Henry did not want Arsenal’s iconic “14” – the pressure of being the next Martin Keown was too much

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Morning all and happy Sunday.

The big news of the weekend (at the time of writing) is that Eddie Nketiah was given the number 14 shirt. As expected this created a huge uproar from the usual suspects.

Some said the decision was putting disrespect on a shirt most recently worn by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Thierry Henry. That Nketiah did not deserve to wear such an iconic shirt.

But are some people just getting their knickers in a twist? Is that 14 that iconic? And do shirt numbers really even matter?

Working backwards, I would love us to go back to an era of 1-11 on the pitch; then 12-18 as the substitutes.

No more egos, no more fighting over shirt numbers, and no more brands being built on the back of this shirt number. You play for the badge on the front of the shirt regardless of the number on the back.

Sadly this will never happen, and we now even see at international level players having “their” shirt number. It’s just a load of rubbish.

But I’d the 14 at Arsenal even that iconic?

Yes, Thierry Henry wore it. And the number will always be linked to him. But it is still just a shirt number.

For me the number 14 will always be Martin Keown’s.

Keown wore it for 6 years whilst playing central defence – only changing to 5 when Steve Bould left.

Prior to Keown wearing it, Anders Limpar and Eddie McGoldrick were the wearers – I imagine those complaining about Eddie getting 14 will now be googling who they were!

In 1999 in came Henry who took over the shirt.

I would imagine Henry hoped to wear the 12 shirt that he had worn at Monaco and France. But that was taken by Christopher Wreh. He settled on 14.

Henry said in an interview back in 2020 “Fourteen is not my number. I took the number 14 at Arsenal because Christopher Wreh had number 12, so I didn’t want to take it off him.”

The reason why he wore 12 previously was because he idealised Marco van Basten.

After Henry, Theo Walcott wore 14.

He did so for 10 years meaning no Arsenal player has worn the 14 jersey more than Theo.

The Aubameyang took it and lost lately Nketiah.

So Limpar, McGoldrick, Keown, Henry, Walcott, Aubameyang and now Nketiah. What an illustrious group to wear such an iconic number.

I remember many years ago William Gallas got the number 10 shirt. There was an uproar.

But this wasn’t due to him wearing Dennis Bergkamp’s old shirt – it was more to do with a defender getting a shirt mostly associated with a certain position. Even back then the “number 10 role” was an iconic position.

My feeling is those moaning would have complained regardless of what number Nketiah got.

They didn’t want Nketiah to have the contract. They don’t want Edu and Mikel Arteta to be at Arsenal. In fact they hate Arsenal. They hate Arsenal more than Spurs fans hate Arsenal.

So if you spent Saturday getting angry online over a shirt number rather than enjoying time with friends and family, then you need to take a long hard look at your life. This type anger will not lead you to living a long and happy life.

There is important things than the number of shirt a footballer wears.

Ps: Happy Fathers Day

Keenos

Arsenal focusing on top young talent whilst Spurs become Free Transfer & Loan FC

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The window is barely a week old and Arsenal are continuing the strategy of 2021.

Fabio Vieira has been added to Marquinhos as Edu and Mikel Arteta continue their Arsenal rebuild – focusing on young, hungry players who want to learn and develop.

Meanwhile, up the road Tottenham seem to be following our policy of 2017-19.

Their signings have very much been in the “short term here and now” mould of Antonio Conte.

The Italian has a reputation of going into clubs, demanding “oven ready” transfers and then leaving after a couple of years. He usually departs with trophies, but also leaves behind a lot of ageing players on big contracts.

Spurs have already sign Ivan Perisic (33) and Fraser Forster (34) on free transfers. They are also being heavily linked with Christian Eriksen (30) on a free.

It shows a club that does not have a pot to piss in. One that is trying to do much of its business through free transfers and loan deals – kicking the transfer debt down the road.

They have to spend £80m on making the Dejan Kuluveski and Cristian Romero dead permanent. That is £80m spent of just keeping the squad at the same standard as last year. And £80m less than can be spent this summer.

They have spent a bit of money on Yves Bissouma, securing the midfielder in a cut price deal following some horrendous allegations that hang over him. The rest of their transfer dealing will turn them into Loan FC or Free Transfer FC.

In recent years, Arsenal tried to recruit ready made senior players in Stephan Litchsteiner, Willian, David Luiz, Sokratis and more. Add in the loans of Denis Suarez and 2017-2019 will go down as one of our worst periods in the transfer market.

It has taken a few years for us to be able to undo that work and it is exciting the new path we are going down.

Tottenham might not feel the “Conte affect” on the transfer window until after he is gone.

A squad filled with ageing former stars and loanees is not a squad that can be built on for the future.

The future is what Arsenal are doing.

Keenos

Arsenal quietly doing transfer business whilst others make noise

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And that is how transfers happen.

Whilst many of you were moaning about the lack of transfer business from Arsenal barely a week into the window, or complaining how slow Arsenal do deals compared to Liverpool, Edu and his team were quietly working away.

The impending (at the time of writing) transfer of Fabio Vieira does show everyone up as know-nothings.

All them twitter accounts, bloggers and bloggers that spend their minutes, hours and days linking us with players (then moaning we had not signed them). Well where was your source when it came to Vieira?

“Negotiations FC” I have some some label us due to the press constantly saying we were in negotiations with one player or another. “just pay the asking price” some cried.

Well Arsenal have managed to negotiate Vieira’s initial price tag down from his €50m release clause to €35m.

By negotiating transfers, it leaves us an additional €15m in the pot in comparison to if we just signed the player for his release clause.

Now I am not going to pretend to know anything about Vieira.

All I know about him is he isn’t a big black lad from Senegal. Nor did he once play for Fleetwood Town. But he is a 22-year-old midfielder (according to Wikipedia) who fits in with the sort of player Edu and Mikel Arteta have been focusing on.

If you were still confused about what “the process” was and what our transfer strategy is then maybe it is time to stop spouting rubbish?

We move quietly. We move quickly. We move forward together.

Keenos