Winning is winning, but Arsenal will struggle this year…

September 11, 2011

Highlights

So I’m imagining there are going to be two camps out there today. You’ll have the camp that will be over the moon that we’ve responded with a victory after a massive defeat, with a bunch of new players. Then you’ll have the the camp that will say that yesterday was a major struggle and on the face of it, the new players didn’t look like they’d kicked us on a level.

I’m sitting somewhere in-between. Though I could see the benefits of having experienced players in the side, we still lacked that sense of urgency that haunted our game most of last season. There are lots of interesting cogs in the Arsenal machine this season, I’m just not sure the system Wenger is putting them into is going to work that well.

The first major chance of the game fell to us after Arteta picked up the ball centrally and fed  Ramsey through the middle, the Welshman some how managed fire it higher than you’d need to for a Rugby World Cup drop goal.

Down our end, Mertesacker had recieved rapturous applause for his first two passes, feeling selfish, he decided to give Chezzer the chance to garner some of his own. The German latched onto a Swansea cross, guided it towards our goal, some how the Pole kept it out with an instant save. I was sitting very close to that and it was a sight to behold!

We were very sloppy in the middle of the park. This wasn’t helped by Frimpong whose passing was wildly off kilter. Like I said a few weeks ago, people are very quick to jump on youth as the solution to an experience problem, thing is, you have to remember he’s only 18 years old. Passion and drive rarely converts into an accomplished teenage midfielder.

We were struggling to get shots on target. Theo broke through from an Arshavin slide rule pass, his effort was bundled off the line with some spectacular last ditch defending from Swansea.

Down the other end, Mertesacker made a double tackle to keep Dyer away from our goal. A few minutes later, Frimpong showed his naivety again by unnecessarily grappling a Swansea player to the ground outside our box. Our players were quite often guilty of watching the player, not the ball yesterday.

Our opening was a bizarre one. The Swansea keeper Vorm made a total hash of rolling the ball out to his full back, he dropped it on his ankles, Arshavin saw, turned and first time slotted the ball from a Kanu-Esque angle into the net. A top piece of finishing from a player I refuse not to love.

Ouch...

The second half opened with a bit of action. The giant pole waver clumped a female photographer over the head when she wasn’t looking. Maybe she forgot to get him a beer at half time? Who knows… it took 9 stewards about 20 minutes to remove her, I’m pretty sure she was ok. Some of the crowd cruelly sang, ‘Are you Diaby in disguise’ and ‘You’re staying down for compo!’. Not me… I find singing at the ground appalling.

Robin opened the half with a thumping hit of the post. Swansea retaliated after by clipping the bar with a Scott Sinclair freekick. The rest of the half kind of panned out without too much to talk about.

We slipped into panic stations after 70minutes, pretty much a standard with Arsenal sides of late. Even with the added experience, we couldn’t avoid that. We also showed a total lack of urgency or will to kill off the game. We should have capitalised on their morale dip after the goal and we should have looked to improve our lack lustre goal difference. It’s no good saying that Swansea are a good team, so are Bolton, United didn’t settle for one, they absolutely destroyed them.

I guess the toughest question we have to ask ourselves at the moment is where are the goals going to come from this year?

Robin Van Persie looked incredibly isolated up front on his own. I’m not sure this whole loan striker option is going to work without a Cesc or a Nasri in the side. He needs support up top. At the same time, the team needs to take more responsibility for creating decent chances for him.

There were some positives that came out of the game, no doubt about that. For starters, having a player of thee size and stature of Per Mertesacker in your back four is pretty incredible. He towers over everyone. He boasts so much height that when he high fived the Gunnersaurus he was nearly at eye level with him.

He’s a thoughtful defender who defends cleanly. He was a nuisance for corners down there end. I think his presence will be a calming one and he’ll certainly give us a big advantage against long ball merchants. My one concern for him will be against the pacey tricky players. Will his slow turning ability cause him problems? Or can he rely on whoever partners him to deal with that side of the game?

Arteta had quite a disappointing first start. His integration into the side was seamless. He has great technique, he’s not afraid to stick his boot in but his overall impact wasn’t amazing. I thought he was quite slow on the ball yesterday and I was hoping to see him take more of a lead against weak opposition. Still, it’ll take him time like everyone else to settle into his new role. You can’t expect to replace one of the best talents on the planet, you instead have to adapt and work out a new way of playing.

I also found Theo a bit of a struggle, poor finishing an poor crossing dogged his game. If he can iron out those issues, his pace will put him in plenty of great positions this year.

My MOTM performance was to Chezzer. He made a couple of crucial saves, however, it was his absolute domination of the box that impressed me the most. He caught nearly every cross, his distribution was solid and he’s looking more and more like he could become our next in line for the ‘world class’ throne. I wasn’t too sure about Cruyff turning a Swansea player. Keep it simple, don’t let your arrogance get the better of you…

I know it’s only one game into our new season, but my overriding feeling from yesterday is that we’re going to really struggle this year. 4th place isn’t going to be straight forward, it’s going to be a battle. We’re in yet another transitional year but at least we have experienced heads to fall back on. The team won’t have much time to practice together. It’s off to Germany to face a very, very good Dortmund side on Tuesday. An exciting match with some very exciting players on show.

We’ll have all the suspended mob back and ready to play. Song and Gervinho will be like new signings, hopefully we’ll find a bit more of a creative edge by then!

P.S. Not sure why everyone who wasn’t at the game kept saying the atmosphere was poor yesterday, I thought it was ok?

Ratings:

  • Chezzer 7
  • Gibbs 6
  • Mertesacker 6.5
  • Koscielny 6.5
  • Sagna 6.5
  • Rambo 6.5
  • Frimpong 5
  • Arteta 6.5
  • Walcott 5.5
  • Robin 6
  • Andrey 7

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Posted by Pedro

Will Park start? | Mertesacker wouldn’t have signed if Vermaelen had stayed fit

September 10, 2011

So after what feels like 16 weeks without football, we’re out the other end gearing up for a what I’m hoping will be a thrilling return to football. Swansea head on over, brimming with naive new team enthusiasm, whilst our squad turn up hoping to banish the demons of the Manchester United spanking they were served up a few weeks ago.

This is a big game for us. We need to show there is form without Cesc and Nasri. We need to pull ourselves together, gel quickly and get this season back on the road.

On the injury front, Rosicky is a doubt with a knee injury. We’re missing, Wilshere, Diaby, Ryo, Vermaelen, Squillaci, Song, Gervinho, and Jenkinson.

So, that gives me the task of picking out a side I have, in the main, never seen before!

Chezzer

Sagna Mertesacker Koscielny Gibbs

Frimpong Arteta Benayoun

Arshavin Robin Theo

It really is too tough to call.I’m not sure where I see him playing Benayoun. From memory, he plays very well just in the hole. Will he elect for Arshavin when he’s in such dire form, or will he slip Park in there (he must be available if he’s not listed as otherwise on the site)? I’m not even sure he’ll play the same system he has been. From the stats, we know Arteta creates plenty of chances, but enough to replace Cesc’s vision? I’m not so sure. Either way it’s going to be interesting!

I think I’m most excited to see how Mertesacker slots into the side. How dominant can he be in the penalty box? How quickly will he take control of what we’re doing at the back? I think he’ll compliment the pace and attacking style of Koscielny, but he really does need to make sure he leads on marking and organising. We’ve got 3 players in that back line who have an aversion to talking to each other.

In the middle, I have no worries about Frimpong getting sent off today. The game isn’t intense enough. This is a good chance for him to get his positioning in order. Robin and Theo could have a field day out there. I’m sure we’ll see plenty of the Englishman cutting inside and using his pace to burn Swansea’s green back 4.

Wenger…

The coach was in a chatty mood yesterday, he reckons he could write a book about the summer he’s just had and he says it was more difficult than we imagine. From what I gather, he’s referring to the fact that we were hardballed by both City and Barcelona. They forced the transfers to take as long as they did by not offering what we wanted by a long shot from the start. Now, I can understand us waiting it out for Samir as that was an important deal to force through. I still don’t understand why we were in a situation where we couldn’t have taken more control with Barcelona.

‘It’s like in a company. When you’re half-in and half-out, it’s not as good as if you’re complete in. That happened at the start of the season.’

A very true statement. I’m not sure I’d want to be going into the season with a massively unhappy captain, we’ve seen first hand what that’s done for Spurs. At the same time though, I’m not happy Barcelona are telling the world they landed a great deal. It’s a touch embarrassing that we were out haggled when the power resided with us.

I find Wenger’s insistence that he couldn’t sign players before the last 24 hours a bit strained as well. Hardly any of the reasons made sense. He claims that he could only move late on Park and Santos when he knew Traore and Nik B were leaving. Why? Neither signing raised any sort of substantial revenue. He knew both were going all summer. Why couldn’t Park and Santos have been picked up early in the season? The most interesting part was what I told you the other day about the Vermaelen injury…

‘I knew as well that Vermaelen would have surgery the week before Manchester United so we needed to buy a centre-back.’

It’s unbelievable that Wenger would have gone into the next three months without a new centre back if TV hadn’t picked up a new injury. We were all sitting there wondering if Wenger would rue the mistake not to sign Cahill, instead he sits there and tells us Mertesacker was the response to the problem! Unbelievable really. He had no intention of improving the defence this summer.

‘Of course I’m not the only one who controls things [in this situation]. It’s the clubs who buy, the players as well, the determination of the players, because they change sometimes their mind as well.’

The above point was also interesting. One would assume our constant dithering on salaries and fees is the coaches reference point. As far as I’m aware, Alvarez and Mata were down to our cock ups and as we’ve reported before, flapping around in January is what cost us Phil Jones. I was also party to a very amusing story about another one of our transfer ‘nearly’ cock ups for a certain young player that I’ll tell you if ever join me for a pre-match beer.

Lessons need to be learnt this summer. A review of what went wrong and why it went wrong needs to be conducted so the board don’t make the same mistakes next season. It doesn’t happen at other clubs in the main and it shouldn’t be happening at ours. We also need to review how these contract problems keep happening to us. How many more players are we going to allow into their last year before we start tackling it? Remember, Theo, Robin, Song and Vermaelen could all find themselves in Nasri’s situation next summer. 60% of our outfield starting line up could be gone in a year. Not good.

Comments section…

The season is well underway now, the excitement of the window is behind us, so I’d like to take a few sentences to remind people that the comments section of Le Grove is probably one of most read in the Arsenal blogosphere, generally because the views that are expressed back and forth are interesting and well thought out.

I meet people out who tell me they watch the comments all day. The Grover’s who post are of huge importance to the ongoing success as a blog, some of you have been dropping regular comments for the full four years. Now, some of the comments have been getting out of hand lately, the comments section is not a free for all. Please remember you are in a public arena and think about what you post. Have an opinion by all means, just don’t lower the tone. It’s a football forum, keep it about Arsenal, save you slurs for the opposition. I see you all as friends, the last thing I want to do is stop people enjoying themselves on the site…

Support today…

First game of September is today, I’m excited, you’re excited, the new players will be nervous. Lets put on a great show and a massive two fingers up to Samir Nasri… let’s tear the roof off the ground and forget the past 3 months. There’s a real sense of renewed hope. We’ve got experience, we’ve got some class in and for me, the only way is forward!

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Posted by Pedro

Some pretty amazing Arsenal Data on injuries…

September 9, 2011

I read the John Cross article on Arsenal’s injury issues yesterday and thought I’d make a comment. Basically, he put our problems down to luck and said that we shouldn’t blame the medical team. I totally agree with that sentiment (the latter part anyway). Like I’ve said on numerous occasions, the medical team deal with the problems after they’ve happened. They’re the reaction in the process. My issue has always been with how they get there in the first place. GPS has come in and definitely improved the state of play, but like Arsene admitted when he said he played Jack in the red zone last year, he doesn’t always listen.

My gripe has been with how the players get there. Why did Thomas Vermaelen keep breaking down intermittently through last season? Why do we over train our players for the last ten minute winners at the expense of injuries?

One of the points raised was that we have the same amount of injuries as United, the problem for us is that we don’t have a squad deep enough to cope. Again, impossible to deny that strength in-depth is a problem. My issue isn’t with the strength in-depth. It’s the fact we don’t keep our key players fit as well as United do.

Key Player Data 2010-11

As you can see by the table above, United’s key players average a massive 25% more minutes on the pitch than our players do over the course of a season. When Arsenal were great, the seasons we won trophies were the seasons we kept our key players fit for longest. As you can see above, there are 4500 minutes (50 games) we’re missing key players for that United aren’t, that’s always going to be a massive loss, especially when you consider that, like John Cross pointed out, the players coming in are generally not of an acceptable standard. Over the course of a Premiership season, that is the equivalent of each of our key players missing 7.1 games a year. We know first hand the impact of missing one key player… let alone 7!

Another key factor to consider when looking at our key player injury woes is the average age. We’re suffering more injuries with a key player average age 3.86 years younger than United. Is that right? Shouldn’t younger players get injured less? Our players are 17% younger yet complete 25% fewer games. Is that bad luck? If I went back over past 5 seasons, would the pattern be similar? Of course it would… we never keep our best players fit and that costs us trophies. Every left back at the club in 2006. Adebayor 2009. Gallas 2008. Vermaelen 2010. Robin 2011. Theo every year. Diaby every year. Kieran Gibbs every 3 matches. Rosicky permanently!

Now people will say I missed out injury prone players like Owen Hargreaves, that’s true. But I haven’t put Diaby in there. A player who was supposed to replace Gilberto in 2008. He’s a first team player who never plays either and he’s far younger than Owen. I also missed out Almunia’s season long finger injury…

People will say last minute goals are fantastic. Well, sure, that’s true, but against the back drop of losing a key players for 3 months? People say Arsene is a visionary… well, why did it take so long for us to consider GPS technology? It’s been about since 2003! Le Grove called for it before we got it!

Impact injuries aside. You’d be very hard pushed to blame luck on anything in this day in age. When the margins between victory and defeat are percentage point fractions, you can’t afford to be giving your biggest rival a 25% head start each season.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

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Posted by Pedro

The cost of Arsenal’s summer revealed / Bleak 3 years predicted…

September 8, 2011

Older players getting creative in a bid to catch Wenger’s eye

Before I took a job of being a Twitter Operator in May, I dabbled in Business Development. I won’t go into the detail, but basically, I wasn’t the best at it. Earlier in the summer I listed out who I thought could leave and roughly the price we’d get for them.

No bonus for me this year...

Well, today, I think we can see why my 18month career in selling tanked. My pricing was clearly out by a long way. What I priced versus what we sold was about 38million out. Now is this because the values were shot in the first place? No. Don’t tell me you can get Enrique for £6million but Champions League Finalist Eboue is worth £2million less. Don’t tell me Andy Carroll is worth £15million more than Nik b! The problem here is with salary. When you sign a player you have to include what they’re being paid.

Clubs outside the top 4 can’t afford Arsenal deadwood salaries. So that’s why we’ve had to ship out Denilson and Nik on loan and that’s why we’re probably still covering part of their salary.

For today’s exercise, I’ve got their whole salary on their new clubs.

Wages and Salary Recouped

So, looking at what we’ve brought in, it’s not half bad. What we lost on Cesc, in my opinion we made up for with ‘last year’ broken hand Sammy. Over all we brought in close to £60million and shaved £20million off salaries.

Inbound

Coming in, we’ve spent £59million. Thy gives us a surplus surplus of £50million give or take. That’s also given us about a £5.75 million discount from our £120million wage bill. So, armed with the knowledge that we make a small loss on a £120million wage bill and that we have pretty much the same income for the next 3 years unless something drastic happens, the simple fact is, unless we sell, our transfer pot going forward is going to be looking pretty bleak. Next summer, we have enough for 2 reasonably good players on two pretty good salaries.

The Queensland Property deals should bring in another £35million at some point, but after that, bar an increase in television revenue deals or a few minor sponsorship deals, we’re looking pretty flat on the mega profit front.

Scary situation eh? Can our squad afford to go the next 3 years without investment? Can we be assured of Champions league without serious help or a calculated business risk?

Don’t get me wrong, if we sold Almunia, Squillaci and Diaby next summer, we’d free up another £12mill in salary. That could allow us to move for super class players, question is, who will have them? Then the question is, where do we get the cash from the year after? Another raid on the fans? My meat pie is already the most expensive in the league!

Anyway, them be the sense checked facts for you (A trusted number cruncher okayed what I’ve done there).

I’ll leave you to chew the figures today, tomorrow I’ll tell you what they mean going forward. I’ll also try and get some answers for some of the hotter debates in the comments today.

Who says the international break has to be boring?

P.S. If you loved Arteta’s comments, you’ll love this excellent analysis on the man by an Evertonian here. If you want to find out what we thought about the Transfer dealings of the summer, catch our thoughts on Goal.com and Metro. Oh, any spares, let me know!

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Posted by Pedro

The damning verdict on the board | Are Arsenal fans about to protest? Will you join?

September 7, 2011

Nothing quite like an England match to sober up your birthday celebrations. A game that had the creativity of an accountants marketing brainstorm. Truly laboured. Expectantly boring, but a win all the same. Oh and a goal from Ashley Young which burned a little… and an assured Ramsey performance.

In other international games, Park Chu-young zipped in to score another cracking goal. The boy looks tasty. Oh… And Mr Chezzer had a one man army game for the Polish. Check out his wonder save if you get the chance!

Black Scarf…

There’s a protest heading out on Saturday before the game. It’ll be aimed at the club and the terrible summer we’ve just faced. A bit of an awkward one really.

People will say the timing isn’t right… when is the timing ever right? If it had happened at the Emirates Cup, people would pull the, ‘there’s still six weeks to go, be patient’ line. If you did it at the AGM, you wouldn’t have the critical mass. So Swansea it is.

I’m like many Arsenal fans. I don’t really know where I sit on this subject. I’m a big fan of a statement, I’d march for my rights and I commend those who do. I’m just not sure I’d like to do it against my team?

Once I’m out the house on match day, I’m in the zone, us against the world… I don’t want to be against my club on a match day. I’m the battered house wife, I know what’s going on, I can see the summer bruises, but Wenger has presented us with a bunch of slightly mature bunch of ok roses and promised everything will be ok…

… do I truly believe him? No… Do I at least want to give him the chance? Yes…

I always think there needs to be goals that come out of something like this.

1) Is there any benefit to the club in sacking a manager now?
2) Would the board ever get sacked on the whim of Arsenal fans?

I think the answer to both of those questions is no.

So what is the aim? I’m not sure. We need to find out so I’ll try and get some info in for tomorrow from the chaps who are running it.

Update: PROTEST OFF

My plantaris is literally killing me…

So turns out Tommy V hasn’t done his alternate Achilles, he’s merely had some surgery on his plantaris. It’s basically this years metatarsal. All the kids in Shoreditch have got a plantaris issue this season, it’d be embarrassing if you had anything else. He’ll be back in 4 weeks and playing in 6. Who believes that? Not me…

Frimmers

Apparently he wants to play for Ghana. How can I criticise him. He’s as English as Ozil is German. Or Cascarino is Irish! If he wants to play for his country of origin, why not? It’ll be a massive loss for England, but all those midseason breaks to Africa must be appealing!

The Board

The Raw Data - 2035 Votes

The Split

The truth...

So there we have it, out of 2000 fans polled, only 7 percent are satisfied or above, pretty damning you have to say. I feel for Ivan and his team. It’s amazing that 40% of people are satisfied with Wenger, choosing to ignore that much of the summer was down to him. Whilst almost categorically, people have slammed the board.

Important questions I’d like you to answer today on that topic…

1) What are you reasons for unanimous board disapproval?

2) What would you like to see them do better?

I think if this poll proves anything, it’s that for Arsenal to see a change of manager, things have to get far, far worse. Wenger is still beyond reproach. The focus of the bad summer is on the board, not the manager. If they’d removed him when they should have, they wouldn’t have had support. Fans still believe there isn’t money, fans still believe our wage structure stopped us getting players and fans obviously feel that Stan should have done more this summer to steady the ship. Or maybe, just maybe, comments like this from your Chairman hack people off?

“It’s complete and utter rubbish and absolute nonsense. I think he is happy enough and we are happy enough,” <- On Wenger

“He is absolutely right – they did get him on the cheap. But he wanted to go back there and we respected that.” <- On selling our Captain

I’ve posed this question many times before, how bad does it have to get before we make a change? On the evidence of the last two polls… very, very bad.

Anyway, your thoughts will be welcome in the comments, come and join the party!

P.S. I thought this was funny (Link)….

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Posted by Pedro

Tommy V… did we know before deadline day? | Wenger Satisfaction Poll | Le Grove Birthday Time!

September 6, 2011

Firstly, it’s our Le Grove’s birthday today, we reach the age of four and we’ve kept up our record of posting everyday at least once for the duration of that period. This last year has been our biggest in terms of comments (250,000 in a year, 80,000 away from a 1,000,000), it’s been the biggest in terms of visits, we’re about 37% up on last year already and it’s also been a bit of an amazing year for being picked up by the various news publications.

Thanks for dropping by everyday, thanks for following our tweets and Facebook updates and thanks for taking the time out of your day to post comments in our thriving community, which for me is still the best for varied opinion and banter. We know you could go anywhere in your quest for a hit of Arsenal, we’re over the moon so many of you choose to swing by Le Grove so regularly!

The next year is will see a pretty robust growth plan. First up is a redesign of the site which is underway, we’ll be moving from WordPress.com and the new site will hopefully capture all the best bits the current template does but add all the modern functionality you see elsewhere. We’ll also definitely, most certainly be setting up a Podcast in the next few weeks. I’ll be trying to source guests like Jack Wilshere and Robert Pires on, if those fall through, I’ll certainly be able to land Rodney from the Armoury… he’s gagging to get his opinion out there. We’re also investigating a few other avenues which could certainly add value to the site!

Onto the post… oh, and thanks for all the amazing gifts no one sent in. Real classy.

Tommy V…

Vermaelen’s injury started as a thigh complaint, it ended as an Achilles operation. Starts out as 8 weeks, will it end in a season long lay off again? Let’s hope not…

This has all the hallmarks of JD two seasons back when the club knew he was out long-term yet decided against pushing for a new body to replace him.

That year we played Gallas and Vermaelen in most games and eventually ran them into ground. Gallas was out before the end of the year… Followed by Vermaelen at the start of the next.

Bad luck or bad management? How long can you keep putting injuries down to misfortune? Is there any other industry you’d be allowed to watch the same costly problem happen over and over again before someone compared your misfortune to your rivals and noticed a pattern…

Other clubs have less injuries and quicker recovery times.

How we could miss out on Gary Cahill if there was even a suspicion of long-term problems I don’t know. If John Cross was reporting the Vermaelen concerns last week you can bet your bottom dollar the Arsenal medical staff had reported that to Wenger well before the window closed.

Anyway, we’ll see how this pans out. Once again we’ve bought in a new player and they’ve got to adapt and hit the ground running straight away… A big ask, but I guess that’s why they get paid the big dollars.

Just for the record, Thomas Vermaelen was out of the squad the Friday before the United game… There was no late Fitness test on match day. According to team bus sources, he wasn’t on it.

UEFA…

Wenger’s ban was upheld and the club was fined an additional £10k for their troubles. Makes a mockery of the £500 fine the Spanish coach recieved for being an on air racist about Thierry a few years ago. The severity of the punishment compared to what UEFA dish out for serious crimes against the game is laughable.

Though I’d still question the professionalism of the club, I’m not a manager and I knew you couldn’t communicate with the bench. How many ridiculous stories have we heard over the years of coaches trying to bend the rules?

If we asked a UEFA Official, why did we only do it on the night? Why didn’t we get the response in an e-mail? Standard business practice for any decision that could get you in trouble. No one got a delivery time changed when I was ruling the show in cardboard box world… No matter how perishable their lettuce was.

‘It’ll fail unless I get the change in a mail’

That was my motto…

Oxo-Chambasisst…

You buggers eh? While you’re all crawling up Frimpong’s backside voting him up the most exciting youth player chart, our strangely named winger is out there making things happen. He landed three assists and won a penalty… The greatest England under 21 talent since Franny Jeffers? Possibly… Our saviour? Well according to many today you’d imagine so!

Personally, I’d send him out on loan for a year like United would do. Let him rip it up with a team like West Ham or Bolton then bring him in when he’s ready to blow at the Emirates. Just like we did with Jack.

Arsene Wenger Satisfaction Poll (0 being very unsatisfied to the point of suicide / 5 being so happy you’d give him a Denilson deal)

Raw data for the accountants...

Visual for the artists... (and builders)

A further split down…

Keeping it very simple...

So there we have it people. Most people voted with a 3, indicating they were satisfied, however, when the numbers are totted up, a substantial amount of the fanbase are unsatisfied with how things at the club are being run by the man in charge of the playing side of things. I couldn’t have picked a fairer time to run the poll either. It’s the first time in about 5 years we’ve been reasonably pleased with some players coming in.

Next up… the board.

Have a great day Grovers!

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Posted by Pedro

Usmanov Poised ~ Fan Young Player Award – Injury Shocker…

September 5, 2011

“Unfortunately Wilshere is not ready. Maybe it is a consequence of last season, he was in the red like I told you and in fairness what nobody wanted to hear.”

The consequence of those actions and an early return to training has resulted in England’s best young player being crocked for 2 months minimum. Very sad for Jack. He’s a warrior, he wouldn’t want to be out and he’ll be sorely missed. Once again, Arsene Wenger has demonstrated that he’s not one for learning lessons. The manager still doesn’t seem to be able to correlate having a tiny squad with increased injuries. He still can’t correlate super intense training sessions with fatigued bodies.

People have often slated me for making these points, but time after time we’re proved correct. Last year the manager came out and admitted that there was a competitive advantage to having super fit players in the last ten minutes of a game. The way they achieve that is by training to match level during the week. This fatigues the body, a fatigued body is more susceptible to an injury. Jack Wilshere was playing in the red zone for two months, combined with 57 competitive games… and the ingredients were there for a problem. You can’t abuse an underdeveloped body and not expect something bad to happen.

If you still dont’ believe me, and you can’t see the logic, how about the quotes of Raymond Verheijen. He’s coached with Russia, Netherlands, South Korea, Manchester City and Chelsea. The man knows his stuff and he had this to say on our set up. (Quotes from Goal.com)

“How many times does this pattern have to repeat itself before someone inside or outside Arsenal [is going to] wake up and do something about it?”

“The problem is a lot of people think ‘more is better’ in terms of sessions.

“Traditionally, people assume you have to develop the body first before you play the game.

“They push players to extend their limits to get fitter because they copy the training methods from other sports. In a lot of sports, indeed, more is better such as cycling, running, gymnastics or swimming.

“You have people who make football so unnecessarily complicated. Because of this scientific invasion people stop thinking themselves and stop using common sense. The world of football is brainwashed by fitness language. That’s why I always say, ‘Get back to basics’.

“How is it possible that 10 different clubs have 10 different fitness coaches who use 10 different training methods? Players are the victim of subjectivity. Training methods should not be based on someone’s opinion or past experience. The training methods should be football-specific and use different principles to athletics and hockey.”

“At Arsenal he has suffered several muscle injuries which cannot be put down to bad luck.”

‘Arsenal is only just another example of an underachieving team because of injuries due to incompetent periodisation and injury prevention.’

Arsene Wenger put in place a team of GPS whizzkids in last season, they’ve told him Jack Wilshere is in the red and he’s ignored it. Sure, he had no choice. So this summer, when he had the chance to improve the depth of the squad, once again we’ve fallen short. History keeps repeating itself, yet every season we curse our luck! It’s managerial negligence not a 5 year sulk from Lady Luck.

Take note of the last line… injury prevention. This isn’t a medical staff problem. They just deal with the consequences of bad process. You don’t blame the hospital for amount of ladder accidents that happen in winter. You’ve got to address the problem at its core. Why are the injuries happening? Who is telling the manager his methods are flawed? Who has the guts to make a stand. This goes for the players as well. They must know that they’re being over trained. There were plenty of rumours last year that Cesc was very unhappy with the set up and we know that Robin uses his own personal trainer when he returns from his customary injury.

Removing the impact injuries… most soft tissue and stress injures are preventable. Playing someone who was 18 for 57 games last year is ridiculous and reckless. Just like the overuse of Vermaelen and Gallas the year before was also stupid.

Interesting to see Tennis is having the same problems with injuries as Arsenal. 19 players have dropped out if the US open this week. Jim Courier insisted if he’d had more rest when he was younger he’d have been able to address his shocking get up and he’d have put 4-5 seasons on his career. Is it any wonder Wenger won’t put more than 2 years on a 30 year olds deal. They’re destroyed by the time they get to that age.

Arteta…

At least Jack I’d pleased about Arteta.

‘Arteta is a great player, I played against him when I was on loan at Bolton and he was one of the best players on the pitch. Again, last season when I played he was one of the best players on the pitch. He’s one of the best players in the league an he’s a good addition to the squad.

Usmanov…

Rumblings of Usmanov being offered a seat on the board are doing the rounds. Matt Scott over at the Guardian reckons Stan may have been sold a dream of sustainability that has well and truly been shattered this summer with big name departures and bodged transfer attempts. Stan could in no way sustain a City type spending spree. If he wants to see value on his over priced asset, he’ll have to ensure it doesn’t drop off the elite club map. To do that he’ll need to invest. Has he the stomach for that in a sport he doesn’t love?

Usmanov on the other hand can’t be ignored. He’s rumoured to be the richest man in the UK. He’s a visionary businessman. He comes to the game, clearly has a passion for the sport and he could fund us to the top in a very short space of time. Forget his past. I’m sure your aversion to him doesn’t keep you off Facebook, Zynga games or coupon site Groupon. They guy knows how to run a business. He has success on the brain and the clout to deliver.

Unlike Chelsea, we’d come complete with the countries second biggest second social media following, the number one most clicked club online (According to Metro) and a commercial platform so poor, you couldn’t help but fail to improve it!

Anyway… worth paying attention to that story. Stan Kroenke pretty much tanked in his first year as leader of the club.

Gary Cahill

Lots of excitable talk about Gary Cahill in the press after his marvellous performance for England. He’s after Champions League football when he moves which explains why he didn’t pressure for a move to Spurs. He’ll most likely move in January. I hope Chelsea, City and United don’t have any injuries or need then.

I like the cut of his jib and at 25 he’s only going to get better. Apparently he stays behind after training to practice his finishing much to the annoyance if his peers!

Theo…

You listen to the rumblings about Theo and his 5 year quest to play up front and you wonder if that will be what finally pushes him out the club. I’m not overly fussed about him from an out and out talent point of view but we forget he’s still only 21 an whatever you think of him, he puts teams on the back foot with his devastating pace.

Poll Results

Emmanuel Frimpong 38%
Ryo Miyachi 27%
Jack Wilshere 20%
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain 10%
Aaron Ramsey 4%
Carl Jenkinson 1%
Kieran Gibbs 0%

Votes – 2788

Well, it’s no surprise that man of the moment, Emmanuel Frimpong smashes the award for the player who fans are most excited about seeing this season. Is this just about raw talent? Not for me. It’s about his clear love for Arsenal, it’s about his lack of respect for towing the party line when it comes to saying goodbye to Samir Nasri and it’s about the way he tears around the football pitch like he owns it. I haven’t seen a player try and gee the crowd up like Frimpong since Thierry and before that, the legend that was Patrick Vieira who used to clap the fans when we used to sing his name!

We all want a hero, we all want a player we can connect with and I think this boy has all those ingredients. You know he feels each loss the same way we do. You know he wants to succeed and I have a feeling he’s going to be something a bit special. Patience is the key though…

Ryo Miyachi slips into second with after impressing out on loan last year. His blistering pace and silky skills have me thinking of Reyes when he was a lot younger before he was a battered winger.

Jack Wilshere was 3rd followed by AOC. Not a lot of love for the full backs… primarily because of their position and some dodgy performances I’d imagine.

Final Poll of the break…

This is something I’ve wanted to run for a while and I think it’s a fair time to do it. What satisfactions rating would you give the manager? They do it in American every week with the President, why not with the manager of the club? You might not want him fired, but you might not be over the moon with his current performances. Or you might be elated at his signings and think we’re turning the corner! We’ll do this on a monthly basis and track his progress as the season goes on.

That’s your lot!

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Posted by Pedro

Arsenal fan poll results in | Wilshere injury woe… | Best failed transfer stories please!

September 4, 2011

Well hello sports fans. What about yesterday eh? A hot, sunny day, for once. How did that happen? I hope you all treated summertime skincare rules with the disdain they deserve when it comes to England. If you’re not lobster red this morning, you should be ashamed of your Great British roots. If you live in a country that gets 40 degree heat everyday, your sacrifice is that you don’t get Arsenal live… and spiders.

Which summer signing has you most excited?

  1. Per Mertesacker1 34%
  2. Gervinho 25%
  3. Mikel Arteta 25%
  4. Andre Santos 7%
  5. Park Chu-Young 7%
  6. Jenkinson 2%
  7. Yossi Benayoun 1%
Votes – 3,365

So there we have it. We had a better turn out for our vote than most local elections and the results make for fascinating reading. The German giant Per Mertesacker comes out on top as the Arsenal fans most exciting signing. Now, he doesn’t score goals, he’s not particularly glamorous, but what this proves is it’s not always about the entertainment. Arsenal fans have been desperate to see a player with presence come into the backline for years and now they’ve got one, they’re excited.

We half managed that with Thomas Vermaelen, but his aerial dominance was subject to a run and jump. Now we have a player you have to run and jump just to beat him standing. That was where my vote went, so I’m pleased to see Arsenal fans totally agree. This man will give our attack a platform this season and hopefully his leadership will result in a calmer team all round.

Jens Lehmann also voted and had this to say…

“Per will have to get used to English football, particularly the speed of the game,” he said.

“It is faster than the ­Bundesliga and will be a change for him, but he will cope. I am absolutely sure about that.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that he will be a huge success for ­Arsenal.”

Gervinho slotting in at 2nd is no surprise. He’s been mostly excellent since he arrived at Arsenal. He is raw talent that needs some polishing over the next year, but when he starts timing his passes a little better and his finishing improves, he’ll certainly become a fan favourite.

He and Arteta were split by 5 votes. The Spaniard is a deeplying playmaker. There’s a bit of a scaremongering about him in the Independent today. I’m hoping that’s a news leak to appease very upset Everton fans. I’m pretty sure he’s going to be a huge success at Arsenal over the next couple of seasons.

Santos and Park take 4th and 5th, it’s to be expected, we know very little about either of them. Jenkinson takes 6th and Yossi takes last place. That was a bit of a surprise, he only managed 35 votes. A mixture of being massively injury prone and underrated probably accounted for that result.

Today’s poll!

Jack Wilshere…

There are conflicting reports about his injury, some saying he’s out for 3 months, others saying he’s back in light training (Jack on Ian Wright’s show no less, said he’ll be back when he is ready). I have not idea when he’ll be back, I’ll try and dig something out about him but I doubt the staff know either. I do know the press love to over exaggerate when  it comes to our players being out… normally because an educated guess of 3 months has a 60% chance of being right! It’s a shame we run these players into the ground, openly admit it, and make no concerted effort to address those problems with a squad that can handle a season.

Transfer Fails…

As it’s a weekend and we’re all a little bored of the International football, I thought we’d play a little game. Who is the best failed transfer target you can remember? Perhaps the first massive saga you were part of as a Gooner, the one that got away? Now, I’m not talking Xabi Alonso here, I’m talking old school if you can think that far back. Here are a couple for you…

Ronald & Frank De Boer

‘You’ll grow into the shirts boys.’

Arsene Wenger was looking to bring in the famous Dutch brothers in 1997. He was a man of ethics as you already know, but this was one of the first of his counter productive displays of morality. The brothers had met with Arsene Wenger and described him as visionary, they wanted to play under him. What became clear as the saga moved forward was that the brothers had a deal with Ajax that only one brother could be released. It all got messy and legal action was threatened. We pulled out, Barca nipped in… and that was the end of those two!

Diego Maradona

Example setter

Now this was a story I wasn’t aware of until yesterday, but way back in the late 70′s, when he was cutting his teeth in Argentina, Arsenal were rumoured to be in for the footballing genius.

‘When I was 19 they tried to buy me and another player from Argentinos Juniors – around the time Ricky Villa and Ossie Ardiles signed for Tottenham.

‘But it didn’t happen. I sometimes wonder what might have happened.’

Can you imagine what would have happened? Can you bloody imagine?

John Terry & Frank Lampard

It was probably John…

Almost ten years ago when Chelsea were run by the controversial Chairman, Ken Bates, Chelsea were in massive trouble. They had spiralling debts and according to top sources close to Geoff at the time, they were on the verge of bankruptcy. If major investment didn’t come in that summer, they were going to have to make a quick fire sale of their best players just to survive. Arsenal were rumoured to be hot on the trail of Frank Lampard and John Terry. We’d been constantly linked to the centre back for years prior and it’s widely believed that had Abramovich not helicoptered in and decided he’d prefer to buy Chelsea, not Spurs, those two could have been lining up for Arsenal.

What are your tales of transfer woe?

Let us know in the comments section!

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Posted by Pedro

Park Chu-the-man! | Robin bangs in 4 against San Marinwho | Arsenal Transfer thoughts…

September 3, 2011

Arsene Wenger shows Park Chu-Young the ice box he'll be sitting in if he misses a penalty

Well good morning everybody! It’s international week, which is normally a struggle for Arsenal fans. It always comes that little bit too early in the season, it’s always completely boring and it usually results in at least 60% of our players returning with niggles or out and out broken bodies.

I haven’t heard any bad news yet. In fact, in the main, it’s been quite positive so far.

I watched a bit of the England game last night, what a blast that was. Gary Cahill looked fantastic. Good with the ball at his feet, positionally excellent and dominant in the air. I’m not going to rue his absence from our squad though. I heard that on deadline day, Spurs offered £12million for him, Bolton wanted £15million… but Gary wasn’t fussed enough to push through the deal. My hope is that he’ll be hanging on for a January move to Arsenal. Hope and reality are often not at one. It’d just be nice to know that if we need an extra body, we can pick him up for a good price and he won’t be Cup tied.

We had good news on the goal scoring front as well. Park Chu-Young literally smashed Lebanon to bits with a hatrick which was thoroughly excellent to hear! If there is one player that I have reservations about, it’s him. His lack of top class experience and his slight frame is a worry. However, knowing that he’s taken a world-class defence apart gives me hope. Simple fact is, you have to be able to find the net, scoring goals is never a bad thing. He looks like an intelligent player around the box, hopefully he’ll be able to bring that to the Premiership. Hey, you never know, he could be our very own Chicarito? Check out his goals here, they got me a little excited it has to be said!

Aaron Ramsey also landed one for Wales and Henry Lansbury managed a terrific write up in the Times the other day for his contribution to Under 21′s. Overshadowing Henderson big time apparently. Is there still hope for him? Maybe…

Robin Van Persie ripped San Marino a new one when he powered 4 goals past them last night. I’ve never met someone from San Marino. I have doubts it’s a real country. In fact, I’ve never seen a package holiday there, or heard of friends destroying it on a stag do despite them boasting over 2 million visits a year. I mean honestly, considering it’s a country that boasts 1.5km of aerial tramway, I don’t know enough…

Sorry… Robin… Goals… Good times.

I read the story about Nik Bendtner yesterday. I don’t disagree with him in parts. I’m pleased he won’t be coming back. He’ll be a good striker for Sunderland, but he’d never be able to replicate what a proper carthorse like Adebayor did for us back in the day. I guess that’s what it boils down to. In my opinion, if you’re going to be that lumbering, you have to have pace in your game. You also have to have a decisive touch every now and then. His career went down the pan for me when he mis-controlled against Barcelona. The things he doesn’t understand are fair. 1) Why are you playing me on the wing 2) Why are you selling me instead of Chamakh 3) Why was Chamakh given so many more chances over me 4) Why does Messi keep winning the Balon D’or

He’s right to be perplexed. Most Arsenal fans are. He had to go though, his head wasn’t there anymore… he needs a fresh start.

There have been rumours circulating about Thomas Vermaelen and his long term fitness, now, I haven’t spoken to anyone recently about that topic, but as far as I was told last season, there are no concerns that he’s a broken man. I’ll do some digging to see if I can get anymore goss, but a 25 year old man shouldn’t have black marks over his long term fitness. He’s had a bad run, I’m sure there will be niggles, but if his fitness is managed properly, he should be ok.

Transfers…

Now the dust has settled on our squad, I’m really quite excited. Sure we might not be good enough to win the league, but even if we’d spent £120million this summer, we’d have still struggled against the never ending squad of City and the ever improving United. I think we’ve given ourselves a chance though. I don’t think the fans will be booing at the ground and I think there is some genuine excitement around Arsenal. Sky Sports ran a poll that had Arteta as the best buy of the window. I’d disagree, I think Mertesacker is the best buy. He’s the solution to a 3 year problem we’ve had. I’m also quite excited about Yossi Benayoun. He’s Alex Hleb with product!

If we can keep those players fit this year, we could easily land ourselves a domestic cup. I know that reeks of lowered expectation, but that’s the only way I can get myself through the season. I think a League or FA Cup is the only way we can end our trophy drought. If we can nip in with a top four finish this year, that gives us a good platform to sign M’Vila and Eden Hazard next summer.

I’m excited, I think you should be excited… lets all get excited together. Like a big footballing swingers party.

Anyway, that’s all I could handle writing so damn early in the morning.

See you in the comments!

P.S. Still having a great time enjoying Spurs fans misery… I spent 30 minutes at a staff party agreeing with a sad Spurs fan that Harry Redknapp should go and that their whole squad was a disgrace. Lots of fun…

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Posted by Pedro

Have Wenger and Arsenal finally learnt from George Graham?

September 2, 2011

It’s all a bit reminiscent isn’t it? When George Graham, the original financial dope got caught for lining his own pocket he had one last lunge in the transfer market, we as fans (for those that can remember life before Wenger) were getting pretty irritated that we were signing no players, were amazed when suddenly George decided to garner fan support before he got tin-tacked.

Sorry for the three were’s, there was no other way of saying that!

Only those he signed were odd to say the least, we got John Hartson (not bad) Chris Kiwomya (rubbish) and Glen Helder (even worse) we were all amazed and wondered what they were like, well we soon found out and then George lost his job.

So what’s the parallel? Well both had/have been at the club too long and both made last minute panic buys in the transfer market, it remains to be seen if Arsene’s panic buys do better than George’s.

I decided to break the habit of a lifetime and read a few other blogs and see their take on it, well to be honest most out there spotted the cynicism of the last few days, project youth for 7 years until the poster boys leave, an 8-2 thrashing, the manager going to France instead of losing his job, the inevitable panic buys, but incredibly a few of them thought it was a Wenger masterstroke so I read on with interest.

They believe that because of the big rich clubs, no one stands a chance as no one can match the wages, a bit like Barca/Madrid, Milan/Inter, Chelsea/City and Rangers/Celtic. So a few clubs cannot be matched saved by brilliance or a Wenger.

No mention of course that the incumbent EPL holders don’t have a sugar daddy, just a manager that buys what he needs and when he needs it, (Gooner) Ashley Young, say no more.

Some even think we almost pulled it off with the Carling Cup, What? Almost? Are you kidding, we didn’t get beaten by ManCity and their millions, we got beaten by relegated Birmingham, the Old mother Hubbards of the EPL, bad tactics and crap defending, that not only cost us that game, it cost us the other trophies as a result.

We could compete with the big clubs if we paid the big players the big salaries, but not us, we pay reserves such big salaries, we can’t get rid of them, look at the list, Bendtner, Almunia, Denilson and even Lansbury put 2 EPL teams off because they couldn’t afford his wages, that’s what we need to address.

Bendtner by the way has vowed never to come back to Arsenal, I bet he turns out to be a decent signing for Sunderland, especially if they play him up front and not as a full back or whatever we played him as!

We have an obscene amount of highly paid youngsters that will never make it, never, look at Sunu, we were all told he was the future, same as JET but they slipped out without a word. Get rid of them and release millions. Some would call that basic economics, over to you boss!

Anyway back to the new players, Wenger said that to bring as many as three players in would be counter productive, what about letting three go then? What was that all about?

And before I’m accused of being negative, don’t forget 2 years ago I was calling for Mertesacker, we got Squillaci and Koscielny, stable and door spring to mind.

We should have signed Cahill as well, now then we would have a decent defence, we’ll probably get him on a free next season but that’s not good business because we need him now and no one is ever free, I bet Chamakh’s wages took care of a lack of a transfer fee.

We better do better this season than last or we’ll see Theo, Robin and Jack away next year.

I like Arteta and Yossi is a decent player when fit, but Park, hmmm, Jenkinson is one for the future, Gervinho is a good signing and we needed a Mertesacker for sure, but I would have preferred a Hazard and a Mata considering who we lost.

To sell your best two players in August and to sign two in the last hour of the transfer window was not only naive, it was bad management and no-one but a fool can defend that.

Time will tell, I expect a big score against Swansea, but I would have expected that anyway, still at least we have a couple of weeks to integrate the new boys and I for one will be intriged to see his starting line up, especially as Arteta allegedly was a Gazidas signing!

Have a great day Grovers, plenty to ponder on!

P.S. Check out The Footy Show Podcast for a bit of Le Grove in your ears and also take a read of Le Grove’s deadline day thoughts on Dan Roan’s BBC blog .

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Posted by Geoff

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