Last night I read again a blog written by @AFC_ChrisGooner “Arsenal putting pieces in place for future success” http://bit.ly/1QpmfXr .I have read it several times now and it a fabulous piece , well written and researched. Having read it I then tweeted
People didn’t see a plan not because there wasn’t one, but because they were unable to comprehend its enormity. Silly people.”
I expected the usual replies. you know the ones .“We were lied to . we could have done more, we should have done X, we should have bought Y, mistakes were made blah blah blah” . But to my surprise very few like that were forthcoming. So either people now accept they were wrong and the improvements are now so obvious that they can’t deny them or perhaps people are just happy and are prepared to forgive the perceived acts of negligence by the club?
I suppose the problem for many is that their ambitions are tied to the club. They are basically asking someone else to be ambitious on their behalf. The Arsenal board, and by extension Arsene Wenger are responsible for their personal ambition. An odd state of affairs and somewhat unique to football fans who in real life think that tweeting while sitting on the toilet is ambitious.
Still, I digress.Back to last night. I then got a reply that I believe is the single best tweet I have ever seen.
@Blackburngeorge “spend some fucking money!” ringing around the stadium the club spent £400m+ on. You couldn’t make it up.”
Brilliant. I rest my case.
Positively Arsenal 
Quite a performance from the Groaners’ golden boy Gonzalo Higuain last night, again.
Misses a very good chance to finish it in the last minute of regular time, then blasts his penalty over the bar.
How much did Napoli pay for him ?!?!
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George’s squeeze Amy had a piece published on the new Arsenal keeper over the past few days. While the article itself was unspectacular she had added a link to the Pat Jennings edition of This is Your Life from November 1983. A little gem Amy.
For those of you who do not know who Eamon Andrews was, or the significance of his Red Book, it would take too long to explain. If you do however remember Pat, and/or possess an interest in Arsenal history, and Spuds history in the 60s, 70s and 80s it is 24 minutes of intense nostalgia. Now Pat is a LEGEND. (sniffs loudly)
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Thanks Andy Nic: a different world then in oh so many ways. A really special trip down memory lane, and one that has left me both happy and sad. I used to play a bit of cricket with Norman Wisdom’s son, Nicky, and got invited into the house once when dropping him back after a match. I was shown the famous This is Your Life book then – it was real and the guests did take it away with them – it wasn’t just a prop. Hard to remember (or explain to today’s young) how cut off people were from each other in those days before easy flights, or emails and phones, or Facebook and Twitter. Norman Wisdom came into the dressing room at during tea one match ( a particularly dire Under 25 contest against Kent at Folkestone). He was walking with a slight limp, and questioned about it went into an astonishing unscripted routine explaining how he had stubbed his toe en-route to the bathroom the night before. Pure comedy gold and a genuinely funny man, as was Peter Cook but I don’t think Norman had the demons that the clip we’ve just seen so clearly presaged. Or Georgie Best for that matter. It seems that being touched with genius comes with a price. Whom the gods most love they seek to destroy.
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the changing face of Arsenal’s first team
Arsenal first choice team 2011-12
Szczesny
Sagna Mertesacker Koscielny Vermaelen
Song Arteta
Walcott Ramsey Rosicky
Van Persie
subs Fabianski, Djourou, Gibbs, Santos, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Benayoun, Gervinho
even with only one signing made so far this summer just compare that team and subs to the team can now select. Of the 18 listed above, 9 are no longer at the club, and only 3( per, kos and rambo) of that starting 11 were clear first choice all last season wtih Ox the only one of the subs who was also first choice last season.
so many of the AAA act like AFC have in recent seasons only added Ozil and Alexis and now Cech, but our likely match day squad now bears little resemblance to that of only 3 years ago.
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I cannot believe we have let another ‘ace’ go???????
http://metro.co.uk/2015/07/05/liverpool-complete-transfer-of-elijah-dixon-bonner-from-arsenal-5281597/?
Wenger out!
P.S. I was supping tea when I clicked on the above link. I did manage a giggle too…
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Safe to say after having watched various angles of Sanchez’s winning penalty that I am still celebrating last Summer’s transfer window (I forget what happened in the Football).
Did I ever tell any of you that Sanchez had been my fantasy signing? What a player.
He’s learning to pass too!
Has he got better since he arrived at AFC? Well, if one of his mentors and important coach (club and national) from back home thinks that, then I can too!
What a star. And he was signed whilst Vengargggh was on the beach. In Rio. Playing volleyball. Whilst on holiday in Brazil. Dithering!
For the graceless bleating witnessed whilst the gaffer chilled on the beach, the Sanchez signing runs the Özil signing very close for comedy value.
I thought the club were never going to top the Özil signing, not in my lifetime. Dick the dreaded Law undercover in Madrid dotting the i’s and crossing t’s with Levy sat in N5 thinking his “Özil embargo” had worked whilst watching £100M evaporate in the space of 90 minutes. I think most of those players that the AAA described “statement of intent’s” signings that fleeced Tottenham are now up for sale this summer – let us take pause and reflect at this sombre moment:
Soldado. Lamela. Paulinho who was dismissed by Chambo before he even set foot in blighty. Holtby. I can’t remember the rest, wait there was Chaldi the only one who even seems half decent when he can be bothered? Special mention for the short pulling antics of Vertonghan, who did not have ankle traumas as an excuse for poor form. More? I’d better stop there. The contrast in the media is undeniably hilarious.
Sorry Steww but these recent transfer windows have had some priceless moments. Mourinho publicly dissed by a Gazprom legend? “Chelsea owe Roman for their success….”, gold!
Truth is I’ve been enjoying them ever since Arsene Vulture did his stork impersonation, swooped on the carcass of the team Pellegrini briefly built at Malaga and came back carrying Saint Cazorla in his beak. Even better, he went back for more helpings, for Nacho The Harbinger Monreal. And so it came to pass that winter as the great and the good the knowledgable and not at all discredited spent that window howling through their reflections at Vengarrrgh for not signing Remy or (stop me if I am being too cruel) Benteke or some other shite arsed shite. Whilst these Groaners groaned, the LB area had been sorted. Done.
And here we are a couple of years later, and ignoring the rest of the squad on the opposite flank we have Debuchy, Bellerin and Jenkinson all vying for the RB berth for the years to come. That’s why I referred to Monreal as The Harbinger at the time. It was all fairly obvious. The Plan was not hidden (A non-larcenous giant new stadium built in the heart of the world’s financial capital – not cheap or unambitious). You had to make a effort to ignore it all. The construction of a Football Team. To ignore the beginning or building of a new era whilst stating that you were hoping for the beginning of a new era.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next season but I’ve been enjoying myself. Can’t complain, don’t know about you lot haha! Think I’m going to rock back, enjoy watching a Gooner at Wimbledon (highlights!) and try to catch some of the Ashes when I can.
Summertime. And the living is easy (back to work).
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isn’t it always funny when the media use the term “Arsenal miss out” or “beat Arsenal to” when another club sign a player Arsenal never even made a bid for, – Martinez one such case and I’d predict that if Benteke leaves Villa then Arsenal will be included in most if not all related articles in the media.
The journos get so little real info about Arsenal moves that they just throw our name at player after player in the hope one sticks. Also with Arsenal fans so strong on the web adding AFC to any story makes for big click numbers.
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A headline on Newsnow Arsenal
Liverpool Complete Shock Signing Of Arsenal Star
without even clicking on it I know this is click bait and is about lfc signing 16 year old Dixon-Bonner, it really is laughable the headlines used by these stupid sites.
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I never heard of E-D-B, and I follow the progress of the Academy kids closely.
Fancy a Werther’s Original anyone?
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Eddy have you not read the well known publication “How to be a football agent for dummies” by J. Mendez? Chapter one, line one: “Thou shalt link your client to the Arsenal. Especially if they are nearly 29, heh, and looking for a pension in Serie A etc.”
Replace ‘journos’ with agents Eddy and you’l understand one reason why PG set up this site. A site free of people (trolls) promoting some Special Agent’s ware for free, the idiots.
It’s why we don’t talk about transfers much or discuss them. The website transferrumours.com was a funny pastiche of footbal journalism, for all fans, and a friend first showed that to me in 2008. People would just make up rumours and post them, made for much better reading then newsnow. e.g.: “I’ve just met Player X’s former friend from primary school in Sainsbury’s…”
Though there are also times when a signing is so obvious that there will be lots of coverage. Podolski’s arrival, his departure, these were not very secret transfers. Hard for them to be so. Ozil, that was another matter, but even then it was impossible to hold back the story. It became obvious he was on his way even before kick off that amazing day against Tottenham. We knew, and the arsenal players knew he was on the way. That’s one reason why that performance on the day, the result, was brilliant. Perhaps it’s performances like that that built the trust in the group referred to by Walcott.
And it was those comments on trust within the group from Walcott that were most interesting this summer. We all know, and so does everyone else, that if most of this group can stay fit for most of the season, that they’ll be close to the big baubles. Injuries (don’t worry Ranty, you know what I mean!) to Walcott and Ramsey denied this squad the title in 13/14. It’s a stronger squad now.
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Fins
The spuds are in a right old pickle and no mistake.
Spend proper money (again) to make their squad competitive for top 6, never mind the top 4. Or spend serious money and actually get their stadium started – which they will have to decant for 2 years.
Looking at the gigantic cost over-runs at Wembley and Stratford – the chances of the spuds getting change out of £600m is unlikely.
The only silver lining for Levy is that TV money of £80-70m a year will eventually bail them out. The same money will now only push Arsenal even further ahead.
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DC I too follow our Academy and I had only ever seen his name once or twice before and I don’t think he ever even made it into a match day squad for our U18 team, so I assume “star” is being used in a very liberal way
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The developers have had as much assistance in N17 as the Spammers did with the Olympic Stadium from their Uncle Boris. But that’s for the housing etc. which they’ll be hoping to sell off too investors from abroad after bulldzoing some of the existing council housing stock.
Not sure what that all means for the Tinie’s Stadium. They’ve kept on prepping the site, the giant Sainsbury’s is up and local traders and shops are suffering (or getting burnt down) across the board whilst the development stays on hold.
Maybe it’s a question of money still? No main contractor has been appointed to actually build the stadium, that would cosyt money, and so they won’t actually know how much it’s going to cost them at the moment. Whereas with the new Arsenal stadium the builders had been signed up and working out with the engineers how they were going to play with the tricky trianngular site between the railway lines in good time. Which is why the project came in on budget, very different when we compare with the models used by FUFA or the IOC, on budget! Remarkable.
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As for Gazprom’s new stadium. Where to start?
A Colosseum/Coliseum/Flavian Amphitheatre pastiche for Roman’s small ego no less. Neo-feuadlism in all it’s glory. and it ain’t gonna be cheap. Oh no!
I’ve been crictical of some facets of the development in N5, but that’s because I don’t deny that it was done to a budget. No fancy dan architect* was required to refurbish the Grade II listed Highbury, just a builder that wasn’t a loon or a complete crook. They could’ve done a better job, I could bore you all death with the details, especially around the old East Stand. But they were on a budget.
*The architect hired by Gazprom also worked on the Beijing Birds Nest a project notorious for being designed by not the architects but by a sculptor who later disowned his work for the slave labour conditions etc. imposed upon that site (better PR then Qatar), these architects also defaced one of London’s Art Deco masterpieces with their shopping mall fitout for the Tate Modern superstore. They built some nice houses in their younger days but their big stuff is just nasty tat.
Yes. Those bricks they are proposing will be very expensive to fit. No doubt about it. But the drapes and curtains that surround the New Arsenal Stadium look far better, the use of desingers to constantly upgrade and decorate the bare concrete with finishes or decorations that can be changed, upgraded. And all a lot cheaper. The original Flavian Amphitheatre was indeed built with some Roman bricks, but it’s appearance was famous for it’s fabrics and decorations that draped and covered the stands during summer and protected people from the hotter Mediterranean sun.
I know that I am biased, sometimes, but are the architects taking the piss out of the Roman? Have they proposed a super expensive project that will refurbish Stamford Bridge into looking like the Flavian Amphiteatre as we see it today, an empty bare ruin for tourists and not a functioning stadium?
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At the darkest hour, when the project seemed in peril, Frank described the new Arsenal Stadium as Fizman’s Mausoleum. A fair consideration not least for all who made the decision to embark upon the project. That spectre would’ve haunted their dreams too.
But here we are. Two colourful parades later, new as in even more decorations have gone up.And as Andrew said when the stadium was blessed/baptised last year the parade and street parties were as grand and colourful as those who’d dreamed of keeping the club in n5 must have hoped they’d be. All this chat about the design of stadiums etc, effecting the atmosphere it’s all a load of crap. The only thing that matters are the people. It can be nice if you have an un obstructed view, that’s it.
Case in point: the scenes in Santiago. Amazing. Some of the reported comments that people made to the players were heart breaking. Awesome scenes. And very much linked to N.London if I recall, Pinochet fled here for some “medical treatment” after he’d served his purpose. I can’t find the words to do the emotions felt by people in Chile any justice. To reclaim that stadium from it’s dark history is an amazing and inspiring story.
And Alexis Sanchez was at the heart of it all.
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Alexis Sanchez is The Anti-Suarez.
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Unless Spuds are that they will have their stadium built on a fixed price contract same as the Grove and the Millennium Fins – the long running joke I have with my Tottingham chums is their stadium – will any of us still be around when the first game finally kicks off there ?
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I was musing on a long dull train journey this morning on a similar theme to Shotts and his “Wenger signs for Spuds in 1996” theme.
Just say, in a parallel universe, Roman had been looking to acquire a London club in 03 and instead of being enveigled into purchasing the Chels by wily Ken he had chosen to buy the capital’s top club.
From what is said Roman did not know Chelsea from his elbow in 2003 and it could have been anyone. Given the boardroom fuss about Stan I suspect the then shareholders would have flapped a bit but money solves a lot of problems and it is a commodity the Russian has in buckets.
With the stadium build imminent at the time it would have solved a multitude of finance problems.
Yeah it is a thought
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Tumbleweed is blowing through the transfer window.
Let lack of panic by Arsenal is upsetting the experts.
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Eduardo 11:57
Arsenal turned down the option of signing one of Beckham’s kids, we’ll get over this most recent loss.
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I’ve see one image of the new Gazpromdrome, Fins; very impressive looking.
Brickwork on that scale is a very very expensive proposition, especially when working with boutique Fancy-Dan architects.
Take it from me, I know all about being a fancy-Dan.
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Fins at 11:49 am seems the basis of a proper blog, all flesh and bones. How say you PG?
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compare
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with the same existing view
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I think the youth player who we dont want to go but might be on his way out is Dobson, he is a good player but sees too much talent in front of him. He has already trained with west ham
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On another subject if Theo is used as a striker this year and the Ox’s position is eventually going to be further in side, is the player we actually need a winger. I know Arsene has played many CM’s; romford pele, Aaron, Jack etc but do we need an actual out and out winger. Serge is a possability but he to likes to drift in to the ten position. Maitland-Niles has gone out on loan which only really leaves Alex Iwobi as a natural winger. Even if JC comes back I think wide is not really his position. Arsene could use TR7 or Danny as other options, however if our next signing is more Georgie Armstrong than Charlie George im claiming to be ITK.
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dc
If it happens it’s just going to be very expensive slips over the concrete isn’t it?
I’ve seen people charging six pounds for a posh Roman brick (each) so why not three for a slip! There are only about two furnaces/kilms left in England, which makes it a lot easier to find our the real price of the bricks/slips, and the mark ups applied on comission. The signal bix in Switzerland has been the best thing those dudes have done, also like the rural house with the lift/floor. Anything bigger has been bobbins IMO. And all that copper sheathing wasn’t cheap even if it worked (shielding).
Cool graffiti, a splash of paint and some natty drapes are much cheaper! ( IBSF )
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‘coll
This is where the Usmanov, Kronke & Dein love triangle is such an interesting story, not forgetting the death bed haggle with Fizman and and T&C that might have been agreed. Who knows what went on? Not me. Not sure i can wait for AW’s autobiograpy.
A bazillion bloggers, committed hacks or hacks that should be committed like the charming and honest Amy Lawrence and not one scoop on this story ever, anywhere.
I can’t understand how or why self-delcared experts in the three sacred F’s (Football, Finance & Sports Physiotherapy) would studiously have avoided this story. Well, I can, but that is speculation. Hehe.
Given the rejection of that notorious seductress Alisher Usmanov by the club my best guess is that the same collective who gave GG the sack for taking the kind of bung that was a given elsewhere then and now (tbf they are slightly bigger now, only slightly haha….), they’d have turned up their blue blooded noses at Roman too.
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Fins
For recent work (and the varies of exchange rates) we are paying €500 per thousand, for high quality clay UK bricks.
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Brainwave!!
All Roman has to do is get his Chavvy fans to sponsor each brick.
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apparently Arsenal haven’t even bid for Schneiderlin but we’ll still “miss out” on him if he signs for someone else
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http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150703/arsenal-welcomes-scholars-and-young-pros
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Why was there a spike in visits 3 hours ago? Did someone tweet something?
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PG, not me ‘guv!
I was at the time, contemplating Norwich, as it seems to be in A5’s nook and crannie?
I have no wish to upset Steww.
Admiring the Canaries financial acumen in recent years, Ricky van Wolfswinkel,cost a mere £8,8 millions. He scored one goal in Norwich v Everton (2-2), and that was it for the season (2013/2014). Did anyone mention Giroud? Against Monaco?
Which, then led me to the financial basket case that was/is Blackburn Rovers. There was a one-off provision of £6.4 millions for “onerous player contracts”. ”these payments included summer pay-offs to players like Dickson Etuhu, who had two years remaining on his reported £36,000-per-week contract, and David Goodwillie.”
I have never heard of Dickson Etuhu, but if he was earning £36,000 p.w. and Goodwillie an over-rated Scottish player, then we can deduce certain assumptions!
The Arsenal “onerous player contracts” was slightly lower!
As you can see PG, not me guv!
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the AAA are in meltdown on twitter due to some gobshite from talkshite radio saying Wenger/Arsenal are not doing anymore signings this summer. It really is funny how little it takes for the AAA to throw a tantrum and come out with all their bile against Arsenal, its manager and its players. Not sure who it is that says it on here, but I’m starting to believe that a lot of them suffer from mental problems.
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Nook me no crannie NOTH !
Much as they are an intermittent local irritant I like Nawridge – a few woofers in the transfer market like Wooolfswinkell – hell of a name though – if you trawl the fence sitters site you will find my reference.
Good hard workers though – like their new baldy Jock manager – and 25k fans week in week out
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/mikel-arteta-signs-new-arsenal-6014648?
they can’t even announce new contract for Arteta without putting a negative spin on it
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New post is up.
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