Arsenal 1st Team
Arsenal Football Club
Highbury House
75 Drayton Park
LONDON N5 1BU
Dear Fellow Gooner,
I write to you as one minor member of the worldwide legion of Arsenal supporters whom you represent week-after-week on the football fields of England and Europe. You may be aware, according to the most recent research (2011), there were 113 million Arsenal fans worldwide, the fourth highest number for any football club on earth. Six years later those numbers could easily have doubled. In other words you are carrying the hopes and dreams of nearly 200 million people worldwide. I am certain you would agree it is an awesome responsibility.
But this letter is not to burden you with the weight of fan expectation. We know there is a minority who expect you will win every match, day-in, day-out. The majority of us know such results are unrealistic. While you may try to win every game, we know that Arsenal Football Club is competing against wealthier clubs with just as many if not more fantastic players, whom they can acquire by paying much larger transfer fees and wages. There are times when results go against us because our best players are unavailable due to injury. Sometimes, as in the real world, there are days when despite doing your best as a professional, events do not favor the team, whether due to human error on our part or by the officials. As the boss correctly says, (and he is hardly ever wrong) it takes enormous “mental strength” to consistently compete at the top-level as every Arsenal 1st team has done for the past 20 years.
So now that we are midway the 2016-17 season, what are the realistic expectations of you the 1st team? Arsenal is lying in 5th place in the league, 8 points behind the leader, Chelsea, who just completed a 13-game win streak. In the last 20 years of the premier league, no team with a 13-game streak has failed to win the title. In the last 13 years of the premier league, the league winner has either been 1st or 2nd at the half-way point. Surely Arsenal stands no chance?
But records were meant to be broken. In 2013-14, Liverpool was the first team to go on an 11-game unbeaten streak and fail to win the title. Last year, Leicester was the first team in the history of the English top-flight to go from last place to being champions in 13 months. In January 2016 BREXIT was dead and buried in the polls, so was Donald Trump months later. In one year, contrary to conventional thinking, despite the “expert” pundits in the mainstream media , the army of negative nellies on twitter and social media, the underdog made the impossible possible.
Why can’t this Arsenal 1st Team make history? It is not as if it wasn’t done before. In the history of the premier league Arsenal is the only club who have come from as far back as 6th place midway the season to grab title and win the FA cup as well, Arsene Wenger’s first ever double. According to this source it was a season:
“…one which few would have dared dream about, particularly during the dark months of November and December when a midseason slump led to rumours of dressing room disharmony and a seemingly unbridgeable gap to league leaders Manchester United.”
Haven’t you the 1st Team have mid-season slump last December with back-to-back losses to Everton and Manchester City followed by a draw with Bournemouth?
That 97/98 Arsenal team did not recover their mojo until February 1998 after the legendary in-house meeting. According to Arseweb:
“…. the team and Wenger had a “thrash it out” meeting during which Adams demanded that the defence receive more protection from the midfield. The response from the central midfield pairing of Vieira and Petit was magnificent, and aided by better on and off field communication due to the Frenchmen’s improving English, Arsenal embarked on an unbeaten run which would eventually carry them all the way to the league title.”
This 1st team already had a 14-game unbeaten run between August and November. Surely if the weaknesses evident at Bournemouth and Preston North End , are “thrashed-out”, couldn’t this team sustain another run and put the current league leaders under serious pressure?
As we lesser mortals, who have no hope of ever being professional footballers, can attest, it is easy to wallow in doubt and fear, after a string of bad results. Frankly for this Arsenal 1st team, there is no reason to be fearful. This is the deepest and best squad the professor has put together since the barren years while paying for the new stadium. According to transfermkt over the past five years AFC has spent £210.70m to gradually improve the squad.
You the Arsenal 1st Team may be missing Santi Cazorla, the technical leader, but in return you can welcome Aaron Ramsey who is the beating heart of the British core, the player who Arsene Wenger most trust to do what is necessary for the team to win. In 97-98, midway the season the club lost to suspension, the magical Dennis Berkgamp, and after his return took a while to find its groove. Similarly this 1st team is about to welcome back from illness a future midfield legend by way of Mesut Özil, a player who earlier this week demonstrated in no uncertain fashion his commitment to Arsenal and Arsene Wenger. In 97/98, it was not because the players in the squad were the best in the premier league; Alex Manninger was certainly not. Seemingly more critical, as one looks back, they had the commitment and mental strength.
Will you, the Arsenal 1st team, seize the spirit of 97-98 and make the impossible possible. To paraphrase the words of the great bard, Shakespeare:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our Gooner dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Respectfully yours,
@Shotta_Gooner, The Contrarian
Positively Arsenal 
That was a good piece. Strong advice without downgrading the past because of the present and vice-versa. I really love PA.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Morning Shotta, Shakespeare, Larry and everything -what more could I ask for !!
LikeLiked by 2 people
This team isn’t finished yet, though a meeting to demand more protection for the defence might not go amiss at times
Just get the feeling we are on the verge of a jump in improvement which will provide a platform for Wenger to stay if he wants to.
On another note, why would a publication or radio programme actually pay domestic abuser and arch dogger (ok, get it, consenting adults and all that) Stan Colleymore to air his completely unresearched, biased , unthought out drivel. Can only be because he tops the Arsenal haters amongst pundits.
LikeLiked by 1 person
inspiring piece
LikeLike
Stan Collymore ?
LikeLike
Sorry Mandy – I could not resist another look at the masterly putdown by Pep of Soppy Stan – “out of context, my arse”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Any putdown of Stan c always worth a read.
Was just referring to his ramblings in todays mirror earlier on
LikeLiked by 3 people
The League is most certainly still ‘up for grabs’ to coin a phrase and Arsenal have as good a chance as any, better than most. We may not get an extended unbeaten run again this season but we may not need it, so shouldn’t lose heart if or when we drop points.
We should all remember there is intense pressure on all the other clubs to do exactly what we are trying to; we won’t be the only ones enduring a certain weight of expectation, hope and optimism.
And I do wonder whether Wenger will allow an extended period of speculation regarding his future to distract the troops – in which case a few quiet words may be had and pens to paper will follow.
I’d go as far to suggest that the announcement of any player contract extension should be considered good news on this front.
LikeLiked by 3 people
anicoll5 . Pep was dismissive of the comment , which I is more powerful than a put down, as he realises with the “yo” meaning ‘I'(me) clarification, as the question was put to him in the third person (this way of talking is used in Spain when you have no day to day relationship with someone or talking to an elder or a person in higher social standing,but used in everyday language in South,Central and North America. Once he understood what was said he said without looking “you ask him” which resonates more as someone like Stan needs air and Pep refused to give him any.
It worked on all levels as when Stan was informed of the response Colly had a wobble.
Ah bless
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks Shotta,
(the quare folk do these on youtube nowadays, so I’ve been told).
Before Southampton knocked out a half arsed Arsenal team out of the League Cup, we had Nottingham Forest away, who, similarly to Preston are legends of English Football and you don’t just send the kids out to play against.
Arsenal have not had any teams to rest up against and try to play target practice with.
No rest. No many chances for promising youngsters like Zelamen to get game time.
LikeLike
There are a lot of obstacles to overcome still Shotts.
Who would choose to forget those famous quotes from Arshavin following that pgMOB performance alongside Sunderland? Desperate times have proven to show that yes even the pgMOB can be unequivocally and undeniably desperate. But yes we do also accept that it was ever thus, just fractionally easier without the Petro clubs. After all there’s no need to chuck out Reason along with the pgMOBs worthless rep.
Last season LCFC nearly blew their lead, it’s just that they were out done by the blown up club from Middlesex. Season before that it took the likes of Begovic throwing the ball into their own net on multiple occasions to help Gazprom stumble and fall over the line.
AFC have their own equivalent of such special techniques, to have two or more goal scorers on the bench who’ll be itching to get minutes from here until May (Welbeck and Perez for starters), four good CBs (five if we acknowledge Chambers’ success and progress this season) etc.:
Hope remains.
LikeLiked by 4 people
And it’s that hope that explains the screeching beauty of the medias coverage towards the non-Mafia club. Simples innit.
LikeLike
Quality stuff from once again from ‘The’ Shotta Gooner .
LikeLike
Can Arsenal gain another 42 points from their 18 matches?
I am sure we can.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Arsenal confirm signing of cohen bramall, here is his first interview
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20170106/video-watch-bramall-s-first-interview
LikeLike
Ben Dinnery @BenDinnery 29m29 minutes ago
Bellerin, Özil and Gibbs look set to return on Saturday but there are no guarantees over Walcott despite Wenger insisting he was close. #AFC
LikeLike
LikeLiked by 1 person
Daniel Crowley sent off in a friendly for Go Ahead Eagles
LikeLike
a little update on Zelalem, reports had suggested that he would be out of contract in the summer and that Dortmund would snap him up for nominal fee, but now its is being reported that the lad has in fact two and a half years left on his contract, so if he does leave AFC will get a fee.
LikeLike
There is no doubt that Will, loved to cut the Frenchies to pieces! Religion and nationalism caused enough wars, after the Royals squabbled about who owned a particular stretch of land?
Even Nasri, had to admit the Stadium cost the Arsenal in silverware.
The “Invincibles” were a one-off, with that Manchester club the only other serious contender. From Gary Neville’s comments, we know that Ferguson loved to put a foot in, or was it “over” the ball to the shin. Wilshere, was the only one to suffer serious injury, and that was post-Ferguson, if memory serves me correctly..
Now of course, there are Chelsea, Man City and …… Liverpool and Spurs, with stadia upgrades.
In season 2013/2014, the Arsenal achieved 45 points after 20 games played, which in my view, matched the Henry.Pires/Reyes era. The Neville fella, did call them the “Red Arrows”! Post that season, the legs of Diaby, Eduardo and Ramsay, were witness to the excessive challenges permitted, by some officials!
Groundhog day, is if the Arsenal were to win, draw and lose to the same teams to the same scoreline, season after season. Pundits, do not like consistency, as it is not news as they term it. So, twitter informs us, idiots are born every minute of the day.
The Arsenal is competing for the EPL title for most of the season, which is ALL we can expect.
COTG, all to play for, except the League Cup.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Nice one, Shotta. Really well done. I’m sure the team will believe everything you say. They have way more mental fortitude than much of their fan base has.
LikeLiked by 3 people
NOTH
1) Debuchy – twice (tbf I think the second one was called as a foul!)
2) Sagna – twice (not one foul called a foul)
Etc. I could go on, and bore the Arse off everyone but this isn’t the forum for it!
The list is long,
with many a winding turn…
LikeLike
Professional agitators at work!
At the beginning o the season he made a calculated and extremely prescient purchase of Lucas Perez to cover the gap left by Danny Welbeck.
Being bought alongside Mustafi deep into the transfer window AW was accused of Panic buying by the baying mob and their agitators.
Perez like Mustafi had an injury at the beginning of the season and was unable to start with a full pre-season but was pressed into early service for Depor in that game he scored a coolly taken pen and an assist.
AW has taken it slowly to introduce him to English football ,in his first game he was dismissed as not good enough by the wise sages of the punditry world. We all know how he was wronged in the Reading game just as he was getting in the flow, now his re-introduction to the team is moving nicely,there is trouble in paradise.
There are now polls setup demanding his inclusion, Lucas has gone from panic buy to must play in a couple of games.
The accusations that AW again doesn’t know what he is doing, he needs to play Lucas now, rather than have him fight and earn his place he must be handed an easy route into the team, by many of those self same doom mongers who decried his purchase.
You just can’t help feeling there is a conspiracy.
Xhaka had to fight his way into the team and now prizes his shirt, isn’t this the way the team should be managed?
LikeLiked by 4 people
I agree with the general sentiment, but definitely not the comparison with Brexit and Trump
LikeLiked by 2 people
@Koloholic
That is now 6 offside goals for Manchester United in their last 4 games at Old Trafford. ‘Campaign against United’ my arse.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Utd thing is only going to get worse Ed……Utd+Mourinho+Mendes+The MSM+Scudamore et Al….Even a guardian of the game, as strong and fair as Mr Riley would have problems dealing with that lot
LikeLiked by 4 people
Agree with you Mandy. They have become partners or looked to have with the shadiest of people.
With the amount of major game changing decisions going in their favour in every match, I wouldn’t be surprised if EPL Cheif $$cudamore is trying to prevent his ‘brand’ from losses.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/26782112
LikeLike
Usamazoaka, I am sure there are plenty of vested interests that will do their best to ensure Utd get in the top four, by the looks of it, would say the same for Tottenham and Liverpool.
Wenger is going to be at his best in coming months
LikeLiked by 3 people
COHEN BRAMALL’S ARSENAL SQUAD NUMBER REVEALED
Rate This
New Arsenal signing Cohen Bramall has been allocated the number 85 shirt following his move from Hednesford Town.
The left-back is unlikely to feature for the first-team this season and is instead set to play for the U23s. Bramall could make his debut for the second-string against Southampon away next week.
LikeLike
Cardiff City, Fulham and Brentford are all interested in signing Chuba Akpom on loan for the rest of the season, according to The Times.
LikeLike
SMITH – MY MESSAGE TO THE FANS
Kelly Smith has announced that she has decided to end her playing career ahead of a move onto the Arsenal Ladies coaching staff.
Kelly has issued the following message:
Winning the 2016 FA Cup at Wembley was the most glorious way to complete my career. It was always going to be tough for me to stop playing but I feel now is the right time. I’m formally announcing my retirement from football.
I started at the age of 8 playing on local boys’ teams; I moved on to Watford Ladies; to Wembley Ladies; and then Arsenal Ladies. Along with the clubs I played for in the USA, I’ve gathered a treasure trove of lessons and memories.
My deepest thanks to everyone at Arsenal Football Club for making it possible for me to pursue my childhood dream: representing the club I grew up supporting. I am so proud to have been part of the Arsenal family for so many years, and prouder still to have contributed to its many successes and much silverware.
I’m also grateful for the honour of playing with and against so many outstanding players worldwide.
One thing has been consistent throughout my playing career: the magnificent support I’ve received from fans. It has been a pleasure to get to know familiar faces at games, and to read the generous fan mail. Thanks to every one of you for your unflagging support for the game, and for me.
My career successes would not have been possible without the astute guidance I received from many talented people along the way: Vic Akers, Pippa Bennett, Norman Burns, Nicki Combarro, Robin Cunningham, Tony Dicicco, Shelley Kerr, Betty Ann Kempf, Steve Kutner, Pedro Martinez Losa, Hope Powell, Clare Wheatley and so many more. All of you helped to make me the player I became.
I’d especially like to thank my amazing family for their love, wisdom and indefatigable support.
I’m excited to confirm my next step, which will see me take up a full time coaching role within the club. A fantastic opportunity to pay back the club I love, and to nurture the next generation of female football talent.
To thank you for all your unwavering support, we’re holding a celebration game on Sunday, February 19, 2017 at Boreham Wood FC.
There will be a host of amazing players from around the world as well as past and current stars of the women’s game, to play against the new Arsenal Ladies squad for 2017!
Ticketing information will soon be available on Arsenal.com.
Copyright 2017 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/20170111/smith-my-message-to-the-fans#kOP3uQXT2dDr5P4V.99
LikeLike
MailOnline Sport @MailSport 23m23 minutes ago
BREAKING NEWS: Manchester City have been charged in relation to The FA’s rules on anti-doping. Understand City anti-doping charge from FA relates to what appears to be admin errors. Fine most likely
Manchester City hit by FA charge in relation to anti-doping rules
FA allege Manchester City failed to ensure whereabouts information was in date
City have been given until January 19 to respond to the charge
By JACK BEZANTS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 17:18, 11 January 2017 | UPDATED: 17:22, 11 January 2017
e-mail
View comments
Manchester City have been charged by the FA in relation to their anti-doping rules.
The FA said in a statement that it is alleged City failed to ensure their club whereabouts information was accurate.
The FA have given City until January 19 to respond.
The charge relates to rule 14 (d), which states a breach occurs ‘by the club if the information contained… is either initially inaccurate or has not been updated by the club as necessary to ensure it remains accurate.’
LikeLike
unfortunately a fine is the only penalty and so no worries for city, there they’ll probably pay in cash!
LikeLike
gunnerblog @gunnerblog 5h5 hours ago
Quick thought: If Arsenal bought Szczesny now, with his record in Serie A this season, it’d feel like a good signing.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Sam @samuelJayC 8h8 hours ago
Arsenal considering loaning out Mertesacker until end of season, @TimesSport reporting. #afc want him to prove fitness ahead of new deal.
LikeLike
I would be amazed if Per went anywhere during the window. He is recovering from a long term injury and at his age I cannot see why another club would want to sign him with no indicator of his fitness. I also cannot see why AFC would choose to do without such an experienced defender, assuming he does recover his fitness ? There is far too much football to be played to assume we have sufficient centre back cover. He must be optimistic a chance for a few games will come up.
If Per is offered a new one season contact in May I’d expect it to be a very last minute deal. I doubt he would be short of longer contract offers and he does not seem to me a man who would be satisfied in his final period as a professional footballer spending a whole season as a back up and on the bench. He has largely wasted this season. Would he accept that again. He has the look of a man with a coaching badge and a job in his sights.
LikeLike
the per and cazorla extenions are not up to them, just like with the last Rosicky extension, its totally in the hands of AFC, its a clause of their current contracts.
I would not be surprised to see Per loaned out to either a championship club or a foreign club, with a recall option included. After being out injured all season, he needs game time, something he will not get at Arsenal till he actually proves he is match fit. So loan move makes sense.
LikeLike
KELLY SMITH: THE GREATEST
By Tim Stillman – January 11, 201712
This week, one of Arsenal’s most decorated, illustrious and fascinating playing careers came to an end. Kelly Smith finally hung up her boots as a player. Kelly has undertaken 3 spells at Arsenal Ladies in between jaunts to America to pursue full time professionalism.
Circumstances have dictated that she return home to the Gunners twice. Kelly grew up as an Arsenal fan in an Arsenal family in Watford. It is the club of her heart. In her autobiography, Kelly Smith- Footballer, she says,
“I am an Arsenal fan, my affinity has always been with them. I had supported them as a kid and I just wanted to wear their strip and play for them. I had the first yellow JVC kit with the blue shorts. That strip was my pride and joy.”
There can be little debate that Kelly is Arsenal Ladies’ greatest ever player. Even 90s icons such as Marieanne Spacey and Sian Williams and the recently retired Faye White trail in her legendary wake. Kelly has been a lethal centre forward (she is England’s record goalscorer), a creative number 10 and in her later career, a gritty midfielder with a fearsome shot. She is regarded with awe throughout the women’s game and widely considered the greatest English women’s footballer of all time.
Her teammates and coaches speak of her in hushed tones. Hope Powell called her women’s football’s answer to Maradona. When I interviewed Arsenal Ladies manager Pedro Martinez Losa in 2014, he described her as “a special case.” In 2013, Kim Little told me that “I would trust my life with Kelly’s left foot.”
Smith’s career has been a fascinating journey and not just because she was such a good player. I’m usually loath to draw comparisons with male footballers when writing about women’s football, but like other greats such as Marco van Basten and Ronaldo, her career is punctuated by paradoxes, controversies and, unfortunately, injuries. I have had the fortune of interviewing Kelly twice and she is a taciturn, shy individual.
In her autobiography, Kelly describes her shyness as debilitating, particularly when she first moved to America as a teenager. Whilst playing for Seton Hall during her scholarship, she admits to hiding in the toilets at the end of season awards dinner so that she wouldn’t have to give an acceptance speech for her player of the year award. Kelly’s shyness and isolation stateside was such that she turned to alcohol to loosen her up in social situations, vodka had become her coping instrument of choice.
So when the career long spectre of injury took hold for the first time, alcohol again became her crutch. Kelly’s injury itinerary is long and varied. She tore her right anterior cruciate ligament in 2002. In her eagerness to return to action, she tore it again in 2003.
In 2004, she broke her leg. Her knee cartilage was damaged to the point that it was surgically replaced with the achilles tendon of a motorcycle accident victim. Upon her third return to Arsenal in 2012, she broke her foot volleying a football for a BT Sport advertisement. The foot was already injured and she had discarded her protective boot to film the scene. In 2015, she tore ankle ligaments after an awful challenge from Sunderland’s Abby Holmes.
Injuries have been such a constant accomplice to Kelly for a number of reasons. For a start, she has spent much of her career on a different level to her peers and has suffered a number of “agricultural” challenges. Secondly, she is so good that coaches are always tempted to abbreviate her absences as much as possible. She played for England at World Cup 2011 despite barely being able to walk. She almost single handedly carried Arsenal to F.A. Cup Final victory in 2014 after prolonged treatment for a thigh injury.
I interviewed her 72 hours before that 2014 final and knew full well that she was unable to train. Even in her mid-30s and on one good leg, Kelly Smith had the quality to win matches all by herself. Hope Powell took her to Euro 2013 despite injury because there was a small chance that she would have been available in time for the final had England qualified. (They were knocked out in the group stage on that occasion).
However, it is not just coaching staff desperation that sees Kelly reintroduced into the fray without adequate recovery time. Though acutely shy off the pitch, there is something about a ball and grass that releases the beast in Smith. It almost seems to act as a release valve for her demureness. It is difficult to reconcile the reticent figure you meet away from the pitch, with the spiky competitor that you see on it.
Anybody that has ever watched Kelly play will tell you that she knows how to look after herself, to say the least. She can also be illuminatingly forthright when quizzed about football, her great passion. Indeed, Smith earned FA censure last year when she publicly raged about the aforementioned appalling tackle from Sunderland’s Abby Holmes, laconically dismissing Holmes’ apology. “She should be thinking more about how to tackle, not how to apologise,” she pointed out.
Whilst playing in the more professional environs of America, Smith became disillusioned with the differences she saw in English women’s football when she returned for international duty.
“Women’s football in England is a joke” she once remarked. She was suspended for both legs of Arsenal’s 2007 Champions League final victory against Umea for flipping her middle finger at the crowd during the semi-final. Kelly is a fascinating character because, on the surface, you have this almost diffident individual, yet it’s very clear that still waters run deep.
Her career has been one of triumph over adversity. As a child, she was kicked out of Garston Boys’ Club in Watford for being a girl, despite finishing the season as top scorer. She left her Hertfordshire home for America as a teenager to pursue her dream of being a professional athlete, fully cognizant of the mental challenges it would present to such a shy, homely person.
Time and again, she has wrestled with the physical and mental anguish of injury and recovery. For Kelly, the mental side would represent the biggest hurdle because of her insatiable desire to play football. Tellingly, in her broadside against Abby Holmes, she exclusively referenced the psychological aspect of recovery, “I face the mental challenge yet again of recovering from a long-term injury… Twice before I have been the victim of a seriously bad challenge. Both resulted in broken legs and some serious mental repercussions.”
Like most geniuses, Kelly’s career has been a story of determination and triumph in the face of obstacles with a few regrets thrown in for good measure. As a footballer, Kelly has been without peer in England for her entire career and you would be hard pushed to find a coach or fellow player that would disagree with that contention. Following her selfless performance as a lone striker in the 2016 FA Cup Final, match winner Dan Carter told me “When Kelly is on the pitch, we all feel a foot taller.”
Kelly is tenacious, but graceful; every touch is as deliberate as a brushstroke. Technically she is exceptionally precise, which explains why she has continued to excel even as her body has creaked. Her left foot is both magic wand and jackhammer, there can hardly have been a women’s footballer with a harder or more accurate shot. Her final act in an Arsenal shirt was to lob the Donny Belles’ keeper with a delicious thirty yard chip that kissed the crossbar on its way in.
She treats the football as both friend and enemy all at once and the sport itself has revealed both angel and devil inside this incredible, contradictory footballer. Her list of achievements is almost endless.
England’s record goalscorer (despite the injury enforced pauses), she is an MBE, her number 6 shirt was retired by Seton Hall, the first female athlete ever to receive this honour in women’s soccer, she won 3 Big East Conference Player of the Year awards at university, she scored 30 goals in 34 games during Arsenal’s quadruple winning season of 2006-07, between 2005-2009 she scored 100 goals in 112 appearances for the club, Players’ Player of the Year in 2006 and 2007, she came 3rd in the FIFA World Player of the Year award in 2009 (were it not for injury and a career that overlapped that of Brazilian legend Marta, she surely would have won it at least once), 2 WSL titles, 5 Women’s Premier League titles, 6 Women’s F.A. Cups, 3 WSL Continental Cups, 3 League Cups.
The epitaph of Kelly’s playing career is best surmised by the woman herself in her autobiography, “I longed to be left alone to play football.” A simple and reasonable ambition and one that she fought resolutely to achieve. It was a privilege to be able to watch her do it. She is the epitome of the old adage that you learn more about someone in an hour of play than you do in a year of conversation.
I was fortunate enough to converse with her, but I feel like I got to know Kelly Smith because I watched her play.
Follow me on Twitter @Stillberto
LikeLiked by 1 person
A ‘clause’ in a contract is a mutual option – whether the terms are agreed or not is a matter for both parties putting pen to paper. Some have signed, others not.
LikeLike
Rosicky said last year that he had no say what so ever in his contract being extended, as the clause gave Arsenal the right to extend it, he said he wanted to to go back to sparta, and had an offer from them, its much like when a player has a clause where if he plays x number of games he gets an automatic extra year on his contract.
LikeLike
FT: Southapton 1-0 Liverpool
I hope liverpool overturn the result in the second leg, cos if sfc make the final our league game with them gets postponed, and will give us an extra midweek game to fit in at what could be a busy time of the season.
LikeLike
some reports this evening that Carl Jenkinson is close to a £3M transfer to Crystal Palace.
LikeLike
Im not following this – a player has the option either to sign a contract – if it is offered – or not.
But the player has no say in the contract extension ‘what so ever’.
If a player got a better offer from elsewhere, or even a worse offer from elsewhere, why would he not have the option of telling Arsenal to stick their clause up their arse ?
LikeLike
Good performance from Southampton – pity it was just 1-0. Should have been a spanking.
Fonte – Who?
Presumably can expect another £70-£80 million in the Summer window for three or four of their player.
LikeLike
simply anicol its the clause agreed to, as i said its no different that a player getting an automatic extension if he plays x number of games. Even if player lost his place or was out with a long term injury, the club has to honor the clause. In Rosicky’s case and both guys now, the clause is in arsenal’s hands, if they want them to stay they stay. I’d expect that both players trust Arsenal and Wenger enough, so that if either was not going to be part of the squad that Arsenal would let them go if they wanted.
LikeLike
REDaction Gooners @REDactionAFC 41m41 minutes ago
Confirmation of sizes – upper tier permanent banner : 1 metre x 6 metres
REDaction Gooners @REDactionAFC 40m40 minutes ago
Club Level temporary banner: 2 metres x 9 metres
LikeLike
now if Alexis don’t sign a contract after this then there is no hope.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t follow Eddy – is there a clause or no clause ? What you seem to be describing is a contract that says the player’s contract remains in force if it suits the club for x months – but if it doesn’t suit the club they can cancel it on the spot.
That sounds like nothing I’ve heard of. If players get a better offer then they leave – clause or no clause.
LikeLike
its a 1+1 contract, with the club having the choice. AFC used them for years with veteran players, for example Bergkamp, Dixon and Winterburn. As I explained its no different than when a contract clause is loaded in the players favor.
LikeLike