Tag Archives: She Wore

Julian Draxler, Spurs and Gabriel

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Julian Draxler

PSG are reportedly accepting bids for German international Julian Draxler.

With the Thomas Lemar deal now seemingly dead, or dying, Arsenal need to look elsewhere for reinforcements in the final third of the field.

Up front, we are set. In Alexandre Lacazette, Danny Welbeck ,Olivier Giroud and Alexis Sanchez, we have options, even after Lucas Perez departs. But behind that, we are struggling.

Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez are both world class performers, there is no debate. But who is competing with them for attacking midfield spots?

The only other player we have who is a natural number 10 is Alex Iwobi.

We can also play Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere and Santi Cazorla behind the striker, but none of these are ideal. We then have Danny Welbeck and Theo Walcott who have done the job – badly – in pre-season.

Add in the contract situation of Sanchez and Ozil and you can see why Thomas Lemar was so aggressively target this summer.

I love Julian Draxler. I first spoke about his potential way back in October 2013 add my opinion on him has not changed.

If he is available for as little as £32m (in current prices), Arsenal need to ensure they are at the front of the queue.

Spurs

The gift that keeps giving. Some people say I blog about them too much, question why I am bothered, even say I am deflecting away from Arsenal’s problems, but when your nearest rivals are such a joke, it is impossible not to take notice.

Firstly we have the debacle over their temporary move to Wembley. They spent ages negotiating with Brent Council to allow them to use the stadium at its full capacity – 90,000 – only for the council to restrict ticket sales for major games to those that know the club.

For this weekends game against Chelsea, you could only buy a ticket if you had an interaction with the club since July 1st. Now what interaction means is unclear? Is it own a membership? Or is it bought a DVD from the club shop.

What is known is that they have only sold 70,000 tickets. This once more raises the question as to why they are building a 60,000+ stadium?

This is a side, remember, who had an attendance low of 24,712 against Gillingham in the League Cup last year. 26,463 was their low in 2015/16. They have a history of fans not showing up to games.

Of course, Spurs fans will come on this blog (they are drawn to it likes flies to a light) saying it is only the League Cup. Well Arsenal got hammered in the press back in 2011 for having only 46,539 turn up to a League Cup game against Shrewsbury. Whilst this is 15,000 below capacity, it is still more than 20,000 than Spurs got against Gillingham.

Stupid Spurs fans will say but Arsenal have a bigger stadium, so will get bigger attendances. This rationale would be correct if both sides sold out. But Spurs had 10,000 unsold tickets v Gillingham. So if they had a 60,000 seater stadium, the amount of tickets would not rise, just the amount of unsold.

I look forward to Burnley turning up to North West London. Tickets are on general sale. 20,000 Burnley fans in the home end. Hopefully Spurs get put in their place.

The second part of this mini blog is over the press love in with them. We all know the press love Spurs and gloss over their lack of success. It is because they are not a big club.

In one of today’s paper, the headline is;

SHREWD LEVY DUE A BREAK

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy Sure gets a lot of stick for having one of the most successful business models in football.

Well if the barometer of a successful football side is trophies, then the Spurs model clearly is not a success. 1 League Cup in 18 years. No FA Cup in 26 years. No league title in 56 years. I know Levy was not at Spurs for this entire period, but ENIC bought Spurs in 2001. 1 League Cup in that time is not a success.

It later go’s on to call Spurs One of the best sides in the Premier League. Under Daniel Levy’s stewardship, their every Premier League finish is 7th. They have finished below 8th 6 times in the 16 years of Enic. This against top 4 four times. A good two seasons does not make them one of the best in the league.

It seems Levy is being praised for turning a profit, selling his best players. And not for winning things. Well done Spurs for winning the best run club that never wins stuff trophy. It can go in the cabinet alongside your Put the Pressure On and finish Above Arsenal Once Cups.

Gabriel

Thanks for the memories. It never quite worked out. You never really adapted to English football. You still can not speak a word of English. Good luck in the future. Enjoy your 2 FA Cup winners medals. It is more than what other players win in their career. It is more than Harry Kane and Dele Alli.

You did not work out, but you were certainly not a flop. Hopefully we see you stick one on Diego Costa in La Liga in the new year.

Keenos

Arsenal set for defensive crisis against Stoke?

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Against Leicester City, Arsenal showed a weakness against the high ball into the box. A weakness which Leicester City exploited ruthlessly with all 3 of their goals coming from crosses into the box.

In Arsenal’s defence, they were playing two left backs and a 21 year old Rob holding at centre back. But it is not really a defence, in both ways.

Leicester continually played balls down the channel between Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin, which dragged the only centre back out of position. This left space in the middle for Jamie Vardy and Shinji Okazaki to attack.

Arsenal were also poor at corners. They lacked leaders at the back, someone to take control of the situation and get his head on it. So often this man is Olivier Giroud, but with him playing second fiddle to Alexandre Lacazette, Arsenal looked short at the back. Literally.

Up next is Stoke City. And there are reasons to worry.

Stoke City have one of the narrowest pitches in the league and have destroyed Arsenal before using the simple game plan of swing as many balls into the box as possible. If over the next few days Arsenal do not develop a game plan to deal with the high ball, the side will once more struggle.

Laurent Koscielny is still out suspended. Stoke City will be the third game after the silly sending off on the last day of last season which caused him to miss the cup final.

Also missing from the game against Leicester was club captain Per Mertesacker.

Having been involved in a gruesome clash with Chelsea’s Gary Cahill at the Community Shield, his wound had not sufficiently repaired itself in time for the victory over Leicester.

The Arsenal website does not have him listed as injured, but they do list Mesut Ozil and Aaron Ramsey as out. My bet is the lad who updates the website is currently face down in a gutter in Magaluf.

Mertesacker’s height in the middle of the park would be key against a side like Stoke City. And his organisation and leadership would see both Holding and Monreal perform better.

Shkodran Mustafi was fit enough to be on the bench against Leicester. Another weeks training under his belt and he should be fit to start against Stoke City. Gabriel is 100% out – injured and set to be sold.

Taking into account the threat faced by Stoke City, if Mustafi and Mertesacker as fully fit, it would be worthwhile playing both alongside Rob Holding. It would even be worth starting Olivier Giroud upfront.

If Arsenal do start with the same defence as they used against Leicester, Arsenal’s travelling fans could be in for another tough day in the grim city.

Keenos

 

Arsenal’s transfer window has derailed

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Well it has happened. The transfer window started off so well with the capture of Sead Kolašinac and Alexandre Lacazette but has now derailed like a South West Train in morning rush hour.

It is all so predictable. It has all been seen before. And it is all so frustrating. Just as you think things are going to be different, you were promised they were different, you fooled yourself into believing they were different, you are let down.

This transfer window is turning into the exact same as other transfer windows. And it keeps happening. And you can only blame the management, from Arsene Wenger upwards. If it was a one off, you would give them the benefit of the doubt. But it is not a one off. This sort of transfer window has happened for Arsenal for over a decade.

Firstly we have the public chase of Monaco’s Thomas Lemar.

Reports are Thomas Lemar was done. That he wanted, and had agreed, to join the club. All that was left was for Arsenal to agree a fee. And like so many transfers beforehand, that was the stumbling bloke.

Of course, no one knows exactly what is going on, but reports are that Arsenal did not meet Monaco’s early season valuation. The two clubs were not too far behind, but Arsenal were just not willing to stump up the cash.

By the time Arsenal finally decided to pay the asking price, Monaco had moved the goal posts. Having already sold Bernardo Silva, Tiémoué Bakayoko, Benjamin Mendy and a handful of squad players, the asking price of Thomas Lemar jumped up. Arsenal had dragged their heels and have ended up missing out.

Perhaps Arsenal should have given up on the chase a few weeks ago, when the Monaco management had made it clear that Lemar would not be sold. Arsenal should have either made Monaco an offer that they can not refuse, or just moved on. Instead it seems we have done neither.

We then come to player sales. How long have we moaned about too much dead wood at the club? Too long. Yet here we sit, in the middle of August, and the likes of Mathieu Debuchy, Carl Jenkinson, Francis Coquelin, Kieran Gibbs and Lucas Perez are still at the club.

Even the ‘semi dead wood’ of Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott and Calum Chambers are here.

Clubs do not want to sign our players. Are we holding out for too much? Are they demanding too much money? Or are the players just crap? Probably a mixture of all 3. But it feels like a blocked drain at the moment. There is too much shit waiting to leave that we are unable to add anymore on top (I will work on this analogy).

With Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain looking to move, and no central midfield reinforcements on the horizon, we might end up in the situation where some players who really should not longer be at the club end up remaining as squad players.

Having got through a U23 game a few days ago, I can see Wenger looking at Jack wilshere and thinking might as well keep him. Rather than spend £20-£30m on someone like Jean-Michael Seri, he keeps Jack Wilshere.

Likewise, if Ox does go, Debuchy or Jenkinson will be thrown a lifeline.

Add in Coquelin likely to stay, Gibbs seemingly happy to see out his contract, Walcott not being replaced, and Arsenal pricing Chambers out of a move, it will be the same old stale squad filled with players who should have been shifted on years ago.

It is all a little depressing. All a little bit of same old, same old.

Keenos