Why Patrick Vieira’s right.

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May 182012
 

Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira came out and voiced his opinion on the Robin van Persie situation. Patrick said “I’m quite surprised they have waited until he has only a year left on his contract to talk to him.” He’s right on the money. Why has it taken Arsene Wenger in Robin’s final year on his contract to renew the current deal?

Arsenal has been burnt in recent seasons with the last minute contract negotiations, a past which saw Mathieu Flamini leave to Milan on a free and Samir Nasri walk out. If Arsenal football club have ambitions to reach similar heights Vieira reached in his eight year stint in North London, changes must be made. The perpetuate lack of transfer activity and the acceptance of mediocrity has largely stunted Arsenal’s growth as a club.

Patrick continued and said “if Robin leaves that means next year it may be Theo Walcott, next year’s going to be Wilshere, it’s going to be difficult for Arsenal to keep the top players.” It may well happen. Things must be done. The signing of Lukas Podolski and rumoured transfer enquires are a start. But, if Wenger and Arsenal want to keep their best players there must be some proactivity.

But instead if Arsenal fans want to abuse and say that “Vieira’s alliances are with City” are missing the whole picture. This has nothing to do with Vieira, Manchester City or who they sign. It’s about Arsenal and what they do to rectify the Robin van Persie debacle.

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One nil to the Arsenal

 Main Blog  1 Response »
Apr 082012
 

 

What a game! There is nothing more satisfying than beating a team that has wasted 210 million pounds trying to improve, and putting them out of reach of the Premier League title. Some may look back on the match and say we were unlucky not to score more, but at the end of the day, three points were all we needed.

Arsenal started brightly, passing and moving with the ball very smoothly. We dominated the first third of the match and after 10 minutes we had 74% possession, only 15 minutes in, the crowd were up on their feet celebrating. It was one of the most unlucky moments of Arsenal’s season, RVP rose to power a header towards goal only to be blocked by the Verminator’s wandering run. It then cannoned off the bar and was quickly cleared by the Man City defence. As the game progressed and we struggled to break the deadlock, the miss began to look more and more costly. The citizens spirits were then further dampened by the loss of Yaya Toure through injury, he was replaced by on loan Roma midfielder David Pizzaro. After about 25 minutes had passed, City started to settle into the game, a low corner caught Song napping as Balotelli shot completely unmarked, only smart defending from Gibbs kept the score at 0-0. The only other notable chance of the first half was when Balotelli was sent clean through, only to be thwarted by Scz’s impressive clearance from outside the box. As the half ended, Arsenal went in high on confidence after owning the first half in all aspects.

After the break, City were a changed side, they started to press on in the game, searching for the vital 3 points. Aguero pushed much further forward and nearly reaped the rewards, but Scz’s safe hands were there to tip over for a corner. After a spell of pressure from City, Benayoun lead the attack with various weaving runs, providing balls that couldn’t be finished. His selection today really came off in my opinion, many have been quick to criticise Wenger’s tactical decisions in recent weeks but this was one really paid off. Arsenal came remarkably close again, as Song delivered one of his patented chips only to be headed at the post by the Flying Dutchman. At this point it seemed as though time was running out. More chances from City came as Kos acquired a yellow card (he will miss the next two games v wolves and Wigan) and gave away a free kick in a dangerous position. Later on Balotelli missed an overhead kick from the six yard line, but it seemed the breakthrough had been made as minute later RVP had the ball in the net, only to be ruled offside. Another impossibly close chance for Arsenal followed, Theo Walcott shot from close range, the ball bounced off the post to the Verminator who scuffed his shot into the path of Benayoun who also missed past the opposite post! In the final ten minutes it was one way traffic, Arteta stole the ball and shot from outside the box to seal the win in the 88th minute. Only a minute later Balotelli received another yellow card and was sent off to compile Mancini’s misery. In the final minute’s Ramsey was through on Hart and seemingly certain to add another but completely misjudged his shot and blasted high and wide. Luckily for him it turned out to be unimportant as Arsenal triumphed again to move back into third place.

Now the team have some well-earned recovery time before we play Wolves on Wednesday.

Till Then.

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McDermott Tips Siggurdsson for Arsenal Success – Arsenal Transfer Talk

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Apr 052012
 

 

Evening all,

As the week slips away and we start to move towards the weekend, some mouth-watering football awaits us. This Sunday see’s Manchester City visit the Emirates stadium trying to keep their title hopes alive. They are facing the one of the most in form teams in the Premier League (if you ignore the QPR defeat) and I hope we give them a good thrashing; after all it’s the least they deserve. I’m sure all football fans across the world would pay to see the look on all the City fans faces when they realise that you can’t buy trophies. Regarding team news, there is little to be said at this stage but during the week various stories have emerged regarding Arsenal’s summer targets, the latest one being on loan Hoffenheim midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson. Reading Boss Brian McDermott, who managed the midfielder, thinks he has the quality to cut it at the top level.

“I spoke to Arsene about him and you could not tell me he could not play for Arsenal,”

To be honest, from that single quote, it tells us very little. Sigurdsson has far from proved himself at a top club and has a long way to go before we can start speculating moves to a bigger club. He has although, just been awarded the Barclays Premier league player of the month and there is no doubt he is a promising talent. The reaction online seems to be a good one, in many people’s eyes we need to buy a goal scoring midfielder. I agree with this, since the departure of Fabregas and Na$ri last summer we haven’t really replaced them with any players with an eye for goal. Arteta was the best signing of last summer in my opinion, but I think we can all agree that he should be scoring more than he is currently. All we really need is someone to share the burden with RVP as if *touch wood* he did get injured; we currently don’t have anyone providing on a regular basis.

Moving on,

Nicklas Bendtner remains indecisive about his future with Arsenal, speaking to The Shields Gazette, he said,

“I really like the club and the manager has done really well since he came in here, but I haven’t given it any thought yet.

“I still have two years left with Arsenal. It isn’t just up to me.

“Ideally it would only be in my hands, but I’m just waiting to see in the summer.

“We’ve got the Euros, then in the summer after the Euros, we will see where we are.”

Now, I like Bendtner and I hope he comes back. He is clearly a better alternative to Chamakh, who’s form is nowhere near good enough for a top four Club. When you sub a striker on from the bench, you expect an impact; Bendtner has that, but unfortunately Chamakh doesn’t.  Unfortunately, with the imminent arrival of Podolski, I think his chances in the first team will be limited, but even if he doesn’t stay I’m sure Barcelona would be happy invest in someone of his calibre.

Finally, after being heavily linked with Arsenal over the past few days, Oliver Giroud has spoken publicly about how he will continue to concentrate on the job in hand,

“I can’t let it trouble me.

“I want to carry on being good with Montpellier and keep producing what I’ve done since the start of the season, and take the club where it should be, into the Champions league or even higher.”

I must admit, I don’t know much about Giroud but from what I have seen (YouTube) he looks like a natural goalscorer. His movement is good and he finishes very nicely. On the other hand, it seems as though it could be Chamakh all over again. If you remember, Chamakh was performing very well whilst playing in League 1 and look where he is now. It is clear that this kid has quality, but getting excited and rushing to buy him would be a mistake. Nobody knows how he would perform in the Premier League or Champions league and the asking price of £50 million is a large gamble. Obviously he would never sell for this much; I have even heard that he has a £16 million release clause in his contract. It really is amazing that a player rated at £16 million last year, has more than doubled in value in less than 6 months. But there you go, welcome to the money driven world of football.

P.S. I hope you all enjoy the new and improved Arsenation website, let me know your thoughts on what you want to see improved via twitter.

That’s it til next time,

Good night.

AN

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