Greetings Gooners… Michael Thomas moment…Win a free tee…

I sit here now a confused, confuddled, slightly baffled, man of deep thought. Whilst I slouch here, typing away using my index and middle fingers of each hand only, I ponder away in deep tranquility – as I have all day – wondering what is currently taking place with not just mine, but our beloved club.

I’ve never been the type to jump on the “Club in Crises” bandwagon under Arsene Wenger, and I’m far from about to. How ever, I won’t deny that I’m slightly concerned with everything that has taken place so far this summer. As soon as news has filtered through about a possible signing, news has later filtered through about the possible sale of a player. With Philippe Senderos the latest to be heading out the door. I’ve surprised myself how I’ve reacted with this transfer, and to be honest, I’m still *insert appropriate word here*… Not “annoyed“, or “angry“, or “frustrated” even. “Concerned” I’ve used already, “baffled” perhaps? Hmm, something a little stronger then that… How about “disconcerted”? Or “Confounded”? “Bewildered” is a good one, as is “Perplexed”. None the less I do feel maybe a little of all these. The truth, and fact of the matter is, the standard of player we have let go this summer is as far off irreplaceable as we have replaced them. That has orchestrated my thoughts and feelings about the club right now. Let’s compare shall we, on the players we have let go, compared to the players brought in; regardless of whether they are loan deals or contracted transfers:

 

Jens Lehmann

Justin Hoyte

Philippe Senderos

Armand Traore

Gilberto

Mathieu Flamini

Alex Hleb

Have all been replaced by:

Vito Mannone

Emmanuel Eboué

Johan Djourou

Mikael Silvestre

Amaury Bischoff

Aaron Ramsey

Samir Nasri.

I understand Mannone, Eboué, and Djourou were at us already, but young Italian mob-star, Vito’s been promoted from the resi’s. Eboué, despite his central midfield cameo’s I think will feature more so as a right back, especially as Hoytey’s left. Djourou lastly, was at Birmingham for the first half of last season, and then on his first appearance for us back from his loan spell, he busted something or other against The Spuds. Looking at that, for me defensively we still need that big strong, towering lump of a lunging blocker. Who would get his right foot, left foot, forehead, or foreskin in front of the ball to stop it from going past him. 

Man Ure have Vidic, Locomotive London have John “Siht Cnut” Terry, and The Filth of Football have that foreign speaking Carragher bloke – our last of this type was Sol Campbell. God, if only his toy boy lover Quincy Owusu-Abeyie hadn’t of been sold hours before ‘that’ West Ham game at Highbury, maybe Sol would never of had that funny 45. Anyway, what’s done is done, as likewise what needs to be addressed, needs to be addressed. Senderos was seen as this Sol replacement by many within the club. After an impressive final third of the 06 season, peaking in our Paris run, Senderos was set to be big news. Handed the number 6 shirt later that summer, nicknamed “Swiss Tony”, everything was set up for him; until the shoulder injury he picked up in the World Cup that year caused him to miss the opening of the following season. Since then he’s only shown his quality in spurts, and has lacked any real consistency. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say I sincerely hope he gets his career back on track, and what better way to be given a confidence boost with Meelan wanting you? Wafa Cup football might do him good for this season anyway – slight dig.

On to our midfield. Oh, fcuk it. I really don’t have the energy or effort to explain about something every single Arsenal supporter knows already. With Gokhan Inlar signing a new deal at Udinese, it’s not just the time which is running out, but the players as well.

Match news, and it’s the second leg of the FC Twente game tonight at the Emirates, we lead 2-0 and to be honest, I can see this one being a similar score line. Our fitness level will guide us through if our football doesn’t – much like the first leg. Cesc’s fit thank god, and hopefully a run out tonight will sort him out preparing him for the Newcastle clash Saturday evening.

Come on you GOONERS!!

ScottyDavisGooner 

‘Thomas – it’s up for grabs now’ – Where was you?

As part of this season and trying to tie in with all the 20th anniversary shenanigans of that famous last minute championship win, allgoonerdup.com is doing a ‘JFK where was you moment’. But obviously the moment we’re doing is – ‘Thomas – it’s up for grabs now’ moment. Every Gooner knows where they were when that goal went in and we’re going to publish your tails. The idea is do one Gooner’s piece a day, so get amongst it and send your emails in via the contacts page and mark the subject line ‘Thomas – it’s up for grabs moment’. I’ll be doing some sort of fancy graphic and that just to give the piece some ‘air play’. But get your emails in and hopefully we’ll get the ball rolling next week with your ‘Thomas – where was you moment’.

More questions than answers and other bits…

With the season only a month away, and our first pre-season game against Barnet this weekend, there are still a lot of questions that need answering. I of course, don’t have any of these answers, but boy I have the full panini sticker album of questions. So.. because I know your all so keen to finish this article and read something interesting, here they are: 

Is Abou Diaby going to be our new starting centre midfielder? Having been deployed primarily on the left wing since his serious ankle injury against Sunderland, are 4 weeks of pre-season enough for him to claim this role for the opening day fixture at West Brom? Certainly depth looks to be a problem at centre midfield now Gilberto has packed his bags for Greece, with only Denilson and Song looking the obvious choice for cover should Diaby be unavailable – however both have only limited first team experience. Nasri or Rosicky would be the likely cover for Fabregas should he be unavailable but that would similarly strain our coverage for the wings and probably be too much for Rosicky’s fragile frame anyhow. 

Will Rosicky and Eduardo be fit for the start of the season? If Rosicky fails to be ready for the first game of the new season it would likely mean a debut at left midfield for either Samir Nasri or Aaron Ramsey. Typically Wenger has tended to avoid throwing new signings straight in from the start, particularly as he feels players need time to adapt to the Premier League (learning how to not get your ankle broken for example). Though Eduardo has obviously come along way in his recovery from his serious leg injury, he is unlikely to be available to start against West Brom. This would mean Emmanuel ‘Retirement Package’ Adebayor having to start up front despite question marks over his commitment to the club and the reception he will get from the fans is likely to be less than friendly. Is his head in the right place? Well, yes, it is still sitting underneath that extremely disappointing haircut, but whether he is completely behind the new campaign is questionable. The other options would be to throw Theo up front alongside balsa wood Van Persie, or starting with Bendtner, who had a strong first season off the bench. However if Adebayor is not able to start then there seems little point keeping last seasons top scorer on the bench where his value is only going to depreciate. 

On the right wing, I’m particularly keen to know who Wenger’s preferred option is. Does Hleb’s departure mean Theo going to be a regular starter, or will Nasri slot in on the right (assuming Rosicky is fit for the left)… and what does this mean for Emmanuel Eboué? Hopefully an extended spell as a bus driver.

Turning to our defence, despite Wenger claiming at the end of the season that he was interested in bring in a new defender who was strong in the air, the distractions of Flamini, Hleb and Adebayor means that has well and truly been shelved for now. So are we to assume Philippe Senderos has been rehabilitated or is he still a nutter? And what of Djourou? He looked average on loan to Birmingham and Wenger seems to no longer rate him. So does this mean Alex Song is our 4th choice Centre Back, as well as possibly being backup for the holding midfield role? The young lad surprised a lot of gooners and did reasonably well at the tail end of the season, and of course he has the hair style that I always consider a mark of potential (see the Valderama Theory) but any extended spell where Song could end up partnering Senderos in our back line scares the Danny Shittu’s out of me.

Of course the most positive news of the off season was Gael Clichy signing a new deal, and with Sagna also tied to a long term contract, we arguably have the two best fullbacks in the league at the moment. The depth at these positions is far more questionable. Gallas is certainly able to cover Clichy’s left back slot if needed, whilst Armand Traore looks far better on the wing than at left back at the moment. I doubt many Gooners would want to see him get any extended run in the league there if Clichy were to be unavailable. 

Right back certainly became a problem position for us once Sagna got injured. Despite his problems, Eboué remains a reasonable option as cover for right back, far more so than Justin Hoyte, who despite his wonderful loyalty to the club, doesn’t look to have the quality nor the potential needed to play for a title challenging side. Touré can also provide cover though he looked lost at times slung out wide right. 

On to the goalkeepers, with Mad Jens gone, will things be a little too comfortable for Manuel Almunia now? Fabianski and Mannone are by no means Premier League quality yet, let alone players you’d feel comfortable throwing into the mix in the Champions League should Almunia be injured. I would hope Wenger is looking seriously at the availability of top quality goalkeepers at the moment because we look extremely vulnerable in this position. If Almunia were to blind himself peroxiding his hair, and we had to face Chelski, United or someone like Barcelona in the Champions League, I’m not sure our defence would feel particularly confident with such an inexperienced goalkeeper in Fabianski behind them, despite his obvious potential. And of course Mannone is a completely unknown quantity playing at the top level. 

That all said, a look at our current squad size indicates that unless some players are loaned our or sold, very little is likely to change between now and the start of the season. I had a look back at our squads since 1999, and it seems Wenger favour’s a first team squad of 25 players – in fact in each season since 1999 his first team squad has been 25 (this doesn’t include the occasional run in a dead tie at the end of the season, or League Cup game). With Flamini, Gilberto, Hleb and Lehmann all gone, but Mannone, Vela, Nasri and Ramsey coming in, we are currently sitting at 25 players. But we surely need a centre midfielder, and the link this week to Garry Barry of Villa has certainly taken a lot of Gooners interest. He ticks all the boxes – has loads of Premier League experience meaning Wenger could throw him in to the starting XI for the West Brom game and know he’d be able to do a job, is versatile as he can cover left back and left midfield if needed, takes a good penalty and is a natural leader. We know Villa have an interest in Justin Hoyte, who, if the Eboué experiment is ended, would be surplus to requirements as a reserve right back. We also know Wenger has long been an admirer of Barry going back several years. The real question is whether or not the funds are there for a player who is up for sale for 18 million. So was the money spent on Nasri and Ramsey knowing we have to recoup it by selling Hleb and Gilberto (which totals around 17 – 19 million depending on who you believe) or is it now available to Wenger for further replacements? 

Whether it is or not, I think almost everyone would agree that right now, and despite what we all thought prior to the end of the season, some money needs to be spent to bring in someone to bolster our defensive midfield position. What amount of money is available will probably determine the quality, but I cannot imagine that we can go into the new season without strengthening this area. Some may be prepared to give Diaby time to prove himself, and Denilson time to mature, and point to Flamini’s sudden emergence last season before discounting them. However Flamini excelled at a time when there was strong competition for the job. Diarra was still on the books and Gilberto had come off his most successful season with us plus of course Diaby and Denilson in the mix as well. Flamini proved himself to Wenger, who equally knew he could fall back on two other strong players if needed. If both Diaby and Denilson fail to raise their game, there is currently no other option available to Wenger other than moving another player out of position (such as pushing Touré forward) and would be a huge gamble once the transfer window slams shut. 

One this is for sure though, there isn’t currently room or money available for an Arshavin this summer.

By Paul Wright

 

Other stuff

I’m in the process of nicking up the site and doing stuff ‘in the background’ a bit like the way I hope Wenger is doing transfers – without anyone knowing. There will be slight changes, cosmetic ones, you know that sort of malarkey. So apologies for the lack of activity yesterday Gooners, but don’t fret, the ‘newish’ look will be up either tomorrow or more than likely – on Monday. 

I would like to add some bits about the Hleb transfer. Well thank f*ck for that – he’s gone, It’s over. We don’t need to hear from that bleating twat about ‘noisy’ London life and such. One thing that did get me was when he got to Barcelona was that the Bell-End-Russian said it was ‘a dream’ – don’t get me wrong I’m sure it’s a dream to go to Barca, I’m not that short sighted but when Hleb said:

“I love this team”

That kind of stuck in my throat. There was no thank you to Arsène Wenger, his former team mates or even the fans who put up with him playing shit for three years and when he did finally come good (well goodish if you actually check Hleb’s stats) he can’t get away quick enough to live his tranquil life. Well all I can say is Hleb I hope you you love the bench as much as you love the team. Sour grapes? You betcha! 

Also on the subject of a Barcelona love-in, Zenit St. Petersburg’s play maker Andrei Arshavin is getting increasingly desperate especially after his agent basically did a ‘please, please, please come and get me’ plea for his client towards The Arsenal. Well it turns out Arshavin’s love for The Arsenal is so great he wants Barcelona to sign him. You can guess the next installment on this if The Arsenal don’t make a move for him and Barca don’t come a knocking Arshavin will no doubt say how much he loves spurs! 

Lastly, the video below was sent in to me by a reader. you may of seen it on another Arsenal website but in case you haven’t, have a butchers, it’s well worth your pocket money. So big up to Chris Jake’s to sending this to us. Good work Gooner.

That’s about my lot today, have yourself a great day Gooners – see you in the comments

AC Milan pull plug on Adebayor move whilst his agent spouts off, Villa to stay, win a ‘I love AFC’ t-shirt

Good day to you Gooners and welcome to another day of The Emmanuel Adebayor Show. Well today’s exciting installment sees The Togonator being dumped by AC Milan in the race for his signature. That’s right AC Milan the team who started the ball rolling by winking and fluttering their long dark eyelashes at him whilst slightly lifting up their skirts have decided that the gangly afro sporting striker costs too much. The asking price for the player is thought to be around the £30m mark, well the Italian giants have offered ‘just’ £24m, and if my maths are right that leaves a £6m short fall. Which seems to be a £6m bridge too far for the I-talian’s. 

What cracks me up about the this saga is you have a team who are after a player who seems happy enough (in fact the player declared it twice that he was happy), get his attention (and his agents!), turns his head, make up a figure which they believe they players club should be happy with and when they get told the player will cost more than that they get upset, WTF? Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani is quoted as saying:

“Adebayor is overridden by continuous requests for €45 million (£35.6m), these figures are impossible for clubs in Italy, In fact, the top footballers in the world do not come here [Serie A] any more.”

Well mate you know what to do then don’t you?  Jog on or in the future speak to the chairman of the club first to enquire on the price and then if allowed to speak to the player before getting your hopes up. Or is that too simple Gooners? Surely that is too simple isn’t it? But put it this way don’t go foe a player in the media and then start getting pissed off because you don’t agree with the transfer fee. The Arsenal don’t have to sell, the player signed a new improved contract only last season, so you will have to pay top dollar or Euro to get your man. It’s good to see Wenger has grown some cojones as well and not just taking it from the big boys, so much so that Wenger has turned down a bid of £24m from Barcelona as well.

Now where this gets interesting is that Adebayor’s agent, so in effect it’s really Adebayor speaking as it’s him that pays his agents fees to represent him and speak on his behalf, is that Adebayor wants his pay packet to be hiked up to reflect that he is a £30m player! Adebayor’s agent Steven Courbis has said:

‘It is vital that Arsenal show their motivation to keep him.”

Translated that means pay my client a f*cking huge sum of money, earning me a small fortune into the bargain if you want to keep him. The slimy f*cker of an agent also goes onto say:

‘If this was a money problem, then he would have asked to leave. I know that Arsenal’s political position is that they don’t pay high salaries.”

Well excuse me, this is not about money? Well what the f*ck is it about then? You’re demanding The Arsenal show motivation? Didn’t they do that last season when they offered Adebayor an improved contract? Isn’t it time Adebayor showed some loyalty and repaid the faith put into him by the club directors and manager? The big fella has had one good season and needs to prove that it wasn’t a fluke and do it again. But still if he did is he really worth the alleged £120K a week is wants, but no it has nothing to do with filthy lucre, my arse!

So more mixed signals from the Adebayor camp. What happens next? Do we just flog him to the highest bidder which looks like it will only be Barcelona left as AC Milan don’t like the price being banded about? Adebayor does give The Arsenal another outlet in his style of play but as a blogger said yesterday on the site no player is bigger than then team. However if a team offered £30m+ for Adebayor would that be too tempting to pass up? Adebayor is a good player and will get better but I reckon £30m+ for him would be a steal. There’s no way that he is worth £30m+ right now, he might be worth that if/when he proves that he can score 30 goals a season on a regular basis, but again that is a waiting period. So what to do, should we flog the greedy retiring git or should we tell him simply honour your contract and show some commitment seeing that this according to you and your agent that this saga isn’t about money. 

Villa to stay?

A player who’s circumstances could be determined by what eventually happens to Emmanuel ‘This is not about money but pay me £120K a week’ Adebayor, a certain David Villa says he wants to stay at Valencia. The Arsenal loving player, Villa not Adebayor has said:

“I’m very grateful, I’m happy to be here. Hopefully, I’m staying.”

But unlike Adebayor it is not expected that Villa will change his mind 45 seconds later. 

Jump on the comments section and have your shout – see you in there! 

 

Keep your All Time 11′s coming in and other bits

Keeping it real low key and short today Gooner’s. I’m receiving quite a few All Time 11′s, which is nice, so keep them flooding in as your opinion will be posted next week. There’s one or two surprises in there that’s all I can say. So if you think you may not agree with the final 11 then have your say and get your vote on and send in them emails, you know it makes sense. 

Send your All Time Arsenal 11 emails to: alltimeeleven[@]allgoonerdup.com (obviously remove that thing around the ‘at’ sign). 

On the news front old duffer ‘Sir’ Peter Hill-Wood talks about some footballers being money grabbing, unloyal, gob shites (now there’s something we didn’t know) and saying we wont break our wage structure even though The Arsenal are coining it in. Well you got to call it quits somewhere and there’s always going to be an argument of just how much a player should be paid Most players wages are obscene but does this mean The Arsenal will lose out on players because they wont stomp up an extra £5K, don’t swerve that car Cashley, actually swerve it you mug straight into that articulated truck, that will learn you being on the mobile whilst driving! 

Apart from that folks it’s the normal shenanigans, considering Alex Hleb said he didn’t know who was making comments about him wanting to leave The Arsenal his squad of agents should let him know that Barcelona apparently have got him. So looks like it’s goodbye Hleb. I for one will be glad when that saga is over. AC Milan are conducting their transfer deals via the media as they make Emmanuel Adebayor their number summer target. Great! I really don’t see The Togonator™ leaving, although the media will have a field day with this story and many a Gooner will be biting their nails and grow frustrated with the reports. AC Milan may of got Mathieu Flamoney but given Adebayor’s shouts of ‘I’m staying’, it reminds me a bit of Thierry Henry when he kept on saying how much he loved The Arsenal and was going to stay when being linked to clubs every other day – well apart from when he finally did go! Anyway I think AC Milano are barking up the wrong tree. Although if Adebayor was to be sold we couldn’t do much worst and go and buy a cut price David Villa who recently had a much publicised Arsenal love-in. 

Other than that Gooners the new Arsenal home kit has been revealed – not sure about you good people but I’m not feeling it, the kit looks like a training jersey to me, I prefer the current one in all honesty. But that said, I’ll still probably get it and stick Rocky 7 on the back..

New site / Flamini’s off

Welcome

Hello and welcome to the new comments section for Allgoonerdup. This is the new guise – Son of Allgoonerdup. We’ve done some tickering under the hood and will be making adjustments here and there, so please bear with us. The the idea of the new blog is to get you the fans to build on the success(!) of the original Allgoonerdup site. So please join in with the daily debates / stories doing the rounds. We welcome all views and opinions – so join in and in you have an opinion – jump on and lets hear it.

So the worst kept secret in football is out, Mathieu Flamini is off to play for Serie A giants AC Milan. Can’t really say too much on this, apart from the fact the last couple of months you could tell Flamini was more than likely going to leave. I can’t blame the Frenchman for leaving, he’s going to a club steeped in history, there’s great players there and he’s being offered a trailerload of filthy lucre. My main concern is that Arsène Wenger let this happen. We had a perfectly good ready-made replacement in Lassana Diarra who left in January after only being at the club for four months. Wenger let him leave before Flamini tied himself down to the club? Wenger doesn’t make many mistakes but this is one. Flamini would be worth in the region of about £12-15m and now he has left for absolutely nothing, to me that’s a bloody joke in my opinion. This season he wasn’t a bit part player he was one of the main reasons we were flying, Wenger even commented (although I do not agree with him) that the Cesc Fabregas and Mathieu Flamini partnership was the best since he has been manager – not quite Monsieur Wenger think you’re forgetting about the Patrick Vieira – Manu Petit partnership. Any road up, I hope this doesn’t come back to bite Wenger on the arse, but I still can’t believe he let one decent player leave whilst another hadn’t even decided his future. It isn’t the first time this has happened, remember Edu leaving on a free? What we do know is The Arsenal will go on and no player is bigger than the club.