Arsenal Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2011/2012

jordainius wrote: »

If Wilshere does return by the end of the season, he'll most likely be included in the Euro 2012 squad, and unless I'm mistaken he wants to play for the UK at the Olympics (27-July to 12-August) which would effectively mean he won't get a break in the summer which would in all likelyhood have a negative impact on how much we would get out of him in 2012-13.

Part of me wouldn't mind if he misses the rest of the season, misses the Euro 2012 squad, gets a bit of downtime in the summer before starting from scratch in pre season training at the start of July with Arsenal. We're good enough to make the top 4 without him so I hope he isn't rushed back and that we have a fully fit Jack Wilshere raring to go for next season.

Aye, something to keep him out of the WC wouldn't be heartbreaking for me.

EDIT: Euros, not WC, DERP.

KaiserGunner wrote: »

That would be ridiculous if Wilshere played in the euros and the Olympics. Surely there would have to be a rule (or common sense prevailing) that whoever plays in the euros shouldnt be called up for the Olympics as well?

Totally agree! But I think I remember Cristiano Ronaldo playin for Portugal at Euro 2004 and then in the Greece olympics, hopefully there has been some sort of rule made since then, but I doubt it, in club v country rows the authorities almost always stick with the countries.

The FA have said the england Euro squad won't go to the olympics.

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

On the contrary older fans who've seen other managers are the most likely to want him gone from what I've seen; it's the younger generations who've known nothing but Wenger who are most behind him.

Wouldn't agree with this. Been supporting them since 1992 myself, maybe that's not long enough to be what you consider an older fan, but Graham didn't get the best out of a bloody good Arsenal side (in the last 4 years of his time, obviously he did very well in the first 5). 10th in 1993, 4th in 1994 and he got sacked halfway during that disastrous 1994-95 season. The next season, with Bergkamp and Platt signed, Bruce Rioch struggled to get what should have been a title challenging side into 5th place. Wenger compares favourably to the other 2 managers I've seen to be honest.

Those who have only supported Arsenal since the Wenger era has started have only got Wenger on 96-05 to campare with Wenger of 05-12, and I believe many of those fans can only see a man who has fallen well behind the standards he initially set, they've no other Arsenal manager to compare him to except himself and a lot of these fans would want him gone. But I don't believe how long a fan has been supporting the club has much relevance to whether a fan wants him gone or not.

Wenger has generally got the best out of his sides, but his sides have always been mentally fragile (the great 2000-2005 team blew 2 league titles and a Champions League in 2004 because they bottled it or took way too long to snap out of a bad run)

The difference between Wenger pre 2005 and post 2005 is that pre '05 Wenger in general always kept his best players. (3 exceptions with Anelka, Petit and Overmars before anyone points them out, but in general the club did not sell its best players)

In 2005, Vieira and Edu were let go without much of a fight and we've lost at least 2 key players pretty much every summer since. That is the only thing that has changed and is the main reason we could challenge for trophies up to 2005 and that we can't ever since.

I find it difficult to make my mind up on Wenger because I don't know for certain who is more responsible for the change in culture since 2005- Wenger or the board. I suspect it's Wenger and the board, and if so they all either need to change the club policies or get the hell out. (That doesn't mean blowing 50M every summer, if we keep our best players by refusing to sell, particularly in cases like Fabregas with 5 years on his contract, and by offering our existing key players the money they deserve, we won't need to spend that big in the summers.)

The thing is, this is the same Arsene Wenger who in one summer spent 8M on Jeffers, 8.5M on van Bronckhorst, 6M on Richard Wright, gave Sol Campbell a 5M signing on fee on top of an 80/90k a week contract, and paid 3.5M for Jun-Ichi Inamoto. And they sold nobody that summer (apart from a handful of players released for free) and refused to sell a wantaway Patrick Vieira. Went on and won the double. He wasn't concerned with being financially sufficient then, finances are the boards job, its the managers job to constantly bust the boards asses to get every penny he can.

Mickeroo wrote: »

Arsenal is the only club in the league that is run in a sustainable manner. City,Chelsea even tottenham, liverpool and united, they can't go on indefinitley the way they are. the bubble has to burst and when it does arsenal will be the the club that will come out on top. I'd rather see the club stay run the way it is than spend a tonne of money and dig themselves into a massive financial hole that they'll never get out of, even if it means winning nothing for a few more years. Plus the crop of younger players in the team is the best we've had in a long time. The future looks pretty bright to me at the moment.

The wage structure is not being run in a sensible manner though, we were unable to offload Almunia, Bendtner or Denilson last summer and that can only be because of the wages they are getting, Bendtner is on 56k, Denilson is reportedly on 50k and Almunia is reportedly on 60k. We're effectively throwing millions away each season because of that policy of paying players based on their potential instead of how good they are at present and what they've acheived. We have Walcott currently on 60k and demanding 85k a week in his current negotiations! He's not worth that.

The club has to make 20 million a season for repaying that gosh darn debt, I'd like to think most fans accept that and understand what it means with regard to how the club must be run. I myself feel that we're not using the resources we actually have in the best way, I'm not looking for the club to spend more, just to use what we have more wisely.

Last summer, letting Nasri go was a good move all round, his wage demands were crazy, he had one good consistent 3 month spell, and he was no loss. 25M for him was an absolute steal.

The Fabregas transfer was insanity. 5 years left on his contract, we were in such a strong position and Barcelona embarrassed us, they got him for about 20M less than he was actually worth. But his sale really weakened the team, which posed a massive threat to how the team would fare without him, and if the team doesn't do well on the pitch that will ultimately hurt them financially. Keep Fabregas, no need to sign Arteta, and who knows- maybe the collapse at the start of the season wouldn't have happened had we kept Fabregas and Wenger wouldn't have been forced into a few days of panic buying at the end of August!

Biggest regret about Fabregas- we missed out on the prospect of combining Cesc's supply with van Persie's current form.

The club has recently announced profits of 49.5M, we sold Cesc for 29M, don't sell Cesc- we still have profits of 20.5M and one of the worlds best players on our books. (Add in the 10M we wouldn't have had to spend on Arteta and we would have made a profit of 30.5M!)

I just feel that it is possible to both be profitable, and hang on to our best players. I only believe in buying players if we have to, so I'll never call for the club to spend 50M every summer! And about our young players, it's hard to get attached to them when a part of me can't help but believe that the club will only go and sell them when they start to approach peak value. I'd love to think Szcz and Wilshere and Oxo-C will still be at Arsenal in 5 or 6 years, but the way the club has been run in the last 6/7 years tells me they'll be gone and all we'll have left is the money we made from them

amacachi wrote: »

Not that I feel like going over the whole Cesc thing again but as far as I can tell he wanted to leave. Once a player wants to leave, they're going to leave. When had he signed that long contract? Might've just been doing Arsenal a favour.

Maybe, but Patrick Vieira wanted to leave many times over the course of his career, and the club held firm. In 2001, he really tore into Arsenal, criticised their ambition, said their signings weren't good enough (Campbell, van Bronckhorst, Wright, Jeffers, Intertoto) and that Arsenal wouldn't finish in the top 6 and to forget about Europe. (Went on to win the double!!)

A player should be sold when the club says so, not when the player says so!

jordainius wrote: »

Maybe, but Patrick Vieira wanted to leave many times over the course of his career, and the club held firm. In 2001, he really tore into Arsenal, criticised their ambition, said their signings weren't good enough (Campbell, van Bronckhorst, Wright, Jeffers, Intertoto) and that Arsenal wouldn't finish in the top 6 and to forget about Europe. (Went on to win the double!!)

A player should be sold when the club says so, not when the player says so!

Can't say I know much about that with Vieira but it didn't seem to affect his performances, Cesc looked off last season to me. There's no point holding onto a player who won't do their job, different players will react differently to such situations.