Why didn’t Wenger stop Alexis travelling? And who did the worst transfer business in the summer?

Posted on by Tony Attwood

By Tony Attwood

It has, both for those people who play fantasy football and for the journalists who base their regular commentaries around fantasy football, while nicking their news stories without checking from wholly unreliable news stories, been a bit of a topsy turvy season so far.

One minute Arsenal is in total meltdown and Lionel Messi is absolutely most certainly not going to stand trial.  And that was all because Arsenal lost a Champions League match and AS, that most unreliable of outlets, published a muddled headline.

Meanwhile Ozil is the guy who nicks a living and shows how bad Wenger is at transfer dealings and the next minute he’s in the official EA Sports team of the week.

Then before you know it, Arsenal is the greatest team in the multiverse and Lionel Messi stands to get a couple of years inside for defrauding the state of vast amounts of revenue.

What sort of world is this?

For the Telegraph, Charlie Eccleshare was given the unenviable task of making the paper’s erratic and often downright misleading reporting make some sort of historic sense.

Of course the Telegraph take no responsibility for telling us that Messi was not on trial and have quietly forgotten that they were hammering Arsenal at the start of the seaso.  Now Alexis “has been back to his irrepressible best in the last three games, with six goals and superlative performances bristling with energy and purpose.”

So that’s all right then?

Well, no because he “limped off” in the last match.  Do you ever notice that no one ever walks in the world of journalism.  And Alexis “limped off”.

And then, showing Arsenal’s naievity in the process he “headed straight off to Chile to link up with his national team for the South Americans’ World Cup qualifiers against Brazil and Peru.”  Dumbo Arsenal.  This wouldn’t have happened if Alexis had been a Chelsea player.   Mourinho would have boarded the flight, screamed “I’ve got a bomb,” been let off with a warning because he is, well, Mourinho, and Alexis would have stayed put.  But Arsenal are so slow in such matters.

So now the approach is on whether Arsenal should forget the Champions League, put out the kids and then make sure they don’t get into the Europa either, or should go for the Europa so that at last they get a trophy – which can then be called a non-trophy, a bit like the FA Cup apparently.

In papers like the Telegraph, you get statements like, “After all, winning consecutive FA Cups earned Wenger a stay of execution”.  So he’s on trial is he?

But here’s the laugh.  The Telegraph reckon the board has told Wenger that he must not pull out of the Europa league because they don’t want to give refunds on the season tickets which entitle us to seven cup games (excluding the league cup where admission is £10 of course – although the Telegraph forgot to mention that).

Of course what the papers love to do is blame Wenger for all sorts of things, get some of the non-attending supporters (aka the aaa) to complain and then blame the supporters for not having faith in their manager and calling them fickle.

So we get

“Supporters have long complained that the manager doesn’t give enough game time to players such as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and overburdens key players like Sanchez by playing them in every game.

“Then when he does make changes, as he did for the matches against Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiakos, he is pilloried for weakening the team.”

So nothing to do with the Daily Telegraph then.  Never mind, time for them to get back to attacking Mesut Ozil.

Clearly what everyone in the media and the blogettas would have liked was more transfers this summer.  Indeed it is commonplace to discuss which clubs did the best business after each transfer window as the media and the bloggettas focus on the handful of high profile incoming players who have “done great” as the phrase goes.
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But there is a downside.  The players who (at least so far) have not quite lived up to expectations.
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In a recent piece we used data from a Liverpool fan to show just how many very high cost high profile players really don’t live up to expectations, and in rough and ready figures showed that only about a quarter of the big money signings actually come good.
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So what of the rest?  I won’t bore you with each club, but here are a few.
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Arsenal don’t have to worry about the failures among their signings, because there was only one signing of a first team player: Petr Cech, and I’ve not heard anyone say it wasn’t a good deal.  The only difference of opinion is with Ospina – I still rate him very highly and all the media disagree.  But it was ever thus.
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However what of the rest?

Aston Villa bought Jordan Ayew who isn’t scoring and the media’s favourite (until last week) Tim Sherwood splashed lots on Idrissa Gueye, Jordan Veretout, Adama Traore and Jordan Amavi (the latter costing £10m).

Chelsea bought Pedro for £21.4m and £17.7m on Rahman.  Falcao came in on loan, and those loans still cost lots and lots.   

Everton don’t splash cash big time because they have eight consecutive years of accumulated debt to try and sort out, but they did buy Ramiro Funes Mori from River Plate for around £10m for reasons that have not become clear.

Man U paid £27,9m for Memphis from PSV.  Maybe others see more in him that I do.

But for the real fun we need to look at Newcastle.    Florian Thauvin, £13m,  Georginio Wijnaldum cost £14.5m  and Alksandar Mitrovic cost £13m.   Ivan Toney was Northampton’s youngest ever player, but I don’t know what the transfer fee was on moving to Newcastle.  He has played once for them.

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A little extra note: I’m about to go on holiday.  If you have an article you’d like us to publish, please forward it to WalterBroeckx@hotmail.com    Thanks. Tony.

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Anniversaries

  • 11 October 1890: First recorded appearance of Jack Humble as an “umpire” (ie ref) v 93rd Highlanders.  Newspaper reports suggest that he should in future stick to administering the club, which he did.
  • 11 October 1902: Arsenal beat Bristol City 2-1 in front of highest league crowd thus far: 16000.  Gooing and Hunt scored.

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10 Replies to “Why didn’t Wenger stop Alexis travelling? And who did the worst transfer business in the summer?”

  1. I’m beginning to get the impression that between Tony and Walter there is a definite plethora of dislike against (a)the Daily Telegraph and (b) referees.
    In the case of the former, it does provide, IMO, the best cricket coverage in the written world. As for referees, Walter’s post mortems can scarcely compliment a single one. 😉

  3. Seen reports that Giggs has had a go at Depay about his lefestyle. Makes a change for it not to be Jack getting slagged off, even though he was widely pictured out and about at the weekend.

  4. When it comes to transfers it’s far too easy (aaa easy) to judge a player in his first 4 months as a success or failure. Some shine bright then disappear whilst others take a season or 2 to fit in.
    I suspect that Firmino will turn out to be a decent buy at £20m (probably not such a great buy at 30m), Pedro would have been a good buy for us if we’d needed a winger/inside forward, and the Toon buys are certainly decent players for ‘not a lot’ money-wise in this market = maybe not much of a gamble, But I could be wrong.
    We’ll only know which were good buys and which were catastrophic buys in a few years time, despite the best efforts of the idiot press to see the future.

  6. Actually ,Tony, there were some people questioning Wenger’s judgment regarding Cech’s acquisition.

    The highest price tag for any Arsenal keeper ever and at 33 years old , a player with no resale value( apparently).

    Mike T of Chelsea told us we were getting a player who might’ve been ” past it” and would probably be less effective with Arsenal’s high defensive line. And at £10M he was a gamble.
    LOL!!!!!

    As far as you rating Ospina ( I do too, but only as a solid no 2) , are there any Arsenal players you don’t rate? Just curious.

    Anyways, enjoy your well deserved vacation and try not to think too much about Messi’s tax evasion problems. I’m sure he’ll be just fine 🙂

  7. Chief Tony, I wish you to have a satisfactory holiday. And happy Sunday to all Arsenal Untolders. I am focusing on our next 2 games to see how they’ll pan out for us. For the obvious reason of hosting the Germany Champions at the Emirates Stadium this upcoming Tuesday night’s, I want to believe myself that the Boss will do a wholesale rotation of his Gunners for our away game to Watford. Ospina. DebuchyRhino’ChambersGibbs. ArtetaFlamini. IwobiAdelaideOxlade. Giroud. The issue now is, would Arteta and Flamini have recovered from their injuries and be match fit to start the Watford game? Because, save Rhino'(BFG) & Giroud, I want our other 7 top 1st team starting Gunners to start this match on the bench as substitutes. And only come into the game if it’s becomes very necessary they are brought on by the Boss. I want all our Gunners to rest for the Bayern game. Nevertheless, the Boss has the final decision to make. If one of Arteta & Flamini is not ready, I think the Boss can bring on Kamara to stand in for any of the duo DMs. The Boss should not doubt if these my starters will not be abled to collect all the 3 points that will be at stake in this game. This rotation Gunners will surely collect all the vital 3 points at stake. I don’t want to talk on Arsenal transfer save until early December. But even then, if the Boss wants to buy a Striker, let that striker be a high quality one. Say, one of Neymar or Lewandoswki or the hidden like of them. Even if Arsenal are on top or joint top of the summit, like I am suspecting it could happen in the weekend game results after the international games. The Boss should still strengthen his team with one audacious top quality striker as another optional starter for security against any top Gunner fatigued, loss of form, dry spell in goals scoring and injury to any of our Striker(God forbids). Even signing another top quality CB shouldn’t be neglected by the Boss for security reason during for our winter campaign. The Boss should do everything possible within his financial means to strengthen his team as the Gunners top the table. So that, no Jupiter of any rival team or the Pgmo can topple the Gunners on top of the table upto the very end of the season.

  8. Chief Tony, I wish you a satisfactory holiday. And happy Sunday to all Arsenal Untolders. I am focusing on our next 2 games to see how they’ll pan out for us. For the obvious reason of hosting the Germany Champions at the Emirates Stadium this upcoming Tuesday night’s, I want to believe myself that the Boss will do a wholesale rotation of his Gunners for our away game to Watford. Ospina. DebuchyRhino’ChambersGibbs. ArtetaFlamini. IwobiAdelaideOxlade. Giroud. The issue now is, would Arteta and Flamini have recovered from their injuries and be match fit to start the Watford game? Because, save Rhino'(BFG) & Giroud, I want our other 7 top 1st team starting Gunners to start this match on the bench as substitutes. And only come into the game if it’ has become very necessary they are brought on by the Boss. I want all our Gunners to rest for the Bayern game. Nevertheless, the Boss has the final decision to make. If one of Arteta & Flamini is not ready, I think the Boss can bring on Kamara to stand in for any of the duo DMs. The Boss should not doubt if these my starters will not be abled to collect all the 3 points that will be at stake in this game. These rotation Gunners will surely collect all the vital 3 points at stake. I don’t want to talk on Arsenal transfer save until early December. But even then, if the Boss wants to buy a Striker, let that striker be a high quality one. Say, one of Neymar or Lewandoswki or the hidden-like them. Even if Arsenal are on top or joint top of the summit, like I am suspecting it could happen in the weekend game results after the international games. The Boss should still strengthen his team with one audacious top quality striker as another optional starter for security against any top Gunner getting fatigued, loss of form, dry spell in goals scoring and injury to any of our Striker(God forbids). Even signing another top quality CB shouldn’t be neglected by the Boss for security reason for our winter campaign. The Boss should do everything possible within his financial means to strengthen his team as the Gunners topped the table. So that, no Jupiter of any rival team or the Pgmo can topple the Gunners on top of the table upto the very end of the season.

  9. Chief Tony, I wish you a satisfactory holiday. And happy Sunday to all Arsenal Untolders. I am focusing on our next 2 games to see how they’ll pan out for us. For the obvious reason of hosting the Germany Champions at the Emirates Stadium this upcoming Tuesday night’s, I want to believe myself that the Boss will do a wholesale rotation of his Gunners for our away game to Watford. Ospina. DebuchyRhino’ChambersGibbs. ArtetaFlamini. IwobiAdelaideOxlade. Giroud. The issue now is, would Arteta and Flamini have recovered from their injuries and be match fit to start the Watford game? Because, save Rhino'(BFG) & Giroud, I want any other top Gunner of the 1st team starting XI to start this match on the bench as substitutes. And only come into the game if it becomes very necessary they are brought on by the Boss. I want all our 1st team starting XI Gunners save 2 to rest for the Bayern game. Nevertheless, the Boss has the final decision to make. If one of Arteta & Flamini is not ready, I think the Boss can bring on Kamara to stand in for any of the duo DMs. The Boss should not doubt if these my starters will not be abled to collect all the 3 points that will be at stake in that game. These my rotation Gunners will surely collect all the vital 3 points at stake. I don’t want to talk on Arsenal transfer save until early December. But even then, if the Boss wants to buy a Striker, let that striker be a high quality one. Say, one of Neymar or Lewandoswki or the hidden-like them. Even if Arsenal are on top or joint top of the summit, like I am suspecting it could happen in the weekend game results after the international break. The Boss should still strengthen his team with one audacious top quality striker as another optional starter for security against any top Gunner getting fatigued, loss of form, dry spell in goals scoring and injury to any of our Striker(God forbids). Even signing another top quality CB shouldn’t be neglected by the Boss for security reason for our winter campaign. The Boss should do everything possible within his financial means to strengthen his team as the Gunners have topped the table. So that, no Jupiter of any rival team or the Pgmo can topple the Gunners on top of the table upto the very end of the season.

  10. SamuelAkinsolaAdebosin. Have you got the shakes? Youalwayspostmultipletimes&alwayswithoutspaces.

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