Today its a guest post from Sensational Arsenal,take it away young man
I found this comment by one Seamy82 on a sports website. I think he/she speaks for every Arsenal fan in saying:
“I would like to send out a big thank you to Tottenham Hotspur FC. Without you selling Bale to Real Madrid for such an astronomical fee, we wouldn’t have been able to sign the 3rd best player in the world. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”
When I watched the World Cup in 2010, Germany was the team that played the best football. When I saw Ozil play against England, I genuinely only thought: “Arsenal player”; nothing else. I thought that Wenger would go for him in that summer, but was surprised to see him end up at Madrid. His world cup performance made people notice and there was no way we could have gone on a bidding war with Madrid. Even if we did, they would have gazumped us in his salary.
The reason Ozil is now an Arsenal player (Huge buzz just to type that up!!!) is due to careful monitoring of his situation all summer (to a small extent Arsenal would have kept tabs for the past three years), waiting for the opportunity and moving decisively when it presented itself. Credit must be given to Wenger, Gazidis and the team around them.
It is being said that we did our transfer very late. Yeah, how could Arsenal do it so late? Bale went to Madrid on the first day of the transfer window, Madrid kept offering us Ozil, but Arsene Wenger, being the stubborn fool he is, said: “No. I am going to be a petulant child (like how my fellow Arsenal supporters are with the club) and sign Ozil only on the last day of the Window”.
During the summer window, as I scoured the internet for some nice articles and comments to sit back and read about Arsenal, I consistently saw a type of comment “genre” that goes along the lines of: “If we spend X amount of money it will send a statement of intent.” Then as matches started going on, things started getting desperate. “If we sign some 30 million pound players and play them in the match, it will send a statement of intent” So we just chuck a player into the team? Then as it became obvious that there wasn’t a 30 million pound player on the team sheet against Tottenham, things started getting ridiculous: “If we sign a 30 million pound player and he is in the stands watching the match, it will send a statement of intent.”
What the fuck is this statement of intent? You dont buy a special player just to send a message to everyone else: “Hi. By buying this player, I would like to formally state my intent to win the premier league. I would like this to be noted by all the rivals and I fully expect them to duly hand over the premier league trophy now”.
Isn’t the main point of buying a player to strengthen the team? In this case, we added mouth watering attacking quality. Everything else is a knock on effect. This is a special player snapped at a special time and credit must be given to Arsene. Apparently PSG offered more money, but Arsene was the deciding factor.
More than arm chair managers and keyboard critics, more than ex-players looking for cash, players are the ones that can tell us about the manager:
“It is easy [to choose Arsenal], it is one of the best clubs in the world. It is a club with a fantastic story, with a boss who is one of the best in Europe and for me it is a dream. It is special.” – Emiliano Viviano
“I had spoken to the manager at length on the telephone and he explained his plans and that he has faith in me and that is what I need as a player. ” – Mesut Ozil
“I am very happy for Mesut that he has joined such a great club…… an outstanding traditional club with a great coach who can deal well with young people.” – Germany general manager Oliver Bierhoff
“For me the boss will always be Arsene – always great for me and I know what he has done for the club” – Thierry Henry
Meanwhile, the Arsenal “Supporters” Trust, knowing that timing is everything, released the following statement:
“We welcome the statement of intent Arsenal have made with the signing of a world-class player like Mesut Ozil. It is a transformational signing for the club in terms of both transfer fee and wages paid. It is, however, frustrating that once again a window has closed with over £50m left unspent. The AST would like to see all available resources put toward strengthening the team.
This summer’s transfer window has also reinforced the AST’s view that the club need to overhaul their boardroom and football management infrastructure so they have the very best set-up to maximize the way in which the modern-day transfer window now operates.”
If you cannot be happy after owning the spurs’ ass on sunday and signing a super star – made for arsenal – player on Monday, then man you are fucked up.
Can the real supporters get together and release a statement disowning the AST and say that they have nothing to do with the real opinion of Arsenal fans?
When I posted this as a comment, it was heartening to see the unanimous responses here, deriding the AST statement.
Ozil, you were made for Arsenal. You will play some amazing football with some of the best players on the planet. You will be guided by one of the wisest and beautiful football playing coaches in the world. You will recognise fellow creative souls in Cazorla and Rosicky (push him out of your fantasy lineup at your peril). You will be served well by the fantastic players in front of you and behind you. We believe you will serve them well. You will love playing in this team. Welcome to the home of football. Welcome to Arsenal. Welcome home Ozil.
Positively Arsenal 
Hey Limestone ” this while fully agreeing that AW knows how to do the biggest job of getting a group to play well as a team. ”
what is your opinion about fans who insist on presenting this manager as someone who has lost his touch or is out of synch with modern football and/or as someone who should be checked and monitored and be judged/graded on his performance since he has been “failling” the last 8 years?
LikeLike
“How could they have let this happen – paying £100m to sign someone to replace Özil from a club nobody’s heard of?” Sergio Garcia
LikeLike
fins…all praise levy the businessman…never saw a cent of the millions that came in the club ..didnt even keep a 15-20% as courtesy to save for their new ground (their new what?..haha)…..believing in avb’s vision …
just imagine the spuds chairman and all their directors/shareholders dressed in their suits in the gala drinking their champagne waiting for totenham to get 4th last year…..and also on monday night with news coming in arsenal signing ozil …perez making 50% back on the bale transfer while they sit there eyeballing avb….
LikeLike
It only gets better from here.
Wait …
Gareth Bale, superb goal-maker and taker that he has blossomed into, is untried at the level of Real Madrid, or any team that performed at that level of expectation.
My humble opinion.
Theo was, and is, the brighter prospect.
LikeLike
Easy dude. Nothing is fucked here Daniel. They (Madrid on Monday) will call back. You are being very un-Daniel. Nothing is fucked.
They’re a bunch of fucking amateurs!
LikeLike
hahah genius fins !!!
LikeLike
zim well noted…not to mention how ronaldo and ramos will definately bully him in or even dismiss him as a farmboy being far away from home….
LikeLike
Thanks guys.
Limestone, I agree that signing Ozil has lifted everyone up. I am sure the players are buzzing with the added super quality of Ozil to the squad. I am certain the quality of our play will go even further up. My point is that Ozil wasnt bought to say, “look at us, we are making a statement of intent”. He was bought to add quality to the squad. Everything else is a consequence of that. His quality is the thing that is creating the extra buzz. We could have splurged the extra 50 million we allegedly have on someone else, just to make a “statement of intent”, but i doubt it would have created the same buzz as Ozil.
Wenger said he wont panic buy and I am glad he didnt. He bought wisely. If there is any money left over, it can used wisely in the next window rather than buy a Torres and wonder what to do with him (I believe Torres would have fared better with us than at Chelsea).
Zimpaul, I agree. Given a choice between Walcott and Bale, it would be Wally every time.
LikeLike
I agree Sensational that he was bought to add quality and that some other uses of similar amounts wouldn’t have created such a buzz, but that was my point, that Ozil does create such a buzz and does signal something in addition to the fact that he is going to make Arsenal better. Happily it follows uniquely from the fact that he is such a well-regarded great player. I think it was a very judicious and smart purchase–let’s hope he actually performs as well as we have reason to hope!
LikeLike
Fins, I’m coming around to Flamini and have to credit you on that. A few weeks ago, I had my doubts about his return and hadn’t forgiven him for leaving us in the lurch after 2008. We needed some physicality and aggression and hopefully he’ll provide it. I still think some height and strength on the ball could be useful, but if he does what he did for Milan, (I checked the stats too and agree they were better than I thought, but his time was marred by injury), and stays fit, this will help us. Overall I was looking forward to a top striker, a midfielder with certain attributes not present in our squad while Diaby is injured, a keeper to keep WS on his toes and mentor him and possibly one wild card attacking talent. We got the latter beyond any expectation I had, and the other two positions were filled in modest but probably quite canny ways with minimum fuss–Flamini will slot in very quickly compared to a purchase from abroad. The only think we could have used that AW didn’t find was the striker. I think we’ll survive and that Walcott could certainly play there on occasion away when there is space for him to run onto terrific cutting through balls from Cazorla and Ozil until Podolski is fit. And I won’t mind seeing Sanogo or Bendtner in early league cup rounds. I am not as keen on Bendtner though. Part of our strength is the integrity and spirit of our group. I don’t see Bendtner fitting in well but hopefully he keeps his head down and tries to improve his prospects by working hard.
Hunter, I am not obsessed with what other fans say or do. That’s the short answer and –Ozil, defeating Spuds has put me in too good a mood to bag on other fans or try to pass this litmus test, if that is what this is. But it would be a longer and more complicated question that how you put it, which I know means I fail it right at the off! But obviously they are evil, double-agents Spud/Manc/Chavs/Usmanov people, misguided, faithless, subject to their lower passions, idiotic, presumptuous, cowardly, ungrateful, deluded, the cause of all ill that befalls the club (with a close second being the hostile anti-Arsenal media) and need to be erased from existence or at least kept from the stadium during games and all forms of public and private expression on social media, the internet, and airwaves and hopefully, if there is any justice in this world, someday dragged onto the Emirates pitch one by one for public humiliation and flogging Taliban style before the assembled ranks of noble faithful and loyal believers of this parish and Untold Arsenal, starting with Tim Payton, Pedro of Le Grove, YW and Bill. Or something like that. (Banned smiley face!)
LikeLike
@ Sensational Arsenal September 4, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Very well put.
LikeLike
wow very well said there LSG, and no its not about obsessions or fan competition of who knows more ….rather than morals. I kinda laugh when people use the freedom of expression excuse to provide an alternative viewpoint which is so far off from reality and what is objectively correct and reasonable….
LikeLike
Don’t be so dramatic, Limestone Gunner. They need to be challenged, just like they insist AW must be challenged. I can’t be bothered to do it any more. People like hunter13 can.
LikeLike
nah fungunner im fed up too…even the blind can see now …. 🙂
i just know that they will hide and avoid admitting they were wrong and will continue calling faithful and knowing supporters who are convinced by wengers work at arsenal the last 16 years as deluded……ignorance is strength i suppose… some even think it was their pressure that brought ozil to arsenal…hahaa..as if wenger didnt know ozil or want him or ever have him in his shortlists since ozil was like 15…..
plus i find it funny that they cant accept that all the good things fans were “promised” will happen in due time…patience…thats all wenger and the club asked in 2006…patience and support.
now lets laugh at totnm and manure !!!
LikeLike
LSG, No credit for me!
I had no idea about what state Flamini was in so couldn’t comment at that time, heh.
Later a chat with a friend during the Fener game convinced me that he could do a job (that he’d recovered from long injury lay offs). And it was nice to see him back.
I’ve never speculated on why he left though I have my thoughts. There were mistakes made by all parties (whisper it, we can discuss ‘errors’. Just not all. Of. The. Time).
Whatever the disagreements were all parties must have acted with dignity and respect for each other, hence his return. A nice tale. I wish him luck.
LikeLike
Great write up, SA. I agree with every word.
LikeLike
Hunter @ 5:47.
exactly.
LikeLike
Where is George?
LikeLike
Talking Through the Arse – Episode 2 is up.
LikeLike
George, I had missed that you’ve started a podcast. Wonderful news and congrats! I’ll have to go listen back to the first. Is it available on iTunes or just on this website? I’d like to download rather than just stream, if possible.
LikeLike
Its not sorted on I tunes yet but I believe you can download it from the site
LikeLike
I have a small confession to make: I was wrong about Özil…. back in 2010. That’s when the first rumours started about us being interested (pre-WC and Madrid transfer, mind you). I just did not think he would be able to stake a claim in our midfield because back then, we had Ramsey, Nasri, Cesc and Rosicky all interested in the top spot in midfield. Heck, we even had Fran Merida waiting in the wings (apparently he is playing in the second league in Brazil nowadays). So I wrote on several blogs that I hope we don’t get Özil, because he wouldn’t get a game for us. Then came the world cup and Özil provided me with a large serving of humble pie. I am very happy to eat some more now in admitting that I was wrong about him.
LikeLike
talking through the arse is george ??? wooohoooo…
LikeLike
Thanks, George, I’ll give that a try. But again, great news. I love listening to Arsenal chat when doing the washing up or folding laundry, even exercising sometimes!
Btw, is the Fans’ Forum defunct? Looked like there was a new format planned without Tom Watt and with Clarkie instead. But I haven’t been able to track down any new editions…
LikeLike
LG you can catch Adrian on Arsenal.com or the Player ,The show is called “The Clock end”
LikeLike
Thanks so much, George! I’ll check it out.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Özil’s signing reminds me of the time Redondo and other creative players boycotted the Argentine squad because Passarella told them their long locks were no longer tolerated. I don’t know how a creative player would want to play under Mourinho, let alone Ancelotti.
Fuck AST, Le Grove and every doomer in the Gunnersphere. After talking massive aounts of crap for years, Wenger finally makes a huge purchase and these whingers write face saving articles giving him a bad grade because he didn’t buy a striker or a center half. That butthurt right there is what has kept me buzzing since Monday night. Schadenfreude is a dish best served fresh and piping hot. Fuckevery last person who ever wanted Wenger out. Bunch of pricks.
LikeLike
Sens, perfect post.
hunter @ 2:43
Yeah, saw that coming, the fucking cretins.
The spend the fracking money crowd think they can claim credit for this?
i’m down in the south of France, in the mountains. News here is that we only paid 40 euro for Özil, that’s about £35m, a fucking steal. Also heading Madrid is getting 300€ a week, that’s morally sickening, in a country with 30% unemployment. There is a lot of anger with RM in the media down here.
As I said before, Arsenal need to put the AST out in the cold, the clueless wannabe ammatures. Director of Football? Fuck-off lads.
LikeLike
Gainsbourg69 September 4, 2013 at 8:50 pm
remember redondo against berg at o.t? ..ahahaa…
but carlo is good…i like carlo..massive respect…pirlo kaka seedorf? not creative? …
agree in every word in 3rd paragraph..such clowns..lol.. should have read yogis piece yesterday…. enlightened and inspirational 🙂
double canister September 4, 2013 at 8:53 pm
no accountability…they dont wear pants..they wear skirts….and thongs…
LikeLike
Finsbury @ 4:22
That Garcia ‘quote’ was just Arseblog making stuff up to be funny.
It is funny, but Mangan is still being a miserable dick, I despair of him.
He can be funny sometimes, but he has let the site become completely bi-polar.
hunter is YW the ex-lawyer you mentioned?
LikeLike
Wenger has integrity and he is a strong character. He won’t be bullied or pressured into anything. And it had been made clear from the start of the window that we were ready to shop at Harrod’s as opposed to Aldi. That was before the usual suspects competed with the referee at the Villa game for the most disgraceful showing.
LikeLike
Well Gains, I think it will have been worth the wait. I think Ozil is a higher quality player than any of the strikers we were in for ultimately. Flamini in midfield, Viviano keeping WS honest. That’s pretty good if Vermaelen isn’t far from fitness. We’ll just have to hope OG stays hot and injury/suspension free, but I’d start playing Theo away from home against more open teams lower down the table. He’ll have space to run behind and deadly passers to find him. That should keep OG fresh until Podolski gets back. But a striker in January would be really helpful if possible. Who wouldn’t want to team up with Cazorla, Ozil, if you were a goal scorer? Look how much Ronaldo is moaning about losing the guy who knows his moves best.! Maybe he can join us too if he is that upset!
LikeLike
lol..no not him dc….he cant be …or maybe he can …..i dont know …….one would expect that cultured and educated people would not stoop to the level of disguising morgan-type opinions as freedom of expression and alternative viewpoints…..but the worst was that most popular blogs intentionally ignored the ref against villa and ripped into the club….
LikeLike
Hunter, one of the highlights of my footballing life was watching Redondo mug Berg, take it to end line and pass it to Raul for the tap in. That sits right up there with Henry’s goal against Barthez, Bergkamp’s goal against Argentina and Van Basten’s strike against the U.S.S.R..
Ancelotti is not an attack minded coach, Hunter. This is the guy who didn’t know how to get the best out of Ronaldinho and decided to stuff him in that ridiculous christmastree formation. That he had excellent players when he arrived at Milan is an entirely different story.
LikeLike
Fins: “From the above links the Ozil deal was born admidst the ashes of the Higuain deal – not so incompetent then: Florentino Perez snubbing PSG and Utd, his own fans and players because he had promised Wenger a gift (he could have fracked more wonga out of gas clubs).”
I doubt Florentino promised any one a gift. I’m sure he sent us Özil because he saw PSG and Man United as bigger threats than us. It was a suit move. No football man would have ever handed Arsene Wenger such a player on a silver platter.
LikeLike
well to be fair ronaldinho wasnt particularly motivated after a while – for me not even messi has reached such a period of inexplicable wizardry…for 3 years everything ronaldinho did was in 3d..we needed special vision to catch most of it and only after replays – kinda stopped being a professional footballer from around his last year at barca…he got fed up ..had won it all..pissed all over …la ligas champions leagues, intercontinentals, world cups, copa americas everything ..one of the best ever …
LikeLike
DanSchulof September 3, 2013 at 6:59 pm
I saw this thought-provoking comment on arseblog (made by “Aamir”) and thought I would share it here in case any of you missed it:
“I also love how the €50m/£42.5m was our own hard earned money. No benefactor involved. Considering Madrid and Barca have their governments and monopolies and how every other big team has wealthy owners, this is the highest transfer fee paid by a self sufficient club.”
I guess I don’t agree with all of the factual specifics of Aamir’s comment, but I do agree with the general point about how impressive this MONSTER move is for a self-sufficient club, particularly one competing directly against two sugar-babies and ManU for only four UCL spots and one that just completed a stadium build like ours. And I too take A LOT of pride in this. For me, it is a HUGE accomplishment to build that killer stadium and then pull off a deal like this so shortly after its completion.
Look at it this way: If at the time that we made the Emirates play you had told any interested party that (1) benefactor owners with bottomless budgets would buy four major European clubs over the coming decade, inflating an unprecedented bubble in the global transfer market, (2) we’d still qualify for the UCL every year through 13-14 although we wouldn’t win any major trophies, and (3) by September 2013 we’d have the squad that we have today plus L100m or so in cash reserves and the global brand platform that we have, with AW still at the helm, they would BITTEN YOUR FUCKING HAND OFF for that result. With the benefit of hindsight, we’re all geniuses. But, judged prospectively, that would have been considered an incredibly good outcome.
When the results don’t pan out, I get as caught up in short-term-ist outrage as the next guy. And I’m embarrassed to admit that my faith in AW has wavered on occasion. But when you step back and look at what the decision-makers have done to this club over the past 10 years, how can you not salute them, particularly with all the second-guessing and criticism to which we constantly subject them?
(If you answer that rhetorical question with a snarky “they’ve actually achieved nothing” then you’re really not fit to manage a hot dog stand.)
LikeLike
“Well to be fair ronaldinho wasnt particularly motivated after a while – for me not even Messi has reached such a period of inexplicable wizardry…for 3 years everything ronaldinho did was in 3d..we needed special vision to catch most of it and only after replays – kinda stopped being a professional footballer from around his last year at barca…he got fed up ..had won it all..pissed all over …la ligas champions leagues, intercontinentals, world cups, copa americas everything ..one of the best ever …”
Nah, dude, look at his stats for Milan. He came well motivated but was a victim of Ancelotti’s cowardice. He wouldn’t play Seedorf and Ronaldinho in the same team because of that stupid christmas tree formation of his. Ronaldinho decided to doze off a few years into his Milan contract.
LikeLike