Tag Archives: She Wore

No time for sentiment: Rosicky, Arteta & Flamini should not play

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132I am not one for sentiment.

Giving a player the penalty on his final game. Making a player captain after reaching a games landmark (or years landmark in Theo Walcott’s case). I hate signing birthday cards for people at work who I do not know. And do not dare ask me to donate to a leaving present to someone who has quit to go to a better paid job. Sod em all.

And today we at Arsenal we come to a game where sentiment is high.

https://twitter.com/DarrenArsenal1/status/731737793412640768

https://twitter.com/DarrenArsenal1/status/731737824207220736

https://twitter.com/DarrenArsenal1/status/731737847825367040

After this season, there will be no more Tomas Rosicky at Arsenal. There will be no more Mikel Arteta at Arsenal. There will be no more Mathiue Flamini at Arsenal. There contacts are expiring. They will not be renewed. They will not pass go. They will not collect £200.

There is lots of noise on Twitter. Wishing them all well. Video’s of their best bits, like Arsenal are suddenly a Saturday night talent show. And many, incredibly, calling some of them legends.

Lets get one thing straight first of all. Rosicky, Arteta and Flamini are no legends. They are just players who make up part of our clubs great history.CS6O3HWWUAEf2Jx (1)

And now to the anti-sentimental bit.

None of them should play today

We are currently in 3rd place. Automatic qualification for next years Champions League not yet secured. We have a chance, if results go our way (c’mon Newcastle) to finish 2nd, above Spurs. We have plenty to play for. But what we need to do is our job.

And our job is beating Aston Villa. And to do that we need to put out our best team.

Forget about Rosicky, Arteta and Flamini. They are not.

Arteta has not played since the 30th of January. Flamini the 16th of March. Rosicky has played 19 minutes of football this season.

None of them were considered good enough to play previously, so why play them now when we still have much to play for, just because they are leaving?

I want to win, to beat Aston Villa. And our best chance of that is playing Elneny Ramsey and Ozil, not Arteta Flamini & Rosicky.

Alongside this, we should not be using this game to get Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla & Theo Walcott fit for the Euro’s. It is about Arsenal. Not individuals.

And do you think they really care about us?

Yes, Mikel Arteta did a great job for Arsenal when we were a club in crisis in 2011. And I felt terribly for the man when he captained us to the FA Cup in 2014, only for Thomas Vermaelen to snatch the cup off him at the last minute and lift it in front of the Wembley crowd. But his time has gone. His legs have gone. Thanks for the memories, but it is time to say goodbye.

As for Tomas Rosicky. This is a man who has spent nearly as much time on the treatment table as Abou Diaby. And I see people calling him a legend. A brilliant player, yes, and one who in 2006 when we signed him was, in my opinion, on par with Kaka. But injuries have ruined his career. In 10 Premier League seasons, he has averaged just 17 games a year. This will be the 2nd occasion in his Arsenal career where he has not played a single league game – unless sentiment get’s in the way. Rewarded handsomely to sit out injured. Thanks for the memories, but it is time to say goodbye.

Finally Mathieu Flamini. He loved Arsenal so much that he refused to sign a new contract in 2008, instead joining AC Milan on a free transfer. Cheers pal (thumbs up emoji thumbs up emoji). Why should we show him sentiment, give him a good send off, when he f**ked off at the first chance? Thanks for the memories, but it is time to say goodbye.

All 3 players have done a job for Arsenal at some point or another. They have played over 650 games between them. But today is not the day for sentiment. Today is the day to win a game of football.

Let them join in the walk around the pitch. Let fans clap them then. Let fans sing their names at that point. But to put it simply, for Arsenal to have the best chance of winning today, non of them should play.

Tomas, Mikel, Mathieu, Thanks for the memories, but it is time to say goodbye.

Keenos

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A Tale of Two Seasons

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Arsenal are a club in crisis. A club in a downward spiral. The future is bleak. There is a civil war. There is fighting on the terraces. Animosity towards the manager. Anger towards the board. Disdain towards the majority share holder.

Less than 4 miles up the road, the story is different.

Spurs have had their greatest season of recent times. They are on the up. The manager is a genius. A supportive board. A new stadium on the way. Young English talent coming through. The future is bright.

You could not get two contrasting atmospheres. On the face of it, A Tale of Two Seasons.MI0003581164

Yet the reality is, with 1 game to go in the season, just two points separate the two sides from North London.

Both sides have actually had very similar seasons.

Both flirted with a title challenge. Arsenal for the first half of the season. Spurs for the last quarter as they came up the rails with others going backwards.

Arsenal led for 6 weeks. Spurs led for 13 minutes.

Both went out of Europe at the last 16 stage to the first decent team they player. Arsenal in the Champions League/. Spurs in the lesser Europa League.

Spurs were knocked out of the 3rd round of the League Cup, to Arsenal. Arsenal lost in the next round against Sheffield Wednesday.

The FA Cup showed a similar story. Spurs made the 5th round, losing at home to Crystal Palace. Arsenal one step further, the quarter final’s losing at home to Watford.

On the balance, you could say that Arsenal have had the better season.

They played in the Premier European competition, and were in both cups for longer. In the 3 games the two met, Spurs failed to beat Arsenal, with Arsenal winning once.

Yet it is Arsenal who have had an annus horribilis whilst Spurs are riding the crest of a wave.

It perhaps shows the difference in expectations of the clubs that Arsenal would see finishing 2nd as a failure this year, whilst Spurs would be very happy finishing 3rd.

Tomorrow we go into the last day of the season. Two points between the two sides.

Arsenal finish 2nd, it will be 20 years in a row. An era of dominance never seen before, and that will probably never be seen again. yet the fans will not celebrate much. In the pubs after the talk will be of disappointment. Of what might have been.

Spurs finish 2nd, they will be celebrating up and down Tottenham High Road. There will be DVD’s. There will be open top bus rides. The locals will get the bunting out.

And that probably sums it up. Finishing above your rivals once in 20 years is the equivalent of the fat ginger kid getting laid for the first time in 20 years. Most people would not really care, but they will never stop speaking about.

Tomorrow back the team, be loud. Let’s do our job, and hopefully Newcastle do theirs. And then its happened again…

Keenos

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Did amazing Leicester foil Arsenal?

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132This has been a crazy season for the premier league. Who could ever have predicted Leicester would be champions? Certainly not the bookmakers, who offered odds of 5000/1 at the start of the season. Equally, who could have foreseen Chelsea’s fall from grace. Twelve defeats and thirteen draws, and still one game to go, would have been another high price at your local betting establishment.

So, onto Arsenal.

This season promised to be the one. After back to back FA Cup wins and a smattering of world class players, this was our time. We were going to push on and mount a real title challenge. After 11 games the end of October saw us only second on goal difference and by the turn of the year we were top of the pile. Our regular rivals of United. Chelsea and Liverpool were a mile behind and us fans were rightfully expecting great things.

But, as is far too often the case, we dropped away and never managed to end another month on top. Yes, we had some injuries, but that’s nothing new. I am not surprised that we haven’t won the league, more who we have surrendered to. It is far too simplistic to say Leicester, the famous English underdog that we all love, produced an outstanding season and with a combination of skill, determination and a dose of good fortune managed to beat all comers. Because, when you actually analyse the season the stats tell a different story.

With a final match against relegated Villa, we should finish the season on 71 points. We could finish second and many fans are clinging to this as a mark of progress and success. Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, you will see that you have to go back to 20010/11 to see an Arsenal side finish on less points and even the 68 points that year could be matched if we fail to beat Aston Villa. Infact the last time we amassed less points than we have now was, 67 in 2005/6.Leicester-City-champions

Then you need to look at Leicester’s points. They can finish on 83 points and as creditable as that is, only once in the previous ten seasons would that have given them a sniff of the title. They have won the title with time to spare and even though it was our best chance for years we didn’t look anywhere near challenging.

Quite simply our biggest problem has been scoring goals. We have scored ten less goals than last season. The last time we scored fewer goals was 1998/99. Incidentally, we finished second that season but actually conceded very few goals. We may have scored a couple less but conceded only half of what we have this term. I’ve seen lots of criticism of Mertesacker and some saying that Gabriel isn’t good enough but only Leicester and Spurs conceded less than us and only marginally in Leicester’s case.

We entered this season without buying a single outfield player last summer. Experience should have told us that we needed to generate more goals and the obvious starting point was a top striker. Of all the mistakes that Wenger has made, and I think there are a quite a few, not buying us a front man was the worst.

We know that we could do with another decent centre back, we know that Walcott isn’t going to be a consistent striker. It’s clear that you can’t win the premier league by trying to pass the ball into the back of the net at every opportunity. But, you can’t win matches unless you outscore the opposition. It’s a fundamental aspect of the game that Wenger seems to have neglected.

Daran

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