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Arsenal Thread

Treetopp said:
Even in that article his season is summed up as very good. Your just picking facts you like and drawing conclusions based on your "not so hidden" agenda.
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Agenda? That's a good one. :APPLAUD:

There's no doubt he's been a good signing but he's been overrated in some quarters of the media and fans because of his goal return.

Perhaps they've been lenient on him because it's his first season in the Prem but the costly errors he's made shouldn't be overlooked.

For all the Almunia/Fabianski/Silvestre bashing in here, Vermaelen's made his fair share of mistakes as well.
 
I agree. He has been over rated in England.

Gerd said in Belgium he's not that highly regarded compared to other centre backs from there.
 
Nick Cave said:
Lets face it 3rd place is not bad at all but given injuries have yet again dictated the season and you have won nothing it's never going to look great...

It's a shame as it's the weakest Premier league for quite a while...
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I disagree about the weakest premier league for a while. Man United and Chelsea maybe haven't played aswell as previously, Also Liverpool. But I think alot of the other teams have stepped up this season and think will only get stronger. The likes of Spurs, Villa, Everton, Man city all are getting better.

But the top 4 (based on previous seasons) haven't been as strong and it would have been nice to have had a fit team to play this season.

On Vermaelen, he isn't perfect and isnt the best. But he has been consistant and scored some goals. He has been no where near shit and I think with the right person next to him, he can start a good partnership.

But I agree some of his appeal and praise does come from the goals he scored early in the season. But I think overall he has had a decent first season.
 
I'd choose the Verminator over Silvestre any day. The point is that Silvestre should not be a first choice substitute, and after this season Wenger will surely know we need some depth in defense or else we'll come up short again. After that, then he's just being stubborn and we'll have to watch our gunners "mature" for yet another year.
 
I still think TV was a great buy. He's had of course his share of mistakes. One thing that really pisses me off is that habit of trying to anticipate passes to strikers when he's the last man. Many times he got to the ball first, but this is very risky. Some few strikers got the better of him (I remember Ibrahimovic did it) and the result is invariably a 1-on-1 with the GK. He has to stop that ASAP or at least know when to use this resource. Wenger had a go at him in the first leg against Barca apparently.

But apart from that his qualities easily compensate his shortcomings. Not only the goalscoring, which is obvious, but the fact that he is actually quite composed on the ball and rarely misplaces a pass. His long passes are good as well, he's very good at headers, has pace and physicality. Excellent defender in my books, but still has some things to learn, which I hope he does. But he's young and looking very promising.
 
I'd choose the Verminator over Silvestre any day. Let's not forget he's only 23, and even so he's still one of our best. Hopefully this season's result is finally enough to convince Wenger to spend on his backline. TV worked well with Gallas- let's hope they have an even stronger partnership next year, if Willy can stay fit.
 
I did mentioned Lombaerts who IMO is better than Vermaelen.
I'm a litle bit afraid that Vermaelen will have a tough second season because he will never again score that amount of goals.
I hope Arsenal fans wont forget that he's young and still has to learn quite a lot. I too had the impression that as a defender he wasn't that solid to be called one of the two best CB's of the Premier League...
But Vermaelen is learning and learning very fast, he's has become the undisputed leader of our national team (a role that was destined for Kompany, who i rate higher as a defender but not psychologically) and he has developed into a real winner.

I don't think that you can blame Vermaelen for Arsenal's collapse in the last weeks.
 
Surely if the top four have lost more games, that means the rest of the league have been beating them and therefore the league is stronger not weaker?
 
Well we sold Ronaldo, our best player and top goalscorer, but we have still managed to score far more goals this season and if we win the league will only finish with 5 less points than last. We lost home and away to Chelsea (both close games decided by incorrect calls), to Villa, Fulham away, Liverpool away, Everton away and Burnley away. The only one of them which is a bad game to lose is Burnley but at the time they were flying and it was the first home game of the season for them so they were pumped up with a great crowd and we were rusty. If we'd played them now like City and Liverpool have we'd have smashed them, but that's football. We've also had pretty much unprecedented injuries to our defence (we finished one game with Kuszczak, Brown, Evra, Carrick and Fletcher in defence) so I think we've done well considering.

Chelsea got another year older, signed a couple of good squad players and a few of their players hit form we'd not really seen from them (Malouda/Drogba) plus they've got the evergreen Lampard who is world class. They'll probably win the league and finish with 86 points which is slightly lower than average but most seasons one team has ran away with the lead and the teams in 2nd and 3rd have finished with a lot less points than they will do this time, which is why I think it's not a weaker league.

In Europe it could easily have been different, on another night we'd have beaten Bayern and probably been in the CL final now, and Chelsea were beaten by a very good Inter side who may go on to win the thing, likewise Arsenal with Barca.

Liverpool and Fulham are doing well in the Europa so I dont see how our league is any weaker compared to any other European league. Is the French league better cos they got one team to the semis of the CL?
 
Not saying it's a massive thing Rich, and there are some very poor teams in the Prem too. The likes of Man City, Spurs and Villa may have closed the gap a little but look at Liverpool they are no better.

I'd still say the Premier League this year is one of the weakest for a while...
 
Yeah of course but there's weak teams in the league every season, Derby in 07/08 won ONCE! Sunderland a couple of years before that were nearly as bad.

It's worse in Spain, which is now the best league in the world according to popular opinion, 10 of those 20 teams are not that good at all and to be honest it's basically Barca vs Real and the rest just make up the numbers. At the start of the season only those 2 had any realistic aspirations of winning the league, at least in ours we had us, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and to some extent City who thought they were in with a chance.

How do you measure what makes the league stronger or weaker? Is it how the team who finishes top does in comparison to other seasons? How the team who finishes bottom does? How the teams in the middle do? How teams fare in Europe? Maybe if I know you're deciding this it'll make more sense to me cos at the moment I just don't see how its weaker really and IMO it's just one of the many things journalists and media people like to say for a talking point regardless of if it actually makes sense and then is regurgitated by everyone else til it becomes accepted as 'the truth'.
 
apart from the top 4 teams have improved. United have got worse and Liverpool are much worse. Chelsea and Arsenal have aged with it being a bad thing for the former and a good thing for you lot.
 
completely agree with jumbo here. this league is getting better and better each and every year. liverpool is the only real "bad news". chelsea is playing a lot better than last year; man utd proved wrong all those bullshits about them being a one man team and is having an amazing season despite the injury problems with their cbs (problems that had a much bigger impact than ronaldo's departure). manchester city and tottenham are (slowly) beginning to play football. fulham is confirming itself as one of the best things in the league for the 2nd year... there's much more variety in the league. teams like aston villa, birmingham, fulham, everton, wigan they all have "their own" specific football. many teams are building a tactical identity for themselves, wich means that u can actually watch different kind of matches every week (and not the same old crap, like in the past). and that's an outstanding improvement, coz more variety means that the quality of the football is improving, that the coaches are (finally) trying to do something with their teams.
premier league has never been better than this. sure there are still a lot of teams that play some horrible football. but they are less than last year... and than 2 years ago.

oh and the fact that no english club reached the champions league semifinals means absolutely nothing. having many teams in the semis didn't mean the premiership was the best league in the past (because it wasn't)... likewise having no teams in the semis this season doesn't mean the premiership is weaker than last year (as it isn't). champions league is a cup competition structured in eliminatory rounds. u just can't use it to base any sort of judgment.
 
Henry :D

Seriously, Chamakh is a done deal. Balotelli might end up at Arsenal. Inter might need Sagna in exchange. He surely needs to get a keeper also.
 
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Nick Cave said:
Bringing it it back on topic, I'm curious to see just who Arsen brings in this summer, I feel the guy needs to swallow his pride and get at least three or four players in...
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Even when he does win it...they`ll always talk about how he had it wrong for so long.Look at the squad now, some are young ,but they have more experience then most at their level or age.

Wenger had to hide the fact that they couldn`t compete in the market because the Highbury flats never went to plan. That why they sold,sold,sold and brought 1 & 2 in. It`s managing a squad not good enough because that`s what we had.I know he really believe in them more then they did themselves. Did Wenger lost yeah somewhat... Is Arsenal as a club better from it.
 
beboq said:
Wenger had to hide the fact that they couldn`t compete in the market because the Highbury flats never went to plan. That why they sold,sold,sold and brought 1 & 2 in. It`s managing a squad not good enough because that`s what we had.I know he really believe in them more then they did themselves. Did Wenger lost yeah somewhat... Is Arsenal as a club better from it.
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Agreed. This is a massive summer now for Arsene and the club as a whole. In the past four or five years, reading between the lines you could tell that despite statements to the contrary, the club was not in a position to splash out on signings beacuse of the stadium etc etc etc.

This year Wenger has come out and said that money is there from the off, so if he doesn't spend it and supplement what is overall a good squad with some experienced heads the knives will be sharpened.

I'm personally still of the opinion that we don't need that much. I'd rather the club invested a lot into the medical dept or training methodology to tackle the rancid injury record we've had of late.
 
Yeah we don't need too much. But we do need 2 or 3 more players and if Wenger doesn't spend on these and we are no where near winning anything again next season, it could be bad.

I hope he spends wisely (he usually does) but I hope if he has to spend alot on a certain player, then he will.
 
Our current team sits like this:

Manuel Almunia ESP G
Łukasz Fabiański POL G
Vito Mannone ITA G
Wojciech Szczęsny POL G

Bakari Sagna FRA D
Thomas Vermaelen BEL D
William Gallas FRA D
Mikaël Silvestre FRA D
Johan Djourou SUI D
Emmanuel Eboué CIV D
Kieran Gibbs ENG D
Armand Traoré FRA D
Sol Campbell ENG D
Gaël Clichy FRA D
Philippe Senderos SUI D

Abou Diaby FRA M
Cesc Fàbregas ESP M
Tomáš Rosický CZE M
Samir Nasri FRA M
Denílson BRA M
Aaron Ramsey WAL M
Alexandre Song CMR
Andrey Arshavin RUS M
Jack Wilshere ENG M
Fran Mérida ESP M

Eduardo CRO F
Robin van Persie NED M
Carlos Vela MEX F
Theo Walcott ENG F
Nicklas Bendtner DEN F


I'd like to see the following leaving:

Łukasz Fabiański POL G
Mikaël Silvestre FRA D
Armand Traoré FRA D
Abou Diaby FRA M
Denílson BRA M


Realistically, I'd see the following leaving:

Mikaël Silvestre FRA D
Armand Traoré FRA D
Philippe Senderos SUI D
Fran Mérida ESP M

I'd expect the following to go on loan:

Carlos Vela MEX F
Jack Wilshere ENG M
Wojciech Szczęsny POL G

I'd expect the following to remain untouchable:

Łukasz Fabiański POL G
Abou Diaby FRA M
Denílson BRA M

To revamp the side:

+ Defintely need a keeper - Adler would be a good swoop, and demote Almunia to 2nd, and dump that shite Crapianski- Doni of Roma has also been in the daily rags- Logan Baily?
+ Defintely need a CB - mooted that Subotić is on the radar as well as Jerome Boateng- RB needed - van der Wiel?
+ The midfield department def needs to be cleaned, and we need to cut the fat on the team-
+ Definitly need a CMF/DMF - Lassana's name has popped up - but God knows-
+ CF - mooted Chamakh is in-



Move back to a 4-4-2 next season?


René Adler GER G
Manuel Almunia ESP G
Vito Mannone ITA G

Bakari Sagna FRA D
Thomas Vermaelen BEL D
William Gallas FRA D
Neven Subotić SRB D
Jerome Boateng GER D
Gregory van der Wiel NED D
Johan Djourou SUI D
Emmanuel Eboué CIV D
Kieran Gibbs ENG D
Sol Campbell ENG D
Gaël Clichy FRA D

Abou Diaby FRA M
Cesc Fàbregas ESP M
Tomáš Rosický CZE M
Samir Nasri FRA M
Denílson BRA M
Aaron Ramsey WAL M
Alexandre Song CMR
Andrey Arshavin RUS M

Eduardo CRO F
Robin van Persie NED M
Marouane Chamakh MAR F
Theo Walcott ENG F
Nicklas Bendtner DEN F



------------------------------Adler ---------------

------van der Wiel/Sagna----Subotić---Vermaelen---Clichy

Nasri----------Song/TBD--------Fabregas-----------Arshavin

-----------------Chamakh----------Robin van Persie------




daydreaming over---- :)
 
Subotic will definitly not leave Borussia Dortmund and Jerome Boateng
will go to Manchester City, he already reached agreement with them. ;)
 
i honestly think all we need 2-3 new experience players and where good to go. spend the rest on na new medical team and new defensive coach
 
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