Four factors in another massive week for Arsenal

197 comments August 22nd, 2011

To my slight surprise, I’m jetting off to the continent this week.  I’ll spend much of it locked in a room, away from internet access and my beloved Arsenal.  It’s unfortunate timing.  All summer a host of Arsenal bloggers, including myself, have heralded the start of a “big week” at Arsenal.  This week might just be the biggest of them all, for the following four reasons:

Champions League Qualification

I don’t need to tell you how important this is, both economically and for the morale and stature of the club.  We’re so accustomed to dining at Europe’s top table that actually securing qualification would be met more with relief than joy, but don’t let that mask its significance.

Udinese showed in the first leg that they’ll provide a huge test for us, especially with our injury problems.  We could also be without Arsene Wenger on the touchline, after UEFA extended his touchline ban by two games for “not abiding by the decision of the control and disciplinary body during the Champions League play-off game against Udinese last Tuesday”.  Arsene will be furious, as he and the club spoke directly with UEFA before the game to make sure they would not be in breach of the regulations.  Presumably if Arsene appeals the decision, the ban could be delayed, which would allow him to be pitchside on Wednesday.

The latest news on the playing front suggests that both Jack Wilshere and Johan Djourou could be in contention, which would be a massive boost.  Song and Gervinho are also eligible, and Robin van Persie will be able to take part after missing the first leg through suspension.  There is another player who was suspended from that first leg, whose potential participation is already the subject of some debate…

Samir Nasri

If Arsene picks Samir Nasri on Wednesday, and Arsenal qualify, he will be unable to play for another club in the Champions League this season.  Obviously, that would jeopardise any move to Manchester City.  Therefore, I expect some clarity in the next 48 hours or so as to whether or not this deal will go ahead.

There are a lot of mixed messages coming out of both camps – City and Arsenal – and the truth of the matter is rather difficult to unpick.  City, however, must realise that if they want the player they have to act now.  And even with the ragged state of our squad, I can’t justify turning down £20m for an asset we will lose for nothing at the end of the coming season.

I don’t think Nasri will play in Udine, especially with Wilshere and Song available.  I’m less convinced that the clubs will be able to agree on a deal before then – this might drag on until the very end of the window.

Further depatures

If he does go, Nasri won’t be the only one.  The club still anticipate the departures of Nicklas Bendtner and Manuel Almunia – the Spaniard isn’t even mentioned by Arsene Wenger when discussing his goalkeepers for next season, and has, for all intents and purposes, been ‘released’ from his contract.

Personally, I’m hoping that Bendtner can’t find a club and ends up staying – on current form, he is far more of a threat than Marouane Chamakh.

Signings

The precise sums we’re prepared to spend will probably depend on Wednesday night’s results, but it’s clear that some strengthening will have to happen between now and the end of the window – ideally before Sunday’s potentially morale-sapping clash with Manchester United.

All sorts of names are being tossed around, but there’s nothing tangible there.  Arsene told TF1 that he was “still involved in the French market”, which has fuelled speculation around Rennes and France holding midfielder Yann M’Vila.  His club, however, say they know nothing of any bid.

There are predictable links with Lille winger Eden Hazard, as well as that quartet of English-based centre-halves – Samba, Jagielka, Cahill and Dann.

I don’t think it’s at all unrealistic to hope for three signings between now and next Wednesday – especially if Nasri goes.  One must be a centre-back, another a central midfielder.  The third could be anything from a left-back to a centre-forward.

Whatever happens, I won’t know too much about it.  I’ll certainly find some foreign bar surrounded by moustachioed men to watch the Udinese game, and if I can find an internet cafe or WIFI connection to share my thoughts on it with you I will.

I return on Friday, when the landscape at Arsenal promises, for a variety of reasons, to be very different.

It is, after all, a big week.

Truly yours, your biggest fan, this is Stan (Kroenke)

592 comments August 9th, 2011

Since buying Arsenal, Stan Kroenke has truly lived up to his reputation for being ‘Silent’. Until now.

Gunnerblog has uncovered correspondence between Kroenke and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, set to the tune of Eminem and Dido’s hit, ‘Stan’. Enjoy.

Thanks to David Rudnick for that remarkable Japan rhyme. I might be back later today with more bloggery – it’s a big week at Arsenal.

Comfort from an unusual source

507 comments August 8th, 2011

It has come to something when the words of David Dein provide comfort for Arsenal fans.  In recent months he and his family seem to have actively destabilised the club they profess to love.  However, in an interview with the BBC, Dein has urged the supporters to stand by manager Arsene Wenger:

”Arsene Wenger will admit he has had the most difficult couple of years of his career, for two reasons.

‘One is the fact the game is getting more competitive, we have seen more money coming in so the competition out there is more intense. ‘Secondly, he has had to contend with the fact he hasn’t achieved what he would have hoped to achieve, albeit he has done remarkably well in the quality and style of play.

‘But he himself, and the fans, want to win trophies. Arsene is very focused and very determined. I see him regularly, I see a man who still has as much fire in the belly today as when he started.

‘He wants to win. I believe in his ability and I know for a fact he is trying very hard to improve the squad this year and I hope he does it. People have got to remember what he has achieved. It is easy in life to get rid of people. Then what?

How do you follow Arsene Wenger? That is going to be the trick for the board and it is not going to be an easy exercise.”

Naturally, Dein is going to defend his friend, but I do think the in-fighting among Arsenal fans over Wenger is decidedly unhelpful.  He’s here now, for this season at least, and probably beyond, so let’s get behind him and support him as we would anyone who our crest.

It will certainly help Arsene’s case if he can strengthen the squad in the next few weeks.  Dein stated that he knew for a fact that the manager is trying to add “another two or three players”, and after his comments last week about how “something might happen” in the coming days, I’m expecting speculation both from the fans and the media to run riot.

Today’s rumour of choice, printed in the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, and The Times, is that Arsenal will complete a £12m deal for Alex Chamberlain.  The young winger missed Southampton’s opening weekend victory over Leeds with an ankle injury, and the suggestion is that he may have played his last game for the club.

Whilst Chamberlain clearly has potential, his acquisition is far from a priority this summer.  Granted, he’s been a long-term target, but he remains a long-term prospect.  We’ve got plenty of youthful wide attackers – what we need is an experienced centre-half.

Regardless, part of me suspects this report is a question of several journalists putting two and two together.  Whether or not they’ve made four or five will become clear in the coming days.

As ever, much of the speculation this week will surround the futures of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri.  On Nasri, Arsene said over the weekend:

“I cannot speak about it but there is no major problem between Samir and myself.”

Which does beg the following questions:

1) If there’s nothing to hide, why can’t you speak about it?

2) Does that mean there is a moderate problem, if not a major one?

It does seem like the position on Nasri is shifting.  A couple of weeks ago Arsene was insisting he would stay; now the language has returned to “hoping”.  Maybe the player has made his desire to leave urgently clear.  With £185,000 p/week on offer from Man City, who knows what length a footballer might go to?

Finally, Jack Wilshere is set to be withdrawn from the England squad because he’s injured.  Some papers have tried to turn this in to a story about a “bust up” between Capello and Arsene, but I’m not sure I buy that.  England want the player; he can’t play.  End of.

Right.  Let the frenzied, mouth-frothing, eye-popping, rumour-mongering twitter-nonsensing week commence.

 

Nasri, Flamini, & Misplaced Anger

776 comments August 3rd, 2011

The saga of Samir Nasri’s contract negotiations will be familiar to you by now.

Arsene had suggested they were close to an agreement in the Spring, before back-tracking and saying talks were on hold until the end of the season.  Both Clichy and Nasri were given a deadline of the end of June to sign new deals, or face being sold off to the highest bidder.

Clichy decided his fate lay elsewhere, and left on good terms for pastures blue.  It was an amicable parting of the ways, with Arsenal able to recoup a significant profit on a player who felt he needed a change of scenery.

It’s August now, and negotiations with Nasri’s representatives seem to have ceased entirely.  The hopes of him extending his contract beyond next July have faded – he clearly sees his long-term future elsewhere.  And yet he remains.

Arsenal now face the prospect of losing one of European football’s brightest talents, and one that cost us some £13m when he joined the club in 2008, for free.  Understandably, this has provoked anger among fans.  And part of that resentment comes from the fact that this is an all too familiar pattern.

The path from Marseille to Islington to the open plains of the Bosman has been trodden before, by one Mathieu Flamini.  After a fairly middling career as a plucky and versatile squad member, including some impressive performances as a left-back in the run to the Champions League Final of 2006, the start of the 2007/08 season saw Flamini find himself in the first-team.  An injury to Abou Diaby and the absence of Gilberto Silva opened the door, and Flamini kept it ajar with a series of all-action displays that endeared him to the Arsenal faithful.

Flamini was playing for his place.  And, we were to discover, for his pay-packet.  Despite Arsene’s confidence, a new deal never materialised, and Flamini found himself able to walk away and join his boyhood club, AC Milan.  For nothing.

Flamini became the subject of much ire because, ultimately, Arsenal fans were disappointed that a solution to a problem area had emerged, only to disappear.  Fabregas and Flamini was our most functional central midfield partnership since the days of Vieira and Gilberto – in fact, since Flamini’s departure Arsene hasn’t entrusted another pair to play in the middle of a midfield four.  It was a duo that could have run and run – and boy could Flamini run.

Nasri’s career pattern at Arsenal has not been dissimilar.  His most recent season has been by far his best, and that was reflected in the fact he finished second in the PFA Player of the Year Awards.  He, like Flamini, emerged as a potential solution to a different problem: finding Cesc’s successor.  Although he excelled in a wide role, Nasri has long envied Fabregas’ central playmaking position.  The blow of the captain’s probably depature was due to be softened by the emergence of another world-class talent.

I don’t think either Arsene or the fans banked on Nasri declining the invitation to become Arsenal’s focal point.  But Nasri has always been his own man, with little respect for reputations.  He famously infuriated the old guard of the French national team by daring to sit in their seats on the coach.  He is strikingly confident, and hugely ambitious, and seems to have decided that in order to fulfill those ambitions – namely by winning trophies – he needs to move elsewhere.

Naturally, this has drawn angry comparisons.  According to some Arsenal fans, he’s “just another Flamini”.  Well, the situations have a fundamental difference.

With Flamini, the salt in the wound was that for the first time in his Arsenal career, he was worth something.  Twelve months before he departed, Arsenal agreed a fee with Birmingham for a matter of a couple of million pounds.  Had his contract not expired, the end of the 2007/08 season would have seen his worth quadruple – at least.  The feeling was that Flamini had saved his best form for the season in which he was playing for a contract elsewhere.  Arsenal benefited on the pitch, but lost out economically.

With Nasri it’s different.  Having attracted interest from the likes of United and City, at various points this summer there have been offers on the table which would allow us not only to recoup our £13m investment, but almost double it.  As goodplaya points out, the player himself is doing little wrong: he signed a four year contract, and is willing to see it through.  He has not agitated for a move away – the decision to sell him or not rests with the club.  And, crucially, the manager.

Having identified Nasri as Cesc’s heir apparent, the prospect of losing both has obviously come to Arsene as something of a shock.  I don’t doubt that the club worked hard to offer Nasri an enticing new deal, but when he and his agent withdrew from talks in the spring Arsenal should have known what was coming.  Now we’re in a position where we face the possibility of losing both players – a prospect that Arsene feels threatens our status as a “big club”:

“I believe for us it is important the message we give out. For example, you talk about Fabregas leaving, Nasri leaving.

If you give that message out, you cannot pretend you are a big club, because a big club first of all holds onto its big players and gives a message out to all the other big clubs that they just cannot come in and take away from you.”

It’s a strong statement, and one that puts the manager in something of a corner.  For now, the seemingly imminent departure of Cesc means he’s prepared to take a £22m hit on Nasri, partially in the vain hope that Nasri will revel in the freedom afforded by a central role and sign a new deal.

I consider that unlikely.  Big players want to play with other big players.  Cesc leaving does not make Arsenal are a more enticing long-term option for Nasri.

I’m also not sure he’s right about how “big clubs” behave.  Manchester United lost both Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo in the same summer – I think it’s fair to say they’ve retained their status among the giants of the European game.

A big club is by definition bigger than any player.  A big club would sell a player who didn’t want to be part of their long-term future and reinvest the cash in someone of equal talent.  Alternatively, a big club would point to the end date on Cesc’s contract, tell Barcelona to try again next summer, and sell Nasri now in order to maximise revenue for the two players and put the club in the best possible position to adequately replace them.

Arsene, usually the economist, is justifying retaining Nasri as a “football decision”.  It’s an unfamiliar stance from our spendthrift manager.  But, crucially, the fact it’s a football decision means it is his and his alone.

Nasri is not the appropriate target for anger.  Unfortunately the world of football has moved on, and loyalty is not to be expected – certainly from a player who has already walked out on the club that raised him, Marseille.  He’s a professional, doing a job.  We can only hope he continues to do that job to the best of his abilities until Arsenal sell him, or his contract expires.

Man City will gladly come in with £20m+ plus and make Nasri a very rich man.  They’re just waiting for Arsenal to give the word.  But so far, the club remain resolute.

Arsene is taking an enormous gamble.  He’s hoping that Arsenal push on from last season, claim a trophy, and convince Nasri that his ambitions can be fulfilled in North London.  As an eternal optimist, Wenger will have every faith that could happen.

Alternatively, his roll of the transfer dice could spectacularly backfire.  If Arsenal fail to progress this season, and then Nasri walks away for nothing, the manager might find himself wondering if he should have taken the money and spent it on players who actually want to be here.  And the board might find themselves wondering if they can still trust the judgement of the man once known universally as “The Professor”.

To subscribe to a daily email update from Gunnerblog, click here. Or to subscribe via RSS, simply click here. Thanks.

Next Posts


Search Gunnerblog

Get your Gunnerblog t-shirts now!

get regular updates from GS with twitter

Top Gunn

Cesc Fabregas
The man in form.

    Retro Arsenal T-Shirts from
RetroFootballTShirts.co.uk - Bringing Back The Good Old Days!:
www.retrofootballtshirts.co.uk: Click Here!

Latest Posts

Sponsored Links

Calendar

March 2024
M T W T F S S
« Apr    
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Posts by Month


Most Recent Posts

Posts by Category

Syndication

Powered By

eXTReMe Tracker