Daily Bits and Bobs

Arsenal snap up Olympian. Clubs begin ‘Arsenal walk’ – will they suffer as we did?

Posted on by rico

Morning all.

Back in May 2004, Arsenal were top of the tree, Invincible, playing the best football in Britain and arguably the most entertaining in Europe or anywhere in the World. Arsenal’s worldwide appeal is a testament to that expansive football. A football that any Chelsea fan can only dream of…

But that was as good as it got as the new stadium, or Project Ashburton Grove, was gaining momentum. And by the time Arsenal had won the FACup in 2005 and been stitched up by UEFA in Paris in 2006, we’d bid au revoir to Patrick Vieira, Dennis Bergkamp, Bobby Pires and by 2007, Thierry Henry. The years of plenty were at an end, whilst the years of famine were about to begin…

During that period and almost all the way up until Mikel Arteta lifted the FA Cup at Wembley last year, Arsenal and Arsene Wenger were hammered by the Press and Media. Arsenal were given no leeway, no understanding and were basically ridiculed by certain sections of the Press, by morons on the radio and idiots on TV…

Every time Arsenal sold one of it’s better players or had them tapped up by Mourinho, the same rabid mob of critics in the Press/Media twisted the knife. Whilst ignoring the massive debts, the dangerous economic situation and the fact that our manager was somehow working a minor miracle getting Arsenal into the Champions League during this period. Many clubs who had moved stadiums during this time, had fallen out of the Premier League, let alone out of the top four. But did Arsenal or Wenger get any credit????

Of course not….

Well, over the next few years a few others, clubs that are given an easy ride by the Media and are almost lionised in the Press, are going to have to tread that well worn path that Arsenal are coming to the end of…

Tottenham are in the process and we all wait in anticipation to see how well they do. Or how much of a mess they make…

West Ham are moving into a ready made stadium. Can you imagine the snide comments Arsenal would have suffered, if the Gunners had magicked up the same kind of fortune as the Hammers?!!! Well let’s see how well they fare and what the Media/Press will make of it, likewise Spurs, as both of those areas of communication are jammed full of Spuds and Irons!

But there’s a third club who are simply beloved by our Journalist Class, Liverpool.

They are advanced in their long drawn out plans to redevelop Anfield into ‘almost’ a new stadium… How will they fare with no Champions League money it seems this summer and maybe the foreseeable future?

And then with no Stevie G to save the day as he leaves this summer, as does Kolo Toure, Jon Flanagan and Glen Johnson.

They’ll all eventually need replacing and then look whose contracts expire in June 2016;

Martin Skrtel
Jose Enrique
Javier Manquillo
Jordan Henderson
Ricky Lambert…

I wonder how many of them might be sold this summer, so as not to lose them on a Bosman in 14 months time?

Raheem Sterling really is only just the tip of an Iceberg.

Let’s see how the Media darlings of Anfield negotiate the next 3 or 4 years and how they’ll be judged by those on TV, radio and in the Press?

Not as harshly as Arsenal I’d wager…

Written by Allezkev

PS – The Mirror are reporting this morning that Arsenal have called on the help of four-time Olympic gold medal winner Michael Johnson to try and develop their young players. He said:

We don’t work with the first-team players. We specialise in youth athletics development and are seen as the experts in that.

Once you get into athletic development, you start to look at speed, strength, power, agility, suppleness – all of those different things – and pick the ones that they really are interested in.

Let’s hope he can instil a bit of his winning mentality into the younger players too….

Have a good Tuesday guys….

rico

103 thoughts on “Arsenal snap up Olympian. Clubs begin ‘Arsenal walk’ – will they suffer as we did?”

  1. rico says:

    Morning all..

    Good post Kev. I look forward to seeing those clubs go through their ‘transition’ – they don’t get CL football now so they could seriously struggle to cope. Especially now FFP is in place…

  2. tsgh says:

    I enjoyed readying that Kev; Is the WHU stadium a new build built by Barratts homes? 😛

    What is funny is that the media are not saying Jordan Henderson has been made club captain to entice him to extend his contract. 🙂

    I wonder why a player (now club captain) who was being hounded out by the fans of the biggest club of world football a mere 2 seasons ago even think about leaving a club managed by the manager with pearls as teeth? 😉

    The media say Henderson has renewed his contracts but the player says he hasn’t… lol

  3. potter says:

    There is a lot more money in T.V and sponsorship floating about now but that won’t matter because as Alan Sugar said ” It’s all like prune juice it will not matter , they ( the clubs ) will take it in at one end and it will come out the other as they spend it on player’s wages and agents.” Liverpool will want to keep Sterling but at what cost , the same for Spurs and Kane . They need to keep the money in house but the player’s agents will make sure that they get an ever increasing share.

  5. tsgh says:

    Indeed Potter, re. football agents Jorge Mendez has been involved in nearly I billion pounds worth of deals over the last 12 years through his company dealings. That is

  8. potter says:

    Nice to know that through Kenyon and Jose Man U and Chelsea are complicit with the dealings. I wonder how many George Graham deals are still happening and how high the bump under the carpet at the F.A is getting.

  10. tsgh says:

    potter, I have read a report similar to that from another source. Price Waterhouse I think.
    Jorge is a big snake. He is trying to buy Varane too…

  11. Lee says:

    Good read 47.
    Someone in the office was mentioning this morning that the £140m alterations that are being made to the Olympic Stadium for it to be a “football” stadium are being funded by the tax payer….. imagine the uproar if it were Arsenal getting that helping hand? Pricks like Durham etc would have a melt down!

  13. potter says:

    Where there is money there is corruption and where there is corruption there are cover ups. Occasionally a lamb gets sacrificed but there are too many fingers in the pie to make it stop/

  20. Canadian Gooner says:

    Good Morning to The Lady of the House and all fellow Gooners in residence.

    Kev – Great article. You’ve managed to articulate what many of us have been attempting to express recently. Have you been taking classes with Adam? Keep up the good work.

    I will be very interested to see how Liverpool and Tottenham manage their new stadium projects. Chelski must also be thinking about one. They will be left with one of the smallest and oldest stadiums in the top half of the BPL. That has to be costing them a lot of possible revenue.

    I doubt the media will make much of the West Ham situation. Abu Dhabi Citeh manged to pull it off without much bad publicity. ManUre and their fans must be steaming over that though.

  26. Canadian Gooner says:

    Rico – Who knows? It may be just to remind people he is still around and put himself in the shop window or it may be a face saving exercise. He certainly didn’t set Serie A alight.

  28. scottfromoz says:

    One word that would sort out Podolskos career…….work rate.
    One example he could learn off…..Cazorla.
    By that I mean Santi was just a player with the odd piece of brilliance 12 months ago.
    Now, with a much improved work rate, he’s one of the absolute best in the League.

  33. tsgh says:

    So true Rico- ”I think he’s a gonner Cg, he’s too lazy for Arsenal”…
    I think Poldi is too lazy for the NEW Arsenal. 😛

    Imagine a team with Arshavin and Poldi assigned the task of helping Gibbs or Hector on the flanks. 🙂

  36. rico says:

    Which is why Theo isn’t getting much playing time no doubt Ts. Although he was defending on Saturday.. 😉

    I knew it Scott – I thought is in an ‘a’ or ‘e’ and got the wrong one… 😉

  37. Canadian Gooner says:

    Ginge – No argument there. My initial comment about Podolski was a carryover from yesterday. Rico said she could think of only one or two players scheduled to return from loan. However, Podolski was one of a possible eight including Wellington Silva. Then today I read favourable/humble comments from Poldi about him returning.

  38. Canadian Gooner says:

    Ginge – Further to your comment about Arshavin and Poldi. I speculated the other day there that Arsene may have been reluctant to reintroduce Walcott because he wouldn’t track back and give cover to young Bellerin at right back. That would leave the ever ‘speedy’ BFG to cover for him.

  42. Canadian Gooner says:

    Ginge – Le Professeur has to learn from someone and he could do a lot worse than visiting the House. If he brought a few bottles of wine, so much the better.

    I’m off fore the day. Have a great day everyone.

    Keep The Faith!

  45. Micko says:

    Well if events had turned out differently we’d be playing our home games at Wembley Stadium and Ashburton Grove would probably still be a rubbish dump ! Scary thought.

    Afternoon all.

  47. Micko says:

    I think he was quite serious about it too rico, it was around the same time we were playing our CL games at Wembley, everyone was running rings around us !

  48. rico says:

    I think so too Micko, goodness knows why he thought that would work…

    Still, good job Arsene went for the new stadium eh… Lol

  51. Joe says:

    Evening all, very good post this morning how do we keep getting Taylor to ref our big games let’s hope he leans more to the way he refereed the Manu FA cup game.
    Rather than he’s infamous Villa and Stoke games.

  52. rico says:

    Ha ha Micko, it sure was…

    You know, reading Kevs post today really hit home how well he’s done considering the financial restrictions he was under from the move..

    We can all sit and pull him apart for things we believe we know better about, but to get top four each season whilst having to sell sell and sell, is pretty darn good.

    I’m sure the tacticians amongst us will say he could have done more, and he could have not wasted money on buying dross or freebies but he hadn’t been that bad has he…

    But then if we fans were as knowledgeable as we think we are, we’d be sat in his place instead of in front of a television or at the stadium…. 😉

  58. Joe says:

    It is a bit of bouncer all right Micko.
    It will make a good read in bed tonight Rico it took me all day that’s the reason for the late post 🙂

  60. BT62 Gooner says:

    Joe, i’m glad i read that now and not later on, i never would have got to the end…

    A glorious evening to you all…

  64. allezkev says:

    Just finished that Eight by Eight article…

    Yes it was quite long-winded and a little indulgent, a bit like an Arsenal build-up, ending in Hleb passing the ball when clear through on goal, but I enjoyed it…

    But I liked the points the writer made, when he eventually made them….

    It was a bit like writing a thousand words to basically say that Wenger is a football idealist and that Mourinho is a cnut…

    Night Rico….

    Thanks everyone for the positive feedback btw…

  66. Micko says:

    Pep Guardiola could fall in pig shit and come up smelling of roses, I say nab him in the summer and make him Arsene’s number 2 !

    Joe, I think the technical football term your looking for is butchered !

  68. Micko says:

    Bt, don’t know if you’ve ever been to a Bayern game but beer delivered to your seat, it’s a match made in heaven !

  69. BT62 Gooner says:

    Micko, never been, imagine the price of that at the Emms….You’ve made me thirsty, off to the fridge for one of my five a day!

  70. potter says:

    Bloody hell a eulogy of biblical proportions . It was so long that i ended up stopping every now and again to come up for air . I even watched two funerals on Eastenders whilst i tried to get around the infinite gushing which would not have been out of place at a Hollywood oscar ceremony.
    Sure the man’s record in purely footballing terms is remarkable , keeping us in the Champions league for so long is one hell of a feat but at what cost to the people that have bankrolled his crusade. What about those that have shelled out a minimum of £ 1000.00 a season not thinking that it’s one comfortable seat with a wonderful view but hoping that a trophy or two would either come along or at least their team would display an intention to compete to win rather than just do enough. Sadly the man and his peers decided to build their edifice which some call Stadium Wenger whilst knowing that the paying public were tied to the team and would bankroll their project. I know many people that have invested and been disappointed . The whole experience became too much for them , children came along , they retired. They had paid their cash hoping for something , for the leopard to change it’s spots , to actually be more proactive on the pitch rather than the boardroom . The promise given by the board of competing at the top table is still a long way off. We may on paper be financially better off but we are playing catch up . This year I retired , and next season it looks like I will be replacing the word we with they. My race is run I’ve paid my dues .I have had a fair bit of fun on the way but I have also been frustrated . There was another way .

  71. Micko says:

    5 a day, hahaha ! Always had you down as a naturally honed athlete ! Seriously they walk around the Arena with the astronaut back packs full of beer, it’s the mutts nuts !

    Catch you tomorrow, nite folks.

  73. Joe says:

    I did potter thanks what I came away with is Moss gets appointed when a certain group of people want a certain result of course I could be wrong.

  74. Joe says:

    Potter I came across the site because they had an article on Moss and if it’s true it’s as scary as f*ck.

  79. Lee says:

    Adam I take that back about Pep!! 😉
    Iniesta’s run for Neymar’s goal was awesome.
    I like Veratti a lot , thought Luiz and Patore were woeful.

  80. Hell Raising Devil says:

    Good Morning Lovelies and Hunkies

    Beautiful day here today. Sun is shining and no wind, just a slight breeze

    Seems that Per will not be able to make the line-up for the game. So Gaby will play instead. I hope his ugly mug scares any chav forward into submission.

  81. Adam says:

    Morning Brudder. 🙂
    Veratti is great isn’t he? I have always thought Luiz to be an accident waiting to happen and I have seen Pastore play a lot better than that. Pep is so intense. He reminds me of Kev performing a high speed U-turn in Trafalgar Square into the face of oncoming traffic.

  84. Hell Raising Devil says:

    Kev does what????? U turn??? 😆

    I am trying to imagine it. but I am struggling. I can only imagine him pulling the handbrake and turning the car around 180 degrees and speeding off in the opposite direction with screeching tyres.

  85. Adam says:

    It’s true Dev. And, until we had lunch with Rico last year, I never knew a London cab could touch 120 mph on the M4. 🙂

  86. Hell Raising Devil says:

    Bonjour m’Lady.

    so probably the team will be the following……

    Ospina
    Bellerin, Gaby, Kos, Nacho
    Coquelin
    Aaron, Cazorla, Ozil, Alexis
    Ollie

    Debuchy surely must be on the bench since he can play at RB and CB. While I hope that TR07 is bought on in the last 20/25 mins to keep us ticking.

    I simply wish we grab a goal in the first 5 mins. that will force them to rethink and puts a spoke in the little one’s works

  87. potter says:

    PSG were totally outplayed , some of Barca’s football is a pleasure to watch , their first goal- Iniesta’s run and Neymar’s finish were get you off your seat stuff. PSG’s collective head went down and only resurfaced for a bit of pride in the last 15 minutes. At the moment Barca are a class above anything over here with possibly only Chelsea able to stand up to them if they bore them to sleep. Real play tonight , will they come face to face with Barca in the semis or the final .Spain waits .

  88. potter says:

    Whatever we do with Chelsea we have to make them think , They have a game plan which is tried and tested we need to do things differently and put doubt in their minds . Just passing in front of their defensive wall will not be enough . Looks like the Gabriel / Costa rematch might not happen , friends in Spain tell me that in the Villareal – Atletico matches things got fairly physical between them.

  89. tsgh says:

    Good morning Rico, Dev and all

    Geez, Micko thanks for working out what they keep in the astronauts’ backpack…that is a whole lot of beer for one one. 😛
    NASA have been lying to all of us for decades now…;Would tell Gervinho to leave you alone if you can prove that Scott and his folks down under are not hanging upside down… 🙂

  90. Adam says:

    Gabriel doesn’t look like the sort of bloke who will take any crap from a dog like Costa to me.
    Potter. Completely agree about Barcelona too.

  93. tsgh says:

    Potter- Costa is always physical with his fellow Brazilian; he had a minor spat with Luiz against Psg too…; someone tells me it is the other way round as players from the Brazilian national team see Costa as some sort of sell out…

    I am please folks rate Verratti; when Marco V. and Isco came up on the sense during the 2013 UEFA European Under-21 Championship, I commented on how it is a shame English players like Ox are not able to dominate games like that…

    For a man under 5’5 he can also boss a midfield against 6’2 opponents in the DM role too…

  95. tsgh says:

    Dev- I think if Tr07 is fit he has to start.

    As alluded to above by Potter, we have to make the chavs think on their feet. Personally, I will either drop AR16 (if he has to be played on the rhs) and play TR07 instead or find a way to get AR16 to help out Le Coq in CM against Willian and Matic.
    In my view we can’t allow AR16 to drift in-field and allow Hazard to expose Bellerin on our rhs.

    I think Jose will deploy Oscar too if he is fit…

  98. tsgh says:

    I guess Bob Stokoe was right all along wearing tracksuit bottoms…:-)

    Talk shite are going to rip Arsenal today with news that West Ham’s season tickets will cost as little as £289 when they move to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford as a result of high TV revenue.

  99. Wavy says:

    Morning all.
    Just to add to yesterday’s refereeing conspiracy theories, which I find a little scary but not unsurprising, look at the cash involved! Bent for sure, somewhere!
    Anyway, Halsey has had his say it would seem re John Moss:

    Halsey criticises FA Cup final ref
    Posted at 08:43
    Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has criticised the appointment of Jon Moss to officiate the FA Cup final.

    “Seriously, Jon Moss at Wembley? I can’t be having that,” he wrote on social media

    “He’s made too many high profile mistakes this season already. Even last weekend he missed two blatant penalties, one for Palace and one for West Brom.”

    “I reckon we’ll be a laughing stock around the world”.

    No smoke without fire, I reckon.

  100. potter says:

    You can’t help thinking that the noose is getting tighter for the PGMOL and someone soon will kick the chair away and leave them dangling.

  101. tsgh says:

    Wavy- if you have time during games have a look at the bets in India or China during the big EPL games and you will be surprised how the trends affect the outcomes.

    In the ideal world a TV station broadcasting live multi-billion pound games should not also be involved in betting but hey….

    Once the masses get their fix or big summer buys and their teams win its all gravy; as they say.

  102. Hell Raising Devil says:

    the ref debate is one which cuts both ways I feel. If Halsey is critical of it then it means both AFC and AVFC might suffer. so its not only against AFC. hopefully we play well and murder them so that Villa will not need him to help out.

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