Morning all.
I know we touched on this subject last month but after Koscielny refused to go on tour, Arsenal are very likely to need a new captain. I think if every Arsenal fan far and wide had a vote, the majority would like to see Granit Xhaka playing for any club other than Arsenal. It’s not that he’s a terrible footballer, at least I don’t think so, it’s just he’s a bit too slow and rather clumsy. Invariably, when he makes a mistake, it proves costly. A Swiss version on Alex Song in so many ways. As slow as Denilson perhaps although I’ve yet to see Xhaka outpaced by a referee whilst tracking back. But when it comes to Unai Emery selecting this season’s captain, I’ve a feeling he’ll look no further than than out central midfielder. He’s held down the responsibility at both Borussia Mönchengladbach and his country so it’s not as if he’d be a novice. To be fair, Emery doesn’t have too many other options really.
Captain – ‘In team sport, ’captain’ is a title given to a member of the team. The title is frequently honorary, but in some cases the captain may have significant responsibility for strategy and teamwork while the game is in progress on the field. In either case, it is a position that indicates honor and respect from one’s teammates – recognition as a leader by one’s peers.
That rules Xhaka out too. In my opinion anyway but not in his eyes.
It is not about the armband,” he said. “We have to work well together on the pitch, out of the pitch and we have to work together, all of the players,
“If the club and the coach gives me the armband I will be happy of course. I will be very happy because it is something special. But it’s not my first time [to be a captain] because I have been the captain here, I was before in Germany and the national team as well.
“Our leadership improved last season but this is not something you can change in one day,” he added. “You need time and in my opinion we are on a good way to create something special in the team as well.
“For everyone, last season was something new. We had new staff and we had to learn new ideas from the coach, but I think we did well.
“We lost the [Europa League] final, a big game for us, but it was the first year together. It’s the second year now together and I am looking forward to making a better season than last season.”
I don’t about you guys but when the word captain is mentioned I immediately think of blokes like McLintock, Adams, Vieira, Terry, Gerrard, Kompany, Keane, Beckenbauer and the late Bobby Moore. Every single one of those, and I’m sure you guys can list others going further further back, made a difference on the pitch. Not just once in a blue moon either as they did it week after week, year after year. To read/hear Unai Emery suggest Mesut Ozil could be one of the three to five leaders he has available, makes me laugh. Although it’s not funny really.
We have players with the capacity [to be captains]. One is Granit. Last year also he played so much as a captain, and was like a captain in the dressing room.
“We also have Mesut and Nacho, and also other players, they can take this position also. I want from three to five captains in the team.”
Arsenal have had a problem in this department for a while now. Merts was ok but too quiet and a bit soft I thought. Koscielny has been even worse and I don’t say that just because of his recent throwing his toys out of the pram behaviour but his body language after we’ve conceded a goal has been pretty shabby I think. He’s too quiet and too soft.
It’s his job to rally round his teammates, to regroup and go again. Where was he that day when Costa bullied and fouled him? Shrinking like a violet, that’s where. Can you imagine Vieira, Adams or even Keown taking what Costa dished out? No. To be fair, I don’t think Xhaka would either and Lacazette certainly wouldn’t. Gabriel didn’t.
Anyway, we beat Bayern Munich age hours ago, with kids! I’ve only seen the highlights but they looked pretty good to me and you can tell they’ve been playing together for a while. Eddie did his first team chances no harm at all with a proper strikers goal. A fox in the box, poacher, being in the right place at the right time. The kind of player we haven’t had since Eduardo. I know, it’s only a friendly but this wasn’t Boreham Wood. It was Germany’s number one club. Martinez looked good too from what I saw.
Finally, new signings, or potential new signings. That’s what we all want to know about this time of year isn’t it? Unai Emery has been quite open about this subject, at least he has since Josh Kroenke spoke to the fans.
We are taking with the patience and with the calm because we really want to sign players who can help us with a big performance, and also because we think in the team we have very good players and young players and we also need to take the best player in some positions.
Really, I can say to our supporters that we are going to have a very good team with the players that are there now and also with three or four players who can help us in a few days.
Surely even the most cynical of fans have to believe him? I certainly wouldn’t make such a bold statement if I knew it was all spin and hot air, would you?
Go on, admit it. You’re just a tiny bit excited…..
Here’s some highlights of the earlier game. Shut your eyes just after seven minutes…….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zow_umzvVTI
Eddie, Nelson, Burton, Saka, Willock, John-Jules, Martinez and AMN, Keep an eye on all of of them I’d say, Willock too of course. Smith-Rowe is yet to come. All of these players looked comfortable, at home in an Arsenal first team. As said, it was a friendly but nevertheless, they’re are going to give Emery a selection headache. Some sooner than others.
Yes, my cup is overflowing with positivity…
Have a great day guys, we’ve had rain all night here in West Berkshire so I’m happy. So are my brassicas….
G’day. I hope Holding gets and stays fit and becomes the mainstay in the centre of defence and then give him the armband. I cant see any of the current first team as captains…..maybe Laca. Love seeing the younger former academy players on the pitch. Willock is going to be immense. JJ is an old school centre forward type we’ve really missed. ESR will have us not remembering that player we gave to Juventus but it’s the likes of Saka, Nelson and Eddie that get me excited……Mustafi …… why…..whyyyyyy….. WHYYYYYYYY.
Holding is too young for the armband imo Chrispy. Maybe one day but not now.
Sokratis is probably my choice of the current squad.
Morning all!!!
Watch the last 15 minutes or so if the game if you can, because it showed me we MUST keep this group of kids together and play then as often as possible.
It all made sense.
Fergie has a brilliant crop, and brought them through together-why wouldn’t we do the same?
You could just tell they’ve played a lot of football together and I know it was only a pre-season game, but in the second half, Bayern did have A stronger line up than in the first, and these kids were just phenomenal!!
Some of the passing was Arsenal at its very best!!
Mustafi ball watching ffs??
He will never learn.
“Swiss version on Alex Song”
Song was 100x better than xhaka. Similar passing ability but actually good defensively and with excellent ball retention ability – not a clumsy player at all. He was one of the best players in the pitch in almost every game 2 or 3 years at arsenal and it’s shocking how poorly he is remembered. Honestly we would have dropped from the top 4 much sooner without him as he was often the only one you could rely on to turn up. People just decided he should have been playing like makelele’s position when he was clearly allowed more freedom in the team.
Davi, I can’t refute your claim that Song was good defensively because I never actually saw him defend hahahaha
I watched the whole game. Ozil & Auba at the heart of all the Arsenal attacks in the 1st half. AMN was REALLY good in the first half. Both GK’s were good made some good saves. It was a really good game to watch, very open end to end stuff. We had most possession . All the youngsters played well, very exciting to watch. All seemed comfortable on the ball. So very exciting for the future
Davi, did we have two Alex Songs? I don’t remember the one that you’re talking about. I do remember the one with no reading of the game and who was always trying to tackle from the wrong side. The one who loved to give away a free kick around our box that we were hopeless at defending. How Barca ever thought he was a player for them I”l never know but I’m glad they did. If only they’d be so mistaken today about Mustafi, Ozil, Xhaka etc.
I think Davi was watching a different player . Song was often too far from the play rarely covered a position and resorted to Hollywood balls because he was too far from the players that he was trying to find.
BTW that Gnabry looks a good player.
Morning Rico. As we know, pre-season friendlies mean nothing as far the result goes. They are about getting match fit with a bit of PR thrown in.
Alex Song? I remember him floating a few nice balls onto RVP’s left foot but generally I would say that Merson was accurate in his assessment of him as
“A fish up a tree”.
Did we really get Barcelona to pay £15 million for him or was that an alternate reality?
Holding could be a future Captain no doubt,I wouldn’t say he’s too young,but coming back from a serious injury he needs a season just playing.ACL is one of the most serious injuries a player can have.We need both Holding and Bellerin back to the best.
Xhaka is the least athletic player in the Premier League,he has a nice left foot,can pass and hit a nice dead ball,but that’s all he is good at.Would be nowhere near the team in any team from Wolves, Leicester, Everton upwards.He might be good in Spain/Italy.
Alex Song was miles better ! In my opinion.
I’m afraid I didn’t see that Alex Song either Davi… lol
Morning Adam. The fouls just outside our own penalty area are what I recall most. I still can’t believe Barcelona signed him.
Who was that white haired geezer on the pitch yesterday, he looked a bit like Ozil but the way he ran he must have been Mesut’s grandad.
Song.
Arteta.
Xhaka.
None were proper DM’s yet crucified for being played out of position.
Song never made any attempt to defend, though, and that’s what sets him apart from the other two, imo.
Inexperienced is possibly a better word Limey.
Cicero, you can’t seriously be criticising that performance so I’m tipping you’re joking 🙂
Ozil was bloody good and if he maintains that level of effort, hopefully fans get off his back but that’s up to him, really.
Again I agree with you Scott
Nor does Xhaka Scott, not often anyway.. lol
He tries, Rico.
Maybe not as effectively as we’d like, but he tries.
He is nowhere near as bad a footballer as people make out.
All a matter of opinion Scott.
Rico,
We want a world class DM and anything less will be seen as an utter failure by fans.
I’ve seen him play a decent game, not a great game but a decent one and get torn to pieces by fans but then, that happens a lot with our players and we’ve seen it week in, week out for years.
On the other hand, we’ve had crowd favourites do stuff all and get applauded.
Bundesliga team of the year, done very well in major tournaments for his nation, and a damn young captain in Germany yet he’s shit?
On the game…….I named a few of the kids but one who did incredibly well that I missed was Martinez in the second half.
He pulled off three absolute ripper saves and looked as safe as a bank.
He did nothing at all wrong in the goal conceded….
I think differently to you Scott. What is world class and surely such a label is subjective. Does a massive price mean world class? I don’t think so and just because a player does really well in Spain, Germany etc etc, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll replicate such form in England. Too many who have disappointed have proved that. Xhaka being one to a degree but at other clubs too. Salah flopped at Chelsea yet excels at Liverpool, Torres was superb at Liverpool, poor for Chelsea. Modric at the Toots… The list is long.
For me it’s about the club signing the right player and whether he costs £5 or £50m, I really don’t care.
Mustafi did though. Surely he’s got to be sold this summer. If we start the season with him and Sokratis, we’re stuffed from the off.
Rico, Mustafi has proven time and again he makes too many schoolboy errors to handle the League and there is no debating that.
Watch the goal today-he drifts away from Lewandowski, gets under the flight of the ball and the guy has a free header.
Ball watching at that level?
Incredible.
World class isn’t down to price, no question and not for one second am I claiming Xhaka is even close to world class, simply that he’s nowhere near as bad as a lot of fans make out.
I’ve already watched it Scott. I wouldn’t make such a comment had I not.
I didn’t suggest you were re Xhaka, just your comment on needing a world class DM.
Again though, how good or bad Xhaka or any other player is or not, is down to personal opinion.
Afternoon Gooners
Afternoon Rico, yes, the kids are alright and so are the brassicas.
Thanks for the write up, very positive but Bayern had us hanging on at times in that 2nd half, Gnabry is a real loss, but it is what it is.
I don’t blame Mustafi for the goal, it was a great cross and Lewandowski is still one of the best around, but he did cause mayhem in the 1st 45 with a really dumb ass pass into midfield which put us into all sorts of trouble.
Why on earth an experienced international defender cannot see how damaging a pass that was shows to me he has a complete lack of awareness, alarming in a World Cup winner also the fact that he cannot cope in stressful situations and just wants rid of the ball without considering the consequences of his actions?
We are stuck with him in the short term so there’s no point us beating ourselves up over him, we just have to accept, for now and that he is never going to lose that from his game and just count the days to when Holding is 100% again.
Surely, if you are a club aiming for the top, then Xhaka cannot be your first choice in midfield. The PL is way too fast for him I think. He is also impetuous, bordering on reckless when beaten for pace and if he wasn’t then we would be in the CL this year and the debate would be very different.
Mustafi is a shocking CD but makes less mistakes at RB. Still nowhere near good enough for me.
Grandad Mesut, luv it… 😁
Adam, what has the club done that makes us think we are aiming for the top 🙂 🙂
In all seriousness, we keep buying these good, but not great players and usually, we get what we pay for.
Xhaka’s pace is his biggest weakness and it does leave him and us exposed.
Does that make him shit though, or just not suited to the League?
When Xhaka was signed everybody assumed that he was to fill the the need for a defensive midfielder, which was what we had all been crying out for.
I have said it before that the assumption was wrong. He was not and is not a defensive midfielder. Not for Switzerland, not for his previous clubs Basel and Borussia Monchengladbach. He is a talented attacking midfielder who was forced into a more defensive role under Wenger. Now that Ramsey is out of the way (that’ll get Scott going) perhaps he will be played in his best position and be excused much of the unfair criticism aimed at him.
Whatever people think of him, they will have to get used to the fact that he will be in the starting eleven and possibly be the club captain after the departure of Koscielny.
Afternoon Kev. The cross was excellent but Mustafi didn’t even try really. Perhaps he was too busy trying to work out when the best time to raise him arm for an offside plea. Buffoon that he is.
Wenger loved Xhaka, always played him when he was fit and then Emery takes over and that situation doesn’t change, Unai has even played him out of position in defence during our injury crisis last season. I personally don’t get it, but two top managers have relied on Xhaka so we must be missing something?
To me Xhaka is like Mustafi, in stressful situations he loses his composure and does dumb ass things.
Last season we lost to Crystal Palace and dropped vital points to Brighton, it cost us CL and who were the players central to those disappointments?
As with Mkhitarayan and Ozil and Kolasinac, the same old errors and technical/mental problems will reoccur this season, these 5 players, they all have these issues in their locker.
We are stuck with them for now, but I’m hopeful that with Ljungberg in his ear that Emery will have the courage to use our youngsters as often as possible and gradually sideline the lot of them, before moving them on…
Agree Adam re Xhaka. It doesn’t matter what league he plays in, a shove in the penalty box will always end in a penalty kick. A cross field pass into the path of an opponent will always cause problems. If he’s got to play, the least dangerous position imo is further forward where his left foot might be far more useful. A bit like Mustafi at right back really. Damage limitation I think it’s called. 😜
Fair enough Rico, some of our defending wasn’t great from everyone, but then Bayern are a pretty good team aren’t they. 😉
As long as your broccoli is ok…
2021 will be here before we know it Kev… lol
Agree though, Emery finally has options and I seriously hope he uses them. Mind you, if Xhaka is made captain….
Yeah Rico, I go along with the Mustafi at right back, as Adam suggested, I mean he used to be a full back and maybe always has been?
If we play Xhaka further forward then does that mean no Ozil?
Could be the reason behind the 5 captains nonsense Rico?
If nobody is the bona fide captain, then everyone can be dropped without too much fuss.
Cicero,
We have a habit of playing players out of position, then seeing them torn to pieces by fans.
Yes, including Rambo hahahaha
It’d be nice to buy a player that fills a void we have, but a player who doesn’t have to be turned into the player we need.
I mean, just buy what we bloody need lol
Morning Rico, excellent posts, as is your forté, and, some interesting comments up their too from the HH’ers.
Thanks for the inclusion of the Bayern match – same old problems with defence with Xhaka – on 50 seconds of that video he gets the ball on the edge of the box and gives it away.
Are we as fans too critical or just tired of the same old mistakes, and the thought of him being Arsenal’s captain leaves me cold.
We need a strong Englishman irrespective of the ethnic make-up of the team.
All those mentioned from Özil, to Xhaka etc aren’t made of the right DNA to be captain. It’s a LEADER we need.
Good point Scott – comment before mine.
Yes Kev, as I said in the post. They’re one of the best and my brassicas are fine thank you…
Scott. I just think we are generally too late into the market. Kante would have been a better bet than Xhaka for me but we missed out. I won’t go into who we could have signed. Wenger wears that one as a badge of honour when most think it’s a preposterous stance. But look at VVD and Mustafi to get the point of what I am saying. We looked at him I believe, when he was at Celtic but Southampton are sharper than us and have or had, much better scouts. I have to believe that Wenger had a better eye than me and had a million percent more info on players than me. I just have the evidence of watching him play for Southampton at the Emirates. How we didn’t move for him when he was so brilliant, I cannot imagine. Wenger preferred to pay £35 million for Mustafi. Decisions like that have lead us to where we are today.
Some games why not Kev? It’s not like Ozil is much use in the tougher matches..
Afternoon Andorra, thank you.
Rumours are Utd have offered £62m for Aubameyang….
If it’s true and we are selling , it’s not enough .
Agreed.
Good Afters, Rico, and thank you for the Post. 😁
I was interested in your view about what you think of when the attributes of a ‘captain’ are mentioned.
My reaction is a little different, in that I always associate that term with U Boats. They make great films with all the attention is focused on the Kapitan, does he sink the enemy ship, do the girls like to ‘associate’ with him when on furlough, are those destroyers dropping depth charges a bit too close.
Not necessarily related to football you might say, but I think it is. The captain should be experienced enough to deal with different strategies, to ensure the rest of the team are doing what is expected of them and he should kick ass when someone (ahem Xhaka) dribbles in his own penalty area, and loses the ball, or ponderously brings down an opponent in a slow-motion ‘timberrrr’ sort of way that even a blind referee could not miss.
So, not Xhaka for me, as captain material.
As Cicero says, we could use him as an attacking support midfielder, but his total lack of pace makes me think we could only ask him to stand outside the opposition penalty area and – shooooot – but he would probably get the hump and get a red card because everyone was ignoring him. 🥺
Kev,
I loved your greeting this a.m. and congratulations for the youth performances last night — but what’s this about your brassicas? Are you saying the non-youths were a crop of cabbages? 😳
Shouldn’t that be sprouts Redders?
Hi Ra. The captain bit was the definition of the word..
Very probably, Cicero. 😜
Just as long as Kev doesn’t get his maracas in play!!
I knew you intended that Rico, but I wanted to lead into what I saw as a captaincy requirement was. 😜
Morning all.
Adam, we’ve been getting transfer business wrong for a long time now.
Every negotiation seems to be such a drawn out event.
I understand these things can take time and are quite involved, but we often seem to take forever/
Ironically, though, when we have signed the more expensive players, they’ve happened quickly.
I’ve no idea why but Ozil, Auba and Laca all seems to happen smoothly.
Here we are still apparently trying to sign Tierney and we aren’t talking massive money, relatively speaking.
Red, I always take very good care of my maracas, but I think I should leave it at that…
As for the 5 cabbages, we’re stuck with most of them until 2021.
Tim Stillman has written a really great piece on Arseblog, it’s hard to disagree with him, but I sincerely hope that he’s wrong.
I’m a bit behind the 8 ball as I’ve just got through 20 minutes of our 3-0 win over the Rapids.
But it’s very encouraging to see all our young players looking so promising.
I guess we’ll really know where we are in the food chain and if there’s any improvement under Emery after that early visit to Anfield where we got our arse smacked last season, followed by the Spuds match up…
Arsenal agree terms with St Etienne for William Saliba according to sky sports. ????
Hi VCC That’s good news for a Friday morning. Just hope it’s true, but I do feel that it is. He looks like he will be a great signing for us, not too much to pay up front, and no wages next year as he gets loaned back. I think next year he would be a whole lot more . Also I would have HATED Spurs to get him at the last minute, and I love he fact that Saliba chose us over them
In principle at least. Just the medical perhaps.
New post up now