Arsenal Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2011/2012

Not even a rumor or dodgy made up tabloid story about Arsenal signing anybody

Fuzzy_Dunlop wrote: »

I think Arteta will be back for Sunday. Maybe Rosicky instead of Arshavin or Ramsey would work. Although I think Ramsey might have a good game against the United midfield.

I think ramsey will be better with arteta alongside him, at least he wont feel pressured to do everything- hold up midfield and get forward etc. not making excuses for his crap performance but he gave himself a lot to do at the weekend and couldnt handle it.

Heres hoping we've verminator back too!

And we made Arteta take a paycut to join us!

We have 29 in the first team squad excluding Miquel and Yennaris who are officially reserve team.

GK
Szcesney ✓ #1
Fabianski ✓ #2
Almunia - Needs to go in this transfer window tbh
Mannone - Would have made it with us if he was going to at this stage; super game against Fulham a couple of years ago being his Arsenal highlight

DF
Koscielny ✓
Vermaelen ✓
Mertesacker ✓
Djourou ✓
Squillaci - Again needs to go this window
Sagna ✓
Gibbs ✓
Santos ~ Not convinced. He's 29 in March so he has maybe 2 years in him. We need to be looking longer term buying the left back version of Sagna would do nicely.
Jenkinson ~ Not convinced either but he is 19 so lots of time. Just not sure we can depend on him when Sagna is injured he's too young and inexperienced.

MF
Song ✓
Ramsey ✓
Arteta ✓
Wilshere ✓
Benayoun - Thank you kindly Chelsea but back to you he goes. Might still be able to do a job for an Aston Villa/Everton type of club.
Rosicky - Pity about his injuries because he was looking quality up to then; he's now a shadow of that and his age is showing, wind down your career somewhere else in the summer Tomas.
Diaby - A career of turgidness interspersed with some madskillz brilliance. Too injury prone, too anonymous, undependable. Lets send you off to somewhere where you can be a big fish in a small pond. Back to Auxerre?
Arshavin - Clear evidence that you shouldn't buy players on the back of good showings at World Cups/Euro's. A fraud of a footballer who's happy to coast along picking up his £80k a week. Might not have been fully utilised on the wing for us but I doubt he'd have been much better in the hole. Well maybe if you put him in one and shot him. Hopefully Anzhi flash some swag at us and offset some of the loss on him.
Walcott ~ Put it this way; if Liverpool with their penchant for signing overpriced overrated English players came and offered us £20m for him I'd struggle to keep a straight face while they signed the cheque. Having said that I'm loathe to let him go for peanuts because you can bet your bottom dollar the ****er would start consistently producing England -v- Croatia performances. Not sure what to do with this one.
Chamberlain ✓
Coquelin ✓
Miyachi ✓
Gervinho ✓

FW
Van Persie ✓
Chamakh - Don't think he's been given a fair crack of the whip [well especially last season] but he just can't do it either. Pity, thought he'd have been a good player for us - someone to get on the end of those Sagna and [at the time] Clichy crosses to no one in particular in the box.
Park - Why sign him if you don't even want to give him a chance let alone play him? Surely has to go down as one of the strangest and worst Aw signings ever. Even if he was bought to sell shirts; Inamoto was a similar buy but he ****ing played more times!


Its far too big a squad tbh, especially in midfield. There are particular areas that need addressing; as I've outlined I really think we need a quality left full back; Santos is too old and unconvincing to be the long term solution. Aly Cissoko at 25 could be that. As for right full; not convinced Jenkinson is an able deputy but he has time and we can always put the mercurial Koscielny there if needs must.

Midfield is a mess; carrying four players on big money for no good reason. Need to cull them and spend the savings on a creative midfielder of some description and a winger who is a winger and not a winger impersonator like Arshavin and Walcott. I'm willing to give Gervinho a chance, he might learn to finish in time. Lets go raid Ligue 1 again for Marvin Martin and break the club record for Andre Ayew.

Forwards, well what can you say... we actually have no one should anything happen to RVP or should he leave. Clearly that has to change. No point spending big money for someone to sit on the bench but we have to do better than Chamakh and Park. I've no suggestions other than young, promising and proven doing a job for middling team in Europe somewhere [i.e. relatively cheap and easy to get].

Overall we have far too many obscenely paid journeymen for want of a better word. Almunia, Arshavin, Squillaci, Rosicky, Benayoun, Diaby, Chamakh and Park need to go asap. Hopefully that should free up money for replacements; we don't need like for like just quality in the right places. You need to mix that with youngsters who are happy to compete for a place and get a chance when/if injuries happen - look at Welbeck and Cleverly at United for example.

You'd hope that Campbell, Bartley, Frimpong and Lansbury should be able to come back from loan and do a job of some description. Yennaris and Iggy should be enough defensively even if we get rid of Squillaci and A.N. Other.

Hopefully we can get a bit of money for Mannone, Bendtner, Vela and Denilson. Or at least get them off the wage bill to free up some money.

Out of interest and I don't think I'm a million miles off with this;

Arshavin £80k/yr
Rosicky £70k/yr
Diaby £60k/yr
Benayoun £40k/yr
Chamakh £50k/yr
Park £30k/yr
Squillaci £40k/yr
Almunia £55k/yr
Denilson £40k/yr
Bendtner £60k/yr
Vela £40k/yr
Mannone £20k/yr

That's £31m of wages for painfully average players. I know some of them are on loan so we wouldn't be paying them but its not far off that. I'd say.

We need rid of those and we need 5 quality players in.

Arseblog today makes a similar point. Too many players on huge money just not producing. While I do feel sorry for Diaby in that he's had his career pretty much destroyed by a digusting tackle, its time to let him go. No point having 8-10 players in the squad that Wenger simply doesnt trust.

The Wenger line that we have a big squad is a fallacy, there's actually only 15-18 players that he trusts to get the job done.

L'prof wrote: »

Looks like we're offering van Persie trials to prove his worth.

Forget the policy of picking up 16-18 year olds.
Does anyone what happened to Bergkamps young fellow ?

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

I just noticed that the most recent figures put Arsenal's wage bill now around £125m, not £110m as I thought. £125m!

I wonder how much the likes of Almunia, Squillaci, Djourou, Gibbs, Diaby, Rosicky, Benayoun, Arshavin, Chamakh and Park account for... varying degrees of talent there but not much value I'd bet. We might also be stuck with Denilson, Vela and Bendtner.

Holy sh** that is one sad list.
Imagine that team lining out, a collection of the perennial injured, the big headed and the couldn't give toss.
:rolleyes:

The only thing that would make that list complete would be to add a few more of the signing that should never have been signed.
You could add that united reject silvestre for starters.

Does any other club have the same number of injury prone or apathetic players ?

Denilson, Diaby etc were all given high wages to get them to sign. They were paid on potential rather than worth so that they didn't sign elsewhere. Denilson has been a complete and utter failure while injuries have robbed Diaby of his potential. Chamakh meanwhile would have gotten higher wages due to being a free transfer, nearly every free transfer is on higher wages. Arshavin was a huge name signing late in January hence him getting more or less what he wanted.

Almunia would have gotten a wage increase when he displaced Lehmann a few years ago. Djourou meanwhile was (not sure if he still is) an International defender so would have gotten a pay rise too.

It's not simply a case of throwing money at players for no reason. Players like Almunia got lucky while players like Diaby could have been worth it if they lived up to their potential. It sucks that we have so many players on wages much higher than they deserve but it is what it is and I reckon that's why we have been stingy with wages recently. To avoid it happening again.

I'd rather Mertesacker than Cahill tbh, the latter is yet another example of overpriced overrated English 'talent'. £7m for a player who's had a poor season and is out of contract in the summer is madness.

KeithAFC wrote: »

That is exactly it.

We should be signing the likes of Hazard and Goetze. Real quality players. Give these sort of players big wages. They can win and dictate the out come of games.

Why can't we sign Podolski, Hazard and Goetze and put these players on big wages. Then fill in the rest of the squad with consistent and workman like performers. The likes of Scott parker would have done wonders to this squad. Hard working, consistent performer and you know what you will get.

Gary Cahill is another player. Chelsea signed him for 7 million, 80k he will be on. What did we do? Signed Mertesacker and I bet he is on good wages but the problem is, he is a low standard player. Cahill in the long term would have been the better signing and would be worth 80k a week.

Instead, we have average players on 60+k a week and talented players like Arshavin on huge money in excess to 80-90k a week who don't try and aren't consistent. It is the other way around.

Chelsea have been ripped off with Cahill. I find it a little ironic people complaining about high wages and then complaining we didn't get Cahill for 80k a week, he's not worth anywhere close to that! He'd also be in the EXACT same position as Mertesacker currently is. Third choice. If Mertesacker is a low standard player, Cahill doesn't even regisister. I'd much rather Mertesacker in my team than Cahill.

Scott Parker meanwhile is a very average player. A good run of games and suddenly everyone makes him out to be world class. He's average and nothing more.

Two players I'm glad we avoided.

It'd take around 7 foot for Mertesacker to be out of his depth.