Category: Arsenal

Wenger’s Main Priority: Keep The Squad Together

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal1 Comment

Arsene says here:

“My first target of the summer is to make sure what we have here stays here, and after, if there is still money available, to buy players,”

“Maybe we have to add a bit of experience to all that – but we have done the main job.”

“I believe at some stage you need to strengthen the team, but changing the team means kicking some players out and replacing them. That is not the feeling I have. I feel this team has been absolutely tremendous.”

Right now I think that should be our main aim, Flamini and Hleb are rumoured to be leaving as everyone knows. Hleb may have played his last game for us seeing as he got a 3 game ban for violent conduct, see here.

Flamini only has a week to sign a new contract within the deadline that Wenger set. Hleb can buy out his contract this summer. They will be hard to replace if they go.

Wenger doesn’t tolerate disrespect:

“People say you make mistakes, well that is professional. When people say you don’t know what you are doing, that is a little bit disrespectful.”

“At the moment I am trying more to protect the players so they don’t lose their self-esteem and their confidence,” he said speaking before the weekend. “I feel that is important for the future of the team and for themselves.”

Wenger is doing the right thing. He knows that confidence is a very important attribute, and we need to keep our spririts high to be able to start well next season.

The critics seem to forget that we had our best start to the season in the Premiership ever this year and we have great potential for the future.

Hill-Wood Worries About Flamini

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal2 Comments

Thought I would post up twice toady, due to the fact this is important!!

Peter Hill-wood, our Chairman, has said that he is worried Flamini will leave. Click Here.

“We have made what we think is a pretty generous offer and we are waiting to hear whether he will accept or not,”

“You just don’t know nowadays. You think players have a pretty good life but, somehow, someone persuades them the grass might be greener somewhere else.

“So I don’t know the answer, all I know is we think we have pushed the boat out.”

His comments suggest that we have offered the Flamster quite a substantial pay-rise. Thing is Juve are coming in for him with a bigger offer.

If he hasn’t signed by now I think we will probably lose him. Now might be his best chance to make it big, play in Serie A and make a lot of money.

If you’re reading Mathieu, please sign on! We need you!!!

Hleb Banned, Flamini Rumours

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal1 Comment

Alex Hleb has been charged with violent conduct by the FA. Click here.

“Hleb was involved in an incident with Reading defender Graeme Murty during the second half of the match at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday 19 April.

“Walton has informed The FA that, had he seen it at the time, he would have shown Hleb a red card for violent conduct.

We have yet to hear from Hleb about why this happened. I have seen pictures but no video, if anyone has a link to a video then post it up!

They haven’t decided how long but I guess it will be three games, which puts him out for the rest of this season. We need his creativity and the midfield is looking strenched right now with so many players unavailable!

Who do you think will fill in for him??

Diaby is another one to add to the injury list after the reserves game on Monday against West Ham. Everyone raved about the performance after Wilshere ‘ran the show’. We won 2-0 and played well.

There are reports that Juve are in the chase for Flamini. All I can say is that this is a rumour, and it really would be very shit if he left in the summer!

Wenger has said how hard it will be for him to watch the Champions League Semi’s. The performance last night would have been hard for anybody to watch it was so boring. The Boss said here:

“It will be extremely painful because it’s our biggest disappointment since I have been here. We should be through despite all that happened.

“If you are played off the park and the team is better than you, then you accept it but when you produce the two performances we produced and lose the games, it is much more difficult to take. I feel we had the potential to win the Champions League and the title this year.”

Arsene really is upset about how our season has finished. I think everyone is. We have played amazing football, and we really really really deserved to get something to show for it.

We just had such an awful run. It’s a pity really, and I think Arsene feels worse than he ever has before, I do too!

Also according to Palermo’s president we aren’t interested in Amauri. We have made one signing!

It’s All About Hleb

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

According to the Telegraph he was caught on camera ‘slapping’ Reading’s Graeme Murty in the second half. It seems to be bery little in it, but he could get a 3 match ban. The FA are going to review the video evidence.

If he is banned he will miss the last 3 games, and we will lose a key player who could help us get to second place.

After the ‘ice-cream’ story it turns out he can leave the club under the ‘webster clause’ this summer. When a player is under 28 it allows him to buy out his contract after 3 years, and this applies to Hleb, whose contact was for 5 years, signed in 2005. It is very possible that he could go to Milan!

Wenger is pretty worried about it, and certainly needs to try and keep this squad together if he wants to push for honours. He has warned Alex that moving clubs doesn’t always bring success!

“I believe Alex will stay but you cannot stop the rumours when players are in this type of situation,”

“But I want Hleb to stay like everybody else.”You can go to Real Madrid and Barcelona, but you have no more guarantees to win trophies. And from this season we should get the belief we can win trophies and come back to win the title.”

Ade is linked with AC, and of course Flamini still hasn’t signed. I don’t expect many key players to leave. Realistically I hope only Lehmann and maybe Gilberto will go. Gilberto says he needs to talk to the Boss about his future. Click here.

Gilberto has been a true professional this season, even thoiugh he lost his place he has kept going with little fuss, and the veteran scored on Saturday, a reward for his hard work in the last 2 games. I don’t think he will stay, but he is good cover if he does.

SkySports have picked up on the Theo interview in the Reading Programme. Theo has said that he will miss his target for this season in terms of games and goals:

“At the start of this season I wanted to make 20 to 25 starts and score five goals,”

“At the moment I’m on 17 starts and five goals, so it looks like I will fall short of that.”

On the subject of Theo, the Boss says here that the Reading match was his ‘most complete game’ yet, and his physical side of the game has improved:

“Theo is not a monster, but he has great body power. When he starts on the first five yards, it is like you throw him away. You do not see him, he is gone. That is more important than just more power. But the way we play, we can take advantage of his qualities.

“Before he was always a bit out of the physical contact side of the game, now he looks for it. I told him he had to be more aggressive and determined. He is that now.
“I feel next season began on Saturday for him. I don’t know yet if I will start with him for the rest of the season, but there is a good chance yes.

“It is down to him now, how much he wants it. But I hope he continues to produce this type of performance and on his account are 10 or 15 goals, because that is what you should aim for.”

Gallas has also urged all our players to stay at the club, to challenge for honours next season:

“For next season we want all the players to stay here,”

“It would be good if we can keep this group together because we know each other very well and we know what we can do.

“We came very close to winning something this year, but you get nothing for being close.

“We want to get second place and to finish the season strongly, by winning every game.”

Gallas is spot on here. If players like Flamini and Hleb leave we will struggle to replace their quality. It is so vital that the squad sticks together, because we really are good enough to be a very successful team.

We should try to finish second this year, and aim to start srtongly next season, with more maturity and experience from this campaign!

Who Will Be Captain?

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal9 Comments

Morning All,

It seems Fabianski will get his chance in the next few games, with Lehmann almost definetly leaving this summer.

There’s a report here that Flamini will stay, but until we hear anything official it can’t be a done deal.

There is also some debate over the captaincy see here. Wenger:

“I want to analyse the season after it has finished. At the moment he will be my captain until the end of the season.

“I believe he has learned a lot this year and I can only say that his commitment and desire to do well was exceptional. For the rest, I wouldn’t like to go into any individual assessment at the moment.

If Gallas isn’t captain next season I can’t see him staying. I don’t know who it would go to really, maybe we need to bring in someone who can really lead the team. Love him or hate him, Gallas was good in the first half of the season, but the Birmingham game really sums up what happened to our season and his actions there were not those of a leader.

Who else do we have who can captian a side?

We need some reinforcements, Nick Townsend talks here.

Wenger says he’s targeting to quality players, that might be all we need I think, a winger and a defender, maybe a striker too?

What positions do you think we need to reinforce??

Arsenal 2-0 Reading Highlights And Walcott

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

Sorry for the lateness of the post.

Yesterday we beat Reading very comfortably, 2-0 at the Grove. It was our first victory at home since the 11th of February, when we beat Blackburn 2-0.

Highlights here.

Arsenal 2-0
(HT 2-0)		 Reading
Adebayor 30
Silva 38
Bookings:
Kitson 28
Bikey 58
Sonko 71

The match itself was the most one sided I have seen this season. Reading had few chances and didn’t play well going forward.

We should have scored several more than we did. Theo had a shot which hit the bar, and a Van Persie free kick richocehted off the underneath of the bar and out!

It was pretty frustatring in that respect, we completely out played Reading with some good passing moves, but we didn’t score more. I thought RVP played very well as did Fabregas who had a stormer in central midfield.

Meanwhile Man Utd almost lost at Blackburn, an 88th minute Tevez equaliser gained them a point. It jsut shows how close we would have been had we picked up a few more points.

Wenger said this here:

In this match we showed what quality we do have and that the team is strong.”

“We are still ambitious – we have 74 points and want to finish with 83 points which is a decent total. We want to finish off as close as we can to the winners of the league.”

“We showed pride and responded after the disappointment of last week. We have to bounce back because the strong always come back stronger.”

“We have a very young team with a great future.”

This is true and there’s not much more you can say really. We want to finish as high as possible and get 3 wins from our remaining 3 games!

Theo wants his chance upfront next season here.

Fabregas confirmed his future lies with Arsenal. Click Here.

Busy day ahead so just a quick one, got to go!!

Flamini Contract And Reading Preview

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

Reading, Saturday 19th April, 1245 KO. Ashburton Grove

I’ll be at this game. Click here for BBC preview.

Line Up

Lehmann

Toure Gallas Song Clichy

Walcott Gilberto Fabregas Hleb

Adebayor Van Persie

There’s a good chance Theo Walcott will get a start today, he has impressed going forward, and now that some of the pressure is lifted maybe Arsene will be thinking a bit more attack minded.

Song will probably start again, unless Wenger has a reshuffle and puts Toure at centre back and Eboue on the right. Senderos probably won’t be back. I think Le Boss wants Song to get some games under his belt to step up for next season. He performed well at the African Cup of Nations so it will be good to see how he does.

Of course Mad Jens is in there as well! Apart from that unchanged.

Coppell commented earlier in the week about changing the Reading line up after their defeat at Craven Cottage, which has been hyped up a lot. Reading have a poor away record, but in the Premiership everyone is good enough to beat anyone on their day, and Reading are scrapping at the bottom of the table. We still have to see this season out so a good performance and plenty of concentration will do fine for me!
We are still linked to loads of players, none of whom we will sign.

Also Wenger had this to say about Flamini’s contract situation:

“We are getting close to ‘yes’ or -no’”

He wants to stay and I believe him. But as long as he has not signed, he is free to sign where he wants. We have set ourselves a target at the end of April to finalise the situation, one way or the other.

“April is an absolute deadline because, afterwards, we have to make decisions in the transfer market. My first target is to keep the team together, but we want to continue to respect our wage structure. That is very important. Flamini has to fit in that.”

This is all good stuff, and I think there’s a good chance he might stay. I know thats what we need.

Here Wenger agress with my opinion that defensive errors have been our problem this season.

Arsene looks ahead to the Reading game:

“Now is a good opportunity for us to show mental strength and to finish as well as we can, as high as we can because second place is still possible.”

This is so true for us, we have to play for our pride and for second spot, if Avram and Chelski beat us to it I won’t be happy.

Anyway, I feel sick, so I’m off. Plus I have a game to get to!

Lehmann To Start Again?

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

Jens Lehmann will probably start against Reading on Saturday.

Reading Previews here and here.

The 38-year old, will get a chance due to Almunia’s wrist injury.

Almunia is going will for a fitness test this morning according to Arsenal.com, but it is touch and go. Lehmann will most likely play again after being in goal against Man Utd as well.

“Maybe Manuel Almunia will be available, I don’t know. I will make a decision on Friday morning. He got injured in training on the Friday before Manchester. We sent him for a scan and there was an inflammation so he could not play.

“But Flamini is not back, Sagna is not back and Tomas Rosicky is out.”

If Lehmann does play it will probably be one of his last apperances for us, he’s on the way out, because he wants first team football, he hates Almunia playing ahead of him and he has caused such a fuss this year that I think Wenger has to offload him.

‘Mad Jens’ has had ups and downs for us, his early days at the club saw some calamitous mistakes, especially in clearances!

But he was in goal for the whole of the unbeaten season and has seen a lot of success with us. This year his moaning and slagging off of poor old Almunia has been pretty low, but that’s Lehmann, a crazy German really. He had the same sort of rivalry with Oliver Kahn when Kahn was Germany’s No.1. Wrighty7 weighs it all up here.

Anyway, elsewhere, yesterday Lauren said here that if we had a few of our more experienced players (like him?) then we would have won something this season.

“I felt I was still able to contribute to the team. When you have experienced the highs and lows we went through and when you have competed against Chelsea and Manchester United in the past, it helps you in difficult situations not to lose your head.”

Fair point, but that’s not the route we have taken. If we still played Lauren then we wouldn’t have discovered Bacary Sagna, and to be honest I think that the side can now mature together. It’s all very well criticising in hindsight, but I think Wenger has a great record of picking the right time to let players go.

Next year with more experience and a bit more steel I reckon we’ll be mounting a stronger challenge. Remember the sort of football we were playing before Christmas? Amazing stuff. If we can keep our heads down then it could be our year.

Ian Wright has left the BBC (Click here) because he felt like they were using him like a:

“comedy jester to break the ice with Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen “

Those guys are pretty awful sometimes, anyway, good on you Wrighty, good luck on Gladiators!!

Transfer news: we’re linked with the Palermo striker Amauri here. Make what you will of it!

Arsenal

Arsenal Transfer Rumours Plus Senderos, Traore

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Transfers22 Comments

The season is not yet over and already the transfer rumours have started in earnest. David Villa is suggested as a  transfer target here.

He wants to play in England and he is a proven goalscorer: (David Villa Video). He probably would cost £20 million but would be a worthwhile signing. He’s also linked to Liverpool due to his partnership with Torres in Spain Internationals, so I hope we get him.

“I watch the Premier League a lot and the team I’m most attracted to is definitely Arsenal. If an offer comes in I’m hungry to test myself in England.”

The Sun links us to Gomes, whilst Ben Arfa is linked with us but has dismissed the rumours, till the end of the season at least. Feyenoord’s attacking midfielder  Jonathan de Guzman this is a bit less likely really.

Good analysis of the media coverage on Wenger recently, click to read Arvind Gooner’s article .

Arsene reckons Man Utd will overcome Henry and Barca here.

“It will be an English team that wins the Champions League. I wish that Thierry Henry wins it but Manchester United will be super-favourites against them.”

Traore On the Wing

Traore is to switch to the wing. He says he wants to follow in Eboue’s footsteps, I hope he doesn’t because right now Eboue hasn’t been a great conversion.

Traore is promising and used to play on the wing anyway. He is a pretty attacking player and he looks good he played well on the wing in the Reserves’ 5-1 win against Derby on Monday.

Senderos Anguish

Senderos has been calling home to his parents every night because he is so upset after we lost to Liverpool in the Champions league. Wenger gave him Sunday and Monday off, that’s why he didn’t play against Man Utd. Click here. His father said:

“He was not feeling too good after Arsenal went out of The Champions League.”

“Firstly because he is a winner and his team had been knocked out, and then because he was angry with himself.”

“Knowing his character as I do, I can fully imagine him bursting into tears in the dressing room.”

Eduardo injury news

He’ll be having treatment alongside Ronaldo in Rio, he was pretty excited about that! His cousin commented on his progress:

“When he took away the plaster, on the 31 of March, he was only managing to move the big toe of his foot. Today (Wednesday), he has already moved the foot a bit”

It’s good to hear Eduardo is progressing, we’ve missed his goals since he has been injured, I hope he can make a good recovery.

Not so good to hear about Senderos, he does seem a bit low on confidence at times, hopefully he can recover too because he has a lot of potential for Arsenal, many good centre backs struggle at first, he’s still young, and I’d like to see him mature at Arsenal, not elsewhere.

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Wenger Talks Plus Hleb and Flamini Rumours

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal1 Comment

Morning,

Just thought I’d mention, if you haven’t subscribed to the ArseSpeak RSS feed you can do it by clicking here! It makes it much easier to keep up to date with the latest posts, why not try it!

Wenger says he’s not afraid to spend big in the transfer market, I guess we all knew that anyway though, he just doesn’t always need to. Really we just need a few quality players, big or small amount doesn’t matter.

There are rumours concerning Hleb and Flamini see here.
Bayern and Juventus are linked to Flamini, while Hleb is being followed by Inter (more ice-cream promised) with more interest from Real Madrid, Juve and Barcelona.

It would be very damaging to us if we lost these guys, they have been two of our most crucial players this year, and to lose half of your first choice midfielders would be hard. I think it is speculation, but a very real possibility.

The Flamster will hopefully sign a new deal in the next few weeks while he’s out injured. Hleb I hope will also see how good he has it here at Arsenal.

They should remember the curse! Players who have left under Weneger never do as well at their new clubs!

Sagna says he could spend the rest of his career at Arsenal. He loves the club and it shows, he has been one of the most consistent performers this year making the right back slot his own! I hope he does stay for a long time.

Glen Little really wants to beat us on Saturday. It’s funny, because Reading players always seem to make these comments, I remember Dave Kitson saying something similar a few months back!

Ade says here that the team owe it to the fans and his mum to win the remaining games.

“What we have to do to achieve things. That is the most important thing now.”

“It is difficult, but I know my mum will be somewhere watching the TV, so I have to play for her, all my family and all the people who love Arsenal.”

“We have to win all those games now, to play for our honour and for our fans.”

“The fans have been great to me this season, always singing my name and taking me into their hearts.”

“I hope to do something better next season than what I have done this year and hopefully bring something home for this club. Those are the things I am fighting for.”

Rosicky is continuing to recover from his injuries back home in Prague.

Interesting stuff here at Arsenal Vision, some really great analysis on the untruths of the media and our squad. Turns out we have a good goal return from the strike force, just lack goals from midfield:

“The fact still remains that Arsenals strikers; Adebayor, Van Persie, Bendtner, Eduardo and Walcott have scored more goals than any strike force in the league except Tottenham’s.”

“56 goals from the Arsenal frontmen. United’s Tevez, Rooney and Saha have 39”.

Wrighty7 backs Gallas against the backstabbers out there, I have to agree. People seem to be looking for scapegoats, especially Adebayor and Gallas. They were both being praised by everyone two months ago, Gallas was a fantastic leader and Adebayor a goal machine. Now Gallas apparently should lose his captaincy and Ade is awful.

How stupid, people should get real and see how much good work they have put in this season. Wrighty also bigs up our excellent full backs Clichy and Sagna.

Hoping we can keep the squad together,

Cheers