Arsenal Banter Archive August 03 2014

03 Aug 2014 23:20:53
Can someone clear this up for me, After today I think its apparent we need some steel in the middle of the park, now the figures that have been touted for that sort of player ( Vidal, Carvalho, Khedira, Pogba ) are all up to 30m + my question is why would we pay anything near that for Khedira when in January he can sign a pre-contract and go for nothing, surely Real Madrid would consider a lesser offer then lose for nothing next summer?

04 Aug 2014 00:46:25
A lot can change in a year. The amount of teams that want him would likely x10 as he is free. Plus how much would you save? Like they was 20m for him apparently. Ok so in January he is free. You telling me his agent won't want us to pay a huge signing on fee because he is free

We could buy Khedira for £20m now and shore up the defensive midfielder role and be ready to go this season.

Or we could go back to our penny pinching ways and wait til January to try and agree a Bosman deal in July 2015. Oh wait. Now Bayern Munich have agreed a deal with him and were out of all competitions and the premier league by January.

Good thinking Batman!

Greeny I agree if its 20m then that's cool, just media reports are stating 30m which I wouldn't go with!

03 Aug 2014 20:55:10
To all of you who signed up for the fantasy league, or are in the process of figuring it out (Dags), thanks. We invited the fans from the top 6 clubs. It seems as if the Mancs didn't appreciate our invite and didn't even post Reet's invitation! I hope it was a sign of respect. It is a top 6 kinda thing!

Winner gets a dance with Ed002! (Dags if you won, it could be Jenny as long as she signs the papers!)

All jokes aside, Thanks again.

{Ed001's Note - Man Utd has a fantasy football page, so it was posted there.}

03 Aug 2014 21:24:55
Me and Jenjen dancing?

Yumyum lol.

TJ, I'm on it now.

The fantasy football login, not Jenjen .

03 Aug 2014 22:07:30
Tj,

I did it but when I entered code (781641-191102) it said 'error'.

03 Aug 2014 21:24:32
Ah cheers ed001. We couldn't find it. I didn't think it would be a problem but reet said they don't like him so it kinda. flustered me haha.

{Ed007's Note - There's a Man Utd page league going as well, TK-Red runs it every year. The PIN is 54866-57266.}

03 Aug 2014 20:40:00
I can't argue with you AW

"I think we were not at the level physically today. You could see basically Monaco were stronger, sharper. If you do not win the challenges in the middle of the park then you don’t win the game."

Let's get someone to win those challenges and free up the magicians to work their magic.

03 Aug 2014 23:23:08
Totally agree mate.

03 Aug 2014 19:49:33
I know its very early days, but if we get carvalho, then it will allow ramsey ozil wilshire ox walcot sancez cambell cazorla etc to go and do their thing, but I feel giroud is going to be the fly in the ointment in this team. He won't be quick enough in thought and movement to compliment them. I hope i'm wrong but I just don't see him cutting it. There will be balls threaded through and decisive passes wasted on him because he ain't mobile enough.

Steve if we have a CF that scores 20 + which is what we have then I am afraid failings are in the midfield with regards hitting the net, their return isn't good enough, Giroud is no Ian Wright or Henry but he gets 20 odd goals and numerous assists, the midfield for all the ball they have need to be better at shooting.

03 Aug 2014 20:20:42
Agree about Carvalho( or Spyder or Khedira) but not too sure about Giroud.

Would love to give him a chance and see how he gets on.

Remember, he scored 17 in first season and 22 in second, so he is improving, and his hold up play is good.

I think the jury will always be out on Olly.

03 Aug 2014 20:52:56
I think the modern game has changed that the man down the middle is your big heading winner man and your wingers are your pace. Seems to me anyway. And we must address the dm position. For me personally we can win the league with giroud up top. But we can't win the league with arteta dm

I like your optimism guys on giroud but the truth Iis he is not top top quality. Just The prem look at the opposition and how many would swap giroud with us. Chelski costa nah, man city any one from three nah, man u vp nah. Liverpool sturridge I doubt it. The top euro teams, well we won't even go there. I just hope he proves me wrong, but I just don't see it.

D16

Spot on mate, we have so many quick players who can run on to Giroud it is a made for Arsenal, if the ball breaks down that is when we struggle. Hence a top quality DM

03 Aug 2014 18:27:02
Rightly as almost everybody here has pointed out. We badly need a proper dm! For me khedira fits perfectly into our style of play! COYG

03 Aug 2014 17:16:06
Bump

Struggling to put Monaco away, brings a certain perspective to yesterdays one sided fixture.

These are warm up games as is next Sunday, nothing should be read into them one way or the other for the season ahead.
Its all to easy to get over excited or depressed about results and performances that are worthless come the 16th of August.

Exactly G62, doesn't mean a thing, it is about working on weaknesses, AW will know where ours is, as we all do

03 Aug 2014 16:51:37
I have been extremely defensive about Giroud, Arteta and Wilshere but with recent signings and if we get Khedira, I feel they both should be sold. Wilshere has not developed and he tends to give the ball away too much.
Giroud is OK but he just hasn't got the pace this team needs, we would be much better putting a more atheletic striker upfront.
Areta is well past his day and last season it really showed, time to sell ASAP in my opinion.

Bring in Khedira as Arteta replacement, bering in Pogba or Vidal as replacement for Wilshere and bring in Falcao (unlikely) or Cavani as a replacement for Giroud. Obviously some of these players are very unlikely but you get the idea what kind of players we need.

03 Aug 2014 18:39:20
Nobody should bee sold this year but we do need first team replacements for Arteta + Giroud to make a winning side

These games are a fitness finder only and apart from the fact that Sanogo can score goals we won't learn anything new from them about the players we already had.
Jack for me has never really been cost affective for the team as he has always given the opposition more chances when he loses the ball than he creates for us by using it well but this is his defining season so let's see where it ends and not judge him before it even starts

03 Aug 2014 15:42:55
If you could bring back any player from Arsene Wengers reign to play in are current crop of players who would u all choose and why?

03 Aug 2014 17:05:33
Viera. No explanation needed.

03 Aug 2014 17:17:55
Henry, simply because he's the best striker to play in the pl.

Freddie ljungberg

03 Aug 2014 17:34:53
Henry, if you need an explanation why then you should punch yourself in the face.

At the moment Patrick Viera.

03 Aug 2014 18:41:20
dido 1404, but Wilmslow has a point with PV

03 Aug 2014 18:54:33
We have been very lucky to see so many world class players under Wenger - Henry, Paddy, Freddie, Overmars, Petit, Pires, Sagna, Cesc.

But if I could bring one back, it would be one he did not buy - DB10! A DB10 that could fly!

03 Aug 2014 19:00:57
Henry because he had a nice haircut.

I kid of course.

03 Aug 2014 19:44:41
Dido? When did she play?

Gilberto silva

03 Aug 2014 14:26:45
I think we can win the title with what we have but will always be swimming against the tide without a quality DMF player, Flamini and Arteta just don't cut it as premier league champions in that position.
As we stand I'd put us down as third most likely team to be champions come May, one player could make a massive difference to our chances

03 Aug 2014 12:57:26
So obviously as an arsenal fan, players hair is always an important factor in becoming legends. So with that in mind, hector Bellerin what a lot of potential he has, could really pull an arteta with that barnet. Decent enough Ayer as well ;)

Bellerin looks excellent to me I was very impressed with him.

More scouting success IMO

03 Aug 2014 11:50:41
Wenger said he believed South American teams are stringer in 2 key positions CB and ST, if we sign a defender (which is very likely) I'm putting my money on another Latin American addition. Thoughts on who we could go for? I'd love Thigo Silva or Dante doubt we have a chance at either though.

03 Aug 2014 11:21:27
At the Emirates cup yesterday, initially I got a bit confused with the starting line up. Who was starting where? I guessed flamini was playing cb, the ox in the middle and Monreal and Gibbs on the left rotating the LB and LW positions. But at half time when our defence switched to the end in which I was sitting, I noticed Gibbs was at left back with monreal partnering chambers in the CB positions. That got me thinking. If tommy v leaves, will Wenger be signing a replacement, or is chambers in fact the 3rd choice cb, with monreal the 4th choice cb, in much the same was as Sagna was. Bellerin looked good, so cover for right back if there's an injury at cb and chambers is playing there. And at left back, worst case scenario flamini can play there if Gibbs is injured and monreal is required at centre back.
Not saying I hope any of this to be the case. I'd much prefer us to just buy a top quality cb if TV5 leaves, but in the scenario above, chambers would get more playing time which would make sense considering the big transfer fee.

03 Aug 2014 10:03:14
Some excellent quotes coming out of Arsene Wenger following our demolition of Benfica yesterday.

Key points:

He's happy with his spending but will probably buy one or two more players. A CB and a DFM. I would love Varane over Hummels as this guy is a beast but could be played in rotation this season with a view to taking over from Mertesacker next season forming a French partnership with Koscielny. No sauce, just personal opinion/preference.

As for the DFM, my sauce about a month ago, which I posted about, is still sure the deal is ON and WILL happen before September 1st.

Another quote which I'm happy with is the fact that Joel Campbell will be playing for Arsenal this season. I'm pleased because he looks fast, lively and an eye for goal. He just gives us a different option upfront or on the wings. We have players covering all attacking positions twice over. Something we've lacked for a long time.

Finally, Wenger has pretty much come out and said that he was under massive financial constraints due to the Emirates stadium being built and that the last decade was the most sensitive and important of his entire career.

Hundreds and thousands of fans (myself included) grew frustrated with the lack of spending and so called ambition shown by figure head Wenger. Now the truth is out, we can see Wenger did everything humanly possible with the resources given and kept us competitive for long periods of the season.

The winds of change are sweeping through Arsenal and the only way is up this season. We will get bigger and bigger and stronger each year until we are the team to beat domestically and in Europe.

I for one, am very excited and look forward to this season with more hope and almost confidence than ever before!

Good post Greeny

Why would Varane move from being first team at Madrid to rotation for us? He would also cost a insane amount.

03 Aug 2014 07:36:24
Is it possible that Monreal is being converted to cover cb as well as lb?
Defence should be priority at the moment, get TV future sorted ASAP and bring in at least one more cb, what happened to the nastasic rumours?
Cb and a proper DM and for me we will be right up there come the end of the season.

03 Aug 2014 08:48:17
He's not even a good left back, I wouldn't want to see him at CB to often

03 Aug 2014 07:14:14
Well I'm off to the Emirates again today. I've got to say that I thought that Bellerin was quality and only 19 years old too.
A 19 year old defender playing like he does at a club like Arsenal! WOW! what a player he can turn out to be. His off ball movements are well in front if what you would expect a young player/defender to be like. I would like to see Wenger play him in a few Premiership games where the pressure is really on. Maybe the Palace game would be a good start for him. Loved him made a great impression. Sanchez well the quality was there to see if only 10 minutes of magic in total.
I don't think he will be given much time to think when the season starts. Our opponents will be sticking on him like glue or they will severely pay for it. Second top scorer at Barcelona last season and 6 of Messi's goals were penalties! now that's what I call a quality signing.
Come on you are all waiting for it aren't you?
WELL DONE SANOGO!
I had to laugh it really made me smile I was thinking about this site everytime the ball went in the net LOL. Good I hope he keeps it up especially the dance celebration after each goal I won't mention him falling over though LOL now that was funny too.
Campbell can grow into a beast of a player really would like to see him get his chance in the premiership. I hope Wenger slots him in. I understand from someone in the know yesterday that we are going to possibly bring in another player maybe 2 before the end of the window.
Guess what? Looks like we have got too many players!
Ha Ha! Come On Arsenal let's give it to them this season .!

{Ed025's Note - good read that golds..

03 Aug 2014 08:18:17
Good post Gold's

Have a lovely day mate.