointers before we get ourselves into a world of mess next year.

1. He’s played 13 games in the Premier League

2. He’s rarely looked anything other than average. His positioning is suspect and his defending is far from top 4.

3. Has he ever made it through 3 weeks without picking up some sort of major injury?

How can we possibly be looking at this man to give us stability in a position we’ve struggled in since 2008? An amazingly risky tactic, but one that was all too straight forward to make for a man obsessed with being a king-maker.

So, looking at what’s going on, if we leave things as they are and don’t let anyone else leave. We’ve signed Gervinho which is marvellous and we’ll be adding 2 more players to the squad. Namely, Juan Mata if we land him and some sort of centre back, possibly Gary Cahill.

Is that enough to kick us on to titles and glory next year? Two wide men and a centre back? If we keep Nasri and Cesc, is the squad spirit going to be right next year?

“Our position is always the same, we want to keep Cesc and I will fight as hard as I can to keep him,”

“Samir Nasri is exactly the same. We will do everything we can to keep him.”

I admire his stance with those two, but at the same time, I find it hard to give those comments any weight when he’s leaving the ‘injured’ Cesc to train here while the rest of the team float of to Asia. Why are we into preseason without deciding the futures of our two best players? We should have set Barcelona a deadline, if they didn’t meet it, then we close the talks for the summer. The same goes for Nasri, his dithering is precious time ticking away on us signing a replacement which as you know, will take our board a minimum of 2 months to negotiate.

For me, it sounds like whatever happens, don’t expect the correct amount of bodies to come in, because I’m going to do this on the cheap again. To me, it sounds like the players Wenger has been champing for the last 4 years were never that good because no one has come in to buy them… so what are we doing? Keeping them on and flogging them one last time.

Very disappointing. United win the league and they go out and sign 3 quality players. We throw the league away in embarrassing fashion and our coach is reluctant to bring in more than net two.

How can we ever progress if we have a manager who is never interested in giving the club the best possible chance to progress?

In other news…

FFP died a quick and painless death yesterday as Manchester City announced a £400million stadium naming rights deal with Ethiad over the next ten years. Like I said months ago, FFP won’t make things easier for Arsenal, because only a chump would allow the rules to get in the way of dominating the footballing space. City have been picking up curious sponsorship deals all over the place lately, so they’ll still be dominating the transfer market for years to come. A massive two fingers up to Platini and co, but what did he expect?

Perhaps Arsenal should get in there and have a word with Usmanov and Kroenke about setting up something similar?

Happy Saturday Grovers!

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Posted by Pedro

Mata rumours persist, hopefully Nasri will stay and Wenger is offered Abidal, what???

July 8, 2011

Blimey, that’s generous, two 30 year old defenders plus cash for Cesc, oh and one of them is recovering from cancer, nice touch Barca, you really look after your ill and infirm players don’t you. I hope Cesc can see how much he is valued. Ok a big no to that one. Affelay plus £30mil will do it but that’s it for me.

Now if the Mata stories are true that will excite me more, to be honest at that price I’m surprised Barca wouldn’t prefer him to chasing a hamstrung Fabregas, I think with Cesc though, they are like spoilt rich children and must have the toy they demanded from daddy.

Anyway, I’m bored with Cesc, Nasri for me must be kept, it’s not about money, it’s about what we’ll be losing, yes his back half of the season was not good, but apart from Robin’s, who’s was? And his was only so good because he missed the first half! Nasri is now Prem proven and that’s why the mancs and chavs want him, stuff the cash, we aren’t a bank.

Bringing in Mata to pair up with Nasri would make us a better team than keeping Cesc in my very humble opinion, so I hope Wenger holds firm.

Listening to Harry makes me appreciate Wenger more, he says he must buy to keep Modric happy, well correct me if I’m wrong but I thought most of what the spuds have was in fact bought by Harry, and he has spent a lot. Not to mention that Modric is the ugliest player I have ever clapped eyes on.

I hope if we don’t buy a DM  that Frimpong get his chance to team up with Wilshere again because I could see something good happening there, and he does love the Arsenal, but we need to keep a strong midfield and Nasri and Mata for me will be key to that alongside Ramsey, it will keep me hopeful.

The news that we may be buying Benzema makes me even happier, I think he could be another Henry, I really do, his poor spell at Madrid reminds me of Henry’s similar spell at Juventus.

We still need to get Cahill and I can’t understand what that takes so long, well I guess if Gervinho can take 6 months then maybe spending more on a defender will take equally as long.

I just wish he would make all his signings now so he could go on the far east tour and avoid all the speculation, if that happens then expect him to unveil 4 players today! Whoohoo!

We have been asked by ForceSelect (the UK’s leading military service leaver recruitment agency) to run a competition for serving military personnel to have lunch at an Arsenal box and enjoy the PSG vs Boca Juniors and the Arsenal vs New York Red Bulls matches at the Emirates Cup. This will include lunch and refreshments.

ForceSelect Director, Andy McNab the best selling author and SAS hero wants to provide experiences like this for people that put their lives on the line for their country, Andy is a supporter of Le Grove and Arsenal Addict and has asked us to help, which of course we are delighted to do.

So if you are in the services and you can answer the following question we will give them to the first 5 that answer it correctly 2 tickets.

Name the 3 managers that signed three Arsenal heroes of the past. Charlie Nicholas, Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry and how much they cost!

Remember whatever you think about the conflicts these guys are laying their lives on the line for all of us and deserve to see a great festival of football, let’s just hope we have some decent players on show eh!






Finally whilst it’s nice to be linked with Europe’s emerging talents and not 16 year old kids anymore we need to address the defensive issues that have long since held us back, and whilst it’s great to see the young ‘uns like Rio on the trip, there is no way he’ll get a work permit so I can’t see the point, I just hope he doesn’t stop Wenger buying what we do need right now.

Have a great day grovers, hopefully we’ll soon get to see some football and maybe even some proper signings!

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Posted by Geoff

Arsenal sign Gervinho it seems, what about if we had the perfect summer? What could it look like?

July 7, 2011

Ok so we have all been having a bitch fest of late and rightly so, we mostly believe that Arsene Wenger will once again let us down, well let’s play what if? Because as the old Chinese proverb says, what if? Happens every 7 seasons.

Let’s all have a fantasy Thursday. Who might we sign and what may be our team?

Let’s start with Marcelo from Madrid in at left back, £12mil should cover that, Cahill in the middle with Scott Dann, as the Brummies are in trouble and he could be the lump that may give us more, him or Samba.

Sell Fabregas to Madrid or the highest bidder, keep Nasri, buy Mata then put in a big Benzema bid and buy Scott Parker, Moussa Sissoko
or give Owen Hargreaves a pay as you play contract, now that would be interesting don’t you think? He is only 30 and 2 years may do us.

Now we are set to lose at least two from Nasri, Clichy and Fabregas, and Clichy has already gone, Cesc is a permacrock and wants out, Nasri has said he wants more ambition, so keep him and give him the Cesc role, he doesn’t want to leave.

Madrid have spent £27mil on another left back so Marcelo is surplus and Hargreaves was the best DM in the country before his problems, maybe that team could revert to a 4-4-2 and tear the EPL a new one, I know Benzema has said no, but he would do wouldn’t he? If he said he wanted to leave he would never get in his current team again.

I mean how many times have the ageing chavs come out and backed their brand new manager?

By using Cesc as a bargaining tool we may just get Marcelo and Benzema in a swap deal, Maureen would just love to poke Barca in the eye, almost as much as I would, so why don’t we just have a punt? And please don’t say Cesc would never go, he would if he lost his captaincy and after all this if he doesn’t, it would be a travesty.

I would add Hazard to that lot but Lille won’t sell him, we won’t spend that much, and that’s taking my sordid little fantasy way too far, for apologies for that one.

The fact that Arsene was holidaying with Dein suggests maybe he was giving him some mentoring, who knows, maybe, just maybe, Wenger will blow us all away and give us what we want for once.

The alternative isn’t ready, much as I like Ramsey and Gibbs they aren’t ready to replace Cesc and Clichy and then we would lose Nasri and be sweating on Robin and Theo next season.

We can’t let this Cesc thing drag on and I feel next season he will find out his hamstrings are screwed and then he’ll be another Rosicky, and him we should sell along with Denilson, Bendtner, Almunia and Eboue, do that and it may well be Wenger gets to keep his nil transfer balance, we will own our own stadium and finally have a team capable of cleaning up, then we can start feeling confident all over again.

SO ARSENE, THAT’S 6 OUT AND 6 IN AND WE’D MASSIVELY IMPROVE OUR TEAM! AT VERY LITTLE COST, IT’S WIN, WIN!

I know this may well be fanciful, but writing posts that slag of the management all the time are really getting me down, this time I will give Wenger the benefit of the doubt and pray he does the right thing, he is running out of time if he wants to keep Nasri and get a team that will bond in pre-season then it’s time to get off that fence and restore the faith so many have in him.

We can either compete and for a small amount, or we can scrap it out for 5th place, because so far this summer, we look like losing our stars and losing ground.

I had to reel my neck today in as Pedro said I was being mean to certain nationalities, well take a look at that line up, I included a Welsh German Canadian that claims he’s English, a Spaniard, a Malian that speaks French, a Brazilian, a Frenchman and a few Englishmen.

Over to you boss!

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Posted by Geoff

City buy was on trial with Arsenal | Nasri back in training | Cesc on strike

July 6, 2011

I’m struggling to know where to look for stories at the moment… everywhere you look there is a negative tale to tell. By the sounds of it, our squad could be decimated by the time we go away on tour. We’ve lost a decent left back to our rivals, Samir Nasri staying seems to be very unlikely and Arsenal are holding out for £39million for Cesc.

What is even more depressing is that Harry Redknapp spent 9 hours on Sky the other night saying all the things I’d like to hear our manager saying.

‘Top players cost top money’

‘You can’t keep trying to make miracles out of bargains’

‘Why would we want to sell our best players? We have to keep hold of them and show we have the same ambition as everyone else’

‘He’s a good player but he’s got a long way to go, he’s just a baby’

Those are the sort of sentences that never fall from the mouth of Arsene Wenger. Our manager is too obsessed with FFP and financial doping to worry about the problems in hand, namely that our squad could be 3 first team players down and at least 6 top players away from mounting a challenge.

The Alvarez deal was hijacked by Inter Milan after we dragged our feet. Yet another example of incompetency when it comes to purchasing players. Now, I’m not bothered about the player. His injury record, lack of Premier League experience and lack of YouTube footage leaves me distinctly uninspired about his signing, even more so after listening to Argentinian podcasters slate him. My anger about it is firstly it was reportedly down to a fee issue when we have bundles of cash. Secondly, he was a target, he’s been a target for months and we’ve missed out. People can bleat on that I don’t know anything about him so it shouldn’t matter. Well, Wenger knew about him, he has a keen eye for flair talent, so in my humble opinion, he’s probably quite a good player.

Put it this way, I didn’t know anything about Rosie Huntingdon until I went to the cinema last week, doesn’t mean I’d be ok with missing her call…

Another snippet I was made aware of is that Manchester City’s new boy Savic was on trial with us last year. Another player we can stick in squad for W.N.B.H (We Nearly Bought Him) FC.

Cesc was at the club yesterday, he wasn’t on strike as some of the news houses reported. He was ‘injured’. Speculating on whether the injury is real or not is farcical, I’d never do that, he’s definitely injured, for sure. The rest of the gang joins training today, Andrey, RvP and Samir will be hooking up with Arsene Wenger. I’d imagine there will be some showdown talks. So lets see what comes out of those.

If ever there was a time to make some signings of intent, it’s when your two best players are saying they want out because they want to challenge. Sorry to make another Spurs reference, but RvDV was asked if Modric wanted to move for the riches of Chelsea. He said that players at a certain level aren’t interested in the riches, it’s about titles. This is a great point, it seems every player who wants to leave Arsenal is a money grabber… people seem to ignore the fact that as fans we’ve been promised titles and we’re disappointed. Imagine if you were a player and you didn’t support the club? Why would you stay if you’d been let down by the manager over the past 3 years?

Wenger hasn’t provided Cesc and Nasri the platform to win trophies. If he’d remedied the squad last year, I’ve no doubt we wouldn’t be in the position right now. All of this going on right now is the fault of the manager. He can’t blame financial constraints when he has a £115million wage bill and a £35million transfer fund that has been at his disposal for 2 seasons.

Hey, you never know, Arsene might persuade one of the two their future is at Arsenal…

So where does he go from here should the worst happen?

Well, for me, the temptation for a man like Arsene Wenger would be to build a team around Wilshere and Rambo. That’s a recipe for long term injuries and burn out if you ask me. If we’ve got £42million right now, we’d add £39million + £20million and we’d have £101million to blow on the transfer market.

You could bring in 5 players who want to play for the club with a budget like that, you could change the whole attitude of the club. I’m not saying I want to flog our two best players… but if they want out and they’re going to sulk this season, maybe getting shot of them is for the best in medium term.

I guess our strategy all depends on which video’s GilYou GrimanTube has been watching… I’m seriously doubting our scouting network and their ability to uncover talent. Time for them to earn their corn. We haven’t had a plan b in the transfer market for about 7 years. Lets hope those 300 players who were calling Arsene a few years ago are still on the Frenchman’s contact list!

P.S. Check out Tim Payton in the Independent talking about Arsenal and their policies.

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Posted by Pedro

Here Arsene, let me tell you a few signs of intelligence in life that you are sadly lacking

July 5, 2011

First of all let me say that is probably the most condescending comment you have uttered. How arrogant you truly are to decide what is intelligent in life when you appear to do so much the footballing world sees as unintelligent.

Before some out there react, think about what he said, he insulted you for wanting decent players. Big Frank, Ray Parlour, Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn, Ian Wright, Patrick Vieira, Bobby Pires, Liam Brady, every journalist in the sporting world and me all say it, so what, we are all wrong?

So you know where I’m going with this, if you don’t think you’ll like it, stop reading.

Here are a few ‘intelligence in life’ points you may wish to consider.

1) Thinking that some of your players are world class but 5 of your best players want out because they don’t agree and want to win silverware.

2) Paying those same poor players crazy money and giving them long contracts so they won’t leave even when we try to sell them.

3) Playing them in the team for years when they are clearly not good enough and not seeing that.

4) Playing kids in the team and costing us points and the minute they get good they want out. What are we a creche?

5) Buying average players for big bucks instead of great players for not much more. Squillaci and Almunia as examples, and don’t say the were cheap because they are both worthless.

6) Failing constantly to play hard ball with teams that buy our players.

Examples

Cesc – Ask for Affelay and £30mil or Busquets and £15mil.

Nasri and Clichy – We’ll have Johnson and Richards.

Unhappy bunnies like Walcott – Why not play him in the middle, that’s his position, strangely he might be better and want to stay.

Then ask yourself why no-one has asked to buy Bendtner, Eboue, Almunia, Fabianski, Denilson, Diaby, Rosicky, Chamakh, Squillaci or Alex Song?

I can tell you, it’s because they aren’t good enough for big teams, they only tend to buy good players, and our good players ask to leave because they are playing with crap players, work that out Arsene, because that is intelligence.

Let’s now add selling the player you gave Ashley Cole’s place to for an undisclosed fee to our biggest rival. Smart, what does undisclosed mean? Either it was a crap deal or we the fans can’t be trusted with knowing the amount, well done Arsene, your joint poster boy for project youth is the first one to jump, back stabber or smart kid?

Add another intelligent sign Arsene, always sell your players before you replace them, oops sorry, I mean the other way around, now the footballing world can hold you to ransom, unless of course you plan on following that mistake with another and promoting one of your babies.

Arsenal would like to thank Gael for 8 years of service, Le Grove would like to thank you for dissing project youth.

And before one of your disciples leaps up and says that Clichy was going down hill and was crap, don’t forget only last week you were begging him to stay.

Amazing that Nasri and Clichy get down to the last year of their contracts yet Song, Diaby, Denilson and Bendtner all have extended ones, oh and guess who no one wants them.

And you have the temerity to tell the fans they are unintelligent! How do you continue to fool this board eh? How do you do it!

Maybe you have a bunch of replacements lined up and I will have to apologise, but you have often said buying more than two players won’t work, and if the so called players don’t leave we know you’ll pay them masses to stay another year, why? They have contracts.

Cesc needs to leave, he can’t keep telling us he loves Barca more, he gets too many injuries for me so take the highest bid, if he doesn’t want to go to Madrid then hard luck, this is Arsenal, it’s not about him.

Then use the money to get someone as good but injury free.

Personally I think selling Clichy was good news, not replacing him with a top player would be a disaster, I like Gibbs but he isn’t ready and is injury prone, Traore is not good enough.

Take on board what your own players are telling you, it’s not just Clichy, Cesc, Nasri, RVP and Theo telling you, we lost Cole, Kolo, Ade and Henry for the same reasons, open your eyes Arsene because you really don’t know best.

You now have the chance to really bring in new and better players, you have the money, but running this club with the yes men we have backing your every move is the equivalent of a Thai bride, they do anything you ask and in any position, they blow smoke up your arse non-stop and they convince you it’s not about the money.

I would hate not to be challenged, it seems to me there are few people save us that do, another fruitless season would show this club how big they are, support will dwindle, sponsors would too, if you don’t act Champions league qualification would be a thing of the past.

I have named a bunch of players that we have that are rubbish, paying them the money you do hinders us, costs us and is in your own words, is unintelligent.

Have a great day Grovers, let’s see what news we get today, oh and Gervinho doesn’t float my boat, get some real talent that will work from day one.

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Posted by Geoff

Exclusive: Official leaked data on Arsenal fan opinion sourced | Transfer ins and outs

July 4, 2011

Good morning Grover’s. A couple of days ago, some leaked data made it into the hands of Le Grove. Has Pam involved herself in some sort of break and enter scandal, I’ll leave that to the police to decide.

Anyway, here is the jist… we’ve seen a sneak preview of a YouGov/Cambridge University Poll of over 13,000 premiership club football fans – to be published next week – which tabulates the the opinions of club fans about their own team’s performance in the 2010/2011 season – creating league tables of what each team’s fans think about their own team, their manager, and each of their players.

For those that don’t know, YouGov are a hugely respected pollster whose results are often used to help shape Government policy. This survey will have been carried out to the highest standards.

Here are some of the headline grabbing bits…

The players Arsenal fans are most satisfied with at the moment are Robin Van Persie and Jack Wilshere. Two players who just got on with the job last season and put their all into everything they did. If Arsene Wenger was looking at a new captain next season, it’s to imagine he’ll look further than Robin Van Persie and it would seem that perhaps, fan sentiment would ok that decision. A player who didn’t fare so well was our current captain, Cesc Fabregas. A season of niggly injuries, poor mistakes and constant speculation have probably led to a low satisfaction score.

In satisfaction rating for overall team performance last season, Arsenal were a dreadful 16th out of 20 teams. That’s pretty awful. You’d have to imagine that much of this was down to the lack lustre performances, the huge prices we’re being forced to pay and once again, the lack of a trophy.

Considering we finished 4th in the league, that’s an incredibly low position. But don’t argue with me… this is a cross-section of fans from all over the UK partaking in this. It should also be noted that according to my leaker, this survey wasn’t taken straight after the season finished… this is fan sentiment a month after it’s all happened.

The final satisfaction poll surrounds the manager.

When I’m asked about whether Arsenal fans would like to see him sacked, I always say that’s the wrong question to ask. A better question would be to give him an approval rating. If you asked Arsenal fans on a scale of 1-10, how pleased they were with the manager, that might reflect differently than the usual, ‘he’s a legend, we could never sack him.’

Well, out of all the managers in the Premiership, Arsene Wenger was 14th for fan satisfaction. That’s pretty low considering some of the shocking managerial performances of the last season. Not surprising though. It seems all this fan angst that people keep telling me is in the minority, is, apparently not… it’s a majority opinion.

The rest of the survey will be out later on in the week, so it’ll be interesting to read who was lower than us, where Spurs finished up and how the other London clubs did comparatively.

Arsenal still seem to be lagging way behind everyone else in the transfer market. We’re doing a marvellous job of making top 4 rival Manchester City stronger. Giving them two of our starting 11 seems a bit crazy to me, but we just can’t resist the pound notes can we? We’ll no doubt be going back and forth over the transfer fee of Alvarez which appears to have alerted Inter who take a distinctly, ‘we’ll just pay it’ approach to transfers.

Arsenal will tie up a deal for Gary Cahill in the next two weeks providing no other club bids for the centre back. Once again, we’re only able to acquire players if we’re the only club involved. Other than that, there isn’t really much going on. Preseason training is due to start next week and so far, all we’ve managed to do is land one player in the shape of Gervinho… and to my knowledge, that hasn’t been officially announced.

People can keep on saying that we’re only a week into the transfer window, but I’m sure I remember Wenger telling us he’d get his business done early. Once again, that appears to be something of a lie. We’re not talking about bolstering the squad this summer are we? We’re talking about bringing in at least 3 first teamers. They’re going to need time to bed in, there is not point in bringing them in in August is there?

Still, we’ve signed Barcelona youth product Bellerin. Thank god for that. I can’t wait to see him leave for a £1million in 5 years time.

Benfica have moved for Nik B, about time too… he’s the greatest player everyone seems to have forgotten. What are his agents doing? Mind you, finding someone £50k a week when they’re the equivalent of a failed graduate must be tough going.

So while Rome is burning, Wenger is sitting there with all the clubs who are actually in poverty waiting for the others to move. The guy is ridiculous…

Still, we should be thankful for a wonderful sunny day. That always excites me. Beautiful sun!

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Posted by Pedro

Samir gearing us up to leave | Should Arsenal be self sustaining?

July 3, 2011

You always think it’s going to work, but sustaining your body on Pringle’s and beer for a night doesn’t work. My god, do I feel like a sack of crap this morning. I feel worse then David Hayes ego must do. What a shame eh? The man went to his knees more than Paris Hilton. For me, the fight reminded me of Rocky 4. I guess that’s why you shouldn’t expect any sort of sensible review, Geoff was the boxer, I’ll leave that to him.

My first port of call this morning was this delightful line Wenger dropped in earlier in the week that I failed to pick up on.

‘One sign of intelligence in life is to not always to want what you don’t have. Appreciate what you have.’

Sorry Mr Wenger, yet more digs at the fans? I haven’t heard a comment like that since I vented my jealousy at another childs Sega Mega Drive when I was 8 years old. I always thought a sign of intelligence was learning from your mistakes? Being content with what you have generally reminds me of a state of mind I like to call complacency. I look at other clubs trophies and I want what they have… isn’t that what every manager in football should be doing? Isn’t that called ambition?

What a strange old manager we have.

The Daily Mirror has us in for Stuart Downing for £20million, I really don’t know what to say about this rumour. He did well last year at points, but for me, I’ve never seen what all the hype is about. I watched him underwhelm countless times for Boro through his youth and I’ve never been impressed with him at Villa really. Still, I could be wrong, United’s Valencia was a mystery to me as well… and he turned out ok.

Samir ‘it’s not cause of the money’ Nasri has been jabbering to the NoTW. He said he earns stunning money already, so it’s more about winning things. He went on to say…

“With no titles under your belt, you can’t be in the list for the Ballon D’Or. I came to England to get trophies because I haven’t won anything in my career, apart from an Under-17 European Championship in 2004.”

Fair shout, I’ve said this countless times before, once you’re rich, you’re rich. All you want to feel is valued buy the team you’re playing for and you need to believe they’re serious about winning trophies. The only thing I feel Wenger is serious about is landing that big, fat, ‘I told you so’ before his career ends. I’d be looking at the chances of Arsenal mounting a serious challenge next year. I’d also ask myself if there was any chance of me winning the Balon D’Or when Diaby already has dibs on it. We’re the most in need out of the top 4 to bolster, we’re a month in, we’ve signed no one.

Wenger never learns. He should have 3 players wrapped up by now. Instead, we’re waiting till the end of the month when we can start playing hard ball. It’s an absolute joke and the reason we never win the summer.

The rumour mill has kicked into full effect with Theo Walcott apparently on the shopping list of AVB. Like I mentioned yesterday, he’s obviously sick of watching players like himself being given chance after chance to succeed. Him moving would kind of make sense as well. 5 years of utter, utter dross… one season of about 30 odd games and a few goals, one season where he’s started to look the part… and he’s off!

The Sunday Times runs with an interesting piece today, if you’re rich and well off like me, you may have purchased a Groupon voucher to get you past the pay wall for a pittance. There are a couple of interesting snippets in there. One is the Times insider source that says something along the lines of…

”He can afford to lose Clichy, who had a torrid time last season, and Cesc – everyone is tired of that situation. But Nasri’s a big one. That would send out the wrong message about where Arsenal are going and seriously worry other players.”

Now, I’ve heard that many of the senior players expect Cesc to go this summer, they, like us don’t think his heart is in it. I’ve also heard that no one was more aware of his own regressive performances that Clichy himself. He knew he was playing terribly. Nasri though… that would be a scary loss. Wenger doesn’t often lose players at the peak of their powers.

Tim Payton (
) also made some interesting comments in the article as well, basically stating the self sustaining business model has made us uncompetitive with transfers and wages… he says,

‘It doesn’t seem right that fans are asked to dig ever deeper when we have two billionaires owning 95% of the club’

Bravo to that comment. Self sustaining for me is code for, ‘we stick it to the fans’. Too many people seem to have the idea that self sustaining is like solar panels for our clubs bank account. That money comes from us paying over the odds for tickets. I have no worries about a Billionaire taking over the club and running it their way. What would be the difference bar maybe less of a drive to squeeze every penny out of us? You know, and perhaps a shift in focus from the balance sheet to the starting 11? Have a listen to Tim on Talksport here tiny.cc/b2duv

Before I go, let me know what you think of the new font. We’ll be making some changes to the site over the coming weeks, so your input is welcome. Also, make sure you tune in tomorrow, I have some exclusive information… it’s not about transfers, but it’s pretty damn interesting all the same!

Enjoy your day!

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Posted by Pedro

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