Tag Archives: She Wore

Rodgers to Leicester opens door for Tierney or Chilwell to Arsenal

1 Reply

Today Arsenal face Bournemouth looking to make it 3 wins in the last 3 games.

No game in the Premier League is easy, but anything less than 3 points will be a blow for the top 4 hopes.

It is a close fight for 4th place, with 3 points separating Arsenal in 4th and Chelsea in 6th. The key tonight is that Tottenham are at Chelsea.

If Spurs lose (and Arsenal win) Tottenham are dragged back towards the chasing pack – there could be just 5 points separating 3rd and 5th. If they win, it would could take Arsenal and Manchester United away from Chelsea and turn it into a two-horse race.

With Arsenal set to face Tottenham (away) and Manchester United (home) in the next two weeks, 3 points tonight as key – as you would be very surprised if we got 6 points from the next 2.

After Manchester United in a weeks time, there are 8 games to go, and Arsenal have a relatively comfortable run in – with Everton and Leicester away being our only tricky fixtures.

Victory tonight puts us on the tail of Tottenham and could result in us finishing ahead of them in 3rd place.

Moving on, Brendan Rodgers has joined Leicester City, and this could play out well for Arsenal’s chase for a new left back.

With Nacho Monreal coming to the end of his contract – and the rumours of him getting a 1-year extension dying down – Arsenal will certainly move in the summer for competition for Saed Kolasinac.

Kieran Tierney has been a long term target for some time.

Just 21-years-old, the Scottish youngster has remained loyal to Celtic in recent years, but Rodgers leaving could open the flood gates for those players who were loyal to the manager. Tierney will be one of those expected to leave in the summer.

Arsenal should be in for him.

One stumbling block could be that Rodgers wants to take him to Leicester City; but this could open another door.

If Tierney joins Leicester, they might cash in on Ben Chilwell to finance the transfer.

If either Chilwell or Tierney are available this summer, Arsenal need to move for one of them. It will be the left hand side of the defence sorted for a decade.

Enjoy the game tonight. Back the team.

Keenos

Match Report: Arsenal 2 – 0 Southampton

Leave a reply

Arsenal (2) 2 Southampton (0) 0

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Sunday, 24th February 2019. Kick-off time: 2.05pm

(4-2-3-1) Leno; Lichtsteiner, Mustafi, Sokratis, Kolašinac; Torreira, Xhaka; Mkhitaryan, Ramsey, Iwobi; Lacazette.

Substitutes: Čech, Koscielny, Özil, Aubameyang, Monreal, Suárez, Guendouzi.

Scorers: Lacazette, Mkhitaryan

Referee: Graham Scott

Attendance: 59,877

Truthfully, after just seventeen minutes, this routine Sunday afternoon match against struggling Southampton was all but over, courtesy of two well-taken goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Henrikh Mkhitaryan; but in essence, this victory probably told us more about Arsenal and their self-imposed limitations more than we thought possible at this stage of the season.

Both goals came from some truly lackadaisical play from the visitors. The first goal was made possible after a sloppy effort by Nathan Redmond that saw us do what we know we can do best, which is smash-and-grab football of course. Almost immediately we broke out, and although it looked as if we were going to get a penalty awarded to us after Lucas Torreira was ham-fistedly tackled in the penalty area whilst attempting to meet an Alex Iwobi cross, Henrikh Mkhitaryan fluffed his shot, but thankfully Alexandre Lacazette was on hand to make no mistake in scoring his thirteenth goal of the season. Eleven minutes later, another Southampton error led to our final goal of the day. Some kind of schoolboy football that involved the Saints’ goalkeeper and a defender saw the ball land at the feet of young Alex Iwobi who wasted no time in getting a low cross over to Henrikh Mkhitaryan who drilled it into the back of the net.

Pressure, boys, pressure. This was now the measure of Arsenal for the rest of the half. How on earth we didn’t score any more goals after that degree of domination was nothing short of incredible. Alexandre Lacazette by rights, should have added another three goals to his tally at least, whilst Granit Xhaka somehow failed to hit the target with a superb effort just before half-time. Arsenal had eleven shots on the Southampton goal, two of which found the target; of the others, it would not have been unkind to the men from the south coast to say that by the time Graham Scott blew his whistle bringing proceedings to a halt, we should have been at least 4-0 ahead at the break.

After the natural hiatus, the visitors did change formation and it did look like they were going to get something out of thus match at various points in the second half, but thanks to a winning combination of great marking from the defence and a superb performance by Bernd Leno, we deservedly kept a clean sheet here at The Emirates today. As usual, Mr. Emery utilised all three substitutes in the second half; Laurent Koscielny for Stephan Lichtesteiner after 56 minutes, Mesut Özil in place of Aaron Ramsey on 63 minutes and with a quarter an hour remaining on the clock, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang replaced Alex Iwobi up front. And still, we could have scored. Mesut Özil saw an opportunity for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to add his name to the score sheet, but unfortunately his effort was very nearly turned into the net by a Southampton defender. However, we won, kept a clean sheet, put three points on the board, and even better that all that, we are in fourth place in the Premiership table tonight.

Although there was no doubt as to who the dominant side on the day was here at The Emirates, our problem still remains that when Arsenal are leading in matches, we are just not ruthless enough. We need to be able to demolish, not just beat the opposition, and not allow them back into the game at any time during the proceedings. Every man today played their part in the win, and they all played well; it was good to see Mesut Özil in particular back and in form, with some of his passing being truly amazing. Our next opponents here are Bournemouth AFC on Wednesday evening; let’s hope that we find consistency in our play and continue this winning feeling. A top four finish is here in our hands, now. Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as these early days are going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon.

Chelsea transfer ban highlights Brexit issue for UK clubs

Leave a reply

Last week Cheslea were banned from signing players in the next two transfer windows for breaching FIFA rules in relation to the transfer of youth players.

Chelsea have also been fined £460,000, while the Football Association (FA) has been fined £390,000.

It comes following a Fifa investigation into Chelsea’s signing of foreign under-18 players, including former striker Bertrand Traore.

The world governing body says it found breaches in 29 cases out of 92 investigated.

“We welcome the fact Fifa has accepted that there was no breach in relation to 63 of these players, but the club is extremely disappointed that Fifa has not accepted the club’s submissions in relation to the remaining 29 players,” said a statement from the Stamford Bridge club.

“Chelsea acted in accordance with the relevant regulations and will shortly be submitting its appeal to Fifa.”

Fifa bans the transfer of under-18s to different countries unless they meet strict criteria. It brought in the rules to help protect children from exploitation and trafficking.

Under-18s can only be transferred abroad if:

  • The player’s parents move to the country in which the new club is located for non-footballing reasons.
  • Both clubs are in the European Union or European Economic Area and the player is aged between 16 and 18. Even then, the buying club must meet more criteria relating to education, training, living conditions and support.
  • They live within 100km of the club.

It is the second of those criteria that will cause concern for British clubs.

As it stands British clubs are able to sign player’s aged under-18 year old from other countries that are in the EU or EEA. That is how Arsenal were able to sign a 15-year-old Cesc Fabregas, amongst others.

Once Britain officially leave the EU on March 29th they will fall outside of this criteria, putting an end to sides being able to sign a footballer under the age of 18 from a club within the EU.

Buying players from Spain, Italy or Romania will then full under the same strict rules as signing a player from Burkina Faso.

It is likely British clubs will attempt to get around this ruling in the same way they get around rejected UK work visa’s – they could use a partner club within the EU to sign the player, park him there for 2 or 3 years before signing him from that club.

Leaving the EU could make it easier to sign senior players from outside the EU however.

Britain currently has very strict work visa rules for those coming from outside the EU. This is due to freedom of movement for EU states meaning that the UK Home Office have to apply stricter rules to control net immigration figures.

Once out of the EU, citizens from around Europe will not have a right to come to the UK to live and work. They will have to apply for a work visa alongside everyone else from around the world.

This will naturally see a reduction in EU players coming to England; which in turn could lead to visa’s being accepted for non-EU footballers who would have fallen below the previous visa rules.

No longer being able to recruit your Paul Pogba’s, Cesc Fabregas’s or Gael Clichy’s will impact on English football. However it will also see young English lads get a chance to remain at the club until they are at least 18, instead of reaching 16 and finding their place in the academy taken by a foreign recruit.

It is one to watch.

Keenos