Arsene has your back – Always!
Read the papers, checked the tweets and blogs lately, fellas?
If you haven’t but I am confident that you have – it does not make pretty reading.
Arsenal are mentally weak bottlers who will never win anything. Six seasons and counting, all they can do is whine about the referee…
Arsenal’s annual collapse is upon us…From four to zero in a few short weeks…And on, and on, and on…Scorn comes from all quarters: certain elements of the media seemingly only too happy to see Arsenal fail; opposition managers, players and supporters who view us with contempt; even a section of our own Arsenal supporters, who feel that our club are not prioritizing on-field success….
Make no mistake, Arsenal FC has had a rough couple of weeks in the media and blogosphere…
The thing is, while quitters such as Mascherano stick the knife in, and agenda-driven negative blogs use every failure as a “See-I-told-you-so” example, one person consistently defends you and your performance, no matter what the circumstances.
Everyone is absolutely shattered at the final whistle against Barcelona but Arsene Wenger is right there to face the music.
This morning he is the object of derision for maintaining that we would have won if not for the red card, yet he still has your back.
After a deflating, morale shattering Carling Cup final loss to Birmingham, Arsene is there to tell the world that you have the strength and character to bounce back. How many times has he publicly supported you after bad results and/or poor performances? Guys, he believes in you – sometimes I think he believes in you far more than you believe in yourselves…
As I said at the top, you read the blogs and the supporters forums. There are certain members of the squad that seem to have more detractors and supporters – you know who you are.
Elements of the supporter base turn their ire towards Arsene because some of you are still in the first team squad.
Why? Because Arsene believes in you. Some of you would no longer be at the club if he didn’t believe in you.
Certain supporters, ex-Arsenal players and media pundits criticize him daily because he has not brought in enough experienced quality players to augment our squad.
Why has he resisted doing this? Because he believes in you…
Sometimes that belief is rewarded, such as during our first leg win over Barcelona, or the run to the Cup Final, or the superb league win over Chelsea. Other times that belief is not rewarded and Arsene assumes the caricature of someone hung out to dry. Yet he never fails to publicly defend you, he always has your back, no matter what…
We supporters may be fickle, but he is not, so perhaps you can take his back as well?
Sagna, you talk of us needing to be strong to succeed. Wilshere, you call for us to dig deep and show our true spirit. I couldn’t agree more with these sentiments but we have heard all this before, such as immediately after the Carling Cup loss and again, yesterday.
Talk gets us only so far.
Should we not get a result at Old Trafford, will we hear more of the same from you afterwards? If we should fall out of three competitions in the space of two weeks, I think we know exactly what we should expect to hear. We have already been down that road in previous seasons.
So go to Old Trafford determined to win and keep things going. Leave the shackles of fear and self-doubt – shackles which our captain so forthrightly admitted impeded our side during the recent league loss at OT – behind.
Arsene believes in you and believes you can get a result and many of us supporters do as well. There is no reason for you to play scared or inhibited. Go out there, impose your will on them, play your football and win on their patch.
Advance to the quarterfinals of the FA Cup and instill doubt in the United side – doubt that they can hold us off in the league and doubt they can get a result at the Emirates on May Day.
Go out there, put in a fine performance and bring home a win, so Arsene – whose belief in you has never wavered – can face the media and tell them exactly that. Make him look like the smartest guy in the room.
Show the doubters just why he believes in you – and just why all the rest of us should too…
Written by Oliver
Morning all
Nice one Oliver – I actually wish he would stop defending them and start being a bit more ruthless, i’m sick of excuses when in reality we just don’t have the depth in strength within the squad.
He’s tight and now we are paying for it…. Yet again
Morning Guys, Oliver nice piece…got to say this some plays do not make the Arsenal grade no matter what belief Aw shows
Rico howdy…
Howdy Erick 🙂
Have to agree, sadly this is our lot until the summer so they need to step up, i’d still like wenger to get a few loans back and start playing Rambo…
Dont mind me mate, but “Wenger/he believes in you” has been said so many times that it appears to be a farce right now.
Its not AW who needs to believe, its the players, an you’re right when you say this…
Cheers
Hi DKD, i wish i had some of wengers belief! Like you say its a bit of a farce and the words sound a bit empty these days…
But, we all know wenger doesn’t do triples, he’s a ‘double’ man so maybe the fa cup still has our name on it…
mme, who am i trying to kid…
Very good article Oliver. We’re on the right track whatever the “See-I-told-you-so” brigade may think. It easy to claim you saw it coming just when it comes, but is hard to be in Arsene’s shoes. The guy is fighting with world football giants with meager resources and doing great.
As far as ‘See-I-told you’ brigade is concerned I remind of your ‘We’ll miss out on fourth place’ statement at the start of the season. So make sure that will never trust you because your fools.
I can remind many other stories of fans, blogs writers and stupid Media pundits when they suggest Arsenal need DM better than Song, and they were talking up a guy, i don’t even remember his name, who plays in the reserve team of the Great Sunderland team.
Oliver – Top post…nice to see a balanced sensible view taken….wish there were more supporters like you. Too many people jumping on the media bandwagon and not giving praise when it is due. We have conceeded less goals than utd this season in the PL but we have a shit defence.
morning osi,
i think we need a midfielder who is better than denislon and diaby, we need a striker who is better than nikki and we certainly need a central defender who is better than squilli….
but, he won’t buy them because next season we will have players coming through
bartley and miquel
frimpong, lansbury, coquelin
freeman, JET, Sunu…
Morning all.
I think there is more to this than it seems.
If the players put the effort on the pitch as they do with their countless tweets and interviews we would be at the very top.
In so many important games they have started in such a lethargic way and frustrate time and time again.
Wenger will never be sacked, as I said months ago even our chairman has stated that if we failed to achieve a top 4 place this season “it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
I am not interested in hearing Bendtner say he could be the best striker in the world , or Arshavin (our highest paid player) continuosly giving interviews which could be misleading.
Koscielny was bought as cover for Vermaelen and was not expected to play so often, yet every year we have long term injuries to key players that I ask myself would SAF keep them.
I don’t think we have much chance against United, our recent record shows that, even though we have nearly always lost by a narrow margin.We need an out and out fox in the box striker to put away those chances that neither bendtner nor chamakh can.
It’s the attack that let’s us down, more than the defence.
Barca have been named today in The Times as the greatest club side ever,and I would argue that with or without a semi fit RVP we still would have lost, but will lessons be learnt?
The trouble is I don’t see much changing.We are the Tim Henman of football, the nearly team.
Which other PL team has had 3 keepers in goal this season, and now we have literally only one who is fit.
I still believe that Wenger wants the PL title this year and the FA Cup is not his priority.(rant over)
Morning all.good read oliver.Aw has so much belief in the players but sometimes they just let him down.it isn’t fair at all to him and i do hope his faith gets rewarded with trophies.
Morning kelsey, hope all is well, long time and all that…
Good rant 🙂
Can’t really disagree either but i think Kos was bought to partner TV with JD as third choice, Squilli as 4th choice.
Up front, too much expectation is on robins shoulders and where as we were scoring from midfield, the goals have now dried up which has in turn exposed our forwards who cannot hit a barn door right now.
Reality is, no matter how much faith Wenger has in his players, some of them don’t deserve that faith and now it’s time for wenger to get rid of them…
Almunia has just blasted some players for not running at the camp nou when we only need 1 goal to progress.i fully agree with him.
morning kt
Hi Rico I agree with you about Denilson but Diaby is a great player and just needs games for more consistency.
I also don’t disagree with that we need a striker better than Bendtner, but much will such striker cost.
I think Squilaci is decent defender but he needs to play more games with his partners (Djou, Kos) to better communicate with them. It’s really illogical to expect a player who just come in to play with inconsistent partners (CBs+Keeper).
Football is all about organisation and communication and to have that you need to be playing together for a long period to build understanding. In the Arsenal case we lost our first defender which left us with three news centre backs and a Keeper who never play together before. Now that Djourou and Koz played together for long periods you can see the outcome which rather impressive.
For me, I don’t rate any of the players of defensive area who were/are consistently linked with Arsenal. Cahill? definitely talented but will struggle to play in attacking Arsenal team. The problem of our defensive mistakes not only down to the individual talent or lack of it, it is down to organisation, communication, and philosophy of the team. Our philosophy is attack-minded and any defender in this world will struggle and caught consistently in counter-attacking situation. Any defender, no matter how talented is, would have struggled if the played Arsenal team who usually fail to fight, run, tackle.
OUR PROBLEM is a team PROBLEM.
K-TR7 said:
“Almunia has just blasted some players for not running at the camp nou when we only need 1 goal to progress.i fully agree with him.”
I totally agree as well. I think there’s big mental problem and lack of leadership in our team, Denilson was right.
Our team has taken a battering over the years.the mancs have schooled us in the past,drogba and the chavs,barca twice…our players should be attaining invaluable experience in such games.Sagna has said we should learn from barca as they may play like us but they are better at it.lets stop feeling sorry for ourselves,its time to prove that we won’t collapse again in what has been a very promising season.
I think it’s kind of unfair to play against Messi coz he’s not human being.
Osi – we’ll have to agree to differ about diaby and nikk as i think they are both cack,
nikki, ‘i will be the best striker in the world’ who couldn’t even control the ball against barca let alone win the match for us and
diaby, who runs around like a headless chicken and hasn’t a clue what to do when he gets near the goal…. that’s when he’s fit of course..
i’d sell nik, diaby, denilson, randall, rosicky and maybe even AA and use the money to buy a lot better, players who know how to win when the going gets tough….
Almunia is right and on this occassion he will get away with his words but usually it’s him who lets us down so he needs to be careful, especially as he will be in goal at OT on saturday…
Rico you said:
“i’d sell nik, diaby, denilson, randall, rosicky and maybe even AA and use the money to buy a lot better, players who know how to win when the going gets tough…”
I’d sell more than if I have money.
.
Messi might be good but i think a lot of that is down to the opposition being in awe of him and giving him too much time – wait until some big defender/midfielder goes in hard on him during a match, that’ll slow him down….
Great article Oliver…
Well considered, well written, well said!
So would i sell more Osi, they were just for starters 😉
Hello stranger, how you doing mike?
Rico no one in this Arsenal team knows how to win by fighting and determination. It’s disgraceful to play fancy backheel in the penalty area and playing with Wolves.
Except against Birmingham the only people who played like they wanted to win are our defense excluding the Great Cliche.
Hi rico/osi.i have consistently maintained that we need another dribbling menace in our team.nasri is our only consistent dribbler.barca have iniesta and messi and it helps them so much.At the Emirates we did a superb job of making the pitch small.we also used through marking to cut out their passing avenues.at the camp nou barca moved the ball even faster.they also had iniesta and messi run at us which forced us to tackle them.iniesta/messi beat their markers consistently which opened up space for their teammates and our shape as a result was broken.we need more players like that.
Hi Rico,
doing fine thanks… staggering from one domestic crisis to the next, and constantly despairing of our boys, and especially Cesc, but apart from that……
How are things with you?
Rico there is a reason why in both games at the Emirates when Song has played messi was quiet.song is very difficult to beat.
Morning rico.
I have to disagree about Messi. he is truly world class and though it was initially a cock up by Fabregas, how many players in the world would have softly chipped the ball over Almunia and then smash it in the net.
With regards to players out, I don’t see wholesale changes.I expext AA to demand to go back to Russia, he’s a great player but IMO hasn’t got the stamina for the PL pace.
Almunia will go back to Spain and the rumours persist here and in liverpool that Reina is coming to us.
Osi, i can kind of forgive cesc for his display on the field, it’s not all that often he under performs, i don’t think he should have started which was proved after being injured after just 15 minutes..
I thought our defence, including Clichy put in one of the best performances of the season to keep barca out for so long, once we were down to ten the players had to fight harder, the tiredness became a factor and we had no respite from the barca onslaught..
wenger maintains it would possibly been a different outcome with 11 v 11 and i actually agree with him, we may have had to hoof the ball up field for a breather sometimes but i think we would have held on…
Hi mikeB.
“So would i sell more Osi, they were just for starters”
Lol, good one.
I’d sell half of our team for about 40m (the inconsistent half), and get:
1. 2 defenders; one great and one good (assuming TV is still have his sabbatical holiday)
2. 2 world class midfielders (DM, and Winger preferably Nani)
3. A deadly striker (I don’t where we can find that one)
4. A great Keeper (If Chezzer doesnt’ progress well) otherwise we’re ok.
5. 2 valuable Physicians for our medical team.
Hi mike,
All good thanks, still house hunting 🙂
Have you moved to the sunshine yet? Sorry to hear about the domestic crisis, nothing to serious i hope…
As for our boys in red, they will always cause despair 😉
Agree re Song Kt, we missed him…
kelsey, i am angry with that bunch of cheats and although messi is a great player i still think too many people stand off of him and admire too much, the same happened with ronaldo when he was at the mancs…
teams need to hit him hard from the off and knock him back in his shell, pundits say we don’t like it ‘up us’ well i don’t think barca would either….
Osi 😆
I don’t think we’d ever get Nani but as Kelsey said earlier, the rumours are rife about Reina and i read at the weekend he asked liverpool to let him join us in the summer… how much truth is in that i don’t know…
I just don’t see us buying much again though as we have more young ones coming through but i do think we will see some sold, thats because the club ‘blamed’ our financial loss on not selling in the summer….
Vermaelen has said he doesn’t know when he’ll return as he isn’t even back to training yet.
“Osi, i can kind of forgive cesc for his display on the field, it’s not all that often he under performs, i don’t think he should have started which was proved after being injured after just 15 minutes”
I forgive him too coz he did well for us over the years, but if we’re blaming constantly other lesser for not being disinterested and lazy, then we should blame him as well for his bad performance this season. It’s not the first time he’s performed badly, there had been many other occasions (I can cite Spurs but there were other games as well).
People always point out how we missed him and how he could have made the difference on a bad day, but in reality this season he’s been poor overall. He had assisted to many goals we scored but football isn’t all about assisting. He’s not dominant as he used to be when our team was weaker and he was younger.
I think someone like Nasri hadn’t had many goal assists but still contribute to the team more than Fab. He runs a lot, demands the ball, dribbles, passes and usually involved or started our best moves that led to goals or even better scored some fantastic goal. That sort of contribution is what I wanted from Fab really.
Hi K-TR7,
hope things are good with you.
Rico, no still here, waiting for the banks to flood the Spanish market 😆
As for the current doom and gloom,
I don’t feel the same way most feel this morning.
Yes we were largely outplayed for fifty-odd minutes against one of the best-ever teams, but…
I think there is an optimum pass rate that teams can employ without tiring themselves.
We usually get it right because we score a lot of goals in the latter stages of games.
Barca sometimes don’t, particularly against top-class opposition, which is why we scored two goals late on at the Emirates, and why they sometimes get caught-out against defensive teams with late sucker-punches.
When they are making so many short, fast, passes they are mesmerising the opposition, true, but they are also tiring themselves, because the concentration has to stay so high.
I truly believe that if RVP had stayed on the pitch we would have won, because Barca’s pass rate was too high, and, as Almunia so stupidly just said, we weren’t expending that much energy.
Sadly we’ll never know,
Have a good one
If denilson had put in a shift like that of cesc against barca he’d get destroyed everywhere.
K-TR7 said:
“If denilson had put in a shift like that of cesc against barca he’d get destroyed everywhere.”
Sadly that’s true. I think our criticism of players is illogical.
How many times have we seen people destroying Denilson or other scapegoats for having shocking display when in reality the whole team played shocking .
Cascarino is really a clown.he is claiming that spuds have a better defense than we have.if spuds were playing barca they’d get torn apart.milan are nowhere near barca.we have conceded 27 goals in the league compared to their 34…nuff said.
I also find it funny how spuds are gloating about reaching the quarters while we crashed out.they forget we have been doing that for over a decade and we don’t even brag about it.an old milan team ran them ragged last night.if we go there with a healthy team i want us to remind them who is boss.
Mike B,
you said “Rico, no still here, waiting for the banks to flood the Spanish market ”
I remember we once had a chat aboot property.More and more repossessions over the next 6 months and the banks are looking to get between 20% to 50% back from the original loan, though they were granting upto 110% mortgages 2 to 3 years ago. Roughly speaking there are great deals here especially on apartments, though one has to consider the exchange now to say 3 years ago.
Hi Kelsey,
good to hear from you.
Yeah, I once sold a villa on Los Naranjos (overlooking the fifth green) to an Irishman; I also sold him my Naranjos share for a pittance.
Been looking to get back there ever since, but not so keen on the concrete jungle on the new golden mile(I suppose that’s the new lead mile now) 😆
That was why I asked about your friend with the villa he can’t sell.
Thanks to your advice, and a few others, I’m gonna wait and see what happens with the banks later this year.
Have a good one
Re: Messi. I think it is more that ref’s don’t allow Barca and especially Messi to be tackled. Anytime you go near them it is a foul and could be a booking. It is scandalous the bias for them but at the moment the are UEFA’s golden boys.
As for the players believing or Wenger believing, the pure facts are, some of these players are simply not good enough. We have at least 4 players that are lower prem or even championship level and not at the level of a team chasing the very top honours.
This is how much this piece of shit cares
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/3458276/Finally-bungling-Bendtner-scores.html
Will barca are the manutd of Europe.the ref didn’t even award them a single card despite them being guilty of far worse than us.messi kicked the ball away after the ref had blown the whistle similar to rvp but wasn’t even cautioned.
Osi, fair comment earlier about Cesc…
And KT, you are right too about ‘had that been denilson’
i don’t know why cesc played, rushed back yet again and now he’s out again….
I said that exact same thing on my Facebook KT. It was shocking and open bias.
Wenger should take a lawyer and a dvd of the game and go after UEFA.
Mike, i’m the same but waiting for the ‘Cornish Banks’
😆
According to polish press szczesny is set to be out for 4-6 weeks.Mannone is currently sidelined at Hull and Shea is also injured.our injury crisis at GK has become so bad that our young Argentine,Damien Martinez,may be on the bench when we visit OT.
Mike,
he sold it in 3 days once he reduced the price dramatically.3 million to 1.4 million less 5% agents commission.
How did we not manage a single shot at the camp nou?its embarassing to say the least.
Wao Oliver !
This is the best and most insightful article i have read from you.
I almost stood up reading, it was a proper speech i only wish they could hear or read this.
This guys need to reward Wenger for showing so much faith in them and turning most of them from average players to world class players.
What can i say i think we fans should just go out on Saturday and support Wenger and the boys because if we should turn our back on them like every other person has , they will crash mentally.
We sure do missed the hard knocks in the team, we missed Gallas, Toure,Adebayor,Gilberto,Flamini this guys are not easily bullied or discouraged.
Remeber when the spuds were trashing us by 4 goals and Adebayor came in and scored and he was trying to spur bendtner on to go crazy and get back in the game?
Well Bendtner didn’t like it and we all know what happened after that (Adebayor was sold)
You remember when Gallas complained that Walcott is not diverse enough in his method of play ? (Well Gallas left the club)
Toure could not stand being on the bench and not being captain (He had passion and only few show it in this present team)
Well we don’t have this guys anymore but we have to make do with what we have , please this guys need to be encouraged like Wenger does or else they will crash beyond our imagination.
They are good enough they just need to be reminded.
Barca can say whatever they want , they wouldn’t have won if RVP was still in the game or at least we had 11 players on the field.
KT, i mentioned yesterday that we could be in the doo doo re the keeper situation, wondered if wenger will loan an emergency keeper now….
Hi SD
I don’t think Lardy or Gallas were sold for just the reasons you list, Gallas chose to go for more money and a longer contract – he didn’t get either..
Lardy flirted with every top club trying to escape, he got City and we got twice his value…
Hi Will, just read that article you posted, what a k**b he is….
Bendy needs to go rico.
I know KT, just wish wenger would see that too…
If all he can think about twenty four hours after faffing up on tuesday, is going out on the town, it just about sums him up…
afc.com
March 10: Wenger pre-Manchester United
**Van Persie fit to face Manchester United, but Fabregas out
**Szczesny ‘out for a while’ with finger injury
**Wenger considering emergency goalkeeper loan
Just what we needed…rambo must start at OT.
Your dreaming Rico, he’ll play dumb n dumber…..!
Afternoon all 😉
Song has been ran to the ground this season.no wonder he is still out.
Oi Oi WATH 🙂
I hope not but i bet he does too…
Jack must be as hard as nails and have 3 lungs.the boy has flamini-esque stamina in addition to his technical ability.i just love his attitude.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1364932/Arsene-Wenger-UEFA-apologise-ME-Arsenal-fury-charge.html?
Good on him.
Indeed Will, good on him, well said Mr Wenger….
Please,he gets 6 mil a year for taking us nowhere he even handpicked them and what has he created ,a mentally weak team of midgets that every time they have to face an obstacle succumbs to pressure.
I would still take a lawyer and the DVD and ask for the head of the ref on a silver platter, the cheating shitbag.
Will, make him spot on…fck uefa!!
My take is Wenger will still standby his youngsters.
He will field ’em at OT so as not to destroy their confidence. ANother chance for ’em to redeem themselves:
………………..Almunia
…Sagna…..Squillaci….Koscielny…..Clichy
………..Denilson………DIaby
…Nasri………..Rosicky…………Arshavin
………………..CHamakh
Djourou and Wilshere had played too many games and need a breather.
I will not risk Van Persie.
This TEAM can hold ManU; and I will accept a 0-0 result to bring ’em back to Emirates.
I doubt whether Ferguson will field a full-strength side with CL Cup tie next week.
A loss will not affect their morale as they all know that it is only a “B” Team and Wenger will expect ’em to perform and hold a weakened ManU.
Stronger words: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/arsene-wenger-blasts-uefa-as-dictatorship-2238219.html?
Hi Danish, you finished with wenger then?
Hi Merlin…
interesting view on the OT game, i think a tad different to you though – i think wenger will go all out to win this game and try and make up for the recent two big losses.
my reason is that now this is all we have together with the league, no more hefty fixture and therefore no need to start resting players…
jack will not want to miss out, neither will anyone else who is fit – they can rest after saturday…
Hi all, latest news of Arsenal”
Chezzer is a very nice and polite person who doesn’t want to ‘show us his middle finger’ which is obviously injured. Anyway, I advised him to show his ‘middle finger’ to our medical team who upset us fans a lot. They deserved to be shown a ‘middle finger’, albeit for examination this time, for letting us down.
Also, Gallas is reported to have said that “Arsenal lost a gem when they let me go”, well I say to him “You’re definitely a gem but you also upset a greater gem that’s Nasri, so if I have to choose between you I’d choose Nasri any day”
Osi 😆
RICO I hope ManU go through the next round of CL so that they have busier schedule. They have already experienced injuries and that would get worse if they have busier schedules. We, on the other hand, have players coming back (Theo, VP, Diaby I know you don’t rate him)for our run-in. But I think we have to beat them at OT next week.
Me too Osi and i’m sure fergie will be thinking about their game midweek too in the CL, he’s already without a few players and the FA Cup won’t be his priority of the two comps and of course the PL…
we need to be them and shut a few up as well as get some confidence back for our own PL run in…
latest injury news: Nasri hamstring would keep him out for 2 weeks, he’ll miss out on FA cup clash. Song as well.
Anyone knows anything about our reserve Keeper the Argentine Martinez? Is he any good as a back up to Moonia?
I didn’t know that about Nsri and Song, bummer, what about Theo?
No idea re the keeper Osi, talk is that wenger will get an emergency loan…
If we beat them at FA Cup that’ll definitely play on their mind and will give a boost for the league fixture at Emirates. I think this time we can beat as we have VP available and Arsh’s form is coming back.
How a loan is possible in this time of the season? Do they mean a loan from a lower leagues?
rico i apologise for talking about Nasri hamstring that keeps him out for 2 weeks I meant Fabregas. Nasri is fit and running.
rico in replying to you comment at rico says:
March 10, 2011 at 12:55 pm
i think you are missing the point, Adebayor’s profile in the dressing room was affected after that night and it definitely would have affected his decision to seek another club or flirt with another club.HE definitely didn’t feel at home anymore.
On Gallas, he signed for less money at Spurs and you didn’t think he was going to stay after having his captainship taken from him.Did you see Gallas yesterday ?
I mean proper passion and leadership we have none of it right now.
None of our guys are scary it is just human that somebody like a referee would find it easy to just dish out unnecessary red cards and yellow cards.
The team looks so timid it is unbelievable.
Will we have a team?
morning all…thanx for the comments and thanx for taking the feedback rico…i see cesc is out – not surprised in the least…we’ll just have to do this the hard way.
Phew Osi, i was having a worry about Nasri….
Emergency loans can take place throughout the season IF sanctioned by the FA, not sure if there are any stipulations to where they come from though…
Anyway, the FA hate us, they’ll say no….
Hi SD, i didn’t see him, don’t watch the gutter from down the road unless we are playing them 😉
Hi oliver, always a pleasure, thanks for the post, another cracker if i may say so…
Hello All.. ………But the players apparently are duff oliver 🙁
Hi STV, how’s you?
Some are, not all 😉
hey rico.. am gud, yes not all bt we all know some are since a long time .. just dont talk abt it if we are winning that’s all 😉
evening guys
i really dont know what to say anymore about the refs and the team and the mentality..im all blogged out..
i just want us to beat the mancs
I think that’s just it STV, when we are winning we accept the few that don’t play well – we have a moan and groan a bit but are almost ‘content’ to win –
i think most of us would have accepted a loss to barca had we a) beaten birmingham and b) had a decent ref….
hi jj….
you and us all…
I really can’t see us winning for a while and see a bit of a slump on the cards.
You are true rico.. for a smaller team we lost simply and for a bigger thing it was in a hard way. Beat man utd and get SALVATION…, people!! 🙄
hi rico..
after 6 years you get a bit bored of saying the same things over and over again..
we have no choice to talk about these things obviously cos theres been nothing else to talk about..
i just want to take each game as it comes and hope we win something worth talking about at the end..
if we dont end up with something to show for this season then i really dont know what the answer is…
wenger refuses to buy any real quality and the market now rules us out indefinately so its not even worth thinking about
hi will
i dont think we’ll go into a slump..but we need a good kick start v utd at the weekend..confidence will be low but frustration will be high, it all depends how we channel the frustration..
we cant play a weakened team in anymore games weve got to go for the jugular now
good night all.. gotta go,
Will, if we lose on Sat, I’ll be thinking similar….
See ya STV, take care….
Trouble is jj, none of us really know how much money the club honestly have available to spend on players…
if all that comes out from the top is to believed then yes, we won’t be buying big players until we are taken over and wenger goes….
six years gone, i fear another six similar years ahead….
Problem is guys, we can ALL see what is needed and I thought the stadium move was meant to allow us to buy with the big boys.
Will, they won’t spend until its nearly paid off, and as long as we keep getting into the top four and gett the CL money the board are laughing…
Didn’t Gazidis say thats the priority and winning trophies isnt? Not sure about that but i think that was the gist of it…..
Not heard that but if that is true, they all need shooting.
I’ll see if i can dig out the i/v Will
So, in summary, how do you assess our position as a club?
Gazidis….
“The important thing, and I emphasise this every time we speak about our results, is that it’s not about profits for Arsenal Football Club. The currency that we evaluate ourselves with is pride, the pride that we create among our fan base. That is driven certainly by trophies but by far more than that. The reason we have to have a strong business, the reason these results are important for us, looking forward, is that it gives us the platform on which to create that pride. It gives us a solid financial basis on which to plan for the future with confidence. We certainly feel that this set of results allows us to do that.”
However, he also says this…..
What is the financial outlook for the year and beyond?
“We are in a very healthy financial position. We will see some more one-off property opportunities that we have over the next few years. We are driving hard to improve our commercial performance and I think we will see that over the next few years. Again, all of the money that we make goes back into the team and that’s what this is all about. It’s not about generating profit, it’s about creating pride for our fans and what we represent, how we play the game and, ultimately, trophies. That’s what we’re all about.”
i’m done for today guys, catch up tomorrow….
be good…
nighty night
Rico, Arsenal’s commercial income is 30-mil…about one-third of that of ManU.
“Red Devil” and “Mighty Reds” are global brand, especially with a strong following in Asia, a most lucrative market in the near future.
If “Property” is a one-off, then I beleive that GAzidis had started the ball rolling to grow “Gunners’ Global Commercial Interest” starting with summer tour to Japan, South Korea and China this July 2011?
Rico, Oliver, care to start a new thread on ManU vs Arsenal as I prefer to let ManU wins to force ’em to dissipate their resources on all 3 fronts in an extrmely congested fixtures in APril/May.
I believe title race will go down to the wire on May 22…..like Liverpool vs Dalglish’s Blackburn and West Ham vs ManU in the 90s…..love that Andy Cole’s point-blank miss!!!!
An afterthought.
WHy did Arsene Wenger selected an obviouslt unfit van Persie and an out-fo-sort Fabregas?
1 – Wenger is an obsessive winner
We had seen previous occasions that in key matches, he will field injured palyers who made a “miraclous recovery” like Van Perise….or playing Fabregas when he was injured..and then injured again..liek against Barca.
I recalled one season (2003/04?) when Henry was carrying a hamstring injury, was in the French squad for Iceland vs France – then a private jet was hired to fly him directly back to UK to play in FA semi-final against Manu. Henry was on the bench and did not played.
It proved that that is a ruthless streak in Wenger and he will not hesitated to field “injured” player in key games.
2 – Tired or simply non-committed players?
Latest news is that ALmunia blasted the players for not puttign in the effort and just “walked around”, no sense of urgency.
Perhaps, the players are really mentally and physically exhausted after chasing shadows and rna into the ground by a superb Barca side playing an intense pressing game that will pounce on any Arsenal player instantly and forced ’em into error that they can’t even string together three consecutive passes such that they can’t even have a decent shot at goal.
I believe that Almunia should point the finger at “lack of leadership”. I am sure a snarling Tony Adams will never allow this to happen and will force all his team-mates to go beyond their limit and goes down screaming and swinging at their opponents….and not rolled over and died without a whimper.
A strong leader will start kicking their sorry butts to get moving.
3 – Still Maturing & Lack Experienced Players
We have too many inconsistent players that bottled it in crucial games…(the latest being against Sunderland); and against Barca, they were simply outclassed and given a master-class in “Lesson 101 – How to Pressuried Opponents & Possession Football for Dummies”.
We were simply shown up as “immatured, experience and need 1 or 2 more years of maturity” like a six-pack short of 1 or 2 key players.
But if Wenger can keep this squad together – including Fabregas, Van Persie, Nasri, Arshavin and Clichy – then we will really have a fantatsic squad by 2012/13.
On a bright note:
I hope that this humiliation by Barca and the injustice by UEFA referee will create a “siege mentality” within the squad that they will be fully committed and take it out on premiership teams!
Whether we like it or not, Wenger can learned a thing or two from Mourinho on how to create this kind of “seige mentality” to motivate his players to fight to win games now….and to instil belief into the squad that they can beat anybody, including the rferee.
Leadership, Commitment, Belief and of course, field only fit players and not field injured players by reputation,…then we will have no more accusations on players “just walking around”, going thru’ the motions to finish a game.
the commercial thing has definatley been a downside..
but thats not the problem..
arsenal fc have the money to compete, we make about 30mil a year after paying off the loan on the stadium so theres more than enough money floating about to bolster the team with at least one quality player..
over the years wenger has been using that money to offer new contracts to all the players and after being burned with the webster and bosman rulings so many times you can see why he does so..
but..
we have a situation now where we have about 2-3 players for every position plus 16 players out on loan so the wage bill is massive..its not massive because we over pay our players as such, its massive because AW has been stock piling players…
heres where the academy must be used to our advantage financially..
we are looking at the possibility this summer of having over 50 players on our books and we dont need them all..
wenger is now in a position to sell the dead wood in the side like the denilsons, diabys, nikkis, rosickys as well as making a few of the youngsters loan deals that wont make it at arsenal, permanent..
we can raise a decent transfer kitty by selling those lot and go out and use it to buy at least one top class player without even touching the sides of the clubs profits..
as well as promoting a shed load of the youngsters who deserve a go…
whether AW does it or not is entirely different matter..he has this option, or he can just tie everyone down to new contracts again…but that would be pointless..
weve waited years to be in this position..the acedamy is finally bearing fruit so lets use it to its fullest advantage…
as for leadership..
we lost our captain after 55mins in the noucamp..
We need to sell many, buy a few top quality and we will win.
morning guys, new post up….