Milner to Arsenal?

April 15, 2015

My first thought was “really?” I am sure yours was along the lines of “The Sun journalists are doing their usual” that is working to the agenda of a rapacious player agent, but could there be anything in this rumour?

James Milner is 29, an England International and a man coming to the end of his lucrative contract at City. It is reported that his intention is to move to London with Arsenal being his chosen destination. He has 53 caps, scoring only one goal. Milner has been at City for 5 years winning the PL title twice, and both the domestic cups. City paid €32m for him in 2010, the year he won the PL Young Player of the Season award.

Unknown

What does Milner offer? He can play on both sides of the pitch, has played full back, midfield and on the wings for MC, he has enormous energy, is a fine crosser, can tackle and is an intelligent, tactically aware player. Not the fastest but has adequate pace.

Why buy him? A multi-purpose player with a wealth of experience and above all English.

Probability? Mr Wenger is a long-term admirer. Milner reminds me of Ray Parlour –  a player whom Mr Wenger set much store by and one he has tried to replace many times. Arteta is creaking, Flamini likely to be sold, Diaby  – who knows? – so we could use another mature presence.

If (huge if) Wilshire leaves in summer we have a space in the squad, though  The Ox is a younger more dynamic version of Milner. Gnabry is coming through the ranks and is already an established German U-21 international; he will want first team action.

Theo may be sold which would reduce the number of English players in the squad.

However, we already have Ramsey, The Ox, Alexis, Gnabry, Rosicky, Arteta, Wilshire and the upcoming Crowley who can play in Milner’s chosen position.

BR’s Opinion.? More Sun bolleaux

written by Big Raddy

 

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Posted by Erik the Red

Arsenal’s best keeper for next season is ……….

April 13, 2015

Apparently David Ospina has the highest win ratio (92%) in Premier league history after 11 wins from 12 games played. Obviously this is a meaningless statistic since when he came into the side other factors will have influenced our current run of 8 games unbeaten in the EPL – not least the emergence of Le Coq as the midfield enforcer we always wanted.

But I have to say that I am mightily impressed with Ooooospinnnaaaaa (that makes me laugh every time I hear the crowd sing it 😀 ). For a guy who is 5-6 inches shorter than the likes of Courtois and De Gea, he certainly makes the most of his attributes. As our resident GK expert GiE has observed, it is Ospina’s calmness and the timing of when to come out for the ball that make him a better keeper than Szczesny at this particular time.

I have heard us being seriously linked to Petr Cech recently as he has been consigned to the bench by the emergence of Courtois. Now Cech is a good keeper and a very decent man – but is he a better keeper than Ospina? Moreover, we are second in the table to Chelsea, why would we want to enlist their second choice keeper if we aspire to be better than them? It makes no sense.

What also makes no sense to me is why we didn’t go for Lloris a couple of years ago. I can only assume Arsene had hoped that Szczesny would iron out some of the rough edges to his game.

So the question I ask is, who would you like to see between the posts for Arsenal next season?

Rasp

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Arsenal win – Coq the enforcer

April 12, 2015

If this match report was written on a need to know basis then all you need to know is that Arsenal won which takes our win tally to eight in a row. Right that’s that, shall we get onto the more interesting part and talk more about Coquelin?

gun__1428785478_coq

Yay, don’t you find now when you watch him you can savour his timely interceptions more and more; he just gets better and better the more you watch and the more I watch, and I certainly was yesterday, the more I realise how much more he is starting to add to his game. Obviously not content with the accolade of becoming the best ball winner in Europe he is now beginning to improve his passing game both short and long range. In brief he is starting to spray the ball around with confidence and accuracy and that bodes well for his future because the lack of that skill was the only reason for Wenger to consider an upgrade in the summer.

OK, if I must, I will talk about the game, Arsenal beat Burnley away, is that big news? Nope, the only way this report was going to get read by more than three people and Chas’ cat was if we lost and we didn’t so here we are.

gun__1428771744_Ramseygoal

It was a comfortable victory in the kind of way that for  most of the game I wished we had scored a second goal. At one nil there was always that nagging doubt running through my mind that all this lot need is a bit of luck and we would be in the brown stuff. But fortunately, as we know, that didn’t happen and we got more proof that the gods are all Arsenal supporters, as if we really needed that confirming.

Ramsey on the right, really? This smacks of trying to maintain a political harmony rather than being ruthless in the team selection. Yes, he scored the winning goal and that should not be scoffed at but on the wing when we have Welbeck and Walcott on the bench and we were crying out for pace down that flank.

Back to Coquelin, OK, enough already. The good guys did us proud again and I am very happy with the points and the performance. Is it just me or are there others who are starting to spend slightly longer and longer looking at the league table, I mean how many times did you look before Christmas? Once, twice – per month, tops, now I sneak a peak twice a day.

QPR won last week could they just do it again, come on you “R”s

Written by LB

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WWLWWWWWWW + W?

April 11, 2015

A year ago our good friend and fellow AA contributor DanDan passed away. His calm analysis of all things Arsenal is much missed. Dandan was a lifelong Gooner but more importantly a family man and a real gentleman. May he rest in peace.

Our chaps head up to North to a place no-one has ever visited. I have been to most grounds in England but Burnley’s time in the Div 1 was before I travelled away.

Burnley were a huge club in the 1950’s and 60’s but by the time we won our fist double they had started their decline. It is a testament to the ambitions of their management and BoD that they are in the PL – I really hope they can stay up (not at the cost of a win for AFC today, of course).

Can there be a more likeable manager than Sean Dyche? Despite looking like one of the Bash Street Kids he has been breath of fresh air. One doesn’t expect honesty and respect from a PL manager (apart from our own).

images-1

Dyche’s team have decent home form, 18 of their 26 points came at Turf Moor (thanks for the info AW). They have beaten MC and drawn with Spurs in their last two home games .

Our last visit to Turf Moor was in 2009, of the starting 11 that day only one AFC player has a chance of starting today, can you guess who that is? Ramsey and Wilshire were on the bench.

Could this be the only pre-match which doesn’t mention Danny Ings? Oops …..

The first 70 minutes of our home game against Burnley were frustating as we couldn’t find the net; thankfully Alexis scored and we won 3-0. Burnley showed themselves to be hard-working, well-organised and capable in defence. Much like Leicester they do not deserve to be in the relegation zone. Burnley’s run-in includes many of their relegation rivals but mostly away from home. I fear for them and would much prefer to see the Manc Steve Bruce’s Hull alongside Tim But Dim’s Villa go down. Sadly, both teams have much PL experience and it is likely the three promoted teams will drop.

What to say about Arsenal without jinxing them? If we play as we did last Saturday we will win., in fact if we play like we have in almost all the games since November we will win. But who plays this evening?

Koscielny is a doubt, so Chambers, Gabriel or Monreal will deputise. I expect to see Gabriel who has made a very impressive start to his Arsenal career. Other than him I expect the same team which thrashed – yes, thrashed -Liverpool. Perhaps Debuchy will replace young Bellerin.

My Team:

Ospina

Bellerin     BFG     Gabriel     Monreal

Cazorla    Coquelin

Ramsey     Alexis

Ozil

Giroud

Looks like a Christmas tree. Is that really how we play?

Given the paucity of Burnley’s attack I may be tempted to replace Ramsey with Welbeck.

Mike Dean is the ref, he has been better this season though capable of making a total arse of himself at any time. Expect some bookings.

I have just read a surprising fact …. No team has scored more goals from set-pieces than Arsenal (20) this season! Are we the new Stoke?

Arsenal are the form team in the PL and Europe – if we win today it will be the longest winning streak in all the European leagues. We have a week’s break before our next game as a result of not playing a winnable CL tie vs Juventus (shame,shame, shame). We should win this game but such is the magic of the PL that all results are in doubt. MC lost at Turf Moor, so can we.

On paper it is an away win, Let it be So

I am 61% confident

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Posted by Erik the Red

Would Pires get into the 2015 team? Vote

April 10, 2015

Great player Bobby. Two wonderful feet, pacy, intelligent looked good in the shirt and part of one of the best front lines ever seen in the PL. But would he get into the current Arsenal side?

images-1

This is not a stupid question because our current team works in an entirely different way to the Pires era AFC. There is a work ethic that was lacking back then and luxury players may not satisfy the demands made by Mr Wenger.

My assumption is based upon a 2015 AFC front line of OG, Alexis, and Ozil. Mesut playing the DB10 role. The OG/TH14 comparison is both unfair and more to the point irrelevant because there is only one TH and he played a very different game to OG.

Who would you pick – Bobby or Alexis.? Alexis scoreds more goals, creates as many chances and is more dynamic. He is also better defensively as the current AFC become more adept at “defending from the front”. An area of Pires game which despite hard work was poor.

No doubt he would be ahead of Theo, Welbz and Ox but the others?

In my opinion the great BP would be on the bench and be our super-sub. Hard to imagine that I could write such a bizarre statement as I love RP7 and always will.

Football is all about opinion. What is yours and why?

 

written by Big Raddy

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Posted by Erik the Red

Easter Time – which top 5 team will pull a rabbit out of its hat?

April 6, 2015
A little teaser on this Bank Holiday Monday.

While Arsenal was a bit precocious in its rabbit pulling by having Coquelin blossom into quite a decent HM from nowhere, which team will benefit from the decisive contribution of a usual substitute or under performing player?

Your mission: look at the Top 5 teams and pick 1 sub or underperforming player that will be his team’s rabbit in the hat and which will secure points for the team’s title or top 4 spot?

Here is my pick:

Chelsea – Rémy
Man City – Dzeko
Arsenal – Walcott
Man Utd – Herrera
Liverpool – ? (Can we say Sturridge since he has been injured?)

Anyways – pick your Rabbit in the hat 🙂

Happy Easter and enjoy your Bank Holiday.

Written by RC78

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Posted by peachesgÖÖner

Arsenal put Liverpool in their place.

April 5, 2015

Scintillating, absolutely scintillating football: it finally happened, the kind of Wengerball we expected when Sanchez and Welbeck were added to the world class Özil and the gifted Cazorla at the beginning of the season.

It’s been a long time coming; we have had glimpses of it; we have been teased with short periods of it but yesterday Arsenal played what was probably the best football since Henry, Pires and Bergkamp donned the glorious red and white. 3-0 up after forty five minutes and the Emirates was rocking. Yes, there were a few scares early on but lets not forget Liverpool are a good side; they were just made to look ordinary by our very dominate display.

To focus solely on the silky interplay in the final third would obviously be wrong as that would miss the stand out performance of my MOTM: Francis Coquelin; the French enforcer was immense. I know nothing about statistics, give me first hand anecdotal evidence any time but I am sure they would show that his rate of successful interceptions were off the scale.

coq v liverpool

An early chance fell to Ramsey who looked slightly fatigued compared to the rest of his team mates who were running around and closing down with all the athleticism of butchers’ dogs. No matter, chances continued coming and it was the other new found first team regular who cut inside, weaved his way through the Liverpool defense before curling the ball into the corner. I think it hit the hapless Toure on the way. Oh how the mighty have fallen? Playing Kolo in central defence should be reported to the RSPCA nobody should be put through that kind of cruelty; he was so out of his depth it was embarrassing.

bellerin scores

Back to Bellerin, I expect this young man to have a long a fruitful career at Arsenal; he has earned his status as first team starter; but, that said, I want Debuchy in there, standing strong against Manu and Chelsea.

ozil

Hector got the party started but it was Özil and Sanchez who sent everyone on the dance floor into a state of ecstasy. Oooooohh that free kick, oooooohh that thunderous strike, you just know that Chas is going to have these two goals playing on a loop that’s if he hasn’t already done so already. Class, pure class the both of them. There was no way that Giroud was going to miss this bash and true to form he scored a powerful left footed pile driver to make it four.

I know that it is wrong to have let a negative thought stray into my mind but I confess I did, I couldn’t help thinking: if only, if only, if only we hadn’t played so badly in that first game against Monaco; when you consider how well we are playing now I am sure we would have gone so much further in that competition; still, I suppose, we shall just have to settle for beating Blackburn in the FA cup final, onwards and upwards.

Written by LB

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Sunny Afternoon?

April 4, 2015

Saturday afternoon. Sunny day. Liverpool at home. An important game = Excited.

It seems an age since we played a meaningful game at home to a real rival and for the first time in a decade, Liverpool can be said to be quality opponents. Last season, L’pool surprised many with a startling run of form centred around the genius of the Biter, this season shows that Rodgers team management can propel them to the Top 4 but not the title.

And why not the title? Because they are bottlers and have been since we did them in May 1989.

Yes, they have won a few Cups thanks to the type of good luck which can only come from having sold one’s soul to the devil. Their Treble showed similar good fortune to those chaps who have won the Lotto twice (though I would swap the ’91 title for a European Cup!).

Unlike Mr Wenger, Rodgers has no scruples about forcing his players to remove themselves from the international scene. Amazingly the severely injured Sturridge and Sterling  are fit to play today. If I were Hodgson I would not pick these blokes for the next few games.

Stevie Me and Scramble are banned but other than them L’pool have their first choice 11. I am saddened that Gerrard will not play, he has completely lost his mojo and is a shadow of the player he could be in his pomp. His playing would have made our winning almost a certainty, instead the points are in the balance.

We are without Ox, Debuchy and probably Welbeck from our best 11. I think Ramsey has recovered from his hamstring knack.

The rest you know ….. we have won 14 out of 16, 9 of the last 10. Of our last 11 home games against top 5 opposition we have lost 7, drawn 3 and won just one (how crap is that 😢) We are scoring regularly. Le Giroud is on fire scoring both for club and country.

My Team:

Ospina

Bellerin    BFG      Koscielny       Monreal

Ramsey   Coquelin

Cazorla   Ozil      Sanchez

Giroud

As always midfield will be vitally important, I was going to write match winning but given our propensity to miss chance after chance I would say that clinical finishing is more important. Coquelin vs Lucas will be an interesting battle. As will be Bellerin and Monreal’s ability to control the mercurial Sterling. If the boy is available for €50m I would buy him – after all, it isn’t my money!

We are 6 points ahead of the Scouse. A win today would be a huge plus towards our quest for second place. For Liverpool a loss would herald a season of Spursday nights.

I am 53% confident.

COYRRG

written by Big Raddy

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Posted by Erik the Red

Decisions, decisions, decisions

April 3, 2015

Morning all

Two weeks without Premier League football, and for the ones who don’t follow the Internationals, I expect you are raring to go for this weekend’s clash at home with Liverpool. Just to mention some of the Arsenal players who haven’t had much of a rest, we have Danny Welbeck who has picked up a leg injury, he is a doubt for the weekend Aaron Ramsey played for Wales and has also a slight hamstring problem he too may be a doubt Alexis Sanches played for Chile, as far as I know, he came through without injury. Theo Walcott started for England but was subbed in the second half so he should be available.

Wenger I feel is getting to the time where he has to make some important decisions. This week  a game took place that included some of our recovering players Debuchey, Gnabry, Wilshere, Arteta, Flamini and surprise surprise Diaby!! Having read about the game it seems they all came through unscathed. What will Wenger do now? Will he be tempted to try one or two, as we could be missing two or three first choice players, or will it be too early for them?

Liverpool is a big game. We are on a good run and being at home we really need to pull all the stops out for this one. I have to say that although we seem to have a larger squad now, is it worth upsetting the balance?  I also think M Wenger should be thinking about next season too. We have a few players on loan, will he sell or will he include them? Lots of decisions to be made and when I hear supporters saying we are only a couple of players short of being League winners,  I assume they want us to buy.

As we know, before we can buy we will have to offload some players, these are decisions not to be taken lightly. Diaby is a player Wenger has kept for a long long time, he has stayed loyal to him and now he has recovered, does he play him or offload him while he is still able to walk? Can we sell him? That would be a good question, anyway a question that only Arsene can answer.

There are question marks over Arteta, Flamini, BFG, Szczesny, Campbell, Silva, Jenkinson, Akpom, Walcott and maybe more besides, surely we cannot keep them all.  Supporters  seem to me to be relatively happy with what they have seen so far this season. We’re currently sitting in third place and still in the FA cup. We have many Arsenal players who are Internationals and yet still many supporters are saying we only need a couple of players to win the league.

Well I have to disagree with the many, as far as I can see there are still a lot of problems. We have players who I am afraid to say I feel are just not good enough and no matter how long we keep them will never be good enough. We have players out on loan who would not be missed if we let them go. We have players who could be good, some who have not got permits, others with permits who have been farmed out again. We have players who cannot stay fit, not just for spells of a season some miss whole seasons, some have been with us ten years and still never stay fit. Supporters say give them a chance to get fit and they will show you. Well I am fed up waiting,  in the time they have been with us they have delivered nothing, we took a chance with them and we were wrong, time to discard these time wasters, and purchase quality that play 90% of the season.

I am waiting with baited breath. Will Wenger be tempted to include some of these against Liverpool? We’re in third place with a good possibility of second, we have no chance of winning the League because we are short of at least two if not three players. We clearly don’t have these players available in our squad or we wouldn’t be looking to buy.

Steve Palmer

 

 

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Posted by peachesgÖÖner

Arsenal’s Premier League Championship teams.

April 1, 2015

During Arsene Wenger’s time at Arsenal we have won the Premier League Championship on 3 occasions, 1997/8, 2001/2 & 2003/4. Since our last Championship victory we have finished an average of 14 points behind the Champions the closest was 4 points in 2007/8 and last season was 9 points. This season with 8 games remaining we are 7 points behind the leader Chelsea who also have a game in hand.

Today I want to take a look at the winning squads and our records for our 3 Championship winning seasons.

Here are squads for the winning seasons plus our current side showing only those that played in 10 or more games. (This assumes that Wilshere and Walcott will both play again this season)

PL winning teams 3 (1)

Continuity appears to have played a big part in our 3 Championship years, in 2 of our 3 winning seasons our goalkeepers were dominant – in 1997/8 David Seaman played in 31 games and in 2003/4 Jens Lehmann played all 38 games he was the only player to do so on any of the Championship winning teams.

Defensively Martin Keown played in all 3 of the winning teams while Tony Adams, Lee Dixon, Gilles Grimandi, Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole and Lauren each played in 2 of the sides.

Our mid-fields were dominant with Patrick Vieira and Ray Parlour playing in all 3 teams with Frederick Ljungberg, Robert Pires and Edu being present in 2 of the teams.

We were blessed with some remarkable forwards, the unbelievable Denis Bergkamp was a key part of all 3 of Arsene Wengers PL winning sides – he was a truly World Class Player and an absolute magician with the ball. Thierry Henry and Sylvain Wiltord each appeared on 2 teams.

PL Champs Games Played

 

In 1997/8 there were 7 players who appeared in 30 or more games including 5 from the mid-field in 2001/2 those playing in 30 or more shrank to 5 and in 2003/4 it increased to 9 players.

Here are the records of the winning teams plus our record to date in 2014/15

1997/8 – W23, D9, L6, GF68, GA33, Pts78

2001/2 – W26, D9, L3, GF79, GA36, Pts87

2003/4 – W26, D12, L0, GF73, GA26, Pts90

2014/15 – W18, D6, L6, GF58, GA31, Pts60

Our 2003/4 team achieved what was thought to be impossible, they went unbeaten in 49 Premier League games including the entire 2003/4 season. (It still sticks in my craw that we were denied the chance of continuing our unbeaten streak by a Rooney dive at Old Trafford to gain a penalty).

Which group of players do you think were the best in their disciplines?

Championship marrix

GunnerN5

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