Tag Archives: Arsenal

Arsenal correct to stop pursuit of Monaco star

1 Reply

£143,000,000 is a lot for any footballer. It is 66% more than the world record transfer fee that Manchester United recently paid for Paul Pogba.

For that price, you would expect Lionel Messi. Perhaps Neymar. At a stretch Gareth Bale or Luis Suarez. It is possibly a bit too much for 32 year old Cristiano Ronaldo.

In summary, for a world record price, you would expect one of the best players in the world. An established global superstar. Someone who will come in and win you the league. Will score near enough a goal a game. Will break all sorts of goal scoring records.

What you would not expect for that price is an 18 year old striker with just 19 starts in the French Ligue 1. But that is what Kylian Mbappe is set to go for.

Now there is no doubting his potential. He is an extremely gifted player with a bright future, if everything works out. But What Real Madrid and others are paying for is not an established star, but for what he might become.

There are a lot of obstacles from being a talented youngster to becoming a global superstar.

When you look at the winners of the Golden Ball since its inception in 2003, how many of the players have kicked on to become a truly global superstar.

Now I am not talking about just become a very good player, I am talking about becoming one of the best in the world. The level where you are being considered for the Ballon d’Or. That they are considered in not just the top 2 players in their position, but they are considered as one of the best players in the world, regardless of their position.

Of the 14 players to have won the Golden Ball, only really Lionel Messi has gone on to become a legend of the game. Sergio Aguero is borderline. I probably would consider him one of the greatest strikers of the last 8 years- although injury has probably held him back from reaching the top bracket.

Injury, one of the many things that can stop a player going from being a top youngster to a global superstar. What ha soften set the likes of Messi and Ronaldo apart is their fitness record. Over the last 10 years, Messi has averaged 50 games a season for the last 10 years. Ronaldo has averaged 50 games a year since he joined Manchester United, way back in 2003.

Since joining Manchester City, Sergio Aguero has averaged 40 games a season, and that is what has held him back.

The likes of Wayne Rooney & Cesc Fabregas have had glorious careers. But you feel they peaked in their early 20s and never really kicked on to be amongst the best global players of their generation.

Rafael van der Vaart ended up with a bit of a journeyman career.

Anderson, Alexandre Pato and Mario Balotelli all highlight that being a top youngster does not always guarantee being a top senior pro. All have had big money transfer. They are aged between 26 and 29 and should in the peak of their careers.

Anderson (29) is currently at Brazilian side Coritiba, on loan from Internacional. Mario Balotelli (26) is playing for Nice in France. And Alexandre Pato (27), plays for Tianjin Quanjian in China.

Isco is a slow burner. He took a bit of a wrong move joining Real Madrid, where he struggled to break through, but he is now flourishing. But I doubt if he will ever reach the level that Cesc Fabregas was at his best, let alone the level of a Xavi or Iniesta, and certainly not reach the heights of a Zinedine Zidane.

The likes of Mario Götze and Raheem Sterling have certainly not lived up to their big billing as a teenager. Gotze dumped by Bayern Munich after a big money transfer, Sterling just not pushed on since joining Manchester City. Renato Sanches and Anthony Martial are both in danger of following the same route.

Then you have Paul Pogba. A bit of an enigma. The current holder of the world record transfer fee. At times he is unplayable. A mix of strength and technique. But he has yet to do what Yaya Toure did. And is not yet fit to clean Patrick Vieira’s boots. For him to justify his transfer fee, he has to surpass these two players achievements.

So the road to stardom is not guaranteed for Kylian Mbappe. At £144m, Real Madrid, Man City, or whoever buys him, will be paying for what he might become. They are spending the big money on the basis that they hope he is a 50-goal a season man by the time he is 21. The heir apparent to Cristiano Ronaldo’s throne.

But he is not yet Cristiano Ronaldo. He scored just 15 league goals last season. He still has a long way to go. He is not the even the best striker in Ligue 1 – last season he finished behind Edison Cavani, Alexandre Lacazette, Radamel Falcao and Swansea flop Bafétimbi Gomis in the top scorer charts.

Mbappe was level with previous top youngster Balotelli, Newcastle flop Florian Thauvin and Ivan Santini, whoever that is.

Would you be happy spending £144m on Balotelli, Thauvin or Santini? The answer would be no. You would be disappointed if your side spent anymore than £20m on those players.

You would not consider paying above £60m for Cavani. Arsenal signed the superior Lacazette for around £45m. And how much would you be willing to splash out on previous Premier League flops Falcao and Gomis?

So Real Madrid (or whoever go’s for Mbappe) is certainly not paying the £144m Mbappe as the player he is now, but as the player that Mbappe could become. And as we have established, there is no guarantee of a top youth player becoming a top player.

For someone like Arsenal, not signing Mbappe is the right move.

If he becomes a £144m player, then fair enough. We will all moan about how we could have signed him in 2016 for £265k – although I do not know why this criticism is always labelled at Arsenal, every club could have got him for this amount in 2016. Mbappe decided to stay. Arsenal did not miss out.

But if (for example) he stays at Monaco for a year, and he fails to score 30 league goals, would he still be worth £144m? Or would that price start to dwindle a bit to represent his true value rather than his potential?

And if he joins Real Madrid (or Manchester City, or whoever) for £144m, and flops, he will be available in a couple of years for half the price, or more. If he does not score that 50 goals a season, does not break into that top bracket, he will still be a top player, but his value would then represent what he is actually worth, not what he might be worth.

To finish, a story of a young lad from Chester. The year was 1997. He was just about to have his breakthrough season. He was just 17.

At 18 he had the world at his feet. He had scored 23 goals in 44 games in the 1997/98 season for his boyhood club. That summer he was to score a wonder goal for his country at the World Cup. He exploded into the world’s conscience.

What followed were 4 injury hit seasons, when only once did he play over 30 league games. He never once scored over 20 league goals, and by 24 his hamstrings were shot. His fitness did not stop him getting a big money move at 24 to Real Madrid. He lasted a single season before being sold to Newcastle. A talented player, but he could not get fit.

He ended up finishing his career at Stoke City.

At 18 he was expected to become a world great. Break every record going. Lead Liverpool to multiple titles. It is ironic that his only league title came at bitter rivals Manchester United as a bit part player. And whilst he won the Ballon d’Or in 2001 at just 21, you feel his career never reached the heights expected as a 18 year old.

Michael Owen could have been one of the greatest of all time. But he never lived to his potential.

At £144m, I would expect to be getting the real deal. Not some youngster with potential. Arsenal are best off missing out.

Keenos

Stop putting average players on a pedestal

12 Replies

The current trend at Arsenal seems to be a childish hyping up and rating of players who are set to leave us. The only explanation I can think of is because it is Arsene Wenger no longer fancies the players, so suddenly certain fans start rating him highly. After all, they can not bring themselves to agree with Arsene Wenger.

In the polar opposite direction, and a good place to start this blog, is deadwood.

For years we have moaned about certain players being deadwood. Surplus to requirements. Not fit to wear the shirt. Confused as to why Wenger signed them. More confused as to why they were kept and played so often. And in many of the cases, the criticism was justifiable.

But it seems as soon as we come to decide to move on these players, people start moaning. They never got their chance they complain, even though they were also moaning every time they got their chance.

I have always called it The Michael Carrick Affect – a syndrome caused by rating a player because he is not playing, and the less he plays, the better he gets. Both for England and Manchester United, Carrick got better when he was not playing, to the point where during one absence, people were labelling the average midfielder as world class.

A first example of this happening at Arsenal was with Joel Campbell, and the infamous get out whilst you can Joel at an away game against Swansea.

At the time, Joel Campbell was the poster boy for those that hate everything about Wenger. He was not getting game time, and they demanded that he should. By not playing, he was getting better. They were ignoring the fact that he was average, they felt he should be in the first team.

A few years on from that, people are still saying Campbell never got his chance at Arsenal. Yet in 2015, he played 30 games for the club, scoring 4 goals, and proved that he was not good enough. Interestingly, in the same season, Theo Walcott, a man fans love to have, scored 7 goals in 21 games. Always baffles me when fans rate a player above another player just to suit an agenda.

Even now, people are calling for Joel Campbell to return to Arsenal. This is a player who started just 7 games for Sporting Lisbon in the Portuguese League.

Joel Campbell is not good enough.

Lukas Podolski is another who many labelled as not good enough but as soon as he was loaned out to Inter Milan, the tide of opinion changed. He is now in Japanese football and people are still moaning that he should be at Arsenal.

Labelled as deadwood for many years, Wojciech Szczesny suddenly became everyone’s favourite goal keeper when he joined Juventus as their number 2. Suddenly everyone loved the Pole, who they had spent the last 4 years criticising.

I really did not understand the love in with Wojciech Szczesny.

Lucas Perez is another whose stock has risen dramatically purely because he is not fancied. I see people saying he was not given a chance last season. Yet he was simply not as good as players who started ahead of him.

People act like Lucas Perez was a superstar because he scored a hat trick against Basel, a brace against Nottingham Forest and miss hit a cross which went in against Sutton. OK, he scored a great goal against Bournemouth, but that is one goal, in 21 games.

The joke with Perez is when we signed him, we were competing with the likes of West Ham and Everton for his signature. People commented if he was any good, other top sides would be chasing him. 12 months on, he is being linked with a move away from Arsenal to either Everton or West Ham, and everyone is saying how great a player he is – even though other big sides are not interested.

Another is Calum chambers. 12 months ago it was he has been a flop, we would be lucky to get back half of what we paid for him. Now that we are attracting bids for more than what we paid for him, people are saying we are crazy to sell him.

I have even seen people complain that the very average Mohamad Elneny has not been given a chance.

This situation just highlights the agenda driven opinion of some fans. Arsene Wenger could go and buy Lee Trundle, and those fans would moan we were signing an old, overweight player who is clearly not good enough. But in a year, after he plays just 4 games and we sell him, they would say he was a great player who was never given his chance.

Be consistent in your opinion. Players we are clearing out this summer are just not good enough. Question why we signed them in the first place – criticise Wenger for wasting money on them – but do not question why we are selling them, just as a stick to beat Wenger with.

Keenos

Why did Arsenal tour Australia and China (and other pre-season stuff)

4 Replies

Since the 3-0 defeat to Chelsea, the fans which seem to over analyse every single thing the club do, those that act as if they are scouts, coaches, managers, doctors and players, have now over analysed our pre-season tour of Australia and China.

Going to China and Australia

A big question they have asked is Why have Arsenal gone to Australia and China? The simple answer is money.

It is fairly obvious why teams, and not just Arsenal, travel the globe on pre-season tours. Money and to build the global brand.

I am fully on the globalisation of the modern game has ruined it for local fans bandwagon, and I would rather the Chinese stuck to their Super League, Australian’s stuck to cricket, and American’s kept inventing sports that they win at because they do not let anyone else play.

But the modern game is what it is. The elastic has broken. There is no going back. I will not sit and accept it, but I will understand why clubs do what they do.

The actual pounds, shilling and pence sides get from these trips abroad is not grand, but the money flows down from the brand building exercise. The extra shirts sold, the extra fans who start following the club.

It creates a buzz in these countries as well. One look at Twitter to see how excited Sydney based fans were about Arsenal coming to town. These might not be die hard, week in week out fans that are the ‘norm’ but they are fans none the less. They get up at silly o’clock to watch a game. They save the price of a season ticket just to get a flight to the UK to watch us play Stoke.

Sides have even started doing post-season tours (although teams were doing these 2 decades ago as well). And trips to China are not a new thing. In the 90s, Arsenal had an infamous trip to Hong Kong.

And it is not just English sides.

Arsenal played Bayern Munich in China. Manchester United played Real Madrid in America.

I am not a fan of them, but if playing these sides means there is no 39th game, I can support them.

Why Chelsea? Why not Barnet?

When I used to play Football Manager, I used to organise a yearly tour of the UK, where I would pit my awesome Arsenal team against half a dozen non league teams. I would win every game 30-0 with Cherno Samba scoring 50-odd pre season goals. It was a bit of fan. And most importantly, it was a game.

I see Arsenal fans complaining that we are playing Chelsea in China rather than Barnet in Britain.

The simple answer once again is money, and brand building (I actually hate this, we are not a brand, we are a football club, but as I said above, the elastic is broken).

Arsenal v Chelsea was live on ITV on Saturday lunchtime. If Arsenal played Barnet, it would not have been shown anywhere.

Also, surely the more competitive a game, the better, in pre season.

When I used to do a tour of the lower leagues on Football Manager, it did not really matter the games were uncompetitive, as it was just a game.

If Arsenal did the same, players would be unprepared, under cooked. There is simply no value playing a lower league side and spanking them.

When Arsenal used to play the likes of Barnet, the side would often me a couple of senior players who were not yet fully fit, and a lot of youth.

Arsenal’s U23’s are set to play both Borhamwood and Leyton Orient. So Arsenal are not ignoring their local lower league sides, they are merely sending the youths out for games which will sell-out.

I would much rather see the team get a slightly more competitive run out against Bayern Munich and Chelsea, rather then see our senior players playing in Barnet or Leyton.

Why not play Lacazette 90 minutes, every game?

One laughable I comment I saw was a plonker saying “Why hasn’t Alexandre Lacazette played the full 90 minutes”. Well again, it is pre season.

Overplay a player, and he gets injured, the same attention seekers will probably be moaning that he has been over played.

Lacazette played 22 minutes against Sydney in the first pre-season game. He started against New South Wales, before being substituted with the rest of the starting XI after 66 minutes.

On the tour of Australia, every senior player got a full 90 minutes, spread over the two games. In the first the starting XI were taking off after 66 minutes, in the second, every player who didn’t start the first, started, and got subbed after 66 minutes.

Better to ease players in, giving them time split across a few games, then a full 90 minutes one game, then nothing the next. It reduces the chance of them going into the dreaded red zone.

Against Bayern Munich and Chelsea, Lacazette got 45 minutes in each game.

Pre-season is about getting the squad fit and ready, if Lacazette played 90 minutes, every game, like some want, it would mean the likes of Olivier Giroud and Danny Welbeck would miss out on game time.

It is important to get every player in the squad fit, and limit the injuries.

Why were we jaded?

The excuses came out from Arsene Wenger after the defeat that the players were jaded. This got everyone’s back up and got people demanding “why are we jaded in pre season”. Simple answer really. Training.

Anyone who has ever done any competitive sport to a high level (and I am talking about more than just playing Sunday League football) will understand what it means to truly train for a competition.

You have peaks and troughs in training. Times when you are training hard, other times when you take the foot off the pedal. You end up tapering for a certain competition.

For someone like Adam Peaty, the world record breaking British swimmer, he would have tapered his training and peaked for the weekends gold medal attempt.

Had he has the world’s at the weekend, but also been asked to compete a month ago, he would have said that he was tired, not fully prepared. And this is because he would have been at the height of his training.

At the minute, Arsenal are trying to get prepared for the new season. There is no point peaking for a pre-season game against Chelsea. The side would have been doing intensive double training sessions to get ready for the first game of the season. The players will be tired. Their muscles still filled with lactic acid from last nights training session.

A team like Arsenal do not want to peak for the first game of the season. They want to be peaking in about March, when hopefully we are in the title race still, the players will be in peak condition ready to run away with it. In theory.

In the past, the likes of David Moyes at Everton and numerous managers at Spurs got their teams to peak from the first day of the season. This meant that they accumulated a lot of points pre-Christmas, but ran out of steam at the business end of the season.

You also see a lot of the lower clubs aim to peak earlier in the season, to get the points on the board so that they are ahead of the relegation battle curve.

I have no issue with Arsenal being tired at the weekend, as it just means that they are training hard.

Why take youngsters?

Finally we come on to the youngsters who are out on tour.

The likes of Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Connor Bramall at times looked out of their depth against Chelsea. This lead many critics to moan that they should have been left at home with the U23s where they belong.

Well this is another key point. It is pre-season. It is a chance to take a handful of youngster to see if they are good enough, close to being ready, to perform with the first team.

People (probably the same people) moan that youngsters do not get the chance, then they moan that they should not be given that chance. Pre-season is the perfect time to blood a handful of youngsters into the first team squad.

With Arsenal set to have Europa League and League Cup games in the first half of the season, getting an early look at some of these youngsters is important.

Reiss Nelson looked good, looked sharp. He was a positive. And highlighted exactly why you take these young players in tour.

3 weeks ago, Reiss Nelson was just another Arsenal youngster. Now everyone is exited to see how he will develop in the lesser competitions. And this would not have happened if he did not get his chance at pre-season.

It is very easy to read too much into pre-season results, but the important thing is not the results, but that we are prepared. Not prepared for the Emirates Cup, or even the Community Shield, but prepared for Leicester at home on Friday 11th August.

Stop moaning.

Keenos