Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

The Curious Case of Serge Gnabry

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Serge Gnabry will always feel like one that got away.

An extremely talented youth, he decided against renewing his contract with Arsenal back in 2016, instead returning to Germany to sign for Werder Breman.

You have to delve deep to discover what actually happened with Gnbary at Arsenal, and what led to him leaving the club that he agreed to join at 15.

Having agreed to join Arsenal in 2010 in a £100,000 deal from home town club former club VfB Stuttgart, Gnabry officially joined Arsenal for the 2011–12 season.

He played for the under-18s for the majority of the season but was then promoted to the reserves after impressive displays.

That summer he was promoted to Arsenal’s first team squad, joining the senior professionals at pre-season; playing for the Arsenal first team for a against FC Köln.

He then made his professional first-team debut for Arsenal at 17-years-old on 26 September 2012 against Coventry City in the League Cup as a 72nd-minute substitute for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain as Arsenal routed Coventry 6–1.

Less than a month later he made his Premier League debut in the 1–0 defeat against Norwich City at Carrow Road.

At 17 years and 98 days, he became Arsenal’s second-youngest player in the league’s history after Jack Wilshere. Four days later, he made his Champions League debut, coming on as a substitute in Arsenal’s 2–0 home loss to FC Schalke 04.

It certainly felt like a star was born as he spent the rest of the season jumping between U19’s and reserves whilst appearing a few times on the bench.

In the first game of the 2013–14 season, Gnabry was included in Arsenal’s first-team squad against Aston Villa and started the game on the bench. He then made his first start for the club on 22 September 2013 in the Premier League against Stoke City after Theo Walcott was ruled out just before kick-off.  He played 73 minutes before being subbed out for Ryo Miyaichi as Arsenal won the match 3–1.

He scored his first professional goal in the next league match against Swansea City to lead Arsenal to a 2–1 victory and leave them top of the Premier League table. On 26 October, he won a penalty away at Crystal Palace in an eventual 2–0 victory for Arsenal.

Gnabry’s impressive start to the season resulted in a nomination for the 2013 Golden Boy Award, and a new five-year contract with Arsenal. He was still just 18.

It was at the beginning of the 2014 season that things started to go downhill for the German.

2014/15 really should have been the breakthrough year for the teenager. The year he went bit-part player to getting some proper game time at Arsenal. Instead it was the beginning of a hellish period for him as he picked up a serious knee injury which would keep him away from first team action for over a year, and he would never be seen playing for Arsenal’s first team again.

Having got himself to full fitness, it joined West Bromwich Albion on a season-long loan in August 2015. The idea being that he would get game time, prove his worth, and return to Arsenal  at the beginning of 2016 as a Premier League-ready player.

Instead Tony Pulis ruined him, not playing him as he was not a centre back. In January 2016, he was recalled from his loan after lacking first-team action at West Brom, but Arsenal were unable to play him.

With a year left on his contract, there was a new deal on the table, but having played just 12 minutes of Premier League football in 2 years, Arsenal wanted to send him out on loan once more. Gnabry refused the new deal and pushed through a transfer to Werder Breman.

He would only stay at the club for a single season, making 27 league appearances scoring 11 goals while Werder Bremen finished 8th in the Bundesliga.

Bayern Munich then came in for him, signing Gnabry on a three-year deal for €8 million after activating a clause in his contract with Werder Bremen.

At this point, a lot of Arsenal fans begun pointing fingers. Not good enough for Arsenal but good enough for Bayern Munich they cried.

It would be justifiable if Arsenal had not offered him a new contract. They did.

3 days after joining Bayern Munich, they announced Gnabry would be moving to 1899 Hoffenheim on a season-long loan.

This is where it gets a bit confusing.

Gnabry left Arsenal for first team football because he did not want to go out on loan. 12 months after leaving, he was once again at a big club, and once again sent on loan. In an interview, Gnabry declared he decided to go out on loan to “gain more experience”.

And it is at this point I wonder if he regretted leaving Arsenal.

When you look at the minutes Alex Iwobi played last season – 1844 in the Premier League – these would have gone to Gnabry if he was at the club.

Taking into account what happened with Alexis Sanchez, Gnabry would be going into this season fighting Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Mesut Ozil for a starting place.

Instead he has spent a season on loan in Germany, and is now a member of Bayern Munich’s fringe squad, having finally been given a shirt number this summer. it will be itneresting to see how much game time he actually gets.

In a years time Gnabry will only have a 12 months left on his contract. He will be just 23 and considered as “home grown” in England.

Arsenal could do a lot worse than reuniting with their former prodigy in 2019.

Keenos

World Cup of the Underdogs

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This World Cup has been brilliant so far.

The “traditional” top sides are not actually that good, whilst those the level below are a lot better.

It is probably actually misleading to call the likes of Uruguay, Switzerland, Belgium and Croatia “underdogs”.

With the globalisation of football, the majority of their players play for some of the best teams across Europe.

Regulars who perform week in week out for Arsenal, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Manchester United, Manchester City, Juventus, Inter Milan, AC Milan, PSG, Liverpool, Monaco, Chelsea and Napoli are amongst the players in the squads of those 3 countries.

They have La Liga winners, Premier League winners, Ligue 1 winners, Serie A winners, Champions League and Europa League winners in their line ups.

Both domestic and European club football has become predictable and ruined due to money.

The same teams dominating and running away with domestic leagues: the same teams always in the later stages of the Champions League.

You will never get a club side from Croatia or Belgium competing in Europe. The best players from those nations just get bought by the same rich sides dominating domestic foot all. The World Cup is refreshing. It is about talent and tactics rather than money.

It is just a pity that FIFA are trying to ruin the international game with Qatar 2022.

With how domestic football is deteriorating, international football could have become king again. It could have built on this exciting tournament.

Instead we will have a World Cup in a sandpit soulless nation with horrendous human rights record. A winter World Cup just because the Sheikhs of Qatar were able to offer the biggest bribes.

Enjoy this World Cup, as like domestic football, the future is all about money.

Keenos

Arsenal’s pursuit of Kylian Mbappe

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Kylian Mbappe. Great player. Great performance at the weekend.

It led to a few Arsenal fans saying “we should have signed him last summer”.

Well we tried. And we went big.

We were rumoured to have offered £80m to Monaco last year. A huge sum for an 18 year old. The deal never went through and he joined PSG on loan for a year with an agreement that they will pay over twice that this summer – £166m.

Instead Arsenal signed Alexandre Lacazette and in January Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

The pair cost Arsenal a combined fee of just over £100m.

So the money was there to go higher than £80m for Mbappe, but Arsenal didn’t.

Personally, I am more than happy in having Lacazette and Aubameyang instead.

Mbappe might turn out to be better than the pair (he arguably is already better than Lacazette, but not yet on Aubameyang’s level). But we got two instead of one, adding real depth to our striker force.

I honestly think that with the two of them, and Danny Welbeck as 3rd choice striker, Arsenal have the most strength in depth up top in the Premier League.

What a lot of people seem to forget with Mbappe is last summer was not the year we could have got him for a few hundred thousand. That was the year before when he was just 17 years old.

In the summer of 2016 we were very close to signing him. Arsene Wenger even met with his parents. In the end he decided to stay with Monaco – signing a new contract with the French club.

It reminds me a lot of the Ivan Rakitic to Arsenal story that broke recently.

At 16 years old, Rakitic has a trial with Arsenal. He also had interest from Juventus and Chelsea. He decided to remain with Basel as he did not want to be just another young talented kid at a high profile club.

Two years on and he joined Schalke, turning down offers from Barcelona and AC Milan. Again, his decision was based on playing first team football.

Mbappe has already broken into the Monaco first team. In 2016 he decided to stay with the club and play week in week out with them rather than join Arsenal.

At the time had he joined Arsenal he would have been behind Alexis Sanchez in the pecking order.

Role on a year and Arsenal had the £80m interest in him once more. A year older, Wenger now saw him as a Sanchez replacement; rather than a you player with potential.

Sanchez did not leave and Mbappe joined PSG on loan with a huge transfer set to be completed this summer.

“But he is a striker and better than Olivier Giroud” some moan.

You are wrong.

For Monaco he played outwide with Falco in the middle as a focal point. For France he players one side of Giroud (with Antoine Griezmann the other side) and for PSG he plays wide of Edison Cavani.

Mbappe would have come to Arsenal to replace Sanchez, not to play down the middle.

It should also be remembered that Mbappe is a Parisian. A PSG fan born in the French capital.

There is talk this summer that PSG might pull out of a deal to sign Mbappe. I would be very surprised as he is their future.

There will be yearly speculation about Neymar to Real Madrid. In Mbappe they have a Paris born player; the future of France.

If PSG do pull, I think it will be a battle of the Spanish clubs for his signature.

Barcelona need someone having missed out on Griezmann, and Real Madrid need a marque signing if they fail to land Neymar or Eden Hazard.

Mbappe is going to be a brilliant player – he reminds me a lot of Michael Owen’s break through in 1998.

Let’s focus on who we are buying this summer, not who we could have signed 2 years ago.

The future is bright at Arsenal. Let’s embrace it.

Keenos