Arsenal Banter Archive August 12 2014

12 Aug 2014 23:45:57
There won't be a PL as such when the European league begins, English football will be re-vamped. It will happen for sure, I have read one article mentioning that money from the European league would be pumped back into respective countries, enough to stop clubs closing their doors? who knows.

If the premier league teams don't care about the smaller clubs in this country I don't see big European teams wanting to subsidise them in the future.
But who knows maybe some one brilliant may emerge with a master plan that's good enough to keep the domestic leagues together long enough for most of our breakaway teams to return when they realise they were never really part of the super leagues long term plan and just a means to an end.
Gordon Gekko was wrong that's for sure

12 Aug 2014 21:57:58
European Super League?

Poor idea for me.

Champion's League is enough.

Why have a separate League?
What about the fans?
As much as I love Arsenal, I can't afford to follow them all around Europe every week.
Players (mostly) are very very handsomely paid as it is, with a Super League their wages would probably double.

If you remove all the top team's from their respective leagues, where would it leave that League?

Take Arsenal, Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool out of Prem League, what are you left with?

La Liga without Barca, Real Madrid and Athletico?

Bundesliga without Bayern Munich and Dortmund?

French League without PSG and Monaco?

Also, Super League means super investment, probably by the TV Companies.
What of the teams left behind? Or more importantly, what happens to their respective leagues?

TV Companies will pump vast sums of money into a Super League, whilst letting 'those left behind' to feed on scraps.

What happens to team's like Everton, who are not run by Russian Oligarchs or Saudi Oil money?
They rely on TV money and a 'sell before you buy' business plan.

No TV money and most teams would go bust.

The Prem League, or what would be left, would turn into the Championship (no offence intended).

Terrible idea for me. A nail in the coffin of football.

{Ed025's Note - great post that dags, and i agree with all of it mate, and not because im an everton supporter...but because im a football supporter..

In such a league would Arsenal be title contenders or religation fighters? Same for Liverpool Dortmund and many others?
Plus what next? Super teams in a world league London Paris NewYork Rio Tokyo? Anyone fancy buying a London kit with players name on who earns 5 million a week?

12 Aug 2014 22:32:20
G62,

"London, Paris, New York".

No Peckham? Lol.

{Ed025's Note - dags.."you plonker".. :)

Great post Dags, spot on.

This 'super league' is an awful idea, agree with the ed too, as a football fan, it's bad for the game.

12 Aug 2014 22:39:24
Ed,

Unfortunately, football supporters seem to be going in the same direction as the dinosaurs, soon to be extinct mate.

There will, of course, always be supporters, but, as a certain Mr Keane once said, they are the prawn sandwich brigade and Champagne Swiggers tucked up in Executive Boxes.

It would kill off the rest of premiership for sure. The problem is too many teams rely on the TV rights money to survive and if such a league were to happen all that vast sums of money would be taken away to fund the such a super league. There would be a lot of teams going into administration and it would have knock on effect as you go down the leagues. Also Football at that highest level will then be detached from it's roots as a working class game and its core fans. Your average fan would not be ale to jolly around Europe all the time to follow their team. It would just become even more corporate and ultimately would kill the spirit of football for good.

A lot of the problem is player wages have just got way out of proportion. I think one answer would be to centralise all Player contracts for all professional clubs with the Football associations of that Country and FIFA then to lay down one key ground rule that the total wage bill of a club must not exceed say 40% of that clubs annual income. If that was done across the board all clubs would be a lot more financially stable.

This would also mean getting rid of greedy third party agents if all player contracts were drawn up by the associations. There would be consistent rules set regarding the clauses and bonus that could be applied aswell as the condition on both the player side and club side as to when a contract could be terminated.

The top layers will still be well off because al the sponsership deals they could still earn addition to wages but it would not be bleeding the clubs dry so much and would also help keep ticket prices down if clubs did need so much income to support their age bill.

{Ed025's Note - top post that ryan..

In the world league what happens to Manchester? Surely replaced like Wimbledon were by Milton kynes by Dubai Salford?
And Moscow pensioner's

12 Aug 2014 23:19:18
Top post Ryan.

Agree with most here, and what I said to ed02 prediction last week that this is coming whether we like it or not. If it does I will be handing my membership back and will go and support more grass roots clubs instead. I don't want away games consisting of return flights, and virtually no local derbies. IMO It will make the league much more franchised, make it easier for teams to play league games in Asia etc and take us down the NFL route. So here's hoping the super league is further away than we all fear.

How's it work with relegations and promotions? Or will there not be any? if your in it you're sorted if your not you're screwed

I've rifled through this site wondering what sparked this thread about the super league. I know it's been mentioned in the past but what's the renewed interest now? Forgive me if I missed the obvious but sports coverage in Canada is
1 hockey 2 hockey 3 baseball 4 hockey 5 basketball 6 - 10 hockey

13 Aug 2014 08:02:00
Hi Canada,

I think somebody mentioned it earlier mate, so we just opened up the subject.

No football coverage in Canada at all?

13 Aug 2014 13:05:37
We get the games here Dags, lots of them, but imagine if Sky and BT and Talk radio covered nothing but ice hockey, with baseball in the summer, and you've got the media here. 6 sports channels all owned by the same company and all showing hockey or baseball and not much else. Oh, and curling, which pushes football matches to midnight delayed broadcasts when it's on.

Superleague is an awful idea. I'm assuming from what I've read over the years that it would also be a way of the teams avoiding relegation as it would be on the North American model, with franchises as investments for sale. It I can't see the EU allowing North American style wage contracts and players rights ownership and market allocation, which would violate European anti trust laws IMHO.

12 Aug 2014 21:12:53
Hi guys can I have codes for sun dream league please?

12 Aug 2014 20:31:45
The European super league will come and it will be the beginning of the end of the game.
Some of our elite sides who are delighted to break away will soon find them selves as little fish in a gigantic pound and become the minnows who struggle to survive.
Players will want more and more tickets will sky rocket in price as will tv subscription and the ave person will lose the ability to afford to watch and interest in doing so.
Impossible!well a lot of banks thought they were unsinkable just 4 or 5 years ago and the big four supermarkets in the uk knew they couldn't be stopped its happened.
All businesses that take the public for granted eventually pay the price and football will be no different.
Footballs lost will be another sports gain

Let the Man Citys, Chelseas, PSGs, Monacos of this world go make their league and return our beautiful game to us.

If enough of the premier league big boys were to hold their nerve and stay they could be the big winners long term.
I wish I believed they would

12 Aug 2014 22:43:19
Top post G62.

12 Aug 2014 20:23:51
can someone tell me if there is a limit on first team squad numbers (or is it just for CL) because Arsenal currently have 28 players on their books.

12 Aug 2014 22:18:09
I believe players under 21 who have been at the club maybe 3 years don't have to be registered

12 Aug 2014 22:29:06
Huw,

Club's have to submit 25 players but can supplement that with as many under 21's as they want.

12 Aug 2014 19:40:54
Something I've found quite interesting is that fans of other clubs are starting to dislike us. Just shows how worried they are.

Saw someone on the Liverpool page claim that Mertesacker was one of the slowest and worst defenders in the league. Which of course is why he got in many pundits' team of the season last year.

And another look around has shown that other fans want their club to sign the likes of Walcott, Chambo and Podolski. Flattered, but they can all do one.

Anyway, I'm off to watch the UEFA Super Cup. Mostly for the game, but also to see Bale and Modric realise how much better life is when you don't play for the spurs. I'm going for 4-0 to Madrid.

Cheerio.

12 Aug 2014 22:30:03
Ted,

We are the Millwall of the Prem League, lol.

12 Aug 2014 18:37:53
According to Theo Walcott, 19-year-old defender Hector Bellerin has broken his 40 metre sprint record at Arsenal!

There was Thierry, quick, powerful a footballing legend, broken by theo, the prince of london, king of speed
And then there was hector

12 Aug 2014 16:28:45
Just wanted to thank all of you that joined the other day. After posting across all the sites, we got over 300 posters to join the league. And I know a lot of them are Gooners. So good luck to you all!

{Ed025's Note - nice one TJ mate..

Yeah thanks mate, looking forward to it ;)

12 Aug 2014 18:13:53
Wow, when it was at 100 I would of loved it if I got top ten,now just first will do;)

12 Aug 2014 16:02:58
To the ed who is in charge of the polls.

The question about whether English football can continue to support 4 proffesional leuges?
I was always under the impression that English football did exceptionally well to have 4 divisions of professional footy and a few "semi pro" or so leauges too.
Is it not actually working under the surface or am I reading the question incorrectly?

{Ed001's Note - you are reading it correctly, most of the teams outside of the Prem are severely in debt. Most in the Prem are going that way to stay in it. If something came along, such as a European Super League and that took away some of the bigger clubs, the whole thing could collapse in an instant. The likes of Leeds' and Portsmouth's financial problems are just the tip of the iceberg.}

I don't see why it can't be sustainable, I think a lot of it is down to incredibly poor finacial management

Thanks ed001. I always assumed all is well when it came to the lower tiers of the English game.

With clubs like Leeds, Charlton, Nottingham Forrest, Cov City, Wolves, Birmingham etc, one would think that some good money is being made outside the premiere league.

So when Sky fork out £1billion, does that money not trickle down to league 1 and 2? Is it like the Barca-Madrid situation where the lions share of the money is split between a small minority or is it a case of "every man, woman and child for themselves"?

{Ed001's Note - the lion's share stays in the Prem, small amounts trickle down through the entire pyramid. The problem is that the money in the Prem has got so vast that clubs are putting themselves into trouble to stay there, such as QPR. They are entirely reliant on Tony Fernandes right now. What happens if he decides enough is enough and walks away, or something happens to him, like with Markus Liebherr at Southampton, but this time there is no foundation set up to fund the club? It would fold. One club going could very easily set off a chain reaction as it would then be unable to pay money owed on transfers, which are always paid off over a period of time. Clubs in the lowest tiers are very much hand to mouth and with the transfer window set up they can no longer just sell a player when they hit difficulties.
You just have to look at Blackpool to see what happens when a club tries not to fund agents and greedy players. Ok, there is a lot more to it than that, but they are trying to keep wages to manageable levels and it just means players go elsewhere, to clubs that will pay the big money. Unless more clubs take the same stand, football in this country is not going to survive as it is. Maybe it will need to return to a regionalised competition at the lower level, as that would reduce travel costs.}

12 Aug 2014 15:57:47
We still need 3 players! A cb a defensive midfielder and a striker.

We've got chambers but we've lost tv5 so we need a cb a 3rd choice cb because chambers should be 4th choice vlaar, hhowedes, schaar, inigo martinez, nastatic, dragovic, musachio

We need a holding player no doubt arteta gives away sloppy freekicks in dangerous areas and is too slow and weak to play in thst position tiote, spyder, wanyama, song, inlet


We can't rely on giroud and sanogo for the whole season tbh there hold up players we need a pact striker like sturidge I was left frustrated with giroud and sanogo last year podolski plays out wide and dose not offer much from the flank as for Sanchez yes he can play up front but he's not a Suarez of an aguero he's better out wide so a cf is a must

Mangala, company, dechmeichelas, Richards
Mertesacker, koscielny, chambers,

Dzeko, aguero, jovetic, negredo
Giroud, sanogo, podolski, Sanchez.


City have better options in defends and up front so we need to biy more players

Bare in mind that City play with 2 forwards. We only play with one. Aguero & Jovetic are play makin type of forwards, Dzeko & Negredo are th targetman type of forwards. In that position we have Ozil & Cazorla.
We (Arsenal) use wide players that can score 15+ premier league goals(Walcott, Sanchez, Podolski, etc). Cazorla was only used wide last season due to lack of wide players.
In th wide positions City use playmakers & old fashioned wingers(David Silva, Nasri + Milner & Navas).

So u need to take into concideration the formation teams play.

Agree with Jen. Nasri is a pathetic spineless little cretin who I have no time for. Although, I did thoroughly enjoy him having to witness Arsenal dismantle him and City on Sunday.

As for the grey haired injury prone dutchman who is currently not fit enough to play for his club, he will enjoy only playing once a week as it'll help protect those niggles. Still, they can battle Liverpool for fourth whilst we challenge for titles.

See the mighty spurs massive aka the notorius person army on tv last night that's what makes me proud londons TOP firm

12 Aug 2014 13:18:44
So, the new season is just around the corner, lots of 'pundits' and I use that term sparingly, have had their say on the challengers this season.

I think it is safe to say that Man City and Chelsea have been tipped to win the league. Manchester United have been talked up due to having the "Liverpool factor" of a game a week with no Champions League football.

Liverpool have lost Hannibal Suarez and are doomed to failure apparently.

Arsenal have the same old "soft underbelly" and "mental fragility" even though the trophy monkey has not only been removed from our back but now past onto Chelsea and Spurs.

So, my question to you horrible lot is, what do you realistically see happening this season and what is a good season?

1st or 2nd in the league mate, maybe even 3rd with another domestic cup win and a very big push in the champions league

In my opinion Greeny it is down to how well our new fitness coach performs (I think we have a new guy, right?). If he can prevent serious injury to any key player or have players return to action sooner (for the first time since whenever) then we have a fantastic chance. Couple that with what looks like improved squad depth (except CB which will hopefully be addressed soon) and the future looks extremely bright. Comparing today to where we were exactly 12 months ago ensures we are all smiling and cannot wait for Saturday.

Sorry mate I didn't actually answer your question :) . Keeping the key players fit will result in seeing exactly how good this team/squad is. And I reckon they are the best in the league! Champions and a good run in Europe (SF's) could be possible.

GJ14, I love your enthusiasm and optimism! I would snap your hand off for PL champions and a CL run to the semis!

Ulster, I think we will surprise a few this season. I can definitely see us splitting Man City and Chelsea (not sure which way) and if Ramsey, Alexis and Ozil click and the defenders stay fit, then I reckon we could go all the way!

12 Aug 2014 15:49:00
Apparently, the last 5 times we have won The Community Shield, we have finished 2nd in the league.

2nd for me.

That's the spirit man. We were not that far off last season. If we can take more points of the 'top four' this time round we will be right up there. Then every Gunner hating pundit the world over will have to eat a whole lotta humble pie!

Must be why Hanson retired he knows it's coming

COYG

12 Aug 2014 12:32:35
despite liking them both, would love Gala to take Podolski and Campbell off our hands for a crazy amount. Pod's decent with a great shot, but does not contribute enough, is too slow and won't get enough game time.
Campbell's star is as bright as will be for some time, again will struggle for playing time and if as mooted is worth £15m then we should snap their hands off.

So £25 in and straight out on Reus please - covers the false 9/centre forward role and also pacy left attack - great end product and would score plenty of goals in this team.

Get a CM defensive midfielder in and we are as strong as we havebeen in years.

12 Aug 2014 13:27:00
Someones been playing fifa methinks :P

I think we should keep Campbell, he would be a great rotation player and has some potential for the future. Podolski on the other hand is a real dissapointment for me, other than his finishing he doesn't contribute much.

Playing FIFA? Nope, just reading the rumours/papers and commenting on them, or does any opinion need to be formed from computer games?

Still makes sense to me. For all Campbells muted promise, he may one day be of Reus quality, but why wait if we have the chance to upgrade now.

12 Aug 2014 20:44:00
I say that g1 because the "lets just do a deal" attitude. It isn't click of the button stuff. Getting £25m for two players doesn't mean there's £25m to spend on another one.

As for making room for a player like Reus I'm with you all the way

12 Aug 2014 10:35:07
Just reading some of the ssn predicitons and majority have gone for chelsea with paul merson and paul walsh saying arsenal if we sign DM, and Gary Neville believeing it will take as much as three players too bring home the league, I personally think we need a DM and a CB back but I don't think much money would need to be spent, I would love to get nastasitic from city, he's young and has a lot of potential, he is also gone to 4th choice for city and with him not being english, I think city would be open to offers along with the player, for DM I don't believe we need a world class player, someone that covers a lot of ground, decent tackler and is a physical presence 6'2 or 6'3 and he will just sit infront and allow others to play ball. what are your thoughts?

12 Aug 2014 12:39:20
Nastasic would do do just fine, but I don't see it happening. But he's only a year and bit older than Chambers? We need a DM for sure, a DM who can handle the transition from defence to attack of the modern game.

12 Aug 2014 13:34:58
Would love Nastasic I think we'd have great young back-up to Mert and Kos.
Imagine in 5 years what a centre pairing of Chambers and Nastasic could be like!

Alas Wenger says he wants more of a utility man, which I agree with because we need top talent and top talent need games.

More playable positions more likelyhood of picking up games.

More games equal happy players.

We've all read on here people reckoning Verm coulda been molded into CDM. If Wenger thought he'd be good enough at it he'd have done it. Similarly if he thought he was good enough at LB he'd have played him there more often than Nacho.

He is not that much older than Chambers (although at that age a year or two is a lot), but he has played 34 Premier League games and 26 Serie A games as a centre back.

12 Aug 2014 00:23:23
Not football related.

Robin Williams, great man, great actor.

RIP.

12 Aug 2014 00:42:18
Such a shame. Superb actor.

Mmm, it's a tragedy, thoughts and best wishes to his friends and family. and if vietnam gooner was here i'm sure he'd say goodnight robin williams

Great comedian, sad times Dags :-(

Entertainment wise, got to be one of the most naturally talented funny people to have ever lived. A genius.

Even as a young guy, I can appreciate his genius, did equally as great when he took on more serious roles. RIP Mr Williams

His performance in dead poets society made me become a teacher.

What a legend.

"Ppppppp piss off Lou!"

An absolute comedy genius. Remember watching Mork and Mindy as a youngster thinking it would be great to live in the loft!
Rest in peace and nanoo nanoo

12 Aug 2014 09:15:30
Agree Rocky,

Look's like Mork has finally gone to meet Orson.

A very funny very kind man, a news paper did a stunt many years ago where they sent a spoof letter to lots of celebs from a man asking for £100 to take his girlfriend who'd left him out for a slap up meal to try and win her back.
Only two celebs answeredthe letter, one said don't waste your time the other Robin Williams not only sent the £100 but also a signed photo and wishing the man luck and asked to be let know how it had gone.
God bless him, its really sad

{Ed025's Note - good story that G62..thanks for sharing mate..

Great story G62 and top comments all round. One of my favourite comedy actors.

A true legend who shall be missed.

12 Aug 2014 13:40:01
Was wicked sad when I heard the news.

Just thankful for what he left behind