Tag Archives: England

Mertesacker, Winning Dirty, Ozil and Cazorla, Barkley and Cavani

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Per Mertesacker

All the attention has been on the performances of Aaron Ramsey this season, but it is the Big Fucking German who has been our player of the year so far. A lot of fans still do not rate him. He still splits opinions. For me, it is down to one thing. You have people who understand football and people who do not understand football. Mertesacker is the best centre back in the Premier League. I struggle to name a better centre back in world football. Maybe Thiago Silva. But that is it. After a touring performance against England for Germany mid-week, he had yet another striker in his pocket yesterday. In recent weeks he has played against small, tricky, quick strikers (Suarez/Sturridge) and big, mobile, strong strikers (Lambert) and come out on top against both. Let’s start respecting a very special talent.

Winning Dirty

We used to moan that we could not win dirty. Against Southampton, against Dortmund, we did just that. Clean sheets and winning dirty. And what happens? Rather than fans praise the side for learning to win dirty, we now criticise them for not playing well. As the old adage go’s, the sign of potential champions is a team who can win when not playing well. We beat Southampton without playing well. A keepers mistake and a penalty. 3 points in the bag. Let’s praise the team.

Ozil and Cazorla

Mesut Ozil and Santi Cazorla have played less than 500 minutes of football together. Yet already fans are saying they can not play together. Talk about giving them a chance to gel!! It shows the fast food culture we are currently living in. Everyone wants everything now, and football is no different. Players get written off after 2 or 3 games, and the same is happening with this partnership. Lets get a few things right:

  • Talented players can play together no matter how they line up. You can never have too many talented players
  • Santi Cazorla is better out wide. 6 months at Malaga and 6 months at Arsenal was the only time he played on the wing. He got more goals & assists outwide last year then he did inside. And when he drops inside he give Gibbs so much space
  • The pair have barely played together in their correct positions this season, Ozil in the middle with Cazorla outside
  • Now Theo Walcott is back, we will see the partnership take a completely different dimension to the side

Lets give them time to learn their game.

Ross Barkley

This guy is super talented. Whilst there is no place in the Arsenal squad for him, and therefore we do not need him, I am a huge admirer of his talent. Ever since he broke through into the Everton side at 17, I have waited for him to break through as a superstar. A bit like Aaron Ramsey, he broke his leg at a young age (broken in 3 places) in October 2010. As with Ramsey, it put his career back 2 years. Now he is finally coming through. He is a beast physically and has brilliant technique. If England are to have any chance in the World Cup in Rio, they should partner Barkley and Wilshere in the England midfield, with Gerrard anchoring. Barkley is a talent, and my only fear is that as Arsenal do not need him, he will end up at Manchester United, where he will improved their midfield ten-fold.

Cavani

Rumours doing the rounds is that Edison Cavani is unhappy at PSG. Whilst it is mainly speculation, there is usually no smoke without fire. When there is such an arrogant presence such as Zlatan Ibrahimavic at the club, team mates will get rubbed up the wrong way. Ibra wants to be number 1, it is why he left Barcelona. The problem is Cavani has the talent to be number 1 at any club in Europe. A January move might be unlikely, but if he does come available, I want Arsenal to be leading the race for him. Imagine him ahead of Cazorla, Ozil, Walcott. He would be the missing piece.

 

Did Nike restrict Arsenal wearing suits?

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Picture the scene, it is a big match in the Premier League. Sky camera’s are there early, eagerly awaiting live pictures of the players coming off the coach. The pictures will be used by all news outlets across the globe. They will reach as many people as who watch the game itself. Sky Sports News, for example, show live footage of every Premier League club arriving to their respected ground on a Saturday. Pre-game has become big news.

Now you are the kit sponsors of a club. You also have your logo’s on the club tracksuits. Be it Nike or Fly Emirates, or whoever is sponsoring the club at that point, your logo is on that track suit. Now there are only a the few times it is worth having your logo on the track suit. The first is training ground pictures, however these are often covered up by bibs. The second is when players wear tracksuits as they get off the coach and these pictures are beamed around the world, beaming your logo around the world.Arsenal Tracksuit

Now previously, when the discussion of wearing suits before games has been raised by fans, the answer from the club has always been clear and unequivocal. Arsenal did not wear suits as the management of the club felt is more important for players travelling to games to be comfortable than smart. Anyone who commutes in a suit will know that, travelling over long distances, they can get uncomfortable. How many people reading this wears sweatpants and hoodies when they go on long flights? Elastic wastes, cotton t-shirts and track tops are more comfortable the suits. It was a legitimate reason for not wearing a suit.

Before the game against Liverpool, as revealed by ourselves, Arsenal re-introduced the wearing of suits before home games. In a clear move away from the previous stock theory of comfort, it is clear the clubs policy has changed. When the journey from London Colney to the Emirates is so short – 17.8 miles, 57 minutes in current traffic, wearing a suit should not be problematic. It makes me think, was the previous stock answer actually a cover up for Nike and/or Fly Emirates?

With kit deals being so lucrative, sponsors want to get their maximum value. Part of this is having those pictures of players arriving to the stadium pre-game. The thinking is that it was actually in the contract of both Nike and/or Fly Emirates that players would arrive to games wearing tracksuits, bearing the sponsors logos, rather than suits.

It is rumoured that upon taking the captaincy last summer, Thomas Vermaelen requested the players start to arrive to games in suits. Smarting themselves up, showing the class that is required to represent Arsenal Football Club. Usually at Arsenal, what the captain wants, he gets, when it comes to fashion. The most famous example is every player wears the same length sleeve as the captain.

Now if Thomas Vermaelen wanted the players to wear suits, why has it taken so long for the clubs to role this out? The only answer can be that it was not implemented to appease the sponsors. Since then, Arsenal have renegotiated their deal with Emirates, as well as signed a new kit sponsorship with Puma. Within these new deals, you have to think Arsenal removed the clause that players will wear tracksuits to games, therefore opening the way up for players to wear suits for games.

With the Nike deal now basically over, and the new Emirates deal in place, the previous restrictions placed upon the club by the sponsors is now lifted. And that means Arsenal players will once again wear suits to games.

Arsenal Suits

It is a sad indictment that Arsenal were willing to sell their class, their history of wearing suits, to the sponsors, but that is the world we live in now. A world where your stadium is now names after a sponsor. A world where the level of corporate income is more important than the standard of coaching. The game is now about consumerism rather than sport. But that’s another blog!

Anyway, no matter what the reasons are that we are back wearing suits, it must continue. We are the classy club in England. We have the history. We are the gentlemen of the game. Arsenal players wearing suits before games should not be about sponsorship, should not be about politics, it should be a given. Arsenal are class.

Keenos

Premier League the most competitive in Europe

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On Whatsapp I have a group chat which includes me, my step dad and my brother. We talk a lot of Arsenal before and after games and general football. Different European subjects that come up and also domestic issues in the press at that time. We all have different opinions and I enjoy it.

The other day my step dad posted a BBC link about the new gigantic BT European football deal and the basis of it was saying that the richest clubs in the game are only going to get richer. Obviously this is true but the article reads like the English Premier League is over for the foreseeable future, the top 5 or 6 will be separated from the rest and we will never again see a team challenge for the top 4, a team like Everton or Villa for example. I’m not sure I agree with this sentiment and my reasoning for thinking this way is the results we have in the Premier League every single week.

So far this season off the top of my head we have seen City beaten by Sunderland and Cardiff and Villa, United have been beaten by West Brom, Everton beat Chelsea, Southampton beat Liverpool at Anfield and of course one of the funniest results so far, West Ham beating Spurs 3-0 at Shite Hart Lane. We were even beaten by Villa on the first day of the season but we all know the ref was to blame……that’s my story and im sticking to it.

Our league is so incredibly competitive that I cannot believe someone would write off a team challenging to fight their way into the top. Football is so much more than money, I know it is a big part of the game and in most cases you could decide the final league table on their total wage bills and probably end up being not fair off correct, but its wrong just to write off all competition because the top clubs are going to be earning more money from this deal. Football is about coaching, tactics, surprise subs made by good managers and fans roaring on their teams in home stadiums. There are some teams in our league who have fantastic managers who put great teams together on shoe string budgets. They play wonderful football and create problems for all the big sides. I cant see our league suffering as a result of this money, and in fact it could even filter through our league to make the so called smaller clubs more financially better off.

It shows BT are big players and will challenge Sky for the Premier League rights, this could mean a bigger deal and more cash for the clubs the next time renewal date comes around. Our league does things correct when it comes to domestic TV deals as we spread the money throughout the league in as fair way as we possible can. The below graphic shows that every clubs has an equal share of domestic TV income and also an equal amount from overseas TV income, this is what clubs in the league earned last season.

This graphic proves that our league is the fairest in Europe when it comes to the earnings each club receives, the ratio from the top teams United earnings and the bottom teams QPR is 1.53/1. In La Liga the ratio is 14/1 and Serie A it is 10/1, Germanys Bundesliga is our closest rival at 2/1.
The clubs at the bottom are still getting parachute payments from the Premier League.
Credit to SportingIntelligence.com for the graphic and info.

The worst team in the league this season will bank £60m in TV money, with the best claiming £95m. That is just the domestic deal. The Premier League will earn £2.5bn from foreign broadcasters over the next three years, and that is without really breaking China and India. Our league will only get stronger and be more competitive, You have teams like Cardiff spending £27 million and Norwich spending £30 million.

I know a lot of fans from England have become obsessed with the German league because of how they do things, they treat the fan with respect, they stand in stadiums and have cheap tickets, but they lack competition. Bayern Munich won the league last year by 25 points and lead the way this. They are the only side in Germany who have money, and are simply buying up the best players in Germany.

You cannot find the level of commitment and competition anywhere else in Europe that we find on our pitches every week. I wouldn’t swap our league for any other in the world because of the excitement and shocks we see. Im not saying we have a lot to learn from around the other European leagues, we clearly do, but we are the powerhouse and at the moment our football is second to none.

Norby