I know that this is what we should debate in the summer when bugger all happens but it just sprang to my mind as I contemplated in amazement the fact that we have more midfielders than we need for the game against those jolly chappies from the chippy eastern province.
Next season we will have most of these guys once again apart from Sol who by then will be 86 years old.
I am not going to guess who we bring in from foreign parts, because I always get it fairly wrong, so you can do that. But here’s the kids list of breakthroughs.
Carlos Vela – 2010/11 must be his year, surely.
Jack Wilshere – the time out doing his stuff in the lower part of the league will have done him no harm. And if he has learned that he just has to come on and play, then that will be fine. No fancy tricks, no Bergkamp finishes, just play the game, and you are there.
Johan Djourou – I just want him to be there as the backup to Gallas/Vermaelen. I have no idea what goes on inside Gallas’ head, but he really ought to understand where his best interests lie.
Kieran Gibbs – trouble is where does he play? I can imagine him being in the England team and not the Arsenal team. Actually that could mean at last that we welcome internationals, as a chance for our reserve squad to get a game.
Armand Traore – again, I don’t know where he will play. But on the basis that we need two or three teams, and given that he can play midfield or full back, I guess there is a chance of some games. Come to think of it, we are going to have a second squad that ought to win the League Cup this coming season.
Fran Merida. So what’s he doing? Going to the Athletico Madhouse, or staying with sanity. That goal he scored against Liverpool (I think) was something special. Maybe we could play one team at the weekend and the other midweek. Just to give everyone a chance
Nacer Barazite. One season to early I think.
Francis Coquelin. I thought he could come through this year, but he didn’t. Surely not another year in the reserves? I really think he is a talent – it just depends how long it takes to finally make it to the top level. I hope he stays.
Tom Cruise. Too early for him, but in the Diddly Cup team for sure.
Craig Eastmond. I sure didn’t see his promotion to the first team come through. But there he is, and building his strength all the time. A few more games next season I imagine.
JET. Oh yes – he really ought to be breaking through somewhere – not least because he can play every position under the sun.
Sanchez Watt. He seems to have gone off the radar a bit and I have lost track. Is he on loan? Sorry I ought to know, or at least look it up. I have to go out in a moment, so I’ll check it when I return.
Jay Simpson. Is he turning out to be not quite good enough? I am not sure. Problem is he has got so many other people blocking his way through at the moment.
So out of that lot, about eight players are ready to do their stuff for us in the first team next year. Put another way, eight new signings.
And I didn’t do the keepers. Mannone, as we know is ready to step up. How do we keep him happy?
What I do think is that we have….
Two first team squads moving players around a lot to cover the injury crisis and two games a week.
A totally different Cup squad which is used for both the FA Cup and the Diddly Cup, plus unimportant Champ League games.
That’s three squads. I think we just about have them. It’s going to be a bit of fun next year, I think. And we haven’t finished this season yet!
Did I miss anyone?
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giles sunu…but ‘speculation’ says he wants to go to france
gavin hoyte?
You forgot Szczesny. I’m not an almunia-hater by any stretch but I really think Szczesny might be taking over from him soon, maybe as soon as next season. He looks like one of those rare goalkeeping early-developers like buffon, akinfaev, cech or lloris.
We also have Galindo (dont know if he will need to go on loan to spain next season though) and wellington I think arrives in January – and he looks real class.
I really liked the idea of allowing big clubs to enter a reserve team into the lower leagues as they do in Spain. Arsenal’s reserves would be really competitive.
good post …how about emmanuel free-mpong and gilles sunu?
nah Sunu is way too young to break through.. it’ll be early.. if you throw him in now he’ll find it hard to adapt to the physicality.. but surely in the diddly cup.. you missed frimpong.. he needs as many chances as eastmond.. the thing that can keep this massive and talented squad happy are injuries..
The list is endless it seems. I really think that in one or 2 years time we can switch our first 11 and put out a fresh side without bringing the quality level down.
What’s that in my mouth ???? Just water, just water…
An Chelsea fan walks into a library and asks for a Madrid tour guide.
The librarian says, “Fock off, you’re not going.
chesney is definately the forgotten man off the list.
Without a doubt, Tony, Arsene Wenger could quite easily set out two full teams and one ‘Cup Team’ if required. That bids well for our future.
JET looks like the one for me (and Jack, of course).
Jay is up at Doncaster at the moment and getting great reviews. Doncaster is the sort of club that sounds like it should be in the obscurity of league 2 but with JET playing well they are surging up towards the Championship play-offs.
Keep an eye out for their match reviews in the papers.
Henri Lansbury is another thats been forgotten. He looks to be another exciting talent, hopefully he can step up next season.
any one see this?
http://www.skysports.com/football/player/0,19754,11729_374946,00.html
luke is now mark randall 😀
Can anyone point me towards a definitive list of players out on loan. In fact would someone like to write an article listing all the players out on loan and how things are going? I think we could do with it on this site.
Tony
Tony,
the young guns blog had a great article the other day on the status of the loanees
@Tony:
Young Guns follows the young Arsenal players around pretty well, and that includes the ones out on loan. It was actually through a mention on their site that I discovered yours. Good work you guys are doing here!
You didn’t get into the CB departmet, and you might get the Norwegian lad, Nordtveit coming into the 1st team squad, especially if Gallas should leave (I hope he does), but the time in Germany out on loan will have done him no harm. There’s also Bartley who’s been doing really well at Sheffield United recently. But yes, Arsenal are pretty well stocked as far as players are concerned for next season 🙂
How about Nordtveit, Tony? I know that he’s not doing really good in Nurnberg, because he doesn’t get the chances he deserves, but I think he’s ready next season..
and for the list of players out on loan until now, I guess I could only remember…
Lansbury – Watford
Wilshere – Bolton
Sczezsny – Brentford
Sunu – Derby
Simpson – QPR
JET – Doncaster
Gilbert – Peterborough
Ayling – Yeovil
Pedro – Salamanca
Nordtveit – Nurnberg
Bartley – Sheffield
Hoyte – Brighton
I think that’s the list.. quite a long list..
@Tony,
It’s funny how no one has commented on all the English Lads are on the list you provided… May be Rhys could comment on that? Anyway, a stark contrast to the starting XI we currently have… A friend of mine who currently writes for the Mirror overlooked this fact with a recent article he wrote in support of Arsenal taking the title.
Could Arsenal’s reserves be the next English WC team? If so makes breaking legs by Shawcrap less desirable..No?
tony if i remember well it s
chesnay…brentford (future Number 1 )
Ayling… yeovil (another loan next year)
Randall…MK don (leaving)
Gilbert… Peterborough (leaving)
JET…Doncaster (Carling cup team)
Lansbury..watford (another loan i think)
Bartley…Sheffield utd (back up CB Carling team)
Sunu..derby (another loan i suppose)
Bothello.. celta vigo (i don’t think is quiet good enough)
Nordveit..Nuremberg (another loan)
add to that Wellington Silva (young Brazilian striker who start playing first team for fluminense at 16 ,1 goal in in his first match..look on YouTube) coming next January.
Arsene have transform us in Ajax Amsterdam .
Anyone doubting the project youth,look at AS Monaco who are not as rich as before (wenger time) and cannot afford any star.Last weekend against Bordeaux (0-0) 6 first team where from the Academy,2 more on the bench.Anyone guess who set up and when Monaco start producing top young player…yes the lord wenger legacy
I’m thinking Bartley or Nordtveit for next year.
A bit off the point but we are being written off already and they are bigging up the catalans, obviously… And the one man united…
Verdict: “Second favourites behind the Catalans for the title with many neutrals hoping the pair are kept apart until the final.”
Neutrals will want united to go through? i really doubt that. Anyway, they’ve written us off before, just time to prove them wrong again, regardless of whom we get.
Really interesting young squad. how many of them are English? I wonder if Sepp Blatter or Platini come out with some crazy rules making all team in Europe must field at least 7 local players and 2 on bench totalling 9 local players on team sheet. I think Arsenal will the most prepared team in this situation looking at current squad.
This youth project not only help Arsenal financial & keeping the team balance & competative without spending much, but Arsenal youth camp also help the other team in league require a quality players but cannot afford to buy any. And who say Arsenal (which have many foreign players) didn’t contribute to English football.
There is also that bolivian we signed in January. I can’t remember his name, although I wrote a piece about him…. Time to take a pill obviously.
I’ll try and gather all these names together into a permanent article, so that if I forget again the whole list will be avaialble in one place.
Tony
Excellent piece Tony. In contrast to what is happening at Arsenal, it looks like the Chavs are ready to buy another title. Having seen some of the names mentioned I had to laugh as they obviously haven’t learnt from the failed Madrid experiment. Poaching some of the biggest names on the planet and expecting them to deliver consitently as a team does not guarantee shite. All it does is over inflate a Market that’s already close to imploding due to the ridiculous spending policy at clubs like chavski, shitty, Man IOU, Madrid and even Liverpool. Luckily we have a visionary manager in charge with a board that fully supports his philosphy that long term sustainability is BUILT and not BOUGHT.
The future is bright. The future is Arsenal thanks to Le Professor.
members your forgeting about Luke Freeman who is improving in every game his playing and also the young Dutch international Ozakhup we still have many players to join the first team next year
I knew there was another one…
Samuel Galindo: midfield, 17. That is who we signed – he is from Bolivia which is apparently near West Ham, and will go to Spain to get EU nationality.
“He is a player who has good technique,” said the overwhelmingly wonderful Lord Wenger. “He’s intelligent, 6ft 2in, left-footed and that’s plenty of qualities. He also has good stamina and can give good balls, he has good vision and we like that here.
“It’s true that he was at Everton but he was offered to come to me on trial. I said yes, I liked what I saw and I signed him.”
One other thing I would look up if it were not for the boring business of going to work and writing stunningly brilliant advertisements for people who utterly fail to recognise genius when they see it, ….
How many of all these people we have mentioned can play for England (remembering that being English doesn’t have anything much to do with it.)
Gibbs, Hoyte the Younger, Wilshere, Theo the old, JET, Eastmond…. my brain has gone, help me out.
What a list!!! Personally, I feel Coquelin is 2012. Lansbury is slightly ahead of Eastmond as Song’s back-up. Wilshire will start to get integrated Walcott-style. (With a vacancy there until Ramsay returns) I would love to see Barazite in the team somewhere, Vela? JET? Merida? GIbbs? Wellington!!!
OMG! It’s impossible. What a future.
Interesting article Tony – I drew up a 33 man spreadsheet about 6 months ago thinking in similar ways. Thought 40 games a season was enough for anyone who didn’t want to get repeat game/strain injuries.
Arsenal are long-time producers of English youngsters who go off to other clubs. I’ll be the first to cheer if they make it into the first team. I’d also lay odds that Gallas’ ‘endless calf strain’ will be magically cured by a pen signing paper. You do a careful analysis of media patterns and you’ll see what I mean……look at Traore on Arsenal.com yesterday: according to him, it’s solely between him and Clichy for Left Back position. No mention of Gibbs at all……you think he said that without Wenger’s sanction? Get real…….
Interesting interpretation Rhys. And I get what you are saying. Can you expand on these media patterns.
Sorry, off topic but Barcelona!!! Awesome! Can’t wait for it.
Wow. It’ll be the greatest show on earth. If we manage to go through, just imagine what our confidence will be like.
Mingus – Lansbury is attacking midfield, not defensive. Eastmond, Coquelin, & Frimpong are contesting Song’s back-up.
Rhys – dont agree with you at all about Gibbs and English players. Not at all. Back-up players always just say that their competition is the no.1, not the other folks they are competing with. Mentally it makes it easier to deal with. The English players have left our club because they were not good enough. If Gibbs, Wilshire and any others show they are good enough they will play.
Shevo – just because the media say Chelsea will buy, it doesnt mean Chelsea will buy. Abramovich would be crazy to sanction another round of buying. Chelsea will never break-even if he does and the value of his investment will plummet. Remember, everyone predicted Chelsea would spend loads last summer as well. And in January as well. It didnt happen.
Rhys,
Interesting spin you put on Traore’s comments. However if you look at his comments and take them at face value and look at the current fitness of those competing for that position, then Traore is only competing with Clichy.
Last news I heard about Gibbs is he might be ready for the end of the season. If Wenger puts him in for that after such a long lay-off it would be very surprising and unlike the usual caution shown by Arsenal medical staff and also without taking into account match fitness for some very important games.
Reading anything else into Traore’s comments is, in my humble opinion, being very loose with the facts and the quotes
all the best
Dave
I fail to share much of the enthusiasm at our start to the season on the basis we’ve only played two decent teams so far and they both turned us over. Whether we deserved to lose is immaterial, the fact is yet again we were not good enough to win against better opposition. So far we have hammered average teams whilst giving up a host full of opportunities to them resulting in goals conceded against poor opposition. Take Blackburn as an example, 6-2 sounds great. Had we played like that v’s Chelsea or Utd we’d have lost 3-1/4-1. There’s no disputing that our attacking play is on a different level to most teams in Europe let alone England. But unless we can tighten up at the other end it’s going to waste.
Vermaelen has been sensational since he signed, so what’s the answer? The keeper? Gallas? Lack of midfield protection? The tactics? Or a combination of all of these? I honestly don’t know but surely after 4 years of having our campaigns undermined by the same problem, surely the gaffer has to address the problem, even if it means sacrificing some of our attacking play?
I’m now expecting to be vilified as a pessimist and the negative type we don’t need. But the only reason it grates me so much is because I feel we’re so close to winning major trophies if only we’d sort out what is staring us right in the face! To not win something with a squad as talented as ours would be criminal.
Trust me. I’d love to be proved wrong.
Shane – you ARE wrong.
So, by your argument that we’ve lost to the only good teams we’ve played, then last year Utd should also not have deserved to win the League, huh? After all, last year they lost twice to Liverpool and actually had a worse record against the supposed “big-4” than we have this season. In fact, if you look at the record against the top-8 in the League then U
Sorry, didnt mean to press “post” so I continue.
Udt were W 5 D 5 L4 against the top-8 last year. We are W 5 D 1 L 5 against the top-8 this year. Pretty similar. That is the way it goes.
You win the League against the lesser teams in the League. That is the way it has always been and the way it alwasy will be.
All this crap about “had we played that way against so and so” is silly. All that matters is how many points we have.
You say “I fail to share much of the enthusiasm at our start to the season” as if we’ve only played 8 games. DUDE, WE’VE PLAYED 30 GAMES!!!!!! WE ARE 2 POINTS OFF THE LEAD!!!!! GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR BACKSIDE AND ENJOY THE SEASON!!!!! THIS IS FUN!!!!! WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP RACE!!!!! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT???????
And no, we dont want to sacrifice attacking play for defending. Some of us were fans when we had the best defense in the land but couldnt score and we were BORING, BORING, BORING, PAINFULLY BORING.
Come on, man, we are doing amazing and you are coming on here saying how much we need to fix and how you aren’t excited about the season we are having!?!?!?!? What exactly do you want?????
Shane – one more thing, seasons when your team challenges for the League dont come along every year. Believe me, and Tony will agree with this as well. We’ve supported the team since the 70’s (perhaps earlier). ENJOY SEASONS LIKE THIS!!!!! You will regret it soooooo much afterwards if you let seasons like this go by without getting fully into it and enjoying every moment.
Paul C, (apart from agreeing with your reply to shane) I believe Lansbury could play DM. After all, he was mentioned as a possible left back not so long ago. But I also agree with you that at the moment he seems to be our answer to Lampard, if indeed we wanted a player like that!
But if opportunities for our potential attacking midfielders is a bit congested at the moment, I am sure he could play deeper.Anyway, what do we know? We shall see in the long run. And it’s all good.
Mingus – yep, I am just going on where he played for the youth team and where he has been lining up for Watford this season, which is far further forward. I actually get the feeling he’ll be one of these Rosicky/Nasri type wide midfielders. Let’s see if he is good enough!!!
I agree that things look congested in midfield. You can see why AW says “i dont want to buy because it will block the path of younger players”. In the next 12-18 months we should see Wilshire, JET, Eastmond, Coquelin (LB as well), Merida (will he stay?), Nordtveit (CB as well), Frimpong and Henderson all making their way into the 1st team squad, at least for Cup games. There are others such as Aneke who are really highly rated at the next level. It is a very, very crowded picture when you consider the fact that we have 5 young midfielders established in the 1st team squad already, the oldest at 23.
Good post, I’ve been harping on about the youth players for a long time now and in my humble opinion we have the best squad of young players in the country by miles, and yes while it’s true we have not won anything for a number of seasons now the joy I feel in seeing these young players break through into the first team and excel far out weighs the winning of silverware, maybe I’m mad but I don’t care I seen the future and the future is Arsenal.
One thing we should not forget is the effect of the world cup on some of our key players next season- V Persie if fit,Diaby, Chamakh, Sagna, Clichy,Nasri, Gallas, (if he has not already gone), Rosicky, Bendtner, Walcott,Song even Vela and especially Fabregas are all likely to need an extended rest- are unlikely to have a proper pre-season even if not injured in the WC will impact on their propensity to deliver during the season.
All this means we will need a bigger squad than this year even with some young players coming through into the first team early in the season-I can see Wilshere, Gibbs/Traore needing to play in the first team early in the season and Merida if he stays getting an extended run out. I think JET is the most equipped mentally and physically to cope with the EPL.