The Saga Concludes

Well there you have it, in a way we all knew it was inevitable. The destination wasn't inevitable however and I can completely understand all the bitterness that followed and all the hatred. That's just football...

Where to begin? OK those who know me personally and follow me on twitter
(https://twitter.com/fisher_mr) will know that last night, far from being hurt and disappointed I was actually in a rather cheery mood. I'll explain. £24m for a 29 year old, injury prone player with one year left on his contract, to me is brilliant business. As always we've made an enormous profit and I think United have taken a huge gamble for a number of reasons.

Firstly, with a injury sheet longer than the Olympics bill, there is always that question mark over RVP and his fitness. With his many injuries over the years every time he goes down there is always that fear that he might stay down. At 29, one more big injury could spell real trouble for him. I don't want to wish injury or anything like that upon him, even when a player moves to sp*rs you still don't think like that. But I do have a niggling feeling he may be seeing a lot of the United physio. 

Secondly I have real reservations about how he will work with Rooney. I can't see them working together, he won't score 20+ goals I will put money on that. Can he feed Rooney as a Shadow Striker? Is that worth £24m? I don't think so. I'm sure Ferguson will play them side-by-side upfront, but considering they have problems in centre midfield will they get the support they need?

So it's a big risk. In terms of my personal feelings, I don't feel betrayed or angry. Just a little disappointed that he could have been up there with Henry, Wright, Bergkamp and now he'll just be that dutch bloke that scored some good goals for us. He won't be remembered as a legend and I'm sure that one day he'll look back and regret it. But he engineered this move himself and now he has to deal with whatever it brings.

We need to continue our build up to the new season now and re-invest the money that we will get from the deal. A striker should be right at the top of the list, I worry about Giroud coming from Ligue 1, yes he looks promising and he certainly knows how to find the net but it's a big step for him. Podolski I'm less worried about but I don't really think Wenger wants to play his as another striker as such more as a versatile attacker. I'd like to see us buy Llorente but I can't see it, Wenger now surely knows that we need to bring in some players and it's just a case of waiting and seeing what happens.

As I'm jetting off to the USA tomorrow posts will be limited, but I will do my pre-match posts as the new season FINALLY kicks off! In the words of Thomas Vermaelen "Life go's on".

FC Koln 0-4 Arsenal

Ah I have returned from my holidays after barely keeping track with all that's been going on I think I'm on top of it all. So we took on FC Koln or Cologne, whatever you prefer, yesterday and as we were expected to do won easily. Again the result comes second to the pre-season preparation but it was nice to see our new boys out, with Podolski grabbing a smart brace against his old club. Giroud had chances too but their keeper made some nice saves. Cazorla looked very impressive, he's fast and very very creative, obviously this is one game and against a side that got relegated last season, but I think he could be a really good signing. Vermaelen scored first with a move that will have (slightly) older fans relieving many goals with a classic Arsenal corner that Steve Bould would have taken part in many times. The flick on at the near post and headed in.

In the second half we made wholesale changes and Gervinho continued his impressive pre-season with yet another goal that was a great piece of individual work down the wing and he finished well from a tight angle. It was a good match and it has really got people excited about the highly anticipated return of the Premier League this weekend, me included! However the main talking point of the whole thing is something that has been rumbling on since the start of the summer.

Robin Van Persie came on after the 69th minute, not the 45 he said he'd play but he still played. I think it sent a message to various people (Robin included), to just say, he's still contracted and he's still an Arsenal player. As expected he came on and played his part, he didn't do anything of note, but he played with professionalism and at the moment that's all he can do. Wenger again re-iterated we want to keep him and that he is part of our plans. What we must remember is that deadline day is not Saturday and if he plays on Saturday it doesn't mean he will be our player for the rest of the season so at the moment, much like the rest of the summer we can only wait and see.

But there are positives to take from yesterday and we look relatively sharp going into the first game of the season. Let's hope for a repeat of the scoreline against Sunderland!

 

Arsenal in Asia, problems back home

Afternoon all and what a fine afternoon it is here in in the sun! At last. So since I last posted we have revealed our away kit for next season and well. To be frank, it's awful. Firstly, we have never worn purple and there is no connection with purple to the club. Apparently it's to celebrate the Jubilee year with a more regal colour scheme harking back to when we Royal Arsenal, fucking eons ago. Secondly: hoops...really Arsenal? We shouldn't play in hoops because it puts us in the ball park of other shittier teams such as QPR and Celtic.

 
Anyway the squad have arrived in Asia for their pre-season tour of the continent. Obviously there are 2 main aims of these tours: 1) commercial gain 2) pre-season preparation, but it really is great to see so many fans turn out to see the team and I hope they put on a display to make the fans proud, because at the end of the day whether your a fan living 5 minutes from the Emirates of a fan living 5000 miles away we're all equally important. 

The squad has a few omissions including Chamakh, Bendtner; new boys: Podolski and Giroud and of course RVP. I'm not going to go into intense detail about potential bids, or who said what but the interview given by Wenger earlier he re-iterated that he wanted to keep hold of him and that:

As for the rest I will do what is in the best interests of Arsenal Football Club. That, at the moment, is where we are. There is not a lot more to say than that.

I'll leave it up to you to judge what is in the best interest of Arsenal Football Club. With bids reportedly made and rejected at £8m, £10m and £12m, it suggests that we are going to hold out for a better price if Wenger does decide to sell him. Which would be good if we actually did that as, lets face it, in recent years we've been a bit of a pushover when it comes to transfers.

One thing is certain is that we need to sort it out, sooner rather than later. The longer this rumbles on the more and more I start to worry that we could be left without a main striker with a few days left of the window. A situation we could do without being in. We either need to decide to sell and do it now or decide to keep him and make it public that hes staying.

I am also beginning to worry that because this situation is dominating the headlines, other areas where I feel we need to strengthen may be getting overlooked. With it looking likely that Wilshere will be out for the start of the season, we need to bring someone in who can give us that edge going forward. Easier said than done I know. I also think we need a defensive midfield player with Diaby being so injury prone its impossible to say whether he will be able to get a consistent run of matches, or even if Wenger will play him. I don't know whether there are more players that we have lined up but with this RVP stuff not going away I can't see anything getting done until its resolved.

That's your latest for now, if there are any developments be sure I will post. Enjoy the sun people.

RVP U-turn and other news...

Well this was reported a few days ago, I debated writing about it then but decided I'd wait until this new round of talks were over, then got bored and decided to write about it. 

After the big "I'm not signing statement", it appears that Van Persie may sign a new contract following a new round of talks with Ivan Gazidis. It seemed odd to me at the time to release the statement and for it to be worded as bizarrely as it was. Word on the grape vine is that it was written by his agent, who I will come on to in a minute, with a bit of RVP input. According to Sky's Dharmesh Sheth this was all in the aim of negotiating a more frugal contract, which is entirely believable looking at Robin's agent.

So Robin's agent...well...Kees Vos is the sort of man that gives football agents a bad name, now that's saying something. Everything I read about him is simply that he likes to keep moving players around to earn a nice commission for himself. It was his idea to release the statement with the intention of either: increasing the chances of a transfer or increasing the value of a new deal, thus increasing his commission. Quite why players choose him is beyond me but there you go. So after Kees brainwave, we stand where we do now, knowing nothing more than we did the other day. If you'd like to personally tell Kees what you think of him then use his twitter here.

Now I'm not going to comment on what I think Robin will do, because simply I don't know. Should he sign a new deal he may get a rather frosty reception from some of the fans. A lot of the love we felt for the dutchman has evaporated, myself included. That said I stand by my statement from the last post. There is no way he will be as prolific as last year, that was his peak season. 

For now we can only wait and see what comes out of the club. When that time comes I'll be on it!

Olivier Giroud Official

So this is no surprising mega signing, its been on the cards for the last 2 or possibly 3 weeks (I'm losing track of the time without the usual football). After England spectacularly went out of the Euro's we need something to cheer us up. Maybe this will be it.

What do I know about Giroud? Well quite frankly not a lot. He spent this season with surprise Ligue 1 winners Montpellier playing a total of 40 games and scoring an impressive 24 goals in league and cup. Standing at nearly 6'3 hes a giant of striker and has won the highest percentage of aerial balls this is the highest in all 5 of the top leagues this season. I'm sure I've done what plenty of Arsenal fans have this morning which is as always gone onto youtube and searched for videos of him.

From what I can tell and must say I have never seen him play so don't hold me to this. He's certainly not the quickest but he looks to me like a poacher with a fair few of his goals coming from following the ball in (something all good strikers should do). That said his technique looks superb and although he lacks pace his timing seems to be impeccable. He certainly looks like he can finish.

His height is obvious but unlike other he seems to be able to actually head the ball, I'm always amazed by the sheer number of tall strikers who either can't head or can't jump but this doesn't seem to be a problem for him.

OK now that I've gone over the bits that make everyone very excited, in the name of being fair I need to make some points. Firstly unless Wenger knows something we don't I can't see how we're going to be able to play 4-3-3 without leaving a high profile player out. We have 4 international players to fit into 3 places: RVP, Walcott, Podolski and now Giroud. Assuming he plays that formation and I know its good to have depth but will any of those players be happy playing every other game, I'm sure the 2 lads won't and Walcott certainly isn't going to be. RVP unquestionably has to play. 

What about 4-4-2? OK so Walcott and Podolski on the wing, Giroud and RVP upfront. So then who loses out in the midfield: Wilshere whose our creative talent? Arteta who we just signed? Song who sits infront of the defence? Rosicky who just signed a new deal? that's without mentioning Ramsey. I genuinely can't see how it will work without shifting some players but I wouldn't want to lose any of those.

Also the last international striker we signed from the French league who was good in the air turned out to be Chamakh so...more to come soon. 
 

Arsenal all quiet

Well it's the lull before the summer of hectic buying and selling and of course the Euros. I struggle to watch England play, not for the want of trying but for the fact that they are boring as fuck to watch. I'll watch us over the Euros and want us to win obviously but I'll do it without being particularly entertained.

Anyway onto Arsenal, this is my first post in a while and will probably be the last for a while because quite simply nothing is happening. Contract talks with RVP broke down and he has now set off with Holland in their pre-season preparations for the Euros. There isn't much we can really say about that, we just have to hope that post-tournament he decides to stay on. Elsewhere nothing but rumours. Depending on what paper you read we either: definitely have/definitely haven't/probably/probably haven't signed M'Villa, who quite frankly fails to excite me. I read today that we have also registered our interest in Doumbia who, despite being an absolute machine on FIFA 12, has done pretty much nothing of note.

I'm beginning to wonder whether new players really are the answer looking at the players with been linked with, bar Kagawa who, lets face it when posed with the question of United or Arsenal based on recent seasons only really as one choice. However I can't see Kagawa fitting in with either of our potential systems, without dropping someone. But that poses the question of who do we leave out? Play 4-4-2 with Podolski and (hopefully) rvp upfront and that means that across the middle we have a choice of Song, Arteta, Ramsey, Rosicky and Wilshere along with possibly Diaby and possibly Benayoun. So out of those possible 7 players we need to leave potentially 3 players out. Maybe more if we have Walcott or Gerv or Oxlade on the wings.

Play 4-3-3 and that means that we'd have to play either Podolski or rvp on the wing which is a possibility. The other side is up for grabs between Gerv, Walcott and Oxlade, but once again in the middle we have to fit in 5 players. So who do we leave out? Ramsey, OK maybe, but then Wilshere who we have desperately missed this season is surely a no, Song who occupies that holding midfield role needs to stay in. Arteta who we just signed I also think needs to stay in the squad which means leaving the re-born Rosicky who by the way had a fantastic season in my books on the sideline which Ramsey.

Maybe we need a bit of a clear out but I can't see who we sell apart from possibly Diaby, if he ever gets fit again. We have a midfield full of players who we NEED in the team, players who have signed a new deal and players who could be the best thing since sliced bread. 

Food for thought. I'm not even gonna start on the defence.

Anyway unless anything big happens, its set to be another few quiet weeks. I think my next post maybe a players we might sell type of piece. Have a great few weeks!

Arsenal wield the axe

So the big news coming out of Arsenal this morning is that we have released 7 payers: Manuel Almunia, George Brislen-Hall, Gavin Hoyte, Sean McDermott, Rhys Murphy and Scholars James Campbell and Jeffrey Monakana. I'm sure many of you will only have heard of 2 players there being Almunia and Hoyte but first I think you have to spare a though for the others who are all young, it must be hard being told you just aren't quite good enough. But football is a harsh mistress and I wish them all the best in the future.

So Almunia has left the club after much speculation as to what was actually happening with his future although a move did appear to be on the cards. He's had a bit of a touch and go career with us that to be fair included 175 first team appearances, one of them being a Champions League final, keeping a by no means poor 70 clean sheets. But there was just always that air about him, a question mark over his confidence in himself. There was always that niggling feeling of maybe, he'll make that error. To be honest though after Seaman we did like a error-prone keeper: Lehmann, Fabianksi and Almunia all fit the bill. That said I never particularly disliked any of them, just didn't rate them as great keepers.

Almunia's penalty record is nothing to sniffed at either and on his day he was a fine shot stopper there are no doubts there. I just think with all the recent keeper talk about Arsenal and with Szczesny now firmly in the first choice position I just can't see where Almunia will fit in should we need another keeper, as we have *gulp* Fabianski. So I think a move is probably the best for all concerned, I hope he does well whatever he decides to do next.

As RVP's contract talks rumbled on over the last week and bit nothing has come out of anywhere about what exactly has been said or has happened. Talks have ended for now with Robin joining the Holland team in their build up to the Euro's. So for now we can only hope that something will be sorted. 

I'll keep you all up to date with any big news that emerges. Until then, enjoy the sun!