We’re going to start the blog off today with some tempered mood.
I am angry that Emi Martinez is winning penalty shootouts as Argentina’s #1.
‘It wasn’t that simple’
Sure, I understand and understood at the time why we sold him. Bernd Leno had more of a sample size blah blah blah… but at the same time, isn’t this a prime example of why we don’t always listen to the computer? If a sat-nav tells you to drive off a cliff, do you do it? Arsenal did, that’s for sure.
Emi Martinez was the best keeper in Europe for those 12/13 games he played last season. If you were reading his character and motivations, you’d have known he was driven by being Argentina #1. If you were feeling out the game, you could see that his form was not a blip… he was a monster, unreal with his feet, and perfectly built for the league. He was a catcher, Bernd was not. There was a special presence.
The issue was made all the worse because we trusted a keeping coach that is scaring off talent and crashing form. If he was in charge of bringing in Runarsson, hard not to believe his counsel wasn’t sort over who to sell.
Where are we now? We have one keeper that isn’t committed as of this moment, we’ve just give Runarsson away to Turkey, and the keeping coach is still here despite all the stories about him leaking in the press.
Plenty of time to turn things around, but let me tell you, Aaron Ramsdale feels like we’re doubling down in bad ideas.
Second thing I want to talk about.
If Emile Smith Rowe is sold, I’m flying banners over The Emirates, I’m rescinding all support for Arteta, this blog is going back to 2012 levels of misery.
There’s no intelligent way of framing his exit. We are not the Brooklyn Nets. British football culture will not accept their clubs selling off their best young players to go for ‘big names.’ I don’t care about his lack of numbers, I don’t care if he frees up money for a star, I just cannot tolerate seeing Smith Rowe leave for an average club.
Arsenal should be growing stars. We should have a crop of Hale-Enders to fawn over. The advertising team should be creating campaigns around owning London with these homegrown superstars. That is what sells tickets, shirts, and merchandise. It drives excitement. It repairs the broken fan bonds of the past ten years.
Selling him would be a hate crime against us.
It would also be a devastating self-inflicted wound on Arteta. It would double down on the ‘too clever for his own good’ narrative and it would show that he lacks the key ingredient to being an elite manager: understanding the culture around the club.
Klopp gets it. Guardiola gets it. Poch got it.
Do Arteta and Edu? We’ll see. Needless to say, someone at the top of Arsenal should be putting their foot down on this sort of idea, because it will light a fuse on something that could be very explosive.
In other news, Garbiel the centre back, has pulled out of the Olympics because of a groin injury. That’s a real shame for him, but ultimately, I’d rather have him fighting it out in our squad next season. Hopefully he’ll have his breakout season this term.
The William Saliba borefest continues a pace, with Marseille now looking to… sign an experienced 26 yr old defender over him. Again, who knows if this is true, the French media has been awful on this subject, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It’ll be a huge L for the Saliba fan club if it is true. If Marseille pass on him, can someone please tell him that he should grow a pair and fight it out in the Premier League? It is absurd that he’s been passed over for a squad place for the second season in a row and his response is to… go to Marseille and play. Do a season at Newcastle, be a star, play in front of packed stadiums, and pick up a French/Geordie accent along the way. It is such a beta mentality to wimp out and go back to the comfort blanket of a slow league at 20.
Zach Lowry, one of the best young writers in football (where are The Athletic with a deal here?), dropped an eye-popping thread about the state of Barcelona.
Barcelona cannot register any new signings, not Memphis Depay, Sergio Agüero, Eric García or Emerson Royal, after exceeding the La Liga salary limit.
Despite selling Konrad de la Fuente, Jean-Clair Todibo, and Junior Firpo, Barcelona need to reduce their wage bill by €200,000.
— Zach Lowy (@ZachLowy) July 5, 2021
They can’t register their new signings unless they reduce their disgusting wage bill… so you know what that means. There is NO WAY Edu isn’t pigging around in that trough looking at their 29 year olds. I cannot wait to see what disaster we pull out of there… because it’s not going to be Pedri.
One of the big ITK accounts reckons we’re feeling out Houssem Aouar again. A few people messaged me on this and asked why we don’t just move. I suspect it’s because there are some ideal targets we’re looking at who are in ‘wait and see’ mode. This summer is going to be a moving target, the skill is gambling on the right names… we have been bad at that in the past. If the main target is James Maddison, don’t wait all summer for a top 4 rival to cave to your demands, because they might just stiff you and leave you with nothing.
We play Hibs next week, and so far, we have signed a total of zero players and the only significant exits have been Luiz, Runarsson, and Matteo G.
Still, if there’s one thing we can’t accuse Edu of, it’s not pulling deals over the line. He usually moves fast and the word is that he’s a good deal maker. January, he did the business for ins and outs. We need to see him hit peak this summer, otherwise it’s going to be a dreary season.
RIGHT. I recorded a new podcast with Johnny… we dropped it on Twitch, people actually showed up… so here’s the video.
If you want the podcast in the normal place, find it here.
DB
” if we do have Stans warchest money why do we need to sell to fund the purchase of Aouar?”
Maybe there is no warchest? Maybe our spending will be £20 – £30 million plus th proceeds from sales.?
Dissenter We’ve loaned out Mavropanos, and Luiz, Sokratis, Mustafi have all left the club That leaves Holding, Saliba, Gabriel, Mari, and Chambers who can cover there We need 4 centre backs, and a 5th who can cover IMO If we’re loaning Saliba out to develop elsewhere, instead of giving him opportunities ourself, then numerically we’d need another centre back, unless we moved Chambers across Then played one of Bellerin, Soares or Niles at right back, but then we wouldn’t have the utility 5th centre back It’s right backs + wide forwards that we have a surplus of If Aouar is… Read more »
Diss, maybe it isn’t true.
The English invented diving to compensate their lack of football talent,
Thats why rugby players dive when making a try
DigitalBob.
I would regard 175 mil spent on Haagland better value for money than 50 mil on White….
I was in support of VAR because I assumed it would confine diving/simulation/clever play to the history books.
Silly me, I never assumed that the professional pride of the referees will supplant video evidence to easily address cheating.
VAR is a major disappointment, the referees mainly use it to justify their mistakes.
Eduardo
“Arsenal have had ample resources to compete with Chelsea for the last five years at least,”
We haven’t…If we were both after the same player,Chelsea would blow us out of the water every time.
We shop at tescos
Chelsea shop at Harrods ….no haggling for them .
Pedro
I assume you mean the £175 million for Haaland – personally I don’t beleive it for a second. It’s not far short of half thier turnover.
Amazing that only hours after the stories about the mess Barca are in people can talk about that amount of money being “good economics”
I love it, absolutely LOVE IT that people are chewing on dog shit over the Sterling pen. We’ve been living cuntish decisions in major tournaments for over 40 years going back to Maradona’s cheating cunt of a goal that, I think I’m right in saying, the Jocks have celebrated over the same period. I’ll never forget seeing some cunt Jock fan with a Maradona 86 Argentina shirt on. I bet that guy is drowning in his own bile this morning. The xGOT showed Schmeical saved 2.9 goals last night, fact is we battered them, a little better finishing and all… Read more »
Rich Xhaka is on the way out and we let two midfielder loanees [Ode and Ceballos] leave That’s why it makes no sense that we have to sell a midfielder to buy Auoar for 20-25 million but we can buy White for double that fee without SELLING a defender. Aouar for 20-25 million is a better value than White for 50 million. Someone said the sequence with which we do transfers doesn’t matter, actually it does matter. If we are splurging 50 million on a defender we don’t acutely need only to have to sell-to-buy a midfielder that we do… Read more »
Pedro, you and Johnny look nothing like I had in my mind’s eye…I actually pictured johnny as johnny Vegas! You were more a younger Alan Davies
Marc
Barcelona have no inward investment, and a run by lunatic bureaucrats
Chelsea have Abramovich who’s happy to invest into the club
Barcelona have a wage bill thats 110% of their turnover, Chelsea are at 64%
Barcelona are in the red to the bank of over €1 billion
Chelsea owe Abramovich £1 billion, which doesn’t matter, because he paid £150 million for Chelsea, and the club is now worth over £2.5 billion, he’s still made well north of 2 billion in 17 years
TheBayingMob July 8, 2021 14:52:46
So emotional haha
Marc
I don’t think that even Roman is daft enough to waste 100 million just like that.
The players clause reportedly says he can be had for about 75 million next summer wo why would anyone pay 175 million now?
…and he’s asking for Messi/Neymar range of wages
Rich “had we gone into the season with a more balanced squad, and an established attacking midfielder of quality, I expect we’d have flipped those margins in our favour” But every team will say that. We had good defensive numbers and bad attacking ones because that was the priority: “building a steady base,” at the expense of our gung-ho, often naive, attacking style of the past 10+ years. We’ve dropped off by 20 goals scored per season from our previous norm to solidify our defensive numbers. The challenge is now to pair the steady base with comparable attacking output to… Read more »
Marc, yep I prefer the dirty cheating bastard take. The problem is all the pundits are DCB’s. I get really pissed off when they make comments like, “He felt contact so he had every right to go down”. Gary Ugly Neville will always defend the diving because his team was the biggest bunch of cheats going. That 50th game is a prime example; why there were no arrests after that game for match-fixing I have no idea, Riley even got promoted!!. Neville was on soccerbox with Rooney and they showed a clip of them both surrounding a referee, like they… Read more »
Dissenter
I think they’d actually go to £100 million but the idea of £175 million is crazy.
It’s silly season ramped up to 11.
Rich
Are you sure Chelsea’s owner hasn’t spend more that the balance of 2 billion [current value] and 150 million in the past 18 years?
When you c0onsider all the under-table money that can’t be reported, I suspect Abramovich may be in the red no matter how much the club is worth.
…and they still have to build a stadium someday
First of all, I’m glad England won. They were the better team and England /Italy final will be way more watchable than Denmark /Italy. Posters who say they feel for Denmark should perhaps look back to Denmark/ Finland game, where after all the hugging, hand shaking and commiserating between the Finns and Danes at the start of the game, one of the Danes proceeded to take a blatant fall in the box to win a pen. He got a yellow. This has nothing to do with hating England or loving the Danes. Fuck the Danes. This has everything to do… Read more »
Rich,
At the time we were selling Martinez, I made the point that most clubs have a home grown backup goalkeeper. Unless you are grooming the backup goalkeeper to take over later, having a non home grown backup keeper is taking a slot that could be used for an outfield player.
I don’t know whether Okonkwo has signed an extension, because losing an home grown goalkeeper with great potential two years in a row is just bad planning.
Andros Townshend was on talksport while I was listening at lunch. Said White is an awesome player after playing against him and can see him being a starter in the England team in coming years. Good endorsement from someone who plays but still not good enough for some posters here
“And sure as fuck no English fan will say “congrats to Italy, we win some we lose some”. . They’ll be grabbing their pitchforks and torches.”
Yup, pretty much the truth in a nutshell.
Dissenter In a years time Haalands 75m clause kicks in. Half the big clubs in Europe will be after his signature no? So then his agent will command and bigger fee and I expect the wages on offer will be eye watering. Chelsea pay £175m now, no one else can compete. Nice easy negotiations and maybe save 100k per week on wages and a chunk on fees. Over a 5 year deal it might just work out? It does seem unlikely the 175m deal will happen, but it wouldn’t be a matter of spending a 100m too much now as… Read more »
Barcelona for al the derision we all love to use for them, did do some classy things
They were the only club I know of who used to donate the most valuable part of their jersey to UNICEF until 2011 when they realized it made no economic sense.
It was better to charge 50 million/year for that jersey logo and donate 5 million to Unicef.
I don’t know how much that would change their finances today but they used to be classy.
Baying mob,
Fuck England.
Come on Italy
ThebayingMob “We’ve been living cuntish decisions in major tournaments for over 40 years going back to Maradona’s cheating cunt of a goal that, I think I’m right in saying, the Jocks have celebrated over the same period….” Yep. The hand of god and the Lampard goal that wasn’t. It was a soft penalty but as I said England deserved to win the game and would have done so anyway. The last 15 he decided to bring on another defender and take what he had. About time we had some bloody luck. This means we will have played in a World… Read more »
Danny S
100 million is still a lot of money
In one years time, another hot prospect will be banging in goals and Chelsea will have other options
Dissenter
100m spread over 5 years isn’t though.
And how often do Haalands come along? The guy is next level.
Especially valuable considering the lack of prolific forwards currently.
Neither Spain, Italy or Germany could put out a striker you’d really worry about this year. France have Benzemna who’s 100 years old. England have one striker of note.
Haha and I’m with Tom. Var is the real villian here. And as much as I’d love to see diving driven out of the game, it’s just part of it.
It’s just ridiculous seeing the var replays multiple times live and yet it’s still blatantly wrong.
If that was only on the ref there is a bit more benefit of the doubt
And yes, I can’t deny engurland vs Italy is a way better final, as well as England were definitely the better team over the 120mins
Dissenter
They did the unicef thing as a transition from being a club renowned for rejecting shirt sponsorship (until 2006), to monetising every commercial revenue stream, like everyone else.
Of course they didn’t have to, and it was a nice touch, but it was as much a PR exercise to placate their traditionalist members (who may have gone nuts if they’d gone straight to Qatar written on the front of the shirt), as anything else. Credit to them for still sending 5m of the shirt sponsorship money to charity.
I read £150m not £175m. A bit better.
Rich
100 million spread over 5 years, is still 100 million
Especially when you consider the unpredictability of markets
United are paying less for Sancho than they offered last year
Chelsea scored 58 goals in the league last season Haaland scored 48 goals and got 9 assists in total There’s certain players in each generation who are worth the money, Haaland + Mbappe are likely the Messi + Ronaldo of this generation If you can jump the queue and pay an extra €100 million to secure the player this summer, then you do it Under normal circumstances I’d agree it’s bonkers, but if you’re signing a 20 year old with this type of output, who solves a problem Chelsea had in the league last season, then you do it If… Read more »
raptora – Does that include Raiola’s fee?
Pierre – I do understand the logic, Haaland is a generational talent, whereas White is at best on the cusp of being an elite defender but certainly not proven at that level. So yes some would say overspending on Haaland is better business than overspending on White.
Marc – Edu has 5 weeks to spend the warchest as I would assume Arteta wants the big transfers sorted in time for the start of the premier league! We’ll soon know if the warchest was propaganda or not!
Tom ””””This has nothing to do with hating England or loving the Danes. Fuck the Danes. This has everything to do with introducing a technology and making mockery of its use.””””’ Well said by the best poster around. The ref, gave a penalty. No problem there. VAR , knowing the game is a semi final of a major tournament – should have asked the on field ref to have another look at it. If he still feels its a penalty after looking, give a penalty. Whats the point of VAR at huge cost and they don’t even use in a… Read more »
Muppetman “Andros Townshend was on talksport while I was listening at lunch. Said White is an awesome player after playing against him and can see him being a starter in the England team in coming years endorsement from someone who plays but still not good enough for some posters here” But you haven’t scouted him using a 2-minute youtube video and a copy of FIFA. If you had you would know he is crap. In fact, if you knew how to use a search engine, you would know he is 5 millimeters short of 6ft 1 inch, which means he… Read more »
Dissenter and others… Agree with you regarding VAR, been hugely disappointing in various aspects notably stopping rampant spread of cheating in box. Mental to me how they don’t amend a broken rule, this line we keep hearing “It has to be a clear and obvious error, to be overturned.” is so god damn loose and rarely works in best interest of proceedings in fair manner. Also like to see, in fact think it imperative to see many more cards flashed for simulation. We now have exact same situation where players are rewarded for the dive as if VAR didn’t exist.… Read more »
The crazy thing about the debate about VAR in the Euro’s is it’s use has been 1,000,000,000 times better than what we get in the PL week in week out.
Elmo Stylistically I’m not Aubameyang or Lacazette’s biggest fans, but they are good strikers Our problem for the first 14 games, was that we had no link between central midfield and our attack, so teams were happy to cede possession to us, knowing that the more of the ball we had, the less dangerous we were, and the more dangerous our opponents became Smith-Rowe + Odegaard changed that dynamic We invested big money to keep Aubameyang here, but then didn’t surround him with creators, and it’s the same for Pepe, Lacazette, Martinelli They’re impact players, they’re not players who create… Read more »
Marc
“The crazy thing about the debate about VAR in the Euro’s is it’s use has been 1,000,000,000 times better than what we get in the PL week in week out”
Yep. I will keep repeating myself but Mike Riley and PGMOL aren’t fit for purpose.
Tom, Your post at 14:59 was very good,I think you made several excellent points. The argument over last nights penalty has brought several issues to the surface * What is cheating now when it comes to winning/ earning frees? Ethics in the game in general. I coach 3 teams u-15,u-17,u-19 and I am genuinely confused now as to how to approach the issue. I had been against simulation but I’m tired of explaining to the young lads after losing to a dodgy decision that the moral victory was theirs. They’re Irish for gods sake,moral victories are all they’ll ever know.… Read more »
Marc VAR is not that difficult to implement. I have always suspected that they don’t want it to work and there is clearly a directive not to go against the on-field referee. I think the fact they have decided to implement it for “Clear and Obvious mistakes” and not to get correct decisions is where the problem lies. They don’t want to re-referee the game. Take the blatant Burnley handball incident. That happened one week after the handball rules were clarified to make it clear that the ball hitting an arm in an unnatural position would be handball. Pretty much… Read more »
*Now the referee didn’t give it, fair enough he may have been unsighted. However, the bloke handling VAR did see it but decided not to give it.
*one of three things
I’m on a role of cock-ups.
*one of four things
I’m on a role of cock-ups.
Evening, 175 million for haaland is stupid money but he’s putting up the numbers that justify it. If Chelsea are bidding now and can secure him at that price it avoids the bun fight in a years time, when teams have had a year to get finances in order. Fans will be back in grounds with corporate money back as well. So paying more now makes sense. Who else needs him now and has the money other than city. Pep says city can’t afford kane at over 100 million, psg are covered unless mbappe or neymar move on which is… Read more »
AFC
“Yep. I will keep repeating myself but Mike Riley and PGMOL aren’t fit for purpose.”
Neither Mike Riley nor the PGMOL were responsible for the Eros and yet VAR still failed last night. There was even a second ball on the field about 5 yards from plan…and yet the ref refused to review video
There are bigger factors at play than the two entities you’ve zoomed on
There needs to be a requirement for referees to review video in some critical timing and the standard for overturning shouldn’t be so high.
I am sorry but £175 millions for Haaland do not make sense. From an image right perspective, Haaland does not open new market, nor does he make any girl in the world get weak at the knee. He is a good footballer, but outside of fans, his name or face is not world wide recognised. From a football perspective, he is a great player but he does not elevate his team to the level of Messi, Ronaldo. Chelsea already won the ECL without him, so what they need a decent striker who can score from all the chances they created.… Read more »
I remember that blatant last minute handball goal that Kosceilny got against Burnley an few seasons back.
We had a knack for consistently getting controversial winning goals against Burnley for a stretch of time too.
Arsenal have benefitted from farcical refereeing decision in the past. That is why I will never subscribe to this belief system that we are victims of refereeing.
Dissenter,
At the time, the Koscielny goal was within the rule. Sean Dyche was apoplectic and incandescent with rage. Yet the following week, his team benefited from that same rule and he kept schtum.
I remember Gary Linker calling him on his hypocrisy.
The thing about Var is that if it’s used the way Rugby union use it.Nine out of ten times,it’s useful & IMO fair.The ref will mostly consult with the Var by Mike over any contentious decisions which are openly discussed & viewed on the big screen with both the ref & var assistant coming to an amicable decision.To which the crowd have access to.Anything the ref misses is also picked up by Var & pointed out.far less opportunity for either the ref or var to influence dodgy decisions alone.Cant see why the prem don’t introduce it ASAP.
Valentin Haaland scored 48 goals + 9 assists last season, in 50 appearances, at 20yrs of age Mbappe scored 46 goals + 12 assists last season, in 61 appearances, at 22yrs of age If any club can secure one of those players, without their wages putting them into a position where they’re making operational losses Then they do it Providing Haaland stays fit, he takes Chelsea from being a team that should finish in the top 4, into a team that are genuine title contenders, and not just next season, but for the foreseeable future Signing either Haaland or Mbappe,… Read more »
‘ I will quit this blog if it does. That’s my end point with the game.’
That would be a very sad day for us Le-grovers Pedro if you did.
If it happens, just join us on the dark side.
Arsenal without Pedro would be unthinkable.
I’ve heard this threat before lol. But, no sarcasm, long live Pedro and keep blogging because I love the content