Showing posts with label Arsenal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arsenal. Show all posts

Wednesday 26 March 2014

Arsenal Can't Continue Leaving it All in Arsene's Hands



Even the most ardent pro Wenger Gooner can see there is something wrong with us. What both sides don't agree on is the root cause. The buck may stop with Wenger but the club must show the ambition to want more than a Champions League participation. Showing that ambition may necessitate sacking our most successful manager. If they have not despite these barren years then one must admit the club is happy with the "little" he achieves season after season. 

That is the chief reason I can not blame only Wenger for all our present travails.

Let's forget what we are told season after season about the team/squad being good enough bla! bla! bla! What do we see? A squad that's good enough for a sprint but not the marathon. A squad that caves in as soon as the usual injuries from too many games start to set in by mid-season.

The difference between us and the likes of City and Chelsea is squad depth. What we have season after season is just enough to get us so far then we start to struggle. We always will struggle to keep up without that necessary depth. Practically everybody we have to call on falls short -especially in a lack of commitment to the cause, but again they just may also lack the talent to excel at the top in World Football. Sad but true. 

The kind of player with those two characteristics has proved to cost a fair bunch. Buying them and keeping them happy coming off the bench usually means the money is good. Those who have chosen to tow that path have consistently won trophies. Who will believe City was playing in the third tier of the Premier League as recently as 2008? AFC hasn't shown in any way that this is a route they want to pass. No matter what they tell us about money being available -that kind of money can't be hidden. 

The owner /club must show that ambition. The manager needs to be told that's the target, this is what you have available to go get me that trophy. No top club in World Football has given their manager the much power Arsene Wenger has at Arsenal. I have even heard the ignorant say Arsene is a shareholder in the club. Bollocks! Why give the manager such a free rein? Because you trust his abilities. Then why do we blame him for imposing his philosophies on the club? The club let's him.

Who has seen Stan at a game? He doesn't have the passion which leads me to think he doesn't have that ambition. He may like his club to win a trophy sometime but he can live without it. He is playing it safe. The manager he has is what he wants. A manager who truly thinks the kind of money being paid in football these days is vulgar and won't compromise on his principles. Stan's investment isn't in any danger. Who else can he bring to the club who shares that same philosophy and seems to always at least deliver the minimum target -the Champions League and it's lucre. This is not to say there isn't such a manager out there but Kroenke doesn't seem to want to find that out. At least not just yet. 

I don't think Arsene is all of our problem. He has proven to be a darned good manager. But there have to be others in the club's hierarchy who should be able to offer an opinion on transfer dealings and other important aspects of team management. 

The club can no longer afford to continue to leave it in the hands of one man.

Sunday 25 August 2013

Down Fulham! Down! And Don't Expect No Marquees, Gunners



Arsene Wenger's boys came through yesterday. Good show after last weekend's debacle in the season opener against Aston Villa. Played as we all know they can. We need to earn the respect of the other clubs so they dread the "versus Arsenal" fixture like they used to when they looked at their fixtures calenders. Only by showing some steel. Only be going through a more than ordinary run of wins. We must build on the victory at Fulham.

Nobody is afraid of Arsenal any more. Nobody ever won championships by not evoking fear amongst the mid to bottom table teams at the very least. Every rat believes they can earn all the the points in the Arsenal fixture these days. That needs to be reversed now! Consistency has to be the watchword from here on. It's the hard way -it's the only way.

 Hopefully, we will bring in at a minimum, that defensive midfielder we all know we need before the market shuts...only eight days left...
Don't see many teams that will let a top player leave now and go through searching for a suitable replacement before deadline day. Not the kind of quality that will appease Arsenal fans. I suspect strongly that we have been had once again. There isn't going to be any marquee signing as marquee signings go. The £70m that was bandied around so early in the transfer window  by Gazidis has proved to be another illusion.

For another season, we've been sold a phantom "war chest". One that never gets spent. One that doesn't get carried into the next season when it isn't spent because the "right quality" was not available for it to be spent on. If we carried every war chest we were told about that didn't get spent into the next season, bidding £50m for Suarez would have been a breeze, wouldn't it?

There will be no marquees; not the £40m plus variety. At worst we may just have to make do with Flamini on a free and at best some obscure youngster itching to get away from the French division one and recognises that Arsenal could be a good stepping stone to loftier dreams. A player whose club can really do with the £8m to £14m that AFC's valuation of players is usually limited to.

No there isn't likely to be a marquee. We'll get Flamini and be happy about it if I may add. We have to brace up for this scenario. The sooner we come to terms with that, the less pain we will have to endure as the clock runs down on transfer deadline night on September 2.

Nice one, boys. Let's finish off Fenerbahçe on Tuesday and no one can accuse you of not putting in your shift. Let's watch and see how Gazidis, Wenger and the club's hierarchy aid your cause...


Twitter @naijaendgooner

Monday 19 August 2013

Is Wenger All Of The Problem With Arsenal?


It's such simple arithmetic...
It's over 48 hours since I watched us lose our opening game of the season at home to Aston Villa. Enough time to lose all the vitriol and invectives that I might have used if I had made the attempt to analyse what exactly went wrong at the Emirates last Saturday. A game that started so brightly with Giroud scoring in the fifth from a trademark Arsenal breezing move ended with Villa thumping us  3-1.

Pundits and analysts alike have taken the game to bits to understand how it all went awry so I won't waste too much time on that. The referee on the day was blamed for some of it. Szcezney's tizzy goal-keeping got some of it and our defence line's inability to contain Agbonlahor got some but most of the blame was contained in a small square placard held up by an angry fan as the game wound down. It simply read, "SPEND SOME FUCKING MONEY!"

Monday 26 November 2012

Wenger: 'We lacked a bit of sharpness against Villa'




Dear Arsenal supporter,

We expected a difficult game at Aston Villa because it's always tough when you play away after a Champions League game.

Villa fought very hard and they had some chances as well, but I thought we controlled them quite well. I think we had room to win the game but we lacked a little bit of accuracy in our final ball.

I cannot fault my team for the spirit they showed for 90 minutes but it's true that we lacked a little bit of sharpness in the final third.

Wenger Post Aston Villa Press Conference

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Wenger's View: The best training for a game is to travel to Panama and back with your national team!


Wenger: 'We showed quality and movement'

Dear Arsenal supporter,

I hope you enjoyed Saturday's win over Tottenham - it was another entertaining game and it will help our confidence.

We were a bit nervous at the start of the derby and a mistake at the back gave Tottenham the first goal and then they had another good chance. But the sending off changed the game.

Emmanuel Adebayor had made a flying start to the game - he tends to play well against his former clubs - but it was a red card offence on Santi Cazorla. Of course there was no guarantee that we would win when he went off.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Wenger's View: 'Giroud has more self-belief now'




Wenger: 'Giroud has more self-belief now'

Dear Arsenal supporter,

It was frustrating on Saturday because we had the opportunities to win the game.

We were caught in a comfortable position because we did the most difficult thing - we scored the first two goals. But when it was 2-0 we lacked urgency defensively and we paid for that.

In the second half we gave everything and I have to give credit to the players for that. At 3-2 down we didn't give up, we continued to go forward and we had the chances to win the game.

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Schalke 2 -2 Arsenal | Happy With A Draw | How Sad



My first reaction on seeing the team list about an hour before the game was one of relief not to see Andre Santos. He was replaced at left-back by Vermaleen while Koscielny took his position at center-back alongside the increasingly reliable big German, Mertesacker. On paper it would seem like the perfect call to make under the circumstances especially since Vermaleen plays as a left-back for his country. But given his and Koscielny's bungling forms in recent times, I was wary of having both on the field at the same time.

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Arsene Wenger Press Conference and Exclusive Interview Pre-Schalke 04


Wenger's Views On The United Game


WE HAVE TO RECOVER FROM THIS

Dear Arsenal supporter,

Manchester United deserved to beat us on Saturday.

That is very disappointing, because we had a lot of the ball but we were not very efficient at either end of the pitch. They created more chances, they defended well and they were sharper than us in the duels.

Of course, part of our problem was conceding such an early goal. In a game like that, it's a massive disadvantage.

It didn't bother me that Robin van Persie was the scorer. That doesn't matter because all you want is to win the game. What is most important is that you don't make a mistake at the back and you don't give chances away.

We were poor defensively and there's no obvious reason for that apart from the fact that we didn't start well and that Man United have quality up front. They score goals against everybody and were better than us. It's as simple as that.

Jack Wilshere was sent off and I thought that was harsh. To me his second booking for a foul on Patrice Evra looked like a regular challenge.

I thought about replacing Jack in the second half but we were in a position where we had to attack and I had no offensive central midfielders on the bench. I thought I would leave him on a bit longer and then he got the red card.

At Manchester City, we drew 1-1 and we could have won that game. We didn't suffer from the comparison. But on Saturday we were not firing on full cylinders and we looked much more vulnerable defensively than we did at the start of the season.

Now we must recover from this and find our form for the Champions League trip to Schalke on Tuesday.

Finally, I would like to thank our travelling fans for their support at Old Trafford. They were always behind the team.

Thanks for your support.


Arsène Wenger

Monday 5 November 2012

United 2 -1 Arsenal | Santos Didn't Do Anything Wrong| Wenger's Tactical Nous In Question


Saturday's visit to Old Trafford was an opportunity to bury the ghost of the hiding we took in the same fixture last season. But within three minutes of kick-off, no other than the Dutchman we've come to hate hit our net and there was that feeling that if weren't careful we could be on the end of another hiding. Truth be told, the final result was respectable and flatters our overall performance considering the penalty miss and the number of clear-cut chances that United missed on the day. We could so easily have been buried -again.

The greatest harm the club's self-financing policy and in effect that unsuccessful youth development  program the club embarked on after the move from Highbury to the Emirates is that it has denied the team of players who understand historical rivalries and what it means to wear the red and white colours of Arsenal FC. That is why Andre Santos would think nothing of exchanging jerseys with the most easily identifiable "enemy" mid-way into a "battle" -a battle we were losing.

Saturday 3 November 2012

United Away! A Chance To Bury A Few Ghosts | Yes, We Can!


Opta Stats
*ManUre have won seven and lost none of the last eight matches against Arsenal at Old Trashford in all competitions.
*Shrek scored his first Premier League goal, his first in the PL for ManUre and his 100th Premier League goal against Arsenal.
*The Gunners have scored just 10 goals in 20 Premier League visits to Old Trashford, with last season (8-2 defeat) being the only time they have netted two in one game.

Wednesday 31 October 2012

Reading 5 - 7 Arsenal | After The Euphoria Comes The Inquest


Every now and then, every football fan will see one game that he will never forget; one that he will remember exactly where he watched fifty years later, who he watched it with and most of the details.

In 1989, the Nigerian Flying Eagles came from 4-0 down against the USSR in the quarter-finals of the Under 21 championships. With 25 minutes to go, the deficit was overturned and we went on to win the game on penalties. No Nigerian of my generation will forget the game that came to be known as the "Miracle in Damman"

Watch Arsene Wenger Post-Reading Interview

Arsenal Vs Reading Highlights (High Definition)

Naija End Gooner