Open day has come and gone, Cesc has had his run around with his team mates, applauded the faithful as they stood to attention and had his Arsenal ‘shirted’ picture taken next to the gaffa in the official photo.
So it would seem all is well in the Arsenal world, but is it? Dear old Bob Wilson is telling all and sundry that Barca are a disgrace and have treated the club disrespectfully, by trying every underhand trick in the book to unsettle and steal its favourite son. Except that is to offer the club market value for their prize asset.
But never mind AW has used his magic or maybe his lawyer, to remind the young man that he has signed the lucrative contract extension and would be held to it. Just as we wouldn’t be asking for the return of the pennies, we no doubt deposited in some offshore piggy bank in the guise of image rights, for his signature (eat your heart out, Mr Taxman)
Meanwhile newly returned from holiday and deemed unfit to play prior to the Liverpool match, and maybe not even then, Cesc has been summoned post haste to join the Spanish squad for a meaningless friendly, where having sat on the bench all through the world cup he will probably be played from the start, just to reinforce on Spanish TV, what Barca fans are missing.
In the middle of my writing this Cesc has issued a statement the gist of which is, I love Arsenal and will stay for one more year and do my very best to bring home a trophy for my Arsenal friends and fans. After that however I would like to return to my roots, my country, my family and the club that discovered me as a boy.
Good on you Cesc, a year from now no reasonable Arsenal fan will blame you when you leave and you will go with our blessing and thanks for all the memories, trophy or not. Providing of course the clubs price is met.
Over at White Hart Lane, Diddy Defoe tells all who will listen that the tots will go further than us in the Champions league. One suspects that will depend solely on who gets drawn where, if we get drawn in France and the spuds in Russia, then yes he is correct, as his air miles will prove. As for progressing further football wise I have my doubts.
So we are in Poland this week for our final pre season and then back to the UK, from where almost the entire squad will be jetting of to bolster Mr Blatter’s coffers with the proceeds from more friendly internationals being played all over Europe. But whisper it quietly the ever reliable UK press reckon we will have three players in the England squad, even Little Jack is tipped to be elevated to senior status. With the other prospects we know are coming through the ranks, how the hell will the “Wenger only buys foreigners” brigade cope.
And then its the weekend and Liverpool away. A rejuvenated pool I reckon, after the demise of the seemingly obnoxious Rafa and the introduction of a thoroughly respected football man as the new manager, things will, takeover troubles aside, pick up at Anfield. So a tough first game ahead, given the lack of match fitness of Cesc and RVP and the undoubted desire of the Liverpool players to impress the new boss. We will learn much from this performance I feel.
How I wish that on the first day of the season the football authorities would say bugger to the TV and the money and kick all the games off on the same day at the same time, just as they used to. Older readers will remember the half time scores of all the games being put up like cricket scores against the letters placed around the corners of the ground, these letters were published in the programme and each had one of the other first division games allocated to it. The full time whistle was immediately followed by a mad dash to the car, just to catch sports report and the reading of the full time scores, somehow something has been lost by the blatant commercialisation, although it has to be said much has also been gained.
So lets just hope our players return unscathed and ready for the fray at the week’s end and I wish all players officials and fans of all teams a great season, we can’t all win but hopefully we can stay fit and free of injury we have seen more than enough of those in recent years.
And as for the Arse, although I would of course love to see us win everything, I will settle for a season of pure Wengerball and hopefully a pot to quieten down the five-year mob. Come on you Arse.
Written by dandan
Arsenal News 24/7
arsenalarsenal.net 
Morning all,
WordPress has been having problems so apologies to those who have had trouble loading the site.
Morning Rasp – it seems to be loading ok now
I had no problem getting on……
What is going on – there’s an article on Arse.com about Sagna bigging up Spahic
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/sagna-spahic-is-good-enough-for-arsenal
Morning gunnern5 – you’ve gone lower case 😉 we both had a problem a couple of hours ago but it seems to have cleared now
Morning gunnerN5,
Most other sites are reporting on that abysmal display in Poland yesterday.
I am lost for words. It would seem unthinkable that a club of our stature with the intellectual personnel we employ would have the team so poorly prepared a week before the start of the season.
No goalkeeper no CB.Its a shambles the defence looks awful even TV.Something has to be done in the next 7 days.We need a keeper as both Almunia and Flappy are not good enough.And a commanding CH.Kos and Djourou are back up CB’s.I fear for us
Morning Gooner Paddy – can’t disagree with you there, its just a week until we start the campaign and I’m not looking forward to watching our defence crumble again.
How have we come to this? Why are arse.com running an article about Spahic – just to wind us up? Are we now officially after him – is that what that means???????
Hi Gooner Paddy,
I’d put the need for a CB before a keeper as I think both Mannone and Chesney are better than Almunia and Fabianski.
Mannone played 7 games in a row for us at the start of last season. He conceded 2 goals in the first 10 minutes in his first game in the CL but had the bottle to come back and we won 3:2. He did nothing wrong. We didn’t lose a game with him in goal and he was man of the match in the Fulham game where he pulled off a string of amazing saves. I believe Chesney is potentially better than Mannone.
We do need a CB badly. I’d like to have Mertesacker although he was playing in the defence that conceded 5 against Fulham yesterday.
We seem to have completely lost our marbles peaches. How unprofessional to reproduce such speculation on the club’s website. I will crawl off and live in a cave if we spend £20m on Spahic 😦
Morning all, good to see you all so happy,LOL Peaches what if its a marketing ploy to take our attention away from the one we really want.
Suddenly Sagna is an authority on Spahic and tells us “he is good enough to play in the premiership”……. Is he good enough to help us win the premiership? I am going to remove Arsenal.com from my favourites because its just one big wind-up and spin machine. Does anyone ever actually say the words attributed in their quotes?
No dandan – they’re not that clever 🙄
Morning – are you still full of hope then 😀
But we’re not allowed to believe anything until its officially written on Arse.com Rasp – like the blind leading the blind
Yes peaches of course I am. I expect us to buy and buy well, have you seen how many of todays papers are tipping us to do well, including Mr Lineker. Also the consensus seems to be the that we will get our Aussie.
Yes all we have to do is buy a defender and a keeper and we’ll be fine but if we don’t, we’ll just have to outscore everyone. Simples
Thats just so short-sighted and we deserve better – AW is a much better manager than that IMO
I’ve just watched the first three Legia goals and the play is embarrassing – giving the ball away cheaply in mid-field. The first goal was a great strike, the 2nd goal was ridiculous – Fabianski must have been watching videos of Jens as he was pushing and shoving Legia players and then fell over, the third goal was dreadful defending.
Chamakh’s goal was good though 🙂
Maybe yesterday was reverse psychology? 😕
Peaches
Here is Arsene’s take on it not a million miles from my yesterday’s post
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/-you-must-detached-from-pre-season-results-?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arsenal-news+%28News+Feed%29
Maybe yesterday was just an embarrassingly crap performance. Eboue never scores when we are playing quality opposition and he got 2 yesterday – just goes to show the level Warsaw play at.
Rasp he actually played very well, he came on and looked a yard sharper than anyone else. We really did look a tired team yesterday Nasri and Thomas were OK in the first half.
So why fly out there to play a meaningless friendly a week before the season starts. We have 5 players injured and apparently, according to Arsène half of what is left is ‘tired’. Complete lunacy.
They were opening the new stadium and we had promised to go.
Good post dandan.
Unfortunately the day of synchronised starting times is well and truly over. TV money rules.
I wasn’t too thrilled to read an alleged quote from Jack Wilshire that if he doesn’t get an immediate 1st team place, he wants to leave.
So demanding, so young! 😦
Afternoon all.i had the same problem with WordPress and it being sunday and in Spain I have just been able to log on.
I do have my concerns about the defence as do most of us and regardless if we bring in anyone or not, set pieces seem to be our ongoing failing,regardless who is playing.
I am also concerned to read that some of the players are tired.
On Arse.com it states,quoting Wenger that Cesc and RVP will not travel to Anfield, bedtner is a long term injury,Vela is playing midweek for Mexico, and of course our 3 lads are in the squad for the ridicously timed friendly on Wednesday.
Denilson appears to have vanished, though I hear Diaby and Arshavin will be fit for next Sunday.
All in all which ever way you look at it conceding 5 was not an ideal preparation for our opener, yet our attacking options seem to have doubled.
I would love to read the boss’s mind right now.
I know that no one is about but this is to dandan.
Do you really think we will splash out on the two most important positions, that is keeper and CB before the end of the transfer window ?
It is universally agreed if you are labelled pro or anti Wenger that those are the top weak spots in our team.
Fun game or not, we had our first choice back 4 out there yesterday, and even allowing for it being a friendly,they were shocking.
I have watched a re run and I am worried with just a week to go.
There is no question that Wenger is the greatest manager we have had, but he has his blind spots, yet fails to address them.
We had this predicament last season, and surely these two key positions should have been addressed by now.
Letting Gallas go IMO is a big mistake, and I hope to be proved wrong that someone is in the offing to replace him, as Kos is by no means ready to fill his shoes.
Well said kelsey, I agree with every word of that.
Sorry I have a house full, but yes I do think we will buy those two players you long for. I really have no concern at all over yesterdays fiasco. It will concentrate the players thinking if anything.
But then I know no more than you, but it is what I believe. We shall see
Evening All,
dandan I hope your right on the signings but I cannot agree on that result concentrating the players minds, That same set made the same mistakes over and over again last year and didn’t learn once. On a brighter note Chamakhs one hell of a player 🙂
dandan – I reckon we should preface every post from now to the end of the month with your mantra 😉
I’m with chippy on that result not being a rocket to those players and concentrating their minds – after the debacle at the end of last season how dare they not defend with their lives – its embarrassing.
On a different note… me, myself am optimistic…. if solely because many Arsenal fans are negative at the BEGINNING of a season…. which for me is a bit different than previous years, and is a good sign….
Cheer up gunners…. Warsaw was playing hard at home in an stadium inauguration match… they seem to have improved too…. AND WE BEAT THEM!!
Morning. Good post DD. Am I the only one who sees the result as a good one. Everybody can see we need at least one quality defender, that our 1st and 2nd choice keepers are poor and that we are still probably lightweight in the middle of the park. Everybody that is apart from the people at the top of the club. Until now we have had a decent pre-season, both keepers have been ok, Kos had a good debut and Frimpong looked good in the Emirates cup so mr Wenger was probably thinking he could save his pennies and stick with what we already have. How wrong that is and now surely even the people guarding the purse-strings can see it too. Ok we may have left it too late again but better for the powers that be see it now rather than next weekend. After that performance I am convinced that signings will be made.
Morning Barum/Andy(?) – while the result should have the desired effect of proving once and for all our defence DOES need serious repair/overhaul I respectfully don’t see it as a good thing, per se.
The damaging effect of conceding 5 goals can’t have helped the confidence of the defensive unit and the ‘dippers strikers must be licking their lips at the thought of playing against a team who shipped in 5 goals in their last outing.
Still I live in hope and nothing would make me happier than seeing Reina or Given come in.
Morning all
Theres a NEW POST