Tag Archives: Chelsea

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

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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

Arsenal need to make Bundesliga star their Number 1 target

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There is nobody better available is a common line put out by many Arsenal fans to justify our poor dealings in the transfer market.

Occasionally it is justifiable, but in the majority of occasions, there is someone else better available.

The line is also often used when we miss out on a player. Again, sometimes you can be genuinely frustrated that we missed out on an available player that is better than what we have, other times it is just idiots trying to create a stick to beat Arsene Wenger with.

One such occasion I read recently is some plonked tweet DANI ALVES IS AVAILABLE. As if it to make the point that:

  1. He is available and;
  2. He is better than what we have

This is a perfect example of fans chatting rubbish.

Dani Alves is only available because Manchester City are offering big money in terms of wages for a 34 year old, and the chance to one more work with Pep Guardiola. Alves has mutually terminated his contract with Juventus. If it was not for the Manchester City interest, Alves would not be available and would still be contract to Juventus.

Secondly, whilst Alves has had a stellar career, he is now 34. Is he really a better option than Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain or Hector Bellerin – men 10 years his junior? Alves would be a short term option, a very short term option.

So if we are going to bring up names of players who are available, and are better than what we have, let’s be sensible with it. Let’s not just name names for RTs and blog or vlog hits.

One player who is most certainly available, and is clearly better than what we have is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. And I am baffled as to why it seems we are not in the race for him.

Of course, we could be moving up on sly like a Love Island alpha male muscling in on another man’s girl without the bloke she is currently coupled up with knowing. But at the minute, it just seems we are not interested. And it baffles me as to why not.

Here is a striker who is amongst the best in the world. A world where there are not too many top, top strikers. At 28 year old, he is at the peak of his powers. In 4 years at Borussia Dortmund he has scored 120 goals in 189 games.

Last year alone he scored 40 goals in 46 games for the German outfit.

He is big, he is strong, he is quick, and he knows where the back of the net is. And according to reports, he is available for as low as €70 million – in the current market, for a player of his ability, that is relatively cheap.

At the minute, it seems Liverpool are leading the race for him, with the offer of working alongside former manager Jurgen Klopp a key factor. But then you look at who else is in the race. Manchester United and Chelsea. But both clubs seem to have him as second choice if they are unable to sign Alvaro Morata or Romelu Lukaku respectively.

So you have two clubs interested in signing him as a second choice, and one club looking to signing him who can not really offer him the chance of winning trophies. Meanwhile Arsenal sit their with 3 FA Cups in 4 years and Danny Welbeck upront.

Aubameyang would come straight into the first team, and would surely be the type of stellar signing that makes Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil think I am staying here.

And imagine Aubameyang himself getting told Arsenal want to sign you and play you infront of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil. It is the type of thing dreams are made of. He would get 30 league goals next seasons without even trying.

Arsenal do not have Champions League football, which might be a down point, but I am becoming a believer that players do not actually care about the Champions League – unless they win it – and just feign an interest in clubs needing to be in the Champions League to eek out an extra 10%.

I can imagine how the conversation went with Manhcester United and Henrikh Mkhitaryan went last summer.

Man U: Henrikh, we want to sign you
HM: OK, but Arsenal want to sign me, and they have Champions League football
Man U: How much is their contract offer?
HM: £120k a week
Man U: We will pay you £140k a week
HM: Deal

Not having Champions League football is not an issue. If will not affect Arsenal financially a great deal, it will just mean we have to pay a little more for Aubameyang’s services.

With Dortmund saying a deal must be done before their pre-season training starts on July 26th, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is a player who Arsenal should not just be targeting, but should be going all out to sign.

Yaya Sanogo leaves Arsenal – But who are the other Premier League flops?

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Yaya Sanogo has finally left Arsenal. And the fanfare in the British media highlighting him as one of the biggest Premier League flops in history is laughable. Yes, he did not do much in his time at the club, but it should always be remember that he did cost Arsenal nothing.

He was essentially a youth team player who failed to play a game. There are hundred of Yaya Sanogo’s who have joined a Premier League club for a free transfer (or nominal fee) and done nothing. I guess it just shows, stories about Arsenal sell.

In the interest of fairness, I decided to write a few words on some strikers who have failed to make the grade at top clubs, some of which were much more expensive flops than Yaya Sanogo, and all of whom garner less criticism than the Frenchman.

I will start with the man himself…

Yaya Sanogo – Arsenal – Free Transfer

On paper, Yaya Sanogo joining Arsenal should not have made headlines.

A 20 year old French youth international signed on a free transfer. A risk free punt. If it pays off, it is a sign of ArseneWenger’s genius in spotting top young talent. If it does not pay off, well no one really know about him, he would be forgotten about quickly and we would move on.

The problem with the Sanogo signing is the circumstances he came in under.

https://twitter.com/Highbury_74/status/872012160905478144

The summer of 2013, arsenal begun it by courting Stevan Jovetic, quickly moved on to Gonzalo Higuain, and finally settled on Luis Suarez, activating his release clause. Liverpool stood firm. Arsenal ended up with just Sanogo.

The reality is Arsenal should have secured one of the above mentioned names, and Sanogo should have gone into the youth team, but we cocked it up and Sanogo was suddenly thrust into the limelight. A figurehead of everything that had gone wrong in the summer.

Sanogo actually ended up playing 20 games for Arsenal, scoring 1 goal. 1 curious performance was when he was picked to start against Bayern Munich. He also played 120 minutes of the 2014 FA Cup semi final against Wigan.

Whilst he did almost nothing in his career, Arsenal fans should always be grateful to Sanogo for winning the corner that led to our equaliser against Hull City with 19 minutes to go of the 2014 FA Cup semi final.

Sanogo leaves Arsenal with an FA Cup winners medal (more than what Harry Kane has won at Spurs).

He might not have had the career at Arsenal he would have dreamed of, but it should always be remembered he cost nothing. A flop. But an inexpensive one.

Bebe – Manchester United – £7.4m

Sir Alex Ferguson famously spent £7.4m on Portuguese striker Bebe without ever having seen him play.

Bebe joined Portuguese top-flight side Vitoria on a free transfer from Estrela da Amadora in 2010 and played well in their pre-season friendlies, scoring 5 goals in six games. A few weeks later Manchester United made their move, signing the street kid.

Just two league starts for Manchester United in 4 years, Bebe was loaned out 4 times before joining Benfica who then loaned him out within 6 months. Two years and two loan deals later, Bebe found himself on the move again, joining Spanish side Eibar in 2016.

Spending £7.4m on a player you have never seen play is one hell of a risk. A risk that never paid off for Sir Alex Ferguson. At least Sanogo was a free transfer.

Iago Aspas – Liverpool – £7m

In 2013, Liverpool signed 26 year old Iago Aspas from Celta Vigo for a fee in the region of £7m off the back of a single season in La Liga.

Aspas played 14 league games for Liverpool, failing to score a single goal.

A year later he was sold to Sevilla, who immediately sold him on to Celta Vigo where he has recently re-found his scoring touch.

Fabio Borini – Liverpool – £10.5m

The second Liverpool flop on this list.

Fabio Borini was Brendan Rodgers’ first signing when he joined Liverpool for £10.5m from Roma. Big things were expected of the former Chelsea trainee.

2012/13 saw 1 goal in 13 games saw him loaned out to Sunderland for the 2013/14 season. Mysteriously, Borini was not sold by Liverpool after his poor spell on loan and in 2014/15 was once again part of the Liverpool first team squad. 1 goal in 12 games led him to have the fabulous record of 2 league goals in 25 league games for Liverpool.

Somehow Liverpool managed to recoup nearly all of their money for the Italian when they sold him to Sunderland for £8m, despite 3 poor seasons in the Premier League. I guess signings like Borini is why Sunderland went down.

When you add in Aspas, Liverpool spent £17.5m on 2 strikers who scored 2 league goals between them.

Romelu Lukaku – Chelsea – £17m

When you have millions to spend on players, no need to balance the books, and a sugar daddy with pockets that are amongst the deepest in the world, you can spend big on the likes of Andriy Shevchenko and Fernando Torres for a combined £100m and get very little return.

Whilst both of these are often labeled as expensive flops due to their return against their cost and hype, they did score 67 goals between them.

Romelu Lukaku was a different case.

Signed in 2011 for £17m from Anderlecht, he was immediately labeled as the next Didier Drogba, due to the fact he was a big, black striker.

In his first season at Chelsea, he struggled to make a start, playing just 8 league games and not hitting the net once. He was loaned out to WBA where he showed his ability – scoring 17 goals in 35 games.

A couple more games at the start of the 2013/14 season also failed to see a goal materialise and he was then loaned at once more – this time to Everton. 15 goals in 31 games was still not good enough for Chelsea to give him the chance and he was sold to Everton for £28m. A nice profit for a player who had failed to make the grade.

Last season he scored 25 goals in 37 games, which ha sled rumours of a big money move back to Chelsea this summer – likely in the region of £60-70m.

His transformation into one of the most dangerous strikers in the Premier League has made people forget about his Chelsea years. But there is no doubt if you spend £17m on a striker to only play him 15 times in all competitions over 3 years (and get no goals from it), he is a flop.

Lukaku could go on to be one of the highest scoring strikers in Premier League history. It makes it even more stupid that Chelsea signed him for so much and did not play him.

Jo – Manchester City – £19m

Brazilian striker Jo was signed in July 2008 under the Thaksin Shinawatra regime. 2 months after he signed for the club, Manchester City were sold and Robinho was signed.

At the time, Jo was being courted by many around Europe, seen as the next big striker to come out of Brazil.

His stay at Manchester City saw him loaned out 3 times (twice to Everton!). In 21 league games for the Citizens, he scored just once, and in 2011 he returned to Brazil.

Hélder Postiga – Tottenham – £8m

Under Jose Mourinho at Porto, 20 year old Helder Postiga led the line as the Portuguese outfit won a historic treble. Postiga scoring 19 goals in the process.

What followed was a big money move to Tottenham, as the North London club declared they had signed the new Thierry Henry.

As it turned out, Spurs had secured an average player who only got 71 caps for Portugal because there were no other options.

In his time at Spurs – 1 year to be exact, Postiga playued 24 games and scored just twice. He was sold back to Porto with Spurs recouping most of their original outlay.

Grzegorz Rasiak – Tottenham – £3m

On the final day of the 2005 summer transfer window, Tottenham Hotspur spent £3m on Derby County’s Polish striker Grzegorz Rasiak.

Rasiak had failed to fire Derby to promotion out of the transfer window, and, under pressure to raise cash to keep the club afloat, Derby sold him to Tottenham.

Rasiak was at Spurs for just 143 days – starting 5 games; scoring 0 goals – before he was loaned (and later sold) to Southampton.

Like many of these players, he is not an expensive flop, but a flop none the less.

Keenos