Tag Archives: She Wore

Who could Arsenal draw in the EFL Trophy?

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Who could Arsenal draw in the EFL Trophy?The Checkatrade John Stones EFL Paint Trophy (or whatever it is called these days) was a terrific little competition for those clubs in League One and League Two.

A cup competition without the big boys that could result with a trip to Wembley.

The 1988 Final saw 80,841 turn up for the m match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley at Wembley. Just a year ago, 74,434 went to Wembley for the 2017 final between Coventry City and Oxford United.

The year that Coventry lifted the trophy, the English Football League revamped the trophy, inviting 16 under-21 sides from Premier League and EFL Championship clubs to take part.

The hope was that by letting youth team players participate, it would eventually improve the English team. What it resulted in was a big two fingers up to those lower league clubs.

Instead of embracing the opportunity to beat a top side, the decision to introduce academy teams lead to widespread boycotts.

In 2016/17, just 274 fans West Bromwich Albion academy team’s 2-0 defeat at home to Gillingham as fans stayed away.

Arsenal opted out of entering the competition for the first two years of the revamp. Deciding instead to have their players concentrate on youth-European games as well as the League Cup. This season, however, we have entered the competition.

I am not a fan of Premier League sides entering the EFL Trophy.

It has wronged the lower league clubs, with the potential of robbing them of a trip to Wembley. The last two season, the academy sides have failed to make the final, but what happens in the future if those sides start to dominate the later stages?

The result will be that the lower league sides give up on the competition. They will start putting out their young players, and the competition will become no more than another version of the FA Youth Cup.

Last season Chelsea visited MK Dons. There team contained 35-year-old goal keeper Eduardo. He is capped 36 times for Portugal.

Under the rules, your academy side could contain over age players. By playing Eduardo, Chelsea destroyed the integrity of the competition.

Scoring in that game was Michy Batshuayi, the Belgium international. Chelsea had used the game to help Batshuayi maintain his fitness whilst not in the first team.

A €40 million international striker playing in an academy team in a competition that was revamped to give young English a chance of senior football.

Belgium Charly Musonda and Brazilian full-back Kenedy also played in that game for Chelsea. In fact, their side contained just 5 English players.

So what benefit to English football was there for Chelsea to be in the competition?

And it is not just Chelsea. Rules are that sides

Leicester City fielded an Under-21 side with six senior players, three internationals and transfer fees worth around £45m in their 2-1 Checkatrade Trophy second-round win at Scunthorpe.

The rules of the competition dictate that teams may play four overage players, although I have seen some reports claim that you can have up to 5. Leicester’s 6 included Kelechi Iheanacho who was under 21 at the time.

I am not happy Arsenal entering the competition. If the club wants to see how young players get on against senior professionals, send them out on loan. In the mean time, Premier League Clubs have already have busy youth team calendars, with the Premier League 2, FA Youth Cup and various different European competitions.

Taking into account players currently injured (Laurent Koscielny) and those senior players who might be in need of first team football come the 3rd round in early January, Arsenal could put out the following XI:

Martinez

Lichtsteiner Koscielny Mavropanos Maitland-Niles

Zelalem  Guendouzi Reine-Adélaïde

Pérez Nelson

Welbeck

Just the two English lads who are under the age of 21. One of which (Ainsley Maitland-Niles) would quite possibly have played over 50 senior games by then.

The way the FA and Football League continually mess about with their competitions is a disgrace. There are constant complaints of their competitions dying, but all the authorities are doing is poising them to kill them quicker.

Today is the day that Arsenal will find out which group they will be in.

So everyone up for a trip to Wembley in April then?

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