By Walter Broeckx
Well it’s the time of the season. The time of the “he comes, he goes, he will, he won’t, he said, he didn’t say, he spoke, he didn’t speak…”
Every self respecting news site, every self respecting blog or website is full with rumours. We could come up with our own transfer rumours like we did last year and which was a bit fun after all. But let us have a look at what happened since the end of the season.
It’s the time of the season where the “love” runs high between Samir and some fan. A fan that found it necessary to call Nasri a c*** because there are rumours that he could possibly go to Manchester United and because he is not willing to sign a new contract for the moment. Nasri feels that he should get some more money. Well we all want this so I can understand Nasri for trying to make the most of his career. And maybe we should remember that the hawk hanging around, also known as manager might have something to do with this. For a manager a pay rise of his player means more money and a transfer gets him even more money.
But to call Nasri a c*** for this well that will help Nasri feeling good at Arsenal doesn’t it? How stupid can one be…. Well he may have the newest technology that fan but the sad truth is that nobody has ever asked that you have a good brain to get on twitter.
Let us go to the promised land of the sun and then we think of …. Barcelona. It’s the time of the season for every Barcelona player to declare their love for Cesc once again. Or better said it is the time for the media to rewrite all the love declarations ever made by any Barcelona player during the last century. Oh just let them. The most important thing for me this summer is the knowledge that Cesc will be at his best next season. His returning muscle injuries will be over from now on.
As we all have heard before and if you didn’t this is new: a lot of muscle injuries come from the mouth. Just a few examples: Malouda went from muscle injury to muscle injury for a time. He removed his wisdom teeth, or better said he had them removed – I really cannot imagine him doing it himself – and since then the muscle injuries disappeared. Let us take our top scorer from this season. Robin Van Persie. He also had a lot of muscle injuries in the past. When he was injured last year (an ankle injury) he had his wisdom teeth removed and since then he had another ankle injury and a small knee injury but no more muscle injuries that kept him off the field for weeks.
So now the hope is alive that Cesc can leave those muscle injuries behind him because he has let his wisdom teeth removed a few days ago. Well done Cesc. Just show us what you can do next season. As I really think that this will be your best year. Just make sure you will be playing it for Arsenal.
(Walter if I may just jump in here. I wonder how long it takes for this wisdom teeth thing to work. I mean I had my wisdoms removed when I was 20, and (as you will know from my performance in the Supporters Club competition at the Emirates, my football playing ability is still about minus six on a scale of 1 to 10. How much longer do I have to wait? – Tony)
What’s your name? Who’s that name that has been named when it comes to new players coming to Arsenal. I think we can write a book about it by now and then to think this madness will carry on till the end of August. And the funny part of it is that sometimes when you look at a site like goonernews you see headlines saying:
“Arsenal target will stay at his club” and just under or above it you can see “Arsenal target will join soon”. And this all about the same player. And if you click on the link you sometimes get the same quotes from the same unknown sources and they come up with a different headline and conclusion. This really is silly.
Are we rich enough? Because if you look at some prices that are being paid for some players one really thinks that most clubs have never heard of crisis. Crisis….? What crisis? Seems to be the way a lot of clubs go further down the road to administration. Prices that some 5 or 6 years ago was unthinkable for even the best players are now being paid for rather unknown players and players who have to prove it all. Silly wages are being paid for some players. The world has gone mad.
If we pay some £20m for one player this will mean that our whole profit of about one year’s work has been spent. And if you are unlucky this player could get an injury or being kicked off the field with a broken leg and your money has been spend. If the FFP rules will bring back sanity to football it would be great. But I doubt it that Uefa will go further and really ban top teams when they don’t make it according to the rules. Please prove me wrong Michel and Jean Luc.
And then we have the “player X said” report. The formula is rather simple. You take a few quotes from any player from any time in his career and put them together. And then you make a new story with a headline that will attract readers. You don’t say when a players said this to you. No you just google the player’s name and you will find enough old quotes to get a new story. Or you can invent an interview yourself. Just ask Robin Van Persie if they can do such things.
Well the season has only just finished and I am already getting sick and bored from all the “reports”, from all the “rumours”, from all the X will come and Y will not come and Z will come maybe….….
And also the fact that for the moment nobody realises that there still is a 25 squad rule that each club most follow. People just start shouting names without thinking: will we have enough room in our squad when we buy all those people. Do we have enough money to buy all these players? Will the “rubbish” players which we must sell bring enough money to the club? Because as they are rubbish why would we think other clubs will give much money for those rubbish players?
Oh my god, still almost a month before we actually will be kicking the ball again? Is there some hiding place where there are no transfer rumours? Or should we do like Nasri told us to do: don’t listen to the newspapers and all the rumours. I think this is the only thing that is left for us. Until you can find that hiding place…
We currently have just 13 foreign players (Almunia, Squillaci, Arshavin, Rosicky, Sagna, Eboue, RVP, Chamakh, Fabianski, Koscielny, Veramelen, Diaby, Nasri) on our books and 11 Home Grown (Clichy, Djourou, Fabregas, Song, Bendtner, Denilson, Mannone, Vela, Walcott, Gibbs, Traore) I am unsure what the situation is with Botelho, but it looks like he is staying on loan anyway.
If no foreign players leave we still have room for another 4 providing we reduce the home grown quote. You would pretty much bet your house on it that Clichy, Bendtner, Denilson and Vela will move on (hence Vela has not been allowed to go away with Mexico to sort out his future) Also Cesc?? I cannot see the value of keeping Mannone as 3rd choice keeper when he could be on loan. Dont forget we have Shea, Martinez and McDermott also as well as Almunia who might not get a move. However you would have to say that the future of “foreign players” Rosicky, Arshavin, Eboue and Nasri is looking very doubtful, especially if we sign Willan, Gervinho, Chamberlain and Larsson
There’s one site i come to everyday thats bcos i can always get sensible and realistic views. Ur writeups are inspiring and sensible. Keep it up. I’m ur no 1 fan Walter & Tony
Last summer arsenal.com sometimes had articles about what players were linked to Arsenal. I found that very odd and something Arsenal should not be doing since Wenger hates media speculation about transfers. In this transferwindow I haven’t seen any of those. Wenger must have given them a slap on wrist. A bit strange for a club to speculate about what players that might join. Upstairs Wenger is making phonecalls trying to sign players and downstairs is the media people speculating about what Wenger is up to. So it probably only a small circle of people at AFC that knows what players are beeing targeted.
Last year Arsenal ‘supporters’ were screaming for experienced league players like Joe Cole and Sol Campbell to join us and calling Wenger all sorts of names because he clearly didn’t have a clue. I say thank God that some of the most vocal and repetitive voices were not listened to.
The media and blogs whipped themselves up into a frenzy over Arsenal signings and departures. Its so tedious and irritating that its started again and some of the names being linked to the club are just insulting (Defoe, Noble, Parker – I could go on for ages).
At the end of the day this is the first season in a while that I have felt thoroughly disappointed with the Gunners and I am sure that Arsene Wenger felt the same. Arsenal ‘supporters’ abusing the current squad, manager and coaching staff will not achieve anything.
I have now finally got over the pain of last season and I am really looking forward to who we are going to have join us in the coming months. Of course I might be saddened by a few departing players, but that’s life. We need to move on to the next level as a club. I trust Arsene to do his job. I wish I could say the same about ‘supporters’ showing some support.
have to say a few things will be tweaked I am sure but I believe this team are going to silence a few critics next season. Wenger has been financially constrained, he has also tried to go for a game plan designed to be successful in Europe. Maybe he will go back to the combined flair and solidity of the invincibles next season?