Stringfellow Hawke’s view

AW knew as a club we could not compete with a mere 38,500 capacity stadium, so he encouraged the step up to the Emirates, knowing full well that a few seasons of hands tied on transfer side would ensue, but the overall long-term gain for club was secure.

He agreed to this, confident in his ability to breed a younger, cheaper side and remain competitive.

He succeeded without any shadow of a doubt; I think some struggle with the concept that competitive does not always mean picking up silverware.

AW had hoped the silverware would come as well, but the advent of the chav billions could not have come at a worse time in our history and development.

In the 4 years at the Emirates, we have challenged twice for the title, had a Carling Cup final, and CL and FA cup semis. Not bad at all on the budget.

So in summing up, I think project youth was not entirely forced on him, but it became the almost impossible job due to the 100’s of millions the chavs, the yanks at utd and pool, and the enic crew at spuds have been chucking around since we moved house.

Thankfully, the worst of our reliance on project youth is over and we can now fully compete for big signings, and blend these in with the youth.

The greatest indictment of project youth has obviously been the lack silverware; yet, the conveyor belt of talent that has been established within the football academy is now respectfully talked about all over the world.

Add to that the odd genius (Wilshire anyone) that the academy will produce from time to time and now with the fruits of the Emirates enabling Wenger to go out and add a 30M player to the mix and football utopia is closer than we think my fellow Gooners.

London’s view

I don’t want to throw cold water on all that optimism especially as I like to think myself an optimist as well. But I do differ, not by much but significantly enough. For example, I don’t believe that Wenger had anything to do with the decision to move to the Emirates. To make my point quickly, I use the crass example that this would be like a manager of McDonalds telling the corporation where they should open the next shop, as hard working as the managers of McDonalds are they have nothing to do with the expansion of that business. Wenger equally would have had nothing to do with the relocation of the ground; those decisions are made exclusively by the board on behalf of the shareholders.

I am equally critical of Wenger’s actual involvement in the construction of the training ground; an accolade credited to him by the board for reason that his elevation suited them at the time. If my memory serves correctly the old training facilities burnt down, naturally Wenger would have been asked by the architects what he would like included in the new build, although, no more than that. But to suggest that Wenger walked in and told the board that he wanted a new training ground and somehow designed it himself simply does not ring true?

If you believe, as I do, that Wenger reluctantly accepted project youth then to my knowledge there can only be two reasons for this decision: firstly as SFH suggests above that he agreed with the board to work on a much tighter budget for the first few years of the new stadium. Or, secondly that it was forced upon him by the arrival of Abramovich.  Prior to this it is worth remembering that by today’s standards Wenger used to spend money like a drunken sailor or shore leave – the arrival of the Russian billions changed everything.

The Tevez deal in Manchester will be pointed to in years to come as the symbol of when financial power shifted from one side of town to the other. In our case people will look back at the Wright Phillips deal as the point when financial power shifted in London.

Wright Phillips: playing for City at the time started making noises about wanting to come to London; we showed our usual interest but Abramovich sensing an opportunity to make the point trebled his wages and doubled the signing fee, I exaggerate but not by much; the Russian had made it clear that there was a new financial heavy weight on the block.

David Dein said at the time that it was like having a Russian tank land in your front garden and start firing fifty pound notes. There was simply no point in going after the top players because if we showed an interest Chelsea would go after them just to prove a point in the same way as they did with Wright Phillips. Radical change was required to combat this onslaught – and Project youth was formed.

But once this was started it had to be seen to fruition so for example when Wenger said he didn’t want to crush Alex Song’s confidence by bringing in someone more experienced I for one completely understood and still agree.

With the kind of financial imbalance that remains since the Russian’s arrival it is a miracle to me that Wenger has done as well as he has. Project Youth has been designed to outlast Abramovich’s financial strong arm tactics and by the noises he is making now we may just have done that…….the worm is turning again and we are better placed than most.

By  guest writer GhostFace

Let me begin by saying that we are a football club first and a business second.

When people mention the subject of debt, they forget that the board always had a plan to use the sales of the Highbury Square to service and fund the debt and those funds excluded the cash that we make from football related activities.  In other words, our spending hasn’t been annihilated or even substantially limited by debt. We’ve been paying off the dept on the housing front since Chairman Wood mentioned it 2 years ago over here (http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/chairman) and the stadium is doing what it was built for: that is to make us record profits.

Arsene Wenger deserves to succeed. I want him to succeed more than ever before this final year in his contract.

He has put a lot of  faith and  hard work into the club and so he deserves to be where he is today:  The most successful manager at AFC.

I haven’t even begun to mention the experts and the pundits.

I haven’t even given you the mental image of the paedo chants at Old Toilet and Sh*te Heart Lane.

I wouldn’t even begin to go into the kind of remarkable comments thrown at the man who runs things at the club we love so dearly by the “real” Arsenal fans.

Truth be told. Arsène Wenger is a great manager and he is the most successful manager of AFC.

However………… the converse is also true.

At the end of this 2009/2010 season, Wenger will also be the most unsuccessful manager at AFC, being the only manager to go a period of at least 5 years at without winning any honours.

I want to discuss and take into account the many problems that we will inevitably face in the future and the challenges that lie ahead to get to the mountain top. My heart tells me Wenger is the man for the job but my head tells me I think we need change.

What would take us to the promised land? New signings?  Better training? A more competent medical  staff? A better Scouting Network?

Change in one way or another is needed at THOF but in my very most humble of opinions it is unlikely that we will see this change with the current management. And this is why.

Arsène has a curious style of management in which he plays the same tactics regardless of the opposition. It appears that he doesn’t go to games that don’t involve Arsenal  (I am sure he watches other teams play football, like the time he predicted that Chelsea would drop points or the time that he insisted Aston Villa are all about the long ball which they are) and we now have the situation where teams have “figured” out how to win against Arsenal. Our football is immaculate at times. But there are many areas of possible improvements that go season after season, year after year, without being addressed and I feel will probably never change under Wenger.  Some of these are as follows :-

A)     Teams have figured out that if you crowd the midfield and counter-attack, their chances of success against Arsenal will sky rocket.

That is how Villa beat us 2-0 last season and Agbonlahor left Gallas for dead beating Almunia at his near post.

That is how ManU have beat Arsenal for 2-3 years.

That is how Chelsea beat Arsenal and of course, with a little help from the Drogged faced Serena Williams look alike muppet.

This is how we lost to Mancitty with the Robinho chip over Almunia and the Wright Phillips goal that despite the bad angle, still went in at the near post…..again.

There are so many other examples…Stoke City FA cup, Everton ,  Porto,  and last but surely not the least, the spanking by Barcelona.  Will Wenger change his style to give us the best chance of winning in a game? Not Really.

B)      Set Pieces and Defending: Does this really need explanation? The fact that we still suffer from Rory Delap throws after the management came together to brain storm a solution to the problem and after much deliberation decided that selling Kolo Toure was the solution. Isn’t it an indication that this is a managerial problem? Apparently it’s Pat Rice that handles the defensive duties? Doesn’t that speak volumes? Diaby inexplicably heading the ball into his own net at old Trafford after intending to hit it away might be a one-off but ‘Set pieces’ are a weakness and we know this.

Attacking wise we don’t score much from set pieces either. Since the sale of Ade…when have you expected that we could score from a Corner?  From 255 Corners in the league this season, we’ve only managed to hit the back of the net 5 times. Until a Denilson Wonder Strike. RVP hadn’t scored from a freekick for a full season and a half. Do we practice defending Set pieces? Possibly, but that’s anyone’s guess.

C)      Anti-ShootBall: Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, sh…pass…pass…corner kick…pass, pass…etc. Cross….Goal-kick.

One of the many things I love about Andre Arshavin apart from his big mouth is his selfishness. His decision making is usually spotless and yes he should’ve passed to a wide open Theo Walcott for a tap in…and yes some of those shots were aimed at something he saw in the constellations above but truth be told…we miss Arshavin’s directness and honesty in his selfishness, which is one of the reasons why it is so easy to mark Walcott. Teams always expect us to pass. This is why Nasri waltzed into the Birmingham and rocketed a beauty past Joe Hart because everyone expected him to pass. This is why Denilson sent that prayer and was inexplicably answered by Myhill at Hullshity to keep the hopes alive. Fortune favours the brave. We have to be brave. You can’t score if you don’t shoot on target. We play too much keep-ball which is why without Fabregas and Arshavin the team is mentally structured to play keep-ball and Fabregas and Arshavin are really the only outlet for ideas in the final third.

D)      Substitutions or Lack there-off: I believe Wenger can win the title without spending. I believe this team is capable of winning the Title on their own. However, injuries aside, substitutions or the lack of have been an inexplicable feature for a couple of seasons. The more famous ones being the Arshavin on the bench at the FA cup final and the RVP not starting at Wigan and Spurs but there are other subtle one’s like bringing on Alex Song (who was shyte at the time) in the 4-4 with spuds, essentially taking off an attacking player that can give us an outlet to counter-attack for a defensive player that automatically puts us under pressure for a nails/ball biting ending. When we won 1-0 at Liverpool. We won…but Wenger took of Bendtner for Sagna. Which automatically put us on the back foot and it’s something he does quite often. There are times he gets it right obviously but some of these decisions are weird as well.

E)      Team Selection: Why bench an in form Eboue? Why bench an in form Carlos Vela? Why bench a very capable Eastmond when Denilson adds little to nothing? Why not play the kids that are craving to prove their worth and show their talent instead of persisting with players that are either tired or cant be bothered? Why not take a gamble on Vito Mannone who has out-performed Fabianski in just about every game he’s played aside from West Ham? Wenger has a knack for benching in form players for players who are unfit or off-form. A prime example was Eastmond played magnificently against the Bolton thugs home and away and was benched immediately at the return of Denilson.

I would cite the lack of transfers as a factor, but that goes without saying. Wenger has a policy and a belief in sustaining a title challenge without spending. That is his choice and that is his way. It has had little or nothing to do with the debt. Our stadium has made us an annual profit and the housing sales have been paying for the development debt on its own for years. It has had little to do with project youth  as he doesn’t trust the youth players even if the squad is down to bare bones. No matter how bad Clichy plays if he is fit he will play. A 30% off form Denilson will start ahead of Eastmond every time and a -40% Fabianski will start ahead of Mannone every time.

In conclusion, The Experiment has been disappointing. Not a total failure but it didn’t quite live up to the Trophies that Wenger promised. There are many ways forward in what I have just outlined. I would like to see progress with our set pieces, progress with our defending, progress with ideas in the final 3^rd, progress with youth talent, and most importantly progress up the table – to do that the experiment has to stop, but will it?

“I do not want to be here because I have done well before and do not do well anymore. I want to see whether I can make my policy successful on the longer term. Then you decide ‘do I stay or not?” … Arsène Wenger 18.04.2010

Five years is a long term. A longer term is how long? I’d like to know.

When Peaches suggested I write today’s blog my first reaction was: “Thanks: that’s like asking someone to DJ at a funeral, or sell futures at the OAPs’ home.” But here we are. Given how furious I was after yesterday’s game I was going to have a rant but, let’s be honest, you can find rants all over NewsNow today.

Instead I took inspiration from the title of a song by Ian Dury and the Blockheads, called Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3. If you’re too young to remember Ian Dury, then shame on you: you should have been born earlier. But don’t despair – go and see Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, a fantastic biopic of the Dury story, with Andy Serkis (he was Gollum in Lord of the Rings) playing the great man. This is not the place for a beginners’ guide to Ian Dury, but suffice to say he was disabled most of his life from polio contracted at the age of seven and died of cancer in his fifties. In between he produced an amazing, eclectic catalogue of songs full of wit, humour, irreverence, obscenity and an unquenchable lust for life.

One of them was called Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3 and was a list of things that made him happy. The ‘Part 3’ bit felt particularly apt as this is my third post on Arsenal Arsenal and the first two were relentlessly optimistic. So here goes, reasons for all we Arsenal fans to be cheerful:

• Arsene may not see much, but he isn’t blind.
• The recent defeats remove any illusions Arsene had about his squad.
• If Fabianski had played brilliantly ‘til the end of the season AW would not sign a new GK.
• Robin VP is back.
• Cesc will be back.
• Ramsey will be back.
• Chamakh is coming and looks shit hot.
• We have a +11 goal difference over Sp*rs.
• Blackburn have nothing to play for.
• Fulham have nothing to play for.
• Adebarndoor’s coming to town.
• The club finances are better than they have been for years.
• PHW says we have money to spend.
• PHW is a comical old duffer.
• Arsene says we have money to spend.
• Arsene is comical when he flaps his arms.
• We don’t have to play Barcelona again this season.
• Sol. Nuff said.
• No takeover of the club while the volcano is keeping Silent Stan in the USA.
• Spain might win the World Cup playing BarcaBall (it’s like Wengerball, but with shiny silver things at the end).
• Cesc and Ramsey are a shoo-in for the Three-Legged Race in the Colney end of season sports day.
• Arsene doesn’t twitch.
• We would never celebrate one derby league victory in 11 years as if it were the Double, Treble, Champions League and World Cup all rolled into one.
• No matter what happens to Arsenal, even if we get relegated to the Arkwright’s Pistons League South and the Emirates stadium is turned into a cycling velodrome, we’ll still always have more class than those spiteful, embittered, inferiority-complexed, chip-on-shoulder, thumb-sucking gibbons from N17.
  

We won the league on Merseyside.
• We won the league in Manchester.
• We won the league at White Hart Lane.
• We are the Arsenal so fuck off the rest.
  

· Footnote. When I was in rant mode, I was planning to run through the merits (or lack of them) of the players responsible for that sickbag of a performance at Wigan yesterday. I was going to use a line from another Ian Dury song (Plaistow Patricia) as my inspiration: it’s the opening line and goes like this: “Arseholes, Bastards, Fucking Cunts and Pricks.”
Keep the faith folks.

RockyLives

Can we come back from an awful defeat midweek? Can we continue to win with such a depleted team? Can we play Wenger-ball without our star players?  All will be revealed in today’s away tie at Wigan.

If we have to go away in these dire circumstances, Wigan would be one of the teams best suited to us, in our last 9 meetings Arsenal have won 8 and drawn one!

Who will play for us today? The team almost picks itself thanks to the length of our injury list. We persist with the same GK, hopefully playing one his last games for Arsenal prior to the purchase of a reliable and confident new GK (please!). With the loss of both our frontline CB pairing, we are reduced to two geriatrics in the middle. Sol has been immense but the efforts of his heroic performance at the Lane will surely have an effect upon him, and Silvestre (not my favourite) will have to be alert to the pace of Wigan’s forwards. Positioning will be paramount for our CB’s. A possibility would be to move Sagna inside and play Eboue on the right, Sagna has shown his aerial ability and appears to have the football intelligence to move to the centre.  Clichy has rediscovered his form of late and is showing why he is considered on of the best LB’s in World football.

Midfield is a conundrum. One would have thought that Diaby, Nasri and Rosicky would be a creative dream team (in the absence of Fab4), but they have flattered to deceive, in particular Diaby and Nasri. Samir, apart from an evening of brilliance at home to Porto, has been anonymous, which must be of great concern to Wenger. The “new Zidane” is the same age as Fabregas and really should be taking games by the scruff of the neck. The same could be said of Diaby. We know Diaby has the talent to be a super player, he as it all, power, outrageous dribbling skills, goal scoring, accurate shooting, and a perfect physique for an attacking MF, but he has been disappointingly inconsistent. We need more from the Big Man. Rosicky puts in a decent shift but struggles by being moved all over the midfield. For a player with so much “in the locker”, I expect more. Denilson will most probably continue as Song’s replacement, he may not have the natural shimmering Brazilian skills but statistically he is very good! However, there are concerns over Denilson’s fitness and Eastmond may get a start, if so Eastmond has shown he has huge potential and I look forward to seeing his progress.

Up front there are options. The return of Van Persie is a huge boost. His cameo at WHL was superb and I expect a big game from him. Will Bendtner continue in the centre or will he be on the bench allowing RVP to retake his new central role? 9 goals in 11 games should ensure Nik starts. Wenger usually chooses to play an extra MF away from home, so Eboue could get a call, in which case either Eduardo or Vela will start on the left. If not, Walcott must start on the right.

The teamsheet will be interesting today.

Wigan have a fine player in Rodallega who has impressed so much that Wenger has had to refute  rumours of his imminent arrival at THOF!  Wigan are a decent team but as previously stated they are one of the teams I would have chosen to play after the Spuds. They are captained by the ex-Chelsea player Lord Mario Melchiot – one of my favourite players, a player who has graced the PL for many years, and a real gentleman (albeit with a dodgy haircut)

Given the results from yesterday nothing is beyond imagination in the run-in. Despite their defeat at WHL, the Chavs are clear favourites but if we had beaten the Spuds ……  I hate “what if’s”

By BigRaddy