Category Archives: Arsenal

Joel Campbell OUT: Was he ever given his chance?

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132So it seems Joel Campbell is off to Sporting Lisbon (I am writing this pre-Leicester see by the time it is published on Monday he might have already gone, or the deal might have fallen through. I am bored, at home, waiting to leave to go watch The Arsenal away).

Was Joel Campbell ever given his chance at Arsenal? Or is it simply a case that he was not good enough?

Personally, I think he was never good enough. He scored a cracking goal for Olympiakos against United, and had a decent WC (so did Bryan Ruiz) and suddenly he was the next coming.

For me he was the poster boy of the anti-Wenger’s.

A pawn used in the massive online chess game where people align themselves with an agenda and create a narrative to suit that agenda.

For people who see no good at Arsenal. Who are negative about everything, Joel Campbell was a player who was good enough for Arsenal. He should start every game. He was a superstar in the making. And it is Arsene Wenger’s fault he has not played enough. Arsene Wenger’s fault he has not developed.

Arsene choosing not to play him gave fans a reason to bash Wenger, to hold up a player being unfairly treated, when the reality was he wasn’t good enough.

The main point came at Stoke away a few years back. Someone shouted out “get out whilst you can Joel”. And this launched Campbell as the icon of the anti-Wenger movement (even though that sounds cringey).

I was at Stoke that day, on the platform, waiting to go home from an awful away day where they did not serve beer at half time. It was a torrid performance, and Arsenal players and management got a torrent of abuse as they got onto their privately booked 10 carriage train back to London.

Everyone got abuse, except for Joel Campbell. “Get out whilst you can Joel”.

It kind of shows how fickle fans are. Had he played a lot of football before that game for Arsenal, been given his chance, and in the type of performances he has done in an Arsenal shirt (mainly average ones), those singing his praises would have done a 180.

Those that criticise Wenger for not giving him the chance would have then complained that he was once again playing a cheap foreign import who is clearly not good enough. the narrative would have changed to suit the agenda.

Yes, Joel Campbell worked hard at times. Again, this was put up as a reason why he was a class player. He was praised mainly because he was not Theo Walcott. Walcott often seen as the poster boy of the recent Wenger era. 10 years of disappointment.

Joel Campbell was put on a pedestal for the two reasons:

  1. Wenger did not rate him
  2. He was not Theo Walcott

The reality is he was simply not good enough.

Now 24, Joel Campbell had 4 distinctly average loan spells away from the club. Since returning to Arsenal, he has scored 4 goals in 40 games. Last season, Theo Walcott nabbed himself 9 in 42.

So here we have a dreadful player (Walcott) out performing Joel Campbell. Yet people think Joel Campbell is better?

Then go down the pecking the order. Joal Campbell is older than both Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Serge Gnabry. Both are vastly more talented.

The Ox has not really progressed over recent years due to injury / poor decision making, but I think only an idiot would deny that he is better than Joel Campbell.

Serge Gnabry has had an unlucky 2 years. A poor injury and a poor loan spell at WBA where Tony Pullis just did not want to play him (look at Pullis’ treatment of Berahino and Kenwyne Jones, he does not like flair players).

But Gnabry is still just 21. 3 years younger than Joel Campbell. The performances Gnabry put in in an Arsenal shirt in 2013/14 as an 18 year old were better than anything Joel Campbell has done. He is showing at the Olympics his ability. If it was a choice between the two, Gnabry or Campbell, there is one who I would want to see get game time, Serge Gnabry.

Finally we come to Alex Iwobi.

Just 20, he is 4 years younger than Joel Campbell, and keeping him out the team. He is better than the Costa Rican.

I think if we go back to around 1998 we will discover 2 players who had a similar level of talent and output as Joel Campbell.

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All played at Arsenal at a similar age, played in similar positions, had a similar style of play, and had an almost identical output. Christopher Wreh, out of interest, was last seen playing for Bishop’s Stortford in 2004. Just 4 years after leaving The Arsenal.

The fact is, Joel Campbell was not given his chance because he was not good enough.

Alexis Sanchez, Theo Walcott & Danny Welbeck were/are better options on the wings when it comes to senior players. Ox, Gnabry & Iwobi are better younger players.

I said after the World Cup when rumours of a £20m bid from AC Milan were floating around, we should have taken the money and ran.

So what are your thoughts? Was Joel Campbell not given his chance? Or was he not good enough?

Keenos

PS: & Theo was shit

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Arsene Wenger – The Final Unhappy Chapter

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132It’s easy to be upset, even angry with someone or something. It takes a lot more to fall out of love with it. That would be caused by years of frustration, unhappiness, and feeling that nothing will change.

It would be extremely naïve and wrong to say that Arsene Wenger was deservedly held in anything other something extremely close to God-like status during the first ten years with Arsenal. He changed the football club, from new players, diets, training grounds, to simply a new way of thinking. Patrick Vieria, Thierry Henry and Robert Pires would unlikely have come near us without him.

And while he came across as the quiet, deep thinking manager, under the surface Arsenal had a hardened winner leading them into the most exciting few years in their history. He absolutely loved the battles with Sir Alex Ferguson, that everyone was desperate to beat his team, he loved that his team scrapped for every point when they couldn’t play the perfect football he expected.

e loved being the best. Dare I say it, but Arsene in the late 90’s/ early noughties had elements of Mourinho and Simeone hidden beneath him. Two doubles, and the Invincible Season are all the evidence you need.

Something changed. While everyone’s least favourite Portuguese manager began winning everything whilst upsetting everyone, his Arsenal were in steady decline. And by the time we had lost the2006 European Cup Final, we were saying goodbye to Highbury, and moving to Emirates Stadium, with a young team and huge debt to pay. For many, this is the biggest reason for our decline during the last decade. Highbury was smaller, tighter, a “classic football ground.”

Away teams were scared of coming to Highbury and from what I can gather speaking to fans of other teams, they didn’t enjoy it. They were crammed into the corner of the Clock End, all but out of sight on the TV cameras, and they often went home pointless.

Switch views to the Emirates. Even before away fans are in, they are greeted by an embarrassing “Arsenal Football Club welcomes…” banner. That is one of mine and my brother’s pet hates when we go up there. Then they enter the ground, the bowl’s main speaker then “extends a warm and sporting welcome” to the supporters, and they go on to have the time of their lives in that bottom corner of the Emirates, often making more noise than our fans (they’re not told to sit down by stewards…), and this weird atmosphere often transfers itself to the pitch and the players. I will never understand why the away fans aren’t put right upstairs, why its not 15 quid to get in to the North Bank or the Clock End to create an actual home end, the silly welcome banners are torn down, and flags/banners are welcomed. Make those changes and I’m sure that our atmosphere in our insipid home ground would change.

Now I’ve got my Emirates rant out of the way, returning to Wenger. The first few years at the Emirates were, rightly or wrongly, seen as a few free years for the manager. He was working on an extremely tight budget, with a very young team. To get them in the top four was fantastic, and most Arsenal fans were patient, if not slightly frustrated through these times, “for everything he’s done, he deserves time to rebuild a new team” was the general consensus.

However, the year where his halo slipped was 2011. February, we did the most Arsenal thing possible and blew four competitions within three weeks. A fairly standard league collapse, an even more familiar defeat to Barcelona, knocked out of the FA to Manchester United, and the disastrous defeat to Birmingham. Fast forward a few months. Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri have left. Wenger put out a side made largely of young players and understudies at Old Trafford, because he had failed to spend money during another summer of player sales. As the 8th goal went in, the camera cut to Wenger. He looked old, pale and frail. It was the first time I thought “you don’t need this mate, and possibly we don’t either.”

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The last few seasons for Wenger since can be summed up as: Fans know a we need a player, Wenger doesn’t buy a player, defends his record, gets a couple of big injuries, states players missing will be like new signings, says 4th is a trophy, sees team capitalise on Spurs’ useless ability to finish a job and catch them, then repeat. I should say in there we also won two FA cups and community shields. But it’s not enough. We’ve rarely looked likely to win the league because we have a squad, and more importantly a manager that make the same mistakes again and again.

Maybe we were spoilt by his first ten years. Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Tottenham, Liverpool, West Ham have all changed their manager over the last years. Not all successfully, but there is such a fear amongst so many that changing the manager would be negative because the grass isn’t always greener. But sometimes it is. City sacked Mancini, first to win the league in years and got an upgrade in Pellegrini. The same with them this summer. West Ham and Spurs have improved since changing their manager.

There are many that have said Arsenal have become Arsene’s play thing. Last year, I wonder if he thought “Arteta and Flamini will give me 25 games each, we’ll win the league and I’ll be seen as a genius.” Football has changed. Gilberto for 3 million doesn’t exist anymore, nor does Edu for 6 million. You want top quality, 9/10 you need to pay top money. If this is his last season, he needs to ensure he makes it one to remember. Liverpool at home had the stench of “here we go again” around it.

I’ve prepared myself for his departure, and I’m beginning to wonder if he has too. Many fans are falling out of love with the club, and unfortunately the staleness, acceptance that this level is fine, the feeling that nothing will change stems from the most powerful person at Arsenal Football Club. And due to his previous record, that person, the person I’ve given up on, is Arsene Wenger.

Up the Arsenal.

Joe

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A Tale of Two Transfer Philosophies

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132“It’s very difficult to buy because, if you ask a player of the medium level, they might ask for £55 million, It’s very difficult to enter the market with these prices and in this condition.”

“No. I’m not comfortable. I don’t like to pay a lot of money. If a player deserves it, then it’s right. But for a medium player, it’s right to pay the right price, not £20 or £30 million over. That’s not right. We must be patient and wait. We need to sign some players.”

Not the words of Arsene Wenger, but the words of new Chelsea manager Antonio Conte in this mornings Telegraph.

“I’ve tried my best, but I don’t think in the short term…You can’t just go ‘We have money’, and throw it away and take any players you want. It is always about the decision, you can sign a lot of rubbish with money or you can make really good decisions.”

“I cannot say, ‘It is only money going somewhere else’. We have money, but we are not in Disneyland and can say, ‘Come on, take what you want’. We have a budget, we work with it. This is for the long-term development of the club.”

Not the words or Arsene Wenger, but the words of Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp back in January.

“I personally believe that no matter what you do, it’s never enough. In the Premier League, every club is hugely ambitious. With the cheques that everybody signs, it’s quite scary. But I believe we know what we have to do.”

That one was Arsene Wenger back in July.

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This summer there seems to have been a clear line in the sand when it comes to the transfer policies of top clubs.

On one side, you have the likes of Manchester City and Manchester United. Between them they have spent over £300m on players. They are paying what selling clubs are asking for. Turning up with their suitcase full of cash and walking away with the player they need. Even if they are paying over the odds. Between them they have spent more than a third of the Premier League’s total outlay on player.

You then have the other side of the fence, where the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool & Spurs sit. Between those 4 clubs, they have not yet breached a combined spend of £200m. They are refusing to be held to ransom by European clubs who want a share of the Premier League TV money.

So why do England’s top 6 clubs have two very differing transfer policies? The answer is management.

At Manchester City and Manchester United, we have 2 short term managers. Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola rarely spend more than a few years at a club.

Manchester United is Mourinho;s 4th job since leaving Chelsea in 2007. Guardiola has been well quoted in the past that he never really wants to stay more then 3 years at clubs.

Both come into clubs with short term plans.

Spend big, win big, move on.

It has proved successful, but it has also proved expensive.

For both, they have been lucky that they have joined clubs where nothing needs to be built around them. The likes of Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid & Chelsea are designed for short term managers, come in, win, leave.

It is what has given them both the philosophy of spending big, spending quick. I would be surprised if any manager in world football has outspend Guardiola or Morunhio in the last 6 years.

It is the way they both work.

Than you have the likes of Wenger & Klopp. Both have built a legacy at the clubs they have spent the majority of their time at. Arsenal & Borussia Dortmund. They spent sensibly, and built the clubs up ensuring that they were not only successful during their era, but giving them the best chance of being successful in the future.

Antonio Conte and Mauricio Pochettino seem to of be of a similar ilk. Even though both have already been through a few clubs, they now seem to want to build a legacy at both Chelsea and Tottenham respectively. They are in it for the long term.

And that is the line in the sand. If you are a short term manager like Guardiola & Mourinho, you are spending big, on short term solutions, with a short term goal of winning the Premier League and Champions League quickly, before leaving.

If you are in it for the long term, you always have one eye on the future.

What Conte has said about transfers is completely correct.

Napoli are demanding £55m for Kalidou Koulibaly. A player whom a year ago no one had heard of. John Stones went to Manchester City for £47.5m. A crazy amount for a player dropped by his club side last season, and did not play a minute at the recent European Championships.

You feel had Mourinho still had have been at Chelsea, Stones would be at the club, and probably Koulibaly too. Mourinho pays the money, no matter the price.The transfer window is a crazy place at the moment. European sides are basically naming their price, in the hope a club pays. It all depends how desperate, how short termist, the club is. Manchester City and Manchester United have thus far paid the price. Other clubs have basically turned round and said “don’t take the piss”.

Of course, this does not justify Arsenal’s lack of spending. Conte talks about the medium player who he values at under £30m. There have been plenty of said players move this summer who would have improved us. Shkodran Mustafi is one.

Just because we do not, and correctly should not, pay £55m on someone like Koulibaly, it does not mean we should not be paying for players who are worth what the asking price is (or a little bit more). And if someone like Antoine Griezmann is gettable at £90m, we should go and get him.

In the last year, Arsenal fans have said that we should have gone and the likes of Jurgen Klopp and Antonio Conte. Their philosophy fits in with Arsene Wenger’s. They would have been perfect for a club like ours. They are in it for the long haul.

Keenos

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