Highbury House

Well surprise surprise…

Just as the manager and the board have started agreeing with what supporters have been asking for, which of course is better players and to strengthen a wilting team, we hear that the club are now suggesting that one of our best players and captain to boot, is being allowed to leave if Barcelona are prepared to up their offer of £27million!

At the same time they are also considering Manchester United’s offer of £20million for Nasri who so far has declined to sign a new contract.

If reports are right, his terms to sign a new contract would be to increase his £70,000 a week to £120,000!!

If claims like that are true, there can only be one end result can’t there, after all this is Arsenal were talking about isn’t it!!

Anyway, reading between the lines it appears that instead of adding to our present talent, we will be letting two of our better players leave – at present it’s just paper talk and we know they love nothing better than to throw a spanner in the works but the strange thing is, the club are not denying either of the stories!

Doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence over their futures does it?

The way things stand at the moment is that we have been linked with many players and if all of them were true, I honestly don’t know where we would put them but again, we hear nothing from our club!

Something has been nagging me for a while, so I thought I’d write about it…

So often recently I have read about how certain players are getting frustrated playing for Arsenal, they want to be winning trophies and 2/3 have even suggested they would try and seek that piece of silverware at another club rather than stay with us.

Well my view is, if that’s the way they think, then they should just go and go now!!

In my view our club will never win silverware with players that aren’t ready to fight for all they are worth to create a winning team.
I also feel that even our very best players feel the same they should not bother hanging around, they should just go and go now!! Yes, that may mean we lose quality players and it may even put us back a bit, but I truly believe that we only need players who are prepared to fight for the honour of the red and white of Arsenal Football club.

Many supporters are also feeling frustrated, often after a bad result our Manager gets the blunt end of the stick off of the Arsenal faithful and many call for him to be axed by the board.

I have been guilty of this too but in hindsight he did get us to The Carling Cup final, he also lead us a long way in the Champions League, only to lose to the team that finally won the competition. He also led us to at one stage leading the Premier League by quite a few points only to finish the season in fourth place but was that the Managers fault? After all, he’s the one that picks the team, he’s the one who holds the responsibly of getting the best of the team…

My answer to that is No, we have players who suggest they are so desperate to win trophies, well they are the ones guilty in my eye’s – they had the chance to win our first trophy for six years and blew it, that’s how much they wanted a trophy!

The same players were leading the Premier League but surrendered it with ease, that showed how much they wanted to win!

Then there was the Champions League, they did try in that one in my opinion but when bad decisions came their way, their heads went down all too quick.

So no, it’s not the Managers fault…

Everything is down to those so-called superstars who feel as if they have to go to another club to get the trophies they crave for but perhaps some of them do not realise that you have to fight for things in this world and just because you’re earning between £50,000 to £120,000 a week, it doesn’t mean you deserve reward – you only get that through hard work, effort and total commitment.

The average hardworking supporter probably earns a lot less than that a year let alone a week but he/she knows that you have to work hard for that…

Until some of our players realise just how lucky they are and learn to give 100% week in week out for the red and white of Arsenal, the club we all love and support, we will continue to struggle.

If they can’t do that, then they should just go and go sooner rather than later and let Arsenal Football Club move on……..

Written by Steve Palmer

Couple of tit-bits to add, Barcelona are reported to have upped their bid for Fabregas to £35 Million plus ‘add ons’ and Old Red Nose has reported to have been given the all clear to make the offer for Nasri. We know Fabregas wants to go and I think this offer will be accepted but Nasri – like Steve says, if he really doesn’t want to stay then I hope an overseas club come in with a higher offer than £20 Million, then let him go and move on.

Seems I have got my dates all in a muddle, tomorrow is the 1st July, not today

Have a good one…..