Arsenal FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

L'prof

peabutler wrote: »

Do you go over much ?

How often does general sale happen, about twice a season?

Not much because of college but, I'm not giving up my place in the queue for a silver! It's handy to give to lads who want extra seats as well. I've actually only been to Highbury twice and the Emirates once. Hmmm, must rectify that next season! I don't think you'll get to many games if you're waiting on general sale!

peabutler

jasonorr wrote: »

Not much because of college but, I'm not giving up my place in the queue for a silver! It's handy to give to lads who want extra seats as well. I've actually only been to Highbury twice and the Emirates once. Hmmm, must rectify that next season! I don't think you'll get to many games if you're waiting on general sale!

Yeah only been Emirates once myself it all depends on money I suppose, if I have enough I will become a red member, if not I won't

tony1kenobi

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Paul Merson is clearly the leading candidate. Afterall he "talks a lot of sense."

That's a pipe dream though.We could never afford his wages.

Marty McFly

flahavaj wrote: »

He's the greatest manager ye have ever had, or probably ever will for God's sake.

You only have such unrealisticexpectations because of teh standards of excellence the man himself has set at the club.

More importantly, tell me who would ye get thats a more suitable candidate to carry Arsenal football club forward from here?

Why are they unrealistic expectations? Im not saying we should win everything but 5 years without a trophy is not good enough for a club of arsenal stature. look back on our history arsenal have regulary been a top side regulary winning trophys.

Yes wenger revolutionised arsenal and the premiership football in general. But those days are gone. I havent thought to deeply into who would replace him but im sure theres plenty of world class managers whod gladly have the job.

Royale with Cheese

I've been a red member since 04/05 I think. I was told originally that it would take about 7 years to be bumped up to a silver membership.

peabutler

At some stage in the future I'll just try get with some bird in the ticket office, or a Arsenal Ladies footballer

OPENROAD

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

I've been a red member since 04/05 I think. I was told originally that it would take about 7 years to be bumped up to a silver membership.

Still being a red you should get a seat for most matches bar champions league

L'prof

luvbulmers01 wrote: »

Why are they unrealistic expectations? Im not saying we should win everything but 5 years without a trophy is not good enough for a club of arsenal stature. look back on our history arsenal have regulary been a top side regulary winning trophys.

Wenger has brought us more success than any other manager! He's hinted that he's going to spend this summer to strengthen the squad and if that's true, I can't wait until next season. He's only spent £4m in the last 9 seasons, that's worth taking into account!

tony1kenobi

luvbulmers01 wrote: »

Why are they unrealistic expectations? Im not saying we should win everything but 5 years without a trophy is not good enough for a club of arsenal stature. look back on our history arsenal have regulary been a top side regulary winning trophys.

1971-1989=18 years. A couple of cups in between but that's a long stretch without winning the league.

Royale with Cheese

OPENROAD wrote: »

Still being a red you should get a seat for most matches bar champions league

Yeah demand for tickets ain't what it was 6 years ago. Couldn't get a ticket to a Premier League game in Highbury as a red member really. First game I went to was a 4th round FA cup game against Sheffield United. Obviously the bigger stadium makes a difference too, but some games do end up on general sale these days which never would have happened when the Emirates was first opened.

Marty McFly

jasonorr wrote: »

Wenger has brought us more success than any other manager! He's hinted that he's going to spend this summer to strengthen the squad and if that's true, I can't wait until next season. He's only spent £4m in the last 9 seasons, that's worth taking into account!

Yeh like i said i hope he does he babdly needs to spend. If he does then i dont have a problem but if he doesnt then id say he should go because the team we have now isnt good enough. Wenger hasnt got a record of making vast changes to his teams we need at least 3 to four quality players to compete.

Paleface

luvbulmers01 wrote: »

Yeh like i said i hope he does he babdly needs to spend. If he does then i dont have a problem but if he doesnt then id say he should go because the team we have now isnt good enough. Wenger hasnt got a record of making vast changes to his teams we need at least 3 to four quality players to compete.

I refuse to believe that Wenger is choosing not to spend money available to him on purpose. The only thing he has failed to do is buy more than one quality player each transfer window. The reason for this has to be that the money is just not there for him to spend. Forget what you hear about him having money. At the end of the day he's said many a times that he will not increase the debt of the club anymore. In fact they have reduced it considerably now that the Highbury developments are making a profit. He hinted this week that the club is now in a very strong financial position. I believe he will bring in the needed quality this summer but obviously only the man himself knows if he will or not.

Seriously you are crazy if you think Arsenal would be better off without him! Look around at other managers and name one who would come in there right now a do a better job. Remember that most manager's wouldn't even take the job unless they were promised a lump of cash to splash out on new players to begin with.

everdead.ie

Paleface wrote: »

I refuse to believe that Wenger is choosing not to spend money available to him on purpose. The only thing he has failed to do is buy more than one quality player each transfer window. The reason for this has to be that the money is just not there for him to spend. Forget what you hear about him having money. At the end of the day he's said many a times that he will not increase the debt of the club anymore. In fact they have reduced it considerably now that the Highbury developments are making a profit. He hinted this week that the club is now in a very strong financial position. I believe he will bring in the needed quality this summer but obviously only the man himself knows if he will or not.

Seriously you are crazy if you think Arsenal would be better off without him! Look around at other managers and name one who would come in there right now a do a better job. Remember that most manager's wouldn't even take the job unless they were promised a lump of cash to splash out on new players to begin with.

I honestly think that he was reluctant to spend money untill the higbury apartments where sold to avoid putting pressure on club finances

Paleface

everdead.ie wrote: »

I honestly think that he was reluctant to spend money untill the higbury apartments where sold to avoid putting pressure on club finances

Yes because doing so would probably have increased the clubs debts long term. Most of the profit that the club is making is being used to pay interest on the current debt aswell as using whats left to reduce it.

You have to remember that he sold Henry, Adebayor, Toure, Hleb etc. in recent summers which is where he got the majority of his transfer money to make the few addtions to the squad that he has (Vermaelen, Arshavin, Nasri, Eduardo).

Frisbee

I had a match myself and last I heard was when we were 2-0 up at about 60 minutes.

When I heard the final score after the game I wasn't even suprised.

OPENROAD

Paleface wrote: »

Yes because doing so would probably have increased the clubs debts long term. Most of the profit that the club is making is being used to pay interest on the current debt aswell as using whats left to reduce it.
.

Up to a point, we still have additional funds after the interest is paid, available as our accounts show.

cooker3

luvbulmers01 wrote: »

Can u give a reason why?

Wenger is a victim of his own success. He has being so consistent and set an incredible standard which results in ungrateful fools who actually think 3rd in the league and not winning a trophy in a few years is actually a bad run and as bad as it gets.
Try mid table obscurity and no champions league for a while which is what could easily happen under a lesser manager (in other words nearly every other manager in the world) and you may wish you didn't get what you asked for.

Pepe LeFrits

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/sport/football/785475/I-GREW-UP-WITHOUT-A-FATHER-Ars%C3%A8ne-HAS-BEEN-MY-DAD.html

Great Song article. I remember when he first came on as a sub at Highbury aged just 17 and was quite clearly terrified to even touch the ball. He was probably only 18 or 19 when he got booed by his own fans at Fulham at was taken off at half time. It was obvious he was overawed but some people have the foresight of a worm.

Pepe LeFrits

Also, just read a story that the team coach dropped the players off at the station in Wigan to get the train home with the fans...

Frisbee

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Also, just read a story that the team coach dropped the players off at the station in Wigan to get the train home with the fans...

I'd love if this were true.

Eire-Dearg

Unfortunately, it isn't.

They got the train up to the game, so that's why they're getting it back.

gosplan

Right, loads floating around in my head so I'll try to be clear.

Pepe, I can't agree with you - in footballing terms we were good enough for this one. A lot of it is because Chelsea and Man U haven't been great but I don't think they've dropped points from a position where they've been ahead by two goals. The two matches we did that in were against teams who are currently delighted to be out of the relegation zone. I'm not saying that by far we were the best team in the premiership but I really think we let this one get away through a series of silly mistakes and sloppiness. There should at least be three teams within a point of each other instead of two.

Anyway, my disappointment aside, it still has been a massive season for us and the future looks fantastic. I've no doubt this squad will continue to greatness, just unhappy I've to wait a bit longer.

As regards whoever was talking about not winning trophies in five years, that's just a stick to beat Wenger with and completely ignores the reality of what he has achieved. There's nothing in it this year, you could say that Man U, Arsenal and Chelsea have been pretty even(bar our lack of success against them in the head-to-heads). So, we're keeping pace with a team who have made every effort to buy success whatever the cost, and Man U who have the usual combination of great players purchased on a pretty massive budget, Fergie, and the general Man U winning thing.

The thing is we have a young squad with bags of potential, acquired on a shoestring budget. You all have seen how many over-30's Man U have who will need to be replaced soon. We also now have comparable spending power due to the big move. Add in the possible spending/balance limitations that may be introduced and it seems obvious that we're far better positioned then Manchester and Chelsea for the next few years. (I'm not even going into the Manchester finances)

Additionally, what trophies exactly did people want in the last five years? We accept that we're probably never going to win the Carling Cup, the FA cup would admittedly be nice, we came close in the Champions League(as close as Chelsea came) and the league ... well the league since we last had it has been won by Mourhino's Chelsea team and the Man U of Ferdinand, Vidic and Ronaldo. Giving Wenger stick for not beating those teams to premiership titles is like giving other managers sh1t for not beating the invincibles that season. In fact, three out of the last five seasons, the winners finished with more points than the invincibles.

The main things Wenger has achieved since he last won the league are ..

• Excellent young squad with huge potential
• Still competitive
• Still in the champions league
• New stadium with massive spending power
• All the above done on, what did someone say? - 4 million spend?(plus the remainder on the Emirates of course)

Lastly, to those thinking Wenger perhaps should go. The difference between Arsenal, the Invincibles, the Emirates, the titles, the away days in Milan and Madrid, the feeling that we really could have beaten Barca is not for injuries, and all the beautiful football ... and Spurs, who just beat us in the premiership for the first time in 10 years ... is Wenger.

He seems to finally have gotten himself a budget, give the guy a chance to spend it and see what he can do.

As far as I can see it, the only thing you can really knock him for is not buying a keeper in Jan.

Royale with Cheese

I'd agree about the no trophies thing. The only reason the media are banging on about it is because of how successful Arsenal were from 98-2005, and the reason for that is Wenger. It's very disappointing to see every season end the same way but I do not see how getting a different manager would see the club go anywhere but down. I wouldn't say no to a league cup win, but it doesn't matter in the slightest. An FA cup win would be nice, but winning one of them would hardly prove the critics wrong. It's the PL/CL Wenger is interested in, and he's right. The media can talk about winning any kind of trophy, but you know as soon as a league cup/FA cup was won they'd just starting talking about how Arsenal haven't won the league in 6 years, and have never won the champions league.

The only thing I would completely blame Wenger for would be the goalkeeping situation. It's a farce that a club like Arsenal can have such a pack of useless goalkeepers. I would have said earlier in the season that another centre back should have been signed (luckily Gallas/Vermaelen both stayed fit for the first half of the season). However the signing of Campbell in January was a good one. He filled in very well, even though he wasn't expected to play as many games as he did.

You could also say another centre forward was needed, but nobody was to know just how bad Eduardo would be. His career at the top level looks over.

gosplan

gosplan wrote: »

He seems to finally have gotten himself a budget, give the guy a chance to spend it and see what he can do.

But will AW spend? i have a feeling the boards intentions are to sell Fabregas. Im not winding anyone up but i have a feeling it could be on the cards.

peabutler

Wenger brought in more than half a team in his first season so he does spend. Never should have sold Manninger who was actually class.

Frisbee

Arsene's comments the other day seem to suggest he's willing to go out and spend this summer.

And big spending is certainly needed in at least 3 positions.

gosplan

Deleted User wrote: »

But will AW spend? i have a feeling the boards intentions are to sell Fabregas. Im not winding anyone up but i have a feeling it could be on the cards.

Sorry, but I don't have much trust in your feeling.

As regards spending, Wenger's made more noise this year than any year I can remember about budget, targets and bringing in players.

Expect the sneaky guy to have them sown up pre-world cup too

Royale with Cheese

I'd like to see an out and out winger brought in. The team often suffers from having no natural width. Rosicky/Nasri are centre mids and Arshavin is some kind of attacking midfielder. Walcott doesn't really know what he is, and we all know he fails to produce consistent displays.

When Arsenal are having trouble breaking a team down the ball often just ends up wide where Sagna/Clichy cross it in. The crosses are rubbish and there's nobody in the box to meet them anyway. Would like to see somebody on the wing who likes sticking to the flanks and doesn't just cut back inside all the time.

Pepe LeFrits

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

I'd like to see an out and out winger brought in. The team often suffers from having no natural width. Rosicky/Nasri are centre mids and Arshavin is some kind of attacking midfielder. Walcott doesn't really know what he is, and we all know he fails to produce consistent displays.

I shall continue to bang the Hazard drum until Barca/Real/United/Chelsea buy him. Although at a push I'd take Hleb back. The Sagna/Hleb partnership was magic.

Though I think Sagna and Clichy's crossing is underrated. Even Beckham would struggle to pick out the man when all of our players bar Eduardo are naturally inclined to drop back to the edge of the area for the cut-back. Chamakh will hopefully make that a thing of the past!

L'prof

Wenger wrote:

We will announce the deals (plural) after the league.

He (Chamakh) is one of the players who has a good chance to join us.

Sounds promising to me!

Frisbee

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Chamakh will hopefully make that a thing of the past!

He does seem to have a head like a battering ram alright.

leninbenjamin

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Though I think Sagna and Clichy's crossing is underrated. Even Beckham would struggle to pick out the man when all of our players bar Eduardo are naturally inclined to drop back to the edge of the area for the cut-back. Chamakh will hopefully make that a thing of the past!

I disagree. You're right in that they can hit a decent cross, the problem is they float them in aimlessly, they tend to just stand them up in the air, and when you do that defenders will always be more likely to win it because there's simply a lot more of them in the box so there will almost always be one nearer to it. You need to hit them in with a bit of pace so defenders don't have time to organise themselves.

We've shown on previous occasions that even the midgets like Nasri and Arshavin can get on the end of crosses, they are masters at finding space so the crosses just need to be accurate enough to find them, which Clichy's and Sagna's isn't imo.

Kirnsy

Well at least we can say that this season has kept us entertained. If we are to take anything from today's match, it is that Wenger over the past couple of matches has identified who will not play for this club again : Silvestre (though not too bad today) , Almunia , Fabianski and possibly Eduardo or Rosicky (both personal favourites of mine but unfortunately not cutting it at this level at the moment.

Added to this is the fact he has noticed (hopefully) that money needs to be spent on players this summer in several positions :

Goalkeeper - IMO between Frey, Neuer or Hart
Centre Back - Someone we will not really have heard too much about..possibly one of the names linked with from Germany.
Winger - Im with Pepe - hazard.
(possibly) Defensive Central Midfielder as a backup/rotation with Song.


With these buys (esp GK and CB) we will be in a position to assault the Premier League for sure next season with no excuses. Considering both Chelsea and to a lesser extent United need an overhaul of key positions, it will make for an interesting summer.

leninbenjamin

Kirnsy wrote: »

Goalkeeper - IMO between Frey, Neuer or Hart

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the goalkeeper situation will be not be as easy to solve as people like to think.

Frey is an average keeper. There is a reason none of the bigger clubs have gone in for him imo. Like Almunia he's capable of pulling off some great saves, but he's also made a clown of himself in the past.

Neuer and Adler (the two German prospects) have come under fire in recent weeks for looking a bit dodgy, I think the Germans are a bit nervous about the goalkeeper position going into the WC. But the other thing is that they are both being tracked by United, Chelsea, Milan and almost every other big club in Europe. To bid for one now will probably start a bidding war to take the prices in excess of €20m, and we can't afford to spend all our budget on one goalkeeper imo.

And Hart... City have made it pretty clear they want to hold onto him. He's more like to be loaned back to Brum than sold in the Summer. And do people think City will really sell Hart to one of their rivals for the Champions League spots? Really?

Kirnsy

leninbenjamin wrote: »

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the goalkeeper situation will be not be as easy to solve as people like to think.

Frey is an average keeper. There is a reason none of the bigger clubs have gone in for him imo. Like Almunia he's capable of pulling off some great saves, but he's also made a clown of himself in the past.

Neuer and Adler (the two German prospects) have come under fire in recent weeks for looking a bit dodgy, I think the Germans are a bit nervous about the goalkeeper position going into the WC. But the other thing is that they are both being tracked by United, Chelsea, Milan and almost every other big club in Europe. To bid for one now will probably start a bidding war to take the prices in excess of €20m, and we can't afford to spend all our budget on one goalkeeper imo.

And Hart... City have made it pretty clear they want to hold onto him. He's more like to be loaned back to Brum than sold in the Summer. And do people think City will really sell Hart to one of their rivals for the Champions League spots? Really?

I'd agree personally with all of your post. However I think Frey could do a job for us for a few years before Sneezy becomes the keeper we all hope he will become. I think Wenger has high hopes for him.

Neuer and Adler are very good goalkeepers, in fairness every keeper makes the odd mistake or two but again with the bidding war we could back out.

And as for Hart he could move if he wants it to happen. If he is happy for another few years behind Given (albeit at Brum) then I guess we wont be getting him.

We have to consider that 3 major teams need goalkeepers this summer : ourselves, United and Bayern. There's only a small pool of talent out there; Akifeev would be another name but Im expecting United to get him and Bayern to get Neuer/Adler.

x PyRo

Hart,Chellini & Quaresma would be lovely.

If anyone could sort Quaresma out it'd be Wenger. He's got the ability, don't think he has the mind frame to succeed and Wenger could change him.

No more of this Hazard stuff! Last thing we want is another child.

patrickc

I'm off to see the match next Saturday, i really hope City don't trounce us..

Frisbee

Jayzus keep Quaresma as far away from this club as possible.

He's got twice the arrogance of Ronaldo with about 1/8 of the talent.

Kirnsy

x PyRo wrote: »

Hart,Chellini & Quaresma would be lovely.

If anyone could sort Quaresma out it'd be Wenger. He's got the ability, don't think he has the mind frame to succeed and Wenger could change him.

No more of this Hazard stuff! Last thing we want is another child.

Quaresma <<<<<<<<<<<<<< Hazard

Couldn't emphasize this enough.

Frisbee

Just to take a bit away from the negatvie about today:

Thought Theos goal was very well taken, very Henry-esque.

x PyRo

Frisbee wrote: »

Jayzus keep Quaresma as far away from this club as possible.

He's got twice the arrogance of Ronaldo with about 1/8 of the talent.

Kirnsy wrote: »

Quaresma <<<<<<<<<<<<<< Hazard

Couldn't emphasize this enough.

I take it that it's just me who'd have him at the club then! He's got lots of talent. More technical skill that alot of our players and with the right guidance could of been a star. IMO of course.

On Theo, I think he needs to play on the left, in an Henry-esque role. The right just doesn't suit him and i think he'd be very effective cutting in on to his right foot playing from the left. Opinion on that ?.

yahoo_moe

gosplan wrote: »

This year, we were good enough. We had a load of injuries but we were still good enough. Just how many points have we dropped from a position of two goals ahead? - is it five? - 2 vrs West Ham and then today?

See that's where I think we haven't been good enough (although I take your point in the other post that we were good enough 'in footballing terms'). I know everyone's dropped points but we seem to have dropped points when we were in strong-ish positions - in individual matches but also in the table.

Our best run came after Chelsea spanked us 3-0 and we were written off - but when we get ourselves back into the race properly, we draw at Birmingham (far from a shocking result but still) and lose to Spurs and Wigan. Injuries aside, I think this team still needs a bit more (mentally and player-wise) if they're to go that bit further.

I'm not trying to ignore this year's good points but for me, the positive from today (as long as we don't get sucked into a 3rd v 4th battle) is that there's no 'we were so close' feeling like 3 years ago and there can be no pretending that we don't need some serious defensive strengthening.

Frisbee

As well did everyone else see Sol run down Rodallega in a foot race today?

Sol started off about 2 yards behind him and beat him to the ball over twenty yards.

Was seriously impressed by that.

x PyRo

Sol's a rocket over 20 yards. Seriously underrated pace wise. Such a class act and a class man.

Mr Alan

Frisbee wrote: »

As well did everyone else see Sol run down Rodallega in a foot race today?

Sol started off about 2 yards behind him and beat him to the ball over twenty yards.

Was seriously impressed by that.

Was seriously taken aback by that

L'prof

x PyRo wrote: »

On Theo, I think he needs to play on the left, in an Henry-esque role. The right just doesn't suit him and i think he'd be very effective cutting in on to his right foot playing from the left. Opinion on that ?.

I mentioned that in the match thread. Not sure how well it would work but it would make it much easier to take on the shot.

Frisbee wrote: »

As well did everyone else see Sol run down Rodallega in a foot race today?

Sol started off about 2 yards behind him and beat him to the ball over twenty yards.

Was seriously impressed by that.

I also mentioned that in the match thread, I was impressed but not surprised. He still looks very quick when he sprints, not sure wht distance he can maintain it over though. Prolly just takes longer for him to "recover" from it these days.

L'prof

No tea!!!

FearDark

jasonorr wrote: »

No tea!!!

Jeez, he would fit in perfectly in one of our match threads!

FearDark

Can anyone tell me what Vito Mannone has done to Wenger? The minute I heard Fabianski was in goals today i absolutely knew he was going to do something stupid. I can't remember a game where he has ever performed well for us, I think he has only got two clean sheets for us, ever!!

We all know the Almunia spiel by now, "great shot stopper" blah blah but has an absolutely horrendous game now and again that costs us points, fact, he isn't good enough, there is no point in having a heroic game against Barcelona but costing us 6,7,8,9 points in the PL as a direct result of being a butterfingers and a clown.

Vito had a couple of games in a row as the no.1 last September/October and did quite well as I remember.

He played in that 3-2 win over Standard Liege, you could say he was at fault for the first goal that night as he was beaten at his near post and the second he conceded was a penalty.

He then started for us in a 4-0 win over wigan and made some key saves that day at 0-0 and 1-0. In the next game he won the man of the match when we won 1-0 against Fulham and then kept another clean sheet against Olympiacos when we won 2-0.

I mean the guy is 24 now, he isn't a kid. He signed a new contract in January this year so he is in the long term plans. I would me more than happy to have him as our no.2 keeper for next season if we brought in a decent keeper in the summer (not naming names). We should definately offload Fabianski, he is total total garbage. Almunia wouldn't be happy with the no.2 or no.3 spot and he should go too. I just dont understand how Wenger can pick Fabianski after all the harm he has done this year, in each and every game he has played in he has done something absolutely stupid!

After about 2 minutes into the game today he kicked the ball out and it missed the back of Sagna's head by millimeters, could have easily gone goalwards, he was caught out for the first goal tangling with a Wigan forward and getting himself tied up in a knot and the ball was struck central towards the goal. 2nd goal, his fault, nobody elses, useless. Fair enough, no chance for the 3rd.

I hope I never see him in an Arsenal shirt again, brutal, Almunia "traffic cone" can just get lost too. We wont win PL titles with flappers and butterfingers.

L'prof

FearDark wrote: »

Can anyone tell me what Vito Mannone has done to Wenger? The minute I heard Fabianski was in goals today i absolutely knew he was going to do something stupid.

Vito had a couple of games in a row as the no.1 last September/October and did quite well as I remember.

I'm not sure whose memory is better (probably not mine) but, I thought he did well for a bit and then started making mistakes? Fabianski had to be given a shot before him really. Wouldn't mind seeing Mannone get the remainder of the games to jog my memory. He's 22, not 24 by the way.

What was the story with Almunia today? Was he injured or dropped?