So, Borussia Dortmund are a selling club. A feeder club for Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Manchester United.
A club with no ambition.
A club interested only in profits.
A club showing no respect for its fans.
A club on a downward spiral to mediocrity.
Anyone who thinks this is not the case is delusional, and just a “Klopp knows best” boy.
I can hear the fans now screaming
“We are Dortmund.We should never sell to our rivals.We have sold them the League.We will replace with bargain basement players.Klopp has lost it.Dormund FC not PLC”
How can a club who has won their own domestic League for the last two seasons do this to their fans ?
Players want to win stuff.That’s why Judas, Nasri ,Song and Cesc left? Right? It was all about ambition for them.Right ?
Football is all about winning I am told. Well Dortmund have been doing just that. In the Champions League final too most likely.The very highest level !
So players cant want to leave,can they ?
The biggest ground in Germany and the second biggest sports club in their country.The most passionate fans you could wish for. No player would want to leave all that. Would they?
Perhaps it’s because they’re an old team on the decline and they want a new challenge? Nope, average age against Madrid was 23.So what on earth can it be ?
By the end of this season they will have lost Sahin, Kagawa, Gotez and Lewandowski.How can that be? There is everything in place for them at Dortmund.
Any ideas yet ?
Come on,think !
It can’t be about money can it?
No,surely not.
You are not telling me that I was right all along about money being the single biggest factor in the game?
Are you ? Is that what you are saying ?
Well.I think I will scoot over to twitter and see what the WOB’s make of this.
Dortmund have not had to build a new stadium as we have.
They have one domestic rival capable of outspending them, we have at least three.
Yet they have had to sell Mario Gotez, a 21 year old prodigy who has been at the club since he was 8 years old, to their fiercest rivals.
And for about £10 million less than we got for Fabregas.
Does anyone think Klopp wanted to sell those payers?
No, of course he didn’t. It was forced on him by player power and financial realities. Two things that our own fans seem to think don’t exist.
It all comes back to the same thing. People think they know how to run the club when the reality is the don’t know shit.
I have always said that anyone who wants Arsene out is a simpleton. This Dortmund malarkey has exposed huge swathes of their pathetic arguments to be total bullshit.
In related news I am told that Judas is now believed to be on £300k pw.This is the amount that Arsene confirmed City had offered him.I said at the time that I believed that United would have matched this figure.It seems they did.
The anti Arsenal and Arsene posters (at the blog that shall not be named) said that Pursie had gone to win stuff and because of his ambition. Their logic said that had it been for money,he would have gone to City.
Another load of old bollocks that was.
Will this evidence of how the real World works see an end to their nonsense ? Will it bollocks. They will just start pointing backwards to perceived failings in the past 8 years and ignore any realities.
I hate to say “I told you so” But I did.
Positively Arsenal 
It’s been a lil while since I’ve been opportuned to post on here bt I always sneak in to read the blog almost everyday. I must say PG, STEW and the rest who writes the articles on daily basis are simply brilliant. Positivistas indeed everybdy are. You bring sanity to the goonerdom
On the subject today, I continue to make it clear that all our players that left actually left for money maybe with the exception of Cesc who I heard took a pay cut.
I hate to say I detest each and everyone of them including Cesc and I don’t want any of them back for any reason. They are history and must be confined to the history books
How Arsene must feel sad abt them all especially when their career which he help them build goes down the drain after they left. It’s always sad but I enjoy to see them become so disgruntled that they end up in a team like Birmingham
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Morning master George. Hope you had a great time on your birthday and oh we all TOLD THEM SO. and yes you are right , they will just shift the goal posts and change the argument.
Time to rip manure a new one.
UP THE. GUNNERS OF ARSENAL!!!!!!!
COYR&W………
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“I told you so”! I love it. Bloody hypocrits and outright liars, the Wenger Out Brigade (I presume that is what the WOB acronym stands for).
George, a truly masterful post. I salute you, sir.
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Yes, yes, yes, George. And it will be interesting to see how Dortmund cope after three or four years of raids. Of all the teams we’ve played recently in the CL, I have been most impressed by Dortmund. I wish them all the best in the CL – what a statement it would be if they could get to the final and beat either Bayern.
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either Bayern or Barca, I was going to say. Freudian slip to miss out Barca as I can’t see them turning the tie around without having scored an away goal.
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@ PG
“In related news I am told that Judas is now believed to be on £300k pw.”
Please would you point me to the source of this information? Is this reliable?
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The other day I saw a journalist say this on twitter : “not needing the money is one thing but keeping a player against his will & losing out on €30m in the process is another.”
About Lewandowski being linked to Bayern. I have no memory whatsoever about any journalist saying that about the Van persie story, although it would have been very accurate and fitting as well.
And Lewandowski did not release a announcement about him wanting to leave on his personal website just yet.
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Belated birthday greetings, I hope the Gunners give you and ‘Kam a worthy present on Sunday.
I don’t consider myself to be as great a manager as Mr.Klopp, or even the veteran Arsene. Crazy I know. But here is the thing: When the Arsenal beat Dortmund last season over two legs, and beat them well, it was a huge lift to a squad that would logically have had relatively brittle coherence/confidence etc, because it was a new team! This seasons squad didn’t make that step, did not prove to themselves that they could beat the best till they went to Munich. Did it matter? both seasons have been remarkably similar, with the same inconsistencies throughout the season arising from the same source: dramatic and extensive rebuilding.
Dortmund performed as they did last night more often last season. No 0-4 defeats away to Schalke (when they were peaking before they sacked the manager who had them playing so well, when they played the Arsenal, of course!), or away to Munich *coughs!*. Tactically they may have improved & evolved this season (Don’t ask me! I just remember that Klopp was full of praise for The Arse…), with this ‘half-pressing’ malarky. But on Wednesday they played as if they had nothing else to play for, whch they don’t unfortunately. And it’ll be hard for them to match this run next season.
However with a build up of momentum there’s no reason why they can’t mimic (again!) a certain team from ’06 and take on the clear favourites. They’ll need to keep all XI on the pitch!
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Eeep: On Wednesday night > ‘last night’.
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FG,See the last few comments last night Finsbury gives the link.
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Looking more like an upward spiral, George.
The worship of mammon carries along with it shiny metallic accessories that time invariably sheds fallacious once the “promised land” is reached.
Its taken some time but hey, what a bargain … £24m plus £220-300k pw.
Judas’ eyes weren’t too convincing playing joyful when interviewed right after Villa.
Had the look of a once-principled angel who got shafted fundamentally by a little boy with golden calves.
BOY-TO-ANGEL: “See how easy it was to win son, aren’t you glad you listened to me?
ANGEL-TO-AW: “I hate to say “I told you so” But I did.
AW-TO-BOY: “So how do you really feel now that you’ve won something, son?”
The question Robin will never stop answering.
4 games left, 16 points on the table..COME ON YOU GUNNERS!!!
..happy belated George from Blackburn. Hope you had a fine day….clique.clique.
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Fins,
AW knows something about beating german teams.
I’m guessing it has something to do with breaking their rhythm, unorthodox play, continuously changing tempo and being physically fit…
Hey…what do I know?
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George, you certainly had an inspiring birthday, but you are starting to forget some important stuff such as:
– Dortmund is 20 points behind Bayern this year after losing to Kagawa to another super-spender, whom we are very familiar, while BM simply blew every European club out of the water in picking up one of the most promising Spanish midfielders, Javi Martinez.
– Klopp has only one super spender to compete with while Arsene has 3 -PSGs to compete with.
I wonder which of Klopp and Wenger are beginning to lose their touch. I am confused. Maybe this aging business is affecting me, more than you George.
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FG:
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/robin-van-persie-sounds-death-knell-for-once-rich-rivalry-between-arsenal-and-manchester-united-8585331.html
Aman:
I have no idea either! In their own words many of the leading German coaches have been fans of and inspired by Wengerball or Total Football or whatever we want to call it. Maybe the old master still has some tricks to teach the young ‘uns?
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Arsene is a ‘players’ manager and a brilliant one. They all come back to him for advice and guidance even after they have left the club. Just sometimes though he needs to be a ‘supporters’ manager. He is walking a fine line with his comments about the bloke who went to the Mancs. In other words I really hope he understands the need to respect Arsenal supporters as well as he does his players.
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George – why not tell us what you really think? Stop all this tip toeing around the issue.
Nice fiery heartfelt passionate stuff is what we want not this fence sitting soft soap.
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Thanks, finsbury.
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Steww @ 12:43 pm – Exactly. Why are we posting at PA for heavens sake? *Smirk
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BTW I just listened in full to AW’s presser on the dotcom. You will never have a more thoughtful, skillful response to the current issues facing the club (Van Traitor, guard of honor, top-four, competition from the Chavs, German football etc). I know he is well-practiced at this but he is especially artful at dodging the smoothly laid traps by the journos. Top-top manager.
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Excellent article George. If this had been published in a newspaper, the moaners would ignore all the points you have successfully countered to their previous moaning and look for something else. Some would revise themselves and say, “I am not talking about an extreme example, but we could spend some more than we currently spend”. There are so many factors in player transfers that they close their ears to and say “nanananana”.
They make Wenger out to be this seedy guy who was once good at polishing diamonds and is now only good at selling them. I see Wenger building the club as I would build a house. I would carefully plan under a tight mortgage, scour a hundred dealers for the best price on materials. I wont be a cheap ass either. Quality would be equally important. However, if i am at an auction bidding for an antique fireplace that I know will be a perfect fit with the rest of my living room and a bubble gum chewing, bmw driving dickhead (apologies to those of you who own bmws but dont think that they own the road) comes to the auction and bids five times more for the fireplace even though he is probably never going to use it, I am not going to think, screw it, i am going to take a double mortgage and outbid this dickhead (only to be outbid by him again). I would probably scour again for the next hidden gem that I need to tinker with a bit to fit into my living room.
If my family start berating me, dont understand what i am doing for them and tell me to spend some fucking money, I would would have become silent, terse and a lot more snappy a long time ago.
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“It’s always difficult to lose big players. Let’s be realistic – it’s more difficult when they are 24 than when they are 29 and they have given a few years to the Club.
Cesc hurts more for Wenger that Judas.
I started reading that independent article finsbury and they were trying to sensationlise by saying, “oooh, Wenger knew Judas was good?, omg he totally shafted the club”. I saw something about Wenger being a reckless gambler and I stopped reading.
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Good stuff George.
He’s always eloquent and thoughtful is AW. You expect nothing less. And far too clever for the assembled hacks. Goes without saying. I’ve just seen the press conference myself, and I think he is, perhaps, in slight danger of misjudging the mood of many us re: the lil’ Dutch boy. I think he’s right on all this guard of honour nonsense, pay respect and move on, even if it’s through gritted teeth. Fair enough. There is however a very real bitterness towards R*P (maybe it’s an over-reaction in the grand scheme of things, but it’s real and tangible nonetheless) and it all panned out and the blatant disrespect and cynicism he showed the club that made his star, and us fans, in the manner of his move. Maybe, just maybe, AW’s praise for him is too fulsome this time. He’s a class act is AW, and I can’t and won’t knock him for that. I just wish maybe he’d reigned it in a bit this time, glossed over that particular question.
I could be wrong. So don’t all shoot me at once.
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@ sensational arsenal
“Cesc hurts more for Wenger than Judas.”
I think you’re right. I’m pretty sure he’d have him back, as well. It wasn’t just the age that he left at, as well, I think there was more of a personal relationship. If Henry was AW’s son, Cesc was his grandson.
And ditto about the Independent article. It used to be my regular paper, but I find it unbearable now because of the incessant Arsenal-bashing in the sports section. Ignorance and arrogance is an insufferable combination.
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Nobody’s going to shoot you, Harry Flowers. And if they try you can borrow my invincibility shawl (it’s quite big so doubles as a cloak). There you go – fresh out of the laundry basket as well.
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Well I suppose it is all to do with whether I am “over” RvP or not – For me the moment he signed for another club, in fact the moment he made it clear he wanted to play his football elsewhere, he was erased. I never had a problem with Robin while he played for us. He was a credit to the club and it is a great shame so long was lost to injury. I always knew he was a mercenary because otherwise he would have stayed with Feyenoord. He is now filed under the fond memories of a player who performed well at the club.
Boo, don’t boo, cheer, clap, drop your trousers, it really does not matter.
I shall not utter one more word on the topic of RvP and the manner of his leaving – ever.
However Sunday provides a massive opportunity for the man who leads the line, Podolski, please let it be Podolski, to make a mark on this season and gather in the three points. Now that is the serious point that does matter.
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And George – thanks for the opening
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Cheers Fungunner!
I took cover in the bunker after pressing “post comment”.
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Seriously, though – emotionally, I am with you, but he has a different job to us. As a manager AW has seen it all, so he is probably a lot less horrified than we are. He looks at it in a different, more detached way – just business, maybe? This sort of saga happens all the time behind the scenes, he once said, so perhaps he can’t afford to make a heavy emotional investment each time. And it was not a surprise for him, of course.
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@ anicoll
poznan in my pants says it all
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Thanks Fun Gun – very funny writing from Poznan – from the heart
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One man I want to see have a busy afternoon is Rafael. I don’t rate him. He needs to attacked head on, time and time again on the left hand side. He’s short. He hesitates. I want to see his little Brazilian legs whirring like a rat on a wheel before he cracks.
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I agree with Harry Flowers
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Harry @ 1:56pm, Frank @ 2:41pm, FG, Anicoll, SA, (hell, everyone):
I think I have wandered all over the map on this guard of honor, JVC matter all week. But I have come squarely to the view that our best revenge is getting those 3 points. Just consider the alternative scenario should we lose.
Methinks we should borrow something from those Dortmund fans on Wednesday; although the facts are slightly different, what was at stake was just as big. Instead of tearing into Gotze, who has been at the club since he was 8, but opted for the money and glory at the “hollywood” club, they focused their energy on helping their club overcome RM. Gotze who?
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Pulled no punches on this one, George. Very well said!
If people think it is not about money they are fooling themselves. No every player, but how do people think Man City become a big club over night?
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FunGunner April 26, 2013 at 2:17 pm
That was some slutty writing by the PIMP. Top, top quality.
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Looks like Wigan have taken just one half of one of the away blocks for the Tuesday night game – FA Cup final on the preceding Saturday so I presume the fans have said enough is enough – never known such a small turn out though for a PL game
Still plenty of home seats on offer
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SA
Yeah it was a crap article. Sorry! I only managed to skim it for evidence of a hack publishing those figures. Amusingly the figures quoted completely contradict his article for reasons described so well by others yesterday (And George!). You couldn’t make it up!
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george, you have said my mind.
how i wish we can take this blog to ‘a cultured le groan’. it is a pity what they feed themselves there. i was there a few days back, i left almost immediately. the lord of the place said he was so sure arsenal had no case appealing giroud’s ban. he said he was sure that giroud was not going for the ball. he even said replay confirm it that his foot didnt touch the ball.
this coming from an arsenal blog. i couldnt believe i read that blog for two years!
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Layksite, if it was so obvious and blatant, why didn’t the FA deem it a frivolous appeal.
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I can’t remember the past time anyone got another game ban for a “frivolous” appeal – I’d guess a couple of years ago Paul – I think the FA forgot about it because it was silly
As for Giroo’s card there was very little chance it was going to be overturned – poor challenge – slipped or not – even Arsene said he thought it was red
I see Brian Talbot was on the Tribunal that banned the flesh eater – good man
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@ anicoll
AW said that directly after the game – he changed his mind after he saw it on TV and that was why he appealed. He said it was clearly accidental and not a serious incident anyway.
Also I can certainly remember a ban being extended after an appeal because it happened to us! Can’t recall which player was involved, though.
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anicoll @ 5:02 pm
“….even Arsene thought it was a red.”
No Anicoll. That is/was not his view after seeing the replays. He politely and comprehensively disagreed with the FA’s verdict in his presser today. (Don’t have time for a quote but check the dotcom.)
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paul, they dont care. as long as it is arsene, it is frivolous in their book. after all if he had bought a replacement for pursie, we would never get any card.
you see what i mean…
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anicoll, I am sure I have seen an extra game added more recently than two years ago. Arsene did not think it was a red once he saw it on replay, he thought it the red was harsh, that is why it was appealed.
I have no issue with the play, to be honest.
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My bad, you guys had answered.
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lakysite, I hear you.
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I thought the red was harsh from day one. A yellow maybe, but as been said by others, I also believe the ref was trying to even it up.
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Oh and apropos nothing whatsoever
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anicoll, what arsene said was that he was never in doubt of the color of the card at the time because fulham was with 10 men and the referee was under a lot of preasure. but haven seen the replay, he was certain it was a violent conduct. afterall not all red is 3 match ban.
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@ steww
how he got that in from that angle, at full stretch, I’ll never know.
And good on eduardo, showing a striker’s instinct and getting into the right position in case AA missed or the keeper parried.
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