Stop Carping And Get Behind The Lads

October 23, 2014

I didn’t see last night’s game but I thought I’d do a report anyway.

Here it is:

First Half: we were pants.

Second Half: pants with skiddies.

I have deduced this summary from Arsenal blogs and newspaper articles. And Twatter. And Twat (better known as Piers Morgan).

The thing is though, we won. And we’re now in a cracking position to guarantee qualification for the knock out rounds of the Champions League yet again.

Yes, I know we take the “knock out” rounds a bit too literally and tend to get knocked out, but we must be due a lucky draw in the Round of 16 this time, surely?

I digress.

Back to the game that I didn’t see. It appears we struggled to put two passes together and left ourselves spreadeagled and wide open at the back, resulting in a nasty Belgian Surprise (like getting an iffy mussel at Belgo).

Having gone a goal down, we instantly went back to not stringing passes together, leaving ourselves wide open at the back etc etc.

Then, when all was about lost, we scored two goals and knicked all three points.

Hurrah!

Although I didn’t see the game I did manage to see the goals on YouTube before a UEFA lawyer had the clip removed. Gibbs’ finish was a thing of class and composure and the most striking feature of Podolski’s winner was the sheer determination of Sanchez to keep the ball alive and in the danger zone. We got a lucky bounce to plop the ball at the Pod’s feet, but we’ve had few enough of them this season.

Anyway, many of you will doubtless want to go on about how bad our performance was, regardless of the result.

To that I say: “Hush, my little ones. Curb thine tongues and sooth thine fevered brows.”

We’re going through a wobbly phase at the moment (we’ll snap out of it soon) and what the players need above all is support and confidence. They are certainly taking the good bits out of the evening: Kieran Gibbs says we made a statement with our late comeback, Aaron Ramsey says it’s good to get back to winning ways, Mesut Ozil called the win very important and Arsene Wenger hailed our spirit. Well, alright, Arsene would hail our spirit if we’d just fainted on the Jungle Bouncers (“toddlers welcome”) at Chessington World of Adventures.

But while Arsenal fans wail and gnash their teeth, who’d have thought the most sensible comment of the night would come from Mr Stanley Collymore?: “Well done Arsenal. Crap most of the night, bottle when it mattered. Big big result and confidence booster.”

I say let’s treat the result (and the game) the way the players are treating it: a characterful win on a night when things didn’t always go smoothly.

We all know this Arsenal team has the players to do something special. Let’s help give them the confidence to get on with the job.

RockyLives

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Class of 2014-15 – could do better?

October 19, 2014

Bit of a worrying performance, that one.

In midfield and up front it was a pretty decent team on paper, but we seemed very ineffectual with our possession.

Our only tactic seems to be to try and one-two our way through packed defences, but when that doesn’t work we look a bit lost.

Apart from a few periods this season (first half hour v Man City, the 3-goal burst against Villa, beating Galatasaray) we don’t seem to be gelling. I wish I knew why (and I don’t believe it’s all or even mostly down to injuries).

It would be ironic if, after all those years of getting top four against the odds while spending less than zero on net transfers, we missed out now that we have started spending the big bucks again…

Discuss …………..

Written by RockyLives

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Back to football – Arsenal v Hull City

October 18, 2014

Morning all.

Matchday at last. And Hull as well. When did we meet them last? Yes, you got it right. Just go to the banner at the top if you don’t remember.

The entire Hull city descended on the capital that day. Driving down the motorway felt a bit strange and scary. Every second car had stripes and tiger banners. It felt almost like heading into enemy territory.

But that was different. Do or die for them. Yet another trophy for us. 😛

Today is league. Very different. A tough game. The tigers are tough. Period. I was surprised to note:

(a) Hull is only one of three PL teams that have scored in every game so far (other two are Chavs and Everton – not us, we play a beautiful game, silly! 😛 )

(b) Hull had 13 players on international duty last week. Eh! Some plating for obscure countries like Antarctica and Papua New Guinea! 😛

Tough game, first of 4 relatively easy (must win? 😛 ) games. Even the Arsenal website has a poll asking fans whether we will win all four!

Realistically speaking, I think we need to score twice. Where will be get the two goals? Hmmm.

Anyway, two goals or not, we are probably in for an exciting game. My best guess:

Szczesny,
Bellerin, Monreal, Mertesacker Gibbs,
Arteta, Wilshere,
Ox, Cazorla, Alexis
Welbeck

Monreal and BFG in central defence will be exciting!

However, having said all that, this game has only one possible outcome. Unleash the demolition squad, Wenger. COYG!!!!!!

Written by arnie

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AGM Today – looking ahead to 2017

October 16, 2014

Ahead of today’s annual general meeting, Arsenal Chief executive Ivan Gazidis, has looked ahead to the time when Arsene Wenger may leave the club. “Replacing the giant of a manager will be the greatest challenge to face the club” Or words to that effect, he said.

Fear not fellow Gooners, at least for the time being anyway, Arsene has just signed a three year contract extension which will see him through to 2017. Short of a disaster of cataclysmic proportions the chances of Le Professeur leaving before then are about the same as Nick Clegg leading the Lib Dems to a landslide victory in next year’s General Election.

According to Gazidis, “Wenger has steered the club expertly to this point, but that the transition is nearing”. Obviously the club will want to handle the situation somewhat more adroitly than a certain Northern Club recently managed their’s.

The choice of the man to take the club forward will depend on many factors, not least the state of the squad at that time. At the moment it would appear that Arsenal will be in rude good health in 2017. Financially sound, great stadium, state of the art training and academy facilities and, aside from that disaster of cataclysmic proportions, a solid and growing fan base both here in the UK and overseas. In addition the current “young” players in our first team squad, such as Szczesny, Chambers, Gibbs, Wilshere, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Ramsey and Welbeck will all be in their prime. Nothing is more certain than that in the meantime Wenger will have introduced more youngsters into the squad who will be ready and able to push for starting places.

All in all the future looks quite rosy for whoever takes the reins when Arsene finally relinquishes them.

Apart from the name of the new man, one other question needs to be addressed, will the club appoint a Manger with the total control enjoyed by Wenger or will it be a Head Coach operating under a Director of Football?

Written by NorfolkGooner

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BBC Price of Football…time to bash Arsenal

October 15, 2014

It’s that time of year again when the BBC like to release their Price of Football stats and we get our annual clobbering in the media for having “the most expensive seats”, “the most expensive season tickets” and generally get blamed for all that is wrong with football.

So I thought I’d arm you all with some facts that you can shut the numpties up with rather than buy in to their story.

The most important thing is that little asterisk that goes next to our Season Ticket prices which denotes that it includes 7 cup games. No other team does this, I wish in a way Arsenal would give a pro rata figure just for Premier League games so a fair comparison was drawn.

Let’s start there, taking away the 7 cup credits the price of our Season Tickets are as follows:
Cheapest £741
Dearest £1,471

So the cheapest is cheaper than Chelsea and Tottenham, and only £31 more than Liverpool. Whilst I’m sure it will be pointed out that we are still more expensive than the Manchester clubs it should be noted we are in London and as such our club have a different wealth to tap into, and that is why we should only really compare ourselves with the London clubs.

The most Expensive is cheaper than Tottenham.

So it is in fact Tottenham who have the most expensive season tickets, and when did they last win a trophy? And some of their tickets are still spoilt by looking at stadium roof supports.

Then there is the match day prices, cheapest and most expensive, on the most expensive tickets there is nothing much to say we are bang to rights the most expensive seat, however as I have stressed many times before we are talking about a very small section of the ground.

But the cheapest ticket well I personally think that’s where we really shine as a club, and where no one will focus.

Cheapest match day ticket £27, only half the clubs in the Premier League offer cheaper. Some of the clubs that charge more: Burnley £35, Chelsea £50, Palace £30, Everton £33, Liverpool £37, Man City £37, Man Utd £36, Southampton £32, Swansea £35, Tottenham £32.

And those cheapest tickets are quite plentiful, admittedly they are for Cat C games, but for a fan like me who travels infrequently to the Emirates these are the games I choose, all the lower tier behind the goal are at this price and they are not difficult to get hold of in the Clock End or on the Ticket Exchange as these tend to be the games that Season Ticket holders choose to miss.

So there you have it my take on the figures announced today and hopefully some ammunition for you to fire back at the media today and anyone else who decides to tell you that we pay the most expensive prices. Blah blah blah. It’s simply not true, don’t feed the hype.

Gooner in Exile

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Phenomenal Wojciech Szczesny

October 12, 2014

Germany, current World Champions after 33 straight international qualifying away wins, stretching back to 1998, are finally beaten by Wojciech Szczesny. A phenomenal performance from the Arsenal keeper resulted in an astonishing result – 2 nil to the boys in red and white. Poland failed to beat Germany in 18 previous meetings between the two countries.

Scez1

Szczesny has been at the centre of some ferocious criticism and was branded as “one of many Polish goal keepers with huge ego and limited footballing skills”. I am guilty of doubting his ability to perform consistently. He has always been able to produce some spectacular saves, but at the next game he would deliver equally spectacular howlers.

Speaking of Szczesny last season Arsene Wenger stated  the 23-year-old is continuing to grow in stature.

“Certainly a part of his improvement is mental because he’s more mature. His decision-making is cleaner, sharper, quicker. He was always a very talented boy but because he’s intelligent he learns quickly from experience. I’m happy that I always gave him the confidence because he’s developing very well into a very strong goalkeeper and today certainly nobody would question that he’s one of the top five goalkeepers in the Premier League.”

One of the top five goalkeepers in the EPL? Are there really 4 goalkeeper better than Szczesny? What do you think?

Written by Eddie

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Calum Chambers and the Baptism of Fire

October 9, 2014

No not J K Rowling’s latest best seller but an appraisal of the meteoric rise and rise of a young footballer.

callum chambers

There can be no doubt that this young man’s explosive entry onto the Premiership stage has taken more than a few people by surprise. Only at the start of last season did he make his First Team league debut, playing a full ninety minutes of Southampton’s first game of the 2013/14 campaign at right back against West Bromwich Albion and this just seventeen days after signing a new four year contract with the Hampshire club.

Calum had joined Southampton at the tender age of seven and had risen through the Academy ranks until it was announced that he was one of four players promoted to the first team squad at the start of the 2012/13season.

During the next season he made twenty-five appearances in all, twenty-two of them in the league.

During the summer break Arsenal stepped in with a bid, believed to be potentially as high as £16 million, for the nineteen year old. On the 28th July 2014 he signed a long term contract with Arsenal.

With Bacary Sagna’s departure, Chambers was initially seen as a back-up for Mathieu Debuchy who had been signed from Newcastle United only a few days before, but it soon became apparent that he could just as well provide cover at centre-back. Indeed his very first game for Arsenal was in place of the absent Per Mertesacker in the 5 – 1 win over Benfica in the pre-season Emirates Cup.

At the time Arsene Wenger said that he, Chambers, would be used sparingly as he was only nineteen and had little experience of top flight football. Although signed as a right-back, he could also play at Centre-back but would, probably, in the future end up as a defensive mid-fielder. He would most likely play no more than perhaps twenty games in the season, concentrating on the cup competitions.

However, Chambers’ competitive debut for Arsenal was to be at Centre-back against last season’s champions Manchester City in the Community Shield at Wembley, a game Arsenal won 3 – 0.

After the match the BBC picked Chambers out for special praise stating “his mature performance defied his youthful years”.

Since the start of the season Chambers has been ever present for Arsenal in their seven Premiership matches against Crystal Palace, Everton, Leicester, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Tottenham and Chelsea. In addition he has played in the Champions League against Besiktas (home and away) and Galatasaray, and in the Capital One Cup. To cap a momentous period in his so far short career on the 3rd September he made his first appearance for the full England team as a substitute right-back, coming on for the last nine minutes in the 1 – 0 win over Norway.

On Tuesday he was called up from the England U21s to fill the vacant right-back berth vacated by the injured John Stones in the full England squad.

Chambers has received widespread praise for his composed, intelligent defending, he has good pace and excellent ball control and has shown the willingness and confidence to have a shot on goal when the chance arrives. Whilst he has accumulated five yellow cards in seven Premiership games, and one in the Champions League, there is no suggestion that he is a “dirty” player.

In none of the high profile games he has played has he been “found out” be they at a packed Wembley for the Community Shield or against the current run-away leaders of the Premiership, the current Champions or in the hostile atmosphere of Ataturk Olympic Stadium, Istanbul against Besiktas.

Early days yet maybe, but so far he has come through a severe baptism of fire virtually unscathed.

Written by  Norfolk Gooner. 

 

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How do you get space in behind a parked bus?

October 8, 2014

This comment from Gooner in Exile in response to yesterday’s post, contains enough interesting questions for a couple of posts. His comment is reproduced in it’s entirety so the opening paragraph refers back to yesterdays post.

He made this comment at 9.20pm

Evening all, interesting debate today, well done RC78, I have to first disagree with one of your later comments, we simply haven’t got time to shift formation between 3-5-2 then 4-2-3-1 or whatever, we have to have a system and personnel that fit in that system.

Maybe one of City’s problems in Europe is that they try to change too much from PL to CL, Maureen has a system, he uses it in all games, the only difference is how much freedom the attacking players are allowed.

Rodgers earned a lot of plaudits last year for setting up his team for each given opponent, Martinez too, no surprise with only 2 days training between games this method starts to fail.

When you have no European föötball you can drill for 5 days between games.

The same with International Breaks, one of the reasons the “smaller” clubs get upsets after Interlulls is not just the travel time of their opponents but the fact that they have had 10-12 days training at their club being drilled on how they are going to play their next match.

I’ve pretty much asked myself the same question for three years, and I would really like to see a good answer:

How do you get space in behind a parked bus? And hence how do you exploit that space with pace of there is no space?

Basically why do teams defend so deep against us and not against say ManUre or Liverpool or is that just a figment of my imagination? I’m not necessarily talking about big teams but the likes of Stoke, Palace, Villa. Everyone behind the ball and hope to counter.

We could obviously play the same way but I fear we would end up with a lot of goalless draws. The other team, if disciplined, will just stay back. We have to force the issue. One way is endless crosses into the box, worked a bit when we had Ollie fit. But defences still didn’t really come towards us. Shooting from distance is another tactic, but often the ball is just gifted back to the opponent.

So can some bright spark tell me how we can try and create space in behind to win games without over committing men forward against a park the bus side?

I’m also pretty sick of hearing that Ozil is played out of position and that he only expected to play central and for 70 minutes for Madrid, he is a £42m footballer on a rather large pay packet. Do you think Bergkamp would have sulked if he played left wing? Or would he have found a way to influence the game. And maybe we should just sit Mesut down with a pile of DVDs of Bobby Pires, a number 10 who played left wing and took apart many an opponent.

Written by Gooner in Exile 

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Are we already on course to another season fighting for a 3rd or 4th place finish?

October 7, 2014

Last year ended on a high note with a Cup Victory, a trophy at last…

We started this year with another Cup Victory, albeit less important and prestigious.

However, and despite a good summer transfer window (Debuchy, Chambers, Sanchez, Welbeck, we are really struggling to hit heights in the EPL and are performing ok in the Champions League. The question is why?

Is it due to the fact that our club seems to attract injuries to key players like vodka attracts the Russians? Is it due to the fact that some gaps in our teams were not addressed during this summer (CB and DM)? Is it due to the fact that some players are just below par most of the time (Ozil, Wilshere)? Is it due to the fact that our game is too predictable and horizontal and does not have enough verticality to it? Is it a bit of everything mentioned above? I cannot answer as it is too early in the season.

However, I see that our main rivals are doing well:

– Chelsea seems stronger than ever and are comfortable on all fronts, at home, away and in the domestic and European cups;

– Man City is still struggling in Europe but is strong in the EPL;

– Man Utd is ahead of us despite disastrous start and embarassing defeats;

– Liverpool is level with us despite a heavy outcry about the lack of results since the beginning of the season and same with Tottenham.

So my questions are as follows:

  1. Did we just get used to playing second fiddle to Chelsea and the Manchester teams?
  2. Are we in a crisis already? And if you believe so, what shall we do to address this situation?

Written by RC78

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Is Silent Stan good enough for the club and the fans?

October 4, 2014

Stan Kroenke and the club have generated some adverse publicity in the press recently.

There have been some insightful discussions on the topic over the past few days on AA. Now that Crystals is back to the fold, I thought maybe we could do a “Kelsey” and put comments by AA patrons together to try and generate some consensus, or better still, some disagreement.
chas says:
September 24, 2014 at 6:26 pm

Bad PR, whichever way you look at it?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/23/stan-kroenke-arsenal-dividend-fans-anger

Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke angers fans by taking £3m out of club

• Payment matches 3% rise in season ticket prices
• Kroenke has dodged issue of receiving dividends

Amy Lawrence, The Guardian, Tuesday 23 September 2014

Excerpts: “Arsenal’s majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke, has taken a payment of £3m out of the club according to the latest company accounts.

“Having never taken dividends from his American sports franchises, … this is a move that has gone down badly with Arsenal supporters. Coincidentally, the £3m figure tallies with the amount the club raised from a 3% rise on season-ticket prices for this season.

“The money has been paid to Kroenke’s company, KSE LLC, for strategic and advisory services which relate to Arsenal’s broadband division, the media department which raises funds by selling a three-hour block of weekly content to the lucrative international market.

“No doubt the Kroenke payment will be a subject on the agenda at Arsenal’s AGM on 16 October.”

This then generated insightful comments from the AA in-house accountants.

LB says:
September 24, 2014 at 6:53 pm

Can one of the plethora of accountants that frequent this site please comment on the article in the Guardian about Stan Kroenke taking dividends out of the club. Thank you in advance.

RA says:
September 24, 2014 at 7:23 pm

[F]rom what I briefly heard on a local radio station, the fans are upset that Kroenke took £3m out of the club as expenses, and justified it, by saying the Glazers were brilliant owners and had taken very much more out of Manure than he was taking out from Arsenal for his personal expenditure. this would not be a dividend – as it would have had to be issued to the other shareholders, like Usmanov, and any fans who are still holding shares.

His salary as a director is peanuts too.

This might be a straw in the wind? Perhaps he is going to want a return on his investment in the club, though he has never previously done this with his US franchises.

chas says:
September 24, 2014 at 8:15 pm

I think it’s a piece of misleading journalism (surprise surprise) to suggest it was a ‘dividend’. The bad PR aspect of it for me was the fact that the amount taken out more or less equals the ticket price increase.

Gööner In Exile says:
September 25, 2014 at 7:26 am

Where I stand on £3m….it’s a Non story.

It’s literally at the arse end of the Accounts under a section called Related Party Transactions where any dealings with companies related or Directors related have to be disclosed. It is required to demonstrate that a fair value has been placed on those transactions. It can also be used to show services that were provided but not charged (eg KSE could provide Contracts Lawyers, but never charges for them….this would have to be reported so that Investors would know a change in ownership could increase costs of running company if they had to pay for it themselves).

There are about £260m of Operating expenses, a large portion is player wages, the accounts do not provide a full breakdown of these expenses, the £3m paid to KSE for strategic, consultancy advice is in reality peanuts compared to our overall costs, would Arsenal fans be happier if this was paid to Bodgeit Flogitrun & Co for Marketing advice? Or to WeChargeEverySecond & More Lawyers…..we wouldn’t even know.

Not sure Stans answer was the best, but in a season where our player trading was £32m out compared to consistently in, and wages went up £12m, is it a surprise that the media find something else to focus on?

chas says:
September 25, 2014 at 7:34 am

“would Arsenal fans be happier if this was paid to Bodgeit Flogitrun & Co for Marketing advice? Or to WeChargeEverySecond & More Lawyers”

I think the answer is a resounding, ‘YES”  🙂

Eddie says:
September 25, 2014 at 7:50 am

I would not believe a story stating that Kroenke takes nothing out of the club. Why shouldn’t he? Had I invested millions I would want to see some returns, even if it was from the AFC

RA says:
September 25, 2014 at 8:01 am

Up until recently, Eddie, it is true that Kroenke has taken very little out of the club.

His director’s salary really is minimal, no dividends have been paid to shareholders, of which he is the major shareholder of course, and he seems content to see the value of the club rise due to good fiscal management and therefore when he eventually sells Arsenal, and in due course he will, even if it is in many years time, he will reap the rewards of his investment then.

On the other hand he may get peed off with the constant sniping about the club and his stewardship and start taking a huge salary, and authorise huge dividends to the shareholders to shut them up. 🙂

chas says:
September 25, 2014 at 8:09 am

I doubt he’d authorise huge dividends to the shareholders because it would mean giving money away to Mr Creosote.

Big Raddy says:
October 3, 2014, headline post “Friday’s Rant”

Complaints about Stan Kroenke taking money out of the club: Why?  When I owned a business if one of my customers told me that I couldn’t take a smidgeon out to enjoy a self-finding mission to the Berkshire countryside I would have given them short shrift (whatever a shrift is?). The man has invested heavily into AFC and yet to take a dividend, his company did some work for the club, they got paid. So what?

Anyone who thinks Silent Stan is in it for anything but profit is beyond naive.

mickydidit89 says:
October 3, 2014 at 6:02 pm

Agree about Stan. I’d of thought he’s about the perfect owner. Hasn’t leveraged the company, takes nothing out and doesn’t interfere with football matters.

Eddie says:
October 3, 2014 at 8:49 pm

I too think that Kroenke is a perfect owner. He keeps his views to himself, doesn’t go to all the games sitting there like Abramovitch with a teenage girlfriend and a face like a slapped arse; doesn’t attempt to run the team or impose transfers. And last but not least – does not want to change our name to Arsenal Lions/Donkeys or Giraffes or shirt colour to blue. Perfect, he has my vote of confidence.

*****************************

I have unashamedly pilfered material from these discussions and just put these together. So what do you think?

Here are some questions for you ………

1. Has silent Stan been a good owner for the club?

2. Is Stan Kroenke a better owner than the likes of Abramovitch and the Glazer family?

3. Was it wise to pay KSE LLC £3m for strategic and advisory services?

If your answer to 3 is yes do any of the following apply?

  • Stan deserves some return on his investments in the club
    Stan has been a good director and he deserves to be rewarded
    These services had to be procured, better pay KSE because they have a stake and will deliver
    better services
    Better than paying dividends which would then go to unworthy shareholders as well

If your answer to 3 is no do any of the following apply?

  • This is poor publicity for the club
    The club is not providing good value to fans, better invest every penny in developing the squad
    This is just a clever way of fleecing fans and redistributing their money to the owners

Over to you, readers, contributors and patrons.

Arnie.

 

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