Tag Archives: Chelsea

Is Leon Bailey Arsenal’s “Big Opportunity”?

1 Reply

Back in February, I singled out Leon Bailey as a player Arsenal should target this summer.

The 20-year-old Jamaican speedster was number one on my list when I discussed in May about what potential wingers Arsenal should target.

Bailey joined Bayer Leverkusen for €20 million in the January of 2017 from Genk in Belgium. A slow first 6 months to his career as he settled into playing at a higher level, the season just gone was a real break through one for him.

He has been in sparkling form for the majority of the Bundesliga season and has scored some spectacular goals to help Leverkusen to fourth place and Champions League contention.

12 goals in 34 games in all competitions, he averaged a goal or assist every 148 minutes in the Bundesliga.

If you created a criteria for what Arsenal need to sign, Bailey would tick every box.

Young, quick, comfortable on the wing but has the technique to play inside. He is certainly one of the best young talents in European football right now.

Out in Singapore, Unai Emery reinforced his comments that Arsenal will still be in the market if a “big opportunity” comes up by saying;

I am very happy with how the club is working and we are working every day on how we can improve. I am with the players and those who have arrived this week, I am very happy with and I said at the last press conference that if there is an opportunity to try to sign one player, then we are looking.

Leon Bailey would be that big opportunity.

The only concern could come down to cost.

Whilst Arsenal still have plenty of money to spend – our incoming transfers have increased our yearly costs by about £30million, the club could get blown out of the water by Chelsea.

Both Eden Hazard and Willian are looking for a way out of Chelsea. One is likely to leave, if not both.

Barcelona have already bid £65m for Willian, and it would not be a surprise to see Hazard go to Real Madrid for £100m+. That will be a big chunk of change burning a whole in their pocket.

A deal for Bailey in the region of £40-£50m, Arsenal would be in the game.

A 5 year contract and wages of around £6m a year would increase club costs by £16m, still within our budget. But if Chelsea decide he is the man to replace Hazard, we could be talking about an £80m transfer fee.

Arsenal might decide that is a little too pricey for a player who has had just 18 months in the Bundesliga.

We could decide to move on Alex Iwobi, Danny Welbeck and Lucas Perez to raise additional funds for Bailey. With Perez having spent last year on loan, it would pretty much be two out, one in.

Arsenal could use their German influence to try and encourage Bailey to make it clear to Leverkusen that he wants to join the North London side.

A meeting with Sven Mislintat, a phone call from former Leverkusen goal keeper Bernd Leno, a signed picture of Mesut Ozil.

If Arsenal did sign him up,

Keenos

Who could Arsenal draw in the EFL Trophy?

2 Replies

Who could Arsenal draw in the EFL Trophy?The Checkatrade John Stones EFL Paint Trophy (or whatever it is called these days) was a terrific little competition for those clubs in League One and League Two.

A cup competition without the big boys that could result with a trip to Wembley.

The 1988 Final saw 80,841 turn up for the m match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley at Wembley. Just a year ago, 74,434 went to Wembley for the 2017 final between Coventry City and Oxford United.

The year that Coventry lifted the trophy, the English Football League revamped the trophy, inviting 16 under-21 sides from Premier League and EFL Championship clubs to take part.

The hope was that by letting youth team players participate, it would eventually improve the English team. What it resulted in was a big two fingers up to those lower league clubs.

Instead of embracing the opportunity to beat a top side, the decision to introduce academy teams lead to widespread boycotts.

In 2016/17, just 274 fans West Bromwich Albion academy team’s 2-0 defeat at home to Gillingham as fans stayed away.

Arsenal opted out of entering the competition for the first two years of the revamp. Deciding instead to have their players concentrate on youth-European games as well as the League Cup. This season, however, we have entered the competition.

I am not a fan of Premier League sides entering the EFL Trophy.

It has wronged the lower league clubs, with the potential of robbing them of a trip to Wembley. The last two season, the academy sides have failed to make the final, but what happens in the future if those sides start to dominate the later stages?

The result will be that the lower league sides give up on the competition. They will start putting out their young players, and the competition will become no more than another version of the FA Youth Cup.

Last season Chelsea visited MK Dons. There team contained 35-year-old goal keeper Eduardo. He is capped 36 times for Portugal.

Under the rules, your academy side could contain over age players. By playing Eduardo, Chelsea destroyed the integrity of the competition.

Scoring in that game was Michy Batshuayi, the Belgium international. Chelsea had used the game to help Batshuayi maintain his fitness whilst not in the first team.

A €40 million international striker playing in an academy team in a competition that was revamped to give young English a chance of senior football.

Belgium Charly Musonda and Brazilian full-back Kenedy also played in that game for Chelsea. In fact, their side contained just 5 English players.

So what benefit to English football was there for Chelsea to be in the competition?

And it is not just Chelsea. Rules are that sides

Leicester City fielded an Under-21 side with six senior players, three internationals and transfer fees worth around £45m in their 2-1 Checkatrade Trophy second-round win at Scunthorpe.

The rules of the competition dictate that teams may play four overage players, although I have seen some reports claim that you can have up to 5. Leicester’s 6 included Kelechi Iheanacho who was under 21 at the time.

I am not happy Arsenal entering the competition. If the club wants to see how young players get on against senior professionals, send them out on loan. In the mean time, Premier League Clubs have already have busy youth team calendars, with the Premier League 2, FA Youth Cup and various different European competitions.

Taking into account players currently injured (Laurent Koscielny) and those senior players who might be in need of first team football come the 3rd round in early January, Arsenal could put out the following XI:

Martinez

Lichtsteiner Koscielny Mavropanos Maitland-Niles

Zelalem  Guendouzi Reine-Adélaïde

Pérez Nelson

Welbeck

Just the two English lads who are under the age of 21. One of which (Ainsley Maitland-Niles) would quite possibly have played over 50 senior games by then.

The way the FA and Football League continually mess about with their competitions is a disgrace. There are constant complaints of their competitions dying, but all the authorities are doing is poising them to kill them quicker.

Today is the day that Arsenal will find out which group they will be in.

So everyone up for a trip to Wembley in April then?

Keenos

Arsenal Fraud & Chelsea in Crisis

1 Reply

Arsenal Victims of Fraud

As first reported by Arseblog, Arsenal have been caught up in a fraud scandal over in China.

Back in April the club announced a global agreement with BYD Auto, the world’s best-selling electric vehicle manufacturer. BYD becameour official car and bus partner.

As it turns out, the representative of BYD that Arsenal were dealing with was not in-fact a representative of BYD.

Last week, BYD released a statement:

We have found some illegal entities and/or individuals carrying out advertising business by forging our company’s seal and/or conducting it on behalf of our company (“Fraud Issues”). We made a statement on our website on June 13th 2018. The criminal suspect Li Juan (English name: Liki Li) has been detained by the Chinese Public Security Authority after our reporting.

Hereby we reiterate that BYD was never involved in and is not responsible for any fraud issues. Please make sure to report to the authority responsible whenever you find yourself a victim.

Arsenal then followed suit via social media site Weibo:

BYD has informed Arsenal that they believe they have been the victim of a fraud in relation to various advertising agreements. this includes our partnership with BYD which was formally launched by both parties at an event at the Emirates on 8th May. We are investigating the situation and discussing it with senior level BYD representatives who were involved in the launch of the partnership. We will make no further comments on this matter.

The article over on Arseblog News sums the situation up well.

Chelsea Crisis

Can we take a moment to speak about the crisis at Chelsea?

Firstly we have owner Roman Abramovich and his visa issues. Then we have their financial crisis. The club is nearly £1b in debt.

Here we are less then a month till the new season starts and they have just sacked their Premier League manager and replaced him with a homophobe.

Then we have their horrendous transfer policy.

Someone said to me yesterday “Arsenal need to stop signing average players” after I pointed out that Chelsea were spending more than twice on Jorginho than Arsenal did on Lucas Torreira.

In the last 12 months, Chelsea have splashed £150m on Tiémoué Bakayoko, Danny Drinkwater, Ross Barkley and Jorginho…

Eden Hazard, Thibaut Courtois and N’Golo Kante are all linked with moves away.

And this a team who finished 5th and 30 points off top last season.

They have won 2 of the last 4 Premier League titles, but with an owner seemingly unwilling to bankroll them to success any longer and their top players looking for a way out, Chelsea are a club in crisis.

Keenos