Morning all.
In a weeks time, we’ll all be getting ready for the big man to climb down the chimney. Best I don’t light my log burner that day eh, don’t want the poor chap burning his big white beard, or anything else for that matter. Kids stockings will be filled, presents wrapped, mince pies left out with a glass of something warming, and a carrot for good old Rudolph…
The following week sees the beginning of a new year…..
2015 hasn’t too bad as far as Arsenal goes, well, not in the league, not really as looking back while comparing us with all the other clubs, if a footballing season ran from January 1st through to December 31st, Mikel Arteta would be lifting the big trophy any day soon.
Football isn’t like that though as the season runs from August until May and only those months of results/performances matter. We’ve had a mixed bag so far, losing on the opening day followed by a string of good results and performances, a loss to Chelsea as always and then a simply awful November for results and injuries. Some things seldom change do they?
December so far has been better but the big test comes on Monday when we face the team who are ‘favourites’ to be crowned champions in just over five months time. After that it’s a trip to Southampton on Boxing Day and the year ends with a home fixture against Bournemouth on the 28th.
As far as Arsenal goes over this festive period, all I’d like is nine points. Nine points which could leave us sitting pretty at the top of the tree when 2016 arrives as Leicester face two tricky away trips to Everton and Liverpool before playing City at home on the 29th..
Then I’d like that late gift we so often get when a long distance relative comes to call with something wrapped up nicely in shiny paper…
A midfielder. Mind you, I’d rather he wasn’t wrapped as knowing our luck the wrapping would be bandages. No, he just needs to be fit, ready to play and darn good!
Granit Xhaka is the latest name thrown into the hat t be that very man. He’s a 23 year old 6′ 1″ midfielder who plays for Borussia Mönchengladbach and Switzerland. Bayern are reported to be interested too as they see him as the man to replace Alonso but with Pep’s future hanging in the balance, maybe Arsene Wenger will get in there first…
Somehow I doubt it though as once a footballers name hits the back pages, one just knows there’s little substance to the story.
So what’s on your Arsenal Christmas list?
Busy day for me so catch up later….
Good post Rico…
Lee must have a headache… ?
As it goes I’ve seen a lot of people around who must have had a ‘late one’ last night…
Never heard of this Swiss geezer, can’t pronounce his name, so there might be some truth to the rumour…
I’d rather, if we’re gonna sign a midfielder, that they signed somebody whose already in Britain and is accustome to English football. We need somebody who can hit the floor running otherwise there’s really no point in signing anyone.
Good post rico.
I know a few of your posters who will be more than chaffed if Xhaka joined us.
Xhaka and kramer were the reason why Mong’bach made it into the UCL. Dahoud and Xhaka not so potent this year but they still managed to beat FC Hollywood easily a few days ago…
Oh and our old boy Nordvert playing in central defence for mong’bach kept the bavarians strike force quiet.
kev- pronounced as Xhaka zulu
I didn’t realise that there were any Zulus in Switzerland, Ginge, I guess you learn something every day…
🙂 kev… no he is pure Eatern European.
Eastern*
Afternoon All…
Good post Rico…
If we’re expecting any signing this January, then we should pray never to beat City on Monday. If we do, it’s to your tents o’ Gunners…no signing!
Ox out mahrez in form out class in
Eastern European eh Ginge…
Well he’ll feel at home in London…
Cheap n cheerful I suppose?
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/arsenal-vs-manchester-city-arsene-wenger-backs-manuel-pellegrini-to-cope-with-pep-guardiola-a6776951.html
🙂 Kev.
Not quite, I can see you and Adam copying his younger brothers’ (Taulant Xhaka) quiff.
Even Le Quiff will be worried with the competition… lol
He was bought from Mong’bach for nearly 10 million Euros so you know we wont get him for less than £16m but AW will go in with £12m… 😀
Him and gabriel in our line-up will even scare Costa in my view.
Saying that Klopp will sign him before us I suspect.
bought from Basel even*
Jose has been binned!
Just to make Rico, switch off…. it should be noted that based on AW’s record he is more likely to go for Guilavogui who is on loan to Wolfsburg and has been on loan for two seasons.
Do Ath need the money? and is the player likely to want to go from being an almost started to competing for a place a few months before euros?
Although Xhaka is guaranteed a place in the Swiss starting XI.
But fans will be more comfortable with Bender whose injury record is now at 36 and now approaching Diaby’s record. lol
Some quick starts for you
Coquelin 75% of 5.1 tackles per90 minutes
Bender 72% of 7.1 tackles per90
Xhaka 77% of 3 tackles per90
Krychowiak 77% of 3.1 tackles per90
Guilavogui 82% of 3.3 tackles per90
Xhaka is an exceptional passer of the ball for a CDM. This season he is completing 78% of his long balls, that’s 9.4/12 per game. If we had that type of CDM in our team we will become equiped as a counter attacking team.
hooray another prediction guess to past.
Dev where are you…?
Afternoon all.
Hahahahahahaha
Where is Ho-say going on his holiday?
Its all Aw’s fault, if AW was not a looser, Jose and the media darling will still be around.
Gutted…
Typical Chelsea, why couldn’t they wait until Jose had finished his job and sent them down.
Wonder what his pay off was?
Anyone seen much of Youri Tielemans?
Give the Chelsea job to Pulis
Good afternoon lovelies and hunkies.
I have been summoned and here am I. Lol.
Who to buy? I don’t know, but a couple like Gabriel would do fine. Buy Stones and put Gabriel as DM. But Xhaka is a favourite of mine.
Mourinho? Why waste space on him. Less said the better.
🙂 Kev. Imagine what Fat Sam will say to that if pulis is offered the job.
Nice one Dev. I knew you were lurking…
What did I say about the chav and Mauren in the summer?
No big pay-off according to Marina G, Jose will only receive what is believed to be round £163,000-a-week until he finds another job. If after 1 year Jose has not found a job then the club have the right to terminate payment….
Roman – you fool!! 😉
Afternoon guys….
Sky Sports on Jose…
The special.
The happy one
The sacked one….
🙂 🙂
I see Sky are bigging up his Wenger comments and rivalry. What a disgusting turd of a man he is. I wish him the absolute worst that life can throw at anyone. A sickening creature that brings shame upon himself every time he opens that toilet of a mouth.
All the other scumbags like Allardyce and Pulis will be lining up later to say what a great person he is.
Yuk, yuk, yuk.
Stand in manager until the summer and then Pep to the Chavs…
That’s where my money would go if I was a betting person….
The sacked one????
😀
😀
LMAO
Oh dear.
🙂 Adam.
I wonder if Fat sam with his sports science knowledge willbe given a shot at the job? 😉
Will Guus come back or will Marina G surprise us by appointing Moyes? 😛
Everyone bar Wenger will be gushing over him Adam, two-faced lot..
I wish the PP the worst too.. Good riddance I say and may he never return to the PL ever again!
Imo, the best signings are those around the 23/24 year old mark, whose rating has not gone up yet, but whose numbers in stats are linear and consistent. The ones who average the same number of dribbles, tackles, headers, take ons and interceptions every game. It may be someone under the radar, like Kos, Gabi and Ollie. But look at them now. Kos (10mill), Gabi (14mill), Ollie (12mill)…..but how much would they fetch now?????
So imo 3 other players whose name is not yet famous but who are consistent.
Kokorin may have been mentioned quite often. At 4.5mill he will be a snip. But taking a look at his stats and numbers he is a consistent performer. Plus he is in the ideal age bracket.
Rico. Apparently there’s will be a ceremony later at Sky where all the presenters and pundits will line to lick his arse as he is carried past them on a gold throne.
afternoon all
Mourinho was sacked. Portuguese media issurprised.
As in the summer, the media start talking about various names and in the end I did not see anyone.
🙂 Adam..
Funny he’s sacked today though, just 24 hours after Pep said he will announce his future plans next week….
Sacked or mutual consent? I’m in tears!
Arsenal fans want ‘secret agent’ Cesc Fabregas re-signed after getting Jose Mourinho sacked at Chelsea
Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2015/12/17/arsenal-fans-want-secret-agent-cesc-fabregas-re-signed-after-getting-jose-mourinho-sacked-at-chelsea-5572154/#ixzz3uavMXufy
Cesc fake backpass caused jose’s downfall….. Micko does not believe in conspiracies so I will leave it tehre. lol
You are onto something Dev.
Jm- what is the Portugese media saying?
there*
Jose pretending to be a gentleman on Italian TV…
Interesting how theEnglish press did not make any thing about Jose’s allegedly away plays… 😉
http://sgforums.com/forums/2497/topics/285398
Good luck to bad rubbish why didn’t they do it last week we might be still top of the pl never like the ( banned word) .???
Iker Casillas must be loving it where he is…
Lol funny how the failure wenger saw mouhoo got sacked twice from the same club dwl. Lol
Casillas is a Porto goalkeeper.
While researching on my almost-complete movie script on Mourinho titled ‘The Special One’, I came up with a serious dilemma…even as the worst of a super drama genre antagonist, I ran into a puzzle that has now been aptly summarised by Marina Hyde thus…
”Mourinho may have certain recognisable tragic-hero character traits but in each of these cases he lacks the complementary feature that gives the big-hitter epic complexity. Mourinho has the paranoia of Othello without the cultural isolation, the arrogance of Macbeth without the guilt, the self-absorption of Hamlet without the gift for self-satire, the madness of King Lear without the nascent humility. Or if you want to go seriously highbrow about it, he’s basically a 52-year-old Anakin Skywalker in the Phantom Menace. And God knows nobody wants to see that.”
Anyone would think we Arsenal fans were happy…
I’m distraught…. 😉
And Hyde writes further….
”There are plenty of steadily loathed politicians I ended up feeling rather sorry for when it went spectacularly tits up – and often for more than three seconds. Yet the longer this goes on, the more my failure to feel the same as far as Mourinho goes makes me wonder: am I becoming a complete psychopath or is he really just an irredeemable prick? Will the pleasure ever become a guilty one or will it remain merely … pleasurable?
One for my second-string analyst, perhaps. In the meantime, having cast him from the tragic firmament, the spirit of the season demands we find another genre to provide a berth for Mourinho’s story. Could it not be a Christmas movie? At this time of year, I think we should all be looking at the tale through the eyes of Frank Capra.”
😀 Tai. good one.
Oh dear, what a pity, never mind! Move on………the Pygmy’s lost his stature! Good riddance!
A tragic figure? He certainly was full of hubris but little else, in terms of the classical tragic figure. I don’t suppose he has any understanding at all how his end was arrived at and there won’t be any final scene revelation of the truth of his eventual downfall, or understanding of his fatal flaw, before he utters his final breath! His soap opera persona has turned him into the quintessence of a pantomime villain! Only he’s not so amusing.
I really hope no club is stupid enough to reappoint him and we never, ever see him active in the EPL again!
Fair obituary? Probably not but I don’t care as ‘the world’s most successful short term manager has got the sack, again. Poetry!
Should have added, he has earned the right to be referred to as ‘a true success in failure’ good on him!
JM- do you want Jose to manage Portugal in the Euros?
I was tutored not to punch at a man already down. But if that man on the canvass happens to be Mourinho, you got prevent me from that alluring unsportsmanlike act with a laser beam.
Rico, please make space for my piece on Mourinho on Wednesday, two days after we must have humbled Man City.
Luckily for Clare Balding she got her interview before he got the boot..
Wavy, that’s another apt summary…
SS’s reckon Utd could be tempted Wavy…
You call that lucky Bt??? 😉
Too late now Tai, it’s been seen….
Not from my perspective…
You’ve posted your ‘perspective’ above, so it’s been read…
Anyway, by Wednesday, I’ll be saying – ‘Jose who’….
Afternoon Rico. I am avoiding the sports news as I am sick of the whole Mourinho thing. It’s obvious the kind of man he was and is. After an initial metaphorical boot to his nuts, let’s not dignify the cretin any further.
Guus Hiddink is the man heading to the Chavs until the end of the season according to the Mirror…
Evening, The writing was on the wall weeks ago, doesn,t matter how good a manager you are, if you lose the dressing you,r in big trouble , you,d have feel the players have let the club down too, though. anyway he,ll no doubt probably walk in to a cosy little number, probably PSG,
A few Quotes suggesting Hiddink will stand in till the Summer, Stating Simeone has been approached. but Roman could just as likely get Guardiola, if he,has not already pledged allegiance to City, the merry go round begins.
Afternoon Adam..
Can’t believe he’s making the front page of the newspapers. You’d think there was more important news than that. After all, Aldi have their champagne on offer… 😉
Don’t tell me that Rico. I am still after securing several cases of the Lidl Prosecco. So much choice. 🙂
Dublin. I think the decision has not only been made on their results. He’s an embarrassment to the club with his constant digs at AW, the Eva incident and his general ‘me me me’ attitude….
Certainly is Rico, she probably would have had to travel to his own lair{SEWER} if he was already sacked….Would have been great to hear Clare shouting ,sit down Mourinho, sit down Mourinho though…lol
🙂 Adam. The Aldi champagne is really top notch and it’s won awards. You’d be surprised how many ‘posh’ people by it by the case load…
Not me of course, one bottle of Cava was the only bottle popped in my trolley… lol
Bt, he’s one man I’d have though Claire would have loved to swerve… 😉
She could tell him to sit down, but the reality is, he probably was… lol
The Eva Incident was the beginning of the end, imo too. and the weekend criticising the team seems to have been the final straw. he,s just a soap opera that continues, thinks he,s bigger than any team.
Interesting Ancelloti has ruled himself out, Talk is, he,s been lined up for the Bayern job.
The summer could be more about Managers than Players.
Although I’m pleased that the eye-gouger has suffered the humiliation of the tin tack, I can’t help but feel a bit cheated. A couple more weeks and they would have been in the bottom three
If he’d been sacked he’d been like a cat on a hot tin roof…Rico
Dublin, I know i’ve already said this but I reckon they’ll go for Pep in the summer…
Wouldn’t that have been great Bob, especially if they stayed there…
Bt, I bet he’d have refused the interview…
Of course he would Rico, the public humiliation…lol
Romans no chance of a crimbo card now..lol
Rico, as I know you to be a posh person, I will take your word for that. 🙂
Personally I am trying to ignore the Pep conjecture. I would have thought that, as an established pig, Simeone would be a better fit.
My final word…..tomorrow’s papers are Saturday’s chip papers! I can’t think of a more fitting end to the poisonous pygmy’s final accolade!
Wavy. Bang on.
Ha ha Bt…
Adam, me and posh are gulfs apart….. lol
Wavy, one perhaps better and that’s his face will be lighting my log-burner on Saturday morning… 🙂
Rico. 🙂
I still don,t think that whoever takes over, will find it that easy to get this team motivated straight away.
I think they still could be in the mire for a while yet, Teams don,t fear them now.
Funny how he can,t hold down a job for more than 3 seasons.
I don’t know Wavy, what about tearing it up into strips, putting a piece of string through it and hanging it up in the, well, you know where… ?
Can’t think of a better place to put Mourinhos face…
Nice one Rico…..I shall, for one day only, make as many Pygmy tapers as I can for Saturday’s ritual burning. I’m sure our logs will smile at the sight of the conflagration!
Anyway, enough of nattering on about Mourinho, I’m waiting to read the next instalment of ‘My Neighbours’ by Micko…
Lee, are you in, or have been in, the White Horse…?
Pygmy’s face, my arse!
And a Van Gaal out, flyover planned for Uniteds next game.
What a joy sitting back and watching it all unfold.
It works for me Wavy
Kev, are you going to watch the programme about Uber tonight?
I think that Adam hit the nail on the head.
Simeone…
He’ll be able to motivate Diego Costa…
He’ll also bring Griezmann and a couple more Atletico players next summer.
So our joy at Chelsea’s demise could be short-lived… ?
Best enjoy it while you can…
Ha ha Wavy, the more the better….
No Rico, didn’t know that there was a programme on about them…
What channel and what time?
That wouldn’t be good….
7-30 Itv Kev..
Thanks Rico, I’ve asked a friend to record it for me…
The best thing about all this Moronho stuff is that Claudio Ranieri, a dignified, decent man sits at the top of the league closely followed in sevond by another decent man! Pellegrini is ok too!
No probs Kev..
Well said Bob.
Palace are about to be rich with a US £100m investment….
Hmmm…thank God it’s Palace…if anyone gives Ranieri 50 million pounds now, Leicester could win the title!
Shame our American wouldn’t spend £100 million…!
Or should I say doesn’t….
Night guys.
Tai, Leicester City already have a very deep pocketed provider! They have money to burn, but bless ’em they haven’t spun led it up the wall like manure or the dippers, spuds or the chavs! They’ve found value and quality at Lidl and Aldi! Not Harrodsburg or Fortnum and Mason! Thus they have even more than most. A very dangerous combination.
Spun led = spunked meaning wasted it worthlessly!
Granit Xhaka was born in Kosovo and now plays for Switzerland olso his brother Taulant Xhaka plays for Albania. Now on Euro 2016 Switzerland and Albania are in the same group and 2 brothers will play against each other. Also xherdan Shaqiri is Kosovan born and plays for Switzerland, all together 7 Kosovan players are on Switzerland team. But remember Granit Xhaka is great player aspecially his freekicks are a fantastic.
They’ll be dogs and cats pissing and shitting on Jose’s boat the length and breadth of the country……what a fitting end to that cnut’s tenure!
Morning Rico and all,
Dg- I see we have been reading the same info’ re carlito…
Definitely, Bayern bound.
Marina G negotiated hard, 4 years to go and Jose gets equivalent of 1 years salary as compensation…
Morning Lee, Ts and all..
Them bombing up the league now is inevitable imo…
Juande Ramos according to Spanish press
Odd choice after his Totts days…
New post up now.