LU Arsenal Brigade II

[Habitual Linestepper]

I agree wholeheartedly. Wenger was also outclassed by Redknapp in the match. Redknapp made the perfect substitutes to suit the game plan and ensure a win. As soon as Sandro came on we couldn't get out of our own half. What did Wenger do? Brought on Arshavin, and Benayoun - one who plays like he doesn't care and the other who I thought was a desperate/nothing loan move. They both did nothing.

Tottenham played well below par, and so did we... but Modric and VDV are worlds above Arteta and Ramsey. It showed. Worrying when we come up against the likes of Chelsea, Man Shitty, and Man Utd (again). The sad thing is, we'll get done by middle table teams like Stoke, Blackburn, etc because they are very physical and we have no f**king backbone. I think Song is the only one of our players who is physical. The other players who we have who are, are all out with injuries. (Wilshere, Verm, Sagna) I haven't seen enough of Per to make judgement.

We needed to sign Parker (he ripped us a new one on the weekend), Cahill, Samba, Mata, Hazard, and a world class striker (not Park). Players to go - Squillaci, Almunia, Chamakh, Arshavin (we'll get someone like Galatasary pay good $$ for him... more than what he is worth atm). But this won't happen ... happy to eat my own words!

That's a bit extreme i think.

If Tottenham's midfield had been raped injuries like ours has then we would've beat them. We didn't have Wilshere, Diaby and Song (He had to play CB due injuries at that position obviously). All of those three would have been a hell of lot better than Ramsey (Who was by far the worst player on the field despite his goal) and all of them would have started over him. Two of those three players were instrumental in beating Barcelona last year.

We would have killed Spurs if they didn't have Modric, VdV and Parker.

 

[boxhead]

That's a bit extreme i think.

If Tottenham's midfield had been raped injuries like ours has then we would've beat them. We didn't have Wilshere, Diaby and Song (He had to play CB due injuries at that position obviously). All of those three would have been a hell of lot better than Ramsey (Who was by far the worst player on the field despite his goal) and all of them would have started over him. Two of those three players were instrumental in beating Barcelona last year.

We would have killed Spurs if they didn't have Modric, VdV and Parker.

:lol:
You forget that we beat you at the Emirates even when Nasri and Fabregas were at the club, the only reason your midfield dominated ours is because, as I have said, Modric and VDV were poor. We are lacking Huddlestone and Lennon, and Sandro should be starting. If we had played well in this game we would have scored more than 2, closer to 4 or 5.
Without VDV, Modric and Parker you may not have beaten us anyway, Sandro and Livermore into the centre, and either Kranjcar, Townsend or Lennon in for VDV.
I'll declare that if Sandro had started for VDV Arsenal wouldn't have come close.

As for the comparisons between the strongest midfield pairings;
Wilshere, Song, Arteta
Modric, Sandro, VDV
Modric is better than Wilshere, VDV is better than Arteta, Sandro and Song is debatable as most opposition fans don't know just how good Sandro is, and truthfully neither do I; it's Song for mine there.
If you want to go further and compare the wingers;
Gervinho, Walcott
Bale, Lennon
Bale and Walcott.

 

[Habitual Linestepper]

:lol:
You forget that we beat you at the Emirates even when Nasri and Fabregas were at the club, the only reason your midfield dominated ours is because, as I have said, Modric and VDV were poor. We are lacking Huddlestone and Lennon, and Sandro should be starting. If we had played well in this game we would have scored more than 2, closer to 4 or 5.
Without VDV, Modric and Parker you may not have beaten us anyway, Sandro and Livermore into the centre, and either Kranjcar, Townsend or Lennon in for VDV.
I'll declare that if Sandro had started for VDV Arsenal wouldn't have come close.

As for the comparisons between the strongest midfield pairings;
Wilshere, Song, Arteta
Modric, Sandro, VDV
Modric is better than Wilshere, VDV is better than Arteta, Sandro and Song is debatable as most opposition fans don't know just how good Sandro is, and truthfully neither do I; it's Song for mine there.
If you want to go further and compare the wingers;
Gervinho, Walcott
Bale, Lennon
Bale and Walcott.

Last year was last year. This year it took a fluke goal to beat us and we are a fckn rabble at the moment due to a number of reasons, one being injuries.

Oh and i'd take Lennon over Walcott so you've got us there too haha. Frankly, aside from RvP (and Ox) who hasn't had the greatest of starts everyone in front of the defence, hell in front of Szczesny, has been rubbish. We lack creativity all over the park.

 

[boxhead]

Last year was last year. This year it took a fluke goal to beat us and we are a fckn rabble at the moment due to a number of reasons, one being injuries.

Oh and i'd take Lennon over Walcott so you've got us there too haha. Frankly, aside from RvP (and Ox) who hasn't had the greatest of starts everyone in front of the defence, hell in front of Szczesny, has been rubbish. We lack creativity all over the park.

Haha don't worry I was half-trolling The reality was though that we were poor and you guys outplayed us despite your injuries. The massive problem for Arsenal is bit that they lost Nasri and Fabregas, but you replaced them with incomparable players, which is of course bleeding obvious. Compare that to us; we've retained our best players and we have a wealth of good midfielders. Modric, VDV, Sandro, Huddlestone, Livermore, Falque, Parker, etc; most of those players would start in your midfield. You guys have the better strikeforce though.

 

[Habitual Linestepper]

Haha don't worry I was half-trolling The reality was though that we were poor and you guys outplayed us despite your injuries. The massive problem for Arsenal is bit that they lost Nasri and Fabregas, but you replaced them with incomparable players, which is of course bleeding obvious. Compare that to us; we've retained our best players and we have a wealth of good midfielders. Modric, VDV, Sandro, Huddlestone, Livermore, Falque, Parker, etc; most of those players would start in your midfield. You guys have the better strikeforce though.

Atm i would let any of those players start over Ramsey apart from Falque and maaaaybe Livermore. Surely they couldn't play worse than he did on Saturday though.

All i'm gonna say is you better hope you make top 4 or i can't see Modric or VdV sticking around and you'll have your own Nasregas situation. For the record i expect you to make it and make it quite easily considering how poor us and Liverpool have been.

Unless we make some massive Jan signings i can't see competing with you, chelski or either of the manchesters.

 

[BunniesMan]

A rare bit of good news, according to Vermaelen himself on twitter:

T_Vermaelen05 Thomas Vermaelen



Great step forward today. First run outside without any pain or discomfort. Hopefully i can make good progress this week.

IMO he is our most important player, more important than Wilshere, and even RVP. Our biggest problem is defense and he is a top class defender. If he was uninjured last season I could have seen us winning the double.

Hopefully he's back soon and we can fight our way up the table.

 

[Noa]

There's a few things which are consistent with the Arsenal rhetoric this season. Both are easily summarised and plain for all to see :

* Injuries. Imagine if we had Wilshere, Vermaelen, Diaby, Koscielny, Djourou, Sagna all fit and playing since the first week of the season. I guarantee that Arsenal would not be in the current predicament if it was so. I'm not necessarily blaming injuries per se for the clubs lack of success, but it is the contributing factor. Our strongest starting eleven is still exceptionally strong, and good enough to challenge for the title. The problem is that we haven't seen Arsenal's strongest XI in a long, long time.

?

We may not look to be in as bad of a position with those players but we'd still be just treading water around the 4-6 spots and Wenger would be telling us were close.

 

[CC_Eagle]

A rare bit of good news, according to Vermaelen himself on twitter:



IMO he is our most important player, more important than Wilshere, and even RVP. Our biggest problem is defense and he is a top class defender. If he was uninjured last season I could have seen us winning the double.

Hopefully he's back soon and we can fight our way up the table.

Agreed.

Confidence and composure begins at the back, and Thomas brings a wealth of both.

 

[BunniesMan]

Apparently the Portuguese media (which makes it more credible than some British rag reporting this) reckon we're getting Hulk from Porto in January. Transfer window rumours are just like Christmas ads...they start earlier and earlier every year. Although I would love to have him. 23 goals and 13 assists in 26 league games last season. With 36 goals and 21 assists in 53 total appearances in all competitions. Crazy strikerate.

 

[Twizzle]

he has a price tag of something like €40mill slapped on him by Porto,

good luck getting Wenger to pay that

 

[CC_Eagle]

Won't happen.

But it's fun to dream. We need midfielders more than another striker.

 

[BunniesMan]

A midfielder worth 40 million would be better than a forward worth 40 million, given our relative strengths and weaknesses. But I'll be happy with anyone worth 40 million...we could use more class, whichever position.

 

[boxhead]

Hulk's a monster and like Falcao and a few other Porto players is rightly being poached/scouted. As Twiz said, good luck getting Wenger to pay that sort of money.

 

[CC_Eagle]

Personally, I'd love a beast of a striker to replace RvP as our lone man up front. This would allow Robin to roam around left, right and centre. Where he'd be more effective imo.

 

[Noa]

Dont mind the look of Ricky Van Wolfswinkl who Man U are said to be looking at. Bit of Zdeko or Van Basten about him (not that he'll ever be MVB good).

 

[BunniesMan]

Word is our 2nd biggest shareholder, Alisher Usmanov, is attempting another takeover.

IMO, that would be the best thing that could happen. Kroenke uses us as a cash cow and has no understanding of how to run a big club in a sport with no salary cap.

And what many don't know is it isn't Chelsea that is the richest team in London. And for all of England, after City it's not United, it's not Chelsea, it's certainly not Liverpool. It's us. Usmanov is worth north of 13 billion, which makes him richer than Abramovich and only second to City's middle east guy.

If he took over, we could be aggressive players with his billions. We could be the ones buying the players we needed, instead of having scum clubs by our players.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...sher-usmanov-and-fan-protests-at-the-emirates

 

[boxhead]

So you want to sell your soul as well? I thought you despised Chelsea and City?

 

[BunniesMan]

So you want to sell your soul as well? I thought you despised Chelsea and City?

I despise City. Chelsea? Not so much. They've done the same thing, but Chelsea (especially in the last couple of seasons) have done things the right way, City, have done things the wrong way.

I hate all our rivals, but I have a certain amount of grudging respect for United and Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham. But I certainly don't have that for City.

And Usmanov has a history of being an Arsenal fan for a long time, before these recent attempts at taking over.

I think we can combine some of the best parts of the 'Arsenal way' with Usmanov's billions. For example, we could combine Arsenal developed players like Wilshere, Walcott and RVP in attack with players we could have bought with Usmanov's money and aggressiveness, like say Gotze and Hazard for example.

There is room for a combination of both philosophies. We don't have to be all the way one way or another. We don't have to be 100% the Kroenke/Wenger way, we don't have to be 100% the City way, there is a happy medium.

With Usmanov running things, maybe 2 millions difference in evaluation wouldn't have kept us from getting a superstar in the making like Phil Jones.

 

[CC_Eagle]

I don't know nearly enough about the subject, nor the individuals involved to form a proper opinion on the matter. What I do know :

Kroenke has only been the 'majority' owner for less than a year, I think calling for him to be bought out/kicked out/whatever is a bit premature. Yes, he has been rather silent regarding the club, but the guy owns several sporting teams and has a lot of other business interests. I'm sure he has better things to do than talk to the British press once a week.

If Arsenal do not make the Champions League for 2012/2013, which is looking very likely, the club will remain competitive and certainly survive without any problems. There is zero chance of a 'Leeds' occurring, regardless of what happens. The main issue though is the length of time spent outside of the CL. More than a year or so spent on the outer would merely make it even harder to re-enter the competition. Which in turn brings Arsenal's cash flow in question : The property deals at Higbury are just about finished, which for the last financial year was the clubs highest source of revenue. Once the apartments are sold, and if heaven forbid the club isn't playing in the CL, revenue may become an issue. Especially if player wages are consistently so high. This may be where having a nice, rich Russian/Uzbek would be handy.

However, the stadium and shirt sponsor deals are due to expire within the next year or so, and these deals were front ended to help pay for the stadium. Technically the revenue lost by non-participation in the CL would be compensated by a higher amount of sponsorship and corporate revenue. So Gazidis may well be right in saying that nothing would change with Arsenal if the club failed to qualify for the CL next season. Keep in mind that in the 2010/2011 Financial Year, Arsenal had the second highest revenue in the league with 230m. Second to United's 300m (from memory).

Personally and ideologically I'm against billionaire buy-outs for the obvious reasons : concentration of power, ulterior motives, blah blah. But it can work for the power of good : one owner ultimately results in a single focus and direction for the club, which blocks out board politics and squabbling.

If the club wants to consistently compete for silverware, billionaire ownership will become a necessary evil. Usmanov may be the best option, as he has substantially more wealth and unlike Kroenke, has no non-Arsenal sporting interests elsewhere.

 

[BunniesMan]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ill-be-in-charge-for-as-long-as-he-wants.html

A lengthy but pretty interesting read on Kroenke.

He also explains how his involvement with Arsenal began simply with a desire to help the Colorado Rapids, his ‘soccer’ team who are the reigning MLS champions. “We didn’t invest to come in and control the club,” Kroenke says. “I thought that we needed a strategic alliance with one of the big clubs

“Some people want their private benefactor. I don’t think it is sustainable. Maybe it is, maybe it [football] will always be the one place where there will be guys coming who are willing to pour money in. I don’t know. We have a self-sustaining model. We are committed to that model.”

There are some good bits and some not good bits in the article, but those two pieces I thought were the most telling.

Firstly, he only brought Arsenal in the first place to help his 1st team. He doesn't have any real loyalty or passion or motivation to do everything he can to get Arsenal to the top and keep us there.

Secondly, "self sustaining model" is code for "i'm not going to spend any money on transfers, i'm just gunna sit on my shares as they grow in value and sell one day for a massive profit."

By billionaire's stanards, Kroenke is small time. And he has little idea of what it takes to keep a big club successful in 2011 in a non salary capped league.

Usmanov is rich, even compared to most billionaires. And he gets it. He's said he wants to pour money in to 'steamroll' us to the top.

Kroenke is the traditional sort of owner, looking at his clubs as a money making business.

Usmanov is the Abramovich style new age owner. He's already made his fortune, he's now interested in dick measuring contests with his fellow billionaires via Football. Usmanov is the kind of owner who would give Wenger 50-100 million pounds per transfer window, and tell him he's fired if the money isn't spent by the end of deadline day. Then we'd win the League and he'd rub it in Roman's face at their secret Soviet Billionaires parties at the Kremlin.

And unlike Kroenke, Usmanov is specifically loyal to Arsenal. He is an Arsenal fan. If Usmanov wanted just any club he could go and buy some other club for much cheaper and power them to trophy contention. And he wouldn't have to deal with a fool like Kroenke on the way.