Tag Archives: She Wore

Over 20 players linked in November – Silly season has begun!

2 Replies

On Monday, Fortnum & Mason unvieled their Christmas windows. It is still 2 months till Christmas. I had my first mince pie of the Christmas season in the middle of October. Asda (I can not afford Fortnum & Mason) were selling mince pies, Christmas Puddings and Christmas Cake from the first of October. I have yet to hear the first Christmas song on BBC Radio 1, although it can not be too long until this landmark. The Christmas season has started. 2 months before the big day. And in the same way, silly season has started in football, despite the transfer window not opening for 2 more months. How I love November.Santa

The month had barely begun and already the journalists were getting excited. Finally they no longer have to write real stories, no longer have to report the truth, instead they get to fill their papers with inches and inches of mindless transfer speculation. Quiet day and in need of a back page story? Lets make up transfer gossip involving a top Premier League club and a top player from Europe. Got 3 inches to fill, write something quickly about how a League Two club are thinking of taking a league one player on loan. It is easy for them.

And editors and the finance men rub their hands in glee. A simple article about how a club has agreed terms with a certain player will get a lot more hits, and therefore generate a lot more in advertising revenue, then a proper piece about how Liverpool’s 3-5-2 formation does not work against top sides, or how Chelsea might have the players, but have not yet forged an identity under Mourinho.

And blogs also get in on the act, knowing that a made up article hitting NewsNow can generated 100,000 hits, or $50 in AdSense advertising. Not bad for a days work.

Add in the Twitter ITK’s (I will not name them) who see it as a chance to add thousands of followers, in the hope enough stay around after (have we signed M’Vila yet?),justifying their existence, the days up to the transfer window are tedious, at best. And it is still 2 months to go.

We have already agreed terms with Karim Benzema, in a bidding war with Chelsea over Diego Costa and Robert Lewandowski (I thought he had already agreed to sign for Bayern Munich?) and about to sign Alexandre Pato – What a front 3 we will have! On top of this, we are going to get Fernando Llorente on a free transfer, renewing our pursuit of Clement Grenier and scouting Christian Benteke and West Ham defender Winston Reid. Add in our long term interest of Ilkay Gundogan and things are getting exciting.

Unfortunately, we have suffered a set back in our pursuit of Hernanes although a deal is not compeltely ruled out, and are also struggling to sign Martin Montoya, whilst we have been dealt a huge blow in the pursuit of Lars Bender. Good news is we have in the race to sign Jorginho, and Gokhan Inler looks set to finally sign after 10 years of us scouting him.

‘Out of favour’ Stephan El Shaarawy is looking for a way out of AC Milan (although being injured this season is not exactly being out of favour), the Yohan Cabaye deal is very much still on, whilst attacking midfielder Javier Pastore is looking to end his PSG hell by joining the Gunners.

We are on red alert to sign a pre-contract deal with Kasper Schmeichel, mulling over a deal for 18 year old Angel Correa (who?), sniffing around Saido Berahino and Basel’s Fabian Schar is on the radar.

I am writing this on the evening of November the 5th. In 5 days, we have been linked with over 20 players already. In just 5 days (I had to reiterate it). How many will it be by the time the transfer window slams shut on January 31st? Probably north of 100.

These links are not from blogs, nor are they from the ITK twitter tossers. They are from papers. From journalists. From professionals. People are paid to write the stories on these links. At no point do they try to explain where they will fit in to the Arsenal squad. It is almost as if they play ‘pin the player on the Premier League side’ of an evening to decide which players they are going to link to which club.

My advice, ignore it all. Until you see that player holding the shirt, ignore it. Even the usually reliable BBC have messed up recently, with their involvement in both the Nuri Sahin drama and Gonzalo Higuain fiasco.

Christmas is not nearly here, nor is the transfer window yet close to opening, yet the silly season for both is already in full swing.

Keenos

 

Arsenal’s new suit’s – A reminder of the class of The Arsenal

5 Replies

When reading about the new suits Arsenal wore before the game against Liverpool, it reminded me of something that happened over 20 years ago. The pictures that came out before the game looked great. Personally I had felt for some time that we are The Arsenal. I think they should wear them for every game as not only do they look the nuts but it a great tradition of ours.

Suits

Anyway, I was talking to a pal on Saturday about this and an incident came to mind from years back.

I have a load of pals from the same small town as an ex-Arsenal player, and needless to say quite a few of them knew an ex-Arsenal player who grew up in the area. One summer, many months ago we had a pre-season friendly. Stefan Schwarz was in the team. One of my pal’s and the former player’s dad came to London for the weekend for the games.

Anyway he got us tickets for the Saturday afternoon, we all went along had a few beers and watched the game. At the end of the game the three of us met the player outside the main entrance where he got us all into the player lounge.

At some point I needed the toilet, so I asked him to show me where to go. We were just about to start walking up stairs when he stopped, turned round to me and said “I can’t take you up there, you’re wearing jeans, no one is allowed upstairs with jeans on”

Although none of the hierarchy were in the stadium at this time, there was no CCTV, and upstairs was more than likely empty, he would not take me up there and you could see the fright in his eyes as if he got caught it would of got a roasting. It showed the respect that the players had for The Arsenal.

In the end he took me in the dressing rooms!

That shows that back then we had class and the players knew it. Hopefully the return to suits is just the start, and the current crop of players will learn to respect The Arsenal, and what it represents.

Andy

Arsenal: 10 Games In, 5 Points Clear

1 Reply

So we are 10 games in and top, clear by 5 points, who would have thought that!

I wanted to do a write up after the 10th game as I have continually said judge us after 10 games. Well those 10 games are now done but can you judge us on those games? Can you honestly say we can mount a challenge for the league title after being top and 5 points clear after 10 games? I’m not asking you to say we will win it, but can you predict us having at least a challenge this season?

Well lets look at who we have played, as the first thing people say in response to us tablewinning the championship is look at who they have played. We have played and beaten Spurs and Liverpool at home who so far, have probably been our toughest opponents. We beat Sunderland, Fulham and Swansea and Palace all away from home and got a good draw up at West Brom. Our other games were Stoke and Norwich at home which we won and the infamous Villa game.

All in all we havent had that much of a tough start but how often do people say that to win the league you need to be beating the so called smaller teams, and that is what we have done so far.

In terms of tests we are in for a big one in the next 2 months, we have United this Sunday and will also play Chelsea and Man City along with Champions League games whilst also contending with the busy Xmas period.

I say we have put ourselves in with a great chance of being up at the top come Xmas even though the teams we have played and beaten might not convince the pundits that we can win this. Being at the top, leading the way brings confidence and a good momentum to continue playing and scoring like we are. The next 2 months will tell us a lot more about our team and squad, I know a lot of our own fans still need to be convinced and I hope we are still there or thereabouts come January 1st.

In terms of whats different around the club and around the players its hard to put your finger on the dramatic improvement we have seen. We had a good finish to last season, particularly after the game in Munich. We seemed to kick on from that and that’s where our improvement started I think. We have players who are playing much better than they were before, Ramsey, Szczesny, Giroud, Gibbs, we have made 2 important signings in Flamini and Ozil and put all that together with the fact that we didn’t lose anybody in the summer and you can start to see why we are now playing better. Our defence is settled, Gibbs and Sagna in particular are impressing me, Per and Koscielny are becoming a great partnership in the middle of the defence and Szczesny seems to have kicked on a gear. Giroud has his first year under his belt and is leading the line well. The team is confident, you get that feeling that they think they can do something with this group of players and with the style of football they are playing.

The losses against Chelsea in the COC and against Dortmund in the Champions League we disappointing. I felt we matched Chelsea and the game was even until they scored the second goal. A bad mistake by Jenkinson let them get in front and we were fighting from then on. We had good players on the pitch and were pushing forward trying to get a goal back, Chelsea are a team that can hit you on the break which is what they did. I think the Dortmund game was similar, after going a goal down we got back on level terms and had chances to go in front. We were pushing forward and left ourselves open, they broke well and punished us. Both of those games were not to far out of our reach so when pundits say about those 2 games being out first true tests and we failed both of them, I don’t agree with that view. The results could have easily been very different, hopefully we will learn from these games and not make the same mistakes again through the season.

Sunday is massive for us, for the first time in ages we are going to Old Trafford with the possibility of being able to upset them and get something from the game. I don’t think a draw is the worst result in the world, just cannot lose.

When it comes to the games against the big teams, the top 4 or 5, we need to be winning our games at home and not losing away. It starts Sunday.

I’ll be there and cannot wait for it!

Up The Arsenal!

Matt