El Shaarawy to Arsneal?,Wenger Wanted In Real And Neville Defends Wenger

EL Shaarawy To Arsenal? Too Good To Be True

Mourinho Out, Wenger In?

The English Daily "Metro" has revealed that Arsene is looking at El Shaaarawy, the top scorer in Serie A with 13 goals, as a potential signing in January(yes it is ridiculous). Do you think we have a chance?

It has also emerged that  the hierarchy at Real Madrid want Arsene Wenger to replace Jose Mourinho at the Bernabeu if Mourinho leaves at the end of the season. It is not the first time Wenger has been linked to the Real Madrid post. However, many critics and fans would wonder if Wenger is someone to replace a coach like Jose Mourinho, especially after a disappointing, trophy-less  7 seasons at Arsenal.

In other news, former Manchester United  player turned football pundit, Gary Neville has hit out at critics of Arsene Wenger, especially former Arsenal manager George Graham for his comments that Arsenal would never win a trophy. Gary argued that Chelsea and Manchester City had to invest a lofty 2bn pounds before they landed trophies while Arsene has done an excellent work at Arsenal given the shoe-string budget that he has had to work with.

Fell free to share your thoughts on these stories.

ITS 13 IN A ROW FOR ARSENAL

CONSECUTIVE KNOCKOUT TOURNAMENT NO. 13

So, Arsenal have qualified for the knockout phase of the premier European club competition, the Champions League for the 13th season in a row. It is some achievement. Even the so called “great” teams like Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus have not managed the same feat. It is a commendable achievement no doubt.

As much as the achievement is commendable, it also remains a fact that all of these teams (barring Juventus) have won the Champions League in the same period at least once but Arsenal’s best performance has been finishing as runners up, once. Herein lies the irony. Is competing bigger than winning? Is consistently reaching the knock-out phase bigger than winning the tournament itself? Arsenal fans need no reminding of such questions because they have been asking the same questions for the last 7 seasons as Arsenal have failed to win any trophy yet have qualified for the group stages of the Champions League consistently. There is no specific answer to this question. However, yesterdays match in my view, gave away some of answers to our questions.

Yes,we won the match 2-0 but still we never played like we would win against any team. In fact, in the first half, we were lucky to be 0-0 thanks to some poor finishing from our opponents. Even in the second half there were quite a lot of nervy moments for Arsenal. We will not be as lucky in all the matches that we play. The need for a leader in midfield and defense was so evident in last night's match. You could see that our players were nervy. They were perhaps a bit awed by the occasion because they knew how important the match was. As I have mentioned so many times in my previous posts, we must be defensively solid. The only time we were solid in Europe was when we reached the Finals in 2006 when we did not concede for almost 900 minutes till the final where we were dealt a cruel defeat. Every other season we have conceded more than we scored before heading to the exit.It is a fact. And based on this fact it is quite clear that unless we get a defensive solidity in our team , we will might not fill our trophy cabinet.

CONCEDED

Yesterday's defeat against Norwich condemned Arsenal to their second defeat of the season.Yet, Arsenal are already 10 points behind the league leaders Chelsea.It is very early to state that Chelsea will win the league.However,it is almost certain that Arsenal will need a miracle to overtake Chelsea at the top.I don't think Arsenal were really one of the title contenders.Most experts expected the same specially after RVP left.But a few fans and experts did have some raised hopes after Arsenal had an encouraging start to the season.Not even the most optimistic of fans would expect Arsenal to challenge for the Premier League now.
It is now a race to finish in the top 4 for Arsenal from now on in my opinion.Maybe they can take a dig at other competitions(judging by yesterday's performance, a big maybe).

Some might think it is too early for making any predictions as such but Arsenal fans have just got to look at Arsenal's last 8 seasons.For me the main problem was conceding goals.Again and again we concede goals.A top team must be able to keep clean sheets.We had 3....then had nothing.That is just not acceptable.I have mentioned many times previously that if a team does not concede, it has every chance of winning a game;unless of course if you are Real Madrid or Barcelona who can outscore their opponents (yesterdays 5-4 win for Barcelona against Deportivo,what a game!).Manchester City too,managed to outscore West Brom and so did Manchester United who did it against Stoke.But the key difference here is that Arsenal do not have world class players aplenty in their squad like all the teams I just mentioned(you can't deny that,can you?).We do not have a player who can almost single-handedly propel their team to a win.(Messi scored thrice, Dzeko twice,Rooney twice;an they have done it consistently).Giroud or Gervinho or Wallcot are not at the same level, atleast not yet.It is a bitter pill to swallow but it is the truth.We must keep it tight at the back and then hope(yes...hope) we can score.

Our next game is against Shalke and I think it will be another banana skin after I saw Shalke beat Dortmund emphatically yesterday(I can just hope it is a clean sheet!).

MIND IT!

The human mind is programmed to support its "claims" no matter how fantastic(and often contradicting their own claims) the "claims" are. It has,like most of the things in this world,good and bad aspects.What is the good side and what is the bad side depends upon the perception of people and varies from person to person.What is "good" for one is likely to be "bad" for others.Where am I getting with this?A cousin of mine is a Liverpool fan and when Brendan Rodgers was appointed as the Liverpool manager,the first thing I remember him saying is (obviously excitedly so)"we are getting tiki-taka football at Anfield".That was obviously expected by many with reference to the type of football Rodgers was acclaimed for at Swansea last season.A few days ago,when two giants of world football in Barcelona and Real Madrid clashed,he said "Barcelona just pass the ball and that is it.It is so boring!".Oh the Human mind!

A news today has circulated that the ex-Arsenal player Hleb said that he learnt more from Wenger. Well if you play regularly at a club and don't get many games at another club even as a sub,it is obvious where you would be learning more from.

Another popular news in Arsenal blogs and forums at the moment is that Arsenal are readying an offer of 40m pounds for Falcao. Well,I do not know about that;but I do know that it will cost us 0 pounds to dream!

In other news,Wallcot and his agents are steel seeking to get a pay rise if a new deal is signed with Arsenal.

On this subject,Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood commented "We have got our general overall wage structure and we are not prepared to break it for anybody". .Well obviously Mr.Peter,this is not applicable to Ivan Gazidis who received a pay rise to 2mil pounds and though not revealed entirely,I have a feeling, among the ones to receive a pay rise is a certain Peter Hill-Wood too.Is it ethically correct then to come out and claim that another person does not deserve a pay rise when you are receiving one yourself? Oh the Human mind!

BACK TO "ARSENAL" WAYS

I have never liked Arsenal conceding a goal.In fact,I would take a 0-0 draw any day for a 2-1 win!(well maybe not all the time!).I have always believed that for a team to win trophies, it must show solidity from the back(unless you are Barcelona or Real Madrid ofcourse).

For their first 3 games of the season, Arsenal managed to keep as many clean sheets.They were being praised from all corners regarding their new found defensive solidity.Some even tipped them to challenge for the title after watching just 3 games!(which was ofcourse an overreaction).How things have changed.They started their old habit of conceding goals again after the 3 matches.So much so that they have not kept a clean sheet in any tournament after the first 3 matches!And the repercussions of conceding goals are clearly to be seen in the matches.The only match in which we looked comfortable conceding a goal was the one against Southampton.We had some luck in winning the other matches where we conceded while our luck ditched us against the matches against Manchester City(where we could and should have won easily) and against Chelsea(which ofcourse we lost).

When we were not conceding,you could see that all our players oozed confidence and they believed we could win.That is true for any team.As I have mentioned in my earlier post,any team that does not concede has every chance to win.But,if you analyze the matches in which we conceded, our players seemed more nervous and as a result, we gave chances to the opposition.

Personally,whenever Arsenal concede,I get nervous myself!I just can't take a goal!I start to get thoughts like "Ok. We might throw away this game here" "Here we go again!".These thoughts are mainly due to that dreaded night at the Emirates against Newcastle 2 seasons ago when we went from 4-0 up to drawing 4-4 and 8-2 defeat last season.Win or lose,I have always watched Arsenal matches till the final whistle.However, this season,I expect so much from Arsenal's defense that when we conceded a goal, I stopped watching the match altogether.I can't hold my nerves after we concede! It is in a way, too painful too watch.Please, Arsenal, do not concede....so that I can watch the full match.