Bernd De Gea + Arsenal round-up

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Bob Wilson spoke at the AST last night and he had this to say on Bernd Leno.

“In my opinion, Bernd Leno is as good as DDG. I have only one concern: Leno has got to learn to catch rather than punch. He is prepared to learn from Petr, and Petr is a brilliant guy in that respect. Petr is still the best at taking crosses and killing it.”

I mean, not quite sure about the DDG comparison so soon in the season, but god damn it Bob, you are on the money with the catching crosses part.

Just remember, when I say something on keepers, I’m always right. Unless I’m talking about Manone ousting Buffon for the Italy shirt, or praising Alex Manninger as the greatest of Arsenal greats.

Talking of Bernd De Gea, he revealed the manager prepared a Facetime message for WELBZ after his horrible injury.

“We talked to him because the coach [suggested it] before the game in the meeting, we had a FaceTime session with him,” Leno said. “It was very good.

“He looked very happy and I think he was happy to talk to us because he is still a big part of our team and we will support him to have a good time when he is injured.

That’s really sweet. Emery a master of mobile video, which is apparently all the rage these days.

Talking of Danny, he’s had his second operation on his ankle, which doesn’t sound good. I very much doubt we’re going to see him back before the end of the season. I’m very interested to see what the club do with his deal. Dumping him on his arse, even if he is out of contract, feels a touch brutal. What protections do players have here? In my job, we land workers comp and we have insurance etc. Do footballers get the same thing?

Apparently, we’re not going to sign someone in his place. The job of replacing Danny goes to Edddiiiieeeeee. A fantastic opportunity for him to show what he’s worth in the Europa League, leading the frontline, as well off the bench as an impact sub.

Talking of impact subs and beautiful segues, super sub, Reiss Nelson, scored again for Hoffenheim at the weekend. The fastest non-German player to 6 goals EVER in the Bundesliga. Not bad for a teenager, you have to say. I’m still torn about whether to bring him back. He’s in great form, and you don’t really want to break that confidence and flow he’s found under Nagelsmann. You also don’t want to watch non-wide players stinking out the pitch all season. I still can’t quite believe we won’t use January to make some moves.

I also can’t believe how much cash money we have wrapped up in Ozil, Ramsey and Mikhi (£600k pw or £700k if you believe there was a contract we could afford on the table). We could by some good Europa League players for that cash.

The coach has pulled Lacazette from the French squad because of a groin injury no one noticed at the weekend. I love that, a Fergie classic from back in the day, but something we rarely did under Wenger. Well played Arsenal medical staff.

Finally, take a bow Danny Finton.

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Ashwin Gunner

1st

DM

DM

Ashwin Gunner

tr4phy

DM

Tr4phy?

Ashwin Gunner

4th

Ashwin Gunner

Damn this website..

Damn the duplicate comment… 🙂

Major_Jeneral

Hello everyone.
Now let me read the post.

Guns of Hackney

Sorry, are we still feeling sorry for the multi millionaire Fanny Wellbeck?

Unless this twat has pissed his money at a wall or done a Sturridge or Chopra…I reckon he’ll be okay.

Leftsidesanch

Top of the morning to ya you miserable lot

T

I think that the club should have just 1 priority in january and it should be to bring in a new first choise left back. Monreal has done fantasticly for the past years and he can still put in world class games but the age takes its toll eventually. Kolaman clearly hasnt been as good as hoped or needed and not very reliable either so it would make sense for the club to replace him. Also when you look at past results it is clear that once monreal got injured aubas form took a big hit too and the teams… Read more »

Pierre

The question is …..have we already peaked this season with that winning streak or should I say streaky wins… The fixtures from now until Christmas will be a test ….I can’t say I am full of confidence that we will come out unscathed…..maybe,as Pedro alluded to in his previous post, Emery’s luck will hold … Let’s be honest ,apart from a few magical spells in games the football has been quite uninspiring.but of course it’s “early days”. I would say that our best 90 minutes performance this season was v Liverpool and we really need to become a 90 minute… Read more »

Major_Jeneral

Interesting video at the end. Now to the post. Are you saying lacazette is not injured instead it is a ploy by Arsenal to keep him from exacerbating the minor knock from the last match against Wolves. On the defensive front let see the stuff Koscielny is made of after this two weeks international break. I still expect Arsenal to get at most a winger during the January TW. It will be ludicrous not to do so. Unless Emery has a plan which we do not know about at the moment. I will like to see how Emery deal with… Read more »

gambon

The games against Spurs & UTD will be a good test of where we are. At the end of the day, we are definitely behind City, Chelsea and Liverpool and playing for 4th, so it will be interesting to see how we compare to the other 2. My feeling at the moment is that we are level with UTD but behind Spurs, which means we will probably fight for 5th place. I like a lot of what Emery is doing, but think the improvement so far is pretty minimal. The bigger improvements will come next summer, when Emery can replace… Read more »

Guns of Hackney

Gambon you crazy bastard…wise words.

Riddle me this…if we do finish fifth (which I think we will) where will the cash and or players come from?

Kos
Klasinac
Monreal
Chambers
Mustafi
Elbeny
Xhaka
Fat mikki
Ramsey
Cech

That’s £5,000,000 but where’s the other £295m coming from?

Unless of course Reiss (superstar) Nelson comes back and scores 60 goals for us.

Guns of Hackney

Anyone else think Theresa May is cute?

T

I will be hugely surprised if both kozielny and mustafi are still part of the squad next season.

Sokratis has done a good job whenever he has been on full health. Kozielny has been world class at times and even done ok when having bad periods.

Holding and mavropanos have shown promise but the latter is far from ready to take over at first team.

Mustafi has never been quite what people hoped for i guess.

All in all raul&co are going to have a big headache what to do with the centrebacks 😀

T

Oh and it would absolute madness to buy a winger on january with all the current players available, nelson&co knocking on the door and the engineroom half broken needing a lot more attention anyway! (Meaning the defence and centre of park)

Victorious

How can we not bring in players in Jan? Surely thats a joke,except it isn’t funny.

That’d be preposterous, i mean we have a great chance of nicking 4th,just lacking that bit of quality to get us over the line

We absolutely need a worldclass LB (i like the look of Hector or Grimaldo)
Then probably a winger
Anything less than this and we have as much chance as Newcastle in finishing top4

Victorious

Oh and it would absolute madness to buy a winger on january with all the current players available, nelson&co knocking on the door” Actually bringing back Nelson is what would be absolute madness How desperate can you get,bringing back a kid from a loan spell to be a starter and you when he’s not near the quality yet needed at this level And you expect to be taken serious, How about Leave him be and let him develop his all around game? For all we know he might be having a purple patch,(hello Ramsey) I mean not as if Nelson… Read more »

HighburyLegend

The only Arsenal player in the Best Premier League XI so far (Sky Sports) is… Mustafi !!
Are they for real ??
(lol)

Uwot?

Guns what u smoking lol!if we want to push on for top 4 – reinforcements deffo needed in jan.no question.absolute min 1 hopefully 2 ?

Alexanderhenry

Pedro

Rotten luck for welbz but to quote you:

‘Apparently, we’re not going to sign someone in his place.’

Why not? The club should have the resources to make an extra investment when needed.

Left testicle

You question GoH on transfers but not on his crush for the Maybot?

Guns of Hackney

Dancing like a Maybot in 1984…

Uwot

100% we need bodies…that was my get rid of list for the summer.

Eduardo

Not offering Welbeck a new contract is not “dumping him on his arse”. He has been very well paid, and unless he wasted all his money he’s a multi-millionaire by now who should never have to work the rest of his life. He also should have taken out insurance to cover himself for this sort of eventuality. If he didn’t, that’s on him, not the club. Do you not believe people should be responsible for the consequences of their own actions? Moreover, he’s practically guaranteed to get a contract from a lower PL team in the summer. So, no new… Read more »

Jamie

If we’re to look forward as a club, we need to move past this ‘taking care of our out-of-contract injured players’ rubbish. Welbeck could’ve had his agent push for a contract renewal at the start of last season on reduced terms if he was concerned about his future. We would’ve given him 50k a week for 4 years no questions asked (over £10m). Footballers are just as opportunistic as clubs when it comes to contract negotiations. Welbeck and Ramsey both flew too close to the sun, thinking they would be in a stronger negotiating position this January. Injuries and a… Read more »

gonsterous

New drinking game, take a shot every time Pierre mentions balance in the team. 😉

Cesc Appeal

No way should we give Welbeck a new deal just because he’s injured. First of all, he should be a millionaire so talking in terms of some factory worker getting an injury and needing workman’s comp or something is ridiculous. Second of all, players play a risk and reward game and it shouldn’t just be one sided. Ramsey right now, he’s holding out for £280 000 a week from a club because they don’t have to pay his transfer fee. If he plays badly or gets injured he risks this. There shouldn’t be a safety net that if he gets… Read more »

HighburyLegend

“Massive rewards with some risks.”

Ozil is an exception to that rule. Guess why.

Pierre

Alexanderhenry
“Why not? The club should have the resources to make an extra investment when needed.”

Let’s not forget that we have had a net spend of 45 million over the last 2 seasons so things may be a little tight.

gambon

I would like us to sign a Welbeck replacement in January, but only if we bring in our first choice target, not a watered down “january target”

Monreal for example, we were going to wait until summer to sign, but we brought it forward to January due to injury…..thats fine.

However if it means going and getting some shit wide player on a 4.5 year contract because he was all thats available….I would rather just play NKetiah.

Jamie

We’ve definitely shit the bed when it comes to our financial position over the last few seasons. We overpaid for Laca, Auba, Xhaka, Perez, Welbeck, Mustafi by probably in the order of £50m. The wages we’ve paid for Per, Santi (the final year of their contracts, both extended I think, knowing they would make few appearances during that period), Wilshere, Walcott, Ozil, Mikki, Kolasinac, Debuchy all far outweigh their return on the pitch. A waste of easily £500k a week (£25m a year). That’s around £75m cash down the drain, conservatively, and the hemorrhaging of cash on our wage bill… Read more »

Cesc Appeal

Gambon

Completely agree.

If our target for out wide is someone like Pepe, for example, who will cost £40 Million would rather wait until the summer than buy a January signing who is some mid-20s squad player for a decent side for £12 Million or something.

If that LB we’re apparently after is just a good scout that is one thing, but like you say, no January type purchases. Otherwise it is just £10 Million down the drain and a load of wasted wages.

Nelson

I always wonder why MANU is still one of the three richest club in the world football. Their football is not among the top ten in the world. We fans only see the salary paid to each player. I am sure that Ozil has much more commercial value than Ramsey world wide. As for improving the team performance, I think it is very important to have the whole team ready and play with a fast pace for all 90 minutes. During training, we need to build up chemistry for one touch football. I think Iwobi and Monreal form a good… Read more »

T

Victorious what i meant is let the current midfielders and forwards have a go at it this season. Then look at spring if nelson or some other youngter is ready to step up. If neither works out then look to buy in a world class winger next summer.

Guns of SF

If making top 4 is our goal then it is imperative we find 2 players in Jan. Also we need to sell Rambo- that is $$ tied up. If we do not reinforce, top 4 will not happen. We are drawing with teams we should beat- and that is the recipe for 5/6 place again. That cannot happen again…. not with the new set up and all A left winger and LB who can deputize the back line would help tremendously We get cover in Defense and add an attacking winger- Auba gets to move central finally I am optimistic… Read more »

Pierre

Nelson You are right ,football is all about partnerships on the pitch … In recent years we have had ozil /Sanchez and in midfield cazorla/coquelin… Bellerin/Mhkitaryan early in the season clicked but have rarely played together . Aubamayang/Mhkitaryan we haven’t utilised enough as they have history but when they play are rarely in touch as they are on opposite sides of the pitch. Aubamayang/Lacazette works as does xhaka/Torriera……ozil to me is struggling since Emery arrived and Ramsey doesn’t really do partnerships. Centre back is crucial, kosielny and Mert worked well but we are still looking for a good pairing in… Read more »

Guns of SF

gambon and CA

I agree no watered down “stop gap”, cheap, almost out of contract player
We need someone to make an immediate impact in the side.
We lack creativity in midfield. Funny to say that, but watching Ozil, Iwobi, etc try to fashion chances was painful. In fact, Ozil was atrocious to watch again.
Ive always said, that he needs to add a third option to score by getting in the box, but he rarely does. Most of his goals are from inside the box area. Bewildering

Jamie

Thoughts on Malcom? Haven’t seen much of him at all, but he might not be at Barca this time next season.

And there are some trashy tabloid pieces floating around about Dembele’s lack of professionalism. Misses/is late for training, poor diet..

Not good when a young player has the world at his feet and his lack of focus cripples his progression.

Emiratesstroller

Frankly I do not think that Arsenal need to make ‘wholesale’ changes to our squad as far too many posters suggest we need to do. Two weeks ago Xhaka had an excellent game and there were excellent reviews about his performance. This week he made a mistake and as usual the hounds want him offloaded. Then again Leno was heavily criticised for the goal conceded when Milner scored. The fact that the ball ricocheted off Holding had no material impact on this opinion. Arsenal do need to make some changes too their squad but certainly not on the scale being… Read more »

Carts

Nah fuck all that. Welbeck’s deal finishes he should leave. I’m all for him getting his fitness at Arsenal till he finds another club, but that’s it

I think T.Hazard would be a good signing for us. I think he could improve his dribbles per game, but when ever I’ve watched him, I’ve been very impressed

Pierre

It’s interesting reading blogs like le grove as you get an understanding of different views of fans and their likes and dislikes player wise and how they will defend certain players but will castigate others.

For instance ,you have the likes
Myself …..ozil
Charlie ….xhaka
Paulinho….Ramsey
Graham …..Lacazette
Marko ……no one ( because he’s a miserable git)

And Tony D only loves only one person ……..himself

And the dislikes are
Myself …Ramsey
Paulinho….ozil
Graham ….has to be wenger
Charlie ….bamford(who else )
Marko ….everybody.

And Tony D ………dislikes anyone who is not as incredibly rich as he is.

UTarse

“Anything less than this and we have as much chance as Newcastle in finishing top4”

You never disappoint when it comes to being dumb.

No new Welbeck contract for me, Arsenal the charity went out with the last manager.

Pierre

Ufraud
It’s quite ironic that you would call someone dumb for being negative considering your negative stance last season …

Emiratesstroller

Pierre There are always people expressing negative opinions. That is sadly the media culture that exists today. Arsenal are a long way short of a title winning team. Everyone knows this if they have an ounce of brain. Bluntly “Rome is not built in a Day” My personal horizon this season is to finish in top four and overhaul Spurs. That would be an achievement considering our expectations at start of season. There are some changes which do need to be made to starting lineup and squad, but it is unrealistic to expect more than perhaps one in January. Arsenal… Read more »

UTarse

Stick the bait out and bite he does don’t you Lil p…..

You are that dumb yourself that you are comparing me wanting wenger out as equal “negativity” as the 12 year old saying we have as much chance of top 4 as Newcastle ?

Take as long as you need old man….

Nelson

Jamie: “Thoughts on Malcom? Haven’t seen much of him at all”.
He played last game against Betis and Barca lost 4 – 3. He played left wing and has a decent left short. He didn’t seems to play well with the rest of the teammates.

Pierre

Ufraud
I seemed to have struck a bit of a nerve there..

WengerEagle

Valverde has a rep for playing his favourites into the ground, Vidal has hardly had a kick this season either it’s pretty bizarre. Changed the game when he came on at the weekend but too little too late. Malcom literally hasn’t had a proper crack of the whip, scored a tidy goal against Inter Milan in the CL last week and played vs Betis for a while but besides that he hasn’t even been making the bench. Munir places ahead of him on the bench ffs. Strange because watching him in pre-season he looked very dangerous for them, only conclusion… Read more »

Se19Gooner

I do feel for Danny. The talk on here that he should accept a pay cut because of his current high wages is nonesense. Don’t blame the player, blame the system. I’d hope that there’s a slight change in stance from the club regarding signings after seeing Emery punching above his weight for the current squad quality. He deserves the chance to gamble on 1 or 2 lowered end transfer targets. Nelson is an interesting one, I can’t see him benefiting from being pulled back to an under pressure Arsenal squad. He performs a different role to that of any… Read more »

China1

Yeah I really don’t see how welbeck would have been dumped on his arse He’ll be paid in full an enormous salary for the rest of the season to do hospital and physio work rather than his job. It sucks for him but hardly being dumped is it Arsenal will see him through his rehabilitation and always let ex players (and even some non ex players) train with us until he finds a club. He might recover in July. Finish his contract then, but still be training with us until September when another club (or arsenal) finally take a punt… Read more »

China1

For persoective’s sake, in two of my contracts I’ve had in China, there were clauses included stating that if I had serious illness/injuries threatening my capacity to work for more than 2 months at a time, my contract would automatically be terminated

So sorry Danny, but could be worse eh.

China1

Oh and there was that time during my first job out here where my boss tried to fire me for taking too many (6) days of sick leavein one year. If it wasn’t for another manager stepping in I’d have been toast

Some of those 60+Ks a week would’ve been nice for me around then

Sancho Monzorla

There’s nothing cold at all about not considering another contract for Welbeck, he’s an injury prone athlete, sucks but it’s true and devoting more money after another injury is about the worst investment I can imagine. Actually it seems rather sentimental and kind of backwards to use injury as a factor to keep him on the books. What the club can do is pledge to aid him through his rehab should it linger longer than his contract, let him even work out with the team if that’s what he wants, but there’s no way Danny Welbeck should be occupying a… Read more »

gonsterous

70k a week. I don’t know which hospital welbeck is going to but one weeks wage should cover the cost of his operation and stay. 2 weeks wage would be the most he would have to pay, and does he not have abu savings ? If he’s been throwing 70k a week down the drain when he’s fit, it’s not the club problem that he can’t afford to get food and provisions after his contract is up.