Wenger Ready To Spend Big

Morning everyone. The transfer talk has started in full since we're out of every competition, so there's going to be a lot of talk and very little action for the next few months by my estimation. It's amazing how every single year people, including the media, think we are going to go on a spending spree and by five great players for big money that are ready to play right away. It never ever happens. We'll probably buy one or two players who Wenger think have the potential to start, but not overpriced players, and then we'll buy a youngster or two. This is how it works every year.


So today we start with Arsene Wenger saying he is not "scared" to spend big money if he finds the right player whom he thinks is worth it.

"Scared of what? I would not be scared." "If we have the money, and I am convinced it is worth it, we will do it."

Now something interesting is said here. Wenger says "if we have the money." Listening to Keith Edelman and the rest of the board it sounds like Arsene has loads of money, in fact the stated number was 70 million pounds. So why would Arsene say if we have the money when clearly we do? Who knows? Maybe it's to try to work down other teams that would want more money if they thought we had tons. Anyways, I think maybe for once this talk from Wenger could be heading toward a signing we have heard of before.


Now for some exit talk, and of course it starts with Hleb and Flamini. Hleb's agent (who has become quite a prick) is linking his client with every team imaginable just about trying to drum up an offer for him.

"I'm often approached about Hleb...I have nothing to hide; Aleksandr is a world-class player. Real Madrid, Juventus and Barcelona are interested in him. But there are no official offers."

There are reports of a huge transfer fee for him, and if we did get an offer with anything over 10 million quid I say sell him. He is a good player but he never scores and if he wants to go we may as well let him.


As for the Flamster, he's wanted by Bayern and Juve. I want your opinions on Flamini, I really do. Do you think he's staying or going? I have to say my opinion is that he is going. It's mid-April and there's no news of him even being close to signing a new deal, while the list of clubs after him add up. I think he's gone, what do you think?


Now as for players coming in the player on most everyone's mind is Hatem Ben Arfa. He hasn't been playing as much at Lyon as he would like and seems to know of our interest because he says his future will be sorted out at the end of the season. He does, however, say that he is happy at Lyon and his talks for a new contract are progressing. I think it could be good that he is getting less playing time, maybe they are preparing to sell Ben Arfa so they want to give other players a run out. Guess we shall see. We've also been linked with his team mate Karim Benzema, but I don't see that one happening.


For news on the dressing room atmosphere, it is once again Emmanuel Adebayor saying to pick ourselves up and finish strong this season.

"It is difficult, but I know my mum will be somewhere watching the TV, so I have to play for her, all my family and all the people who love Arsenal.

"We have to win all those games now, to play for our honour and for our fans."

It's always Adebayor encouraging us on. Adebayor, Toure, and Gilberto are always the ones providing us with the motivation and are always willing to work for it.


This is going to set me off on a rant so here goes, scroll down if you want to skip it. I'm SO SICK of people criticizing Adebayor at every opportunity! If you read other sites posts or their comments all you see is how crap Adebayor is or why he shouldn't be in the team. He's scored 26 goals! Nobody else is even close to that for us. Not only that, he's scored important goals too. He scored in both legs against Liverpool, scored at Milan, scored in countless league games, and a lot of times he is playing up front by himself! Since when was 26 goals a terrible return worthy of you being shipped off to play for a shite team? Does van Persie ever score 26 goals? No, but nobody is saying how he should be sold or given away for free. Is it just because he is not Thierry Henry? No, his finishing isn't brilliant. But his work rate is unmatched and his runs are good and he is out there for us every single game without fail trying to get us wins. I'm sick of reading ridiculous articles like this one and reading comments like these. He is not to blame for us losing out on the title. There are, believe it or not, eleven players on the pitch at a time and they all had a part in it. Robin van Persie hasn't scored since his return except for that one penalty and nobody blames him because of the injury. But they blame a guy who is NEVER injured and has worked all year when he doesn't score every match. Point is, Adebayor is our best striker and we'd be well worse off without him so piss off you whining scumbag fans who hate him.

There, that feels better. Leave your comments on Flamini, Hleb, Adebayor, Ben Arfa, or anything you want. There's also quite a good discussion going in yesterday's comments if you wanna have a look at that. Good day everyone.

I Don't Understand You Arsene...

Well how many times have we seen this happen lately? Take the advantage just to give it away and lose. It happened against Chelsea, Liverpool, and now United. I'll hopefully get time to do a match report later, although I am about to go coach my Under 7's team so that's the priority at the moment.

I really have one main concern about today though. It's not that we should sign no players, it's not that our defense can't keep goals out to save their lives, it's that I think maybe Arsene hurt the team today. As far as I know, and I have seen no story to go against this, Manuel Almunia is not hurt, he has not been killed, arrested, sick, or gotten into any fights with team mates or the manager today. So please, do tell me, why was Almunia not in the game today? Why would Wenger abandon the keeper that has played well for us all season in favor of a lunatic who has trashed the team and the manager all year?

I'm not saying Lehmann cost us the game. He had a decent game as far as I'm concerned. What my problem is is how is Almunia supposed to take this now? He's benched in favor of Lehmann who has trashed him all year, and I don't see a reason why. What's this going to do to his confidence? Arsene doesn't trust him in big games now? I just don't see the reason at all.

I think Arsene also made two more mistakes today. Starting Song at the back against United is suicide. I don't care how well he played at the African Cup of Nations, he is not who you should have in defense against United. Especially when he hasn't played in the first team in ages.

He also started Eboue again, over Walcott, who is clearly a much better option for us on the wing. I'm sick of seeing a waste of space on the pitch when our most electric player gets 20-30 minutes a game if he's lucky.

I know this is another rant but I'm really starting to wonder about Arsene. Let me know what you think.

Update: It appears that Almunia was indeed injured before the match yesterday so that would be the reason for starting Jens though. So I guess this turns into another Eboue rant.

Flamini Out Three Weeks, Some Transfer Rumors

Morning all, I'm really tired. Interesting stuff there I know. So I'm just going to throw some stuff together and hope you all like it since I'm really not up to the task right now.

First off is news of Mathieu Flamini's injury he suffered against Liverpool. It now looks like he is going to be out for three weeks. It's an ankle injury that happened when Steven Gerrard stepped on his ankle and you could tell he was in some serious pain by the way he was taken off. Flamini seems like a guy who would play through a broken leg if he could so it must have really been a painful injury. We're definitely going to miss him against United and for the rest of the way, but hopefully he recovers faster than expected.

Second we have Jens Lehmann mouthing off again about how much better he is than Almunia and how he could have kept us from going out of the Champion's League. Yes he brilliantly saved Riquelme's penalty in the semi-final against Villareal two years ago but that does not mean he would have saved this one. The goals that were scored against us were not down to goal keeping mistakes and I don't know why Lehmann always feels the need to kick us when we're down. You want players that will try to help morale after tough defeats, not say stuff like this.

In completely different news, Dennis Bergkamp is trying to become a coach. He has applied for his coaching badges in Holland and will be allowed to get them more easily because of his 79 caps for his country. Oddly enough, before he has even found a team to start with, they have already given him 1/16 odds to be Arsene Wenger's replacement somewhere down the line. I hope Dennis does well as every Arsenal would. He's a legend and I think smart enough to do a good job. What do you think of Dennis coaching? Anyone taking the 1/16 bet?

While Arsene Wenger may not see that Theo Walcott should be starting, Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor surely do. They both praised him for his run and assist (which was bloody brilliant by the way) against Liverpool and Kolo said he thinks he will be one of the best players in England. Arsene, we're pretty much out of every opportunity for a trophy this year, can we PLEASE see Theo get a couple starts. I think we all want to see what he can do and now would be the time to get him prepared for starting next season.

And now we'll just go through a couple more transfer rumors because that's what happens this time of year after some bad results.

Today we are being linked with 21 year old Cristian Zapata, who plays for Udinese. He's a defender and supposedly they are rating him at about 15 million quid. Now I for one never ever watch Italian football so I haven't seen much of him but from what I hear he is quite a capable player and could be what we need. I think 15 million is quite a lot for a defender though as we know Arsene doesn't like shelling out a lot of cash. We shall see.

Also we've been linked with Ajax's Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. This has been a name associated with just about every big club in England, which is a problem for us. This means a bidding war, and Arsene Wenger is not going to spend more than Chelsea, Liverpool, United, or even someone like Man City. He's rated at 18 million which is a ton and I really don't see it happening. If it did I would honestly be overjoyed and possibly run out and by a Huntelaar kit right away, but I just don't think it will.

That's it for now. More tomorrow, probably a United preview. Cheers.

Liverpool 4-2 Arsenal

We had it, and we blew it...twice. I've never felt as depressed after a single match as I did after this one. Which is right now as the match ended five minutes ago. I'm in no mood to write a match report properly for this, so if you want to read one I'm sure you can find one somewhere else. I'm just going to say a few things I'm feeling and it may quite possibly turn into a rant.

First off, the first twenty minutes were absolutely 100% the Arsenal we all know and love. It was beautiful football at it's best and Diaby took his goal wonderfully. The way we were playing at that point I thought we could go on to win pretty easily. When their goal came on 30 minutes, however, we completely shut down. Adebayor couldn't create any space, Cesc was too afraid to ever take a shot, Flamini got hurt and Gilberto brought nothing to the team in his place, and Diaby dissapeared. Add to that Eboue's usual rubbish play and it didn't look good for us at all.

I wasn't feeling so bad at half time with the score at 1-1 though. It still gave us a good chance to go through with one goal or if no goals came we still had extra time. But we were just as bad in the second half as we were after their goal in the first. We couldn't hold on to the ball and both wingers did nothing. I was shocked that we started Adebayor as a lone striker when we clearly needed goals to go through. I was even more shocked that Eboue got to keep his place in the team instead of Walcott, who made an absolutely beautiful run and cross for our second goal. He brings so much to the team that Eboue never ever ever could.

The penalty called on Toure was absolute shite. He jumped to avoid our own player, then moved his arms trying to stay off of Babel and Babel fell and he gave a penalty. The last goal everyone was forward for a free kick and there wasn't anything anyone could do really so I don't give a tit about that one, but the first two are exactly what I talked about in my preview. I said we would score first and they would come at us, and they did just that, and just like I feared, we conceded the goals. Senderos was at fault for both of them and it wasn't his best game by far.

I don't really know what else to write. I just had to get all of this off of my chest because I'm sick of all the goals we concede and the way we play after we do. We knew it was going to be tough but to be set to go through not once but twice and blow it both times something needs to be changed. We need wingers, and we need something else at the back. I don't know who or what but it's really come to show at the end of this season.

That's all I'll rant about for now. Leave a comment if you're as pissed as I am.

The Last Chance at a Trophy This Year

Morning everyone. Oh how I've missed you all. I've been gone at Spring Break for the last week and couldn't type anything up where I was but I assure you I am back with a vengeance now, and not a moment too soon. We've got Liverpool yet AGAIN today, who I am utterly sick of. We've drawn 1-1 in both of the previous matches with them in the past week which means we're going to have to score at Anfield today if we're going to progress.

Injury news ahead of the game isn't really a lot, Sagna and Rosicky are still out but Robin van Persie is in the squad after passing a fitness test.

So the lineup will probably look something like this:

Almunia
Toure-Gallas-Senderos-Clichy
Walcott-Flamini-Cesc-Hleb
RvP-Adebayor

Does anyone else wish we had another really good strike option alongside Adebayor? I know RvP is generally good but he hasn't done very well since he's come back from injury and I don't like the Bendtner/Adebayor partnership much. I'm being optimistic by putting Walcott on the wing, because there is a chance Eboue could start but Walcott is a much better option. And you probably saw this somewhere else but he's really wanting a start. He even went to ask Arsene Wenger what he had to do to start. Let's give it to him tonight Arsene.

So we know we have to get a goal, so we have to think where can that goal come from? The most likely candidate to me is obviously Adebayor, but he is on poor form so it may have to come from somewhere else. I think Walcott could maybe get one. He can get through the defense, it's just a matter of him finishing. Maybe RvP could do it but I for one am extremely frustrated with how little he has done for us since his return. But I really think the goal may end up coming from Cesc or Flamini. Cesc has scored this year, even though it's not lately, and he usually plays well in big games and comes through when we need it. Just look at the Milan game. Flamini on the other hand doesn't score that much but he seems to pop up with crucial goals in big games. I can remember him scoring winners against United and Chelsea in the past and I'm sure there are others but maybe he could nick one today.

The real key to the game besides that one goal is our defense. Liverpool are going to play Torres as the lone striker with Gerrard behind him, and we absolutely cannot let them score, which we haven't been able to do this year. In fact our defense hasn't stopped goals from much anybody this year. I blame most of them really on the Gallas/Toure partnership, as it looked like we conceded far less when it was Senderos and Gallas in the middle. I don't know what Arsene sees putting them out there together but they never look like they are organized and neither one of them is a real muscler. After we get that first goal though they are going to come at us and we have to be able to hold off that little girl Torres and that hubcap thief Gerrard. C'mon lads now is the time to hold it together!

So my final score prediction is going to be 2-2. I know that is a ton of goals but I feel like after we score they'll really come at us and we'll have to grab another one. Maybe I'm just being optimistic for a good game though. Probably be 1-1. Oh well.

Enjoy the match everyone. I hope we're back to face Chelsea or Fener next time. Cheers!