POLL: Higuain for £22m or Tevez for £12m

Carlos Tevez has just completed a move to Juventus for a reported £12m which seems quite a bargain for what he brings to any team. On the other hand, Arsenal have been heavily linked with a £22m move for Gonzalo Higuain, which is yet to be finalized. Considering how Arsene has been trying to get cheaper players into Arsenal, it looks like we have just missed out on a very good player for a bargain price IMO.

If you were given a choice, what would you do?

Who would you rather have in an Arsenal shirt?

 

An Appeal To Arsenal Fans

"Man City sign........Manchester United sign.........Chelsea sign.........(even) Liverpool and Tottenham sign.......Arsenal linked with......."

I think the sentence speaks for itself here.

While other rival clubs of ours are busy signing players, most of us Arsenal fans are celebrating the 'big' players being linked with moves to the club, most of which are obviously fabricated. The more worrying thing for me is that we do this during every transfer window!


Its not that we do not sign players at all. We do. Over the years we have we signed Chamakh,Squillachi, Santos, Arteta, Mertesacker, Gervinho, Giroud....... after being linked with Ronaldinho, Sergio Ramos, Yaya Toure, David Villa, Fernando LLorente among others.

People come up with fantastic stories every year and every year, most Arsenal fans fall for it; every year. The more ridiculous the story, the more popular it is. The writers get their desired number of hits on the story and the readers get their dose of  "day-dreaming".

You have to look no further than comments on such stories. Comments like "...now Arsenal will win it this year......Arsenal triple winners this year.......Invincibles again.....a new dawn at Arsenal..."..... it goes on and on. And if you reply to such comments with comments like "we have not signed anyone yet" all you get is.... don't make me swear now! 

It is not a crime to be apprehensive. Being naive and "living in a bubble" is.

I am not saying we must be pessimistic about our team. We should always remain hopeful. We should hope that it will be different this year. But, we should keep our celebrations to ourselves until we actually sign a player or risk being ridiculed by "other fans" year after year.

You also do not have suffer the disappointment of broken promises......because the promises might not have been actually made in the first place!

POLL : Will Wenger Break The Bank?

Arsenal fans need no reminding of the bitter truth that the club manager Arsene Wenger has been very miserly when it comes to spending on good players. Although Arsenal have been linked with moves for many top players in the past and present, in the end, the fans have largely been disappointed. There have been numerous talk of "war-chest" and "large transfer kitty" made available to the manager but fans have never seen funds being fully utilized to take Arsenal to another level.


As the season closes and the transfer window re-opens, the media is full of talks of funds available to Arsene and the list of players linked with moves to Arsenal seems to grow by the day. History suggests this will be another disappointing transfer window for Arsenal fans. But like every year, most fans, if not all, still believe that this will be "the" year when ARSENE WILL BREAK THE BANK.

Do you think this will finally be "the" year?

Will it Be Thumbs Up From Arsene To Break The Bank This Year ?

Get Real! Its Mon"REAL" : Who Is Monreal?

Nacho Monreal Completed His Move To Arsenal...Just

In the end, we did come up with a signing. I did not see that one coming to be frank. It looked increasingly like we would not make any signings at all. Fans and the media were expecting so many "big name" signings. They were virtually linking everyone seen playing with a football! Its almost as if Arsene made the signing just to dodge the question "Why didn't you sign anyone in the transfer window?".

So who is Monreal? The 26 year old former Osasuna youth and senior player(127 appearances for senior squad) only moved to Malaga in 2011(42 appearances in total). Here are his stats so far for the 2012-2013 season:
Appearances            : 14
Goals                        : 1
Assists                      : 2
Pass Completion%   : 85.3
Man Of The Match   : 3
Average Rating       : 7.19
 (stats from whoscored.com)
He is not a bad signing by any means. In fact,if you look at how well Spanish imports have been doing in the premier league, he could well turn out to be a very good signing. Many expected big name signings like David Villa or a physical enforcer like Diame to come in but...I guess something is better than nothing! The fact of the matter remains that one player cannot change the way we play, given how poor we have been this season, especially defensively(defense has been our Achilles heels for some years now!). Maybe we needed more signings...quality...signings..but our "ambitions".....(just read THIS. I already have a post about our ambitions). Only time will answer all our queries.
                                                                                      

Arsenal's Ambitions Revealed

Arsenal's Ambitions Questioned Again

 So, the transfer window is about to come to a close and Arsenal have made no signings so far. Did we actually need any signings? We have never broken any transfer records during Arsene's reign before have we? In fact, we have never spent over 16mil pounds on a single player! Yet, we read in the media and from fans about "Arsenal to spend 40mil on this....." "30mil on that...."....."60 mil on pair....". You just have to wonder how people come up with such outrageous claims.

I do not intend to bore you with all this. We all know how we have fared when it comes to transfers. But I want to share something that I came across yesterday.

BBC 5 live broadcasted a short interview with the Galatasaray chief yesterday( I don't remember his name). What he said in the interview took me aback, as much as the interviewer himself. As you all know, Galatasary recently completed the "high profile" signings of Wesley Sneijder and Didier Drogba. Asked about how far Galatasary wanted to go in the UEFA Champions league, he replied "All the way!". He actually claimed that Galatasary were now well equipped to actually win the tournament.!
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Now many people will say it is a foolish claim. And I agree. Two players won't win you the Champions League. But, what does it say about the club and the people running it? The way I see it ,"AMBITIOUS" is the right word to describe them. They made it to the knockout stage and now they sign two former Champions League winner to boost their chances of going far; how far;we can't answer that. But what is true is that they have at least increased their chances to go all the way.

Back at Arsenal, we sell our players to other clubs every year and buy "unproven" talents every year and the what we hear from our chief and the manager is "We can compete with the best".

Wenger: We Won't Sign Anyone And Other Teams Should Do The Same!

Arsene At it Again

 These were not the exact words of Wenger but he sure meant it when he said:

 "I think the transfer window should be all completely cut out or limited to two players.It is unfair for the league." 

He also confirmed that the rumors that Arsenal are chasing  Barcelona's David Villa and Dortmund's Mats Hummels are not true.

"We have been linked with David Villa. We are not on the case.I can't imagine Dortmund selling their defenders in the middle of the season anyway and we have not made any approach there."

Here is what he had to say when asked if he would make any transfer dealings at all:

" We have a good squad with two players playing in every position. We will only buy if there are exceptionally good players in the market and if we think they are good enough to play for Arsenal."

The fans who were expecting to see some money being spent, this comes as a major blow, especially after it was claimed by the media that Arsene had been given "significant" amount to spend in this window. Even Arsene himself came out and said we were short in terms of quality in the squad and we needed some strengthening. But this was when we were going through a bad patch. Now, all of a sudden, Arsene has made a U-turn on his own statements. 

What do you think.....is Arsene right if he does not bring in any signings in this window?

Gilbert Imbula? Just What Arsenal Needed

Another Youngster To Arsenal?

News has surfaced in the media that Arsenal are looking to sign Gilbert Imbula, a promising 20 year old from the French Second Division side Guingamp. I need not say more.....

I can never understand Le Prof. When we are 1st in the league, we go for an unknown French youth, when we are 2nd.....the story repeats itself.....and even when we are 3rd or 4th or 5th or 6th......same old story. Why can't we produce our own youths rather than buy them from elsewhere? So much has been invested...time and money on our academy and still we need to buy promising youngsters? Only Gibbs and Wilshere truly represent Arsenal academy at the moment. I do not see a "genuine" academy player coming to the first XI for the next 4 years! It is funny how Arsenal are lauded for their youth policy and actually we produce very few of our own. Aston Villa, Southampton, Everton and Leeds are way ahead of us in terms of actually producing good young players. We buy youngsters from somewhere else....they play for a few years in our team....and then they go back to their beloved clubs or somewhere else because they do not have a deep connection with our club.

 If we can produce more players like Gibbs and Wilshere through our Academy who are born and bred Arsenal players, they will stick with their club. Just look at how they signed new deals for staying at Arsenal without much fuss. We all know how Wallcot, a player bought from Southampton at age 16, almost dumped us. I don't need to say more about other players who were bought young before being sold off (Fabregas 16yrs, Nasri 19yrs, Adebayor 19yrs,Van Persie 19yrs........ Hleb, Flamini, Clichy, Toure...too many to remember!).

It seems Arsene will wait till the last minute of the transfer window to buy players because, as he admitted himself, the prices of players fall drastically in the last moments of the window. So, I would suggest everyone to be patient till the last second of the transfer window. Big names have been linked with Arsenal....Cavani, Zaha,David Villa to name a few. But we all know who we will get in the end. A promising youngster from the French......you get the point.

Arsenal Slip Further Into Mediocrity

Arsenal 0 Manchester City 2
The scoreline was by no means a major shock. The EPL champions were in town.
You call them a "plastic" team or "money-bags" or whatever you want. They have a good squad and we knew it would be a difficult game. The Arsenal team have not covered themselves in glory by giving very erratic performances all season. On top of that, we had to play with 10 men for most of the game after Koscielny was sent off just 10 minutes into the game.

The most worrying thing for me after the match was that we never had the zeal, the drive to beat or at least compete with the opponents. That was the most disappointing aspect of the match. Yes, Wilshere,Sagna and to some extent,Szczesny had a good match, yet again. But a team consists of 11 players. Where were the others? There were a few sparks here and there but not consistently for the full 90 minutes.

Very few people would say we do not deserve to be mid-table, where we have been for the whole of the season. We are likely to finish mid-table come the end of the season on this form. I am not telling fans to switch teams or start calling for Wenger's head or put pressure on the board for spending lavishly in transfers. We should not react to the situation; we should respond to it. Keep supporting the club and get behind the team and the manger. They desperately need our support. What is true though, is the fact that the fall of Arsenal is truly complete. It really has been a great fall from the top to mid-table mediocrity.

We Won't Sign Anyone of Note In January

Wenger Playing Waiting Game.....Again?

It is already January 11th and although Arsenal have been linked with many players, they have not made a single singing. The manager has conceded that Arsenal need reinforcements and that we will only go for "exceptional" signings.

 However, it is a fact that there are only a few "exceptional" talents available for transfer and only the clubs that are quick to snap them up will get those players. Most "big" clubs are quick to get the players they want. Arsene himself resorted to the prompt signing of Cazorla this season, which would suggest, unlike the previous years when he waited till the last second of the transfer deadline, that he has realized that good players need to be snapped up quick.

It now seems however, that he has resorted to his "age-old" practice once again. Rumors are ripe that he has already missed out on Lewis Holtby, who, as I already mentioned in my previous post, would have been a great signing for us(He is a free transfer too!). I dare say we will miss out on a few more. In the end, even if Arsene does sign an "exceptional" player, it will be at an expense of not singing 5-6 "exceptional" talents. Maybe Arsene has a different way of looking at Mathematics.

WENGER:"FANS' REACTION WON'T AFFECT ME"

WENGER NEEDS TO WAKE UP!

Le prof is at it again.
Arsene Wenger recently told the media:

 "I want our fans to be happy and over the moon, but I cannot say it affects the way I feel, because I feel I have to focus on the job and see how we can sort our problems out."

He also pointed out, again, that splashing the cash is not what he is looking for and is looking to solve problems "internally". How many times have we heard this before!Does that mean there will be no signings of note in January?

Does he even know where our happiness lies? When was the last time we were happy with our team? When was the last time something was actually done "for" the fans. Clearly, fans are not in your plans Mr.Wenger. When you say "I cannot say fans' reaction affect the way I feel" it actually means "I don't feel for the fans".
"Over the moon?" Yeah right. You actually mean "Desert fans on the moon!".

I admit it. I have, maybe, been too harsh with the choice of my words here. In fact, I still believe in the manager. I am not one of those wants him sacked. And I would suggest everyone to get behind our manager and the team,still. Our club undertook a project to build a new,young team after the "Invincibles" under our manger and we have flunked it. The manager needs to realize this and move on. Year-in year-out the same approach is taken and the outcome gets worse every year. I hope he awakens from his slumber now, because right now, we need him to deliver more than ever.    

Comments are welcomed.

CAVANI,VILLA,LLORENTE OR GOTZE? EVEN MESSI WON'T DO

FRUSTRATION APLENTY AT ARSENAL

Where should I start?
Well this had been coming. We had doubts before this game even kicked off. We were expecting a comeback from Arsenal but deep inside, we knew (atleast I did) this could prove a banana skin(once again!). The most ardent of Arsenal fans had feared for the worse. So, it was not, in many ways, a complete surprise was it?

CAN WE STILL EXPECT FROM WENGER?

Arsenal keep getting poorer and poorer! Just when we thought it could get much worse, our team consistently proves us wrong.The press, the media and the fans had been pointing fingers at the club for 5-6 seasons that "Arsenal are going in the wrong direction","They cannot expect to win like this", "They will not and cannot challenge for trophies....". Our board and Le Boss completely ignored what others said. Yes, they have the right to take things their way but complete,absolute ignorance......It has only meant they have bigger pockets that keeps getting bigger every year and the scary thing is that they are satisfied with that!

Arsenal have the worst start to the premier league since 1994/95. FYI we finished 12th that year!
We as fans feel so helpless at the moment. We have never been heard for all these years and I doubt any changes(which we need desperately) will be made very soon. We can just hope that the worst part of this "storm" is over and will give way to clearer skies ahead.

 

WHAT WE WILL ACTUALLY GET IN THE JANUARY TRANSFER WINDOW

WILL THEY DON THE ARSENAL COLOURS NEXT SEASON?

        








As the January transfer window approaches, the talk of the town is- who will get in and who will get out of their club. If you are a Man City fan at the top of the league or QPR fan at the bottom, every fan likes to see quality players(players in their FIFA dream team :-)) to come into their clubs and the player(s) they loath most in the club to leave the club. The transfer window is always an exciting period for all fans alike.

Arsenal have been linked with a gazillion players before this window(hardly a new thing). Interestingly, although Arsenal have almost always signed youngsters and unproven players, we have been linked mostly with some of the best in the business than with rising prodigies this time around. Not that we were not linked to bring in big name players in the seasons gone by;somehow, it is different this time. Most of the rumors are ofcourse  pure works of fiction. But are they all fictitious?

Fact or fiction, what is undeniable is that Arsenal fans have their hopes raised sky high. The mere thought of players like Huntelaar, Llorente, Cavani, David Villa,etc coming to Arsenal gives us goosebumps. What fuels the excitement even more is the fact that Arsenal have recently given preference to signing proven players like Arteta, Mertesacker, Podolski and Cazorla. Also, Arsene is coming under more and more pressure form the fans as well as the media to buy proven talents. The signing of a new and, as claimed by Ivan Gazidis, a "huge" deal with Emirates is another reason for the fans to get excited about.

It won't be an understatement to say that Arsenal fans expect something big in the window; no doubt about that. There are enough reasons to believe that we could get the names(at least one if not some) that we are linked with in the January transfer window. However, I don't need to remind everyone about how many times we have been let down on this front in the past. So, lets keep our feet on the ground yet be optimistic, cautiously.