Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

Arsenal’s youngster highlights struggle to progress

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The news earlier this week that Arsenal youngster Kelechi Nwakali had joined Porto B on loan until the end of the season, with the Portuguese giants having an option to make the deal permanent in 12 months’ time came as a bit of a shock.

Being loaned out was not the surprise. He is still just 20-years-old and my understanding is that he is still unable to get a work permit for the UK.

With the development of Ainsley Maitland-Niles and the signing of 19-year-old Mattéo Guendouzi always meant that is was unlikely that Nwakali was going to be part of the first team squad.

What was surprising was that Porto have an option to make the deal permanent in 12 months’ time. This highlights that Arsenal do not believe he has a future at the club.

A key reason for this will be the development of Maitland-Niles and the signing of Guendouzi. The club clearly see too similar aged players as ahead of Nwakali in the pecking order.

What the story of Nwakali does is highlight once more how hard it is to go from talented youth team player to established senior professional.

Nigerian midfielder Nwakali, arrived in north London to much fanfare in 2016 having been identified by the Gunners’ as one of the star players in the Super Eagles’ Under-17 World Cup winning side of the previous year.

In the 2015 U-17 World Cup he was named captain as he led his country to the title, winning the Golden Ball Award along the way.

However Nwakali struggled to make a major impact either in the youth setup or out on loan, where he spent time with Dutch clubs VVV-Venlo and MVV Maastricht last season.

Arsenal signed Nwakali to a 5-year deal back in 2016, of which he still has 3 years remaining. The likelihood is the deal that would make the move to Porto permanent would be for a very low transfer fee with a first option to buy and a huge signing on fee.

Nwakali will just be one more player to add to a list of thousands who were talented at 16, but struggled to break through at the highest level.

Keenos

Singapore, Petr Cech / David Ospina & Liverpool

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Singapore

On Monday Arsenal fly out to Singapore.

The majority of players who played against Boreham Wood are likely to be on the plane, alongside the senior professionals will be the likes of Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe.

Also on the plane will be Mesut Ozil, Alex Iwobi and Mohamed Elneny.

That will leave just Danny Welbeck, Granit Xhaka, Stephan Lichtsteiner, Nacho Morneal and new boy Lucas Torreira not yet back in training.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon contributor JW will be flying out to Singapore. You can keep up to date with his travels and how Arsenal are getting on through his Diaries.

Petr Cech / David Ospina

Newly bulked up Petr Cech has recently been linked with a move away to Chelsea. It is still my opinion that he will stay at Arsenal for one more season with David Ospina leaving.

Cech is at the advantage that he did not go to the World Cup. He has returned from his break looking like a new man. Literally.

Maybe Cech is looking to follow former German goal keeper Tim Wiese into the WWE?

With both Ospina and Cech’s contracts set to expire at the end of this year, we should cash in on the Colombian this summer.

Cech will then be back up for Bernd Leno before leaving next year – with either Emiliano Martinez or Matt Macey stepping up to number two.

Liverpool

After my blog about Arsenal getting the last laugh by flogging injury prone and inconsistent Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Liverpool, I got a lot of fake-Scouse fans in my mentions informing me how great Liverpool were, and how jealous I was.

It perhaps shows how far they have fallen that fans were informing me how finishing 4th was a massive success to them.

This is a club who had once won more league titles than any other side, who have a history of real success, now celebrating finishing 4th.  It is now 27 years since their last league titles.

I had others telling me how great they ere doing considering their net spend. So do they now have the Net Spend trophy to go alongside their Top 4 Trophy.

They are now 6 years without a trophy. Celebrating Top 4 and net spend. Add in a defeat in the Champions League Final and a League Cup Final loss, they have become Arsenal 2006-2013.

You have to wonder how much longer Jurgen Klopp can keep pulling the wool over the eyes of the British media and fans. Making a joke after a loss to deflect how poor Liverpool are can only last so long.

This will be Klopp’s 4th season at Liverpool. In that time he has spent £380m on new players. In his first season he finished 8th with Liverpool. The next two seasons 4th. Last year they were 25 points behind Manchester City.

For all their claims under progression, it was only in 2014 that they finished 2nd under Brendan Rodgers. They really should have won the league title that year.

The last time they won a trophy was in 2012 – the League Cup; just the one trophy since 2006.

Next season Klopp’s Liverpool will have the most expensive goal keeper in the world in Alisson Becker, the most expensive centre back in the world in Virgil van Dijk, two £50m central midfielders and last seasons Premier League top scorer and best player in Mo Salah.

If they do not win a trophy, surely questions have to be asked of Klopp?

Of course, Liverpool did outperform Arsenal last season. They finished 4th, Arsenal 6th. But that is why we have made changed to our manager and back room staff. We know we are not in a brilliant position at the moment.

The delusion of Liverpool fans is that they see being 4th as a success. As brilliant. It really is not.

For years Arsenal were hammered, both by the media and our own fans, for finishing 4th, not winning a trophy, and pretending it was some sort of success.

Now Liverpool fans are celebrating similar, and the press are praising them for it.

With the money he has spent, and players he has at his disposal, Jurgen Klopp needs to start winning trophies.

Keenos

Arsenal get last laugh as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain ruled out for year

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Some players are just injury prone.

No matter who they play for, what fitness regime they are under, how little or how much they play, their bodies will break down.

Whether it is Jack Wilshere or Abou Diaby, Jamie Redknapp or Daniel Sturridge. Or the original sicknote Darren Anderton.  Some players will just always be out with injuries.

That is why it was no surprise to me when I heard about the news that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain would miss most of the 2018/19 season with injury.

When Arsenal sold him for £40m in the summer of 2017, I was delighted.

It was daylight robbery. We had got a huge transfer fee for a player who was injury prone and inconsistent.

Whilst some would point to “poor coaching”, the reality was this extremely talented individual was not living up to the hype. He was inconsistent who delivered a lot of dross with a little bit of magic occasionally thrown in.

He would beat three men, then run the ball out of play, or over hit his cross. And how often did he play a cross field ball that would whistle over his opposite wingers head and out of play?

He was frustrating.

At Liverpool he did not really improve. Some people decided to get hyped up about him. Those who used him to highlight Arsene Wenger killing players careers. The Liverpool fans who refused to accept their club had wasted £40m. And the Scouse loving media who wanted to paint Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool in a positive light.

Oxlade-Chamberlain did two things for the media. It gave them a reason to criticise Arsenal and Wenger, whilst praising Liverpool and Klopp.

Last season, he started just 14 league games; which highlights his inconsistency that he was not a first team regular for Liverpool. He scored just 3 goals with 7 assists. The year before playing right back for Arsenal he played a similar amount of minutes, scoring 2 goals with 7 assists.

In fact, when you analyse his statistics from the last two years, you can see how little he did actually improve; if at all.

On leaving, he seemed to blame Arsenal for a lot of his failures. A frustration of playing out of position they key one. What he failed to do was take any blame for his lack of improvement.

Players themselves have to be hungry and have the desire to improve. You could have the best teachers in the world, but if the student is lazy and disinterested, there will not be improvements.

Oxlade-Chamberlain thought he was good enough to play regularly in the centre of the park for a top team. He literally thought he was better than what he was. He moved to Liverpool and failed to play regularly in the middle of the park.

Compare him to Aaron Ramsey.

The Welshman is vastly superior, and it was him that was keeping the Englishman out of the Arsenal team.

I always compare Theo Walcott to Oxlade-Chamberlain.

The Ox is clearly the more naturally gifted, technical footballer, but he had very little output. He does not get the goals or assists that his natural talent should bring.

Meanwhile, Walcott is less talented, but his output was incredible.

Oxlade-Chamberlain turns 25 in August, he has just 12 career Premier League goals. Walcott turned 25 in 2014. In the season before he scored 14 goals in the single season.

Even if we remove the debate about his talent, there can be no debate over his awful injury record.

He has missed 600 days out injured since the beginning of the 2012/13 season. That is an incredible amount of time.

By the time he is out injured for the entire 2018/19 season, it will be nearly 1,000 days out injured in 6 years.

At the moment, he is injured about 30% of the time. A year out will take him towards 40% out injured.

There is no debate to be had. If you have 40% of your time off work, out sick, you would be sacked. This is football so it is different, but not being available for 40% of the time is incredible.

History continually repeats himself. A player with a horrendous injury record will not suddenly get better. Oxlade-Chamberlain, like Daniel Sturridge, will always limp from injury to injury.

Arsenal got £40million for an injury prone, inconsistent player 12 months ago. What a deal we got. And we laughed all the way to the bank.

Keenos