By Tony Attwood
Here is the story published by the Telegraph on 3 August 10.30pm UK time. It was written by Jeremy Wilson Deputy Football Correspondent of that august newspaper.
Alexis Sanchez and Aaron Ramsey rushed back by Arsene Wenger in bid to make Arsenal’s opener v Liverpool
The story below reads…
“Arsene Wenger is preparing to unexpectedly take Alexis Sanchez and Aaron Ramsey on Arsenal’s pre-season trip to Scandinavia this weekend in an attempt to fast-track them back into his squad for the Premier League opener against Liverpool.
“Both players returned to training this weekend following their summer successes with Wales and Chile and, providing there is no late fatigue, they will travel tomorrow to Norway ahead of matches against Viking FK on Friday night and then Manchester City in Gothenburg on Sunday.
“It is a clear sign that Wenger wants both players for the Liverpool match, when Sanchez will also be an option to play as the main central striker in the likely absence of Olivier Giroud.”
Now leaving aside the appalling grammar (“to unexpectedly take” indeed – I learned not to write that when I was 11 years old. Mind you I went to school, so maybe that’s the difference), the tale has so much innuendo in it that it feels like it has been spread with a shovel.
The fear factor
At the heart of this story is the notion that the players are “rushed” back in a sort of panic. It is not a clear policy but a “bid” – a vague attempt to correct past failings.
But the reality is otherwise. Utterly otherwise, indeed, if I may be so bold as to invent a phrase. Ramsey last played on 1 July, and so with a one month break (which is what Mr Wenger likes players to have although Imperial Fifa order only three weeks), was due to return to training on 1 August. Rushed? No.
Alexis last played on 26 June. We know he got injured. On 30 June the Daily Mirror raised the notion that the injury was gruesome.
Within a few days the story had changed and the Mail wrote, “Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez has moved to allay fears over the ankle injury he suffered during extra-time in the Copa America final win over Argentina.
“The 27-year-old was substituted after 104 minutes of the match at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey – which Chile went on to win following a penalty shoot-out – in the wake of a heavy tackle by Gabriel Mercado.”
So again, somewhere around 39 days. Rushed?
Pondering and panic with management on the hoof
The Mail also says today, “Arsene Wenger is pondering starting Alexis Sanchez as a central striker during the opening weeks of the season as Arsenal’s search for a No 9 drags on.”
We can note here “pondering” – a nod to the repeated allegations of Arsenal dithering in the transfer market (“Why are Arsenal dithering in the transfer market yet again?” – Daily Telegraph headline 27 July.)
“Drags on” is important too as with “pondering” it suggests inactivity and hopelessness. An inability to make things happen.
Yes always there is a total, absolute, complete, entire, unmitigated lack of action. This is Arsenal. The team that in the last three seasons has won the FA Cup twice and come fourth, third and second in the league, which perhaps suggests a sort of progress.
Indeed the notion of “pondering” builds on the rumour that all the Arsenal transfer plans (if there were any which the media suggest we should doubt) have failed so in a last minute desperate move Mr Wenger not only rushes players back early (be ready for tales of Arsenal injuries and how it is all Wenger’s fault and how Arsenal get more injuries than anyone else – which we now know to be quite untrue) but also makes it all up as he goes along.
The Telegraph “dithering again” headline was picked up by the bloggettas, who then ran the word after the Telegraph put it on their Twatter feed. It then went everywhere from News Feeds USA to The AFC Muzzle, from Arsenal.footbollio to Theweek.co.uk – which commented that the “knives are out” for Mr Wenger.
The notion of course is that all historical evidence should be pushed to one side. I mean, now matters doesn’t it? (Actually if that is the case we could ignore the fact that the majority of those who voted – not the majority of registered voters – voted to leave the EU. Since the past is irrelevant, let’s forget that one.)
But no, of course history is important. It is what makes us, and our culture, and indeed our club. And so I am forced to bring up the unfortunate fact that on 28 August 2014, Mr Wenger said, speaking of Alexis, “He can play his whole life as centre forward.” ESPN picked up on the story and ran it then, getting on for two years before the Mail suddenly rushed out the headline
“Arsene Wenger: Alexis Sanchez can play as a centre forward forever …” was the headline. I’ve left the link there in case you want to check.
ESPN actually ran the story again in September 2015 (must have been a bit of a slow news day).
So there we are. Panic, dithering, “dragging on”. All there, for an issue that was resolved almost two years ago.
But hey, two years ago. That’s a long time when you’ve been down the pub every night making up stories to print the next day. You can’t blame journalists for not remembering when they are forced into such an existence.
However when you think about it, Alexis at centre forward makes a lot of sense with the huge range of midfield talent that could line up behind him and either side of him: Santi Cazorla, Ozil, Campbell, Walcott, Ramsey, Iwobi, Oxlade-Chamberlain. Indeed, especially the Ox in his current form.
I can’t confirm this but on another blog someone mentioned that Martial was back training (maybe even played a pre-season game?) and he also played in the final (he said, I didn’t watch it), he then asked why we let our players have such a long break… It’s impossible to win, berated if you do and berated if you don’t 😀
I have watched a few of the pre season matches on TV involving a variety of premier league teams and have not noticed a single negative comment spoken about any of those teams by the commentators of the type Arsenal are bombarded with throughout every game we play. In our games we get constant reminders of all Wenger or the clubs supposed failings, everything from 12 years without a major trophy to no ambition to dithering in the transfer market when all the other clubs have done good business. You name it, we get it and it drives me insane.
For “dithering” I would prefer “negotiating”.
While it is important that we accept the current escalation in transfer fees, that does not mean that bargaining should be ruled out.
Arsenal FC has long been self-sustaining and there is no “sugar daddy” at the Ems to scatter money about like confetti.
Arsene’s war chest is substantial but not over-flowing with crazy loot.
Three weeks still to run in the summer transfer window and more than sufficient time to negotiate deals. We should have faith that come 1st September we will have the necessary new blood to strengthen the squad. 😉
Arsenal Football Club put in the most comprehensive FA Challenge Cup Final performance that many will remember for many a year with Alexis and, wait for it, Walcott switching about the place.
If people would stop DITHERING they might be able to recall that Alexis was in the CF position challenging for a header when the ball broke for Walcott coming in off the left side for the opening goal
Nevermind the football eh? 🙂
Everything Arsenal is wrong to an extend of rendering the FA Cup irrelevant because it was being won by Arsenal only to be relevant again after being won by another club.
The was or is a saying why let truth get in the way of a good story now it’s any kind of story good or bad.
No amount of defending Wenger or pointing out the negative biased of the press changes the fact that we have failed to address our biggest need, striker (so far). It is obvious that it helps a new player if he can participate in pre-season and it is equally obvious that if you sign him on the last day of the window that he has no chance of contributing to the first games of the season which are in our case against direct competitors for a top 6 finish. It has also been shown by many other PL clubs that it is quite possible to act decisively in the transfer market and sign a striker. Whether it is factually true or not can be debated only after the transfer window closes, but for the moment we continue to appear to be reactive in the transfer market rather than proactive. Will we see some panic buying on the last day after some poor results, like we have in the past, will we see a surprise big name player arrive last minute who excites us but does not address our need, like Ozil did? Who knows but I for one wish we were more like the many clubs who already did a fair amount of business and who singed a striker.
Alexis in center sounds good but who at LW?
I suspect they are going to rotate the positioning in game and between games, this is the Arsenal style, and i expect it to gel so much better this season.
//
reasons to win first game:
1: It’s at home.
2: It’s Liverpool.
3. It’s the first game.
4. Makes the fans happy.
5. Makes the manager happy.
6. Makes the players happy.
7. Makes the sane part of the world happy.
Govinda if I may quote you back to yourself “No amount of defending Wenger or pointing out the negative biased of the press changes the fact that we have failed to address our biggest need, striker (so far).”
This site has provide a vast array of evidence to show that the solutions to the perceived problems of Arsenal that are proposed by the media are not valid, but are in fact based on superstitions. OK, you don’t want to accept evidence and analysis, and prefer the superstitions. But I am not quite sure why you are writing to tell us that – without giving any evidence.
Just saying it isn’t so, doesn’t make it not so.
Edwell – sorry I didn’t really understand that.
It’s time to sell Walcott according to arseblog.com, even he’s getting fed up lol
We should stump up the cash for nahrez and chuck in wally. Bring in Messi, bid 100 million for him and he is ours
Tony,
Govinda makes a valid point, however you immediately shoot this down.
The evidence is clear enough – Arsenal proclaim themselves as a “big” club but yet fail to challenge for the title. When we used to challenge for the title we had world class strikers. Spot the link? Talking about superstitions is nonsensical. Maybe it is you who does not want to accept the evidence?
Govinda – you are very naive.
Of course we could buy a player early in the window if we stumped up enough cash. Unfortunately, we have a finite amount of cash. If we, say, offered £10mm more for Lacazette now we would have a fair chance of buying him now. And Lyon would be laughing. But push it to the end of the window and then Lyon will be very worried they won’t be able to sell him at all – and they may have earmarked that money to do something else with. So we would be able to get him for maybe £10mm less. And that money is then available to go towards another purchase (perhaps in the following window).
If the club followed your philosophy, ticket prices would need to be even higher.
Tony, I hope you’re keeping an eye on the Guardian preview series; the Arsenal preview was an exemplary example of negativity.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/aug/01/premier-league-2016-17-preview-arsenal
I read it and had a sense of disbelief afterwards, as it left the impression that things could hardly be worse.
Just read it again, and 18 of the 20 paragraphs can be classed as outright negative, two are neutral with mild positivity.
It’s astonishing.
The impression- though it’s more like a fact to me- that we generate more negative press than anyone else, including teams in 8th, 10th, 15th or 20th, can be partly attributed to us being a bigger club, with higher reasonable expectations and more financial power, than the clubs in those positions, but there should still be a natural limit to it.
If a journalist looks back on what he has written (hopefully they do that once at least) and finds he has written an article which is unstintingly negative about a club who have barely if ever underperformed their resources (the true test in football) in 20 years, and always finish near the top of the league, something (an editor, maybe!) should check him at that point. Nope
Chelsea’s review was a touch more negative- all aimed at underperforming players, though- than I anticipated, but nothing like as negative as ours.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/aug/02/premier-league-2016-17-preview-chelsea-antonio-conte
Mick – couldn’t agree more. Wish that we could either change the script that these guys read from or find a less biased commentator. The sad part is that they spend so much time criticizing Arsenal that they barely have time to point out the great aspects of the game going on in front of them.
Steve – the fact that we had “world class strikers” and used to challenge for the title, is not evidence in any normal use of the word, it is simply two observations which you link together. If you want to prove something you need to look for a causal link – or at least a link in multiple cases, not just one. The analysis published on this site shows that having one of the top 3 scoring players in the land is only indirectly linked to winning the title. I am sorry you can’t see that – but as has become clear, an awareness of what proof means is something that divides people, even those in academic institutions of considerable renown.
Would any amount of resentment by we the Arsenal fans deter the media from their anti-Arsenal journalistic sentiment write-ups stand as they continue to dress Arsenal down unabated at any given opportunity to do so? I doubt.
I think what is important for Arsenal is to continue to steadily move on in their preparations as they’ve been preparing for their 2 important opening of the new season games against Liverpool and Leicester. And continue to moving on not minding whatever negative articles the media maybe writing about them provided they have not infringed on anybody’s rights nor broken any laws. For Arsenal, it’s a matter of let them say, let me do my things in my own way.
If Arsenal decided to call Sanchez and Ramsey for their next 2 friendly matches more especially the match against Man City, for God’s sake, whose Ox is gored? Aren’t those 2 Arsenal players anymore?
Pete the other side of the coin is however if we wait until the end of August:- 1 We might not get the deal over the line and 2 :- we will be probably 4 games into the season before he is ready to play if we do. That’s 10% of the season gone .Which is why we are accused of dithering. .
Pete
There’s a major flaw in your rationale.
Most clubs don’t sell their biggest assets without some sort of contingency plan to replace them with adequate talent.
Finalizing deals on the last day of the TW makes it very difficult to find replacements for players sold, especially when you can only purchase new players from the proceeds received from the sales.
Juve lose Morata and replace him with Higuain, with the help of proceeds from Pogba to Man U sale.
Napoli replace Higuain with Milik from Ajax.
This is what Ajax had to say about the transfer:
“Napoli made it interesting for us to sell Milik with the €32 M bid.
The player wanted to move, and with a month left in the TW, it gives us a chance to find an adequate replacement” – hinting perhaps that the deal wouldn’t have gone through on the last day of the TW.
Didn’t Arsene Wenger himself described some of the would be transfers in the past as failures ,because there just wasn’t enough time to finalize them due to the window shutting down.
Sure, it can happen sometimes when you deal with the likes of RMadrid, who are stacked with talent and can unload the likes of Ozil to a number of clubs on the last day of the window for a top price, but Loyn is not RMadrid and they won’t sell him without making sure they have enough time to replace him.
Tony – With respect, I am not sure which solutions you are speaking about or if you are suggesting that for Arsenal it has been impossible to sign a striker? I am not asking to have signed Higauin, or Lukaku or an other obvious out of our budget striker. There have been enough strikers signed in price ranges that we should be able to afford if you are implying there are no solutions to our shortage of proper strikers.
What disingenuous tripe above. Nothing new I suppose. A club can always spend spend spend in advance of selling a player. Such as Tottenham when they sold Bale. Worked out well for them didn’t it! Spend spend spend.
The AAA losing their grip over Paulinhio a player dismissed by AOC a few months before his arrival in N.London, this player who stoked the green eye of the Expert’s voiciferous and insane envy lasted a season before being dismissed by Tottenham. Alongside others!
Are we surprised that the AAA have been constantly dishonest about the amazing hilarity and amusement caused by the Bale-Ozil masterful swindle (of Tottenham FC), and have been I denial of HW it happened vapour transfers and all. Why not bite off your own Arsenal in order to spite your own regurgitating orifice? It’s a good look, no?
Mick
I’m always amazed by the difference it makes having a non-negative commentator for an Arsenal game. It makes for a much better experience and leaves me feeling stupidly grateful. As with most bad things, you can only fully appreciate how grim things were/are when you escape them.
Unfortunately, the only time I’ve ever seen it is for pre-season games. We had David Hillier doing a very good job for the Lille game on Arsenal.com and, last year, Richard Hughes was fantastic for the Emirates cup.
Interestingly, for the latter games, Hughes reasonable, upbeat attitude totally rubbed off on the co-commentator.
Mad thing is that Hughes is a brilliant commentator full stop- with superb insights, a great understanding of the game, wit, realism, good ability to express himself- but BT use him solely for European leagues, mostly Italy.
Pretty galling when you consider how shit most of BT’s roster is. I’m convinced they’d let him have some Prem games if he’d toe the line, and that being positive about Arsenal is a deal breaker.
I’m using mute option more and more as the years go by.
* Lille= Lens
Tony
I know you like to use evidence to back up your posts.Here is a list of forwards from Arsenal Fc-
2002-2003 strikers- Wiltord Kanu Henry Bergkamp
2016-2017 strikers- Giroud Wellbeck Iwobi Sanogo.
Now if you could answer me this .Do you think we need another striker this season?You do not need to try and use stats and facts ,your opinion will do.
Always happy to get multiple dislikes from a qualified unemployed professional physio that pretends that this industry doesn’t have private physios operating as a massive part of the industry in order to attack a football club, no less the only football club to have been blood testing their own players this past decade therefore the only top flight football club that can guarantee for the neutral that it’s athletes aren’t EPO doping. All fairly straightforward. Especially for a self declared expert.
Nevermind the football. Eh? Or the RSI 🙂
Finsbury
Wrong again.
I just gave you 1 dislike and not because you disagreed do with me, but rather because of the manner you respond to my posts.
Like my good friend Bootoomee once said ” have some balls and address me directly”, but that’s ok, by now I know what to expect from your posts anyways – lots of gibberish mostly.
What’s most pathetic about you, it isn’t that you care how many people like your posts, but rather that when they do overwhelmingly dislike them, you need to justify it in your fragile little soul by imagining it’s some single nefarious character doing mischief, and not an overwhelming consensus.
It would be so sad if it wasn’t too funny 🙂
I note the attempt to adopt my favourite word that Tony also kindly adopted in order to best describe the output of these liars, the word ‘Gibberish’.
Flattery will get you not much further then disingenuous and misleading comments that fail to describe an industry that you are apparently an expert in.
Govinda I am not implying there are no strikers, but that the figures from the entire history of the Premier League show that much of the time the winners of the league do not have the top scorer in the league. Quite often the top scorer does not even show up in the top 3 clubs for that season.
I am saying that quite often the winning club has other solutions. Sometimes a low scoring team with a rigid defence. Sometimes buying a player from one position and transferring him to another position (Henry is an obvious example), Sometimes using two or even three scorers so that defences have no idea where the main threat will come from (Leicester did this last season). Buying a top scorer is one solution, but given the fact that most big money transfers don’t shine in their first year in a new club, that gives a double problem – top scorers often don’t mean winning the league, top transfers most of the time don’t work in their first season.
So putting all the eggs in one expensive basket is possible, but often doesn’t work.
@Tony,
Excellent thought provoking article! It’s amazing how much the media can get away it!
@Nicko,
1) If you want to compare strikers for this season to a past season at least choose the players more likely to play at forward:
Giroud, Alexis, Walcott, Welbeck, and Akpom are much more likely to be upfront than Iwobi and definitely Sanogo.
2) Here’s how you present evidence:
Premier League goals per appearance:
Henry: 175 goals in 258 appearances (goals per match .68)
Alexis: 29 goals in 65 apps (goals per match .45)***
Giroud 57 goals in 135 apps (goals per match .422)***
Wiltord 31 goals in 106 apps (goals per match: .29)
Bergkamp: 87 goals in 315 apps (goals per match: .28)
Walcott: 55 goals in 236 apps (goals per match: .23)***
Welbeck: 34 goals in 154 appearances (goals per match .22)***
Kanu 54 goals in 273 apps (goals per match: .20)
*** 2016/17 players
Wow, actually looking at that, maybe our striker options are not as bad as the media reports.
*I was really surprised at how low Bergkamp’s goals per match rate since a few of his goals are my favorite Arsenal memories.
As The Arsenal existed long before the Premier League I just thought to continue on Jerry’s theme with the two goalscorers that I have had the pleasure of watching that I believe are of the type we need now .
Joe Baker 93 goals in 144 games ave :- .65
Ian Wright 128 goals in 221 games ave :- .58
Primarily goal poachers with quick feet and movement around the box.
…obviously I read the wrong news. I thought we finished 2nd last season! I would have thought that constituted “challenging” for the title.
Maybe the haters should piss off and support Manure or Chelsea – after all they are always challenging!
Jerry i pointed out strikers and thus omitted alexis the same way i left out pires,who scored a comparative amount of goals.What we can also take from those lists is that from the 2002 team we had 2 world class strikers as well as 2 back up ones that could still score lots of of goals and were not unproven.Wellbeck is injured and we wont see him for many months and giroud wont be available at the start of the season.,that leaves 2 rookies and experimenting with others.This is a massive worry and even if we sign a top striker he wont be ready straight away.It doesnt seem good preparation for one of europes top and richest clubs.
Thinking of my last post you can almost replicate it and replace the strikers for defenders where we are in a similar position.
I would like to congratulate Bruce Millington of the Racing Post who this evening on Talk Sport contradicted Mark Saggers negative rant on Wenger and Arsenal by coming back with a reply which could have been composed by Tony or Walter. I think it caught Saggers out as he was probably expecting Millington to agree with him as the majority of miserable hacks usually do.
Well done Bruce Millington for being the jewel in the media Crowns (or should that be clowns).
PS Millington is not an Arsenal supporter.
@Nicko,
I also considered Pires whose goals per match rate was .31 as well which is below Giroud and Alexis as well.
If you look at the list we have 2 players (Alexis & Giroud) who have better goal rates than all the players from that team not named Thierry Henry. Sanchez and Walcott will be both be available for the opening fixtures as well so not relying on rookies.
Is this ideal? No, I do think another striker would be good for added depth, but I’m not going to get upset it didn’t happen already. All top PL clubs have their strengths and weaknesses.
Arsenal’s strengths-
midfielders and fullbacks- We have the best midfielders in the PL and arguably the best fullbacks as units.
Strikers- Giroud gets unwarranted criticism. Out of the top clubs, only Aguero scored more goals per mins played during normal play (not including penalties)
Central Defensive pairing- the only reason this is a concern is because of the Per injury. But you still have Koscielny (French international), Gabriel (Brazil), the England under 21 CB pairing of Holding and Chambers, and a youngster Bielik who looks very promising.
The only reason this would be considered a crisis is if you think the England under-21 CB pairing does not have quality.
So like I said above, would it be good to add another player for depth (forward and defender)? Sure, but there’s no logical reason to think it is a massive crisis if we go into the season with the players we already have.
Porter/Tom – That is fair. Clearly, the later you leave it the higher the risk of either not making the deal or the price going the other way if a super-rich club came in. But we still have 4 weeks left.
Yes, we may not have the player for the first 1/2/3 games – but money is important and it is not limitless! it really doesn’t grow on trees (unless you are Man C or Chelsea).
And for all the criticism of our cash reserves, I also note that we have actually had pretty flat profitability over the last few years – so we are spending what we make; not more not less. However, as revenue increases we should be able to afford more.
Let’s see what happens, eh?
Tony – whether I put forward evidence or just an observation is irrelevant really.
The facts are that Arsenal are falling short season after season and the performance in the transfer market suggests that the same failings will continue into the new season.
It was quite obvious that last season we were lacking in certain areas, if you are unable to see that then I question whether you are really truly supporting the club and instead are just on here to defend the manager, who appears to be increasingly undefendable.
Jerry did you manage to watch any Arsenal games last season?Walcott as a striker??gabriel and chambers combination at CB.Dd you manage to see either of those playing CB last season, how they played and your happy all three might be playing against Liverpool.You really are quite happy with mediocrity arent you..Ask yourself do you really think Arsenal are acting like one of the biggest and richest clubs in europe?And that we look like we are an ambitious club.
Vardy realised how ambitious our club is and it wont take long for ozil and sanchez to realise it too sadly.
Nearly every paper over the last few weeks have given Arsenal a rough time with negative articles about the state of our club and transfers.Im starting to realise that they might be right and the handful of untolders are wrong.
Nicko – I take it you saw the sky article on Vardy that it was easy to reject Arsenal?
They had that in the title and a friend showed that to me and i immediately told him to read the article and not just focus on the title. Vardy said he knew the direction the club (Leicester) was heading to and it was easy for him to say that he wanted to be a part of that.
~Steve – this site is set up for people who believe in evidence not in personal opinion.
Govinda
“There have been enough strikers signed in price ranges that we should be able to afford if you are implying there are no solutions to our shortage of proper strikers.”
Wenger has always said that he will only make a signing if he feels that the signing would improve the squad. I do not recall any strikers being sold, in this window especially, that would have improved what we currently have. It does not help us in any way if we sign 10 useless players per transfer window, akin to Liverpool. Yet, this is what many people are clamouring for.
I read some comments on another blog a week or so ago, where one person stated that we should make a signing, it could be anyone, he does not care who, we just need to make the signing. Another said that he is disappointed that the Ox is playing well, because that would mean that Wenger would not make another signing. Why would we need another signing in that position if Ox is playing well?
I am all for buying an upgrade for Giroud, but there are not many available. If you look at his stats, he is one of the best in the EPL. And I do not only mean goals scored. Goals scored is a meaningless stat on its own. If we look at goal contributions per 90 minutes we have a much better picture of what he actually brings to the team, without even taking into account the rest of the hard work he does around the pitch, holding up the play, winning headers in open play, etc. Many “fans” wanted us to buy Benzema at all costs. His stats, for Real Madrid, and France, are inferior to Giroud’s, yet the media and the fans wanted us to spend in excess of 50m for him.
It is my opinion that we should buy another striker, but it is difficult to find one that would actually improve our squad, and is actually available. Maybe Wenger can unearth another unknown gem
Tony
You dont like posts that copy and paste from other sources but it didnt stop you doing it a couple of weeks ago on a blog about man city.It was also factually incorrect.Why is it that only certain poster that have to give evidence and facts and not the few who staunchly agree with everything you say.It seems certain posters can also get away with abusing other posters because of their beliefs about the club where as those who dare to disagree with you have their posts removed for …..Having a different opinion.
Tony
Where is your evidence though maybe you could teach English perhaps instead of upsetting yourself on papers talking. Perhaps you still take numbers of trains and that is the evidence but missus say you sound very tired like poor Arsene.
@Nicko,
I watched almost every single Arsenal game. Did you? Arsenal were tied for 3rd fewest goals allowed so clearly the defense was not bad.
Chambers struggled at RB, but was consistent at CB. Gabriel has a lot of passion and is also pretty good. Supporters can appreciate the players on the team, but if you can’t that’s your problem.
Our GK also won the Golden Glove on top of that.
Just because the papers give the club a hard time, doesn’t mean supporters should. The ability to think freely is something that individuals should develop more.
We all have different opinions of wenger’s and the club’s dealings. We sometimes make vastly different assessments of the same phenomenon. Some of us foreground certain aspects of arsenal’s vagaries more than others, while neglecting factors that appear crucial to others.
I admire the club’s philosophy, i admire the way in which we develop Young talent, and i admire wenger’s civil, respectful, moral personality.
But despite all this, i believe it’s time that the yardstick for measuring arsenal’s success is whether we win the league or not.
–Another FA cup ( if it came to that) is not good enough.
–Crashing out in the round of 16 in the CL is not good enough.
–Finishing 10 points off the league winner (and this was leicester!) is not good enough.
I’m saying all this because the club now has all that’s required to win the league:
–massive monetary resources
–a manager who’s been in the game for 30 years
–who’s had plenty of time to recruit and develop better players, and fashion a strategy and a team that gels
No one can expect a team to win the league. But in Arsenal’s case, the preconditions for winning it have been there long enough for it to reasonably happen now.
I guess Edwell was saying that people are so anti- rsenal they brush the FA cup aside as an insignificant trophy when we win it, only to assert man U winning it the following year a “major achievement”!
Think your research here is interesting. If i had more time, i’d peruse it more thoroughly. In the absence of that, might i pose a question:
So you’re saying that having Louis suarez or aubemeyang as our first-choice striker would not make us more likely to win the league??
And:
Even if, as you point out, Arsenal only scored 3 (?) fewer Goals than the league winners last year, you’re saying that we wouldnt have been much more likely to have gained more points with a striker scoring 25 league Goals as opposed to girouds 16?
Without claiming it would automatically win us the league ( duh!), I really cannot see the sense in desisting the claim that an upgrade on our current main striker would increase our chances to win the league .
“So putting all the eggs in one expensive basket is possible, but often doesn’t work.”
–But this surely *has* worked for real (Ronaldo, Bale, for ex), for Bayern (lewandovski), Barca (neymar), etc…
Minstrel, not I am not saying those things.
I am however pointing out that for every one expensive centre forward who makes a positive impact and improvement for his team in the first year, three dont.
And I am saying that the 3 that don’t often cause problems for the team.