So, we have the Ivan stuff out the system now.
Has there been a more united moment in the Arsenal fanbase over the last 10 years?
I don’t think so. His send-off article was full on propaganda. If I’d just bottled leading a club I’d re-engineered for a fatter pay packet, I reckon I’d have just slinked out the back door. The idea he moved for the ‘challenge’, as he’d leaked to some Italian journos, is utter tripe. It’s all about the equity stake. Call a fat cat a fat cat imo.
The new setup is exciting. Vinai Venkatesham is going to become the managing director of the club, taking over duties non-football related. I’m guessing his next big move is bringing the bruised banana kit back to the fans. For that, I’m already indebted. The thing I like about Vinai is firstly, he’s climbed the ranks, so he knows the club. Secondly, he’s on the board at a content company. The guy clearly likes nice things on the internet, so he’s all good by me.
Raul will takeover footballing matters. He’ll be in charge of the whole set up behind the scenes. Working transfers, hiring and firing, setting the strategy and vision for the team moving forward with some of the key players he’s hired. That’s great news for us. Now the decisions around football are going to be made by a man who is pure football, used to winning, and has a track record of going big and making aggressive decisions.
No more, ‘we threw names into a hat and drew them to decide who our manager would be’ type chat. Hopefully the club will take a more aggressive approach to global domination under Raul, and hopefully, we’ll see even bigger changes over the past year.
My issue with Ivan Gazidis, bar the fact he spent nearly 10 years lying to fans, was that when he had the chance to do something incredible with the club, he bottled it. Especially distressing after the summer of me, me, me PR he engineered to make sure everyone knew he was the architect of the moves.
Anyway, we will survive. We will grow. We will move back to the top echelons of world football in due course.
BUT BEFORE, LET US WELCOME VORSKLA!
Look at the state of that stadium. The football is of a pretty low standard if that clip is anything to go by. So it should be a fairly straightforward game if we’re focused.
I’d imagine we’re going to see starts from players like Leno, who needs to show us he truly is the saviour of sweeper-keeper. I’d like to see Danny Welbeck land a chance, and maybe a couple of the kids. But we’ll see, this is the first game and we know how hard it is to kick a campaign off with anything outside a strong win. Emery has to build momentum and he’s on a solid run right now.
It was hugely entertaining to see the Spurs disaster season tank yet further yesterday, losing a 1 goal advantage at the death to Inter Milan. Liverpool maintained their very good start to the season against 8 man PSG, who looked as lopsided and led by the players as they did under Emery. All that talent, and no one there with the remit to tell players like Neymar he’s not Messi.
Right, PROPER football starts tomorrow, see you in the comments, but not before you listen to me and Matt debate the merits of Emery, rotation and the exit of Ivan Gazidis.
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Pedro it’s not that black and white though, no doubt Pep and ZZ have proven themselves to be great managers. My point was that in the early stages their reputation in the game and more importantly within the very clubs that they were managing i.e club legends no doubt helped them in the dressing room tame the egos of the likes of Eto’o, Messi, Xavi, Henry, Puyol, YY Toure, etc and Sergio Ramos, Ronaldo, Benzema, Bale, Kroos, Modric, Marcelo, etc at Real Madrid and got them to buy into their footballing vision easier. Neymar wouldn’t be acting like a smartarse… Read more »
… Arteta will manage City after Pep.
Cc, went to holland for a fortnight,the mrs family are there near soestduinen. Near utrecht.
Great place,great people,but in laws for 2 weeks,fuck me im glad to be home.
Watched the Liverpool game last night, they’re great to watch,missed the Newcastle game,how did we look if you caught it,
…just like Gazidis was going to lead us to Domestic and European domination
Pedro, there was less reason to be skeptical with both of those appointments. They both got their hands wet with the b teams respectively. They at least had a little experience to fall back on.
Pat
Very nice, the in-laws for a fortnight sounds brutal though you did well!
Newcastle game we very flat, first half was a second gear job and second half we managed to up it enough to take over. Chalked up the points but some concerns still about lineups and approach etc for me.
Bamford “The important point — who is a c-word around here and who is not — is important, however. ” This sentence may have been grammatically acceptable but the syntax is quite bad. Embarrassing, almost. Just thought I’d point that out since you seem to appreciate post editing. I disagree that that’s what’s important and could care less whether you or anyone else here thinks I’m a cunt. That you actually care whether anyone here thinks you really are a cunt or not is kinda cute though. Maybe you just need some hugs. But let’s leave it at that. You… Read more »
It doesn’t matter how many cameos Arteta makes, no one will know how he will do in the manager’s seat until he really gets his own club to manage. You have to have the experience and it can’t be recreated by drawing up this scenario or that.
It’s also why he never should have been the Arsenal manager that this stage in his career.
Bamford, never responded to you. Re Pogba I would say that so far his United career could be described as a bit of a mixed bag. He’s had some success, thought he was excellent in his first season there but last season he struggled for large parts between the flashes of brilliance. A frustrating player no doubt. But overly-criticised in my book and not acknowledged as much when he’s playing really well, such as in the World Cup where he was France’s best offensive player after M’Bappe for me. Deserves more respect than he receives but I suppose people can’t… Read more »
It was alright charlie but i would put a limit of 4 days as maximum in law tolerance. Anymore than that is pushing it. Plus her dad doesn’t really like sports,dinner conversations were painful. So i did what any self respecting Englishman would do,drank,and then drank some more. Only problem is im extra sarcastic and cunty when drunk…. Mrs couldnt complain as id agreed to 2 weeks there. As for the arse I heard similar about the game,and i agree that lineups seem to be a problem for us. Ive never found it harder to pick a starting 11 myself… Read more »
Fair play to Gerrard and Lampard, going out and doing it right trying their hand at lower level management.
Always had Carragher down as a potential gaffer, surprising to me that he’s more than happy with the cushy TV gig, not a bad life I suppose.
Pat
Haha can only imagine the scenes mate, I couldn’t do a week personally.
A winger would be gravy, we desperately need a release valve in the side. Someone to pick it up on the halfway line and roast 3 players to advance us.
At dinner on the third night her dad spoke to me about 19th century philosophers for 3 hours straight. Contemplated suicide that night. But i am officially excused from all her family shit till at least next xmas. Worth it.
Yeah release valve is exactly right. Watching Liverpool match last night really brought it to the front of my mind. Was scary how far off that level we feel at the mo too. Early days i suppose and hope. Anyway night charlie,try not to confuse bamford too much
Haha night mate.
pedro
Arteta will NOT be next city manager.
#fact
He was not kept there. No one bar us showed any interest and there were lots of jobs open
You’re wrong about arteta as you were about Gazidis as you will be about Emery.
Sancho
Actually, there was nothing wrong with the syntax of that sentence. Subject, interruption, predicate. Pretty straightforward.
Also, it should be, “I could not care less,” not “I could care less”.
As for who is a c-word, given that I’ve never said a single unfriendly thing to you and you’ve now called me a c-word twice, I feel like you’ve actually demonstrated that you ARE in fact one of these.
I don’t know; maybe I”m just in a mood.
City has the resources to hire anybody in the world and you think they will plump for Arteta? After Pep?
Yeah right.
If Arteta leaves City and wins the La Liga with Real Sociedad, or the Bundesliga with Schalke or the EPL with Burnley on a shoestring budget… he might be a candidate that City might look at.
Of course City might also look at Arteta if Sheik Mansour tires of football… and Man City reverts to being a club without any money once again.
If Ramsey decides to leave Arsenal Fekir would not be a bad replacement – played excellent tonight.
Liverpool would be rueing missing out on him.
*must be NOT would be
Leeds
Once Pedro gets an idea in his head you won’t shake it out of him
Like the whole Gazidis is great fiasco. He played the card for years
Now that’s hes backed arteta all summer he will play this card until he embarrassingly has to back track like he did with Gazidis
Did Pedro troll his own site? Arteta managing City after Pep? That’d be funny if it wasn’t so absurd. All that money in that squad and your next manager is the infamous Mikel Arteta? He’s a glorified water boy ffs.
well, well, well, checked the news this morning city 1 Lyon 2, with arteta in the dug out. Scrolled up the comments and sure Enough all the arteta defenders have gone awol just before the game.
I bet when pep is done with city, they will appoint a proper manager and arteta will just follow pep to the next club. Some people are just born to be no. 2, and it isn’t a bad thing. Arteta still gets to take home millions at the end of the year.
Ozil and Ramsey are huge problems for arsenal. I’m sure if we had the legendary arteta here with all of his experience these guys would sit down and take note If you can’t say you’ve done it as a player and can’t say you’ve done it as a manager, why should the team listen to them? Living on a prayer. If city win the league and pep gets tired and leaves arteta would have an outside shot at getting it simply because city operate with one of the world’s best squads and they already know (and maybe respect) arteta. I’d… Read more »
Win this EL game and find a win against Everton and our start to the season will have been quite reasonable 6 points from these two games + some performance improvements and I’ll be very happy Torreira established in the first team and our defense slightly more solid along with 6 points and we’ll have much more to be pleased about. Still very much a work in progress but one collecting points and developing. That’s all I’m asking for. I initially thought we’d drop a lot of points before liverpool as the performances are not great and there are so… Read more »
People keep harping on about how weak Ligue 1 in France is, yet every time I see teams like Monaco, Lyon and Marseille playing they look so fluid and strong.
The scouting network is obviously superior to our own and the youth coaching systems seem to dish out bucket loads of talent each season.
Lyon looked good last night but our own ignorant pundits still seem to think that PSG have it easy each season, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
I dunno Michael Outside of a flash in the pan from Monaco a couple of years ago where they started cropping quality and subsequently flogged half of it, the rest of the league have been largely anonymous in the grand scheme of things (psg not included) Back around 2010 Lyon were a great team and not far behind how good psg are now and in each era there seems to be one genuinely legit French team, perhaps one flashbin the pan supporting act and then a lot of meh behind them A bit like the German league which should should… Read more »
There is this somewhat arrogant assumption that the EPL offers the best product.
Poppycock! It just offers the most money.
Michael 24
Lyon v OM on Sunday night, should be a good game !
Last season’s encounter ended up with a massive brawl so it’s gonna be full of tension.
Don’t know if anyone saw Payet and Thauvin’s brilliant goals last week-end also !
How is PV4 faring at Nice? I so want him to do well!
Leeds
Far better after a tough start to the season, I think it’s been 3 straight wins now.
Won at Lyon 2 weeks ago and have in Balotelli and Saint-Maximin 2 very good strikers
Have to go to work now, enjoy your day gents !
michel
come off it mate. Lyon in the PL would be as good as Everton. When arsenal and lyon play, you know the odds are that arsenal will win.
Ligue 1 is good cause all the teams apart from PSG are average, so the fight from 2nd to 5th provides a very good entertainment. But that’s about it. Apart from PSG which team do you see going far into the CL ?
Karim, if anyone can control Balotelli its PV4. And what a man to be learning/taking instruction from. I hope he does well at Nice.
Listening to A Bergkamp Wonderland Podcast and from outta nowhere Pedro/Le-Grove was called out!
They called you a pink jacketed fucking cunt who writes bollocks lmao/wtf
Where’s that sodium from?
Michael 24
“Yes, Emery has made some mistakes and yes, I would like to see certain things implemented, ”
I’m interested to know what things you would like to see implemented…..
Having watched both Spurs and Man City performances in CL over past two days it is clear to me that the standard in EPL is not as great as we are led to believe.
The general standard of defending in the League is frankly poor and that is a
malaise which applies to Arsenal as well.
When you consider how much money has been invested by the top teams in transfers it does pose questions about whether we get value for money.
True Emirates.
Is Harry Kane still world class? I ask because for me he needed to score that goal in the semis to take England to finals. He bottled it.
Looks like he bottled against inter the other day also still a lot of question marks over him.
Shoot me down.
Samesong
When you look at the stratospheric valuations according to Transfermarkt being paid for players in EPL I would ask very serious questions.
Okay there are some outstanding players like Hazard, De Bruyne and Pogba, but spending £70 million on mediocre goalkeepers and £50 million plus on very average defenders does raise the perspective that there is now more money than sense and sooner or later the bubble will burst when sponsors and tv companies realise that they are not getting value for money.
“So to explain further, you’re being called a “Yank cunt” not because you are a Yank, but because you are a cunt.” This was funny though. Raul Sanllehi should pull the deal given to Ramsey and flog him to anyone in January. Actually I like him but I think we will be better with a clean break. The only place he can play for us and be of use is in the middle 2 but Emery don’t see him in that role at all. It’s a travesty (not sure about the usage, please don’t be ot me Bamford) that Ramsey… Read more »
Samesong, I think Kane can replace any forward in any team in the world atm bar Barcelona and will still do very well. By that, I think he’s world class.
I said bar Barcelona because I. not sure what the strikers are doing there and how they line up. They don’t use a fixed 9 and their system could be a bit complex for someone like Kane. haha.
@emirates
People over here get too sucked in to the sky sports and other media outlets hype machine.Not realising that all the hype and marketing is just a means of generating more £££££ for themselves.Jamie Rednapp,Wright and all the rest of the idiots spouting off about the premiership being the best league in the world don’t make it so.
There’s a plethora of strikers ahead of Kane.Kane knows where the net is and is a good striker regardless of his poor run of form but I wouldn’t put him in the top bracket yet.If he was there already,the big boys would of put the money down no questions asked.
Sekard
Can you name the plethora ahead of Kane?
Interesting that Jack Wheelchair is crocked and West Ham are playing their best football of the season!
Really stretching Chelsea on the break.
Sekard
Have you seen La Liga and Bundesliga games outside of the top teams?
Dodgy stadiums, masses of empty seats, some really poor football.
It’s of a level. Never seen in the PL.
La liga and BL have elite teams, then the rest, and there is a big gap!
Put Bayern in the PL and they wouldn’t win it, be lucky to finish top 4.
No Christmas break and the weight of games with the tougher style of play would soon take the rose tint off your glasses.