Category Archives: Transfer Bollocks

Burnley v Arsenal – Match preview, insights and predictions

Hello folks, I hope you lads and lasses are all up for another Sunday night action pack performances happening at the Turf Moor against Burnley?

Arsenal’s business this transfer is arguably one of the best since a while. Taking over the reins of the club from his predecessor, Mikel Arteta seems to be on the right track as Arsenal manager in the long-run.

The signing of Pablo Mari and Cedric Soares to Arsenal on loan is one of the club’s best winter windows business well done in recent memory with the potential option to buy, and also, they’ve loaned out six youngsters, including Emile Smith Rowe, Konstantinos Mavropanos and Tyreece John-Jules.

Considering how the winter transfer business at the club have panned out in the past, it can be said that the entire just concluded window is zero risks and incredibly high reward for the club at stake. That being said, Mikel Arteta’s reign as the Gunners head-coach continues with a trip to Turf Moor this weekend as we take on Sean Dyche’s Burnley, and the Spaniard looking to build on a mixed start since taking over at the Emirates last month.

Here are five insights you need to know about Sunday’s clash…

  • The Clarets have lost their 11 matches against Arsenal in all outings, a poor run for Burnley dating as far back as 2010.We have won our last 10 Premier League games against Burnley with our last 11 wins in a row against an opponent in the Premier League between 1994 and 2004 against Manchester City.
  • Funny and odd as it sounds, the Clarets haven’t led Arsenal for a single minute in 11 Premier League. And according to stats, the only team to have played more games against an opponent without ever leading is Championship side Portsmouth against Chelsea with a record of 14 Premier League games between these two sides.
  • Arsenal is favourites for three clear points heading into this fixture with none of Burnley’s last 17 Premier League outings ending in a draw with any team. Sean Dyche’s men have won seven and lost 10 league matches. However, the Lancashire side has won two matches in a row on three separate occasions in that, but they are yet to record three in a row win in the league since April 2019.
  • At the moment, we are unbeaten in our last six Premier League away games – winning one and drawn five matches. And should the odds be in our favour on Sunday night, we could hit a goldmine as the club has not drawn five consecutive away league games since August 1948.

Predicted Line ups:

Burnley Predicted Line ups: Pope; Lowton, Tarkowski, Mee, Taylor; Hendrick, Westwood, Cork, McNeil; Rodriguez, Wood

Arsenal Predicted Line ups: Leno; Bellerin, Luiz, Holding, Saka; Torreira, Xhaka, Ozil; Pepe, Aubameyang, Lacazette

Who is the referee for the day?

Chris Kavanagh.

What time is kick-off?

14:00 BST.

Betting ddds?

Burnley – 13/5: Draw – 13/5: Arsenal – 1/1

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Filed under Arsenal, Arteta, Ask the Revd., General Musings, gooner news, Match Day Postmortem, News, Transfer Bollocks

Being An Arsenal Fan During The Transfer Window

It’s 11 days into the January transfer window and despite constantly checking the BBC sport gossip pages Arsenal have yet to announce any signings. I’m convinced that they do it just to annoy me. However, Diaby did manage to come through 60 odd minutes of a reserve game so at least he is LANS right.  To try to perk myself, The Reverend and all the fellow members of the Goonerrepublic up I will try to list some things that are worse than being an Arsenal fan during the transfer window. Here we go:

You have just finished a rather enjoyable visit to the bathroom. Perhaps you read a book you enjoy or check your twitter feed. You reach for the roll and BAM!!! It’s not there.

You have been on your post holiday diet for a week or so and everything is going well. You arrive into work and someone has nipped to the local bakery and got a 6 pack of your favourite jam & custard filled doughnuts.

You are a one armed man who finds himself somehow dangling over the edge of a cliff with a fall that will surely kill you. Suddenly your balls begin to itch.

You arrive at your local off licence to pick up some Friday night beer to discover they are all out of Sierra Nevada. All that’s left on the shelves is Budweiser cans.

You sit down to watch the game on Sunday to find that Sky Sports have signed Chris “Pelanty” Waddle and John Barnes to cover all remaining Arsenal games for the season.

We could have signed Joey Barton or John Terry or Ryan Shawcross or… you get the point.

You could wake up to the morning papers proclaiming Tony Pulis as the new Arsenal manager for next season.

Finally the worst of all, you could be a Sp*rs fan. I say fan, I mean blithering idiot.

These are all things worse than being a gooner during the transfer window. If anyone can think of a few more than please feel free to add or let us know on twitter. The boss also gave his press conference today and of course he was also asked about his plans for the transfer window. We got the usual guff about exceptional players blah blah blah. Save yourselves the hassle and (a) give it a miss & (b) don’t read too much into anything he says, unless of course it’s announcing a new signing.

Hopefully we will be able to give some sort of preview for the Citeh game in the next couple of days. In the meantime have patience Gooners.

discuss other things worse than being an Arsenal fan during the transfer window with me on twitter @wicklowgooner

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Filed under General Musings, gooner news, Transfer Bollocks

Why Won’t Anyone Buy Our Players

Right folks the transfer window is properly underway at this stage after 7 days of shopping for all the top clubs & the Spuds. So far we have been linked with(deep breath) David Villa, Adrian Lopez, Yann M’vila, Iker Casillas(imagine), Lucas Biglia, Yanga Mbiwa & James McCarthy to name just a few.

The vast majority of Gooners know not to believe 99% of the stories you read in the papers but things have reached a new height of ridiculous in this window thus far. While i’m sure that transfer incomings will be discussed on this blog over the coming weeks I wanted to have a quick look at the outgoings tonight, more specifically the lack of permanent outgoings.

The first player to leave was Swiss centre half Johan Djourou. The long serving player has joined Hannover 96 on loan until the end of the season. Although he hasn’t played much this season hid departure leaves us severely short of options at the heart of the defence. The strangest aspect of this deal lies with the fact that there is no option in place for the German club to make the loan deal permanent. This suggests that Wenger still sees a place for Djourou in the Arsenal future, if so then why allow his to leave in any capacity.

Next to follow Johan out the door was the greasy haired Moroccan giraffe. He has moved across London to join West Ham on loan until the end of the season. Handy as he doesn’t need to sell the gaff. Chamakh has signed a 6 month loan deal again with no option to buy. Whether this was at the request of Arsenal or West Ham remains to be seen as not everyone involved with West Ham where entirely happy with the singing.

Reports also surfaced today that Sheffield Wednesday have entered into talks regarding a loan deal for Ignasi Miquel. Should this deal come to fruition that would leave us with 4 central defenders at the club one of whom is the much maligned Squilacci.

Our little tubby Russian has also been offered a chance to play elsewhere as Reading made a formal approach but his was turned down by the player. Couple this with his refusal to go home to Russia on a free transfer in the summer and he is starting to resemble Winston Bogarde a little too much for me.

If we look at the players who have moved on loan already coupled with those already out elsewhere a lá Bendy Boots and Denilson, one thing springs to mind with regards to lack of permanent deals. WAGES!!!!

Djourou is reported to be paid 50k a week, Chamakh 60, Arshavin 70 plus, Bendy 52k & Denilson 40k. By putting these players on such a high wage prior to them delivering anything of note we have crippled ourselves when it comes to selling them on. The reason clubs wont pay for permanent deals is because they would essentially have to sign them on free transfers to afford the wages that they are currently being paid at Arsenal. Can you see Juve paying Nicklas 52k a week, maybe if they could still use Lira, but otherwise it ain’t going to happen. As long as we continue to tie players to long term contracts based on their potential this will happen. Look at the recent announcement regarding the signing of the British core players. Aaron Ramsey is now on 60k a week FFS. I’m not a Ramsey basher by any means but he is never worth that kind of money. What happens if his form doesn’t improve and we have a situation where he isn’t getting a place in the squad. We are left with a 3 million a year waste of money as no other club will pay the wages he has become accustomed to.

When people talk about Arsenal not paying the wages required to sign top players it angers me and its the above reasons why. We have the money there, we just choose to reward mediocrity in a crazy way as opposed to world class talent. That’s why we miss out on these players and that’s also why I’m not holding my breath on any big name signings.

 

Rant over for tonight

 

follow me on twitter @wicklowgooner

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Filed under Chamakh, Djourou, gooner news, Transfer Bollocks

Christmas Comes Early As Santi Arrives

Late Last night I received the following text from my Everton supporting future brother in law

“Santi Cazorla just tweeted that he’s a Gooner. Yobo has joined Fenerbache”.

We can ignore the second part of the text as it is irrelevant to most if not all of what I’m about to type. The first part however had me rushing to fire up my laptop to check on my trusted twitter feed to see for myself. Bitter and crushing disappointment followed as numerous prominent bloggers that I follow were reporting that the tweet had come from a fake account using the midfielders name. How fucking sad are some people. I can only hope that it was a fan of the Sp*ds that thought to do this as what pleasure could a Gooner obtain from falsely proclaiming the signing of what a lot of fans have been calling out for, a creative player in the middle of the park of genuine class and experience.

Cue this morning and the firing up of twitter when i had arrived into work to find reports from various sources and sites that Santi has had his medical at the club and the signing could be announced as soon as today(at time of writing this has not happened). The deal is as done as it can be prior to the official announcement. Cazorla has had a tour of the training facilities and met the first team players(do you think he bothered talking to RVP considering all the stories in the press lately?). You must imagine that Arteta did most of the introductions, I bet he gave his own opinions on people to Santi as they met in Spanish to give the new lad the lie of the land. Talk has that he may well be ensconced enough in the club to make the trip with the squad to Cologne for our final pre season game before shit gets serious.

Looking around the Interwebs and reading various pieces, the one thing you feel he will bring to the club above all else is creativity coupled with intelligence on the pitch that we don’t always seem to witness from our players. 7amkickoff have the relevant stats for everyone to look at but this does feel like the marquee signing we have been looking for, if not in terms of worldwide recognition, in pure footballing ability will do it for me. If the Sahin deal also comes to fruition and indicators seem to be that it will(despite interest from Galatasary we seem his preferred destination and he has already rather hilariously dismissed the spuds out of hand) than regardless of where our former captain ends up I will view our Summer dealings in a rather positive light.

A quick calculation tells me that 4 quality players in minus 1 injury prone 18 month goalscoring striker equals a much better squad than last season. Coupled with the return of Wilshere along with Diaby who seems very confident in himself regarding his ability to stay fit for the coming season and we could be looking at a very promising season indeed.

After the words from Robin in early July the club seem to have made him look slightly foolish with regards to ambition and whatnot and you wonder in the face of no serious bids whether he has backed himself into a rather tight corner. I will look further at this tomorrow along with the potential sale of Alex Song.

Finally for today, I was watching the USA annihilate the Nigerians last night and was struck by a thought. If Giroud can finish his chances anything like Carmelo Anthony(he was ridiculous last night) than RVP will be a distant unpleasant taste in the mouths of Gooners all around the world come next season

Till The Next Time

Come talk all things Arsenal and Alcohol with me on twitter @wicklowgooner

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Filed under Arsenal, General Musings, Transfer Bollocks

Jovetic, Van Persie & Transfer Ambition

The fallout and reactions  from the ‘statement’ as it shall now be known have been rumbling on the last couple days. Various sources had been claiming that RVP  (pronounced greedy fucker in Irish) was preparing to fly back from his holiday and do a “Rooney” and sign a new long-term deal with the club. In all fairness to the Scouse Shrek he never came out and questioned the direction and management of United at the highest level. It was much easier for him to back pedal and sign his new deal. Van Persie will and should not be accepted back into the fold either by the management or the fans. He can blame his agent or whoever he wants but we can all be sure that he had final say on what was released in the statement along with the timing of it. The fact he has been away on holiday since it was released and is therefore not available for comment is highly convenient.

As the club prepares for the inevitable departure of the Dutchman, reputable sources have claimed that we have been in touch with Fiorentina regarding their 22-year-old Montenegro Striker Stevan Jovetic. They are rumoured to want a fee in the region of £20 million pound so this deal could hinge on how quick we manage to offload Robin. This may also be where the rumours of the Chamakh transfer came from. Generally viewed as a second striker as compared by many in the Italian press to Roberto Baggio, the Fiorentina forward may be signed to provide the through balls for Giroud to latch on to. Whether this move could be seen as reverting back to the 442 of the invincible age remains to be seen as it is widely felt that the current formation is largely played to suit or now departing Captain.

One of the supposed reasons for RVP deciding not to renew his deal(we all know the real reason) is the club lacked ambition, this is widely linked to the lack of quality transfer market incomings that we have seen in the past few seasons. The swift acquisitions of Giroud and Pods coupled with the enquiry for Jovetic seem to represent a move on the part of the Boss and Ivan the Greek to move swiftly and decisively in the market this summer. With the public knowledge of our want for a defensive minded midfielder (not going to be M’Vila im afraid) coupled with whatever player is brought in to replace RVP we will see four new players arriving this summer with only one significant departure. If we manage to clear out a large portion of the deadwood currently floating around the club then regardless of the RVP outcome I feel this will have been a succesful summer and will have me feeling quietly optimistic about improving on our performances from last year. I know as fans this is what we want to see and hopefully we will.

Stories have also been doing the rounds regarding breaking our kit deal with Nike and signing with Adidas from next season. While it is widely acknowledged that our sponsorship deals have hamstrung our spending power over the last couple of years, this is one deal that I can’t really see happening. The club have very publicly stated that the current home kit will be in place for the next two seasons, ally this to the fact that Nike have been our kit sponsors prior to the current deal we have and I see a renewal for vastly greater sums on the cards. All of which adds to more spending power which will keep us fans happy.

Thats all for today, till next time

follow me on twitter @wicklowgooner for more ramblings

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Filed under Arsenal, Transfer Bollocks, Van Persie

The Llorente Effect

Greetings everyone from a not quite as sunny as the last time I blogged Wicklow. Last time out I spoke about a couple of the players we had been linked with in the press during the week and gave my thoughts as to how and why they may or may not happen. Today I will be focusing on transfers again but from a slightly different angle.

I’m a newcomer to twitter by most people’s standards having only joined at the same time as I started writing for the Republic at the end of January. I must say I love it, its great for keeping up to date with your interests and allows you to converse with people you otherwise wouldn’t. In the months between the end of the season and the beginning of the new one however it seems to be most Arsenal fans(im sure it affects other supporters too but I don’t care about them) source of hand wringing nervousness. Whether we are hearing from sources and “journalists”(more on that later) of the Captains definite move away from the club or new potential signings information that appears on twitter suddenly becomes fact. Take the Llorente to Arsenal rumour

Sometime last Sunday a tweet emerged from a journalist in Spain stating the Bilbao giant striker Fernando Llorente would hold a press conference on Tuesday 29/5/12 stating that he would be joining Arsenal. At this stage we all know that is didn’t happen and while I would love if it did we don’t have the necessary funds to make it a reality in my happen. That didn’t stop the Daily Fail running the story on their site thus adding more fuel to the fire. I know they aren’t exactly the most reputable of sites for your information but it is still a national newspaper both here and the UK.

Next on the Internet mill was the supposed deal done for Ganso from Santos. This was a player that the club has been heavily linked with in the past so it held some credence. This subsequently was proved to be a hoax on one of the supporter sites(can’t find the link) started by some Gooners to see if it would take off, and it did. People with a few thousand twitter followers retweeted tweets from supposed journalists(aforementioned Gooners using fake twitter accounts) and away we went. Why our fellow fans felt the need to do this I’m not sure but it just goes to prove how quickly these things can spread around(like an STD at a Spurs supporter party).

In the days before twitter and my access to the Internet the summer was unbearable enough just from reading the transfer gossip pages in the newspaper. I’m not completely negative about the twitter rumour mill as it undoubtably gives us something to discuss over tea in the mornings and on the various message boards but  I’m only 25 and I fear I’ll have no hair left by the time August rolls around from Arsenal transfer related stress.

Il leave you with the words I keep seeing everywhere although I don’t know where it’s from “Keep calm and don’t believe all the stories you read”

Till the next time

Follow me on twitter @wicklowgooner for all your transfer news :)

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Filed under Arsenal, Transfer Bollocks

Transfer Targets

Fine and sunny morning from Wicklow to you all, sorry about the lack of posts recently but myself and The Rev have been rather busy. I thought we might have a quick look at a few of the transfer stories surrounding our great club that have been doing the rounds this week.

Eden Hazard – it was reported that we were prepared to bid the £30 million we had set aside for Gotze as talks between Hazard and whatever clubs he is currently whoring himself to had stalled. Aside from the fact I don’t believe we had the money just sitting in our back pocket, the reason the Hazard move is so protracted is apparently because of his wage demands. If both Citeh and Manure are balking at what has been asked can anyone see our notorious wage structure being broken for this tosser. Me thinks not.

Foday Nabay – 13-year-old wonderkid from Birmingham, can’t say I know much about him other than the fact he is highly touted and a lot of other clubs are after him, then again I remember the same thing with Jermaine Pennant.

Etienne Capoue – this is a story that actually interested me. The Toulouse captain and former French youth international is a 6″2 defensive midfielder who will turn 24 in July. He would possess the physical stature we need in midfield and at 24 would be experienced enough to bed straight into the first team.

Yoshi – apparently Chelski have set a deadline of next week for Arsenal to decide whether to make a move and turn the Israeli midfielders loan deal into a permanent switch. Personally I think it’s a good move for us, he won’t cost too much money and if he could replicate his form in the latter half of the season would be a good experienced player for the younger kids to learn from.

Oliver Giroud – Rumour has it that the club will offer 6.4 million and the Moroccan Giraffe for the Ligue 1 leading goalscorer. While the transfer fee and swap deal  seems plausible enough the big stumbling block here will be wages. Giroud is currently Montpellier’s highest paid player on wages of 15k a week, and their chairman has publicly said that he will not pay anyone more than 20k a week. If we take it that Chamakh is on wages of 40k at a conservative guess that means he would have to take a 50% pay cut to join Montpellier. I know Arteta took a pay cut to join us but I just can’t see Chamakh taking that kind of hit in his wallet.

Yann M’Vila – who knows what the fuck is going on with this. Rumours abound with sources saying via twitter (I Know) that the Frenchman will most definitely not be playing at The Grove next season. Inter Milan has been stated as him most likely destination but the club finished sixth in Italy this season and will be unable to offer any kind of European football next year.

Right, that’s yer lot for today, hopefully posts will be a bit more regular next week, have yourselves a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine.

follow me on twitter @wicklowgooner

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Filed under Arsenal, Chamakh, Transfer Bollocks

Arsenal v City Postmortem- Mertesacker to leave(according to the mirror)

Are we all happy with yesterday?

The Boss sprung a surprise with his team selection, deciding to play Yoshi perhaps to counter the effect of Mario playing up front for Citeh. We dominated the game from start to finish, the only disappointing aspect of the game was the fact we didn’t score more goals. Vermaelen decided he didn’t want RVP to score so cleared off the Citeh line with his back. In the second half he thought he would miss from 3 yards before watching in disbelief as Yoshi managed to miss from 3 millimeters.Van Persie hit the post with a header to continue his goal scoring drought(not exactly Torres is he, fucking media) and Walcott also managed to draw a top class save from Hart.

After watching everybody contrive to not score Mikel and his G.I Joe hair decided he had seen enough. In the 87th minute he robbed Pizarro of the ball in midfield before striding on and smashing one in from 25 yards. It was no more than he and the rest of the team deserved for their efforts.

Now for Mario. For those who havent seen the tackle here is a snapshot from the Mail Website. The man is a walking lunatic. After trying to break Song’s kneecap he then proceeded to try his best to kick Bacary for the rest of game. He finally got his marching order in the last few minutes of the game for a second bookable offence. Whether the FA further punish him remains to be seen but severe fines need to handed out for these kinds of tackles.

I don’t tend to like to discuss transfer gossip (at least not until we are certain it’s no longer gossip) but I had to talk about this piece courtesy of the Mirror Online. Apparently we are all set to sell our £10 million pound BFG according to a ‘report’. We are all used to various anonymous sources proclaiming this and that about transfers involving our club but this is just lazy. I could type something here about us signing Neymar & Gotze but it doesn’t make it printable as a reliable report in a newspaper. At least put a bit of effort into the piece before publishing.

Finally its good to see the reason for Na$ri’s move has come to fruition, Citeh now stand on the verge of Prem glory, oh wait they don’t. He will win the same amount of trophies at the other shower as Arsenal. At least he has his true love to console him, shedloads of Sheikh cash. Petite Pute indeed.

Late Update – The Spuds have lost today, we now play 3 league games before the next so we have an excellent chance to cement third place

Later

@Wicklowgooner

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Filed under Arsenal, Match Day Postmortem, Mertesacker, Transfer Bollocks

M’Vila to Arsenal – Do we need him?

Former Chelsea defender and French World Cup winner Marcel Desailly has been talking to the press recently about his fellow countryman Yann M’Vila. More specifically he has been talking about a move to either Arsenal or Manchester United urging the respective chairmen to do whatever it takes to sign the 22-year-old defensive midfielder.

We have to ask ourselves, however, if we really need to sign him?

At the current moment we play with a 3 man midfield with one player operating as the attacking and creative playmaker while the other two alternate between sitting deep for cover and supporting further forward.  In this post we will have a look at out various options and need for any further players. At the minute the Boss has a pool of 8 players to choose from when fit to play for 3 positions.

Jack Wilshere – Perhaps the only player  to start when fit. Whether he plays as one of the deeper lying two a lá last season or in the more attacking role of his youth team days remains to be seen.

Mikel Arteta – The experienced Spaniard has been a model of consistency so far this season. While not enjoying the free role as the main creative force of his days at Everton he has established himself as an essential part of the first choice 11 since his move.

Aaron Ramsey – Tasked with replacing Cesc at the start of the season. Started brightly but has looked tired since Xmas in what has essentially been his first full season in the Prem. Has played on the left side of the front three recently but doesn’t look comfortable on the wing and tends to drift infield.

Alex Song – often deployed as the as the main defensive player of the three although his assist statistics would suggest otherwise. Strong with an ability to pick a pass he provides the only real physicality in our midfield.

Tomas Rosicky – a player who many might have envisaged departing the club in the summer. His recent resurgence in displaying the ability we all knew he had when he first joined the club has been one of the highlights of our season. Deceptive turn of pace and excellent dribbling ability have seen him claim and retain Ramsey’s place in midfield in recent months.

Abou Diaby – highly talented but often injured Frenchman. Wenger is a huge fan along with French manger Laurent Blanc who has played him on the rare occasions this season he has been fit. For those who would perhaps write him off we must remember our current Dutch superstar had many injury problems in the first few years of his career with the Gooners but has stayed fit for the last 18 months.

Francis Coquelin – Le Coq has made his breakthrough this season after impressing on loan at Lorient last season. Comfortable on the ball and tough in the tackle he is a more than able replacement for either of the defensively responsible midfielders. Is also capable of filling in at full back which is a plus.

Emmanuel Frimpong – Mr Dench. Tough, tough tackling midfielder with a rugby player build, the young Ghanaian played at the start of the season before being sent to Wolves on loan to gain experience. Suffered his second cruciate injury of his young career while at the Molineux but will hopefully make a full recovery.

Alex Chamberlain – Although he has played predominantly as a winger in his first season at the Emirates the Boss has stated that he views his future as a central midfielder. Perhaps the most exciting attacker England have seen in recent years.

A player whom I haven’t mentioned is Conor Henderson. The young Republic of Ireland international has recently returned from an injury suffered in the pre-season game against Cologne. Was expected to feature in the first team plans this season but for his injury.

With all these options available would the money available to the manager be better spent elsewhere i.e defence? I will leave that up to the members of the republic.

Peace

P.s

Please check out my article featured on Arsenal Collective and follow me on twitter for Goonerrepublic updates.

@Wicklowgooner

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Filed under Arteta, Diaby, Frimpong, General Musings, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Rosicky, Song, Transfer Bollocks, Wilshere

QPR v. Arsenal Preview: Hoops on Toast? & Transfer Spin Speculation

Queens Park Rangers have always been one of those clubs I have found it difficult to dislike. Bowles had charisma and buckets of flair. They used to be sponsored by Guinness. I even had a soft spot for Paul Parker at one point – I was young. All that goodwill (or on the worst days, ambivalence) has been eroded recently, however. First their new owner throws his cash around in a most vulgar manner, and then he hires Mark Hughes.

You’d have to go a long way to find any Gooner with a nice thing to say about Sparky. ‘Gobshite’ would probably be one of the nicer descriptions. And although our recent form has been very good (to say the least), and he’s been talking us up in the run lead up to this game, you can be morally certain he’s looking forward to this game, because there’s nothing he likes more than trying to get under our skin.

His chances of bringing our winning streak to a halt will be hampered by the fact that Cissé is an idiot and is banned, and also by injuries to players like Helguson – who has outscored Zamora so far this season – and Campbell. Their recent form hasn’t been great, as you’d expect from a side in the relegation zone: they have one win and one draw in their last six games. But those points were picked up at home against Everton and Liverpool, and they’re making much of the latter in their build-up. I daresay Barton will start, however, as Hughes will send him out as agent provocateur (which is french for ‘irritating tosser’) in midfield, and I expect Mackie is champing at the bit to make an impact again.

It seems likely that Koscielny will start, though I would recommend that he sleeps in a cottonwool-lined sleeping bag wrapped in duct tape tonight, to ensure no twisting of the knees can occur. The rest of the team (almost) picks itself at the moment: Chesney, Sagna, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Arteta, Song, Rosicky, Walcott and RVP. The only question should be: who do you pick from Gervinho, Ramsey and the Ox? For me it has to be either Gervinho or the Ox – both offer more width than Ramsey, and although Gervinho is less of an attacking threat at the moment his overall team play and defensive work against Villa last week should earn him the start. Not that I have anything against the other two, far from it.

I’m not going for a scoreline prediction for two prinicipal reasons: 1) I’m always wrong, and 2) I’m not particularly bothered about the scoreline, as long as we win. It’s all about points at the moment, so if we scrape by with another last minute winner from – well, from anyone – I’ll be happy. Mind you, my ulcer won’t be.

Mikel  Arteta has made an interesting observation in an interview with Sport magazine which I came across courtesy of Arseblog News (where would we be without it?). He’s reiterated his feeling that our best form would follow once we got over key injuries, and he clearly feels that this issue is of greater importance than the acquisition of new players.

Now, I’m not one to subscribe to conspiracy theories, but I can’t help wondering if this isn’t linked to Arsene’s recent repetition of the ‘Quality not Quantity’, ‘We will spend if we think it’s right’ and ‘Where would we be if everyone had been fit’ mantras. Are we being given a clear message, albeit in an obscure, murky, indirect, vaguely suggestive sort of way?

At the beginning of last summer we were told that there would be some players coming in and more leaving. At the moment the situation is quite different in the sense that there a some players out on loan who clearly do not have a role to play in our future, but are too expensive for other clubs to buy. At the moment we are faced with the need to persuade our best player to stay, as opposed to last year soul-destroying struggle to fight off the repeated attempts of a bunch of shabby Iberian motherfuckers to shame us into flogging our best player at a ridiculously low price. Then there were others who wanted out for oil money, whereas at the t moment the squad seems relatively settled.

Thus, I think it is highly unlikely that there will be several summer signings. Podolski, it seems clear, is on his way. Perhaps another defender might be added, but I would enormously surprised if we acquired more than two senior players who could step right into contention for a first team place. It seems to me that the noises coming from Arsene and now Arteta reflect this likelihood, and we are being gently prepared accordingly.

In the meantime, let’s hope for a jolly serving of Hoops on toast tomorrow. (Sorry, I couldn’t help using it again). And if Joey sees red again, well that would be just fine.

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Filed under Arteta, Friday Night Preview, Gervinho, Koscielny, Ramsey, Transfer Bollocks

Arsenal v. Villa preview & other asstd. titbits

Alex McLeish brings his stuttering Villa team to the Grove tomorrow in what could prove to be a significant day in the battle for Champions League positions.  T*******m travel to the Bridge for the day’s Clash of the Arseholes, and with a bit of luck they’ll enter into bitter combat with each other for a debilitating no score draw. Failing that I’ll settle for the spuds being sent home with a point by a heartbreaking injury time own goal by The Best Player In The World Who Happens To Be Welsh.

Villa are currently in 15th position for the principal reason that they are not very good at scoring goals – they have found the net only 31 times in 28 league games. Surprisingly, though, their goal difference is only -4, and they have been pretty tight defensively over the last four games, conceding only three goals. So given their attacking limitations, which are compounded by the loss of Bent for the duration, it seems unlikely that they’ll be gung ho tomorrow and look to take us on. Instead, I daresay McLeish will be parking his pockmarked, ginger-roofed Caledonian bus at the edge of the area, and looking to use Agbonlahor’s pace for counter-attacks. N’Zogbia is doubtful with a knee ligament problem he picked up in training yesterday.

Fortunately we do not appear to have any significant injury problems following the win at Everton. Personally, I’d rather see Ramsey on the bench and Gervinho or the Ox starting on the left hand side. Hutton should be targeted in particular; he got himself sent off when we played them last December and either Gervinho or the Ox could give him a torrid time if they go at him.

If we play with the same level of urgency we showed in attack for the first 20 minutes on Wednesday we should profit – mental discipline will be crucial, and the players are going to have be utterly focussed and committed. We cannot take Villa for granted and on too many occasions in the past few seasons we have seen ineffectual performances follow a win. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t claim all the points tomorrow.

Moving on, it has been very encouraging to see promising young players going out on loan over the past couple of days: Chuks Aneke has gone to Preston, Benik Afobe to Reading and today Yennaris joined Notts County. These are promising developments for each player and they can only benefit from the experience, provided they don’t end up being kicked from here ’til next Thursday by some lower league clogger and put out of action for the long term. The manager had some interesting points to make in todays press conference regarding the size of the squad and how this influences our involvement in the transfer market next summer. The mantra – as it was last year – is “quality not quantity”. Arsene pointed out:

“…don’t forget we have many players out on loan and we have not had Jack Wilshere or Abou Diaby for the whole season… These players will be back and it means that number and quality-wise we are strong because we are in the position we are in without these players.”

Observations like this lead pundits, journos, hacks and fans to subject them to the same kind of feverish analysis that resulted in the Engima decrypts 70-odd years ago, by sheds full of tweed-jacketed Oxbridge boffins at Bletchley Park. From where I’m sitting (in my navy blue 125th anniversary track top, by the way – no tweed here) it seems pretty obvious from his comments that he doesn’t intend to sign a midfielder. So assuming that the Podolski deal is pretty much sorted, that means – perhaps – one additional signing, and the obvious thing to do would be to get another centre half in place of poor old Squillaci. So that would mean two top quality signings in the summer, rather than the four suggested by Marco Van Basten. I think I could live with that, but will it be enough to sway Van Persie?

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Filed under Friday Night Preview, Gervinho, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Transfer Bollocks, Van Persie