Greetings Positivistas! Whether we like it or not our football holiday is almost over. The Arsenal troops are reassembling, there is the smell of gunpowder, canons are being cleaned, occasional explosions are being heard; a clear signal that the competitive battle in the EPL is about to resume.
OK my metaphors may be overblown but today’s game with RC Lens is the definitive sign that the 2016-17 season is almost upon us. Hard to believe that in four weeks 8-9 months of annual football warfare will resume.
While some of us may have been somnolent during this holiday winter, the outside world has been awash with dramatic events which in my opinion will eventually have some impact on our footballing lives. Chief among them was the BREXIT, a subject which was very precious to many of us on this blog. Despite the temptation, unlike President Obama, I decided against offering an opinion since I am not a Briton and won’t have to live with the consequences.
But the thing that struck me most during and after the referendum is how similar it was to the annual WEXIT we Arsenal fans have had to live through, at least for the past five years. The evidence is abundant.
By 2011, six years had passed since the club had last won a meaningful trophy. After the shock defeat in the League Cup final to Birmingham City, of all the clubs, the unimaginable became apparent. After years of disparaging other club supporters for being fickle and reactive to short term results our fans begun to publicly question the future of their most successful manager. This was reflected in the mainstream media when CNN’s Ben Wyatt wrote a piece published April 25, 2011 under the headline: Has Time Run Out For Arsene Wenger
“There will be calls for the Wenger tenure to end, for the man who delivered so much to be deposed now his Midas touch has seemingly vanished.”
Later that October, one Mirti Murunj writing for a publication Run Of Play opined that:
“No philosophy, not even the most transformative, should go on forever”
The shit was really to hit the fan at the beginning of the 2011-12 season when Barcelona finally completed its 2-year seduction of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri’s half season goal explosion the previous season was to see him succumb to Sheik Mansour ad Manchester City poking big bills in his garter belt. As Wenger himself was forced to admit, Arsenal could no longer count itself as a big club when it was losing its best players to bigger clubs. Arguably the nadir of the season, exposing how much the club was weakened, was the 8-2 shellacking by Manchester United. The Arsenal Action blog pulled no punches and declared “Wenger Out”. Sounds familiar?
Unlike the BREXIT, despite five years of incessant campaigning by a noisy, whiny, self entitled minority of Arsenal fans who are enabled by the mainstream media, the annual WEXIT has been unsuccessful. Last Spring when I made my first ever trip to the Emirates, I witnessed the last desperate and eventually futile attempt to conduct an in-stadium referendum. As we all know, Wenger was the clear winner forcing even that noisy anti-Arsene celebrity phone hacker, Piers Morgan to concede defeat.
Despite never falling out of the top-four in his twenty years at the club (unlike United, Chelsea, City and Liverpool) and his prudence in running the club despite an era of the greatest ever financial excesses, exemplified by United’s willingness to pay over £100 million to buy-back a player they released on a free only four years earlier, the upcoming season will see more desperate attempts to unseat Arsene. The Daily Cannon’s Helen Trantum on Jube 24, 2016 did not express whether she was for Leave or Remain but the headline of her blog was very telling:
“Can we have a referendum on Arsene?”
But the sage of Dublin is taking no chances. He has been stirring up his massive following with portents of doom simply because Ivan Gazidis had the temerity to make an empirical observation in an exclusive interview with ESPN FC:
“The big clubs can’t financially bully the smaller clubs in the way they used to, so I think a lot of the differentiators between clubs become more subtle now,”
“It’s how well you can identify talent. It’s how well you can develop talent. It’s how strong your club philosophy is. It’s how together you are as a football club, what your support services are like in the medical field, fitness, analytics, psychology. All of these things become differentiators.”
As said in the past, the sage usually speaks out of two sides of his mouth and today’s blog was no different. While in the past attacking other clubs spending massive amounts of money on mediocre players and praising Leicester City for defying conventional wisdom by proving you can win the League without spending massive amounts of money, he proceeds to deliver the following howler:
“Look, I’m all for a bit of common sense in a world gone mad, but isn’t the message we get from Gazidis indicative of what frustrates people about this club? We have an absolute fortune at our disposal to use to buy players to make the team better and more competitive – yet the Chief Executive is focusing on clubs who can spend more, and citing a once-off fluke season from a team who will never win the league again as a model for success.”
But inevitably the target had to be Wenger, all others are collateral damage:
It’s not about what other clubs do with their cash, it’s about what we do with ours, but we know that Arsene Wenger is a man obsessed with value.
WTF you may ask? Isn’t the interview with Ivan Gazidis? Isn’t he the boss, the chief executive? Clearly not, if you go by the sage of Dublin.
Strap yourselves in boys and girls, the fun has just begun.
Positively Arsenal 
Oops.
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Great piece Shotta
I’m getting excited about tonight. I’m getting excited about the coming season. We have a very strong midfield with plenty of options and permutations-something we have not had in a long while. That has to be a reason to be very optimistic. I am.
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“the sage of Dublin”??? Shotta just doesn’t give a fuck.
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I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning.
Or afternoon even.
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Spellcheck Shotts I think you meant to write “Frutile” above *wipes a tear*
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As for the selfless sage.
Why the wilful and consistent misrepresentation of the policies ethics and practices of Arsenal Football Club that pre-date the current manager? After all AFC sacked their previous best ever manager for doing the kind of thing that Big Sam (that would be the England Manager.) got upset with the BBC for reporting (bungs innit). That remains the question:
Why do they attempt to smear the manager of the club and institution they say they support for adhering to the policies of the club? It is: strange behaviour.
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espnfc.com/german-bundesliga/10/blog/post/2915634/stefan-reinartz-new-metric-packing-helps-us-understand-effective-passing
Crucially, the model also measures the effectiveness of pass recipients. While Italy’s Graziano Pellè was the best target man at the Euros, collecting balls that took out an average of 82 players per game, Mesut Ozil’s ability to find space in the opposition half as an outlet to teammates was equally remarkable. Passes to the German playmaker took out 63 players per game on average. This is the kind of insight that traditional statistics didn’t provide; Ozil’s passing skills were well-known, but his movement perhaps wasn’t as valued.
ozil and Griezmann are revealed to be some of the better passers via Reinartz’s metric.
“Ozil enables you to get the ball past players,” Reinartz said. “He’s the best in the world between the lines… that’s why he’s an automatic starter under any coach even if the public don’t always appreciate him. I believe the importance of attacking players as pass recipients is the greatest insight we have gathered over the last couple of years.”
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oh they are back, our boys are back, and we have a game, tonight at 7pm, it might “only” be a friendly v Lens, and half the squad are kids,the team might be a bit disjointed, they might lack sharpness, even fitness, but its the Arsenal, and they are back in action after what seems like an eternity,
We are unlikely to see new boy, Xhaka, in action, but you never know, he has been training a couple of days. Cazorla is said to be still out injured too.
So who will we see
Seniors
Well the established players expected to be in the squad/team are Mertesacker, Gabriel, Chambers, Monreal, Gibbs,Debuchy, Coquelin, Wilshere, Elneny, Campbell, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott and Iwobi. So that is a full outfield team, and 3 subs.
Kids
I’m keen to see how last season’s loan spells have helped Martinez, Zelalem, Akpom and Sanogo, will it have given them the belief, the experience required, are they now battle hardened, will they be up to the challenge, will they be out to show that they are above being sent to the dismal(comparatively speaking) lower reaches of league football and Scotland. Martinez has always looked like he could be a top keeper, Zelalem oozes class and style, much like a young Ozil, his slight frame said to be the only real hold back in his progress, Akpom has huge potential, consistency his big downfall, and then there is Sanogo, can cause havoc v Bayern, and in a cup final, but has so far been unable to get the goals needed to bring him to the top level.
Of the really young lads, Bielik, Willock and Nelson are the 3, I find of real interest. Bielik has now had a year of playing at CB, and has got better and better at it, he is the one youth we have who could be described as being man able, he looks fully developed physically. He can be slow to get going in games, and tends to grow into games, if he can start games quicker I’m sure we will see a lot more of him. Willock is a great dribbler, and like Zelalem he needs to learn to handle the rough house tactics, he has great vision, has a goal in him, and takes people on for fun. Everything I just said about Willock can easily be applied to Nelson too, the lad is only 16, and has been training with the first team on a regular basis for a year now, he has crazy ball skills.
So no mater who is fielded v Lens, I will be eager to see them, its Arsenal, and the new season starts tonight and I for one can’t wait, I’ve got “my Arsenal back”, and I will support it, regardless of who is in the team or squad or dugout, no matter who we play, no matter if its a friendly in France, or a cup final at Wembley, yes I will vent my frustrations at times but I will support the team, manager, club, as that is what a supporter is meant to do.
Arsenal are back, oh yeah baby.
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our new no.16 Rob Holding
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http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160721/rob-holding-s-first-arsenal-interview
ROB HOLDING’S FIRST ARSENAL INTERVIEW
Rob Holding became our third signing of the summer when he agreed a deal to join the club this week. Below is a transcript of his first interview as an Arsenal player:
Rob, welcome to Arsenal. How does it feel to have signed for the club?
Yeah, it’s a massive club to have signed for. It’s something you dream of as a kid, so I can’t wait to get started.
What was your first reaction when you heard about Arsenal’s interest?
I was over the moon – I couldn’t believe it at first because of the size of the club. It was just a long way to get it done and get down here.
How important was our policy of promoting youngsters to your decision to join?
It gives young players a massive boost. They know that if they work hard and stick to what they know, they’ll get the chance. It’s what we work for.
You’re up against the likes of Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny, Calum Chambers and Gabriel, so there’s real competition there…
There’s massive competition here and it will only improve me. It will push me to new boundaries and hopefully I can prove my worth.
How much do you know about Arsenal?
I’ve watched them on the TV mainly. I’ve never been down to London. They’ve always played nice football, they’ve got a reputation for playing nice football. That suits me and hopefully I can bring what I do.
What do you admire most about Arsenal? Is it the style of football?
It’s definitely the style of football – the way they pass it, those sharp one-twos around the box.
You’ve played at full-back and centre-back for Bolton. What’s your more natural position?
Definitely centre-back. I felt more at home at centre-back than I was at right-back.
How much of a plus to your game is it that you can play in both positions?
It gives you more chance of getting in the team, the more positions you can cover. If they need me to play anywhere along the back, I’ll be more than happy to do so.
on how tough it was to leave Bolton…
Yeah it was tough. Bolton will always have a place in my heart and I’ll always be keeping an eye on their results. I’ve got loads of friends there and coaches who I’ll still talk to there, so I’ll always stay in touch and I wish them the best for the future.
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160721/rob-holding-s-first-arsenal-interview#p8IpH4coLqoDEFK8.99
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Arsenal’s announcement of the Holding signing included this little gem
“We remain in the market, so stay close to Arsenal.com for any further transfer news.”
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I actually laughed at the title… should that not be Wengexit? LOL
What always fascinates me in am alarmed sort of way is the need the media needs to add that anyone that signed a new deal or else moved close was an arsenal target… even names we have never heard linked!
yes if Higuiin for example signed or moved, t may not be so shocking but whos is this fellow in this extract below?
~Arsenal target Corentin Tolisso agrees terms with Napoli ~
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this is how the official Arsenal twitter site announced the signing of Rob Holding
Arsenal FC @Arsenal 4h4 hours ago
Nice work @ebipreh, it was @joel_campbell12. OK, time for one more – who is this?
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a crowd of 30,000 is expected for the Lens v Arsenal friendly this evening.
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http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160722/wenger-on-dan-crowley-s-development
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8 years ago today, Arsenal signed Francis Coquelin
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Gazidis: “Our goal is not to be consistently in the top four. Our goal is to win it. We’re working on many fronts to take that extra step.”
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afcstuff @afcstuff 4h4 hours ago
#afc summer 2016 transfers:
In:
Xhaka
Nwakali
Asano
Holding
Out:
Flamini
Arteta
Rosicky
Hayden
Wellington
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Jeorge Bird @jeorgebird 17m17 minutes ago
Martinez, Debuchy, Gibbs, Walcott, Chamberlain, Chambers, Akpom, Coquelin all in the squad tonight. Mertesacker captain.
Nelson scored for the U21s against Charlton so he’s not with the first team. Some youngsters should be involved
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DEFENDER DANIEL BALLARD SIGNS ARSENAL SCHOLARSHIP
by jeorge bird
Young defender Daniel Ballard has signed scholarship terms with Arsenal despite initially being told that he was going to be released by the club.
The 16-year-old centre-back, a product of Arsenal’s Hale End academy, was offered an opportunity to prove himself as a trialist in the recent friendly with Bayern Munich and was subsequently awarded with a two-year scholarship deal.
Ballard becomes Arsenal’s eleventh new scholar, joining Reiss Nelson, Emile Smith-Rowe, Nathan Tormey, Josh Benson, Robbie Burton, Joseph Olowu, Toby Omole. Jay Beckford, Dominic Thompson and Joao Virginia.
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Thanks for your kind comments so far. Summer has been slow with Eddy having to fill the gap with copies of postings from elsewhere. Until Stew and Andrew return with real blogging I hope that something original will get our juices going. It is always better to get original posts and comments to sustain our blog. Looking forward to more.
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Reiss Nelson
@ReissNelson9
Good start to pre-season with a 2-0 win vs Charlton 21s, happy to get a goal
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shotta the action starts in around 2 hours, so I’m sure we will all have a lot more to say about what we see from now on in.
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Shotta
Firstly thank you for taking the time to fill in those of us who don’t follow the summer nonsense, it lends a certain context to the occasional outburst which makes it past my defences.
Can I take issue with you? You say you’ve not commented on the European Union fiasco because you’re not a Briton. I believe that with distance comes perspective and the view from beyond the boundary is actually a very important one. It helps to see ourselves as others see us and I value your opinion as highly as anyone else’s.
As far as the inconsistencies inherent in the arguments of half baked fans we just have to live with them. As with the Leave campaign the truth has been hijacked and with it the debate. Even one of George’s pet journalists opened an apparently reasonable piece with the ‘wisdom’ that it’s glaringly obvious we needed a centre forward and centre back last season.
The fact that this is utter garbage is irrelevant it’s as if people have to join in with such rubbish or no one takes them seriously. Last season all we needed was for so many of our midfield and forwards not to be injured so often nor for so long. That is glaringly obvious.
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Eddy – The ‘action’ ??? It’s a training session.
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Steww – Thanks for your feedback which, as always, is greatly appreciated. l will confess that weeks ago when I conceived of this blog I originally had the idea of comparing and contrasting our annual WEXIT with the BREXIT. The few interactions I had on twitter discussing the subject found my perspective different from most of my friends, some of you go back 10 years, so much so I decided to let the wounds heal. One day I might publish a few thoughts. One thing that intrigued me is why Wenger survived all these assaults while Cameron failed with the majority of Britons despite an equally virulent press and similarly vocal opposition. I leave that intersection of politics and sports to you my readers.
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The sage of Dublin, shotta?
I’m more of a coriander kind of guy.
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Nice to see Rob Holding join the Arsenal, even if it creates conumdrums over what to do with Jenkinson and Chambers.
I say keep both – if the club can offer enough game time.
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Jeorge Bird @jeorgebird 1m1 minute ago
Gabriel and Sanogo not in the squad. McGuane, Mavididi, Pleguezuelo and Sheaf not involved.
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Woo hoo!
Here we go. Sure it’s just a broadcast fitness session (I wouldn’t like to see my workouts broadcast and neither would any of you haha!) but Iwobi looks like he’s in the tennish role. And that is exciting (based upon what we saw from him in that particular role last season)
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4 minutes in and both sides have had a good chance to take the lead, Akpom shot straight at the keeper, and lens player shot over the bar
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Jeff getting into the game.
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Not too sure about this streaky dribble down the middle of the new kit.
I’ll give it a few games before warming up the a4 printer.
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Right on time to see PA react to the friendly.
The WEXIT bunch are very good at pretending to have a unified plan or ideology. They continually trip over themselves jostling for the purest representation of Wenger hatred or distaste of “losing”. The newest trend is wanting change that itself is poorly constructed and is only a slogan that masks their lack of understanding of the issues or even their own cause. They delude themselves in assuming majority when the majority of their population cant agree on what needs to happen.
All they have is Wenger and they iconify their hatred of him, it’s the only consistent message they have, it’s superseded any good intent they ever assumed. If it weren’t obvious that their ranks are being replenished only due to propaganda , naivety and bullying one would be amazed at how long they’ve lasted, but it’s also obvious there’s no real progression or consistency in their leadership to mission goals, only opportunists happy to exploit the illusion of a cause.
Maybe it isn’t a group of people at all but a trope a , meme, a sociological parasite that preys on the vulnerable. And like all parasite it’s smart enough to avoid completely killing the vectors of it’s dispersal – even as I think some have done themselves significant damage in reveling in this negativity. Arsenal upcoming season can be the antidote.
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37 minutes, Lens take the lead, Chambers with a poor header and lens got in, Martinez made a good save but the follow up was put into an empty net
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I love Stray Passenger. Actually I am jealous of that vocabulary. Chexit.
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HT: Lens 1-0 Arsenal
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Macey on for Martinez
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Gibbs, Bielik, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Campbell and Gnabry all on too
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looks like we are lining up for the second half like this
Macey
Chambers Mertesacker Bielik Gibbs
Coquelin Iwobi
Oxlade-Chamberlain Cambpell Gnabry
Walcott
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68 minutes Walcott has goal ruled out for off side, after a great through ball by Campbell
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Imperious Per in one v one.
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76 minutes, Zelalem and Willock on for Iwobi and Walcott
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80 minutes 1-1, ox with an outstanding chip finish
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Wonderful stuff from Gnabbers and Oxlade.
If the Ox can have some luck…
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amazed at the number of times arsenal players have slipped and fallen over
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FT: 1-1
a typical early pre-season game, energy levels and touch not fully up to speed yet.
the Lens player that really impressed was Ba, their massive central defender, a bit raw but has potential.
iwobi, ox and gnabry were our most dangerous players, gibbs seen a lot of the ball, coquelin was very up for the game too.
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That was a very good workout against a side who are season ready. You have to have the ball before you can do anything with it and that will always be difficult against a side who have more stamina and are more match fit that you are.
I was actually hoping the Zelalem and Willock change would have come earlier as Willock will always give you real width and we all know what Zelalem’s vision can do to unlock teams who are sitting deep. He the nearest thing we have to Ozil although obviously still a little lightweight.
When you consider the plethora of players we have to come back its looking rather good at the moment.
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Mattias Karén @MattiasKaren 37m37 minutes ago
Wenger says “we remain very active” in transfer market and “if we find right candidate we will spend big money.”
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WENGER REFLECTS ON FIRST PRE-SEASON GAME
Arsenal are back – the Gunners drew 1-1 with Lens in their first pre-season game of the campaign, and the boss had plenty to say afterwards…
on the result…
It’s a good comeback. It was quite an intense game physically. They start their French championship next week and they were quite ready physically. We had to dig deep a little bit to come back but I think that overall it was a good workout for us to have as our first game. It was quite an intense one.
on Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain…
He has gone through many problems over the last season and hopefully it will not be the same this season.
on Sam Allardyce being England manager…
I wish him well. Now he can focus on winning the next World Cup. I believe that he has many ingredients to do well for England. He wanted the job for a long time because he was already in contention when Steve McClaren got the job. He has big experience and I wish him well.
on whether Allardyce can make a difference…
The team was a bit young to win the European Championship. In two years if they stay together I think they have a better chance. He has lots of experience to help get them into a better position in Russia.
on how difficult his teams are to play against…
He has done well recently at Sunderland, getting them out of a very bad position. He has a capacity to get the best out of a team and his sides are always difficult to beat because they are always well organised.
on whether Wenger was interviewed for the job…
I wouldn’t like to talk about all the talks the FA had, but I was focused anyway. I always said I respect my contracts and that’s what I do.
on whether he sees himself managing England at some point…
First we want to be behind the guy who is in charge now, not talk about me managing England. That would be unfair. He has my full support. No matter who manages England, he has my full support. It’s my second country. I was a supporter of England and I was at every game. I feel there’s something there for this team to come out strong. They had some good patches during the Euros, but they just couldn’t turn up against Iceland. Overall, you feel there is quality in the team.
on whether Allardyce was a surprise choice…
No. When you look at the media you cannot be surprised because you talk about it for a while. I don’t know exactly who was a candidate or not.
on whether he was flattered to be linked with the England job…
It’s always an honour to manage a country but I’ve said many times in the past that’s it’s more comfortable for me that a guy from the country manages their national team. Why? Because it represents the culture of the country and it’s the national team, so it looks more natural that it’s a candidate from the country.
on the transfer market…
I am sure that my chief executive didn’t want to dampen the expectations on that front. We are very active. If we find the right candidates then we will spend the big money. We have already spent big, Until now, nobody has spent more on a transfer than we have in this country. Even if Pogba might fly from Italy to England today, I don’t know… Overall we have made a big investment already but we are active.
on Turan, Lacazette and Icardi…
I wouldn’t like to come out on names because if you don’t get them afterwards, people ask why. We are active, very active every day and it’s not over. Today we are on July 22 and the transfer market finishes on August 31. You know that a lot happens in the last week, so it’s a long time to go, but we are active and we are working.
on touring around the world in pre-season…
The idea of pre-season is not to travel a lot but play football. We have gone into a different era. I managed to resist for a long time. I don’t know if I’ve become weaker, but our sponsors have certainly become stronger over the years. The pressure on the club today with the sponsors travelling all over the world… We were the last to travel but in the end we did it as well.
Copyright 2016 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160722/wenger-on-the-draw-transfers-and-england#Eu4S57z2JCIevBY9.99
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