Tag: Wenger

Wenger Will Be Able To Spend This Summer

On By jamesgillespIn Transfers3 Comments

Peter Hill-Wood, the Arsenal chairman says that money will be available for Wenger to bolster the squad this summer. Which is good, especially if players like Hleb leave.

“We have never denied Arsene Wenger a penny, whenever he has wanted to buy, he has. What he is not prepared to do is to buy a big name that everyone will be happy with until they see them play.

“He has brought in so many world-class players, some of whom people had not even heard of at the time, and I am sure he will continue that.”

Hill-Wood went on to comment on our season:

“He {Wenger} is not very happy we didn’t win anything. He takes it very much to heart but he seems to have recovered.”It’s laughable to think he doesn’t have the support of the board. We are very happy with him and I think he is with us.

“Overall, it’s not been a bad season. I was very happy with the way we played, but we are in the results business and I’m disappointed with the final result, I suppose.

“We will start next season with the aim of winning something. If we don’t, I will not be jumping off Tower Bridge. It’s not easy winning the Champions League and the Premier League.”

A very balanced opinion if you ask me, and quite correct. Wenger is a fantastic manager, and the board knows he is good in the transfer market, and that he can achieve success. He has done it before and can do it again.

It’s not easy, but we have the potential to win a lot of trophies in the next few years. It’s good to hear the Board are on the same wavelength.

One issue with signing foreign players now will be their level of English. Under new government legislation non-European footballers who can’t speak English won’t be able to join teams. This is part of the new points-based immigration system.

Migrants will have to pass an English test to check they have “basic-user standard” English, using familiar everyday expressions, and be able to discuss basic personal details!

Do you think this legislation will affect Arsenal?

Hleb’s Future In Doubt, Calderon Mumurs About Fabregas

On By jamesgillespIn Transfers3 Comments

The Times thinks that Hleb is on his way out of the club. They claim that his ‘representatives’ have agreed a four-year deal with Inter, and that he has told team mates that he will join Inter.

Again this seems speculative, with no quotes and nothing official, but it may happen. Hleb could leave, and we would be in a bit of transfer trouble were this to happen. Wenger would have a bit of a midfield crisis. I’m waiting to hear more on this one.

A player who is linked with a transfer is Fabregas, and this is one I’m sure won’t happen (bar something totally crazy occuring in the next few months).

Ramon Calderon, the Real president has Fabregas as one of his main transfer targets, and said:

“Something nice about Cesc is that he is Spanish and this is one of my objectives – to make Real Madrid more Spanish.”

Only two weeks ago Fabregas said that he was totally comitted to Arsenal though:

“My future belongs to Arsenal, and it is the truth.”

“I have always said I want to play for Arsenal, it is the best team I can be at, the best club for me.”

So I doubt Calderon’s wishes will come true at this point!

Meanwhile, Sagna is set to sign a new contract after only a season at the club, maybe Wenger is getting wary after the situations with Flamini and Hleb.

Wenger also said that Adebayor needs to keep improving:

“I believe if Ade keeps his work ethic, there is still 20% more to come from him. Does he want it enough – to get this extra 20% out?

“Well that is where his future lies. If you lose that desire, you quickly become a nobody.”

Adebayor should be able to keep up his form next season, I don’t see any reason why not, Wenger just wants to stop him getting too comfortable!

I hope we can hold onto Hleb at least, because otherwise we will start the transfer season weakened, rather than ready to strengthen the squad. I think it is more likely he will stay than Flamini, but if he does leave we might have a confidence problem on our hands.

Arsenal’s Youngsters For Next Season

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal7 Comments

Whatever happens now we will finish in third place this year (click here for league table), and trophyless again.

Not all is bad though, our squad has matured and we have seen a vast improvement in the quality of football and the results. 3rd place is one up from last season, and the QF of the Champions League is one stage further. Had luck been on our side we would have gone further.

Now Flamini has become the first departure of the summer we wait and see who else will come and go. I’m not sure who Wenger will sign, I am pretty sure that we have seen the last of Lehmann and possilbly Gilberto.

At this stage the future of the club is in the balance. Lose players like Hleb, and the squad will be greatly weakened and unsettled. Keep the majority of the players and sign a few more gems and we could be very successful next year.

A few players who I expect to come through more next year are:

Nicklas Bendtner

A very good player, good passing and can run at defenders as well at being great in the air. He has scored 9 this season, and although not a perfect partner for Adebayor, he will start more next season.

Theo Walcott

One of the top young players in the Premiership. His style and pace are fantastic. He has started more and more this season and proved himself, i.e. at Anfield. Expect him to start on the right wing, and more up front next year. Maybe some more goals too.

Alex Song

Badmouthed by some fans, he has proven his quality in the new year, first at the ANC, and then with some good performances in defence. A possible replacement for Flamini, or maybe a new centre back

Armand Traore

Looks like he may get a chance on the left wing after his conversion from left back. He looked good coming on against Everton, and provided the cross for the goal. Him and Clichy would be a menacing duo on the left flank, pace, power, and passing in attack and defence.

Carlos Vela

Another much talked about player. He has done well on loan at Osasuna, and Wenger will recall him next season possibly for a starting line up. Don’t know loads about him. Let me know your impressions in the comments.

Just a quick summary, if you think of any more then feel free to add them in the comments section.

Also congratulations to Arsenal Ladies, double winners, the most successful women’s team in the land.

Flamini In Milan. Highlights Arsenal 1 Everton 0

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

Highlights here.

The game itself was a little dull, Bendtner got a good headed goal and we won 1-0. Wenger said:

“You could see that it was a little bit an end of season game.”

It was, we played some good, football at times, but nothing special. A few points though:

  1. Song had another solid game at centre back, I like him more everytime I see him.
  2. Jens came on for the last few minutes, obviously a farewell appearance.
  3. Traore came on and did well down the left wing, his cross set up Bendtner’s goal. I wouldn’t be suprised if we see him there next year, he looked exciting!

Gallas Strips At Arsenal, Emirates Stadium

Gallas Gets Naked

The players came out to do a farewell lap of the pitch, Gallas threw his shirt into the crowd just in front of me, I didn’t get it though, Jens staying on afterwards, and getting a standing ovation from the fans. He said:

“I had one or two tears in my eyes, It was a great farewell for me. This farewell will always stay in my heart.”

He has been a great player for, even if he is mental. I hope he does well in the future.

Flamini seemed a little awkward, and it seems he has flown to Milan to agree terms with AC. No suprise there, we could see it coming. Not much we can do, he was fantastic this season, but we’ll just have to find a replacement.

Arsenal Transfer News: Interested In Kranjcar

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

Arsene Wenger has a long term interest in Niko Kranjcar, the 23 year old Croatian midfielder, according to the players father, Zlatko Kranjcar:

“Wenger was interested in Niko in the Croatian League and he has tracked him for sometime.”

It looks like Kranjcar might be a target for us if Hleb goes this summer, the midfielder is skillful and plays good football. He’d be a ready-made player for us, already having proved himself in the Premier League with Portsmouth. Harry Redknapp won’t want to let him go though!

Speaking about Hleb, Wenger has said that he will report Inter to FIFA for their illegal approach of the player:

“I will of course do it, with Inter Milan especially,”

“I now know more about what happened over there. I will keep the information for those who need to know it.

“I don’t want to speak much more on that but it is unfair what happened.”

It is totally illegal if Inter did approach Hleb, and Wenger is well within his rights to report them. I think what has happened is unfair and just unsettles the club and our players. The way some agents and clubs act is despicable and we have seen bad situations caused by this sort of action before.

Flamini To Decide On Contract, Wenger Wants To Stick To Wage Structure

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

Arsene Wenger says Mathieu Flamini has the weekend to decide whether to stay with Arsenal or leave on a Bosman at the end of the season.

Theres been a lot of speculation about Flamini leaving, and I thought he might have already gone, but Wenger says:

“At the moment, we have no news from him but at the latest we expect it to be decided over the weekend.

“He tells me he wants to stay and I want him to stay but it will be down to numbers as well as we want to respect our wage structure.

“It is important to keep the core of the team together. We have shown we have the quality and now we need to improve in certain areas.”

We do need to stick to our wage struucture and no player should be above that, we have seen the results of financial mismanagement at clubs like Leeds. We have done well under the current structure and we are still growing.

What we cannot do is start to make exceptions to the rule which would cause chaos. Flamini is a good player but he is not irreplacable.

Wenger has a good point about keeping the core of the squad together and I would agree, so I hope Flamini stays true to us and stays. SAying that, no player is bigger than the club and the Flamster cannot hold us to ransom.

I would think Mathieu is feeling split between the club and the money, because all the players have talked about the great spirit of Arsenal and the way the club is going. If he stays then great, if he goes, we’ll just have to get over it.

What do you think, should we break our principles to keep one player happy?

Flamini, Adebayor’s Agent and Potential Transfer Targets

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

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We haven’t heard anything official about Flamini, but if he hasn’t signed by now he is as good as gone. There are unsupported rumours from the Corriere Dello Sport that he has told the team he has chosen Milan. Who knows?

GilbertoSilver thinks that we might have a perfect replacement for Flamini in Kolo Toure. Arguably our most versatile player, I saw huim play up front in his early days! I think he could do a job for us there, it would be convienent because his partnership with Gallas seems a little shaky at times.

I would quite like to see Michael Johnson, the England Under-21 midfield player signed up. We have been linked to him as well as Gareth Barry to replace Flamini. Man Citeh are in turmoil at the moment as their owner, Thaksin Sinawatra has decided to sack Sven, because he didn’t do well enough this year (wait, we are talking about City here right??), a valuble lesson against outright foreign ownership.

Anyway it seems Flamini may start against Everton on Sunday, no matter what his status is.

Adebayor’s agent has also been worrying Wenger by fueling transfer speculation about Ade:

“Today he is happy at Arsenal, he showed it on Monday. But you know football, everything goes very quickly.”

Just money grabbing in my opinion, there’s no reason Ade would leave Arsenal, so don’t listen.

Also, Van Persie is going to miss the Everton game:

“We don’t want to gamble at this stage of the season on a muscular problem. We had a little alert but it is not big at all.”

Fair enough, RVP has struggled badly with injuries these last few years. Maybe a rest will help him recover, I hope Holland get knocked out of Euro 2008 early!!

Clichy Talks And Where Is Flamini?

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

Morning,

I have to ask the question, where is Flamini?? I don’t think he has signed a new deal if we haven’t heard from him today, but thats the thing, we haven’t heard anything from him! So we shall have to wait and see, I only hope we won’t miss him too much if he has gone.

Clichy talks about the transfer rumours saying:

“It’s up to everyone to think what they want to do.

“But we’ve got so many examples of players who leave to win the Champions League and titles, and that didn’t prove them right.

So true Clich, how many times have we seen ex-Arsenal players falter elsewhere. He went on to praise the squad, and their belief:

“I think that we have to believe in the quality we have in the team at the moment.“I believe in it, most players believe in it and I’m sure we can do it.

“So we just have to stick together and work hard because with the team we have, we’re so young, the future is in front of us and we’re going to do something great that’s for sure.”

Thats the sort of thing we want to hear, inspiring stuff, and it’s all true!

There’s a good season review here, which points out the fact that we played very well for most of the season and should be positive about next season.

We’ve taken Ergotelis’ 16-year-old striker Nikos Karelis on trial according to Setanta. At the weekend he became the youngest player ever to play in a Greek Super League game. One for the future if we do take him on.

Eboue wants to keep his spot on the wing, after a lot of critcism this year.

“I have worked very hard to change my game to be able to play in midfield. Now, I want to keep playing there and keep improving to become a better right midfielder.

“I need to do better and be more effective next season. I want to show the coach that he got it right by asking me to play there. I want to pay him back.”

I think he is a decent defender, but he hasn’t impressed me at all on the wing. His passing and shooting are not up to scratch, many times he has found himself in front of goal, only to fluff the shot. He also dives a bit.

I don’t hate him, just don’t think he should play on the wing. You can’t say he hasn’t tried.

Arsenal Players Look to The Future As Theo’s Girl Slags Off WAGs

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal2 Comments

Cesc rues the dropping of points here

“For us, it is already next season now”

He said we would come back stronger:

“because we are young, because we want to play, because we are hungry for titles”.

I can see where he’s coming from, you can see in the desire we showed the season that next year we will be raring to go, I am sure the team will want to put this disappointment out of their minds.

Adebayor echoes his sentiments here:

“What was also important is that we sent out a message to our rivals that despite all the disappointments we have had in the past couple of months we are sticking together and showing that we are getting better and better.

“This season we may end up with nothing – but it will not look the same this time next year.”

Meanwhile Wenger believes we were “one game away” from being champions this year:

“I feel we were one game away in this championship. If we win at Old Trafford, we are champions. It’s just one game, and in that game we were 1-0 up and we had two or three chances to score the second goal, so you cannot say we had a bad season. We have 77 points and we have won championships with 78.”

This is so true, we are only 4 points off the leaders, and if we had won at Old Trafford then that would put us on 80 and Man U on 78. Anyway, no point thinking of missed chances, just take the desire into next season and unleash our amazing football on the Premiership!

Wenger was pleased with Adebayor’s performance against Derby, and had this to say on his 30 goal man:

“There is more in the locker than what he is doing at the moment, but how much I don’t know. If he repeats that year in, year out, that’s a mark of class.”

Adebayor deserves the praise a top class striker, he is young and in his first big season he has been excellent. If you agree then say so, because Ade gets a bit of stick on the web!

He had a less positive comment about the Flamster, who is probably going,

“I’m waiting for him to come back to me and tell me whether he’s going”

In other news, Theo Walcott’s bird, Melanie Slade, has criticised the so-called WAGs:

“I hate the stereotype – the shopping all day long, the short dresses and massive sunglasses.

“The wannabes who are so desperate to sleep with a footballer have no respect for themselves, no ambition, nothing.”

Apparently Theo calls her “waggy” when he wants to insult her! Haha, very good, nice to see some sensible comments about people like Cheryl Cole…

Thats all from me!

Let me know what you think about Adebayor and his 30 goals!

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Cesc, Clichy, Sagna And Ade Do Well At PFA. Derby Preview

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal2 Comments

Well done to Cesc Fabregas, who last night won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award. He had this to say:

“To win a personal award reflects the season we have had as a team,” he said. “Everyone said that it is disappointing not to win anything but we have made a big step forward in experience, physically and mentally. One of us deserved to win something because we played some very good football.

“What matters at the end of the day is a trophy. We didn’t win one this season but we will be up for it next season. I think we will win something, of course.”

 That’s what we want to hear Cesc! He also gave his support to Gallas:

“You have to respect William for what he has done in football and what he is doing now, for me he is doing a good job. For me, the most important thing is giving everything on the pitch”

I think that is a fair statement, Gallas has done a good job on the pitch apart from a few slip ups, although I’m not sure he’ll be captain next year.

Cesc Fabregas, Bacary Sagna, Gael Clichy & Emmanuel Adebayor were also named in the Premier League Team of the Year, the most from any team. Wenger reacted to the praise here saying:

“If you ask any Arsenal fan what they think of Clichy and Sagna I think you will have unanimous praise.”

Derby preview here. Fabianski will start and we may see some other younger faces, Bendtner might start, and Walcott will too I guess. Eboue has said he wants to repay Wenger’s faith in him, maybe we will see him tonight too.