Morning all.
Friday the 13th brings bad luck doesn’t it, or it can do if you believe in all that jazz. I don’t personally so it’s just Friday in my world.
However, the back page of The Times have dropped a bombshell this morning. Stan Kroenke wants Arsene Wenger to sign a two year extension to his current contract which if true, means we are stuck with him until 2019! Now perhaps fans will see why I lump a lot of blame in Kroenke’s lap as any truly ambitious owner would be encouraging the Frenchman to leave in the summer, not trying to persuade him to stay on longer. As Potter said on yesterday’s post, this news comes on the day that the season ticket reminders were sent out and it’s almost as if they want the dissenters to get the hump and leave so that they can have a nice peaceful time raking in the cash.
Now we fans just have to hope that either the report is just another made up piece of garbage or the Frenchman has plans to retire long before 2019, he has until October to decide apparently so that the club can plan the future without him.
Just as I was hunting around in the kitchen for a blunt knife, Arsene Wenger turned up for his Press Conference and all talk of this contract extension was rebuffed and I’ve nicked this transcript from Arseblog:
(Questions posed by Nick Collins, Sky Sports News)
Q – You’ve still got one year left on your contract, there are reports that you’re to be offered a two-year extension to that…
A – That’s completely wrong and I don’t know where this information comes from. You can treat that as just an invention. It’s absolutely false. And I would like this press to check the information before they give it out because they could have checked with the club or with myself and we’d both have denied it.
Q – Is that something you’d like though? A two-year extension…
A – No. I think about the next game you know. At my stage you want to do well. I’m committed with integrity and commitment, full commitment for the club, as long as I’m under contract. At the moment that’s all.
(Questions posed by James Olley, The Evening Standard)
Q – I know you’ve knocked down the contract story, but will it make it harder to sign players if they don’t know whether you’re going to be here beyond next season?
A – I don’t think so. I hope not.
Q – Have you decided what you will do, privately, beyond next season?
A – No.
Q – What will determine that?
A – What I focus [on] is to respect my contract and after [I’ll] envisage what I do after. I can understand that people are interested in that but that’s not the most important. I think I’ve extended my contract at a period when it was vital for the club and after that I will see where I am personally and where the club stands at the end of my contract.
Q – So, to rephrase that slightly…what happens next season will determine whether you stay or not?
A – Of course, yeah. You sum it up very well.
You’d think the owner/board would be well aware of Wenger’s intentions by now and would already be preparing for the future if he had any plans on leaving, certainly this summer but that’s just not happening is it. He’s staying put and honouring his contract. That’s what he does, that’s what he’s allowed to do. In the past he’s always said that a manager in his last year of contract will struggle. Man City are living proof of that as once Guardiola was announced as their next manager, the clubs form took a tumble so despite all his denials, I think there’s more to the report in The Times than just speculation.
There were other questions fired his way about the season gone by but we’ve pretty much heard it all before. He wouldn’t talk about what his plans are re the squad and why should he? I just hope he has plans, big plans, big exciting ones which turn Arsenal into a club which looks like it’s really prepared and ready for the new campaign. A squad deep and strong enough to cope and truly compete in all four competitions, not just one who makes up the numbers.
Mesut Ozil is close to agreeing a new contract according to the newspapers. A salary of £200k a week is believed to convinced him to stay put and it looks like Theo Walcott is staying too as when asked if the winger/striker should be selected for the Euros, he replied:
I think he should go. He has gone through a bad spell. He has had a difficult period but in the last month, he has come back very strong.
He could be a positive surprise for England. He will be here next season.
Maybe I do need that blunt knife after all…..
Morning Rico and all. Kroenke out then. Bergkamp in. Wenger out, Theo out, Giroud out, Gazidis out. Chambers in and out. 🙂
LOL, in out, in out, do the hokie pokie
And you shake it all about. 🙂
Morning Adam and all again..
Seems everyone is staying…. Oh well, more of the same next season and for two more seasons…
The whole management team needs a shake up.
So Theo should go to Euro’s? Surely not. Rather take Rashford, Lindgard and Rooney as back up wingers and strikers.
mornig all!
let’s try the second place! then, I will post my opinion about the season and for the next one.
Merse says Martinez would do well at Barca and Big Sam is a top class manager……
What’s he on these days….
Good Afternoon to The Lady of the House and all fellow Gooners in residence.
Rico – Arsene is being circumspect as usual. He has always kept his cards close to his chest, rarely giving anything away.
As for Theo, nothing Arsene said above indicates he is staying or going, just that he thinks Theo should go to the Euros. Maybe he wants Theo in the shop window or maybe he just wants him to get the game time he missed in the latter part of the season. Who knows?
Cocaine, crystal meth, amphetamines, LSD……….
Rico – It is a long time since I`ve been put in moderation. Did I say (type) something I shouldn`t have the last time I dropped be the House?
Lee – I think Paul is still suffering from the effects of alcohol consumed in the drinking culture at the club during George Graham`s regime. He hasn`t made much sense for years.
Sounds like Adam is doing the hokey kokey..!
Afternoon Cg, sorry about that, no idea why it happened…
Agree re AW, what he says means little really I guess, too many times in the past he’s said a lot and done nothing…
Makes sense Lee….
Catch up later….
Shame Merson doesn’t….
I see Flores has been sacked. I thought keeping them up first season is a job well done.
Manchester United and Arsenal must adapt or get left behind by the changing game – Danny Higginbotham
INSIDE FOOTBALL: Leicester City and Atletico Madrid have rendered possession stats useless and are leading the way in this era of counter-attacking football
Danny Higginbotham.
Football has changed this season. We used to talk about teams passing the opposition to death, as Spain, Barcelona and their imitators dominated possession and trophies. But now teams are passing themselves to death, ending up sterile in attack and vulnerable on the break.
The most impressive two sides this season, Atletico Madrid and Leicester City, have realised this. They have developed a deep-lying counter-attacking game which goes against so much of what we were told for the last few years, and is all the more effective for it.
Now, at the top level, the game is determined by counter-attacking, both scoring from them and defending against them. Which is why Louis van Gaal and Arsene Wenger, two great managers at their peaks, must now adapt or risk getting left further behind.
There was a time, not very long ago, when people used to talk about possession itself with such reverence and admiration, talking about ‘the passing carousel’, and how it had opponents ‘chasing shadows’. Teams would run after the ball for 60 minutes, tire themselves out, before being picked off at the end. That was how games used to go, but it is not any more. The idea of endless possession as ‘the right way to play’ has been shown up as a myth.
What has changed is that teams are now cleverer when they do not have the ball. There is no point in chasing possession until you are exhausted. The answer is to play compact, in your own half, leaving no space in behind, or in between your lines.
That is how Diego Simeone has Atletico Madrid lined up, and after their first press, the rest of the team all drops back into their own half. They are so well drilled in defence that they are almost impossible to play through, which is why they have conceded just 18 goals in 37 La Liga games this season. They are not going to win the title this year – although they did in 2014 – but could go one better by winning the Champions League.
Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester City play in a similar way. They defend narrow and deep, with no space between the lines. By defending in their own half they ensure that they are covering gaps of 10 yards, rather than 20 yards. Defending collectively is easier than defending individually, and they make sure they are never exposed to pace in behind.
The real genius of defending this deep, though, is that it makes the side dominating possession more vulnerable to the break. Facing a side camped in their own half, you can only pass sideways, not forwards. So you creep gradually up the pitch, moving further and further out of position, with so much space to attack in behind.
That is what happens with Leicester every week. When Atletico knocked Barcelona out of the Champions League, Barca centre-backs Javier Mascherano and Gerard Pique were frequently just 15 yards outside Atletico’s box. When they knocked Bayern Munich out in the semi-finals, the crucial away goal came when Antoine Griezmann was played through by Fernando Torres, and was clean through on goal a whole 30 yards out.
We always hear when Leicester or Atletico score on the break that the goal was ‘against the run of play’. But nothing could be further from the truth. These fast breaks are entirely part of the manager’s plans. They are the weapon counter-attacking teams have against possession sides.
The average positions of the Leicester side during their 3-1 win at Manchester City
This is why possession stats have been rendered so useless as a guide to who is on top. When Leicester have less than 50 per cent possession, it is not because the game is going against them. It is going entirely to their plan. This season Leicester drew at Old Trafford with 29 per cent possession, beat Swansea and West Ham with 30 per cent, beat Norwich with 33 per cent, Manchester City with 34 per cent, Liverpool with 36 per cent and Tottenham with 38 per cent.
Atletico’s numbers are even more extreme. When they beat Bayern Munich 1-0 at home in the semi-finals it was with 26 per cent possession. When they beat Barcelona 2-0 in the quarters, just 22 per cent.
What these numbers show is that possession is no guarantee of success, or even of clean sheets. In fact, endless possession can often lull teams into a false sense of security, as they pass the ball and move up the pitch but leave themselves desperately open on the break.
That is what has happened at Everton, a perfect example of a possession team who has been caught out by the changing game. Their approach has been all about pointless passing, forgetting about other sides of the game, not least defending. Opponents set traps for them which Everton walk into every week. That is why they have just five home league wins all season – only Aston Villa have fewer – and their best performances have come away from home. It was little surprise that Roberto Martinez lost his job.
Other Premier League managers will learn the same lessons, especially those who have been overtaken by the fast, hungry counter-attackers of Leicester and Tottenham Hotspur. I am thinking about Arsenal and Manchester United, currently third and fifth in the table, neither manager able to get the most out of their strong squads.
United certainly have fast players in Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard but they do not use that pace on the pitch. The problem is that when United win the ball back, they don’t get up the pitch in three passes – like Atletico or Leicester – but six or seven, by which time the opposition have got back into shape.
If Van Gaal is to survive at United he must show that he can evolve with the times, even though he would be 65 years old by the start of next season. Ranieri, though, is just two months younger than Van Gaal, and he showed this season how adaptable he is.
The same questions are relevant to Arsene Wenger, another manager whose career seemed to peak 10 or 15 years ago. His Arsenal sides have not seriously challenged for the Premier League title since then, and if he is not open to a different approach it is hard to see how that will change.
Manchester City, of course, have already found their new coach for next season, Pep Guardiola. He built the great Barcelona team which set the new trend for possession football eight years ago. And yet even he knows that there is far more to the game than just keeping the ball.
I loathe all that passing for the sake of it, all that tiki-taka,” Guardiola said in his first year at Bayern Munich. “It is so much rubbish and has no purpose. You have to pass the ball with the clear intention of making it to the opposition’s goal.”
Guardiola was right. This is the era of the counter-attackers now. And everyone else risks getting left behind in their wake.
We’re fooked with le stubborn one in charge……
Kev the aticle is not entirely accurate… the problem with most possession team is that they do not shoot when they must and continue to keep possession in and around the box, and if you dont shoot you dont score, hello!!! The Arsenal problem. If you notice when Barce get around the box they flood the area with attackers who are wiling and able to shoot. Second if you are playing possession with weak midfielders and slow CBs you get expose. Again Arsenal as an example. Having said that I believe there should be a mixture of tactics always. And btw…LC played that way twice and Arsenal beat them both times.
Ok Obi, I guess when you look at Leicester, for example, they don’t fanny about like Arsenal, they sed the goal, they shoot…
I think if there was any criticism of say, the Spanish national team in their pomp, it was a lack of goals, in fact at times they were boring to watch, imo…
I mean, could you imagine Spain, doing to Brazil what the Germans did in the last World Cup?
Afternoon all…
Ah, the words ‘tactical change’ pops up again. I wonder if AW is reading… 😉
No, me neither….
Interesting…..
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/arsenal-really-200million-cash-available-7944463
I guess everyone really is fed up with Arsenal….. 😉
Night all….
Morning all…
Morning Rico and all
Morning Adam, it’s a quiet one…
Sure is Rico.
It’ll soon busy up once the transfer start rolling in Adam…. 😉
New post up now..