Tag Archives: Arsenal

Tottenham apply to remain at Wembley until end of season

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The latest news in the shambles the is the New Tottenham Stadium Saga, is permission has been sought from Brent Council and local residents for an additional 17 Tottenham games to be played at Wembley Stadium.

This additional 17 games will take the club up until the end of the season.

This is the latest delay to the new stadium, which was supposed to open at the beginning of this season.

Back in March we were aware (through our 9-5 work) that the stadium would not be open before the start of the season. The Tottenham hierarchy would have also been aware of this.

Despite this delay, the club still sold season tickets based on the stadium being open on time.

In June, it was announced that costs were beginning to spiral towards the £1bn mark. The dramatically increased costs explained why Tottenham were hiding the delays and selling season tickets.

They have used the season ticket money – around £80million – as an interest free loan to help finance the stadium. They have only been refunding this money on a game by game basis; at the same time they receive money from selling tickets at Wembley.

By July it was our understanding that the stadium would open 3 months late. October at the earliest we were told.

At this point, the club announced that they had failed to secure stadium naming rights and were giving full refunds to those companies who had purchased an executive box. The writing was on the wall but still Spurs management denied any issues.

By the end of July, trade Unions were urging the Government to investigate the poor working conditions and breaches of both Health & Safety and Working Time Regulations.

Spurs had begun announcing – slowly – that there were delays. The first game had already been moved to Wembley. Having requested that 3 of their first 4 away games were to be at home, it was announced to great fanfare that the first game of the season would be against Liverpool in the middle of September. We knew different.

Middle of August and it was announced by the club that the stadium would not be ready until early October; with games up to and including Cardiff on 6th October to be played at the national stadium. This announcement was a full month after we revealed the news of “October at the earliest”.

A day after the October delay was announced, we discovered that builders had actually had their contracts extended until the end of November. That it was highly likely that Tottenham would not play at their new ground until early 2019. Why would Tottenham announce mid-October when we knew it would be 2019?

Had they announced Early 2019, they would have had to have given huge refunds in August to fans who bought season tickets. Instead they lied and kept the money to assist with cash flow.

It was then announced that Tottenham were due to play all of their Champions League group games at Wembley. Their poor performance in the competition led to an investigation by the Advertising Standards Agency.

October confirmed what we knew in September. That the stadium would not be ready in 2018

Despite this being confirmed by many industry sources, Tottenham did not announce this decision until late-October. Another delayed announcement meaning that they kept that season ticket money for another month. This announcement also revealed that Tottenham had increased their loan facility to £637m.

It was at this time speculation circulated that the ground would not be open this season. With 3 test events, a January opening was highly unlikely.

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1042424952610283520

And now we have the news that Tottenham have applied to Brent Council to remain at the stadium until the end of the season. This will probably be announced by the club mid-December; based on previous experience of news being known a month before the club announce it.

The way Tottenham have treated their fans is an utter disgrace.

They have delayed announcements and hidden behind Health & Safety to retain season ticket money.

Whilst there have been issues with the fire safety installation, the project timescale was optimistic. It was based on their being no delays, no issues.

As someone within the construction industry, projects like these always have issues, always have delays. Crossrail has been delayed until August 2018 (it was scheduled to open December 2018. The completion of the Shard was also delayed. And both of these major projects did not have the aggressively short timescale of the Tottenham stadium.

When the Olympic stadium was being built, the aim was for an early 2012 completion. This gave LOCOG 8 months breathing space. It opened in March 2012; 6 months before the Olympics started.

The Tottenham Stadium was always an ambitious difficult project. Some UK construction firsts when building. When Tottenham announced that the ground was to be completed in 1 season – 15 months between the end of the 2016/17 season and beginning of the 2018/19, most industry insiders thought this was impossible.

Most felt it was at least a 2 year project. 24 months. That 15 months was impossible.

It is now a case of waiting and watching to see when Spurs announce that they will not be playing at their new ground this season.

Keenos

Aaron Ramsey, Ousmane Dembele and future Arsenal wingers

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After the joy of watching England over the summer, the national team has reverted to type since.

Gareth Southgate has lost almost all of the good will gained due to the decision to pick Wayne Rooney for a goodbye cap, make Fabian Delph captain, and select some horrendously average players – the likes of Delph, Michael Keane, Lewis Dunk and Harry Winks.

I did not watch last night games. I could not care less for it. Mainly due to the Rooney fiasco, but also due to what Southgate is doing to the national team at the moment.

Anyway, it has been the dullest of dull interlulls, but yesterday we had a bit of breaking news as Aaron Ramsey was close to agreeing a deal to join Bayern Munich next summer on a free transfer.

These things do have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Ramsey is not actually allowed to discuss anything with a foreign club until January 1st. Although I am not naive enough to think that his people have not spoken to top clubs around Europe.

Moving to Munich would (and would not) make sense for him. I would be very surprised if he moves abroad with such a young family – his wife gave birth to twins a month ago.

However Munich seems like a good fit, and I can see him doing very well in Germany.

They are one of the few clubs that would pay him what he wants, and with James Rodriguez likely to leave and Thomas Muller seemingly shot, you can see Ramsey starting in the advanced midfield position he thrives in.

There are a couple of bellends at games who seem to laugh at booing him. Whilst he wears an Arsenal shirt, we should be backing him. And remember it is Arsenal’s decision to let him go, not his decision to leave.

I wish him luck if he joins Munich.

Other news surrounds Ousmane Dembele.

A few days ago he was heavily linked with Liverpool. I posed the question on Twitter as to whether Arsenal should be in for him at a similar price in January.

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1062690099429814273

The result was close, but ultimately the British people voted to leave Europe the majority would take him.

At £85m, he would take up almost all of our summer 2019 transfer funds, especially when you take into account that he is rumoured to be on £220k a week at Barcelona.

Despite this, I would still move for him.

Next season we need two wingers, a left back and a centre back. If we assume Reiss Nelson is going to continue his fine form and development in Germany, we can assume that between him and Alex Iwobi we have the right hand side locked down. Nelson will save us £30+.

What that means is we could double up on the left hand side. use the funds we would have assigned to signing a right winger and put them towards the left winger.

attempted to do some back of the fag packet maths yesterday to show how we can sign Dembele and still have enough in the pot to secure the centre back and left back we need:

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1063043679420628993

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1063043703697276933

Before people get hung up on the left back, I have since changed my opinion, that we should offer Nacho Monreal one more year, cash in on Kolasinac, and buy a left back who has the potential to be long term first choice. But that is a debate for another day.

I might attempt to expand on what Arsenal can and can not buy another day.

Whilst we are talking about wingers, I encourage you to read this excellent blog by Jorge Bird detailing the talented young wingers in Arsenal’s youth teams.

I have seen our youth play a few times recently, certainly not as much as Jorge (or JW who blogs here), and we do seem to have a lot of the same type of players coming through.

We have an abundance of rapid wide men throughout our youth system, but they are also technically excellent.

Nelson aside, the two I am most excited by Xavier Amaechi and Bukayo Saka.

Amaechi is a left winger and some have claimed that he is the quickest player at the club. Currently injured, he has a big future and next year would be knocking on the door of the first team squad for the summer tour and League Cup games.

Still just 17, he has a bright future. Will we follow the same route as Nelson with him? Send him abroad a year where his sort of talent does not get kicked out of him (unlike in the Championship), before he returns to Arsenal for 2020/21 to compete for a place on Arsenal’s left hand side.

Coming up behind Amaechi is Saka, who has only just turned 16. The youngster has taken advantage of his older team mates injury to cement a a place in Arsenal’s U23s. He has also appeared for England U19s.

Saka is perhaps a year behind Amaechi in terms of development. Despite both being born in 2001 (how old does that make you feel?), they fall into different English school years. That does have an affect on development and when they could start playing more competitive football.

I expect Saka to continue his development and we will see more of him in the summer of 2020, before he pushes into the first team in 2021.

That might seem a long time away, but Saka will still just be 19 when the 2021/22 season starts!

What is exciting is underneath Alex Iwobi, we have 3 very talented wingers in Nelson, Amaechi and Saka, all of whom will be given time to develop and make an impact over the next 2 or 3 years.

That’s all from me today, the cricket is on and I have some cleaning to do. Enjoy your day!

Keenos

Reiss Nelson: “I want to be an Arsenal legend”

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This morning there is a terrific interview on the BBC with England youngsters Jadon Sancho and Reiss Nelson. The duo are currently ripping up the Bundesliga.

The pair – who have been friends since before they were teens – moved to Germany in the search for first team football. Sancho joined; Nelson joining Hoffenheim on loan from Arsenal.

Between them they have scored 11 goals and made 8 assists in all competitions, form that has led to Sancho to be called up to the England national team.

Despite both being 18; the interview showed that they both have sensible heads on their young shoulders.

There is not a hint of arrogance in either. Neither comes across as a party boy. Both talk about their families. Both talk about how they know they have talent, and know they have to work hard to be the best.

Over the years we have seen plenty of young talented footballers. Most have the wrong attitude. They get the money early, a contract which will make them £5million over 5 years, and they fade away. They get that first contract on their potential rather than their performances, they take the foot off the pedal, become more interested in cars, girls and social media, and eventually fade away.

By moving to Germany both Sancho and Nelson have already shown they have a different mind set. They did not want to be the big man amongst their mates. Paying for the all vodkas in Tiger Tiger VIP whilst surrounded by girls looking to bag (or bang) a footballer. They took themselves out of their comfort zone, to Germany, to improve.

Nelson is living in Heidelberg with his family. A university town with just 160,000 residents – it is the equivalent of living in Oxford or Cambridge. That is half the people that grew up in the Borough of Southwark – where Nelson grew up. To go from a 10,000,000 city to a 160,000 town would have required huge adjustments. He has adjusted well.

The Arsenal youngster was rumoured to be on his way out of the club a year ago. Instead he signed a new long term deal and moved his life to Germany for a year. He was named Bundesliga Rookie of the Month for October.

A few fans are calling him to make a return in January. This would not be beneficial to either him or Arsenal.

Despite his good form for Hoffenheim, he has only started 4 games. To expect him to go from impact sub in Germany to starter at Arsenal is another huge jump.

He would be much better staying in Germany. Over the year forcing his way in to the first team, to become a first team regular. Once he is playing regularly for the Hoffenheim first team, we will know that he is nearly ready for the Arsenal first team.

By the end of the season, Arsenal will be getting a teenage right winger who has had a full season in one of Europe’s top leagues, and who has excelled in that league. What would his value be? £30m? £40m?

The term “like a new signing” is one that is detested by many Arsenal fans, as it was usually used to justify no signing as we had a player coming back from injury.

In Nelson, he would be like a new signing.

He went away to Germany as a boy struggling to make an impact – just 146 Premier League minutes to his name last season. He is set to come back as a man. A first team player who Gareth Southgate will no longer be able to continue to ignore.

Arsenal need two wingers next season. A right winger and a left winger. Nelson could be that right winger.

With his good attitude, his natural ability and his years experience in Germany, Arsenal would be promoting one of Europe’s best young players into their first team. He would be like a new signing.

Maybe in the summer Arsenal should make the double swoop and bring Sancho back to England. See what Dortmund want. And then have the two most exciting talents in English football either side of Mesut Ozil.

If it all go’s right for Nelson, there is no reason he can not become the Arsenal legend he dreams of.

Keenos