Arsenal Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2011/2012

FUNKY LOVER · 03-02-2012 12:43PM

One thing I will never forgot is letting flamini diarra and Gilberto go only to replace them with denilson,total mis management,everyone could see how bad he was years before wenger.and his policy of not giving proper contracts to players over 30 like pires only to sign silvestre on a 2 year contract.seriously.

gosplan · 03-02-2012 01:18PM

tayto lover wrote: »

Any good players we had were sold to make money for the board. I don't need to list them. The same thing will happen in the future with the good young ones coming through now. History repeats itself, especially at Arsenal.
A friend of mine in London who lives close to the ground and who is a lifelong supporter says that anger is mounting with the fans. One point out of a possible twelve in the last four games is not good enough. If that's not bad enough you have many players not even trying and management is doing nothing about it. No replacement for RVP and no second proven goalscorer bought. There are rumours that some of our experienced players are not happy and might want away in the summer too, not just RVP.
And some of you don't buy that at all ??

That's a totally different point and I actually agree with what you're saying.

my point was that there's ambition at the club but the boards ambitions are

1: finances
2: success

The end result is that our squad isn't good enough, we promote inexperienced players who are played too often, have no-one to learn off and can't be dropped because we only have about 14 players you feel comfortable taking the field in the first place, and that's before you include injuries.

I gave the example the other day of Nani, played decent in his first season, became frustrating and as a result had totake a back seat for a season watching Tevez, Ronaldo, Rooney, Giggs, Berbatov, Park etc show him how it should be done.

Walcott has been totally inconsistant since arriving at the club and the only really consistant thing about him is that when he's fit, he plays - regardless. That's because we never ensured that we had a plan b in place. Throughout his career, he's had no-one to really learn off, a team around him that's constantly in transition, and every poor performance is rewarded by a start the next week.

emergingstar · 03-02-2012 01:20PM

FUNKY LOVER wrote: »

One thing I will never forgot is letting flamini diarra and Gilberto go only to replace them with denilson,total mis management,everyone could see how bad he was years before wenger.and his policy of not giving proper contracts to players over 30 like pires only to sign silvestre on a 2 year contract.seriously.

Flamini ran down his contract nothing can be done and Gilberto was past it been honest

As for selling diarra and buying silvestre even I can't explain them they were crazy decisions

Frisbee · 03-02-2012 01:21PM

Gilberto could certainly have given us another season of good service at least.

gnfnrhead · 03-02-2012 01:38PM

Diarra pushed his way out. Flamini was in great form that season and Diarra decided after less than six months that he wanted to leave again. Had he shown even a little patience, he would have ended up being first choice the following season when Flamini took the money and ran. We didn't have many options with him unfortunatly. He wasn't willing to fight for his place (having done very little to earn a start by the way) so decided to demand a transfer again to somewhere that he would be an automatic starter. Meanwhile Gilberto, I think, would have only been any use as a back up. He didn't have it anymore to be first choice for us.

emergingstar · 03-02-2012 01:44PM

gnfnrhead wrote: »

Diarra pushed his way out. Flamini was in great form that season and Diarra decided after less than six months that he wanted to leave again. Had he shown even a little patience, he would have ended up being first choice the following season when Flamini took the money and ran. We didn't have many options with him unfortunatly. He wasn't willing to fight for his place (having done very little to earn a start by the way) so decided to demand a transfer again to somewhere that he would be an automatic starter. Meanwhile Gilberto, I think, would have only been any use as a back up. He didn't have it anymore to be first choice for us.

I didn't no that bout diarra, good point

tayto lover · 03-02-2012 02:10PM

Quazzie wrote: »

That still doesn't explain why there was no effort made to replace them with all the money that was available to them.

Clichy was another I can think of.

Royale with Cheese · 03-02-2012 03:18PM

Just in the airport waiting on my flight to London. Got a ticket for the front row behind the goals tomorrow. If I shout loud enough the players should be able to hear me. Anyone got any particular abuse they want me to direct at Theo walcott? I think arshavin is going to start too.

Frisbee · 03-02-2012 03:22PM

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

Just in the airport waiting on my flight to London. Got a ticket for the front row behind the goals tomorrow. If I shout loud enough the players should be able to hear me. Anyone got any particular abuse they want me to direct at Theo walcott? I think arshavin is going to start too.

Do it like the janitor in Scrubs:

Royale: "You're stupid!"

Theo: "That's it?"

Royale: "It'll get to you"

Theo in three days: "NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

Fuzzy_Dunlop · 03-02-2012 04:16PM

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

Just in the airport waiting on my flight to London. Got a ticket for the front row behind the goals tomorrow. If I shout loud enough the players should be able to hear me. Anyone got any particular abuse they want me to direct at Theo walcott? I think arshavin is going to start too.

"You're fuckin ridiculous" a la Mitch Hedberg at 3:22 in this video

cson · 03-02-2012 04:58PM

Just reading through those names... It's actually ****ing galling how many players we've just let go without any fight whatsoever. Had we kept half the players we've sold the past few years and added a select one or two we wouldn't have an empty trophy cabinet at The Emirates. Fair enough we might not be as profitable but surely theres a price somewhere we can pay for success.

Gilberto - forced out, could have done a job for another season as Frisbee says. The guy was a huge influence too - really experienced and professional. I'll never forget the night he single handedly dragged us to penalties against Doncaster Rovers in the League Cup one year.

Flamini - When you see the money being burned on the likes of Arshavin, the fact we wouldn't give him the contract he wanted after he proved himself in that season partnering Cesc in midfield was criminal. Even more so as the guy was a very useful utility man who filled in at LB and RB for us on the Champions League run iirc.

Cole - A lot of hate toward Ashley Cole which is natural I guess but the guy didn't exactly hold us to ransom. He wanted £5k more and employed the Roy Keane tactic of waiting it out. Of course we blinked; we'd never break our wage structure to keep him. He subsequently turned in about 5 odd years as the leagues best left back. We got a hormonal Billy Gallas. Only one winner there.

Adebayor - Yes City came calling. Yes it was a huge amount of money. But did we have to? No we didn't.

Eduardo - Never the same after his injury but he'd have been better to have as a squad striker than Chamakh let alone Park. He still had the flashes to brilliance even after the injury [see his goal v Burnley in the FA Cup].

As for the rest; I'd have kept Bobby Pires for another season. Cesc and Nasri goes without saying. I'd also have kept Vieira - solely for the fact that in hindsight he was never properly replaced and it took until the last couple of seasons until Alex Song fully developed as a player to fill that void.

It was the right time to sell Henry I think, Hleb and Toure were good sales for the money we got. Clichy was absolutely needless considering we got **** all for him anyway. Diarra wanted to go so whatever. The Gallas deal should never have happened.

So yeah; if we'd have kept the players I've outlined above and added the select one or two - i.e. Goalkeeper and a DM if Vieira wasn't kept then we'd have a trophy or two in the bag at this stage.

Instead we sold, created an incredible situation contractually where we're happy to have 10 mediocre players on 50k rather than pay a world class one the money it takes to keep him.

Thats the most frustrating thing; its not as if we would have required any major surgery to take the next step to winning trophies. The template was there, it needed a tweak here and there. But now its come to the point where we do need major surgery. And thats ****ing inexcusable considering where we started from.

keano_afc · 03-02-2012 05:08PM

Not forgetting Fabregas. Probably the most spineless transfer I've ever seen the club partake in. To roll over and basically let Barca set the price was gutless.

cson · 03-02-2012 06:15PM

keano_afc wrote: »

Not forgetting Fabregas. Probably the most spineless transfer I've ever seen the club partake in. To roll over and basically let Barca set the price was gutless.

I didn't

cson wrote: »

As for the rest; I'd have kept Bobby Pires for another season. Cesc and Nasri goes without saying.

Redzer7 · 03-02-2012 06:15PM

cson wrote: »

Just reading through those names... It's actually ****ing galling how many players we've just let go without any fight whatsoever. Had we kept half the players we've sold the past few years and added a select one or two we wouldn't have an empty trophy cabinet at The Emirates. Fair enough we might not be as profitable but surely theres a price somewhere we can pay for success.

Gilberto - forced out, could have done a job for another season as Frisbee says. The guy was a huge influence too - really experienced and professional. I'll never forget the night he single handedly dragged us to penalties against Doncaster Rovers in the League Cup one year.

Flamini - When you see the money being burned on the likes of Arshavin, the fact we wouldn't give him the contract he wanted after he proved himself in that season partnering Cesc in midfield was criminal. Even more so as the guy was a very useful utility man who filled in at LB and RB for us on the Champions League run iirc.

Cole - A lot of hate toward Ashley Cole which is natural I guess but the guy didn't exactly hold us to ransom. He wanted £5k more and employed the Roy Keane tactic of waiting it out. Of course we blinked; we'd never break our wage structure to keep him. He subsequently turned in about 5 odd years as the leagues best left back. We got a hormonal Billy Gallas. Only one winner there.

Adebayor - Yes City came calling. Yes it was a huge amount of money. But did we have to? No we didn't.

Eduardo - Never the same after his injury but he'd have been better to have as a squad striker than Chamakh let alone Park. He still had the flashes to brilliance even after the injury [see his goal v Burnley in the FA Cup].

As for the rest; I'd have kept Bobby Pires for another season. Cesc and Nasri goes without saying. I'd also have kept Vieira - solely for the fact that in hindsight he was never properly replaced and it took until the last couple of seasons until Alex Song fully developed as a player to fill that void.

It was the right time to sell Henry I think, Hleb and Toure were good sales for the money we got. Clichy was absolutely needless considering we got **** all for him anyway. Diarra wanted to go so whatever. The Gallas deal should never have happened.

So yeah; if we'd have kept the players I've outlined above and added the select one or two - i.e. Goalkeeper and a DM if Vieira wasn't kept then we'd have a trophy or two in the bag at this stage.

Instead we sold, created an incredible situation contractually where we're happy to have 10 mediocre players on 50k rather than pay a world class one the money it takes to keep him.

Thats the most frustrating thing; its not as if we would have required any major surgery to take the next step to winning trophies. The template was there, it needed a tweak here and there. But now its come to the point where we do need major surgery. And thats ****ing inexcusable considering where we started from.

Great post, sums it up really.

amacachi · 03-02-2012 06:36PM

cson wrote: »

Gilberto - forced out, could have done a job for another season as Frisbee says. The guy was a huge influence too - really experienced and professional. I'll never forget the night he single handedly dragged us to penalties against Doncaster Rovers in the League Cup one year.

Wasn't really following much when he left so can't comment.

Flamini - When you see the money being burned on the likes of Arshavin, the fact we wouldn't give him the contract he wanted after he proved himself in that season partnering Cesc in midfield was criminal. Even more so as the guy was a very useful utility man who filled in at LB and RB for us on the Champions League run iirc.

Just started playing well for the year before he wanted to leave.

Cole - A lot of hate toward Ashley Cole which is natural I guess but the guy didn't exactly hold us to ransom. He wanted £5k more and employed the Roy Keane tactic of waiting it out. Of course we blinked; we'd never break our wage structure to keep him. He subsequently turned in about 5 odd years as the leagues best left back. We got a hormonal Billy Gallas. Only one winner there.

Agree.

Adebayor - Yes City came calling. Yes it was a huge amount of money. But did we have to? No we didn't.

£25million for a player who wanted to leave for wages we could never match?

Eduardo - Never the same after his injury but he'd have been better to have as a squad striker than Chamakh let alone Park. He still had the flashes to brilliance even after the injury [see his goal v Burnley in the FA Cup].

Thought he should've been given longer.

As for the rest; I'd have kept Bobby Pires for another season. Cesc and Nasri goes without saying. I'd also have kept Vieira - solely for the fact that in hindsight he was never properly replaced and it took until the last couple of seasons until Alex Song fully developed as a player to fill that void.

Pires was crocked. Cesc was happy to leave and it was always his plan as far as I'm concerned. Nasri had a brief spell of outstanding form, he's not all that amazing. Would've liked to have see Vieira stick around in some kind of role.

As I said elsewhere, there's a pretty high number of players who looked great for Arsenal for a short time but didn't reach those heights again. Reyes, Flamini, Hleb etc.

emergingstar · 03-02-2012 06:47PM

Gilberto was well passed it great servant but come on ded time to go
We moan about Flamini not getting a contract but then we moan when we invest in youth like diaby

G1032 · 03-02-2012 06:57PM

keano_afc wrote: »

Not forgetting Fabregas. Probably the most spineless transfer I've ever seen the club partake in. To roll over and basically let Barca set the price was gutless.

I'd have let him spend a year in the reserves............

FUNKY LOVER · 03-02-2012 09:40PM

I think people are missing the point of letting 3 dms go and replacing them with denilson.we all know how that turned out.

gnfnrhead · 03-02-2012 10:08PM

FUNKY LOVER wrote: »

I think people are missing the point of letting 3 dms go and replacing them with denilson.we all know how that turned out.

It was a gamble that didnt pay off. It happens. We gambled on Fabregas after Vieria left. We all know how that turned out. Koscielny was considered a gamble by many too, look how well he is doing now. Szczesny was gambled on and look how he's turned out.

You also have to remember, Denilson was one of the highest rated youngsters at the time. I believe he got his work permit based on exceptional potential. Obviously Wenger wasnt alone in thinking he would develop into a quality player, but for whatever reason, it never happened for him.

Not every gamble is going to pay off but for Wenger I reckon overall, more have paid off than have backfired.

L'prof · 03-02-2012 10:11PM

Wasn't Denilson the U19 Brazilian captain when we signed him?

kellso81 · 03-02-2012 10:26PM

Anyone know if the match is on tv anywhere tomorrow. Been looking for it but can't seem to find it but why else is it on at 1 o' clock if it's not for tv?

Marty McFly · 03-02-2012 10:45PM

L'prof wrote: »

Wasn't Denilson the U19 Brazilian captain when we signed him?

He sure was I remember hearing so much about him before I,d even seen him play he was touted as the next big thing.

But this just shows we cant rely on youth all the time. Sometimes it works as in Ashley Cole, Fabregas etc sometimes it doesnt as in Denilson, Vela etc it cant be relyd upon solely for success.

DarrenCroker · 03-02-2012 11:26PM

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/transfer-news/Arsenla-midfielder-Andrey-Arshavin-to-snub-Anzhi-Makhachkala-move-says-agent-Phil-Smith-article860527.html

I think arshavin deserves a bit more respect. He hasn't been in good form but he's loyal to the club. Imo if the fans got behind him it could help boost his confidence a bit.

d22ontour · 03-02-2012 11:48PM

cson wrote: »

Just reading through those names... It's actually ****ing galling how many players we've just let go without any fight whatsoever.

Wage structure, nothing more or less is the problem for all those names bar Cesc.
Well run club who offer/ed huge dividends/admin fees for shareholders with a strict wage policy, if the wage demands were met for all of those, the 'admin fees' accrued by the shareholders would be lower.
Great manager consistently finishing top four to reap the CL cashcow is now under huge threat with the four horse race with the odd fifth horse now being a six horse race with still little investment from the shareholders...
Something has to change and it isn't the manager tbh. City/Chelsea are here to stay unless the FFP actually do what they intend to do,which they won't unfortunately.
This season really is showing how out of touch your wage structure/transfer policy is regarding CL places.Wenger might get you there this season but it will take an almighty push, Spurs i didn't think would be this good i admit but the bar has been raised somewhat yet this transfer window, we still see no activity.

Chelsea/City oil money isn't going away.
Spurs want into this party and are earning it quite well.
Liverpool are investing for the long term, they want in too.
Arsenal seem to be still stumbling in regards to competing.
United are in huge debt but still make enough money to compete as hard as it's gotten, United can almost play a first eleven where Rooney will be the oldest player in the team...That will be Fergies ending legacy if all holds well imo.

Drexel · 03-02-2012 11:59PM

L'prof wrote: »

Wasn't Denilson the U19 Brazilian captain when we signed him?

Was doing about of googling to see how he was gettin on in brazil. I hadn't heard about this

From the metro - Oct 2011

Denilson returned to Sao Paulo in the summer, after telling Gunners boss Arsene Wenger he is a 'winner' and unhappy with the club's failure to claim any trophies during his four year stint in North London.
However, the 23-year-old, who said the move was aimed at boosting his chance of a return to the Brazilian national team, was sent off twice in his first three matches, with the latter of the red cards coming after swearing at a referee.
Denilson was criticised for his petulance with a series of angry messages on Twitter, but his online row escalated this week, after he branded fans who moaned about manager Adílson Batista as 'very, very annoying'.
A series of angry exchanges took place, before the mild-mannered youngster embarrassingly tried to claim he did not mean his comments in a negative way, only to once again rile up the Sao Paulo faithful.
It appears Denilson has found no more support in his native Brazil than he had in North London, with a section of fans now demanding manager Batista never selects him

Couldn't find much on how he has gotten on since. Any one any idea?

gnfnrhead · 04-02-2012 12:21AM

jonny666 wrote: »

Couldn't find much on how he has gotten on since. Any one any idea?

Three games out of four this season, one yellow, no reds and no goals assuming this is right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_São_Paulo_F.C._season

There are match reports linked in the results section, but they are in Spanish(?) so I cant read it. If you are REALLY interested in him you can translate them with something or other

cson · 04-02-2012 12:24AM

d22ontour wrote: »

...

Just to say that I broadly agree with your post with a little further emphasis that the particulars of our wage structure is the problem. It's not that we pay peanuts its that we're unwilling to break it/pay enough to keep players in certain circumstances. We've consistently been a selling club, from Overmars to Fabregas. We've just been lucky that we've had a manager who's been able to pick up the pieces and pull a rabbit out of the hat each time we lose a significant player. That rabbit isn't coming this time.

That said, Arsene isn't without his faults. It's been mentioned numerous times that we are a title and trophy winning team but for a select couple of signings in the right place. We didn't need a Man City whole infinity money cheat esque Football Manager strategy, just one that ensured we added a Lloris, a Hazard or an M'Vila every once in a while. The manager has to take some of the blame for it, but not all of it.

I don't mean to disparage Liverpool because they are a club I admire [ever since Fowler urged the ref he hadn't been fouled when he awarded them a peno at Anfield then told Seaman which way he was going... - McAteer wanker!]. But they've been out of the Champions League for two odd years and still spend £70m+ on players notwithstanding the money gained from Torres. Hell, they even spent £20m+ on Torres which is far in excess of our record transfer fee. They still manage to retain Gerrard when Chelsea came calling, I know he's born and bred Liverpool but Ashley Cole was born and bred Arsenal. I have the utmost respect for their mentality even though they've been by and large mediocre for almost two decades. That speaks volumes of a club who value their history and are willing to back it even if it isn't producing results.

And thats considering Liverpool have been desperately run for a number of years by Gillet and Hicks and to latter extent Houllier.

We have a fantastic stadium, great infrastructure, a youth system that produces talent, a scouting system that finds talent [or at least used to], a great fanbase yet we feel the need to run it as a cut price 'retailer' selling the best stock and replacing it from the next best cheapest seller when we could move on a level and produce quality goods that would fill our stadium twice over.

It's absolutely ****ing galling how badly run our club is in terms of a football end product. Yeah, its a business, but watch that business disappear cos you continue to charge Hollywood prices for Bollywood quality.

Noo · 04-02-2012 02:53AM

kellso81 wrote: »

Anyone know if the match is on tv anywhere tomorrow. Been looking for it but can't seem to find it but why else is it on at 1 o' clock if it's not for tv?

One of the tube lines is closed or something like that. They moved it from 3 to 1 because of transport issues. It was never scheduled to be on tv at 3 so can't be on tv if they change the time. But they're always on internet laptop tv yay!

Fuzzy_Dunlop · 04-02-2012 03:12AM

The thing about the wage structure is that Spurs one is even lower than ours . It's not so much that we can't break the upper limits of it that's the problem, it's more so that we have all our wages tied up in overpaying eejits such as Diaby, Denilson, Squillachi, Allmunia etc...

amacachi · 04-02-2012 05:02AM

DarrenCroker wrote: »

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/transfer-news/Arsenla-midfielder-Andrey-Arshavin-to-snub-Anzhi-Makhachkala-move-says-agent-Phil-Smith-article860527.html

I think arshavin deserves a bit more respect. He hasn't been in good form but he's loyal to the club. Imo if the fans got behind him it could help boost his confidence a bit.

I can understand most fans' frustration. I'd love if he'd be played in position.

gnfnrhead wrote: »

There are match reports linked in the results section, but they are in Spanish(?) so I cant read it.

Portuguese.

Racist.

:pac:

Arsenal Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2011/2012

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