Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Hleb Off To Spain, Euro 2008 contest.

Morning all. Nasri has again not been confirmed today in case you were wondering, but this is most likely due to the fact that he was playing for France last night. Awful hard to be in London when you're playing for France. Try it. Arsenal News Review says he played well. Le Grove said he didn't play all that well. I didn't watch it so take your pick of the reviews of his performance if you're that into it.

Nasri's agent did however confirm that the deal will be done in the coming days and it will be to Arsenal. Read this.

Biggest news we have today is about Alexander Hleb and if it is anything it's confusing. Apparently Hleb's agent met with Txiki Begiristain (nice name), the Barcelona director, yesterday in Germany. They reportedly reached a verbal agreement on the player's terms and now an agreement must be struck with Arsenal to complete the move.

At the same time, Real Madrid have declared their interest in Hleb, with coach Bernd Schuster saying this:

"Over the past two months we have had a plan and we know what we want, but now Hleb has been added. We did not know he could leave Arsenal but in recent days it has been more positive. We were surprised that he might leave there."

Remember also that Inter Milan was thought to be leading the race to sign him for ages until the Spanish gians got involved. Personally I couldn't give a shite where he goes to, I'm just ready for him to be off. This reminds me of the Jose Antonio Reyes story last year, where we didn't know where he was going to go we just knew we didn't want him back. It took weeks of him being linked with Real, Atletico, and Sevilla before the move finally went through. There are some people that may still want Hleb in the team, but I'd take 10 million quid for him right now in a heartbeat.


If you're looking for a laugh you can laugh at Mathieu Flamini, who was dropped from the France squad for Euro 2008. A lot of people probably feel sorry for him, but not me. I like ex Arsenal players this is true, but I only like ones who were great players here for years, like Pires, Henry, Vieira, etc, not money grubbers who leave after one good year. Flamini deserves all the hardship he gets in my book. If you disagree, please name your reason why.

Robin van Persie has said that Arsenal need to raise their wage limit to keep players happy and make them stay at Arsenal. Of course he wants the wage limit raised, he's a player and he wants more money. I like van Persie and all but he can talk about all this when he becomes club director, or at least stays healthy for a whole season.

As you probably all know, Cesc Fabregas' new agent is Darren Dein, David Dein's son. With Cesc getting ready to go into contract negotiations with Arsenal, the talk is that he's going to play some hardball with the club. Cesc is going to re-sign, trust me on this one. There is no need to worry that just because Dein is his agent he is going to go to Barcelona this summer. He'll probably get a deal about 100,000 quid a week. This story is meant to get all the Arsenal supporters nervous but don't worry about it.

And in other news Mad Jens made the final cut for the German squad for the Euros. Good job Jens.

That's about all I've got for the day. I'm pretty stoked for the Euro's so if you want to give me your prediction on the finals, give me the two teams that will play in the finals and the final score and I'll give the winner a free ArseNole stein mug and maybe some other stuff too. It's used to drink excesses of beer, like Yuengling. So post your prediction on the forums or the comments and I'll write em all down and the winner will get that. Or you can email your prediction to me at ArseNole[at]arsenole(dot)com. They have to be in before June 7th.

12 comments:

Patrick said...

With my expert analysis I think Spain over France, 2-1

Anonymous said...

spain 3, portugal 1

Unknown said...

I can't help but laugh at all this fuss over Hleb, a guy who Arsenal fans could rarely agree on. Suddenly Real and Barca agree he's a must have??? That's the transfer market for you I guess. Hopefully it will be Barca and we'll get Toure in return.

I say Netherlands 1 Portugal 0.

Anonymous said...

Germany 5, Italy 4
after penalty shootout

Anonymous said...

I'm going Germany 2 Spain 1, sorry Cesc.

plAy0n said...

im gonna say france vs germany

2 - 1

france winning it

Anonymous said...

I think we have to ask two quetions:

1. Why are all these players leaving us?

2. Should we care?

In the first instance, the answer can only be money! True we have been trophyless for a while, but we are clearly going places. And Flamini has gone to AC who aren't even in the CL next season (ok they have a good chance of winning the uefa cup!).

Money Money Money is the answer. Our famous wage structure seems to be impeding us here, yet conversely its not stopping us getting in some great talent. So...is there a problem?

In answer to number two, specifically to the case of Hleb - i don't care that much. Firstly, if he wants to go then sod him etc etc, and also because i think there are other players who coul easily fill his boots. he's not that good!


Spain 2 - 0 Germany

WEG said...

Hey man. Do you want to swap links? Call it an American-Australian exchange.

Anonymous said...

Football bets...I agree with what you're saying about the wage structure...and I think that with Wenger at the helm we will continue to replace the players we lose with the top young talent from around the world. 2 Things worry me about this though...first of all...these young players are great...but if they are all leaving as they hit their prime then we're screwed. We'll become some sort of farm team for Milan, Madrid, Barca etc. Second I feel like teams are catching on to what we're doing and starting to poach the players Wenger targets...like Spurs with Modric...and Liverpool with Babel last year....and to me the biggest problem with this is that the price of these young unproven players is going to sky rocket. I mean we sold Thierry Henry for something like 16 million pounds...which is about what Spurs spent on Modric. Now I realize that they're at different points in their career...but I still find it ridiculous.

As players like Wilshire, Lansbury, Havard, Merida and Vela progress through our system I just hope we are able to hold on to them long enough to reap the benefit. That's my biggest fear. Long live Wenger!

Anonymous said...

Spain 2-0 Italy

gooner said...

Germany 2-1 France

gooner said...

Germany 2-1 France