Freddie Ljungberg – Arsenal Under-16s coach. Robert Pires – Arsenal Foundation Ambassador. Hangs about the training ground. Gilles Grimandi – Arsenal scout. Luis Boa Morte – Arsenal scout.
Works in Football (Not at Arsenal)
Gilberto Silva – Panathinaikos Technical Director Pascal Cygan – Assistant coach at Belgian Second Division side KSV Roeselare. Marc Overmars – Director of football at Ajax Amsterdam.
Still Plays
Kolo Toure – Still playing semi-professional football in the Scottish Premier League for Celtic. Justin Hoyte – Let go by the Daggers over the summer.
Charity
Nwankwo Kanu – Founded the Kanu Heart Foundation which helps young African children with heart defects. Kanu is also an ambassador for UNICEF. Founded his own soccer school based in Canada.
Media
Nigel Winterburn – Works as a freelance pundit and has provided analysis and comment on Sky Sports and talkSPORT as well as in print for publications such as the Daily Star. Emmanuel Petit – Works across many global stations, including ITV, as a pundit. Ray Parlour – Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Martin Keown – BBC Match of the Day pundit. Jens Lehmann – Pundit across very networks including RTL & the BBC. Does a lot of work for The Willow Foundation which was set up by former Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson.
Businessman
Anders Limpar – Currently co-owner of Swedish plastic box company Super Lock and he also works as a distributor for nutritional supplement company Kyäni.
1. It is for charity. Most importantly, The Arsenal Legends day is to raise money for The Arsenal Foundation. The Arsenal Foundation was launched in May 2012 and since then has committed more than £1million to support a range of community and charitable projects in the UK and overseas, including those of the Club’s official charity partners Save the Children and Willow Foundation.
2. Take the kids. In an era where football is so expensive, the Legends match will be a brilliant day to take the family. Tickets ranging from £10 – £15 for adults & £5 – £7.50 for children.
3. The Arsenal Legends. The likes of Thierry Henry & Dennis Bergkamp might have pulled out, but the full squad is still full of double winners & invincible’s and Anders Limpar. Jens Lehmann, David Seaman, Martin Keown, Marc Overmars, Ray Parlour, Emmanuel Petit, Pascal Cygan, Gilberto, Nigel Winterburn, Kolo Toure, Robert Pires, Freddie Ljungberg, Sylvain Wiltord, Anders Limpar, Gilles Grimandi and Kanu.
4. AC Milan Legends. The Milan Glorie squad is equally is talented. With some of the all-time greats set to appear. The likes of Dida, Cafu, Paolo Maldini, Marcel Desailly and more.
Expected Milan Glorie XI: Dida; Serginho, Paolo, Billy, Cafu; Ambro, Desailly, Albertini; Boban; Bobo, Massaro. They’d beat today's 1st team
5. International break. It’s boring. The season has barely started and we already have an international break. It’s a bit of a joke really. The Arsenal Legends match will be the biggest and best match of the weekend.
6. Dennis Bergkamp’s Testimonial. Today’s game reminds me of Bergkamp’s testimonial when the season first opened. An Arsenal Legends v Ajax Legends. The atmosphere was class. The game a brilliant sceptical. Today will hopefully be the same.
7. The kids. I have already touched on this, but today will be brilliant for the kids. A chance to see what all the fuss was about. The stories about players their Dad tells them about will come true. It is a pity there is no Bergkamp or Henry (or Wright), but who exciting will it be to watch Kanu’s tricks, Overmars down the wing and Crazy Jens in goal? The kids are going to love it.
8. Against Modern Football. Ticket prices aside, modern football is a bit shit. And Arsenal are poorly treated by the club. This is a chance to return to yesteryear. I see a lot of people online who no longer go week in, week out, with tickets for this game.
9. Weather. It’s a beautiful day today. A day made for drinking with your pals. Watching a bit of football. And then some more drinking with your pals.
10. The future. If today go’s well, we might see The Arsenal Legends match become a regular fixture on the calendar. I can see yearly games against the Real Madrid Galacticos, Barcelona Legends, Juventus & Bayern Munich. The good and the great of legendary European sides (and beyond, a Brazil Legends side?) coming to Arsenal’s stadium in a yearly basis for a great day out and to raise money for charity.
For all those going, whether it is with your kids or with pals who have long stopped going, or your regular match day pals, enjoy the day.
What seems to have been the longest drawn out transfer window of all time slammed shut last night. With the new rules regarding loan deals, there will be no more players out, no more players in, until January.
With a shock dead line day move for Jack Wilshere, and lack of any madness, there is a debate as to whether our squad is still short in midfield and upfront, or if the balance is perfect and the loan of Jack Wilshere is a good thing for his future.
Here is a couple of things I have put together:
2016/17 First Team Squad
Petr Cech
David Ospina
Damian Martínez
Hector Bellerin
Mathieu Debuchy
Carl Jenkinson
Laurent Koscielny
Shkodran Mustafi
Per Mertesacker
Gabriel
Rob Holding
Nacho Monreal
Kieran Gibbs
Granit Xhaka
Mohamed Elneny
Francis Coquelin
Aaron Ramsey
Santi Cazorla
Mesut Ozil
Alexis Sanchez
Theo Walcott
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Alex Iwobi
Jeff Reine-Adélaïde
Olivier Giroud
Lucas Perez
Danny Welbeck
Yaya Sanogo
Chuba Akpom
2016/17 First Team Squad
Foreign
Petr Cech
David Ospina
Damian Martínez
Mathieu Debuchy
Laurent Koscielny
Shkodran Mustafi
Per Mertesacker
Gabriel
Nacho Monreal
Granit Xhaka
Mohamed Elneny
Santi Cazorla
Mesut Ozil
Alexis Sanchez
Olivier Giroud
Lucas Perez
Yaya Sanogo
17 Foreign players
Home Grown
Carl Jenkinson
Kieran Gibbs
Francis Coquelin
Aaron Ramsey
Theo Walcott
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Danny Welbeck
7 Home grown players
Youth
Hector Bellerin
Rob Holding
Alex Iwobi
Jeff Reine-Adélaïde
Chuba Akpom
Premier League rules dictate that you may only have a 25 man squad and a maximum of 17 non-home grown players. You players under the age of 21 are excluded.
Arsenal are pretty much on the brink of a full squad. 17 non-home grown players, 7 home grown players. This means we have 1 slot available, for a home grown player. Had Jack Wilshere have stayed, the squad would have been full.
Of course, there could have been some flexibility.
Not declaring Yaya Sanogo would have freed up a foreign spot. Danny Welbeck is out until January, we could have left him off the list if we needed to free up a spot in an emergency if we bought someone in.
Then we have the right backs Mathieu Debuchy and Carl Jenkinson. Both are currently injured. We could have hedge our bets and only declared one (Debuchy is closer to fitness, but takes up a non-home grown spot) freeing up another spot.
So with Wilshere out, it left us with 1 free spot for a home grown player. Realistically we could have increased this to 3.
Squad by position
Goalkeepers: Cech / Ospina / Martinez
Right Backs:Bellerin / Debuchy / Jenkinson / Mustafi
Centre Backs: Mustafi / Koscielny / Mertesacker / Gabriel / Holding / Monreal / Debuchy
Crucially we have at least 2 specialist players in every position. Then with the versatility of other players, we have plenty of strength in depth. For example I can easily see us playing a central midfield of Xhaka Elneny Ramsey. 131 international caps between them – 44, 43 & 44 respectively and funnily.
Ins and Outs
Outs
Mikel Arteta
Mathieu Flamini
Tomas Rosicky
Serge Gnabry
Joel Campbell
Calum Chambers
Jack Wilshere
Ins
Granit Xhaka
Rob Holding
Lucas Perez
Shkodran Mustafi
On the face of it, we have lost 7 members of last years senior squad, and gained just 4. On the face of it, we are short. But the reality is different.
Since last summer, we have also added Mohamed Elneny and seen the development of Alex Iwobi. That leaves are outs and replacements as follows:
Mikel Arteta = Not replaced
Mathieu Flamini = Mohamed Elneny
Tomas Rosicky = Not replaced
Serge Gnabry = Not replaced
Joel Campbell = Lucas Perez
Calum Chambers = Rob Holding
Jack Wilshere = Granit Xhaka
So 4 players have been replaced, 3 not.
On the 4 replaced, Elneny, Holding and Xhaka are all better than those they have replaced (Flamini, Chambers, Wilshere). Elneny had already replaced Flamini last season – the Frenchman only starting 4 Premier League games after the Egyptian’s arrival.
Tomas Rosicky did not play a single minute. He did not need replacing. With Alex Iwobi’s development, it could be argued that he has taken Rosicky’s squad place, offering very similar attributes. Serge Gnabry also spent the season on loan, so also did not need to be replaced.
As for Mikel Arteta, he played just 162 Premier League minutes, so the reality is he also did not need replacing.
We started last season with defensive midfield options of:
Coquelin, Flamini, Arteta
This season it is:
Xhaka, Elneny, Coquelin
The fact that last seasons 1st choice is this seasons 3rd choice shows the advancements we have made in that position of the last 6 months.
The last replacement is Joel Campbell out on loan to be replaced by Lucas Perez. Time will tell whether this is a move forward. But based on both of their performance in La Liga – Perez 24 goals in 58 games; Campbell 1 in 20.
Then we have Mustafi. He is a big step forward.
It still feels we are short. I still would have liked a time right winger. A superstar. A Griezmann. A Draxler. An Isco.
This transfer window has been tough for Arsenal fans, but we go into 2016/17 (minus 3 games) in a stronger position than we did last season.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 