So somehow, Edu found a reliable RB at last and at a good price too in Tomyasu. Hard-working, defensively sound and decent going forward. He has made the AFC RB position his…
Since Tomy’s arrival, Bellerin has left for Betis on loan, where he has had a decent season without being great or poor. He is still not the Nr.1 option there and is competing with Sabaly who is not the best RB in the world to say the least…He is still very appreciated at AFC, a club and fan’s favourite.
Soares has deputized Tomy rather decently when called upon. He is still, imho, not very reliable defensively and he has not really set the world on fire going forward either. He, however, has a very good attitude when he plays and when he doesn’t play.
So, comes the summer, the club and players would have tough decisions to make:
- We cannot keep Tomy, Bellerin and Soares
- We are definitely keeping Tomy so…what do we do:
- Keep Bellerin, sell Soares
- Keep Soares, sell Bellerin
- Sell Soares, Sell Bellerin and make AMN our deputy RB
- Sell Soares and Bellerin and get another player like Lamptey
So what are your views?
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It is not just what we would prefer. It’s more about what the players might be interested in. Taking those into consideration I’ll go for the ‘Keep Soares, sell Bellerin’ scenario, and Cedric could mentor Norton-Cuffy and/or Walters, as one of them should become our deputy RB in a few years.
If Zidane does not join PSG in the summer, PSG will try Gasperini. It may be actually better if PSG went with Gasperini because he could easily apply his 3-4-1-2 with PSG given the squad
Donnarumma – Marquinhos, Ramos?, Kimpembe – Hakimi, Paredes, Verratti, Nuno – Neymar – ?, Messi
Hey RC. Great job of keeping the posts going. General apathy on AA is a real shame – not sure why unless I missed something?? As far as I’m concerned, just slammed with work for last 18 months !!!!
Anyway, I think the answer is simple enough. Bellerin cannot return. He is the epitomy of everything Artea is trying to get rid of. Complacent, apathetic, lacking concentration and just not good enough, especially in the big games. At least you know what you’re getting with Soares. Bellerin is an air headed playboy who lost his football focus due to fame and fortune. Admittedly he was never the same after the injury in the Spuds game but the writing was on the wall. So that’s my opinion for what it’s worth. Sell them both and upgrade, or keep Soares.
I think Bellerin may indeed be tempted to stay in Spain and we would not retain him. For me, Soares is a decent squad player but I think that we can get an even better one if we wanted to…
So my ideal scenario would be sell them both and get an upgrade on both…or keep Soares indeed.
Keep hector of course
“Bellerin is an air headed playboy who lost his football focus due to fame and fortune.”
So funny, the highest praise I can give this is Rocky with Claws. Still chuckling.
Keep Soares of course.
Was reading recently that Cedric is so bad defensively he having a negative effect on Tierney
With tomi he the FB who stays back while allowing Tierney to go forward seeing as Cedric can’t defend the roles are reversed
Hey Mike – not sure what happened to our blog to be honest…We re missing all the regulars and besides Fred and pbarany, there is not much movement…sometimes I wonder the need to post…but oh well
Wonder why we got rid of chambers surely he better than Cedric
Score a belter today
But he kept Holding at least…
Yeah it s funny how Chambers lost playing time under Arteta over the months…He used to play loads and then nothing
Yea strange like he thought tomi would have never gotten injured, but then again sometime it the players not willing to stay
It really strange how players from other clubs stay a nd fight to play but at arsenal dey prefer to move away
Examples willock chambers amn
Compared to Jones Gomez from Liverpool
Loftus cheek from Chelsea
Yeah, I agree with PB, keep Soares as deputy to Tomiyasu, develop Norton Cuffy as the long term cover for Tommo and sell Hector, Hector wouldn’t want to come back anyway.
It wasn’t a question in the post, but if Chambers were an option I would have picked him ahead of Cedric and Hector. Not necessary because he is clearly better, but I really like his always smiling, optimistic personality, he has some deep Arsenal roots (Bellerin does too), he is versatile as he can operate as RB, RCB and DM as well, and I somehow feel that we failed him in the past 8 years by signing him as an already capped international, but didn’t provide him enough minutes and opportunities to develop himself and challenge the lads ahead of him.
Unfortunately that ship has sailed, but not now when Arteta decided to let him go for free, but by the time Cedric was signed. Nevertheless I will probably always think of Calum as one of us and root for him, which is quite uncharacteristic of me as I resent or simply become disinterested of most players leaving the club, including – but not limited to – Kolasinac, Willock, Ozil, Sanchez (who was my favorite Arsenal player behind Bergkamp), Giroud, Martinez, Iwobi, Walcott, Ox, etc.
Has anyone seen Norton Cuffy? Is he really that exciting of a prospect? I have never seen him play so it is hard to assess his level.
pbarany – I agree that maybe Arsenal did not necessarily help Chambers fulfill his potential but he also had some injuries issues and did not necessarily strike me as a regular starter in any position. He is a good and versatile player – I would have liked to see him more in a DM role but none of our coaches played him there (unlike his time at Fulham) and currently in his new club, he does not play there either so maybe, he is just a better defender than holding midfielder. I remember a commentator saying he is not fast enough to be a full-back, not strong enough (especially in the air) to be a CB nor dynamic enough to be a holding midfield but that he is good enough to be a squad player at a club like AFC, maybe he did have a point. Ultimately, I do not think that Arteta or Edu wanted to let him go like that but they had to be fair to him and to his career and acceded to his request to leave the club and AFC did it nicely and eased his departure. So we all wish Chambers a successful career and all the best, except when he plays against us 😛
As for your favourite player, good to see Bergkamp and Sanchez in your list. I will put a post up soon on “Selecting your favourite player per decade” since 1990…looking forward to your answers to that post.
Just read that Norton Cuffy is playing quite well in Ligue 1…but he reminds of a younger AMN. AMN had raved reviews when he first came to the scene because of his pace and dribbling skills and even Henry said that he believes AMN would be a top player for AFC…but we know what happened, he has not flourished as expected although I believe that we should retain him because he is a very good squad player…
So I am hoping that all the hype for Cuffy is justified and that he will do well at AFC and go on to become our own “Dani Alves” in the next few years.
From my glance at Norton Cuffy on Youtube, he looks more midfield than right wing back, can’t see the where the Alves comparison comes from, I must be missing something.
Little PSG interlude:
– Pochetinno will leave, latest by the end of the season
– Al-Khelafi or Leonardo will leave
– Mbappe most likely to leave as well
– Di Maria will leave
– Dagba, Kurzawa will leave
– Kehrer and Draxler may be moved on as well
– Ramos and Bernat may not stay either
– Wijnaldum and X.Simmons will stay and so will Gueye and Diallo
– Icardi and Messi will most likely stay but they want out
– Huge summer for PSG and I am hoping that we bring in Gasperini from Atalanta as our coach as the squad looks good for his system and he is a very good coach.
– In terms of captain, the armband may be given to Verratti with Marquinhos and Messi as the deputies.
PSG interlude over
Hi LB, he is a wingback apparently and has been playing fullback for Isles, apparently…but I am not sure…
Can we just take a moment to gloat about what is happening to Chelsea…….
This is schadenfreude on steroids.
Uzmanov……..wow, we dodged a bullet there.
I d rather have peace in Ukraine than seeing Abra get hit with sanctions because of his links with Putin…It would then mean that there is no war there…
Those sanctions are hypocritical – they should have been applied a long time ago
RC, absolutely agree about the hypocracy. Without dismissing the terrible effects of the war, is Putin any different to the Putin that annexed the Crimea in 2014 and has been ongoing in his aggression toward Ukraine? This is hypocracy in it’s worst form, knowing that someone is “not fit and proper” by defintion of owning a PL club, but only acting on it when you have no choice in the political correct climate we now live in. I hate Chelsea and all it stands for since Abramovich took over but the war in Ukraine didn’t change that, it just re-iterated it.This action being taken now is wrong because if it was to be done, as RC says, it should have been done many years ago.
LB, without trying to score points, I believe there were a few of us a while back questioning Usmanov’s sketchy background in the Kroenke/Usmanov debate. Although to be fair, he’s not one of the sanctioned ones …..Yet.
Mike
I think you will find that Uzmanov was one of the first to be sanctioned, in Europe, way before anyone got around to issuing sanctions in the UK.
Just because sanctions weren’t taken before doesn’t make them wrong now, they are just late or as the saying goes Better Late Than Never.
The difference between Crimea and where we are now is clarity; we are led to believe that the majority of the population are pro Russia, no such thing in Ukraine — Clarity.
LB – fair point but you still have to admit the hypocrisy of the sanctions. Plus – it is all smoke in the mirror. Most of the Russian Putin Squad/Possy’s assets are safe through dodgy banking systems and companies…so yes, they are being hit and they are hit hard but for 1) Putin does not care about his people or his friends, 2) there are better ways to hit Putin, his friends and the country than those sanctions.
Putin is going to take over Ukraine in the near future, then his eyes will be on Moldova and then back on Georgia. After that, he will be able to pu his miltitary arsenal right on the EU doorstep. He won’t attack Finland or the Baltic States but he will make sure that Bosnia and Montenegro suffer some instability. North Macedonia and Albania may be spared…
It is a typical case of real politiK where if the bully does not get confronted militarily, he will continue until his objectives are achieved no matter the human, infrastructure, cultural or financial cost.
That is a very grim scenario RC, probably best to get back to Chelsea, not the Abramovic sanctions, but the hilarity of the mess that they find themselves in.
LB – unfortunately, if NATO Allies and EU Members do not intervene in Russia (and maybe rightly so as to avoid a nuclear WW III, who knows?), then I do not see much of another scenario unfolding…he could well stopped at Ukraine but if he just gets a slap on the hand, why not continue his country’s territorial gains?
“Who knows” I think everyone knows, if NATO or the EU try and join in the conflict then WW 111 will definitely kick off. My guess is that that will not happen, NATO and the EU would throw Ukraine under the bus before letting that scenario unfold.
https://arseblog.news/2022/03/brooke-norton-cuffy-continuing-to-impress-on-loan-at-lincoln/
I think that takes the doubt out of what position he plays.