Well, Vieira is linked with a move back home, I’d bet my house this won’t happen. Eboue looks set to leave, which is a bad idea. We’re strongly connected with Matuide or whatever his name is. I’ve never seen him play, I’ve done no research on him and I doubt we’ll sign him anyway. I doubt we’ll be signing anyone else this summer. We’ve done good business the other way, having made a 16m pound player profit this year.
Nothing else doing really, my girl is planning her birthday out on the computer, I played some casino poker last night and am feeling the filth this morning, as I’m covered in cigarette smoke and old man burps.
I’ve been reading different Arsenal blogs lately, without much to else to do, and I read on ArsenalAnalysis.blogspot.com that our old boy Edu has recovered from a series of injuries, which limited him to 44 appearances in 4 years at Valencia after they took him on a Bosman, to sign for his old club Corinthians on a 2 year deal. I’m super happy for him and wish him all the best. He left after an improved deal was offered too late and he no longer felt wanted at the club. Aries over at ArsenalAnalysis goes on to write:
“If only Edu was convinced by Arsene Wenger to sign a new contract instead of going to Spain’s Valencia. I believe Arsenal would have gone on to dominate the Premier League for years to come.”
I was sad when he left and I don’t doubt that he would have gone on to do very well for us, but I don’t know about dominating the league for years to come. The very next season Viera and Gilberto were our first choice in the middle and between the injuries to them both a teenage Fabregas was asked to step in and take over. He was 16 or maybe 17, the season before that he became the youngest ever Arsenal player to score a senior goal when he came on as a sub (I think) and scored against … don’t remember now, maybe Derby, they were lower league and in white on the night. He was very much part of the reserves and was moved up to the senior squad and then thrust into the team. He came through and we now have the world class player you see today.
Had Edu stayed it would have given Wenger the left footed/right footed central midfield combo he had with Petit and Viera, a near identical pairing, arguably not quite as good, but you certainly weren’t loosing all that much. Fabregas’ chances to make it into the first team would have been more limited and perhaps we wouldn’t have the captain we have now. But who knows.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Bye Bye King Kolo
King Kolo is out and I’m not at all happy. You can say what you will about the remarkable piece of business Wenger has done the club as Kolo has brought us a title, 2 FA Cups and helped us to a few good long runs in the champions league, including the final in 2006. He stood up and replaced Keown and Adams when nobody else could, he stood up and continued when Campbell left and he’s our longest serving player, he’s our only connection to the invincibles. In a squad with so much youth and such little tradition and leadership, letting go of one of our most experienced leaders, the only player who can carry on the Arsenal tradition left over by the likes of Adams, Keown, Parlour and Bergkamp, is in my mind a mistake. I’m very upset about this transaction and don’t have it in me to write much more. Arseblog said that this is football and players come and go but under our circumstances I don’t think it’s right.
Alright, that was bit dramatic, my heads on straight now but I’m still pissed off. 16million is a lot of money, more than we’ve ever spent on a player and Wenger does know when to let go, particularly when it comes to players around Toure’s age. Overmars, Petit, Vieira, Hleb, Campbell, Edu (I have a bit about him you’ll see later) all left between the ages of 27 and 30 (I think) and have all gone on to less prestige and glamour in their post Arsenal careers. You might say they became slightly useless even. Speaking of Hleb, he was part of the deal that saw Ibrahimovic go to Barca as he was loaned out to Inter for a season with an option of a 10m Euro buy at the end of the season. He couldn’t get a game at Barca, who don’t have a lot of midfielders, going to Inter who have about 900,000 midfielders won’t do his career much good. I doubt we’ll be hearing about Hleb for a long time.
Having said all that, that money better go into the team and we better not let Eboue go. I understand that Eboue, Toure and Adebayor were all great friends and perhaps this will be playing on Eboue’s mind in his decision to leave and it seems that Fiorentina are in talks with him over a move said to be somewhere in the 10m range, which again is very good money.
We’ve spent 25m since January, on Arshavin and Vermaelen and have made that back with the sale of Adebayor. We’ve got another 16m for Toure coming in, which really ought to be enough money to sign a quality center mid like Sissoko. Even if it costs more, I have to imagine that we had money in the kitty without selling Adebayor, there must be something to spend. We obviously won’t replace Kolo, I’m sure we’ll keep Phil the Swiss and probably Silvestre. This is beyond me, I’ve said that I like Senderos and that I see the value that Silvestre can bring but keeping these guys over Toure just sucks.
We’ve signed Vermaelen to be a starter, I don’t think Wenger would have paid that money for a sub. Kolo and Gallas and Djourou would have been scrapping it out to play alongside him and maybe Toure just didn’t have the fight in him. That doesn’t seem right though, Toure has tons of fight doesn’t he? So maybe it was the money. Maybe the excitement of a new project, maybe a chance to join up with his buddy Adebayor and make some new buddies in the process. Or maybe it’s the money. I’m sad to see him go and I thank him for his work with Arsenal but there’s a bad taste in my mouth and I don’t suppose I’ll ever know where it’s coming from.
Highbury86
Alright, that was bit dramatic, my heads on straight now but I’m still pissed off. 16million is a lot of money, more than we’ve ever spent on a player and Wenger does know when to let go, particularly when it comes to players around Toure’s age. Overmars, Petit, Vieira, Hleb, Campbell, Edu (I have a bit about him you’ll see later) all left between the ages of 27 and 30 (I think) and have all gone on to less prestige and glamour in their post Arsenal careers. You might say they became slightly useless even. Speaking of Hleb, he was part of the deal that saw Ibrahimovic go to Barca as he was loaned out to Inter for a season with an option of a 10m Euro buy at the end of the season. He couldn’t get a game at Barca, who don’t have a lot of midfielders, going to Inter who have about 900,000 midfielders won’t do his career much good. I doubt we’ll be hearing about Hleb for a long time.
Having said all that, that money better go into the team and we better not let Eboue go. I understand that Eboue, Toure and Adebayor were all great friends and perhaps this will be playing on Eboue’s mind in his decision to leave and it seems that Fiorentina are in talks with him over a move said to be somewhere in the 10m range, which again is very good money.
We’ve spent 25m since January, on Arshavin and Vermaelen and have made that back with the sale of Adebayor. We’ve got another 16m for Toure coming in, which really ought to be enough money to sign a quality center mid like Sissoko. Even if it costs more, I have to imagine that we had money in the kitty without selling Adebayor, there must be something to spend. We obviously won’t replace Kolo, I’m sure we’ll keep Phil the Swiss and probably Silvestre. This is beyond me, I’ve said that I like Senderos and that I see the value that Silvestre can bring but keeping these guys over Toure just sucks.
We’ve signed Vermaelen to be a starter, I don’t think Wenger would have paid that money for a sub. Kolo and Gallas and Djourou would have been scrapping it out to play alongside him and maybe Toure just didn’t have the fight in him. That doesn’t seem right though, Toure has tons of fight doesn’t he? So maybe it was the money. Maybe the excitement of a new project, maybe a chance to join up with his buddy Adebayor and make some new buddies in the process. Or maybe it’s the money. I’m sad to see him go and I thank him for his work with Arsenal but there’s a bad taste in my mouth and I don’t suppose I’ll ever know where it’s coming from.
Highbury86
Monday, July 27, 2009
Double post
Hello everyone, meant to post that last one yesterday but cocked up. It's here today and so will this one be. I was planning on posting some more analysis but have decided to discus some other stuff.
There's been a lot of huff and puff about a BBC interview that the Red & White guys gave about the right's issue that was proposed to the board. I'm bad with business stuff and really don't know much about the ramifications of the right's issue or anything about it really, only that it's a proposed alternative to the club going into debt after borrowing money from Usmanov. I love our club and how it's run and that Wenger has final cut. I don't think I want to see anything change but we have to prove that we can compete as is. We did it for 8 years winning trophies and playing stunning football. Wenger made brilliant discovery after brilliant discovery and turned a number of players from unknown youngsters into superstars, even making Thierry Henry the best player in the world. For a time. He's been critisized for letting players go, but our old stars don't have a good record of going on to do well. The latest of course being Hleb, who said he regrets leaving us. Fuck him.
Anyway, people seem upset about the interview, which I didn't myself see. Arseblog comments as does ACulturedLeftFoot. They both mention the same stuff about Red & White being dispicable and that perhaps David Dein has a hand in the background. I used to love David Dein and really appreciate his time at the club and his relationship with Wenger. Now a days, I'm not sure.
Now to things more football. I watched the Gold Cup final today, seeing Mexico beating the US 5 nil. In the first half it seemed that the US were dominant, although they didn't have their strongest team. In the second half our boy Vela came on for Mexico and turned the game around entirely. I'm not sure if Mexico were playing their strongest team, but I imagine that Carlos Vela would be in it, starting over Giovanni Dos Santos, a totally fluffed, useless player who couldn't even make it at Tottenham after leaving Barca, not managing to get a place over Darren Bent. Vela may have been left out due to his injury but he came on in the second half and really ran the show, setting up 3 of the goals and getting one himself. He ran at defenders with confidence and ease and counter attacked very well. It looked easy for him, nobody could keep up with him and for all his possession and running at defenders he was only tackled twice. His finish was beautiful too, running the ball into the box past three defenders, leaving them all behind. He went a little too far wide it seemed but when the keeper came out he chiped it over him and it fell slowly and deftly into the far corner with the recovering defenders sliding desperately to try and keep it from going over the line. I really hope to see more of him this season, he's a good little player, very skillful and a fine finisher, I think he just needs to work on fitting into the team and really take his chances when he's given them, this is the only way he'll work his way up the pecking order, as he's our last choice striker at the moment.
Another thing is our center mid problem. I still haven't seen any evidence of us trying to chase down our man but it did occur to me that we were once in for a sniff of Ruben de la Red. He's young, only 23, and can play as a holding mid or more of a playmaker. He had a good showing in Euro 2008, where I think he played one game in the group stage after Spain had already qualified. He ran the game and even got himself a goal. I did a little research on him and discovered that last October he collapsed during a game having suffered an effort syncope. This is a complex term for fainting for a number of reasons, but in de la Red's case it was probably due to lack of oxygen in the brain. This ended his season last year and it has been confirmed that he won't take part at all this season as they try to find out what causes him to pass out while he runs, so I suppose we won't be signing him.
Not much else for me to discuss, until tomorrow,
Highbury86
There's been a lot of huff and puff about a BBC interview that the Red & White guys gave about the right's issue that was proposed to the board. I'm bad with business stuff and really don't know much about the ramifications of the right's issue or anything about it really, only that it's a proposed alternative to the club going into debt after borrowing money from Usmanov. I love our club and how it's run and that Wenger has final cut. I don't think I want to see anything change but we have to prove that we can compete as is. We did it for 8 years winning trophies and playing stunning football. Wenger made brilliant discovery after brilliant discovery and turned a number of players from unknown youngsters into superstars, even making Thierry Henry the best player in the world. For a time. He's been critisized for letting players go, but our old stars don't have a good record of going on to do well. The latest of course being Hleb, who said he regrets leaving us. Fuck him.
Anyway, people seem upset about the interview, which I didn't myself see. Arseblog comments as does ACulturedLeftFoot. They both mention the same stuff about Red & White being dispicable and that perhaps David Dein has a hand in the background. I used to love David Dein and really appreciate his time at the club and his relationship with Wenger. Now a days, I'm not sure.
Now to things more football. I watched the Gold Cup final today, seeing Mexico beating the US 5 nil. In the first half it seemed that the US were dominant, although they didn't have their strongest team. In the second half our boy Vela came on for Mexico and turned the game around entirely. I'm not sure if Mexico were playing their strongest team, but I imagine that Carlos Vela would be in it, starting over Giovanni Dos Santos, a totally fluffed, useless player who couldn't even make it at Tottenham after leaving Barca, not managing to get a place over Darren Bent. Vela may have been left out due to his injury but he came on in the second half and really ran the show, setting up 3 of the goals and getting one himself. He ran at defenders with confidence and ease and counter attacked very well. It looked easy for him, nobody could keep up with him and for all his possession and running at defenders he was only tackled twice. His finish was beautiful too, running the ball into the box past three defenders, leaving them all behind. He went a little too far wide it seemed but when the keeper came out he chiped it over him and it fell slowly and deftly into the far corner with the recovering defenders sliding desperately to try and keep it from going over the line. I really hope to see more of him this season, he's a good little player, very skillful and a fine finisher, I think he just needs to work on fitting into the team and really take his chances when he's given them, this is the only way he'll work his way up the pecking order, as he's our last choice striker at the moment.
Another thing is our center mid problem. I still haven't seen any evidence of us trying to chase down our man but it did occur to me that we were once in for a sniff of Ruben de la Red. He's young, only 23, and can play as a holding mid or more of a playmaker. He had a good showing in Euro 2008, where I think he played one game in the group stage after Spain had already qualified. He ran the game and even got himself a goal. I did a little research on him and discovered that last October he collapsed during a game having suffered an effort syncope. This is a complex term for fainting for a number of reasons, but in de la Red's case it was probably due to lack of oxygen in the brain. This ended his season last year and it has been confirmed that he won't take part at all this season as they try to find out what causes him to pass out while he runs, so I suppose we won't be signing him.
Not much else for me to discuss, until tomorrow,
Highbury86
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Nothing much new, rival analysis
Hello Hello, we'll get right into it,
there's been more about Eboue going to Fiorentina, you all know my position on that. Some other stuff in the papers about our transfer kitty figure and how selling Kolo could help us with that. It seems though that we've got 30m pounds and selling Kolo would be ... you all know what it would be. Kolou to Arsenal for 7m? I doubt it, I'd say it's just his way of getting a new contract. I wouldn't mind him coming over though, and 7m would be a good price, he's a good player. Anyway, here's Liverpool:
They pushed United for most of the season last year but bottled it towards the end. Man U barn stormed through their fixtures and won the league with a cushion in the end. It’s hard to say where Liverpool went wrong, perhaps a series of draws in games that could have been won or a lengthy injury to Torres at a crucial time, having sold Robbie Keane this injury wasn’t timed well. Their priority this summer is to keep their squad together and they’ve done so thus far, even adding one with the purchase of Glen Johnson from Portsmouth for an absurd 18 million pounds. I read an article about this somewhere, which discussed the UEFA rules and how having an Englishman starting in the team may be well worth 18m if Platini manages to impliment the 6/5 rule, which will mean that every club in the European football will have to field a minimum of 6 home grown players, a ludicrous proposition that would turn European football on it’s head and make it difficult for players from small countries to make good wages abroad.
No doubt that Johnson is a very good right back and will improve Liverpool, but is he the answer to their title question? I think probably not. They look good at the back with Johnson on the right, a rotation between Carreger, Skrtl and Agger in the middle and Aurelio on the left and with no suitor so far for Arbeloa they looked sured up in both full back positions with Dossena able to cover at left back. Their midfield will remain strong if they can keep hold of Mascherano and Alonso and Torres fire power is evident, as for me he’s the best striker in the world. They’ve a good keeper, although he is prone to the odd but colossal mistake, with Rena, they’ve got wingers who can do the business in Kuyt, Benayoun and Riera and of course Stephen Gerrard will pick the entire city of Liverpool up on his back and drag it across the goal line when needed. With quite possibly the best man for man squad in the league they’ll be a serious threat next season. But I don’t know if Rafa is sane enough to really pull it off.
We all know they give up goals, as they gave us a few last season, and with two holding midfielders between a quality back four and Gerrard you have to think that their weakness lies in the width in the midfield, defensively at least and again with our potentially deadly wingers, Arshavin, Rosicky, Nasri, Walcott and whoever else will be deployed there, maybe Vela, maybe Eduardo, (it’s hard to see Eboue or Diaby there with the other options) we should be able to get in behind.
Stopping them will be a different prospect. We’ve had a difficult time picking up Torres in the past and have given up some easy goals as well. We’ll have to have it together enough in the middle of midfield not to let the likes of Gerrard march through, feed it wide for a cross to get in to an unmarked Torres to head home easily. Vermaelen should help with that and so should a newly invigorated spirit in the squad after the purchase of an experienced holding central midfielder.
We’ll have to see if that really happens and I hope it does, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were no more signings this summer, aside from the 15 year olds we’re signing from Bosnia and Columbia and wherever else.
Theo Walcott has been instrumental in our recent matches against Liverpool, as were Hleb and Adebayor. This may say something about our pace and our ability to exploit Liverpool and their lack there of, with said pace. We’ve lost Adebayor but we’ve gained an Arshavin and the speedy Rosicky and Eduardo are back to help.
Player for player is a funny battle. Who would I rather have at right back if I were neutrally speaking, Glenn Johnson or Bacary Sagna? It’s hard to say, they’re the same age and are quality in their position. Johnson can tuck into center back and seems to do better going forward with accurate crosses and passes into the box and the ability to score some stunners. Sagna doesn’t have this getting forward, which is why to be honest I like Eboue at right back a bit better, but he is a more solid defender, as he proved last season when playing at the back for us when he was consistently our best performer back there. In the end though, I have to say Johnson.
Clichy or Aurelio, this is a no brainer. Aurelio is older and has a wider range of passing as most of his passes are long. He can hit free kicks and good crosses and can score here and there, but Clichy is 10 times the athlete is a much better defender and attacker and has 25 times the pace of Aurelio. Clichy.
I would have to imagine that we’ll be starting Vermaelen and Gallas together. Gallas proved he has a slight edge over Kolo Toure at center back where they play a very similar style. King Kolo’s bout with maleria seemed to affect his game a good deal and perhaps he was just having a mediocre season but his recovery pace wasn’t quite what it was and his ball winning and tackling dropped off. Gallas turned his dip in form around and was very consistent in the second half of the season. I can’t see Wenger not starting Vermaelen but perhaps there will be a healthy rotation with the ever improving Djourou and the other 2. But for now we’ll go with Gallas and Vermaelen. Would I prefer them to Carrager and Skrtl?
Carrager has been a top defender in England for a long time. There’s no doubting his quality. Or is there. Is he really that great? I don’t know, yeah he’s pretty good I guess but he’s not what he used to be and he’s slow. I enjoyed watching Thierry Henry turn him inside out each time they played against each other and I’ve seen other Arsenal players do it too. He’s very beatable and can be exploited by our pacey skilful attackers. Skrtl is solid and has a bit more pace than Carrager but again, he’s very beatable. Both have limited ability on the ball with a poor range of passing and neither score any goals, like ever. Carrager’s record is something like 1 every 100 odd games.
I’ve watched some highlights of Vermaelen and they were mostly of him scoring big towering headers over a bunch of tiny Dutch people in the box off free kicks and corners. A few were of some great tackles but other than that I know nothing of him. He’s obviously good in the air at both ends and apparently is very sound technically, as you’d probably expect. Gallas is of course very sound technically with a decent range of passing with both feet. He’s good in the air going forward but gets climbed over and lost at the back all too regularly. Now Gallas, as we’ve seen, is certainly beatable. He had a terrible dip in form at the front end of last season and was being beaten on the ground, in the air, with pace, with skill, with power, with everything all over the place. It was terrible. He turned it around in the second half of the season with the pressure of being captain off his back and performed well. Assuming that his bad patch is behind him, we can look forward to some of the form that made Gallas a top 5 in the world kind of defender. With his strength and technical ability and Vermaelen’s aerial prowess and their combined technical ability I think we have something fantastic to look forward to. To answer the question at hand: Gallas and Vermaelen.
Our first choice wingers will be interesting to see. Nasri’s just been injured so he’s out and I can’t imagine Eboue or Diaby being deployed there anymore, not with the options we have now. I see Arshavin playing off the striker a bit more and so I think it’ll be Rosicky and Walcott. Both have blistering pace, Walcott especially of course, and both will work to get back. Rosicky is one of the best in world at technical ability. He can shoot, he can head, he can pass, long and short, he can cross and man can he dribble. He’s got a full locker of technical ability and with a hunger that only a career threatening injury and 18 months in the phisio’s office can get you, he’ll be a fucking scary prospect for full backs.
Theo will have another year of experience, which includes a summer away with the U21 squad (something Wenger wasn’t happy about) and will be raring to go. With added competition for places and a world cup coming up he’s poised to have a hell of a season. Maybe a coming out season, much like Ronaldo a few years ago, when he was 21, or Joe Cole. A season where potential and obvious talent, which come out in spirts of brilliance will be realized and those spirts and odd performances will come more consistent. He’s a great finisher and is very intelligent, reads the game very well and will be a serious threat to opposing defenses. I said before that he’ll work back and I’ve watched him get better at it over the course of last season and I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Now, facing opposite them will be Dirk Kuyt and Albert Riera, who are no slouches. Riera has great skill and a very good left foot. His dribbling is great to watch sometimes and he can penetrate defenses. His crossing is quite good and his finishing is quite good as well. I never saw him perform in the big games though and I think put up against a quality full back he may have a more difficult time. Kuyt just doesn’t stop working. He goes and he goes and he goes and he goes. He must run 10 miles a game. He gets back fairly well but lets not forget that he’s playing out of position. He’s a natural center forward and was a good one at that over in Holland, scoring 30 goals a season for a couple of seasons. He’s a good finisher with his head and his feet and as we saw a few times in our game at Anfield last season, he can put in a good cross and does well as a provider. The biggest issue with both these guys is that they’re not great at getting back and even when they do they’re not the greatest defenders. We’ve all seen Hleb run Kuyt ragged, Clichy too for that matter and I’d say Rosicky will do a fine job of that. And lets face it, Riera doesn’t stand a chance of keeping up with Walcott. Of course you could argue that it’s the full backs who have to deal with the wingers and you’re probably right, but it doesn’t do anything for my argument. Needless to say, I’d rather have Walcott and Rosicky any day.
Central midfield is where it all gets tricky. I take Cesc over any player on the park. We’re likely to play with two deep lying center mids, just like Liverpool. We’ll have one holding and one deep lying playmaker in Cesc, although he will forage forward and get into the attack very often, he’ll just start out a little deeper. Liverpool will have two holding midfielders, one a long range passer and distance shooter and the other a fierce tackler. Xabi Alonso and Javi Mascherano are quality, perhaps even 2 of the best holding mids in Europe. Alonso has a great range of long passes and can stick a tackle too, not to mention his ability to bang in goals from his own half. Mascherano is a tackling machine who, on occasion, can bring the ball forward with pace.
Our hopes of a tackling machine remain with Song. Song works very hard and found some success at the end of the season with some great performances and has maybe come good, but to be honest I don’t think he’s the answer to our holding mid issue. He’s the type of player you’d like to see coming off the bench to deputize well for a great center mid, like Mascherano, like Yaya Toure, like Viera, like Gilberto. There’s not much to say about Cesc, other than if he recaptures his form and scores some goals, we’re in serious business. But when you think of the middle of midfield as a combo act, I have to be inclined to say that Alonso and Mascherano pip our two, but only because Song isn’t quite up to snuff.
Behind the striker I think we’ll be playing Arshavin. He has pace to burn, great finishing ability with either foot from inside, outside the box, 1 v 1, 1v 8, whatever. His dribbling is awesome and he includes the rest of the team in his play very well. Gerrard is captain awesome. He performs when nobody else does with an outrageous constancy over the past 7/8 years. He scores goals, he sets them up, he wins tackles and takes penalties, free kicks, corners, he’s the man. Arshavin may be more spectacular but Gerrard is Gerrard and you can’t deny that he’s been one of the best in his position, one of the best around, for the 7 odd years he’s been on the scene. It’s a draw, Arshavin and Gerrard.
Up front is an easy answer. I love Robin Van Persie, he’s one of my favorite players. He’s a skillful dribbler with skills like Ronaldo. He’s a great finisher and can score with both feet, although not with his head. He can score spectacular goals and has a vicious left foot with which to take free kicks and corners. His passing is very good and he’s grown strong, holding off challenges from players twice his size. But there’s no better forward in the world than Torres. His scoring record is excellent and his pace over 5/6 yards is up there with the best in the league. He can score with both feet and his head. He’s an opportunist, a poacher, a loan forward, a supporting forward, a finisher and a team player all in one. He’s Fernando Torres.
And in goal it’s no contest. Reina is the far superior keeper. I like Almunia as a man and as a squad member. I think he’s a top professional and does well at leading the side but if we’re serious about winning trophies, he’s not our man. I suppose you could argue that Barcelona won the treble with Victor Valdes, a disaster of a keeper, and a disaster of a man, but look at their line up. It’s hard not to win with Messi, Eto’o and Henry scoring 100 goals a season and with Xavi and Iniesta setting them up with Yaya Toure cleaning everything in behind. I don’t think that Reina is all that wonderful, but he’s certainly better than Almunia. Reina.
Liverpool edge the man for man battler 5 to 4 so it’s up to the managers to out manage one another. And in the battle between Wenger and Benitez, there’s only one winner. In Arsene we trust!
there's been more about Eboue going to Fiorentina, you all know my position on that. Some other stuff in the papers about our transfer kitty figure and how selling Kolo could help us with that. It seems though that we've got 30m pounds and selling Kolo would be ... you all know what it would be. Kolou to Arsenal for 7m? I doubt it, I'd say it's just his way of getting a new contract. I wouldn't mind him coming over though, and 7m would be a good price, he's a good player. Anyway, here's Liverpool:
They pushed United for most of the season last year but bottled it towards the end. Man U barn stormed through their fixtures and won the league with a cushion in the end. It’s hard to say where Liverpool went wrong, perhaps a series of draws in games that could have been won or a lengthy injury to Torres at a crucial time, having sold Robbie Keane this injury wasn’t timed well. Their priority this summer is to keep their squad together and they’ve done so thus far, even adding one with the purchase of Glen Johnson from Portsmouth for an absurd 18 million pounds. I read an article about this somewhere, which discussed the UEFA rules and how having an Englishman starting in the team may be well worth 18m if Platini manages to impliment the 6/5 rule, which will mean that every club in the European football will have to field a minimum of 6 home grown players, a ludicrous proposition that would turn European football on it’s head and make it difficult for players from small countries to make good wages abroad.
No doubt that Johnson is a very good right back and will improve Liverpool, but is he the answer to their title question? I think probably not. They look good at the back with Johnson on the right, a rotation between Carreger, Skrtl and Agger in the middle and Aurelio on the left and with no suitor so far for Arbeloa they looked sured up in both full back positions with Dossena able to cover at left back. Their midfield will remain strong if they can keep hold of Mascherano and Alonso and Torres fire power is evident, as for me he’s the best striker in the world. They’ve a good keeper, although he is prone to the odd but colossal mistake, with Rena, they’ve got wingers who can do the business in Kuyt, Benayoun and Riera and of course Stephen Gerrard will pick the entire city of Liverpool up on his back and drag it across the goal line when needed. With quite possibly the best man for man squad in the league they’ll be a serious threat next season. But I don’t know if Rafa is sane enough to really pull it off.
We all know they give up goals, as they gave us a few last season, and with two holding midfielders between a quality back four and Gerrard you have to think that their weakness lies in the width in the midfield, defensively at least and again with our potentially deadly wingers, Arshavin, Rosicky, Nasri, Walcott and whoever else will be deployed there, maybe Vela, maybe Eduardo, (it’s hard to see Eboue or Diaby there with the other options) we should be able to get in behind.
Stopping them will be a different prospect. We’ve had a difficult time picking up Torres in the past and have given up some easy goals as well. We’ll have to have it together enough in the middle of midfield not to let the likes of Gerrard march through, feed it wide for a cross to get in to an unmarked Torres to head home easily. Vermaelen should help with that and so should a newly invigorated spirit in the squad after the purchase of an experienced holding central midfielder.
We’ll have to see if that really happens and I hope it does, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were no more signings this summer, aside from the 15 year olds we’re signing from Bosnia and Columbia and wherever else.
Theo Walcott has been instrumental in our recent matches against Liverpool, as were Hleb and Adebayor. This may say something about our pace and our ability to exploit Liverpool and their lack there of, with said pace. We’ve lost Adebayor but we’ve gained an Arshavin and the speedy Rosicky and Eduardo are back to help.
Player for player is a funny battle. Who would I rather have at right back if I were neutrally speaking, Glenn Johnson or Bacary Sagna? It’s hard to say, they’re the same age and are quality in their position. Johnson can tuck into center back and seems to do better going forward with accurate crosses and passes into the box and the ability to score some stunners. Sagna doesn’t have this getting forward, which is why to be honest I like Eboue at right back a bit better, but he is a more solid defender, as he proved last season when playing at the back for us when he was consistently our best performer back there. In the end though, I have to say Johnson.
Clichy or Aurelio, this is a no brainer. Aurelio is older and has a wider range of passing as most of his passes are long. He can hit free kicks and good crosses and can score here and there, but Clichy is 10 times the athlete is a much better defender and attacker and has 25 times the pace of Aurelio. Clichy.
I would have to imagine that we’ll be starting Vermaelen and Gallas together. Gallas proved he has a slight edge over Kolo Toure at center back where they play a very similar style. King Kolo’s bout with maleria seemed to affect his game a good deal and perhaps he was just having a mediocre season but his recovery pace wasn’t quite what it was and his ball winning and tackling dropped off. Gallas turned his dip in form around and was very consistent in the second half of the season. I can’t see Wenger not starting Vermaelen but perhaps there will be a healthy rotation with the ever improving Djourou and the other 2. But for now we’ll go with Gallas and Vermaelen. Would I prefer them to Carrager and Skrtl?
Carrager has been a top defender in England for a long time. There’s no doubting his quality. Or is there. Is he really that great? I don’t know, yeah he’s pretty good I guess but he’s not what he used to be and he’s slow. I enjoyed watching Thierry Henry turn him inside out each time they played against each other and I’ve seen other Arsenal players do it too. He’s very beatable and can be exploited by our pacey skilful attackers. Skrtl is solid and has a bit more pace than Carrager but again, he’s very beatable. Both have limited ability on the ball with a poor range of passing and neither score any goals, like ever. Carrager’s record is something like 1 every 100 odd games.
I’ve watched some highlights of Vermaelen and they were mostly of him scoring big towering headers over a bunch of tiny Dutch people in the box off free kicks and corners. A few were of some great tackles but other than that I know nothing of him. He’s obviously good in the air at both ends and apparently is very sound technically, as you’d probably expect. Gallas is of course very sound technically with a decent range of passing with both feet. He’s good in the air going forward but gets climbed over and lost at the back all too regularly. Now Gallas, as we’ve seen, is certainly beatable. He had a terrible dip in form at the front end of last season and was being beaten on the ground, in the air, with pace, with skill, with power, with everything all over the place. It was terrible. He turned it around in the second half of the season with the pressure of being captain off his back and performed well. Assuming that his bad patch is behind him, we can look forward to some of the form that made Gallas a top 5 in the world kind of defender. With his strength and technical ability and Vermaelen’s aerial prowess and their combined technical ability I think we have something fantastic to look forward to. To answer the question at hand: Gallas and Vermaelen.
Our first choice wingers will be interesting to see. Nasri’s just been injured so he’s out and I can’t imagine Eboue or Diaby being deployed there anymore, not with the options we have now. I see Arshavin playing off the striker a bit more and so I think it’ll be Rosicky and Walcott. Both have blistering pace, Walcott especially of course, and both will work to get back. Rosicky is one of the best in world at technical ability. He can shoot, he can head, he can pass, long and short, he can cross and man can he dribble. He’s got a full locker of technical ability and with a hunger that only a career threatening injury and 18 months in the phisio’s office can get you, he’ll be a fucking scary prospect for full backs.
Theo will have another year of experience, which includes a summer away with the U21 squad (something Wenger wasn’t happy about) and will be raring to go. With added competition for places and a world cup coming up he’s poised to have a hell of a season. Maybe a coming out season, much like Ronaldo a few years ago, when he was 21, or Joe Cole. A season where potential and obvious talent, which come out in spirts of brilliance will be realized and those spirts and odd performances will come more consistent. He’s a great finisher and is very intelligent, reads the game very well and will be a serious threat to opposing defenses. I said before that he’ll work back and I’ve watched him get better at it over the course of last season and I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Now, facing opposite them will be Dirk Kuyt and Albert Riera, who are no slouches. Riera has great skill and a very good left foot. His dribbling is great to watch sometimes and he can penetrate defenses. His crossing is quite good and his finishing is quite good as well. I never saw him perform in the big games though and I think put up against a quality full back he may have a more difficult time. Kuyt just doesn’t stop working. He goes and he goes and he goes and he goes. He must run 10 miles a game. He gets back fairly well but lets not forget that he’s playing out of position. He’s a natural center forward and was a good one at that over in Holland, scoring 30 goals a season for a couple of seasons. He’s a good finisher with his head and his feet and as we saw a few times in our game at Anfield last season, he can put in a good cross and does well as a provider. The biggest issue with both these guys is that they’re not great at getting back and even when they do they’re not the greatest defenders. We’ve all seen Hleb run Kuyt ragged, Clichy too for that matter and I’d say Rosicky will do a fine job of that. And lets face it, Riera doesn’t stand a chance of keeping up with Walcott. Of course you could argue that it’s the full backs who have to deal with the wingers and you’re probably right, but it doesn’t do anything for my argument. Needless to say, I’d rather have Walcott and Rosicky any day.
Central midfield is where it all gets tricky. I take Cesc over any player on the park. We’re likely to play with two deep lying center mids, just like Liverpool. We’ll have one holding and one deep lying playmaker in Cesc, although he will forage forward and get into the attack very often, he’ll just start out a little deeper. Liverpool will have two holding midfielders, one a long range passer and distance shooter and the other a fierce tackler. Xabi Alonso and Javi Mascherano are quality, perhaps even 2 of the best holding mids in Europe. Alonso has a great range of long passes and can stick a tackle too, not to mention his ability to bang in goals from his own half. Mascherano is a tackling machine who, on occasion, can bring the ball forward with pace.
Our hopes of a tackling machine remain with Song. Song works very hard and found some success at the end of the season with some great performances and has maybe come good, but to be honest I don’t think he’s the answer to our holding mid issue. He’s the type of player you’d like to see coming off the bench to deputize well for a great center mid, like Mascherano, like Yaya Toure, like Viera, like Gilberto. There’s not much to say about Cesc, other than if he recaptures his form and scores some goals, we’re in serious business. But when you think of the middle of midfield as a combo act, I have to be inclined to say that Alonso and Mascherano pip our two, but only because Song isn’t quite up to snuff.
Behind the striker I think we’ll be playing Arshavin. He has pace to burn, great finishing ability with either foot from inside, outside the box, 1 v 1, 1v 8, whatever. His dribbling is awesome and he includes the rest of the team in his play very well. Gerrard is captain awesome. He performs when nobody else does with an outrageous constancy over the past 7/8 years. He scores goals, he sets them up, he wins tackles and takes penalties, free kicks, corners, he’s the man. Arshavin may be more spectacular but Gerrard is Gerrard and you can’t deny that he’s been one of the best in his position, one of the best around, for the 7 odd years he’s been on the scene. It’s a draw, Arshavin and Gerrard.
Up front is an easy answer. I love Robin Van Persie, he’s one of my favorite players. He’s a skillful dribbler with skills like Ronaldo. He’s a great finisher and can score with both feet, although not with his head. He can score spectacular goals and has a vicious left foot with which to take free kicks and corners. His passing is very good and he’s grown strong, holding off challenges from players twice his size. But there’s no better forward in the world than Torres. His scoring record is excellent and his pace over 5/6 yards is up there with the best in the league. He can score with both feet and his head. He’s an opportunist, a poacher, a loan forward, a supporting forward, a finisher and a team player all in one. He’s Fernando Torres.
And in goal it’s no contest. Reina is the far superior keeper. I like Almunia as a man and as a squad member. I think he’s a top professional and does well at leading the side but if we’re serious about winning trophies, he’s not our man. I suppose you could argue that Barcelona won the treble with Victor Valdes, a disaster of a keeper, and a disaster of a man, but look at their line up. It’s hard not to win with Messi, Eto’o and Henry scoring 100 goals a season and with Xavi and Iniesta setting them up with Yaya Toure cleaning everything in behind. I don’t think that Reina is all that wonderful, but he’s certainly better than Almunia. Reina.
Liverpool edge the man for man battler 5 to 4 so it’s up to the managers to out manage one another. And in the battle between Wenger and Benitez, there’s only one winner. In Arsene we trust!
Saturday, July 25, 2009
More Adebayor, Eboue and first rival analysis
Hello everyone, or no one as the case may be. Adebayor has been trying to convince Mark Hughes to go in for King Kolo. What a fuck head. This is the last straw, like Arseblog said, any affection for Adebayor, any soft feelings for him being a dopy sports star manipulated by agents is off and he can fall off a cliff and get eaten by seagulls for all I care. I hope we kick the shit out of Man City next season and that Adebayor gets a career ending injury trying to tackle Nik Bentner.
Eboue off to Fiorentina for 10m Euros, I guess fair business in trade but I don't want to see him go unless it's in an exchange for Momo Sissoko. I think he's a good right back and a fair utility man. He's the same age as I am and I know in the last year I've done some serious growing up and I think after his poor fan treatment last year all the malarky will stop and he'll be more professional, I hope we keep him. Apparently negotiations are underway and if he wants to leave we all know what the outcome will be.
Another quick thing before I start the analysis is that I don't think I gave Sissoko enough justice yesterday. I watched some highlights videos and did some research on him and he comes from a serious football family. His brother looks like he's on his way to England from some French team and he's being well touted, while his cousin Keita scored a great goal against us for Sevilla in the champions league last year and is now Yaya Toure's back up at Barcelona. His uncle was African footballer of the year some years back. It's in his blood and you can tell when you watch him. He is a fierce tackler, a serious athlete. He drives attackers crazy and is fast and can get forward.
One last quick thing: Vieira to Spurs?? Fuck off, I don't think he'll risk his legacy at Arsenal to play for Tottenham.
Anyway, here we go:
I’ll start our rival analysis with the team I’d like to see us rival the most, the way we used to, Man. United.
Ferguson has said that they’re done making signings. He said that last week when they signed that French kid, Oberten or Obertin or something like that but he’s made one more. Obertan, I think is 22 and a winger. He wasn’t a huge hit at Bordeaux where he was loaned out twice, but I don’t doubt that Sir Alex knows what he’s doing. Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic looked a pair of bumbling morons when they were first signed, but by the end of the season turned out to be the terrific signings we see them as now.
They’re new boy is a dude from Senegal who plays in Norway. He cost something like 5.7 million dollars. His name is Diouf and he’s 22 and will be loaned back to his club immediately until January. They also signed Valencia from Wigan, a seeming like for like replacement for Christiano Ronaldo, who of course went to Madrid for a staggering 130 million bones. With Man. U’s debt quite large, although clearly manageable, much of that 80m pounds will go towards managing it, while 16m went to Wigan for Valencia.
They’ve brought in Michael Owen on a free from Newcastle, shocking to be honest, but it may not be so bad in the end, we’ll see. His scoring record, even through all the injuries, has always been good, he’s a poacher and a finisher, no doubt about that, in his hay day something like a potential Fernando Torres. Unfortunately for him it never came to be and after he left Liverpool nothing went right for the guy. He was way down the pecking order at Madrid and didn’t often play, but managed to score something like 13 goals, which made him the best minute for goal striker in Europe. After that he suffered injury after injury, failing one comeback after another. You feel for the guy really. We’ll see if he can work out under Fergie at Man U, I suppose he’ll be 3rd choice striker, although Danny Welbeck and Kiko Macheda looked good prospects at the end of last season. Ferguson said:
"We weren't intending on signing anyone else after last week - we feel we have a full squad ..."
With their 4 signings, a slew of youngsters coming good, including Brazilian right back dynamo Rafael and his twin Paolo who plays on the left side, plus the returning and versatile Owen Hargreaves, it’s hard to argue with him, with or without the best player in the world, and that hideous Argentine. I shouldn’t disrespect Tevez though, if we all worked as hard as he does, the world would be a better place. But you have to say that it is funny that he wouldn’t sign for Liverpool because he respects Man U too much and then went on to sign for Man City.
Even without Ronaldo and Tevez they’ll be dangerous with Rooney and Berba, but with an injury prone Michael Owen, a 17 year old Italian and a 19 year old Danny Welbeck as cover, perhaps those absences will be as devastating as we all hope. With Scholes and Giggs on their last legs they’ll have to share time and with some youngsters and other squad members and won’t have the influence they had last year.
Carrick and Fletcher formed a good partnership in midfield last season and with Anderson and Hargreaves coming off the bench they’ll be difficult to penetrate down the middle so we’ll have to come at them from the outside, and with the pace and quality of our boys on the outside we should be able to hurt them this way, particularly if the likes of Park, Valencia, Nani and Rafael and Evra get caught up the park. The trouble with that will be having men in the middle to finish off the good wing play against Vidic and Ferdinand and they’re able replacements. They have a very good keeper in Van Der Saar, who seems incapable of making a mistake and so they’ll be difficult to score against but with their possession limited by the absence of Ronaldo it may be a bit easier to build something up against them, like with our second goal against them in our first league game at The Grove.
For all this talk and analysis, we can beat Man U four times next season, I just can’t see us winning a trophy without signing a center mid, perhaps we should have signed Carrick from West Ham when we had the chance after they were relegated some years ago. Or payed the extra million pounds for Xabi Alonso or forked out the cash for Melo before he signed for Juventus, or offered Edu a contract in time to see him stay, or done the same with Flamini, or kept Diarra, or fucking Gilberto, or done anything other than the things we did with our central midfielders! Goddamit!!!
Highbury86
Friday, July 24, 2009
All kinds of stuff
There's been lots of talk around Arsenal about all kinds of stuff, should we have sold Adebayor, who will replace him, will we replace him, can we replace him or are we broke, what's going on in the board room, is Nasri's injury going to cost us the league, blah blah blah blah blah. This just shows how little is happening at the moment. With few players moving, despite two big clubs being relegated and two other clubs going on shopping rampages, there's not much to print and subsequently not much to discuss.
As far as Nasri's injury is concerned, as Gunnerblog said, it'll hurt him more than Arsenal. He is a good player, and I'm happy we have him and he'll add good depth to the team but loosing his place to injury for players of Rosicky's and Walcott's quality to step in won't help him one bit. When he's back he'll ad depth and quality in depth so he'll be usefull but I don't see him gaining a starting place back. And his injury certainly won't loose us any games. Saying otherwise is moronic.
I'm still undecided about Adebayor's replacement. Unless we're willing to spend big I don't see how we'll be able to adequately replace him without finding a player we'll need to culture for a couple of seasons first and to be honest I doubt we'll sign any forwards. We really quite badly need a center mid and there hasn't been much talk about that at all this summer. We obviously had some interest in Melo and had we been given time to do so, we may have been in to negotiate his price down, but Juve stepped in and swooped him away. We haven't spoken of a new potential center mid and there has been little speculation. We won't go in for Inler again, if we were going to sign him we would have done last season. I've spoken of this before, so I'll skip it if it's all the same. What I mean to be getting at is that now that Juve have signed a combative center mid for 21million euros, what happens to their other two. I don't know much about Christian Paulsen, only that Juve signed him over Xabi Alonso. I thought that alone would have spoken his quality but he's now on the shopping list for some crappy mid to lower table clubs, so who knows about him. The one that I'm really interested in is Momo Sissoko.
We tried to sign in ahead of Liverpool a few years ago and failed and when they signed Mascherano, despite Sissoko perfoming very consistently and very well, he left for Juventus. Now that they've bought Melo I can't see there being a place for both of them. I'd imagine that they'd plan on starting their 21m Euro signing ahead of Sissoko and so maybe that'll leave some room for us to go in for him again. He's a good player with a great ability to tackle and win balls in the air. He can move the ball forward and is similar to Yaya Toure in that way. His passing is decent and while he's not the fastest in the world, he's a very good midfield anchor. He's still only 23 and the closest thing to Patrick Viera that I've seen. He went to Juve for 8m pounds and I'm guessing we could snap him up for around twice that. I doubt we will and that makes me want to fly to London and scream in Wenger's ear, but like religious people in their Gods, I have to trust in l'Boss.
Some might argue that the improved form of Song and Denilson and the apparently improving Diaby would warrent no need for a new defensive center mid. I'd say that's wrong. Diaby hasn't materialized, he used to complain about not playing enough and to his credit he was often played out of position, but only on rare occasions did he ever really perform. Not to mention the fact that he's always injured. If he comes through pre season without an injury, I'd be surprised. I like both Song and Denilson but I'd like to see them coming off the bench as cover until they develop enough to hold a place in the team.
Yogi Warrior over at A Cultured Left Foot (I have to say the most eloquent and maybe my favorite Arsenal blog) talks about depth being more important or at least as important as the quality in the starting line up and claims that our depth in midfield is of better quality than our rivals. I may dissagree but this question requires deeper consideration and so tomorrow I will begin my rival analysis.
Highbury86
As far as Nasri's injury is concerned, as Gunnerblog said, it'll hurt him more than Arsenal. He is a good player, and I'm happy we have him and he'll add good depth to the team but loosing his place to injury for players of Rosicky's and Walcott's quality to step in won't help him one bit. When he's back he'll ad depth and quality in depth so he'll be usefull but I don't see him gaining a starting place back. And his injury certainly won't loose us any games. Saying otherwise is moronic.
I'm still undecided about Adebayor's replacement. Unless we're willing to spend big I don't see how we'll be able to adequately replace him without finding a player we'll need to culture for a couple of seasons first and to be honest I doubt we'll sign any forwards. We really quite badly need a center mid and there hasn't been much talk about that at all this summer. We obviously had some interest in Melo and had we been given time to do so, we may have been in to negotiate his price down, but Juve stepped in and swooped him away. We haven't spoken of a new potential center mid and there has been little speculation. We won't go in for Inler again, if we were going to sign him we would have done last season. I've spoken of this before, so I'll skip it if it's all the same. What I mean to be getting at is that now that Juve have signed a combative center mid for 21million euros, what happens to their other two. I don't know much about Christian Paulsen, only that Juve signed him over Xabi Alonso. I thought that alone would have spoken his quality but he's now on the shopping list for some crappy mid to lower table clubs, so who knows about him. The one that I'm really interested in is Momo Sissoko.
We tried to sign in ahead of Liverpool a few years ago and failed and when they signed Mascherano, despite Sissoko perfoming very consistently and very well, he left for Juventus. Now that they've bought Melo I can't see there being a place for both of them. I'd imagine that they'd plan on starting their 21m Euro signing ahead of Sissoko and so maybe that'll leave some room for us to go in for him again. He's a good player with a great ability to tackle and win balls in the air. He can move the ball forward and is similar to Yaya Toure in that way. His passing is decent and while he's not the fastest in the world, he's a very good midfield anchor. He's still only 23 and the closest thing to Patrick Viera that I've seen. He went to Juve for 8m pounds and I'm guessing we could snap him up for around twice that. I doubt we will and that makes me want to fly to London and scream in Wenger's ear, but like religious people in their Gods, I have to trust in l'Boss.
Some might argue that the improved form of Song and Denilson and the apparently improving Diaby would warrent no need for a new defensive center mid. I'd say that's wrong. Diaby hasn't materialized, he used to complain about not playing enough and to his credit he was often played out of position, but only on rare occasions did he ever really perform. Not to mention the fact that he's always injured. If he comes through pre season without an injury, I'd be surprised. I like both Song and Denilson but I'd like to see them coming off the bench as cover until they develop enough to hold a place in the team.
Yogi Warrior over at A Cultured Left Foot (I have to say the most eloquent and maybe my favorite Arsenal blog) talks about depth being more important or at least as important as the quality in the starting line up and claims that our depth in midfield is of better quality than our rivals. I may dissagree but this question requires deeper consideration and so tomorrow I will begin my rival analysis.
Highbury86
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
What Happened Last Night
Good morning everybody. I woke up this morning from an unusually eventful Monday night to find out that the Arsenal summer gossip has popped up in the same manner as my night.
The first deal of business to attend is about Arsene Wenger. Honestly I thought we were finished with his speculation of leaving the club. I will be brief with this information because none of it is true and I am hung over.
Supposedly Arsene Wenger is the next on the list for becoming the Real Madrid manager. This would be an amazing job and to pass it up is incredible however that is why his fans love Arsene, he has loyalty. There is speculation that he is too scared to take over a team backed by millions and supported by world-class players. This is simply not true.
In my opinion a team like Real Madrid do not have the style of Arsene Wenger. Arsene is a creator. He builds teams creating world-class players in the process and previously won many trophies. Arsenals simply have to wait for the players to grow and the trophies to come.
Next order of Business is about what the fuck was Nasri thinking when he broke his leg! Samir Nasri broke his fibula training in Austria for our pre season games and looks to be sidelined for at least 2 months. The club issued a statement,
"Samir Nasri has sustained a fractured fibula during this morning's training session at the club's pre-season training camp in Austria…"The midfielder will be out of action for two to three months."
I guess Nasri being out helps the line up on the pitch a little easier to be made seeing that Rosicky and Eduardo are back and we are joined by Andrei Arshavin. Our bench is just a little less supported, again.
The last order of business to bring up is if Chamakh is worth having on Arsenal. There has been serious speculation that the player defiantly has technical skill and style like Ronaldo however is a serious lesser version. His statistics are much worse the Adebayor for scoring vs. games being played. Should Arsenal replace a striker with a player of less talent and skill?
I say we shouldn’t buy him even if Arsene can work his magic and mold this player into something worthwhile. Or we could simply spend a little more a buy a player like Huntelaar.
Today is our match against SC Columbia at 17:30 GMT. We will get to see a better look at a possible starting line up who is and isn’t fit. I am looking forward to seeing Rosicky work with the likes of Arshavin and Fabregas, Eduardo and Van Persie, and Vermaelen with the back four. I know most of these partnerships will not be seen for some time however I can still be excited.
Until next time, Come on you Gunners!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Chamack with a side of Rosicky
This morning is no different from any other morning seeing that there is more transfer gossip coming from all different directions and none of them leading to a believable path.
Reports this morning suggest that Arsenal is interest in buying Huntelaar from the Spanish giants. German side Stuttgart is believed to have made an exceptable bid however Huntelaar is believed to want to join to the premier league can’t blame him.
Tottenham are also believed to be interested in the striker but seeing how they are not in the Champions League and that Arsenal have recently received a good amount of money for Emmanuel Adebayor, Arsenal is the more appealing club.
Personally I would love to see a player like Huntelaar join the Gunners but I also do not see Arsene opening his wallet that wide when there is the possibility of getting rid of Silvestre and getting Chamack for 7 million.
I don’t know much about Chamack but I do know that he seems to have great potential due to his stats although his goals scored and assists are much less then the likes of Adebayor.
The return of Rosicky seems to me as the most positive news for Arsenal this summer. Rosicky played well at his first game back in 18 months. He came on as captain and received a roar from the crowed on his first touch. If all goes according to plan it looks like Rosicky will start the season, which I am looking forward to seeing.
“We have to prepare him well and balance him well,” said the manager. “But if he comes through the preparations OK then he could start the season."
The return of Rosicky and the joining of Thomas Vermaelen are bringing back the experienced football that Arsenal let go of for a few seasons. Vermaelen was the only player to play the full 90 minutes at Barnet and told the club after the game that he was happy to finally play in an Arsenal shirt and I was too!
It’s a nice thing to see that our new players are coming to Arsenal ready to play for the shirt. The pride that Andrei Arshavin already has for the club is inspirational. With Arsenals new backbone, the experience brought back to the club and the players playing for the shirt seem to me as great ingredients for a trophy challenging squad.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Thoughts on the Barnet game plus a little more Adebayor
Well, our pre season is underway. Our long standing friendly with Barnet has been and gone and our next game is at the Austria camp on Tuesday against SC Columbia. Of course all these games are for our boys to get back to fitness and to let some tiny teams have a chance to play some big boys and maybe meet one or two of their heroes, although now that our team is made up of middle schoolers meeting their heroes might not be part of the deal.
We drew 2 all after Arshavin scored a tap in and Barazite scored a great curler. You can see highlights at 101goals.com. We let in two goals from set peices because of some sloppy defending but whatever, this game doesn't really warrant any analysis because it's something of a formality. Perhaps what warrants a bit more talk is the fact that one or two players who were originally included in the squad were pulled out.
Silvestre, Senderous, Traore and Vela were all dropped from the squad. Vela picked up a foot injury while playing for Mexico and looks set to miss pre season entirely, although he said himself that it may not be so bad and he may be back in time to play against Haiti, which I imagine isn't too far away. There'll be more on Vela later on.
The other three were left out without reason but you have to imagine it's because we plan on seeing them out of the club and don't want to risk them being injured. I wrote a hugely in depth blog on this yesterday but like I said before it was deleted by my terrible internet connection. I'll try and recreate what I wrote but I doubt it'll be as fluidly insightful, which I suppose doesn't matter since nobody'll be reading this anyway.
Now, we have 4 players who can play at left back and 6 established center backs on the books at the moment and those seem obviously too many, particularly when you consider wages, potential transfer fees and a cluttered dressing room, potentially stopping some quality youth from coming through.
Traore has come back from a loan at Fratton Park and it doesn't seem as if a return is on the cards after he was displaced by Hreiderson and Belhadj, who I admit is pretty good, certainly better than Traore. With Clichy our obvious first choice left back and Gibbs having come good towards the end of last season to push Clichy on I can't see Traore fitting in, particularly since Eboue looked capable of deputising at left back when needed. He's only 18/19 and apparently the fastest player at the club, although it's hard to imagine he's faster than Walcott. Either way he's pacey and young and could be a good signing for a bottom half of the table type of club, although we may just loan him out so he can build some stock and we can get some type of significant transfer fee.
Senderos gave an interview earlier in the summer where he stated that he couldn't see much of a future at Arsenal, and with four players ahead of him it's hard to dissagree. I doubt his wages are very big but we'd probably get about 8 or 9 million dollars for him. He's not the worst defender in the world, I've seen him have some wonderful performances, like against AC Milan in the Champions League, which is I guess why they borrowed him. Plenty of awful mistakes and poor showings mean that those performances were never enough. I think he'll be a big player, he certainly has the potential and for some reason I see him coming out on top, I just don't think it'll be in England.
Silvestre for me is an interesting case. I don't think there's a football fan alive that would call him a good player. To be honest I never liked him, even when he was younger. He covered for Gael Clichy a couple times and was terrible. When Gallas got injured and then Djourou we had to play him at center half for a couple of important games against Man U and Liverpool and he was ghastly. I don't know that anyone would be sorry to see him go. HOWEVER... I think it was Sami Nasri who gave an interview where he made the respect Silvestre gets in the dressing room very obvious. The guy's won everything in England, the league several times, the FA cup, maybe the league cup and he's gone far in Europe, plus a bunch of internationals with France. He knows what it takes to survive a run in and come out ahead. He's played with some of the best in the world.
Silvestre is one of the three oldest squad members, along with Almunia and William Gallas. I think Almunia is a top professional and leads the team well but he doesn't have the experience of the other two. Gallas is a total fucking lunatic and lost lots of respect this past season so nobodys going to be listening to him. We've got King Kolo and Cecs to help lead the team but a wise voice with tons of experience couldn't hurt. I'm sure his wages aren't substancial and any transfer fee we'd get wouldn't pay a months wages of a top earner so we might do better keeping him.
There's the African Cup of Nations coming up in January and with Kolo and Eboue gone for a month we'll be light at the back should we sell both Senderos and Silvestre and what happens when Djourou gets injured. That leaves no cover for Gallas and Vermaelen should something happen to one of them, although Song can always be called on. Now given the circumstances and given a choice between keeping a young and potentially capable center back, prone to bad performances and mistakes, or an absolutely terrible over the hill horse face with a great voice for the youngsters, I may be obliged to choose the latter.
Wenger talked about Adebayor in the press and some news papers in England will have you think that he said the fans pushed Adebayor out, but he didn't say anything of the sort. He basically said it's been coming since last summer when Adebayor pushed for a move in the way he did and of course the fans didn't like it, he had just scored 30 goals after being plucked up from nowhere by Wenger. He didn't do himself any favors during the season by putting in half the work he had the year before and so the fans were never going to respond favorably to him. He backed himself into a corner and when it came time there was no more Barcelona who won the treble without him and there was no more AC Milan who have a huge sum of money to spend after selling Kaka and obviously need an attacker. Nobody was left but Man City. It's all his fault, him and his advisers who have turned a hard working, skillful, strong legend in the making into a scummy money grubber. The original Arseblog at Arseblog.com has a good peice on that today.
Wenger was asked about a replacement and he doesn't seem in a rush to get one.
"We have Van Persie, Arshavin, Rosicky, Walcott, Bendtner, Eduardo. We are not in a hurry. We just want to prepare for the season and see if we need to add something. Chamakh is one of the players we've followed and if we need to go for a striker he's a possibility. We're keeping an eye on him."
There are a few interesting things here. One is that Vela wasn't mentioned. Maybe he just forgot but you can't imagine that Wenger would forget about one of his players. Maybe he's planning on using Vela out wide, but with Walcott, Nasri, Rosicky, Arshavin and I suppose Eboue to fill those spots, plus his fantastic natural finishing ability I can't see Vela deployed there anymore. He could be thinking about a loan but he spent 2 years on loan in the Primera Liga where he established himself as an international, I can't imagine he needs more loan time so perhaps l'Boss sees him as surplus and is preparing to off load him. I hope not because I really like Carlos Vela (so does my girlfriend), but I like him because I think he's a good footballer. He missed an easy chance in some big game last season and had a couple of games where he didn't quite perform up to his billing after scoring that stunning hatrick in the Carling Cup but the boys a talent, no doubt about that.
Another interesting thing is that he talks about monitoring Chamack. He doesn't often do this and usually when he does we don't sign. Man U signed some Senegalese guy from a Norwegian team the other day because other teams were making moves for him but I can't see Wenger putting in a bid for Chamack because Sunderland or Blackburn put in bids. If we do sign Chamack it's believed that Bordeaux want Silvestre plus 7million pounds. That seems like a good deal for a cheap gamble and so we'll see.
We all know that the money needs to go into buying a center mid and if we need that 7million to do that then I'd say forgoing a forward is the only thing to do.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
25 million in the bank and Adebayor out
Adebayor sealed his high profile switch to Man City today after completing a medical and agreeing personal terms. I haven't been able to read about what those terms are but they may be in the region of 150 to 170,000 pounds a week, which would make him among the if not the best paid player in England. I'm not sure what went on with his loyalty bonus but there was obviously something was worked out.
Adebayor has joined City's other signings, Gareth Barry, Carlos Tevez, Roque Santa Cruz, Arsenal's former youngster goalkeeper Stuart Taylor, and Nigel De Jong and Craig Bellamy from the January window.
Mark Hughes seems happy saying:
"Emmanuel has been one of the top forwards in the Premier League since he arrived from France and we are delighted he has agreed to come and join us..."
I'm not sure about that, I'd say he was a promising sub that went on to have one very good season. He went on to say:
"Along with the other signings we have made in the last two windows he will greatly enhance our ability to compete with the top sides ... He adds vital balance and power to our attack. He has everything a top forward needs. He is versatile, powerful, quick and agile on the ball."
Now, if Adebayor goes on to play the way he can, then I would imagine he would be the man to lead their line, but he'll be competing with Roque Santa Cruz, Carlos Tevez, Craig Bellamy, Benjani and Jo, unless they loan him to Everton again, which they may have done already. He's capable of being the best of all of them and I think they're counting on him to.
They've added players with quality to their squad, that's for sure. They're attack, as I've pointed out just above, is well staffed, although I don't particularly rate Benjani or Jo. Santa Cruz is alright but nothing like a world class striker and Craig Bellamy is a crazy idiot whose football has never justified his behavior. He also looks like a troll. But Tevez and Adebayor could potentially form a deadly pair. Flanking these guys will be Robinho and Sean Wright Phillips, who on their day can be awesome, although they won't be getting back to defend too often. In the middle they've got Vincent Kompany, a player I like very much and Stephen Ireland a player I love to watch. He's a lunatic but what a terrific player he was for them last season, box to box, scoring goals and making tackles. Playing fantastic passes and consistently delivering performances. They have Elano, De Jong and Petrov in the mix as well. They've got a good keeper in Given and a fantastic keeper in the making with Joe Hart whose been loaned to one of the promoted teams I think. At the back they don't look bad with Micah Richards, Waybe Bridge and Richard Dunne. They've been in for John Terry a few times and Everton turned down an offer for Jolean Lescott. I doubt they'll land either of those and don't think they're still looking at King Kolo.
Is that a team that can challenge for honors? I don't know, I don't think so but there's still plenty of time for them to spend more money. They put us to the sword last year at Eastlands without any of those new guys.
l'Boss doesn't seem to think they'll be challenging or he surely wouldn't have stepped aside so easily. Here's what he had to say:
"We'll miss him, but of course we want to focus on the players that are with us at the moment. We want to wish him well and thank him for everything he has done for the club. I wish him well, I am sure he will give something special to Man City."
I didn't watch him say any of this but I'm sure he handled himself expertly, as usual, and hid the fact that he's probably happy with his latest piece of business. Adebayor scored 62 goals in 142 games, which gave him the best scoring record of any Arsenal player before this afternoon. He cost 5 million dollars and we're selling him on for 41. That's a cool 36million dollar profit, plus plenty of goals, although no trophies.
Adebayor had this to say:
"It made me feel really welcome and special and I can't wait to play for City's fans and show them what I can do ... I was born to play football and that is what I want to do. I have come here to make history for this club and those supporters ... It is what the chairman and the manager told me that they want too and I can't wait to get started."
Yeah, well, go fuck yourself. Born to play football, please. If you were born to play football you wouldn't have caused a dressing room riot and lead a strike against your national team in the middle of the world cup over wages. You wouldn't have held yourself hostage last summer in order to get a new, more lucrative contract. You wouldn't have left a team that traditionally plays the most attractive football in Europe, a team that has played in the champions league for the last decade and beyond for a team that didn't even get into the Europa League, which is the new hipper (stupider) version of the UEFA Cup. Adebayor can fuck himself. He made progress, had a very good season after Henry left, stopped trying in his next season after extorting 80,000 pounds a week from the club and has now taken further advantage of his form two seasons ago to make some more money. He's gone for the money and he's done it in the worst way. Good night and fuck off.
What we need to use our new money on is a discussion for another day.
There is some more news, our boys drew 2 all with Barnet and Tomas Rosicky played 45 minutes and apparently combined well with Arshavin! YEAH BABY! More on that tomorrow.
Adebayor has joined City's other signings, Gareth Barry, Carlos Tevez, Roque Santa Cruz, Arsenal's former youngster goalkeeper Stuart Taylor, and Nigel De Jong and Craig Bellamy from the January window.
Mark Hughes seems happy saying:
"Emmanuel has been one of the top forwards in the Premier League since he arrived from France and we are delighted he has agreed to come and join us..."
I'm not sure about that, I'd say he was a promising sub that went on to have one very good season. He went on to say:
"Along with the other signings we have made in the last two windows he will greatly enhance our ability to compete with the top sides ... He adds vital balance and power to our attack. He has everything a top forward needs. He is versatile, powerful, quick and agile on the ball."
Now, if Adebayor goes on to play the way he can, then I would imagine he would be the man to lead their line, but he'll be competing with Roque Santa Cruz, Carlos Tevez, Craig Bellamy, Benjani and Jo, unless they loan him to Everton again, which they may have done already. He's capable of being the best of all of them and I think they're counting on him to.
They've added players with quality to their squad, that's for sure. They're attack, as I've pointed out just above, is well staffed, although I don't particularly rate Benjani or Jo. Santa Cruz is alright but nothing like a world class striker and Craig Bellamy is a crazy idiot whose football has never justified his behavior. He also looks like a troll. But Tevez and Adebayor could potentially form a deadly pair. Flanking these guys will be Robinho and Sean Wright Phillips, who on their day can be awesome, although they won't be getting back to defend too often. In the middle they've got Vincent Kompany, a player I like very much and Stephen Ireland a player I love to watch. He's a lunatic but what a terrific player he was for them last season, box to box, scoring goals and making tackles. Playing fantastic passes and consistently delivering performances. They have Elano, De Jong and Petrov in the mix as well. They've got a good keeper in Given and a fantastic keeper in the making with Joe Hart whose been loaned to one of the promoted teams I think. At the back they don't look bad with Micah Richards, Waybe Bridge and Richard Dunne. They've been in for John Terry a few times and Everton turned down an offer for Jolean Lescott. I doubt they'll land either of those and don't think they're still looking at King Kolo.
Is that a team that can challenge for honors? I don't know, I don't think so but there's still plenty of time for them to spend more money. They put us to the sword last year at Eastlands without any of those new guys.
l'Boss doesn't seem to think they'll be challenging or he surely wouldn't have stepped aside so easily. Here's what he had to say:
"We'll miss him, but of course we want to focus on the players that are with us at the moment. We want to wish him well and thank him for everything he has done for the club. I wish him well, I am sure he will give something special to Man City."
I didn't watch him say any of this but I'm sure he handled himself expertly, as usual, and hid the fact that he's probably happy with his latest piece of business. Adebayor scored 62 goals in 142 games, which gave him the best scoring record of any Arsenal player before this afternoon. He cost 5 million dollars and we're selling him on for 41. That's a cool 36million dollar profit, plus plenty of goals, although no trophies.
Adebayor had this to say:
"It made me feel really welcome and special and I can't wait to play for City's fans and show them what I can do ... I was born to play football and that is what I want to do. I have come here to make history for this club and those supporters ... It is what the chairman and the manager told me that they want too and I can't wait to get started."
Yeah, well, go fuck yourself. Born to play football, please. If you were born to play football you wouldn't have caused a dressing room riot and lead a strike against your national team in the middle of the world cup over wages. You wouldn't have held yourself hostage last summer in order to get a new, more lucrative contract. You wouldn't have left a team that traditionally plays the most attractive football in Europe, a team that has played in the champions league for the last decade and beyond for a team that didn't even get into the Europa League, which is the new hipper (stupider) version of the UEFA Cup. Adebayor can fuck himself. He made progress, had a very good season after Henry left, stopped trying in his next season after extorting 80,000 pounds a week from the club and has now taken further advantage of his form two seasons ago to make some more money. He's gone for the money and he's done it in the worst way. Good night and fuck off.
What we need to use our new money on is a discussion for another day.
There is some more news, our boys drew 2 all with Barnet and Tomas Rosicky played 45 minutes and apparently combined well with Arshavin! YEAH BABY! More on that tomorrow.
Is Adebayor kidding?? Plus some other stuff...
Morning everyone, hope you're all well and hope that some of you managed to catch the game this morning. My internet in the woods isn't good enough to get ArsenalTV online, I looked for some minute by minute thing but had no luck. I'll have more on the game and the players in the game, which include new hard man Vermaelen and our man Tomas Rosicky, tomorrow. I like to imagine that he came on as a second half sub and scored 27 goals.
There's a lot to speculate and we can do that tomorrow, today we're reserving for Adebayor. I had a huge long blog not long ago but my shitty woods internet deleted it all and so a few punched pillows, a walk and 500 kick ups later, here I am writing again.
Adebayor's fee has been agreed and Man City and Arsenal seem to be on fine terms but Adebayor is holding up the move because he wants a 3.3 million dollar loyalty bonus for not handing in a transfer request this summer. Is he kidding? I wish we could tell him to fuck himself but it's a clause in his contract and no doubt his agents and lawyers will fight tooth and nail for that money.
The whole thing is ridiculous. We went through it with Ashley Cole, who met with Chelsea illegally before the move happened. No he didn't hand in a transfer request but what's the difference, he spurned the move on and negotiated a deal when he wasn't supposed to and what happened to him for that? Nothing, except for the boo boys and a generally unpopular existence, but does he care about any of that, I'm guessing not. He's laughing in his mansion with his hot wife, while they float around their 0-gravity room drinking cocktails watching jeopardy.
There is something similar with Adebayor with his agents offering him up to clubs, very openly over the phone. You might think that sort of thing is interchangeable with a transfer request but I'm sure it would cost a lot of time and money to fight for that. Now I'm not sure what the hold up is exactly, surely Ade could go onto Man City and worry about his loyalty bonus another time. If there is some type of thing that holds the move up if the money doesn't change hands then there's a little more to it.
If he holds out for the money and we don't give it up and that means he has to stay at Arsenal then we've got a bit of a situation. He'd be stuck at Arsenal. He's already cleared out his locker and apparently said goodbye to all the boys so I doubt his return would be popular among the players. Wenger would surely bench him, the way he did with Lehmann after his press conferences where he called Almunia crap. He wouldn't get the outrageous pay raise (170,000 pounds a week) his agents have convinced him his talent deserves and when he did see some playing time, he'd be boo'd until he was deaf. However, we would be stuck with a sulky, selfish, extortionate fallen star who we have to pay 80,000 pounds a week to sit on the bench and pout in training.
At this point fuck him. I'd say the easiest solution is the quickest and so we should give him the smallest amount of money his agents and lawyers will let us get away with and punt him onto Manchester City and put that money to good use by buying a center mid.
There's a lot to speculate and we can do that tomorrow, today we're reserving for Adebayor. I had a huge long blog not long ago but my shitty woods internet deleted it all and so a few punched pillows, a walk and 500 kick ups later, here I am writing again.
Adebayor's fee has been agreed and Man City and Arsenal seem to be on fine terms but Adebayor is holding up the move because he wants a 3.3 million dollar loyalty bonus for not handing in a transfer request this summer. Is he kidding? I wish we could tell him to fuck himself but it's a clause in his contract and no doubt his agents and lawyers will fight tooth and nail for that money.
The whole thing is ridiculous. We went through it with Ashley Cole, who met with Chelsea illegally before the move happened. No he didn't hand in a transfer request but what's the difference, he spurned the move on and negotiated a deal when he wasn't supposed to and what happened to him for that? Nothing, except for the boo boys and a generally unpopular existence, but does he care about any of that, I'm guessing not. He's laughing in his mansion with his hot wife, while they float around their 0-gravity room drinking cocktails watching jeopardy.
There is something similar with Adebayor with his agents offering him up to clubs, very openly over the phone. You might think that sort of thing is interchangeable with a transfer request but I'm sure it would cost a lot of time and money to fight for that. Now I'm not sure what the hold up is exactly, surely Ade could go onto Man City and worry about his loyalty bonus another time. If there is some type of thing that holds the move up if the money doesn't change hands then there's a little more to it.
If he holds out for the money and we don't give it up and that means he has to stay at Arsenal then we've got a bit of a situation. He'd be stuck at Arsenal. He's already cleared out his locker and apparently said goodbye to all the boys so I doubt his return would be popular among the players. Wenger would surely bench him, the way he did with Lehmann after his press conferences where he called Almunia crap. He wouldn't get the outrageous pay raise (170,000 pounds a week) his agents have convinced him his talent deserves and when he did see some playing time, he'd be boo'd until he was deaf. However, we would be stuck with a sulky, selfish, extortionate fallen star who we have to pay 80,000 pounds a week to sit on the bench and pout in training.
At this point fuck him. I'd say the easiest solution is the quickest and so we should give him the smallest amount of money his agents and lawyers will let us get away with and punt him onto Manchester City and put that money to good use by buying a center mid.
Friday, July 17, 2009
BLOG #1
Our first pre season game kicks off tomorrow against Barnet and so I write my first Arsenal blog. It's been a long time coming, since my parents bought me a yellow Addidas top with matching blue shorts and yellow socks, a blue wool hat and a red and white striped scarf all in boys small. I was 7, we lived near Regents Park. Now, 17 years on, I'm spending a summer in the woods in Wisconsin and I've finally got the time. My brother, who got his first away kit age 3, will be pitching in with the blogging too. There'll be more about us (if you're interested) later.
The game kicks off at 9AM Eastern time. I'm not sure about TV coverage in America, to be honest it doesn't look good, but you can catch the game on ArsenalTV online on Arsenal.com and might be able to get a feed on www.justin.tv. They've announced the players to be involved and it's a typical mix of reserve teamers (those on the fringe of the first team), first teamers coming back from injury and our new man Vermaelen, who I'm immensely looking forward to. It will also be interesting to see the fitness levels of the boys returning from holliday. No doubt that Cesc and Walcott and the others who have played a host of internationals will be a few feet ahead in fitness. But I'm not looking forward to anything more than seeing Tomas Rosicky kicking a ball. If he can come back to good effect and play well in a system with Arshavin, we could have the deadly wingplay we used to with Pires and Ljunberg, and before that Overmars and lets not forget the graft of our man Ray Parlour.
It's been a strange summer for football and there has been much to talk about so we'll be doing a little catching up in the coming weeks, which won't be difficult considering how slow things are at the moment. The recession has affected football as it has the rest of the world, but like the rest of the world there are unaffected pockets, pockets that even come to thrive. Man City have money burning holes in their pockets, having been passed on by a very rich man to a group of very, very, very rich men. Their project is reminescent of the one at Blackburn around 94/95, where they won a title and very much like Chelseas recent money punch, where they've won plenty of trophies, which of course doesn't include a final in which they were denied the holy grail of trophies by a slip by Dickhead Terry. Man City's project, however, seems a fair bit less reasonable than the others. They've had double the money injection that Chelsea had from a group of people who spend little time actually watching games. It seems more of a play project, a real life session on Football Manager, than the money laundering project at Chelsea, which by nature needs to be more businesslike.
City have so far bought Carlos Tevez, for around 45m dollars, Roque Santa Cruz for around 30m, one time distant Arsenal target Gareth Barry for about 22m and look set to sign current Arsenal misfit Adebayor for around the same as Tevez. I can't say I'm too sad to see him go, not the Adebayor from this past season anyway. He didn't perform, simple as that. Beyond that he was lazy, bad for moral, caused unrest in the dressing room and gave outrageous and unprofessional press conferences in which he spoke against the club and l'Boss, which is just about as criminal as his performances against Man U in the champions league. He's had a work permit granted and had his medical earlier today. Not sure how it went but I can't imagine there was any problem. 25m pounds will buy us a capable replacement, although you could argue that we don't necesarily need one with the attackers we've got already, not to mention the returning Jay Simpson, who I hope got some good experience with West Brom last season, and a defensive center mid, which I think we'll all agree should be our first priority this summer, having seemingly sured up the defence. I'm not sure who we should be looking at with our most appealing target having signed for Juventus this past week. I doubt we would have paid the 21m we needed for Filipe Melo, but it's still a shame. Xavi Alonso was too expensive last summer and with a very good season behind his belt his stock would only have increased. We've given up the chase on Inler, who I admit I know near nothing about, just that he's Swiss and bald and given evidence of our very own bald Swiss center back, he may only hurt us anyway. We'll speculate more on this another time.
Not much else to report, plenty to talk about, but like I said, we'll be doing that over the next few weeks. Hope you enjoyed it. I'm not sure how this all works with responses and things and we'll surely get better at making this more user friendly but if you have any comments, questions or concerns, which I hope the three people reading this will, then send an email to
The game kicks off at 9AM Eastern time. I'm not sure about TV coverage in America, to be honest it doesn't look good, but you can catch the game on ArsenalTV online on Arsenal.com and might be able to get a feed on www.justin.tv. They've announced the players to be involved and it's a typical mix of reserve teamers (those on the fringe of the first team), first teamers coming back from injury and our new man Vermaelen, who I'm immensely looking forward to. It will also be interesting to see the fitness levels of the boys returning from holliday. No doubt that Cesc and Walcott and the others who have played a host of internationals will be a few feet ahead in fitness. But I'm not looking forward to anything more than seeing Tomas Rosicky kicking a ball. If he can come back to good effect and play well in a system with Arshavin, we could have the deadly wingplay we used to with Pires and Ljunberg, and before that Overmars and lets not forget the graft of our man Ray Parlour.
It's been a strange summer for football and there has been much to talk about so we'll be doing a little catching up in the coming weeks, which won't be difficult considering how slow things are at the moment. The recession has affected football as it has the rest of the world, but like the rest of the world there are unaffected pockets, pockets that even come to thrive. Man City have money burning holes in their pockets, having been passed on by a very rich man to a group of very, very, very rich men. Their project is reminescent of the one at Blackburn around 94/95, where they won a title and very much like Chelseas recent money punch, where they've won plenty of trophies, which of course doesn't include a final in which they were denied the holy grail of trophies by a slip by Dickhead Terry. Man City's project, however, seems a fair bit less reasonable than the others. They've had double the money injection that Chelsea had from a group of people who spend little time actually watching games. It seems more of a play project, a real life session on Football Manager, than the money laundering project at Chelsea, which by nature needs to be more businesslike.
City have so far bought Carlos Tevez, for around 45m dollars, Roque Santa Cruz for around 30m, one time distant Arsenal target Gareth Barry for about 22m and look set to sign current Arsenal misfit Adebayor for around the same as Tevez. I can't say I'm too sad to see him go, not the Adebayor from this past season anyway. He didn't perform, simple as that. Beyond that he was lazy, bad for moral, caused unrest in the dressing room and gave outrageous and unprofessional press conferences in which he spoke against the club and l'Boss, which is just about as criminal as his performances against Man U in the champions league. He's had a work permit granted and had his medical earlier today. Not sure how it went but I can't imagine there was any problem. 25m pounds will buy us a capable replacement, although you could argue that we don't necesarily need one with the attackers we've got already, not to mention the returning Jay Simpson, who I hope got some good experience with West Brom last season, and a defensive center mid, which I think we'll all agree should be our first priority this summer, having seemingly sured up the defence. I'm not sure who we should be looking at with our most appealing target having signed for Juventus this past week. I doubt we would have paid the 21m we needed for Filipe Melo, but it's still a shame. Xavi Alonso was too expensive last summer and with a very good season behind his belt his stock would only have increased. We've given up the chase on Inler, who I admit I know near nothing about, just that he's Swiss and bald and given evidence of our very own bald Swiss center back, he may only hurt us anyway. We'll speculate more on this another time.
Not much else to report, plenty to talk about, but like I said, we'll be doing that over the next few weeks. Hope you enjoyed it. I'm not sure how this all works with responses and things and we'll surely get better at making this more user friendly but if you have any comments, questions or concerns, which I hope the three people reading this will, then send an email to
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