Morning all.
What a handsome bunch eh. No, a talented bunch then? No again? Ok, it’s a huge boost to see Hector Bellerin and Nacho Monreal back. Mavropanos too because right now, a lot of hope seems to be pinned on him coming good. He’s looked the part on the odd occasion he’s played and as has been said about young Medley, neither can do much worse at the back than others have done over the last few months. Since Rob Holding suffered injury, goals galore have been hitting the back of our own net.
Unai Emery has done some good things since his arrival but when it comes to the way we defend, he’s far from covered himself in glory. Different players might produce better results, or at least that’s my view on things.
I know such an pinion is unlikely to be shared by many, any even but we don’t see other clubs banging our door down to sign Mustafi, Koscielny or even Xhaka and there’s probably a reason for that. Sometimes it’s easy to get bogged down by a players transfer fee and again this is just my opinion. Just because Mustafi cost £35 million plus and played for the German international team, it doesn’t mean he’s either brilliant, or right for the English game. Mustafi is neither. He’s rash. Sometimes it comes off but other times he lands us in hot water. Also, just because Rob Holding was signed for a measly £2 million, it doesn’t mean he’s rubbish and out of the two, I know who I prefer. Similar with Mesut Ozil. £50 million and now earning £350k a week, but for what? Very little I’d say. Great player in the wrong country, or certainly at the wrong club. Similar with Xhaka, the Premier League game is too quick for him. Although I’d say he’s better this season than he was last. Koscielny, well however good his fans thought he was, and I’ve never been one of them, age has caught up with him.
Nacho Monreal has apparently extended his contract for another year which I think is good news. He makes a difference I think. He’s intelligent, versatile and still a very good defender. The only concern is him staying fit. Not much to say about Hector Bellerin though other than thank gawd he’s back! In full training at least.
Juventus seem to have secured a deal for Aaron Ramsey. He’s expected to sign on the dotted line over the next few days and then move in the summer. If it were down to me, I’d send him out on loan now, let another club pay his wages and pay that money to a new signing. I don’t care what anyone says, once that deal with Juve is done and dusted, his focus on Arsenal won’t be 100%. How could it be?
Transfer stuff.
The rumours surrounding Denis Suarez and Yannick Carrasco go on, although they do seem to be gathering pace. For Suarez it’s all about the contract apparently and whether or not an obligation to sign on a permanent deal in the summer is included. Carrasco wants the move apparently but whether or not the Chinese club will sell him remains to be seen.
If we should get Suarez and Carrasco, we’ll be adding a bit of width and creativity to the team, well, from what I’ve read anyway but we still need a defender or two.
Have a good one guys.
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Afternoon all. Certainly nice to have almost a full squad to choose from for a change. I think Carrasco would give us a huge boost and would be a big improvement on what we already got. Imagine his pace and trickery from the wings feeding balls to Lacazatte and Auba in attack… not bad! I’m still mesmerised by the fact that we’re not linked to any defenders though..
Good morning Rico, a bright and perky post for a dull and dreary morning, well done.
On an entirely different subject, a short report in the Telegraph this morning pours doubt on the reliability of VAR.
It would seem that the offside decision, in the lead up to Kane’s penalty against Chelsea, was incorrect. The Chelsea manager has footage from a camera angle not seen by the VAR official that shows Kane to be off-side. The footage viewed by the official was provided by Sky, but did not include the footage taken from a camera angle that was in line with the offside incident.
We are lead to believe that VAR is going to eliminate wrong line calls, but if it is left to a broadcaster to decide which camera angles are to be used the whole concept of unbiased decisions falls apart.
Sorry for the intervention Rico, I’ll be back with on-subject comments later.
Morning all.
Ramsey gone?
Genius decision, that one lol
Rico, I doubt his heads been 100% all season but one things for sure, he has kept putting in.
How the club can believe they’re better off without him is beyond me but so be it-we move on.
Cicero, VAR is used in various sports but imo, it’s usually over used and the funny thing is, I always said I didn’t want it brought in, but if it was, it’d be good only for the objective calls such as offside and here we find out it’s even getting that wrong!
Still, it’s only 2019 and this electricity thingy is new so give technology some time to catch up 🙂
Carrasco for what?
Good morning all!
That’s a good question JM…
Morning Gooners
Morning Rico
Isn’t the transfer window boring?
You know, you kinda get the feeling, when certain transfer sagas drag on like the Denis Suarez epic, that they’re ultimately going to fail and even if they don’t, you’re so bored by the long drawn out negotiations that when the said player actually arrives, the excitement has gone out of the transfer anyway.
If Denis Suarez does eventually sign is he going to make that much difference anyway because other than the utter crap on NewsNow and the same outlets continually contradicting each other daily, I’ve yet to read any ‘sensible’ fans bigging him up, saying that we really ‘need to get this guy’, in fact the whole Suarez thing is more Lucas Perez/Mo Elneny to me than Guendouzi/Torrieira, you know players who make a real difference instead of stocking fillers!
Carrasco, now that smacks of an agent trying to engineer some interest in his client, you know ‘My player needs a transfer and I could do with some commission, so I’ll link him to Arsenal’…
It’s a tried and tested method used by agents down the years and rarely refuted by the club that seems happy to sit on its hands as its name is banded about.
Maybe it’s club policy?
You know ‘Let this story run as it’ll make all the mug punters out there think we’re doing something instead of sitting in our posh offices making paper aeroplanes’…
Maybe we should appoint a “Manager in charge of denying transfer rumours”, we seem to have managers for everything else. 😉
Well Emery did that in his presser earlier today Cicero, from the horses mouth ‘We can only sign players on loan’ meanwhile subsidised Chelsea spend £58m on Pulasic, not sure if loaning him back to Dortmund makes any difference, they’ve still paid a transfer fee.
So FFP is shown up to be the joke we know it is meanwhile Man City etc just spend like there’s no tomorrow…
Just as well that we aren’t loaning out Willock, Nketiah and Smith Rowe, just like three new signings, four if you include Mavropanos…
I know that many fans have their doubts over Emery, and that’s understandable, but I wonder what doubts Emery is now having over Arsenal and KSE..?
Two years and it might not be a case of sacking him, he might just piss off anyway…
Come in Big Sam…. 😃
Afternoon Rico and all.
I just watched Emery’s press conference. I wish I hadn’t. Very depressing. He looks very flat too.
I have no doubt that the financial situation was made abundantly clear to Emery before he signed his contract. it must also have made clear that he would be given sufficient time to sort out the squad regardless of results and his position would be safe except for a complete melt-down.
If we are a skint as is being reported, then sacking him and paying millions in compensation is just as unaffordable as buying new players.
We will just have to be patient and satisfied with loans and promotions from the academy.
Afternoon Cicero, Kev, Adam and all.
I take it back re Ornstein and what he said about transfers.
In fact I take it back about Kroenke too. We as a club are a joke if we seriously can’t afford to sign anyone. I’d understand if a reason was given like FFP/wages, squad places etc etc but if it’s just a simple case of not giving Emery money, then if I were him, I’d probably tell the club to stick their job..
It may be that the club want to wait until the end of the season to see how Emery has done before deciding what the summer budget would be. It may be that they don’t fancy any of the targets he has asked for from an age/cost point of view. They have clearly cocked-up royally with regard to the whole contracts situation over recent years and perhaps they want to start with a new transfer ethos. Who knows? It does seem strange that you should hire a new management team and develop a special section within the club specifically dedicated to the transfer market and then just close any funds off.
Something has to be going on. I beginning to wonder if Emery is just a stopgap.
http://youaremyarsenal.com/arsenal-stan-kroenke-analysis-stats/
Ok, I’ve calmed down after reading the above. 😀
Makes sense I think.
Evening all and thanks Rico.
😉 Thats my smirk emoji ! 🙂
Ye of little faith regarding The Orn`………………………….as I linked the other day, he told us mid December that it would probably be only loans coming in !
No surprise to this Orn` believer blasphemers, we are a well run self sufficient club, a credit to football, but alas, one which will win fcuk all titles and CL`s under this owner!…………………………..years of averageness until Kroenke moves on or passes away and unfortunately most of us will be gone aswell, never seeing our great club win a big trophy again !………………………….unless we do a Leicester !……………………………imo everyone apart from the two Mancs will be hoping to do a Leicester each season and this seasons Leicester are The Bindippers !
😆
Yes I had already read that link Rico and it just confirms what I have written !………………………………Manc Chase !………………………a bit like Kiss Chase but with an ugly muvver instead of a good looking woman !
🙂
What I dont get on the link is this about Mansour…………….” As an owner or shareholder of a massive portfolio of companies across the world, Mansour is in a slightly unique position where he is able to use one of his other businesses to sponsor the club, as he has done with the Etihad Airline to the tune of a massive £80 million per season”……………………..I was under the illusion that an owner could not use related companies to sponsor !……………………………………..If you can, then why on earth has Kroenke not used his wifes Walmart connection as a sponsor ?……………………….
Cant blame Dick though about the “loan” situation, as he probably hadn`t asked Ornstein for the information !
😆
The one tiny seed of light at the end of the long dark tunnel that is Kroenke`s rectum !………………………………our crop of exciting youngsters coming through…………………ESR, Eddie, Reiss, Xavier, Saka, Willock, …………………….although Xavier, Reiss and Saka are all fast skilfull wide players………….we cant play all 3 !………………one may go !
https://i.imgur.com/6U3JzfO.jpg
LC, we are slowly converting everyone 🙂
Morning all.
We can only hope that there’s a secret billionaire out there who truly loves the club, and will buy this prick out.
I’ll give you the Ornstein one Lc, just this once.
Having read the article though, if it’s factual, all could work out well in the end. I’ll not bang the Kroenke agenda drum just yet.
The internet is abuzz with people now suggesting that Stan has been behind the lack of spending all these years.
Glad they’re all catching up lol
Or they’re all blinkered…
Not any longer, it seems.
Bloody hell, how the hell did he ever get into this position lol
If the article above is toobe believed, Kroenke couldn’t invest money on players right now even if he wanted to.
I guess what we choose to believe is whatever agrees with our own theories about what’s going on at Arsenal.
Chelsea and City are chequebook clubs, yet Kroenke doesn’t invest. That leaves me scratching my head.
If we could offload some of our players who really aren’t good enough or simply don’t suit the PL, perhaps we’d be buying players this month… we’ve Wenger to thank for that.. it’s a big mess which clearly can’t be resolved very easily.
Thanks Rico !……………………………one day I will let you enter my Ornstein Shrine and pray to David with me, we shall hold hands and immerse our innerselves to the Entity Ornstein……………….. 😆
One thing it does relay is that all the people who said Dick needs 2 or 3 transfers windows to buy his own players will have to adjust that to forget about this one !……………………….
That day will never come Lc. To be honest, I find all this media ‘no nothing’ reports a load of bollox. When anything is done we’ll know anyway. I think the media/press just muddy the waters. Their reports are often at the root of so many arguments around the blogs.
The only people who really know the facts are those around the Arsenal boardroom table and close to the club.
Why? If he gets players on loan deals they’re hardly likely to be ones he doesn’t want.
Rico, Stan has NEVER invested.
You’re right in saying that you believe what you choose to believe as using the “chequebook” argument is a damn big stretch.
Those two clubs have spent hundreds of millions, if not billions and our guys hasn’t spent a single cent!!!
Not one.
Loans?
That’s all we can afford, loans.
We should’ve realised when Gazidis left that the shit was going to really hit the fan because it pointed to either him knowing nothing would change, or realising Wenger carried the place for years, imo.
Anyway, we have what we have and we don’t have what we don’t have so Emery will just have to perform the same miracle Wenger did every time he finished top 4.
Fun times ahead for us all.
Hi Scott 🙂
They will all eventually succumb to the truth ! 🙂
I reckon you could become a Multi-Billionaire if you make a beer made from the piss of Ornstein !
😆
The Nectar of Orn`.
I wonder how Emery is feeling right now?
LC, Orn who?
🙂
Loans, Rico…………………not buying is it !
I`m not bothered if he gets to borrow some quality, but without looking, how many top quality players are loaned out and then sold ?…………………..usually, if they are so good they are kept or if loaned out brought back eventually !
If Suarez is so good Barca would either keep him or loan him out and bring him back to replace Messi !
🙂
You don’t need the capitals Scott, I know very well that he’s not invested his own money on players and as we all know, that’s the way it’s likely to remain. It’s the Arsenal way so unless Kroenke sells up, there is nothing we can do.
Again, if the article above is factual, it would seem that our losses through dropping out of the CL, handing out over priced salaries to mediocre players, selling on the cheap, buying average players for large transfer fees are our problem.
None of which can be blamed on Kroenke I’d have thought.
If that’s all we can do this January, it’s better than no one as long as they improve the team surely Lc?
This Ornstein stuff is getting silly, can we drop it now…
Joking aside, Rico……………………………..agree most the media crap is crap, but Ornstein is a different breed, he has someone on the inside at Arsenal or he is deliberately fed by the club, he doesn`t nilly willy boast of rumours every day. I think his last Arsenal tweet was the one I linked which was end of December and he hasn`t said of any this “actual” window about Arsenal.
He hasn`t got a cult following by Gooners for nothing. 🙂
Absolutely, Rico…………………………a top quality loan is still top quality and if it helps then so be it !
That’s how I see it Lc. I wasn’t thinking Kallstrom… lol
😆 I was trying to think of his name, Rico, and going to say the same. 😆
Rico, I’ve never suggested Wenger hasn’t played his part, but as you know, I’ve always aimed the majority of blame squarely on Stan.
Seems most are coming around to that line of thinking.
On loans, why should a club the size of ours be even discussing them?
That’s embarrassing imo
A fit Kallstrom would have been better Lc, however…
I don’t think you’re getting what I’m trying to say Scott. Matters not though..
Any truth in the story that the club has a cash reserve of 300 million odd which has been used as a guarantee against the loan to pay for Stans new stadium for the Rams?
I wouldn’t say a few thousand fans on the internet are ‘most fans’ Scott.
I suppose Scott, we are discussing them because of the situation of having no money to spend !……………….although I`m flabbergasted that we are looking at maybe Suarez when everyone knows we need a CENTRAL DEFENDER !………………………………..capitals were definately needed there !
😆
Although amazingly I read somewhere that we still have a bank balance somewhere in the black of over a £100M…………………….cant remember where I read it !
It’s not the Arsenal way though it’s the KSE way. Any cursory look at the American fan pages of local Denver papers will show similar comments to ours .All of his teams are stable and finish halfway up their tables.
Look at him moving the Rams from Denver to Los Angeles ,building a new stadium with retail outlets for his sporting goods.Sound familiar. What real estate a 60000 stadium in London and a 80000 one in L.A .He is onto a good thing
Ok Rico, I don’t understand what you’re saying and I’m guilty of exaggeration.
Potter, the mans an evil genius hahaha
Well not evil, as he’s never pretended to be anything other an investor but for so many years, he had Wenger riding shotgun for him but now that’s gone, I do worry about what’ll happen in the next few years.
Yeah Scott……………….that £300M is an exaggeration !………………………….you`re drinking aren`t you !……………..what time of the morning is it ?
😆
Why doesn`t Kroenke get his LA Rams to play at the Ems to bring some more money in ?…………………………………Spuds are going to be doing it !………………………missing another trick to access money for players………………..
I’m an early starter hahaha
Bloody hell, are we in a spot now?
Well, not much to do other than support the boys on the pitch, and hope our scouts and manager can pull a few rabbits out of the hat.
Didn’t Rams change their manager recently, invest in players and vastly improve?
Just as I’m giving Emery 2 years grace I think we should give Kroneke some grace as he’s only just taken 100% ownership. We don’t know what effect Usmanov having his chunk of shares may have had on what Stan would allow the club to spend.
It’s not really in his interest to see Arsenal become a middling club, it’s all about the value of his investment. If we fail to get into the CL it won’t benefit him at all…
As far as Stan not providing funds to buy players, well I don’t recall Hill Wood or Fiszman or Dein giving the club any dough for players.
It’s all down to FFP and how poor we’ve been in player sales and sponsorship deals, were well behind most of the other top six clubs in that regard.
I guess where you could blame Stan is for allowing things to drift, he does seem a bit of a ditherer like Arsene.
That’s pretty much how I feel Kev.
Arsenal have always operated in the way it is now. Part of their dna isn’t it…
Kev, you make a good point, but when some were blaming Wenger for the failure to spend, others blamed Stan.
Those blaming Wenger suggested things may change when he left but they haven’t, so now we need to give it even more time?
I doubt it’ll ever change with him as the owner but also realise that while it’s a conversation point, it’s also redundant as there’s nothing we can do about it.
FFP should’ve been a great thing.
Can it still become that?
It is possible that Wenger didn’t get the financial backing he needed Scott, but everyone can’t be wrong can they?
There’s just too many football people who, whilst they may admire Wenger, all agreed that he wouldn’t spend what he had to spend, that isn’t fiction is it – and it was the same under Fiszman and Co.
It also wasn’t the fault of Kroenke that Wenger allowed so many of our better players to run down their contracts, that’s on him, although I do feel that Stan allowed that situation to drag on too long, Stan seemed in awe of him tbh…
FFP never stood a chance of being effective with crooks at the heart of UEFA. Now that there has been a bit of a clear out we may yet see some action. UEFA are still pursuing Manchester City over the alleged illegal transfer of cash from the Mansour family via Etihed Airways to City. We will have to wait and see what happens, will there be a genuine attempt at finding the truth? Or will it get kicked into the long grass?
Kev,
There’s no question at all Wenger made some horrible errors, and we are still suffering from some of them but Gazidis did say in around 2013/14 that the club finally weren’t operating under the financial restrictions that we’d been under for years, so that’s from the horses mouth and it must be taken as fact.
Stan loved Wenger because the money kept coming in from CL football.
Cicero, it was always a question over UEFA taking on the massive clubs but here’s hoping they do.
New post up now.