Will Lionel Messi face Arsenal for the MLS All-Stars?

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I never really got the Lionel Messi hype. Nor Cristiano Ronaldo for that matter.

It is clearly both are two of the best players to ever grace the game. Generational talents. Up there with Pele, Diego Maradona and Johan Cruyff.

Football’s version of Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer. Two of the best ever both at their peak at the same time.

What I never really understood was the new type of fan they created.

About 15 years ago, Arsene Wenger spoke about how in the future, we will see fans support individual players rather than the club they played for. And Messi and Ronaldo were the first that drew this type of attention. And to a lesser extent, Mesut Ozil.

They created “fanboys”. Mainly male’s from the ages of 15-25 who were neither from the country of Ronaldo or Messi’s birth, nor from the country they played in. They would promote Messi and Ronaldo to beyond footballers, beyond sportstars. They would become global superstars.

This sort of thing is not new, and has been around for decades in music. Think Harry Styles or Robbie Williams, Taylor Swift or Beyonce Knowles. Their fans would be screaming at their concerts, crying when they saw them for the first time. They would eat up all content associated with them, read every article written. Buy every song no matter how bad.

And if they released a bad track, they would not have it that it was poor. They would go out of their way to defend it, and look to attack anyone that disagreed.

The worst of them would stand outside hotels, outside restaurants, day in day to catch a glimpse of them, to get a hug.

I always felt sorry for these sort of people. Needing to hero worship well into their teens to clearly make up for a lack of love and affection at home.

And Ronaldo and Messi were similar.

When Messi left Barcelona to PSG, his fans followed.

They unfollowed Barcelona across social media and changed their bio’s to show they were not a fan of PSG. The French side saw a huge jump in followers just because of Messi. AC Milan had similar when they re-siegned Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

When Cristiano Ronaldo left Juventus for Manchester United, the Old Lady lost close to 500k followers.

Ronaldo’s new club – Al Nassr – had just 369k followers on is English language Twitter account in December 2022. Within a month of his signing, this jumped to over 1m, a 183% increase.

It is interesting to note that its Arabic account, followed mainly by people from its region, saw a much smaller jump. just a 13% increase.

This highlights that the the increase was mainly driven from outside the region Al Nassr play in. It was their fanboys from Africa, the far East, America and beyond jumping on the bandwagon.

Inter Miami saw similar – their twitter jumped 174% in a week following Messi’s announcement.

Where Ronaldo and Messi go, their fanboys follow. No longer fans of Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG, Juventus of Manchester United. They now follow Al Nassr and Inter Miami.

What I have never really understood is the way both “fan bases” spend hours on end attacking each other, trying to diminish the achievements of the other in attempt to prove that their man is better.

Messi and Ronaldo are both two of the best to ever play the game. I have had the displeasure to watch both in the stadium on many occasions. I say displeasure because their sparkling performances usually led to an Arsenal defeat.

I would say 95% of fans will happily sit there and say “Messi and Ronaldo were both brilliant players” and then get on with their day.

That 5% though are odd. Are dangerous. You get Ronaldo fans trying to claim Messi is overhyped, is not very good. And in response Messi fans say the same about Ronaldo.

If you ever end up on that side of Twitter, you realise how toxic it is.

These people do not care about the clubs their heroes play for. It is all about Messi and Ronaldo. They will never have the affinity to a club that I have, that you have.

I loved Thiery Henry when he was in an Arsenal shirt. But the day he left I stopped caring. I was not bothered what he did at Barcelona, or what he won or did not win. And this is the way most normal football are like.

I actually feel sorry for them as they are still trying to promote their man despite both of them now in semi-retirement just looking to see out their career and boost their bank balance.

And they seem to think Ronaldo or Messi care about them. They do not.

So will Messi play tonight? To be honest, I do not really care. It is all about The Arsenal, our preperation. And not about the circus that follows a player who is passed his best and will be retired within a couple of years.

On a final note, I was always Federer over Nadal. I prefered his grace across a court. But I could also respect Nadal’s power, energy and physicality. Both played the game very different. But are the two best to ever play it.

Keenos

£20m below the asking price – Arsenal get the Rice deal they wanted

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“Why are we negotiating, Edu just needs to pay the asking price” was heard continually throughout the Declan Rice transfer saga.

West Ham’s initial asking price was apparently £120m, cash up front. Through negotiations, Arsenal are paying £100m upfront with £5m add ons.

Negotiating has saved the club £20m upfront.

I always felt an offer in and around £100m would get the deal done, and to achieve that Arsenal had to begin their bidding below this figure. At around £80m.

Likewise, I think West Ham were always targeting that £100m mark, which is why they started at £120m. That would give themselves space to be negotiated down.

One club starts at £80m, the other at £120m, and they end up meeting (almost) in the middle.

I’ve watched enough Pawn Stars to know how often “meet in the middle” ends up the result of negotiations, and that is what happened here.

What I find funny is those West Ham twitter accounts that kept talking about “£120m and not a penny less” are now celebrating David Sullivan for negotiating up Arsenal’s offer to £100m.

They seem to have forgotten that the asking price was £120m, and that they said they should not sell himfor a penny less for.

Arsenal negotiated West Ham down to save themselves £20m

Also funny is those Man City fans who were “delighted to have helped” West Ham earn £100m. They seem to think that Man City only bided to push the Arsenal price up, and it is just to this bidding that Arsenal spent £100m.

This isn’t eBay lads where you get a pal to bid for the shirt you’re selling to up the price.

The Arsenal negotiating team also agreed favourable payment terms.

Starting points for payments seemed to be that West Ham wanted £75m in 2023/24, witht he remaining £25m paid during the 2024/25 tax year. Two payments, with the bulk upfront and the full £100m paid up within almost 12 months.

Reports were that Arsenal’s first offer proposed the guaranteed portion of the fee be paid over the course of four years – payments due in 2023, 2024, 2025 & 2026. £25m a year.

In the end, the deal was agreed for the fee to be paid across three years – 2023, 2024 and 2025, with equal payments of around £33.3m paid during each period.

We have been able to spread the debt over 3 years (instead of West Ham’s original demand of 2), and just £33.3m being paid this summer.

Paying just £33.3m this summer rather than £75m basically enabled us to sign Jurrien Timber.

Of course, West Ham fans will say “Arsenal wanted to pay £25m for 4 years and we got them to agree to £33.3m for 3 years”. And again, this shows why it is important to negotiate.

West Ham went in with 2-years payment terms, Arsenal responded with 4-years, and they met in the middle with 3 years.

So we have £120m asking price, a counter off of £80m and a meet in the middle of £100m. 2-years payment terms requested, 4-years offered, 3-years agreed.

Both sides got the fee and payment terms they probably wanted to begin with. The rest of it is just negotiating tactics.

Arsenal negotiating team, which includes Richard Garlick (Edu has nothing to do with it), have decades of top level corporate and sporting negotiating experience. Man City’s interest would not have forced them into “overpaying”.

In the end, Arsenal signed their man for the top end of what they were willing to pay, West Ham sold their captain and best player.

I still find it odd to read some West Ham fans celebrating the sale of Rice. It probably just shows that all they care about is Twitter clout, and not their team progressing. It will be interesting to see what they do with the money (and how many others follow Rice out the door).

And that concludes one of the most boring transfer sagas in Premier League History.

Declan Rice of Arsenal and England.

Keenos

What can Arsenal fans expect from Declan Rice – a West Ham fans view

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Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard jr, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Jermaine Defoe, Glenn Johnson.

Nobody would have thought West Ham United would ever be able to produce a large crop of English home grown quality in such quick succession. The late 90’s – early 00’s was a conveyor belt of talented youth; one after the other making it to the first team & setting English football alight, becoming the next generation of England internationals.

It was only a matter of time before the premier league bully boys came knocking and it was inevitable we were going to lose most of, if not all of our young poster boys. Which now brings me to the very best of them all…

21 May 2017 saw yet another academy player with a big reputation make his first team debut for the club, coming on as a substitute away to Burnley.

Whilst the limelight was focused on Reece Oxford, U18’s coach Mark Phillips was adamant that a young centre back named Declan Rice (who later switched to a defensive midfielder) will go on to be the next West Ham player from the academy set up that would go to the top.

Very early on in Dec’s West Ham career you could see his leadership qualities, & in no time at all he would go on to be Mark Noble’s lieutenant before taking the armband full time 12 months ago. 

So what can Arsenal fans expect from Declan Rice?

Rice has everything in his locker. Everything.

His injury record is non-existent for the modern day footballer, and is consistently available for selection. He can play anywhere in midfield, as well as his original position at centre back. His ability to win the ball & keep possession can only be likened to Claude Makelele; who would win the ball & play the short pass. His timing for a tackle is perfected down to the millisecond when the opposition are attacking, which are executed with pure accuracy and precision.

Dec can distribute the ball short and long range, as well as carrying it deep into the oppositions half as a box-to-box from a deep lying playmaker. One of Dec’s best attributes is his ability at keeping the ball – his composure to keep possession and bring his team mates into play is second to none.

His reaction and vision to pick out a team mate after winning the ball when the game is at a lightening pace is frightening, as Moyes likes to hit teams on the counter attack. His feet are very quick & clever and you just know when he’s on the ball he’s never going to lose it – he’s always going to make something happen.

His awareness of opposition players around him when receiving a pass is as sharp as a blade, and he very rarely gets caught out; If he does, he will chase his player until he wins it back.

Arsenal’s style of play will hugely benefit from Dec’s distribution of the ball. I am sure Arteta will want everything to go through him, from Ramsdale – his long range diagonal balls to wingers will have Saka’s & Martinelli’s mouth’s watering as it will land straight at their feet. It’s like water off a ducks back for him.

Rice has the confidence of a raging bull to drive at opposition with no fear what so ever. His drive with the ball can be very scary defenders, as we’ve seen it in virtually every game, and during our European campaigns, which ended in him being on the scoresheet and respectively winning the West Ham goal of the month every time. 

For a player with a tall, lean, structure, his strength to shield off and block attackers is very impressive, yet his ariel ability is just above average.

Tomas Soucek’s game was sacrificed for Dec in the 2021/22 season so he could improve on his own game getting forward, and his desire to develop into the complete midfielder. 

Mark Noble once said Dec was the best striker of the ball in training, and needs to test goalkeepers a lot more from range. If there’s anything that he lacks, it’s goals.

Unfortunately for Dec, Moyes’ style of play wasn’t able to help develop that side of his game, but he is a fantastic striker of the ball nonetheless. If Arteta plays Rice as a left sided number 8 (which is what I’ve heard), I wouldn’t be surprised if he bagged 10 goals & assists a season.

His hunger to add goals to his artillery is there, and he will frequently get into positions where he can have a clean strike at goal.

Rice’s leadership qualities is what Arsenal desperately lack, and I’m calling it now – he will probably be named captain in the next couple of years, as well as captain of England.

His popularity with the other players around England camps tells you everything you need to know about him, and he already has a strong relationship with Sake.

The way Rice carries himself on and off the pitch radiates through the players and the fan base. He is a model professional who will always give, and demand, 100% – nobody has a bad word to say about him.

The man oozes class. His desire to win, his honesty, and his dream to go to the top is what makes him the man, and player he has become.

An Arsenal fan who I know very well asked me who I’d compare Rice to…my answer was Ruud Gullit.

He has a long way to go for a full comparison to be made, but Dec has everything in his locker to become the complete midfielder playing total football, and be the best in world in his position.

He already has the mentality of a world class footballer, as all he wants to do is win, improve, train hard, and work tirelessly for his team. 

Kevin Slade (SD&CC)