Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

What does the future hold for 6 Arsenal youngsters

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Konstantinos Mavropanos

I have seen a lot of people put the 20-year-old Greek centre back into their starting XI’s for next season. This is premature.

Let’s look at it logically. He played 3 Premier League games last season. Was excellent in one (defeat to United), little to do in the second (5-0 win over Burnley) and was sent off after 15 minutes in the 3rd (Leicester).

He looks a strong, talented boy, but there is zero justification to to call for him to start alongside Sokratis against Manchester City.

I saw one fan tweet that “Mavropanos should start to help Sokratis get used to the pace of the Premie League”. But who will then help Mavropanos?

I do expect the Greek man to be involved next year; with Laurent Koscielny out until 2019 he will be battling it out with Rob Holding as 4th choice centre back.

He will get plenty of game time in the first half of the season, with Europa League and League Cup games. Either he or Rob Holding will go out on loan in the second half depending on Koscielny’s return to fitness and the form and fitness of others.

Reiss Nelson

A bit like Mavropanos now, Reiss Nelson suffered from overhyping last season, and did not progress as some fans would have hoped. But this is more due to their high expectations rather than his performances.

It is easy to forget he is still just 18.

I expect Nelson to be evolved more this season.

With our transfer business seemingly over for the summer, it is unlikely we will sign the player to fill the skill gap between Iwobi and Mkhitaryan that I desire. Instead it seems Lucas Perez will be that player, for a season at least.

Like Mavropanos, I expect him to play a big part in the Europa League and League Cup, where he will play alongside Iwobi.

He has a fairly simple to explain task. Over the next 6 months he needs to outperform both Iwobi and Perez in those Europa League games.

That is not to say if he doesn’t he will be written off. This time next year he will still be 19. Just the performances could dictate what happens to him in the second half of the season and what happens to Iwobi and Perez next season.

If Nelson out performs the pair in those early “b-team” games; he might find himself ahead of them in the pecking order for the second half of the season.

If he does not move ahead of them, it would be worthwhile sending him out on loan to a play-off chasing Championship side in the second half of the season. One where he would get 20 or so games.

If he has a solid season, at Arsenal or on loan, Iwobi and Perez should be worried about their futures.

Jeff Reine-Adelaide

The young Frenchman has not built on a promising early start to his Arsenal career.

He joined the club 3 years ago and you do not feel he has progressed too much in that time.

He suffered an injury in early 2017 which ruled him out for 12 months which has hampered his progress.

Jeff’s big issue is Nelson has moved ahead of him in the pecking order. The young Englishman is 2 years his junior.

Nelson already looks better than his elder team mate, so you have to think Jeff will be sent on loan for the entire season.

Eddie Nketiah

Another to suffer from a lot of hype after two goals against Norwich last season.

Still just 19-years-old, you have to wonder where he will get game time next season.

Arsenal are likely to play one upfront. That will leave Nketiah behind Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Danny Welbeck.

Some will say he should be ahead of Welbeck, those people are idiots. The England international might not be everyone’s cup of tea but he is better than young-Eddie.

With Welbeck’s contract set to expire next season, I would like to see Nketiah sent on loan to a top end Championship side. His task will be to show that next season, when Welbeck leaves, he is ready to be 3rd choice Arsenal striker.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles

He is going nowhere.

28 games last season, I expect a similar amount of game time this season. Only difference is this season he will be a central midfielder rather than a utility man.

I am excited for his future.

Emile Smith Rowe

17-year-old Emile Smith Rowe looks to be this summer’s break through youth player after he was added to the experienced squad for the game against Boreham Wood.

Smith Rowe was Arsenal’s standout performer in their run to the FA Youth Cup final, although he was part of the side that fell 7-1 on aggregate to Chelsea. The attacking midfielder won the Under-17 World Cup with England last summer.

He has described as a mixture of Mesut Ozil and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain due to his ability to unlock defences with his passing and ability to drive forward with the ball.

Next season will see him hopefully train full time with the first team. Hew is unlikely to go on loan as Arsenal will wish to continue his development training and learning from the likes of Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

A move out on loan will be pencilled in for 2019/20.

Keenos

Arsenal Fraud & Chelsea in Crisis

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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

JW Diaries: A day in the sun

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My first four matches of the 2018/19 season have resulted in 4 wins with 24 goals scored and 2 goals conceded; a very satisfactory start under the new regime at our Club.

The first three matches were played at our academy ground, Hale End based just off the North Circular Road near Walthamstow. Whilst the was no sighting of our new Head of Academy Per Mertesacker, apparently in Germany on Club business, there as plenty of talk that he has certainly already influenced our schoolboys both on and off the pitch.

I was told that the talk which Per gave recently in the well-publicised event at the Emirates with all the academy players, parents and staff was every emotional. Per spoke about his own anxieties of being a footballer throughout his career and how he overcame them.

Per was very honest and open, giving the assembled audience an insight of his “limited, natural football ability” but was able to supplement his shortcomings with hard work, determination and a desire to succeed; he explained how he made the big time over some players, who had a higher football ability but lacked desire – truly inspirational stuff!

After my second match I drove over to Piebury Corner on Holloway Road to attend an Arsenal photographic exhibition held by the excellent OpAa people who are Gooner friends of mine. They hold this event every year making money for good causes. This time round it was even more special as one of the organisers mums had recently passed away. Over £2,000 was raised on the night for the Pulmonary Fibrosis Trust who looked after John Cs mum during her final days.

Following an academy match on Saturday morning, I made a quick dash to Meadow Park, Borehamwood, arriving with plenty of time before kick-off. After a quick pint and handing out tickets, I unusually got into the ground 45 minutes before the start, wanting to see who was playing for us and how we were warming up.

I’m sure many of you know, Meadow Park is the home ground for the Arsenal Women and U23 teams as well as many U18 cup ties being played there. Arsenal have an excellent relationship with Boreham Wood; we have helped to fund the West Stand, new flood lighting, dug outs as well supplying ground staff to ensure that the pitch is to a very high standard.

Once I managed to get the teamsheet, I was able to see as expected, it was an extremely strong line up and there was to be a completely different team in the second half. Whist I have seen Arsenal score as many as 16 goals in reserve and academy matches, it’s not often the first team score 8.

I know most will think ‘it’s only Boreham Wood’ but the way we went about the match was professional in the extreme. I have been to pre-season friendlies where we went through the motions and gave the impression that the players didn’t want to be there, which as well as being unprofessional, it also short changes those that pay good money and often travel long distance to attend.

Those days seem to be well and truly over, the sun was shining, we had second row seat facing the sun, there was plenty of red faces with my arms still stinging! I’m sure, every one of the 3,000 plus Arsenal fans in the 3,500 capacity crowd, went home happy.

As we know, Unai Emery is still finding his feet and although it was hard to predict the starting formation to be used once the real season starts, the team worked hard and we were worth the 8 goals scored. I was informed in the bar after the game that the ‘first half’ team went straight into one of the two coaches and were taken back to London Colney for further training!

This week will see me watching a few more academy matches as well as an unlikely but possible, short trip to Germany for a match. A lot of my week will be packing two suitcases for my trip to Singapore and a separate trip to Dublin/Stockholm, arriving back to Gatwick at 4pm on a Monday, then flying to Dublin at 8am on the Tuesday, hence the early packing! It’s hard work this pre-season malarkey, but someones got to do it!

Unfortunately, my extra day in Dublin means that I will be missing an U23 friendly against AFC Hornchurch on the Tuesday evening – c’est la vie!

JW