A forehead Gervinho could only dream of...

A bloody great start to the morning… finally, after what seems like an age… Arsenal have shifted on the worst first team Arsenal keeper of all time. He leaves after taking every penny of his £50k a week contract. Good riddance.

He was poor from the start. Jen Lehmann called it right before he was ousted for mistakes against Blackburn. Big Al came in and did well for a few months. He was excellent at never excelling. He was incapable of the amazing. Which was ok until he started dropping the clangers. His confidence began to crumble, other teams spotted this and we started to find ourselves being targeted.

After much messing about two seasons ago… Finally we relegated him to the bench. Then he was relegated to 3rd choice. He fluked out getting a contract in the first place. He was a world class example Wenger trying to be too clever. Thinking about his price tag over the quality. I hope we never have to witness a keeping fail like that again.

We should immediately go out and sign Craig Gordon as back up. Shift on Lukas. He’s marginally better than Almunia, but he’s never going to make it at the very top. Craig Gordon could come in and give us two genuine choices. He would actually push Chezzer for a first team place and hopefully he would stamp out the complacency that has set into the green jersey. There’s no point in hanging onto players you can see are not cut out mentally for the game at the very top. Fabianski is one of those players. Be ruthless. This is sport, not charity.

• George Brislen-Hall,
• Gavin Hoyte,
• Sean McDermott,
• Rhys Murphy
• James Campbell
• Jeffrey Monakana

Some other classic names on the out-list are above. The most famous of them has to be Gavin Hoyte. One half of the Hoyte brothers. Again, another player who had promise at a young age, but failed to deliver.

Is Kerrea Gilbert still under contract?

In M’Vila news. There is none. Some recycled quotes ended up on the news feeds yesterday. Now the Times and the Sun are linking us with a player we scouted for you at least two summers ago. Etienne Capoue is the Toulouse centre midfielder who is an absolute beast. He’s fast, aggressive and quite the performer. For me, there seems to be nothing indicating we’re interested in him other than the fact we suggested him last week as an option.

Don’t get your hopes up.

On the Ryo Miyachi front. Owen Coyle wants him back at the Reebok next season for another year of learning. I think at his age, there’d be no harm taking a  year out in the Championship. It’s a fiercely competitive league. It’ll toughen him up. It’ll take his confidence up a level. It’s a great idea if no one in the Premier League is interested. I sense that Ryo is going to have to bulk up a bit if he wants to make it over here.

Stuart Pearce is hacking off Arsenal fans all over again. He’s refusing to rule out taking Jack to the Olympics despite him recently having an operation and taking a year out last season. It’s ridiculous, but a prime example of the selfishness that surrounds international football. I thought when it came to the Olympics you weren’t allowed to dictate to a club you wanted a player? What do I know…

There doesn’t seem to be too much else going on… I’ll slip in some season reviews next week… return to the Le Champ and Chump and we’ll start rolling out some high quality guest posts.

Some have mentioned we’re not on the Goonernews Feed. If you can’t get us there, fear not, you’ll always be able to on Newsnow.

This off season, though only about a week in, is the equivalent to squeezing the juice out of a sun dried tomato. All has gone silent in the world of transfers. Both on the outgoing and on the incoming. This doesn’t bode well for the sanity of a lot of Gooner’s. We’ve been here so many times before. All wanting a summer of action, being told that patience is the key, waiting until August 31st when we’re all slapped in the face with a big sun dried tomato of reality.

I understand the frustration. Believe me.

However, this whole sack the board, bring in Usmanov, hang Hill-wood from the rafters really is a pointless exercise in nonsense. Who do people really think the board consist of? Do people, in there heart of hearts, truly believe Hill-wood has any say in how the club is run? Absolutely not. The only two people on the board are Ivan and Stan Kroenke. Stan is the owner. He runs the show. To expect him to hand over his shareholding in the the club to Usmanov because we want signings is ridiculous. He’s in it for the long haul… and there’s nothing we can do to change that. He’s even gearing his son up for  the long term takeover!

There are two articles on the subject this morning. One from Goonertalk on Peter-Hill-wood and one from Angry of Islington which I this is far closer to the truth. Either way, this change fans are pushing for is only going to happen by way of change of mindset with the current set up. Stan isn’t going to give up his holding. The best we can hope for is an opposing voice on the board. Can you see one billionaire inviting another onto his board? I can’t…

In other news. Of which there is none. Let’s talk about Fernando Torres. He’s upset at the way Chelsea have handled him this season. He’s outraged he was dropped from the Champions League final starting line up. He’s likely gearing up for a move out of the club. Now, should the worst happen (You know… the R to the MC thing…), would it not be worth a punt on a player who was at one time, one of the most feared marksmen in the world? Does that talent disappear? Do you suddenly lose world class status? Not in my opinion. He still has a huge amount to offer the game. He’s Premiership proven and if anyone can get the most out of a player lacking in confidence… it’s Arsene Wenger (I’m thinking the Thierry days here… not the Rambo ones… forgive my insistence on using history as gauge for this point).

On the Robin Van Persie situation. Juventus have pulled out of the race to sign him. After seeing that, my Sunday League team Hornminster United also withdrew their bid. It felt like we had a chance if Juve were in for him, but now they’ve seen the light… so have we. What a bunch of jokers they are…

I read another interesting article by a Bolton fan about Ryo Miyachi. You can check the Marble Halls run down here.

‘He came here as a relative unknown but Bolton fans were hopeful that he could live up to the hype. Unfortunately, he didn’t.’

Not the best opening line to a player review. This is why we shouldn’t get too excited about young players. Ripping it up in Holland is totally different to ripping it up in the Premier League. Does that mean he’s a duffer? Of course not. What it means is that he isn’t good enough for our first team yet. He should be given another loan next season to build his game up. He has plenty of skill, he has plenty of pace… he just needs to rough it with a team like Swansea or Norwich for a year. Learn what hard work is all about. Learn what it’s like not to train at the finest facilities on the planet. Develop as a person outside the luxury of North London. We simply can’t afford a season banging our seats in frustration at a player who isn’t ready.

It’ll be interesting to see what the manager does with Joel Campbell. He’s been having fun over in Lorient. When I was in Paris a few months ago, the Lorient fan I met told me that they were more impressed with Giles Sunu. However, we’re talking about Campbell. Now, from what I’ve seen, he actually looks like the sort of player who can do something in the Premier League. He’ll be 20 by the time the season starts, he’s fast, he has skill through the middle and out wide and he’s performed at an international tournament. From an Arsenal point of view, he reminds me of Nik Anelka. However, his style on the ball reminds me a little of Eto’o when he was at Mallorca back in the day. I think he’s a genuine talent, so it’ll be interesting to see what he’s going to be able to do when brought back over. We’ve had a bit of a duff run with strikers… I’m hoping Afobe or Campbell can buck that trend.

Another story doing the rounds yesterday was a swap deal between Chamakh and Adem Ljajic. Now, if someone comes up to you in the pub and offers to swap your sun dried tomato for a far fresher one. What would you say? Does this guy have a thing for sun dried tomatoes I’ve had in my pocket? Or is there something hideously wrong with the fresh tomato he wants to exchange with me. I’m going with the latter. How bad does this Ljajic have to be that Fiorentina are willing to take Chamakh in exchange? I’m not into this deal. I don’t trust it. We hardly ever do swap deals anyway. So I’m guessing it’s probably nonsense.

So there we have it… plenty to chew over. Including my sundried tomato.

Have a good one!

Welcome to Monday. Did everyone have a super weekend? I hope so… I truly hope so.

Onto football.

First up. It’s two days on and I’m actually starting to think I’m enjoying Spurs being out of the Champions League more than the bother that Chelsea won it. Sure we’d like to have been the first London club to win it, but then again I’d like to have been the first guy to take Megan Fox out to the movies. Sometimes life’s a bitch. Much in the same way I don’t have much chance of courting A-list superstars, realistically, whilst we’re still trying to sell in the self-sustainable dream, we don’t have much chance of winning the worlds premier competition.

So that’s why I’m enjoying the Spurs demise. Reasons to enjoy the outcome…

• Spurs fans thought Arsenal would have to qualify. We don’t.
• Thursday’s can return to being Spursday’s
• Bale and Modric won’t sign new deals.
• Ade won’t take a 50% pay cut / City unlikely to loan them players again after Redknapp pushed for a Balottelli suspension last  year
• According to someone I spoke to, Harry isn’t happy at the Spuds
• Spurs need Champions League football to fund a stadium move
• Final point and this is the most pertinent one. THEY DIDN’T DESERVE TO MISS OUT!

Ahhhh… that made me feel a whole lot less hateful about today.

On the Champions League final. There were some points I’d like to make. Experience won them that game… but not just experience. Winning mentality. We simply don’t have that drive in our team. We don’t have enough players who absolutely live to win. Another point, Chelsea defend as a team. Drogba and Torres were both back helping out when they were trying to hold on. We’re lucky if we have 3 defenders back helping when we’re holding onto a lead or trying to see out a game.

I spoke to Geoff this morning, he told me of a couple of Arsenal news points. Firstly, we’re chasing a 14 year old. Normally the sort of statement that would have you horrified outside of the game of self-sustainability. Apparently we’re after Foday Nabay (n0 spelling mistake there). He plays for Birmingham. He’s done some stuff for the under 16′s when he was 13. Blah, blah, blah….

I understand you’ve got to snap up the best young talent. The shame of it with Arsenal is that it generally seeems to take a higher priority than signing the players who can help us now. I’m sure every football nerd under the sun will tell me this guy is the new Messi… simple fact is, the chances of that being true are incredibly slight.

Not content with that, Arsenal have submitted planning permission to expand The Armoury. Absolutely terriffic eh? They’re making the shop even bigger so they can hoover more money from us! Truly, this is magnificent news. A bigger shop. I wonder how much that’ll cost? Not that spending money on expanding money making opportunities ever comes with a ceiling. Remember the WM Club?

On the transfer front, there doesn’t seem to be too much bouncing about. Eden Hazard banged in a hatrick last night for Lille. He’s leaving them this summer, he has at least 4 clubs who are his first choice. So who knows where he’ll end up. One place you can guarantee it won’t be is Arsenal. It’s amazing that we won’t do battle for someone who is young and clearly extrememly talented. Arsene Wenger’s concept of value is still in 1998 but obviously not when it comes to selling. He’s the most modern of the lost when it comes for asking for inflated transfer fees that are ruining the game. Unless you’re selling Cesc.

Another piece of light entertainment on the news front was the story that Anzhi are willing to offer £45million for Robin to head over there this summer. They’re also gearing up a £300k a week contract. I’m pretty sure that he won’t be heading over there, but it’s sweet that they’ve put in a bid. A bit like the time Spurs stated an interest in Rivaldo.

No news on M’Vila. He said he’d announce his future after his team spanked Dijon 5-0. Did he do any such thing? No. Do we want a liar in the team? I don’t think so. Let’s promote internally for that defensive midfield position.

Finished… have a great day!

P.S. We’re on Google+ jump on the Le Grove page. It’s fantastic.

Firstly, Sam Allardyce has made a return to the Premiership with West Ham. They took out Blackpool in the play off final  yesterday. It wasn’t convincing, but it was to be expected. Blackpool defend like us… they lost despite being the better team. What can you do? I have a soft spot for West Ham. Most of my pals support them, so it’s a welcome derby.

The most horrible news of the evening related to Chelsea. They beat Bayern Munich on penalties. It was pretty upsetting I have to say. Regardless, the game was fun to watch from a neutral stand point.

The silver linings are as followed…

• Spurs now have to play tier two European football next year. Hilarious on every level.
• England rule europe. We make sure those top 4 places don’t reduce to three. Brilliant.

Chelsea winning that trophy is horrible. Watching their fans have a great day out is even worse. But we can but aspire to those sorts of days out in the future.

Outside that… I have nothing.

Have a good day!

Yann the man

It really is slim pickings today people! There’s very little going on in the world of Arsenal outside of the Robin saga. What we know is that talks have broken down. He’s not going to sign on for us. The best we can hope for is that he stays on for the final year of his deal.

We also know Arsenal have slapped a media ban on him. Seems a bit extreme if you ask me. Banning a 28 year man from speaking to the press seems a bit dictatorial. If he’s going… let’s hear what he has to say.

A couple of papers are reporting that he’s looking for £275k a week. Apparently this is making the big boys wince. Football really is losing touch with reality when those sorts of figures get bandied around. I still maintain that would be a terrible investment from anyone at those prices. He’s not the only person in the world who can score goals and in my mind, the only players that could even vaguely justify those sorts of figures are Ronaldo and Messi. They have both youth an tremendous fitness on their sides. Robin, whilst not over the hill is at an age where he’d be too old for a United transfer. How could you put £275k a week into someone who averaged 22 games a season before the last one?

It’ll be interesting to see where Robin does end up if he goes. Playing out your twilight in the blue half of City just doesn’t seem right. Surely you’d want something a bit more prestigious on your CV? We’ll see…. I know one thing is for sure… we’re all f*cking bored of this story already.

I hope that Arsenal can multitask this year. This is one issue… We can’t afford to let it cloud what we do elsewhere. Robin staying or going doesn’t affect anything other than buying a replacement striker. He’s not signing a new deal. That means we don’t have to worry about our wage structure changing. We still need another top striker and the rest of the team need sorting out.

Apparently Yann M’Vila is going to announce where he’s playing shortly.

‘I’ll make my decision after the game against Dijon [on Sunday]‘

It would be lovely it were us. I’m hoping the swiftness of the announcement is a sign it’s Arsenal. I’m not going to get my hopes up. However, he’s the new poster boy in the Nike advert… we have a Nike kit… you do he tenuous link maths.

I forgot to talk about the Jack Wilshere knee issue. He went in for surgery again. He’s either becoming a bit of a crock or Arsenal have gone to extreme lengths to ensure he’s not available for the Olympics. He’ll be back for the start of the summer… that’s good news. Let’s hope that we don’t have a broken season of injury interruptions. A year is a long time to have out of the game at such a long age. We need to treat him with the same kid gloves we treated Robin with this year.

This evening we have the Chelsea game. I can’t wait to be honest. I love to watch the free flowing football of Bayern. Champions League final nights are always spectacular. It’s just a shame it’s Chelsea there. I was totally confident Bayern would smash them… not so much after seeing them take a spanking in the German cup final last week.

Remember that poll we ran the other week about the final? Out of 3,700 votes, 41% of Arsenal fans would like to see Chelsea win the Champions League and knock Spurs out. 59% would like to see Bayern win tonight and not have to suffer the horror of season Roman Abramovich realise a dream.

That’s all I have today… back tomorrow for more!

Contract Rage

This is what makes me laugh about project youth. Loyalty swings one way.

Arsenal…

• Put players who aren’t ready into the first team
• Sacrifice trophies
• Persist with players that aren’t ready for 200 games
• Pay players that aren’t ready based on potential

Then when they come good… those players do one. Apprenticeship done. Scrap that… how can it be an apprenticeship when you’re getting paid more than most seasoned pros?

This whole Robin and Theo debacle is absolutely ridiculous. I mean, I don’t even care if Theo leaves. He has a vastly inflated idea of what his value is. Don’t get me wrong, that’s been inflated by giving him a £60k a week contract when he was barely worth £25k. The point is, if Arsene wants him to sign on, you’d expect him to sign on. Wenger, rightly or wrongly, has put his neck and career on the line in the hope that Theo would sign on again. Now he’s supposedly going to the Euros without penning a deal.

If he does that, he’s effectively putting himself in the shop window. Classy stuff.

The Robin scenario. Well, this one is slightly easier to understand. You only get one career. Robin has always wanted to compete with Arsenal. He hasn’t won any trophies in his career yet. Nasri and Clichy left and landed the big one in their first season. Cesc went away and bagged three. All will be classed as his mates. What’s he getting at Arsenal? How much investment do we realistically need to compete with City? We need to shave 20 goals of our conceded tally. We need to make up a minimum of twenty points in the league stakes. It’s a daunting task and one that feels like a 4 year plan over a 1 year plan.

Patrick Vieira upset a lot of fans yesterday with the comments below.

‘It will not only be City who would like these kind of players. I don’t think you have so many good talents like Van Persie who have just one year left on his contract. There will be a lot of teams who will want a player like Van Persie.

‘It was a shock for Arsenal to lose Nasri and Fabregas and if they lose Van Persie, it will be a drama. If Robin decides to leave, that means maybe next year it will be Walcott and the next year maybe it will be Wilshere. It will be difficult for Arsenal to keep all their top players. But if they keep Robin, they will send out a positive message to all the clubs around them.’

I think firstly people need to get over this Patrick Vieira thing. He’s being paid by Manchester City now. His loyalty is to them. His job is to comment in colour of sky blue. Not make untrue comments about how amazing the situation is with Robin Van Persie. We had the chacne to sign Paddy for Arsenal, we didn’t, so he went and worked on another project. It doesn’t make his comments any less true.

If he goes, it’s another slap in the face of Arsene Wenger. The only way he’s going to get round this problem is by making a splash in the transfer market. Signing 4 big names. Sending out a message to the rest of Europe that we’re a serious player. If the worst happens and Robin does decides to leave, we have to replace him with a top, top talent. We can’t go out and sign a 21 year old from Ligue 2. We have to maintain the ‘now’ quality levels in the squad. Robin goes, Cavani or Giroud should come in. Theo goes, let’s go and make a splash on someone who can make a consistent impact on £60k a week. If we wen’t out and made some serious moves this summer… it would send a message to the rest of the squad. Everyone wants to play with great players. Why leave when you know you could be lining up with the cream of Europe next  year?

We can’t let this summer beat us again. We can’t let Robin and Theo wait all summer for offers. We have to set a deadline and actually stick to it this time. Last year, it was so obvious to everyone what the outcome would be. This summer is feeling pretty familiar already. Let’s make a decision now and start making enquiries on what we’re going to do about it.

Last year we were a rabbit caught in headlights. This year we can’t allow that to happen.

On the transfer front. I think the M’Vila story is stalling because we’re focusing out attention on one or two other high profile defensive midfielders in Europe. Watch this space. I think we’re definitely going to bolster there, but I’m not sure the Frenchman is the first choice.

Right, that’s my piece for today. If you want to hear my sweet, sweet voice, I did a piece for the Arsenal American Podcast with NorthBankLower yesterday. Check it out. I’ll also be coming at you next week with a podcast and we’ll finally be getting Geoff on over the next month for a chat.

P.S. One of my female pals was grabbed by a man posing as a Police Officer in Finsbury Park last night. He tried to drag her away. Please pass on this message to any north London ladies you know. The Police weren’t interested this morning when she tried to lodge a complaint, ‘Did you get his Police badge number?’ they asked. Top Policing.

Sign it Robin... no wait?

Well, well. Failure from the Arsenal Directors. A day after the contract talks have taken place, I’ve seen no evidence of a signed deal.

What’s up with that?

What are we paying you for Ivan?

There are various rumours flying around the web about how the talks went. I believe none of them. It looks like this is going to drag on. Like a dog, caught under the wheels of a bus. A bus that’s traveling at about 2mph. Through soft mud. On the never ending bus route.

This summer is probably going to be painful. As painful as every summer for the last 15 years. But we can deal with it right? I mean, seriously, is there a group of supporters in the world more adept at seeing their top players leave every year than us? I doubt it. How do Liverpool do it? Oh yeah… they tend not to have top players. Oh… and now they don’t have a top manager. King Kenny has left. With that, so has Theo’s only option of a £190k a week deal. Bad luck Theo, best reconsider the offer Arsenal have put to you.

I honestly don’t think there is a manager in the game I like less than King Kenny. He came back to Liverpool like God himself, blew £100million on a set of players that everyone could see were absolutely garbage, had an absolutely rank season, backed a racist… then got his just desserts. Bad luck Kenny.

Back to Robin, the rumours seem to point to his future being based around this summers recruitment drive. I like that. That makes Robin a fan of the club. If he leaves because the extent of Arsene’s summer is 2 signings. Good for him. Why should he hang around and fight for a trophies in a squad that is wildly under resourced to even challenge for the Carling Cup? He shouldn’t. Arsene should give him the tools to win the Premier League. We have the money to make a go of it… there’s just a question mark over whether we have the manager with the balls to do what’s right.

There are plenty of players available this year who could help us kick on to the next level. Belhanda, Javi Martinez and Kagawa all look awesome players going forward. All will be available. In defensive midfield M’Vila is available, Yanga-Mbiwa just had a stormer at Montpellier and Etienne Capoue at Toulouse has the raw ingredients to make it big.

In defence, Vertonghen is still up for grabs and in the last year of his contract at Ajax. He’ll no doubt secure a move away from his club this summer. Then there is Giroud. The guy looks incredible. We’ve been watching him. If we don’t move now, we’ll lose out. There’s also Cavani who bangs goals in for fun in Italy, he terrorises defences and he has that nasty South American edge about him that would do our front line wonders should the worst happen with Robin.

Then there’s Eden Hazard… how long have we been banging on about that guy on here for? Now it looks like he’ll end up going to United or City. He’ll be a big miss. We’ve been talking about him for 3 years. If you want insight into the best players in Europe… there’s no where better to get it than the Le Grove comments section. The best scouting network going.

Roy Hodgson picked his first England squad of his career. He went bold. He went for Oxlade-Chamberlain. This worries me slightly. Though the Chamber-maid is obviously talented. I can’t help but think he’s being geared up for a fall by going to the Euro’s. He managed 6 starts last season. He played a stormer against Milan. Bar that, he was very hit and miss. Why wouldn’t he be? He’s a kid. The press over here won’t be that kind if he goes out there and bombs amongst mainly, pure mediocrity.

That said… the England squad needs someone explosive and unpredictable out there. It was hard for Roy not to pick him. I just hope we come back with a player that is the hype… not a broken player everyone casts off as a failure. He’s more than capable of surprising people. It’ll be a more interesting tournament for his inclusion… no doubt. It’ll also be interesting to see if Theo can raise his game. He’s played well in spurts this year, but he doesn’t often turn up in the games you need him to. He’ll have to for England.

There’s some pictures of Lukas on the Arsenal site for you to look at. Other than that, have a super day.

It's all they had in Trophy World.

Welcome to Wednesday. Turns out Robin is having his meeting today. Whoops. My theory about his contract came a day early. The problem with that is now I don’t really have anything to talk about today. Which is irritating to say the least.

Well, as it’s the end of the season, in traditional Le Grove fashion, it’s time to start testing the water for Le Champ and Le Chump of the season. Our annual awards celebrating the best and worst of the season that has just past.

Today, we’ll be talking about Le Champ because the weather is sunny and I want you to think about all the good things that went on last season. It’s important that you realise this is just the nomination stages. I’ll be taking your thoughts to a panel of experts before deciding on the final line up. So your suggestions for Le Champ need to come in today…

Here are some ideas. Remember, it doesn’t have to be a player of Arsenal, it doesn’t have to be a player at all.

Robin Van Persie

I thought I’d get the ball rolling with a real curve ball of a suggestion. I’m just thinking he scored quite a few goals this season. He was the captain. He was pretty much 80% of the reason we qualified in the third place this year.

Mikel Arteta

Signed on deadline day at the last minute, the Spaniard came with high hopes. He didn’t replace Cesc, but added a steely discipline to our midfield. He sacrificed a bit of his game going forward to ensure that our midfield was stable (and sadly, not exactly spectacular). Our win ratio without him speaks volumes for the impact he has as a player and a personality in the starting 11. He single handedly demonstrated what we’ve been saying on here for years… experience is often more important than talent.

The Medical Team

It’s a miracle that the staff kept Robin healthy all season. That’s the first time he’s ever managed that. A lot of praise has to be given to the way they’ve managed his fitness. The fitness of the squad overall has been pretty good in comparison to seasons past. Alex Song was fit all year, Vermaelen was fine once he returned, Koscielny played most of the games and Ramsey was fit most of the time. It was also impressive that Yossi and Arteta in the main stayed fit… two players who have struggled with injury most of their careers. Most of the full back issues we had around January were of our own making… Kieran Gibbs is a fitness disaster, Santos was taken to Greece for a worthless game and Sagna had a broken bone.

Martin Fulop

We play golf together. He’s not very good but the man loves to gamble. He owed me a pretty serious backlog of unpaid bets. I didn’t directly approach him, but I hinted.

‘Martin, you know I do this blog thing on the side about Arsenal right?’

‘Yes boss’

‘Well, let’s just say my readers would be pretty over the moon if we beat you on Saturday. If they’re pleased, I’m pleased… and forgetful. You know what I’m saying Martin?’

‘Yes boss’

‘Martin… do you know what I f*cking mean?’

‘Yes boss’

Job done.

I wish it hadn’t been quite so obvious he was doing me a favour, but what can you do? The lad isn’t the sharpest tool in the box…

Fabio Capello

Spurs were flying… they were having the greatest half season of all time. Winning games, pulling away from Arsenal, talking about taking the title. Then Fabio Capello gave himself his marching orders after the FA took JT’s captaincy away without consulting him. Harry was the media’s choice for the role. He couldn’t contain his excitment, he refused to deny he wanted the job… the Spurs players showed that they weren’t fazed by the speculation by destroying Newcastle… then going on an incredible run of loses and dropped points… culminating in conceding a 10 point lead to their nearest and dearest rivals… namely, us.

Hilarious. Fabio, your stubborn disregard to the ramifications of having a racist pig of a man as your captain have worked wonders for Arsenal. For that, all I can do is salute you in a totally inappropriate way… a way that you’d like.

So there we have it… that isn’t the list… that’s the suggested list. You can add yours through the day and I’ll have a rummage through later tonight and work out which suggestions I can add into the mixer.

Have a great day Grovers. If you see Robin at a Petrol station, give him a hug and tell him you love him. Buy him a whisper gold as well… it’s off season now… treat him.

P.S. We’ll be taking on guest posts on in the summer. If you’ve got something to say, it’s well written and interesting. We’d be happy to take a look at it. Anything on the finances, potential transfer targets that are a little bit curve ball… or something on the history of the club will be welcome.

SEG International, the home of Kees Vos, and non-capitalised names

Good morning Grovers. Today is a very important day in our summer. Robin Van Persie sits down with Ivan, Big Dick Law (perhaps we can’t do football naming conventions for our directors) and his agent. Darren Dein will obviously be there… like a shark detects blood in the sea, Darren Dein can sniff out a massive pay day from 32,301 miles away. He’ll be there, hiding in the bushes or the briefcase of Ivan Gazidis.

One thing that warms me about this meeting today is that Kees Vos also represents Thomas Vermaelen. He signed up to a new deal with us without any hassle. I guess the main difference there is firstly Thomas was coming back from a rotten injury and secondly, he’s relatively young in comparison to Robin Van Persie. The way I see it is there are three options today…

1. Robin agrees that he’ll not sign on this summer, instead taking a free transfer next summer

Pros: He’ll get a monster pay deal next summer. The pros for us is that players in the last year of their deal tend to have better fitness records. Well, according to someone who told me that in the pub. Nigel Phillips from the AST  I think? Apparently they ran a study for this in America. If I could be arsed to dig it out, I promise you I would.

Cons: He’s lost out on £4million this year if you think his value is £160k a week. £7.1mill if you think he’s worth what Carlos Tevez is worth. If he takes a free next year, he’ll have lost out on £14.2mill. Is he going to get that in a signing on fee? I doubt it. What about if he gets injured next year? He’ll have lost out on the biggest pay deal of his career.

2. Robin agrees a massive deal with us and signs on for the next 4 years of his career.

Pros: He earns less than he’s get at City but he’d go down as a legend of this club forever.

Cons: He might not win a trophy for his whole career. His talent surely merits a trophy.

3. Robin agrees an extension based on a few things. 1) We sign players that make us competitive 2) He’s paid a staggered loyalty bonus that goes up every year 3) He can leave if we’re not matching his ambition

Pros: He gets paid what he’s worth. He can leave when he wants. He gives himself a great chance of winning a trophy if we match his ambition.

Cons: He might not get the mega pay deal he would at City. But if it’s not all about money. That shouldn’t be a problem.

The meeting takes place at 10:30 at his house. Let’s see how persuasive Ivan and Richard are. I’m neither confident nor despondent about this situation. Robin’s comments don’t really fuss me…

 ’You never know but Arsenal is a massive club. Whatever happens, I’ll always love this club.’

He’s hardly going to come out and say he’ll definitely stay. He’d know Ivan would be round with his Tesco Value contract if he did… he’s playing it cool. Anyway, enough on that… onto other news, which is obviously in abundance now the season is over!

Podolski has been making positive noises in the press. He’s been talking about where he’s going to play next season…

‘In Cologne, I played as a centre forward and also as a playmaker’

‘In the national team I play wide on the left. I honestly don’t mind where I play, as long as it’s in a forward position.’

Sounds like he doesn’t really care too much for which side he plays. I think he’ll play wide left. If he’s playing centre forward next season, you’ll know it’s because we failed in our negotiations with Robin. If we do keep the Dutchman, it does leave us with quite a bit of competition in the wide areas. We’ll have Ryo, Theo, Gervinho, Chamberlain and Podolski… I like competition. We certainly need it at the club after some very complacent end of season performances.

Finally, The Daily Mail reckon Junior Hoilett is attracting interest from Arsenal, Spurs and Bayern Munich. I’m not really sure you can ever take anything too serioulsy that paper publishes because they will publish anything to maintain their record of being the biggest online newspaper site in the world. However, I was told way back in January that he’d not taken a move to Spurs during the winter window to get one to Arsenal this summer. We’ll see. Things change by the minute in the world of transfers, so you’d imagine those plans could be quite wildly different right now.

I suppose a lot depends on what Theo does with his contract. It’s been another average season from the man who promised so much. He still doesn’t have the pitch presence or consistency to merit anywhere near £100k a week. Still, you can’t expect him to sign on for anything less than a payrise… the folly of Arsene and his monster contracts.

There’s loads of web talk about the great tackle Gibbs made last minute against West Brom. It’s a bit OTT to call it the £30mill tackle. Like West Brom are incredible finishers. The thing that makes me laugh about it all is that the reason he had to make a last ditch tackle like that was because he was out of position. Gallas made a career out of that! As did Kolo Toure come to think of it…

Anyway, let’s just be pleased he made it and we finished third.

There are a lot of rumours going around about Vertonghen agreeing a deal with Arsenal then being shot down on personal terms. That’s not what happened. We’ve not bid for him. His wage demands would not sit well in our dressing room apparently and we’ll have known what they were before we went to the effort of sending a fax to Ajax. Surprising that a player of his calibre is considering Spurs when a club like United are looking for centre backs.

Finally, I’ve knocked together a poll for you. Enjoy.

2011-12 season... see you later.

There it is people. One of the most painful season I can remember in a long time. Over. Finished. See you later. Consigned to forgettable history.

There are positives though. We finished in third place. That has been our goal since February. We also over turned Spurs. Which again, was a massive achievement considering how far ahead of us they were and how well they were playing. Sure it took a huge collapse from them. So what though? It took an equally huge collapse from United for Manchester City to win the league. Do any of their support base care? Of course not…

Anyway… onto the game. I’m not going to go into too much detail because I can’t be bothered today. What’s the point. The season is done. We can all see what needs to be done… if the coach and Steve Bould can’t… well, it’d just be like every other summer for the past few years.

The main changes to the line up were Andre Santos and Coquelin coming into the line up. Sitting the game out were Kieran Gibbs and Aaron Ramsey. Those changes both made sense. Gibbs has been in pretty poor form and Ramsey hasn’t been in good form all season.

The game got off to an absolute flyer, much in the same way it did against Norwich the week prior. Yossi chased an over hit Robin through ball, Fulop came rushing out of the area to clear it, last minute he changed his mind about levelling the ball, let it roll into the area, mistimed his pick up, Yossi nipped in and passed into an empty net! A superb start!

Well, like last week, it didn’t last very long to lose the advantage. WBA went on the attack straight away down the other end and forced a good near post save from Fortune. Coquelin lost posession about 3 times in the space of 5 minutes and the whole defence looked nervy. Then it came, a ball straight through the middle, our defence was all over the place, Long was offside by about a yard… Chezzer came out for him, then dropped back into no mans land… Long slipped home. Hapless defending regardless of whether Long was on or offside.

It didn’t take long to find ourselves a goal down. This time from a speculative long ball that was pretty poor. Dorrans managed to win the header, pick up the second ball and bang it past Chesney. Shocking positioning from everyone. Pitiful that we’d conceded our 49th goal of the season against a team who have been hopless in front of goal this year.

The team were incredibly nervous, but worse than that, in the main, mostly uinterested. This was Pat Rice’s last game in charge and they players had no urgency about them. The passing was off, no one was making runs and WBA were giving us problems. Luckily for us, they were just as shaky at the back. Our chance came when Alex Song broke up play in the final third, Santos was on hand to pick up the ball, make an advance run and smash home past the weak wrist of Fulop. A great finish, but it’s not hard to see why our defence is such a shambles when our left back is standing in an attacking midfielders position.

Gervinho was typcially hopeless all of the first half. He’s world class at getting into great positions, he’s even better at fluffing his end product. Much like Glen Helder was back in the day.

The second half supposedly saw a positive change. Rosicky went off for Theo Walcott. The game certainly needed an injection of something. Shame he gave us nothing.

Santos had a rasping shot that went narrowly over. Down the other end, Jenkinson continued to show that he’s not cut out for top flight football at Arsenal when he was turned inside out by the very average Fortune. My heart was in my mouth everytime someone went near Jenkinson… he’s a penalty waiting to happen.

Our moment came though. It came from one of the worst pieces of keeping I’ve seen in a long time. A poor cross was whipped into the box from a Robin corner. The keeper rushed out to punch it clear, he was nudged by Greening, slipped and punched it backwards, Koscielny was on hand to clip the ball into the net. What a relief… could we keep a second half clean sheet though?

We could, but my god, we didn’t make it easy. Robin Van Persie ended up clearing a header off the line. Moments later, Andrews was given the freedom of the edge of our area and rifled a shot at our goal that was well turned away by our keeper. There was another ridiculous moment when the ball headed down the left and the only player covering was Yossi. Another example of the total disregard our team have for defending.

The decisive piece of defending in the game came when the ball slipped into our area, West Brom were in on goal and Gibbs flew in with a supreme sliding tackle to block the shot! Absolutely amazing last ditch defending.

I think the irony of the second half of the WBA game was that we’re the greatest team in posession when we’re chasing a game. If we’re defending a lead, we can’t hold onto the ball for love nor Champions League football. If you’re winning and you need the points. Slow it down. Chezzer comes out and claims a cross, then throws it to the other keeper. Instead of playing posession football in the final third, we’re whipping aimless crosses into the box. It really is awful to watch.

Still, we held on. We finished above Spurs by a point and we took that automatic space for the Champions League. Considering how shocking our start, middle and end was… I’ll take that.

Conclusion

There were some nice moments yesterday. it was good to say  goodbye to Pat Rice on a contextual high. He’s been a great servant to the club and he deserved to go out like he did yesterday. There was a moment in the game when Arsene hugged into him when we’d missed a chance. Whatever people think about his performance as an assistant over the last few season, the guy bleeds red and white and he’s done many great things for us.

Overall though, yesterday was exactly how we wanted the season to end. We took third place in stuttery fashion. We haven’t convinced at all over the last 6 games and we’re only where we are because the teams below us were equally bad. Does that matter? No. But it matters that we couldn’t take further advantage of their poor form as stretch out a substantial lead over Spurs, Newcastle and Chelsea.

It’s perfect. Wenger has to have seen that the squad is about 6 players away from competing for the big trophy next year. He has to see that some of our players are no where near Arsenal standard at the moment and he has to act. He has 2 more seasons at the club in my opinion (on his terms). I don’t think he’ll stay longer than his contract. He’ll want to go out on a high. We are not an injured players return and 2 signings away from making up a disgraceful 19 points.

What was worse this  year is our defensive record. 49 goals conceded is so far beyond a joke it makes me want to cry.

31 -37 - 41 - 43 - 49

Those numbers aren’t this weeks lottery winners. That’s our defensive record over the last 5 years. Each summer Wenger has promised to address how we defend, each of the following seasons we’ve found ourselves worse off. This year has to be the last time our system and team discipline is ignored. We need to learn how to defend as a unit. We need to have defenders who love keeping clean sheets and we need far more communication at the back. Steve Bould has a mighty job on his hand, but he needs to be strong. No one wins the league conceding such a huge amount of goals.

In the player department yesterday, it was amazing that our best player was once again Yossi Benayoun. We need players like him around our squad. We need players who give a crap every game. He was inventive, he chased down every ball and he was a threat all game. We need workers like him who are gifted technically. Our best player this year outside Robin was Arteta. Again, not world class, but an incredibly hard worker with a technical gift. I think Podolski fits that mould as well. Some serious consideration needs to be given to the whole of our squad.

We can’t go into next year with the excuse of not being able to move players on. We need to force them out if they won’t go. Players who are young won’t want to rot in our reserves next year. What would be the point. If you’re not playing, you’re killing your chance of getting the best possible contract when you hit your mid-twenties.

Anyway, his comments after the game about 3rd making buying and keeping players easier was positive. Robin’s comments didn’t look too great… but we’ll see. If he goes, he goes. It’ll be upsetting, but watching Giroud over the past few games gives me hope that there are other strikers out there who can do a job. Look at Falcao and Cavani… and all the others ripping it up in Europe.

Anyway, that’s it for today… we can go into the summer with bragging rights over Spurs in tact. Let’s pray for a good summer!

P.S. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has read the site, followed our Twitter account and got involved in the comments. It’s been a rocky old season, but you guys have made it so much more bearable than it would have been. It’s a pleasure writing for you and humbling that you still come here to read what we churn out everyday.

We salute you!