Scattering my eyes across the Sundays and the general theme hasn’t changed much: there’s the rustle of keeper talk and a persisting link to Everton’s Phil Jagielka. The latter story has been lingering long enough that the fee is now being quoted at a very un-Arsenal-like £15m. At that price, I can’t see us getting involved.
As for the keeper talk, well it appears to be a case of ABA – Anyone But Almunia. Akinfeev? Stekelenburg? James? You can never second-guess Wenger but I think we might still shop within the Premier League, on the basis that we cannot afford a costly bedding-in process. On that basis, do all roads still lead to Schwarzer?
As for our attacking options, it was noteworthy that Wenger said we wouldn’t be replacing the departed Eduardo. If this is true, then we will essentially have three central strikers (van Persie, Bendtner, Chamakh) and a substantial array of wide or deep attack-minded players to back them up (Arshavin, Rosicky, Nasri, Walcott, Vela, Wilshere).
I can see why he thinks that might be enough, especially allied to the goalscoring prowess of Fabregas. But if that is to be our lot, it’s worth returning to a theme I picked up at the tail end of last season – the need for more goals from those wide men.
We all know that van Persie has a good 20 goals in him, and Bendtner at least 15, but Chamakh, at least until we can judge him, remains an unknown quantity. Given the injury records of the first two of those, we need more from elsewhere.
Arshavin is exempt from the criticism about to come. With 12 goals scored despite playing up front on his own at times last season, we know he can pack a goal or two.
But look at the record of the others: Rosicky, Nasri, Walcott and Vela scored just 14 goals between them, of which only nine came in the league.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect better contributions from all four of those. For the two younger players, Walcott and Vela, they at the right age and cannot now hide behind the excuse of youth. They will also have Wilshere breathing down their necks (and both Diaby and Eboue can play wide too).
Nasri – ditto Walcott – should be hungry following their World Cup snubs and Rosicky will be fighting for his future.
To them all I say: More goals, chaps.
Tags: arshavin, bendtner, chamakh, goals, nasri, rosicky, van Persie, vela, walcott, width, wilshere, wingers
With Eduardo now officially the fifth Arsenal departure of the summer, the squad evolution continues apace. We’ve now lost two attackers (gaining one), three defenders (gaining one) and have gained one midfielder (Wilshere).
So in terms of snipping the squad’s deadheads, the work carries on.
And unfortunately, a deadhead is what Eduardo had become. You’ll appreciate that I don’t mean that vindictively but it was clear last season that poor old Eduardo’s injury has robbed him of the pace, confidence and sharpness that marked him out as a lethal Arsenal number nine. He was a pale shadow of his former self.
I feel desperately sorry for him, but I do think a fee of £6m, if true, is a good deal for Arsenal and that a fresh start in a new league is the right move for Eduardo. There’s simply no room for sentimentality.
But there can be no doubt that the position many Arsenal fans are worried most about is the one that has not yet been addressed – goalkeeper.
We all know that Wenger has a masterful way with words. But as well as the memorable one-liner he has a politician’s ability, when quizzed, to neither confirm nor deny, and to reveal something at the same time as giving nothing away. That’s why, despite being quizzed on his plans for the goalkeeping position earlier this week, he was as evasive as ever.
Were we still interested in Fulham’s Mark Schwarzer, he was asked. “Not really”. That’s not a yes, of course, but nor was it definitely a no.
“At the moment, in pre-season, there is no No.1 – you have to give a chance to everyone to show how good he is. You cannot decide that today.”
Classic Wenger, defending his players, keen to keep his plans under wraps.
But seeing that Almunia has had ample chance to show us how good he is, Fabianski has on ample occasions showed us how good he is, and Szczesny has never played a Premier League game, you’d think a deal for a new number one will happen at some point between now and the end of August.
I would agree with those who say Schwarzer is still the likeliest deal.
Last night saw a 3-0 win against Sturm Graz and the word on the tweet is that Samir Nasri was the pick of the bunch. I’ve not been following the tour that closely yet – I opted to save up for a pint at the Emirates rather than shell out the £3 for the first 3 pre-season games – and besides, pre-season is still so young that it’s impossible to draw any real conclusions.
But phew, it’s nice to have some Arsenal to talk about after a summer largely bereft of it.
Tags: eduardo, goalkeeper, wenger
14 July – quick poll
12 July – old post
How nice is it to be able to crane the old neck away from the World Cup, and back in the other direction, towards the league, and towards Arsenal. I was getting a crick.
Looking back, it’s very clear that I’ve barely troubled my laptop for blog updates. It’s really not had much of a workout at all since the end of the season – since the blind shock of the Wigan debacle – and has gained a little girth around the space bar as a result. That’ll have to come off.
That’s not to say I’ve not enjoyed the World Cup – I absolutely have. What’s not to enjoy, other than, as an Englishman, watching my team floundering around miserably? Even that enabled the country to let off a bit of steam with a good old moan and a navel gaze. There’ll be a post mortem, and much huffing and puffing, but will anything really change? Don’t Gordon Banks on it.
Respeck? What respeck?
The final was pretty dismal, if eventful.
[rant: begin]
There are plenty of disheartening things in football, many of which are not easy to address on a global level. Money tends to be at the heart of them – at owner, player and fan level (making money, making money and paying money respectively) – but there are some things that could be done to clean the game up on the pitch, but which never, ever get properly addressed.
One such is the total lack of respect shown to match officials – especially when you compare it to other sports. Watching the World Cup final on Sunday, it struck me how impossible it must be to referee. Sure, our very own Mr Webb did not help himself by failing to correctly punish several atrocious early tackles, but players haranguing referees, trying to con them and pressure them is far too common a sight in football the world over. And not just players – managers do it too. Without proper rule changes – zero tolerance – refereeing will remain the impossible job.
How hard would it be to tell players that they simply cannot dispute a referee’s decision? Or to look back, after a game, at any incidences where players have tried to deceive, persuade or cajole a referee and punish them retrospectively? And to do it fairly?
Of course, the referees need to improve too, but making their job a little easier would be a good start, and it’s totally achievable.
The simple fact is that footballers will try something if they are confident they will get away with it. And in football, it’s too easy to get away with it.
[rant: over]
Underhill, around the corner
The best and most important thing of all is we can now concentrate on Arsenal. We’ve got Barnet on Saturday, squad movement still to come – plenty of sticky rumours on that front but little by way of certainty – and we’re only a month or so from the big kick off.
Really, it’s only a month. If I tell Mrs Lower that, she will throw plates at me.
Take cover!
And finally, Laurent Koscielny has signed for the Arsenal. His free Arsenal.com video is a brilliant mix of new signing intro and new shirt promotion.
“We bought this! Now buy these!”
Luckily, both new shirts are ace.
We have laughed many a time in the past about how Wenger pulls signings from nowhere and presents them to us – but with both Chamakh and now Koscielny, there’s been very little surprise, other than how long the dotted line has taken to sign. It’s been all over the web for a while. I blame modern electronicalish communications.
It means that Wenger’s first two forays into the transfer market this summer are both from the country he knows best – France. They are the latest in a long line of predominantly excellent imports – a line that started with the best of them all, Remi Garde. (There was a bloke from Senegal too I think who was quite good).
More importantly, Koscielny forms the first piece in the new defensive jigsaw. It’s a jigsaw that will hopefully include at least a new keeper – with some people’s money currently being on Fulham’s Schwarzer.
Wenger pinpointed our porous back line as a priority for investment back in May – let’s be honest, he wasn’t alone in that conclusion – so it’s hardly a surprise to see a defensive addition coming in. Not least because sailing off over the horizon in the other direction are William Gallas, Micky Silver, and possibly also Sol Campbell.
I do expect him to be first choice though – at the price we have paid, it can be no other way, regardless of the fact he was playing in the French second division the season before last.
If Sol stays, that’s your lot in that department – but if he goes (and he must be pondering exactly how many games he will get), then there’s a vacancy for a fourth centre-half. Could it be Nordveit? Or Bartley? How much experience does a fourth-choice centre-half need? And who of experience would sign knowing they were that far down the pecking order?
Sol staying would be the best solution for me, but he is free to do what he will and is taking his time.
We all know this is a big, big season for Wenger, and for my money – the Cesc stuff aside – the close season is going well. We’ve got two hungry, young but not inexperienced players signed, both of whom have a big part to play next season.
Forget the fact that Man City have spent £75m and could spend another £75m – there’s nothing we or any other club can do about that.
The main thing is the gaps are being plugged.
I’m looking forward to seeing him play now. Bienvenue to you, Laurent, and all that and stuff.
So England have slunk home sheepishly, and the inquest has begun in earnest as to quite how it went so calamitously wrong.
I’m not going to get into that inquest here though, what with me being thoroughly bored of our biennial national slip-up, and this blog being of a club hue. A club, incidentally, that might not have won much in recent years, but can at least pass the ball.
If you do want to wallow a bit more in the sheer horror of it all though, then there was a very good piece in The Times by Matt Dickinson (‘Mutiny and misery: the inside story of a failed campaign’ – available free online, if you register), and amid the many excellent pieces of podcastery are this one from 5live – ‘Out of Africa: where next for English football’ – and a lighter look at things from Baddiel and Skinner. I suspect the latter two are UK only.
Right, well the good news is that inevitably, club news will begin to take over soon. I recall reading some time ago that both Gallas and Silvestre had deals taking them up to 30th June, and I read today that Laurent Koscielny could sign on July 1st. On these anecdotal snippets alone I am predicting a whirlwind of transfer activity at the tail end of this week. At least, that’s what I’d like.
Should he arrive, it’s fair to say Koscielny is the absolute nailed-on classic Wenger signing, and not just because he’s French. Wenger loves to sign a player whose skills have not been touted far and wide in England, someone with youth on their side and with the potential to get better and better.
I know nothing about him – another classic sign. Over on Twitter, @arsene_knows tells me he’s got bags of promise, and made the highest number of clearances in Ligue 1 last season. That might explain why his price is apparently £8.5m.
When we paid similar sums for Vermaelen last season, it was fully expected that before long he’d be first choice. As it turned out, he went straight into the team and was one of our players of the season. So I wonder whether Wenger will be expecting Koscielny to head straight in and partner Vermaelen, or whether he’s one for the future? It’d be a lot of money to spend on a reserve. With Djourou fit again (and presumably keen to play), and perhaps even another centre-back coming in, there should be some serious competition for places.
Looks at the same time as if Campbell – a fabulous stop-gap last year – will look for pastures new. I can see how that makes sense for him.
The Telegraph has us then turning our sights on Fulham’s Schwarzer, who is undeniably experienced, but also undeniably not a glamour signing. Does it matter? Not if he’s going to be better than Almunia it doesn’t.
So all in all, things could start nicely ticking. We’re only 18 days away from the traditional curtain raiser at Barnet.
That, as they say, is ace.
Good morning from a sultry London. At least, I expect it to be sultry later on, or I want my money back. The shorts are on, perfectly complementing the hairy white legs, and I even got the electric fan out the loft last night it was so warm. That’s as big a meteorological death wish as you’ll ever see – it will be grey and dull within days.
According to Arsenal.com, ‘Fabregas [is] through to the next round’, which will fill the 23 men of Portugal with hope. I know he’s good and his beard is skill, but even he can’t do it alone, can he?
I tell you what though, he’s had as restful a World Cup as you could hope for as an Arsenal fan, playing a whole hour in total, which just about says it all about the strength of the Spanish squad. If they don’t go all the way to the business end of this competition it won’t be for the lack of options. If Fabregas was English he’d be our best player (burned out, missing passes, moaning about being bored).
Talking of which, I was interested to read that the English players were ‘bored’ in their swanky hotel. Apparently there’s nothing to do when they’re not training. What are they – twelve years old?
For those of an English hue, we’ve got the chop-slobbering prospect of another England v Germany humdinger tomorrow. Contrary to what you might think, our competitive record against Germany (penalties apart) is about 50:50. The two penalty defeats though, at the World Cup in 1990 and at Euro ’96, are the ones that most of us remember for obvious reasons.
Back in 1990 (peering through the sands of time) I was loafing about in Australia and found myself watching the semi-final at 3am in a small Queensland town, the name of which, like most things from 1990, I have long forgotten. Bizarrely, we had progressed through the tournament flattering to deceive (ring any bells?) but when it came to the semi-final we played out of our skin only to lose. The memory of Chris Waddle’s 45-degree penalty is etched in my mind, as are the hideous mullets on both sides (Waddle and Voller: guilty as charged).
Strangely though, come the semi-final Chris Waddle had dragged himself into the new decade by having his mullet cut off. Was it is his Samson moment (not Kenny Sansom before you ask – the biblical one)? Would England have won the World Cup had Waddle not dismulleted? Now there’s a thought.
Breaks my heart seeing that defeat even now.
By the second of those defeats, at Euro ’96, I was living in London, and when Southgate Waddled his penalty, I remember striking up a fat cigar in a pub on West End Lane, watching a few extremely frustrated and well-lubricated England fans ‘let a bit of steam off’ in the road.
So no, I don’t have any great recollections of playing Germany in the matches that matter, because by and large, in the matches that matter in my lifetime, we have lost to them.
Sorry this has been mostly about England – we’re promised a signing “quite soon” by the boss, and that could well be Koscielny – but there’s nothing concrete yet and I’m done with speculation.
Righto, enjoy your weekend.
I love the World Cup, and contrary to the experiences of some, I’ve loved this one just as much as any other. Who can argue with three live games of football a day?
Sure, the ball is an aberration but what do you expect from a tournament that is at least in part about Fifa’s bottom line? There’s no need for a new World Cup ball but we have one so that someone, somewhere, can make themselves a bit of money.
I understand that the commercial deals struck before the tournament are key to financing it, (in fact, Fifa are expected to make themselves a tidy $1bn profit from it), but the zeal with which they enforce the rules has been way over the top, as usual.
Prosecuting two Dutch women for organising this harmless stunt is ludicrous, and has in fact done far more than the stunt itself to promote the Dutch beer company that organised it. Talk about a ham-fisted reaction.
Maybe if Arsenal scheduled something along these lines to happen 60 seconds before the end of a dull league game – for example “Spot Perry Groves in a wig and win £100”, we’d have fewer empty seats at the final whistle.
Anyway, small digression there. As I was saying, I’ve enjoyed watching wall-to-wall football, even if England appear to have imploded under the pressure. I have always found the psychology behind the game incredibly interesting, even if I don’t fully understand it.
It’s mystifying to the public how very competent footballers can wilt so badly, but we always underestimate how much matters of the mind can affect football.
A great example is, of course, the majestic 49-match unbeaten Invincibles. With every unbeaten game that passed, they would have considered themselves harder and harder to beat. It helped that they were all exceptional footballers of course, but confidence plays a huge part in performance. That’s why, when they were eventually beaten at Old Trafford, there was an inevitable decline. You could say things have never been the same since, though that is perhaps over-egging things slightly.
The truth though is that winning breeds winning, and confidence breeds confidence, and that a team in the middle of a good patch where both things are in evidence will play much better than it ordinarily would. England thrashed Croatia 5-1 in September last year, and looked the part. Since then they have declined and that’s where we are now. The pressure that accompanies playing for England has exacerbated that.
Of course, it doesn’t really explain how other teams have managed to throw off the shackles and get cracking in their second games – but to me there’s no other explanation. For good footballers to turn in a display that bad, there has to be a collective case of the heebie-geebies.
I hope they can find the solution by Wednesday but like the players themselves, my confidence has drained out of me and my glass is now half empty.
It might be time to change the tune of the England vuvuzelas to this:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
(To be fair, the above clip won’t mean much unless you grew up on a diet of crap British telly in the 1980s)
Tags: confidence, england, fifa, psychology, world cup
So Phil Senderos has officially left Arsenal – two seasons after he effectively did anyway.
There’s been a lot of goodwill on Twitter and across the blogs and that’s fair enough. Senderos was an uncomplicated player who gave his all, never moaned and represented the club very well indeed.
He was an up-and-down player though, with some commanding performances early in his career contrasting with plenty of wobblier ones at other points. Perhaps not surprising for a young player – one who is still only 25 years old now.
But I’m glad he’s gone.
Why? It’s got nothing to do with him at all. He’s a player who can and probably will still come good given the chance and a fair wind with injuries. Who knows, that may have happened at Arsenal in the past, but it’s not going to happen now. So he needed to go to reignite his own career, but nor is it a bad thing for Arsenal either. As a club, we need to properly address our defence, and we won’t do that by looking backwards.
Which is why there’s no reason to despair at the prospect of Gallas, Silvestre and even Campbell’s departures either. All are past their best, and while Campbell is a special case – his desire was palpable and put others to shame at times last season – even in a best-case scenario he’d have been third choice in 2010-11.
Look at our defensive record over the last few seasons. We’ve conceded 8, 9, 13 and 9 goals more than the league winners since we moved to the Grove, a consistent deficit. We have not eradicated bad defending as a unit, nor have we eradicated individual lapses of concentration – so much so that we are now seen as defensive soft touches. We get targeted between the sticks and we get targeted at set pieces. Such targeting often works.
That’s got to change, and a clean sweep of the brush might not be such a bad thing.
There’s no point worrying that if all three depart, then we’ll only have Djourou and Vermaelen left. There’s no way Wenger would leave it that way.
Sure, there’s a risk that starting next season with a new keeper and two new centre backs might be unsettling for a while. But it’s a risk worth taking compared to another season of the same problems.
In the meantime, I hope Big Phil makes it big and proves Wenger wrong. Not many players have left and done that – but I can’t imagine many Arsenal fans would begrudge him a renaissance if he did.
Tags: almunia, defence, defenders, defending, gallas, senderos, silvestre
Remember how Wenger stated he’d like to get his transfers sorted before the World Cup began?
He’ll be lucky.
Most high-calibre players are content to wait until the tournament ends before thinking about what happens next – even if their agents are busy doing stuff in the background.
So when the tournament kicks off a week tomorrow, transfer deals involving players taking part in it will surely be off bounds.
We’ve got a week to go yet though – so expect a few more twists and turns, especially regarding Fabregas. Yesterday’s rebuttal of Barcelona’s €40m offer was very well crafted by the club. They spoke of “immediately and resolutely” turning it down and I must say, I did enjoy the last line.
“To be clear, we will not make any kind of counterproposal or enter into any discussion. Barcelona have publicly stated that they will respect our position and we expect that they will keep their word.”
So Arsenal are reminding Barcelona that, even though the player’s desire to leave makes a deal likely (or at least possible), Arsenal have a big say in things. And they’re also asking Barcelona to do things by the book – which of course, they haven’t and won’t.
But really, the bottom line is that any deal must be on Arsenal’s terms, and €40m doesn’t touch the sides. In a world where Villa have priced Milner at £30m, how can Fabregas only be worth £3m more?
And besides, any negotiator worth his salt will turn down an opening offer, because an opening offer is never a final one.
There was some more rumours yesterday of a deal with Chelski’s out-of-contract Joe Cole. I have no idea if there’s anything in the story or not – but what’s interesting for me is the profile of the player. He’s in his late twenties and very experienced. If he is indeed the kind of player Wenger is looking for then it’s a good sign, because we’ve got promising young players coming out our ears and they cannot do it alone. What we lack are players who have been there, done that and know what it takes.
Which I suppose segues nicely onto Walcott. His omission from the World Cup squad was the cherry on top of the icing of a bad-season cake [must do better – ed] but it’s not that baffling. Thinking back over the season, I can only think of two occasions when he took a game by the scruff of the neck – in the second half against Burnley at home, and in the last third of the Barcelona game when we ended up drawing 2-2.
Nevertheless, it’s no time to panic. He’s only 21 and started a mere 15 games last season. On top of that, he has the overwhelming goodwill of the Arsenal fans in his favour.
And finally…
I spent some time in Sao Paulo last week (took a wrong turn out of Norwich) and on my first day there, walking past a newspaper stall, I was slightly perturbed to see a gaggle of shifty-looking men congregating next to it, exchanging things furtively. There must have been eight of them in all.
Being in a new city – and one with a bit of a reputation for containing ruffians at that – I immediately assumed they were dealing in illegal substances. But as I walked past I peered closer and saw that the illegal substances in question were in fact…. Panini stickers.
That night, I mentioned this to a local and was told this was normal behaviour in a World Cup year. Apparently, in the years when Brazil win the World Cup, Brazilians go absolutely bananas for memorabilia, and completed Panini World Cup albums have a particularly high value in such an eventuality. So the shifty gents by the newspaper stall were simply sniffing out a business opportunity.
Isn’t football great?
Tags: fabregas, sao paulo, transfers, walcott, wenger, world cup
So where am I?
I’m not 100% sure, because I’ve never exactly checked, but I’m pretty certain that two weeks is about as long as I have ever gone without checking in here to spew a few words out since I first started the site, now over seven years ago in earth years – or 56 blogging years.
[Incidentally, the eagle-eyed may note that this blog does in fact only go back to 2005. That’s because there was a web-hosting blunder, about which I am still sore, which wiped out the first two years of the blog. I did in fact start it just after we beat Southampton in the FA Cup in 2003, which you can see here on the Way Back Machine, if you give the remotest toss. I do still have the entries and may one day attempt to reingest them here.]
It’s now 15 days since my last post. For the first part of this hiatus, I was on my traditional English seaside holiday. I baked in the glorious May sun – they didn’t mention that in the brochure.
I did go armed with my laptop and there was a broadband connection at my mercy, but even though we signed Marouane Chamakh, the whole Cesc thing was bubbling away and Merida was on his way out, I just couldn’t be dragged away from my bucket and spade.
Since then I have been out of the country, on a last-minute trip, meeting some very cool people. Indeed, as I write this, I am still there – or here – though I won’t be for much longer.
Now, when football is in the blood, football is in the blood, so it won’t surprise you that at the first opportunity I sniffed out a football stadium (and football museum) while here. The stadium at the top is in the city where I currently am – and is home to one of the city’s top-flight teams.
Answers on a postcode.
So, it’s been a refreshing absence but normal – that’s to say normal for me, so intermittent – service will now be resumed.
So what’s going on? Well a quick glance tells me that Robin van Persie’s had an injury scare, William Gallas is cross and we’ve been linked with a goalkeeper and a centre-half.
Plus ça bloody change, plus c’est la bloody meme chose!
