It’s hard being a contrarian on Arsenal Twitter these days. Like any strict, self-regulated community, there is a stridency among a majority of posters that demands and enforces conformity. It punishes dissent via the block, unfollow and mute buttons for committing any of the following heresies:
- Not vocally supporting the new manager
- Criticizing any of the mooted new signings
Instead of summer hostilities between the former WOBs and AKBs, which usually reach boiling point during transfer season, both sides for their own reasons are currently wishing and hoping for the new manager, Unai Emery, to succeed, bigly. Obviously the ex-WOBs are delighted that their bête noir, the cheapskate, deluded, out of touch, omnipotent (choose your epithet) Arsene Wenger is now gone. Should Emery succeed, it will be a ringing endorsement of their long-held claim that the club was being held back by the former manager.
On the other hand, it seems to me, the so-called AKBs are on the defensive, not wanting to be seen as mindless acolytes of the old gaffer, fearing they will give credence to the years of repeated taunts by the anti-Wenger crowd that they support Arsene FC rather than Arsenal FC. They too are just as wishful and hopeful that the new manager, who seems to be as modern and progressive as the old, will be able to overcome all the external and internal obstacles that held the club back.
WOBs, AKBs and the Middle-Of-the-Roaders
Strange and as incongruous as it may seem, former WOBs and AKBs are now locked together, singing the same tune; leave Emery alone and he will succeed.
Let us not fool ourselves. While there appears to be two extremist camps in the Arsenal fanbase, there is definitely a large, if not larger, middle-of-the-road contingent which often takes one side or the other depending on results. It wasn’t that long ago, for example, we had the experience on the opening day of a new season at the Arsenal stadium, with the transfer window still open, that a majority were in uproar demanding the club spend some “facking” money as the club was losing to Aston Villa. The fact that Arsenal eventually came 3rd or 4th that year, qualifying for the Champion’s League, at a time when it was still struggling under the stadium-related austerity, stands in sharp contrast to the £200 million spent on transfers these past two years while coming 5th and lately 6th in the Premier League.
So conventional thinking has concluded that leaving Emery alone, rather than the relentless attention to the every move and statement made by Arsene Wenger, is now a guarantor of success. The underlying assumption is the belief that the Wenger years, particularly the most recent, were a failure which Emery must avoid. The problem is this hypothesis is not fully supported by the facts.
Note the “unbiased data”, on which we should rely, is diligently avoided by the mainstream media and most of its cohorts on twitter and in the blogsphere, who are now bloviating with optimism and goodwill towards Emery.
Take a gander, below, on some key performance metrics for the last 11 years of the Wenger era.
| Year | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | GF | GA | Win % | Loss % |
| 07/08 | 58 | 36 | 15 | 7 | 113 | 52 | 62.1% | 12% |
| 08/09 | 61 | 33 | 16 | 12 | 113 | 55 | 54.1% | 20% |
| 09/10 | 55 | 33 | 8 | 14 | 116 | 63 | 60.0% | 25% |
| 10/11 | 58 | 31 | 13 | 14 | 113 | 55 | 53.5% | 24% |
| 11/12 | 54 | 31 | 9 | 14 | 96 | 67 | 57.4% | 26% |
| 12/13 | 53 | 29 | 12 | 12 | 105 | 60 | 54.7% | 23% |
| 13/14 | 56 | 37 | 8 | 11 | 99 | 57 | 66.1% | 20% |
| 14/15 | 56 | 35 | 11 | 10 | 109 | 53 | 62.5% | 18% |
| 15/16 | 54 | 28 | 12 | 14 | 91 | 59 | 51.9% | 26% |
| 16/17 | 55 | 35 | 8 | 12 | 121 | 65 | 63.4% | 22% |
| 17/18 | 57 | 30 | 10 | 17 | 108 | 70 | 52.6% | 30% |
| Mean | 56 | 33 | 11 | 12 | 108 | 60 | 58.0% | 22% |
Main points:
- Wenger achieved an average win percentage of 58% across all competitions never falling below 51.9% and going as high as 66.1%.
- 52% was good enough to qualify for the champions league up to 15/16. But in 16-17 a 63.4% win rate and a FA cup was apparently not good enough for some in the club hierarchy as evident in Wenger’s 2-year contract, which in retrospect was putting him on notice.
- In 17-18, the win percentage was 52.6, not the lowest historically, but it was marked by the highest ever GA, a total of 70, compared to an average of 60 GA over the 11-year period.
- Wenger’s loss percentage while averaging 22% increased by a dramatic 8 percentage points between 16-17 and 17-18 coinciding with the highest ever GA of 70 in the latter year.
The GA seems to be the key. As Finsbury, a long-standing and frequent contributor to Positively Arsenal has repeatedly argued, Wenger’s biggest challenge in 17/18 was maintaining or recreating the defensive stability he had achieved during the four year reign of Mertsacker-Koscielny, which was one of the premier central defensive partnerships in club football. The 2016-17 season-long loss of the BFG and his subsequent relegation in 17-18 to a mere squad player combined with Koscielny’s well publicized chronic Achilles injury coincided with a growth in GAs from 59 in 15-16 to an unheard of 70 last season and the dramatic increase in losses from the average of 22% to 30% over the last two seasons.
Based on the facts as presented, surely it is reasonable and necessary for us to ask Mr. Gazidis and his rising number of busy-bodies (Mislintat, Sanllehi and a Marcel Lucassen who is to become Director of Football Operations on August 1st) the following questions:
- How will the signing of Lichsteiner, a 34 year-old injury-prone right back, improve and stabilize Arsenal’s central defensive partnership?
- In a world where a Virgil Van Dijk costs £70 million, how do Arsenal plan to replace the retired Mertsacker and an ageing injury-prone Koscielny?
At a time when mainstream media, Twitter, Facebook and Google are doing their best to censor and block non-conforming points of view, it is frightening the level to which Arsenal-twitter has engaged in self-censorship to not rock the boat during this transition to new management. Apparently Ivan and his team are now omniscient and omnipotent. They have free reign, without any challenge by fans, to give Emery any players they deem necessary, because, to paraphrase managerial genius Tony Adams, coaching is over-rated, what matters is the director of football and those who do player recruitment.
So “keep schtum”. Don’t rock the boat. It will all work out in the end. Hmm.
Positively Arsenal 
Interesting, if Ivan has succeeded in a corporate coup, that doesn’t say much about our main shareholders unless they or their relatives were involved.
But have always believed it more than possible that there has been a degree of recent boardroom opposition to Wenger at least signing on last summer, though i cannot cite any direct evidence.
But if true, I guess it depends whether such opposition was out of personal gain, power, and other sometimes negative characteristics or whether it was down to what anyone in opposition genuinely thought was good for the club at the time. Or even both.
Whatever the truth, it is done, massive change is underway and we all have to live with it , for better or for worse.
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NOTH: Glad to hear from you. The Board. Such a magically, remote body which is made up of flesh and blood like all of us. Ivan reports to them directly. He is the one who makes CEO reports and it is he who does the annual evaluation of AW. I was on a board for six years and was the chairman for one-term. I know how boards work and how Chief Executives get things done. You do your homework long before the meetings and get the votes prior to making that formal presentation. Good job Ivan. It was the Board indeed.
PS: I was reviewing the most recent 11 years of Annual Reports on the dot com and saw a remarkable picture in the 07 or 08 where the Board members had Arsene front and center while they were in the background. One day I will write a blog showing how Arsene was good, very good, financially, for this club.
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It’s healthy to discuss aspects of the board’s decision making process that might make someone in this community of continuous support for the club feel uncomfortable.
same as it always has been contrary to misrepresentation by the back slapping blaggers and sychophants.
If some board members may have wanted Vengarrghhhhh Aaaaaaaooouut, and it was possibly inferred last season by AW himself to be the case, then fair to say with Delaware still in possession of that catering contract, since 06 that these jokers really need to get their priorities in order! And a cup winning manager’s status shouldn’t be as important to someone on that board as other matters. When there is a simple and clear section of the squad that needs rebuilding, or to serve up your fans some edible food. By staff who have something training and aren’t on the bottom dollar. Yes that was a deliberate use of the $ word. It’s a reasonable concern that they haven’t been following Club values with this contract and yep I know Fizman signed it in the first place! Still…it’s not quite representing the values of the Arsenal that made the Arsenal the biggest club in London.
I haven’t looked into the details, I would hope no one else has the time either! But:
Values innit.
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On the other hand whoever it was who rated Nketiah on behalf of the club over say Abraham (both play in the footage above), they have my gratitude!
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Thank heavens, rather than the self-censorship I have experienced on Twitter, we are at least having a civilized discussion of the real issues surrounding Ivan, the Board and their post-Wenger plans. Despite our differences I appreciated everyone’s point of view. Having such discussion was my minimum goal as I wrote this blog.
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Shotta thats because we are all approaching this from the same place. We may disagree on the events as they happened, but it doesn’t change our intent. Your articles are always welcome because you’re willing to challenge the prevailing thought. Whether I agree with you or not, I appreciate that it makes me question my own thoughts.
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I can well believe some persons at the club wanted Wenger to leave, just as I have no problem with some fans who thought the same. It is the actions I care about. 2014 might have been time for him to go, but we were once again on the up and broke our trophy drought, and could spend again. So he signed a new deal.
Leicester’s victory was crushing becauae that shoukd have been our year, I think Wenger made a mistake that season in only buying Cech. My guess is he looked at the squad and thought we coukd finish above all the big teams. And he was right. I know Leicester were helped and we were harmed, but honestly, with better finishing, we’d still have won the league. That must have raised some questions among the board members.
When we finsihed outside the top 4 and performances dropped , the protests gain significance. Not because they were right, but because they were there. The 2 year deal suggests that it was meant to be reviewed after 1 season. Because it would lead to disruption again in his last year. And Wenger even said he would review his position with the board at the end of the season. Meanwhile the board were preparing for his departure. I do not think this was without his knowlege or blessing. Turf wars in day to day functions notwithstanding, I think Wenger understood the importance of the restructure.
When the board suggested they were ready for his departure and that he should leave, he might have felt that he could still meet the target of CL football through the EL and as such the review should be left for later. But I don’t think he was, nor would have been, sacked if he dug his heels in. Not that he would do that.
The results, lack of top 4 and some poor performances probably accelerated the rebuild and change. But I still don’t look at it as a coup. For one, Kroenke holds the power, not Wenger. For another, I don’t see signs of unrest among the players. They adored Wenger and said they were sad, but no one seems outraged at what happened. Even those who can leave and as such don’t need to be politically correct. The club also appointed Wenger’s lieutenant as academy manager. Big change, yes. Coup, no.
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Your analysis of the situation that led to Arsene’s unexpected withdrawal may be entirely correct Shotta, not may however bear no relation to the events that led up to that event.
I have seen every scenario sincerely argued from ‘AW never wanted to stay after Summer 17 and it was only in April he was able to get out with foundations for his replacement in place” to “AW was sacked and the victim of the ruthless Josh who has never liked him and wanted the Frenchman out for years”
The major problem anyone looking at it is that, at best, we gave fragments of information to assemble and interpret, and rather like a kaleidoscope a small addition or exclusion of a single element in the history or turn in the perspective of the viewer can produce an entirely different picture.
Will we ever know the full picture ? Unlikely in my view.
I think the really, really, really interesting thing to know would be why the announcement was made exactly when it was, just a few days before the Europa League semi final first leg. Answer that and my guess is a lot of the other bits would fall into an understandable sequence.
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Good comment there, Anicol.
That’s pretty much my take- lots we don’t know, lots we can’t verify, any missing piece could be vital, etc- on it. But boy would I have a lot less to say if I stayed consistent with it!
There’s always that Wenger book, but my guess is he wouldn’t want to say anything which hurts the club and he will respect the privacy of others, even in cases where they didn’t behave well.
My feeling is if ever he writes one it will be in line with that of the great Dutch manager Rinus Michels (huge influence on Cruyff, and so Barca, Pep…).
Michels’ set out to try and give something to football with his book, setting down what he felt were the key things he had learned. Felt to me like it was written for those within the game or any amateurs who wanted real insight.
I loved it, and it was so unlike other manager books, especially Ferguson’s , which tend to leave me with a sense they are holding back most if not all of the truly crucial stuff (in Ferguson’s case, all the dark stuff he excelled at and his absolute ruthlessness)
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I just saw that Fabregas is part of BBC’s media team for the World Cup, and this is the first time I realised he’s not in the Spain World Cup squad. He’s still only 31. What a shame. He was among the top 2 or 3 midfielders in the world while he was at Arsenal. He left too early, and now isn’t even playing in the World Cup.I know he’s won trophies, but what a waste of top top top talent.
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Pity about Cesc but players whose careers start in earnest at 16-17 years old tend to find their legs give out earlier. He has had very few injury breaks over the years so his schedule for club and country had been pretty much relentless year after year. And there is no hiding place in central midfield.
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Depends Andy. I think he has enough raw ability to have adapted his game despite the legs going. Something like Pirlo managed. Or even Xabi Alonso. (Did those guys start much later?) Look at Iniesta still going, though he is obviously also not the same player he was.
I don’t feel bad for Fabregas. I have not forgotten how he left us. However, I have also not forgotten his wonderful talent. It’s a shame he didn’t make the most of it. In my opinion only. I’m sure he would disagree.
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Thanks for the piece, Shotta, and I guess most of us choose to live in some kind of echo chamber much of the time. When I became aware of the on-line football world it didn’t take me too long to settle on the Untold and Positively Arsenal sites, and I soon left Untold behind because of the toxicity of many of the comments. Likewise with Twitter, where I don’t knowingly spend time following those with views I regard as unreasonable. Can I cope with contrary views? Of course. Do I wish to do so? Not so much these days.
Fins has done a fine job pointing out the reasons that lie behind our poor defensive record, and I guess that goes a long way to explaining last season’s poor away form. And I suppose that refs are more likely to find in favour of Home sides. However, my take (and this would be an unpopular one here) would be that the whole side was not resilient or “up for it enough” when it came to EPL away fixtures last year – and that I probably would lay at the door of the manager to the extent that I wonder if it was the away defeat at Newcastle that was the final straw as far as the Kroenke’s were concerned.
Had Arsene lost the Dressing Room? No – not at all – the players held him in far too much respect for that. Was he still capable of the kind of motivation that mixed both fear and inspiration and got more out of a team than the sum of its collective parts? I’m not so sure, and looking on from the outside it did perhaps seem all a little too comfortable.
What I think we are seeing is something quite revolutionary in terms of a football model, and one I am not sure has been done quite like this before. When most new managers join clubs they tend to get rid of the last man’s coaching team and replace them with their own. It always seems therefore that it is the manager who dictates the way the team plays. What we seem to have done is replace (or appoint for the first time) just about everybody else before bringing in the new man at the helm.
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Shard
Messi and Ronaldo are your boys for those who started at 16/17 and have maintained legs into thirties.
Other three started fair bit slower than Cesc and didn’t get first cap till 21-23. I remember Pirlo at an u21 Euros, when he was either 22 or even just gone 23 (something to do with start dates of tournament), thinking wow he’s good but wow he looks old for u21’s.
Looks like 8 years difference between Pirlo and Cesc, 120 games more for Italian, with 60 of them in America and 130 games in first 7 years of career compared to Cesc’s lord knows what (bout 300?)
Rooney a classic for burning out late twenties. Funnily enough Milner, who started at 16 about same time has stayed in much better nick.
Fabregas one who made his choice and sacrificed being captain and king. Stats very decent from Barca days- 151;42 in 3 years- and (*spits) influential in two titles for chelsea.
Bloody good career, and then the immense success with Spain.
Only he knows how he feels about rejecting the chance to be an absolute legend with us, repaying faith shown, rightful king of the team, with all that brings, especially in terms of getting to play in position you like best.
I’m not sure he has quite enough in Spain setup to justify organising midfield around him as Juve and Italy did with Pirlo, but he could well have earned that role with us.
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Fabregas’ career as a top flight athlete was over after a combination of events one spring:
the bruised bone (no foul)
rushing back from the initial injury
The secondary injury
Not taking the summer off for a full programme of rehab, taking the injured. Cazorla’s spot on the bench and coming off that bench to set up the winner for Spain in the final.
He has no regrets I’m sure of it, any other athlete or most of them at least would’ve done the same.
Cazorla who was fairly precocious himself in his early years played all over midfield all through his career up until he got past thirty and had an unlucky infection. The Marquis’ goto player after Xavi and Iniesta.
Still afc have eased the workload on the teenagers since, I think it was the wanting to protect players from the kind of clogging JW received that was the clincher.
Players like Iwobi were rested for spells, and likely we’ll see this trend continue. Rodgers did the same with Sterling. The physio’s have more clout with the managers these days, and that’s a good thing.
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< Fabregas couldn't complete a full season thereafter not even in more genteel Spain.
Good as Fabregas was I don't see how AFC missed him as Cazorla was the better footballer. Who could still play full seasons!
Arsenal Football Club has missed Cazorla far more then they did Fabregas (Not an opinion!).
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I don’t think it is just the age a footballer starts at that determines longevity. Wayne Rooney at 17 was a fine player – but he was also physically precocious, whereas Fabregas was so brilliant he could overcome any physical immaturity at that age. With Milner one gets the sense that he hasn’t done much damage to his physical fitness with excessive night-clubbery.
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I disagree fins. Cazorla and Fabregas are different types of midfielders. Santi is on another level technically but Fabregas somehow always had time on the ball. And I think Cesc’s vision was just a little bit better than Santi’s.
But the main reason we missed Cesc is because we’d built the side around him. It’s just a pity that RVP and Cesc really got so little time together because of injuries.They played some amazing football. And Cesc was our heartbeat. Cesc left, Nasri left, and Diaby and Rosicky were injured most of the time. We missed them all.
I think those were peak Wengerball years. Arteta and Per stabilized us after that and they gave us the edge, while Santi and Ozil gave us the class and artistry to break our trophy drought. But in terms of watchability, the football between 2007 and 2011 was the best I’ve seen. Pure artistry (in the face of some utter cheating and thuggery.)
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Cesc did not help himself by burning the candle at both ends, can’t be playing top level football and rushing off to watch F1, without it taking an effect
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‘The major problem anyone looking at it is that, at best, we gave fragments of information to assemble and interpret, and rather like a kaleidoscope a small addition or exclusion of a single element in the history or turn in the perspective of the viewer can produce an entirely different picture.’
Following on from this good stuff from Anicoll earlier and in keeping with book I am reading about football agent Jon Smith, I just want to depress you lot by pointing you towards wiki page of Doyen Group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doyen_Group
Seriously, how influential is all that crap in football now and how can we possibly know when and where it comes into play.
The media still by and large push a picture of a club being interested in a player, asking, negotiating, signing or not signing…a matter of being quick enough to ‘spend some facking money’, but there’s little doubt that is often no longer the case, and from our perspective we can never really tell what’s what.
I mean that wiki page says Doyen lent Barca 57 million to get Neymar!! Barca! As it happens, I’d read about his transfer before and the murkiness was astonishing. One of those where there is no reason to believe we could ever be involved in dealings of that type.
One of the litmus tests for me of whether or not we are relenting on that front is if we ever see mr Jorge Mendes smiling with our officials as a player joins us.
I’d be surprised. For as long as we don’t, we can be sure we are still doing things differently from the rest and holding out at least a little.
Chambers, Virginia and the Willocks are all with this Doyen, or one of their branches anyway, though they’ve just changed their name to something else, KIN.
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by co-incidence an interesting time line from Swiss Ramble today on the increasing use of smoke, mirrors and players sales in massaging
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Shard
Great players always have their own styles as we live to admire, but for me Fabregas who metronome of the centre circle when we saw him, never got the chance to show he was on the same level as Cazorla as he never completed a full season after he left AFC. Other fans never saw the same player bar in the odd game.
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Phone typos sorry!
Last thoughts this week: what happens with Bould is the right question to think about for now, if he isn’t retained it will only make the new manager’s job harder for all the obvious reasons. As AW always said a staggered rebuild is better, so I don’t see anything sinister in the huge variation at CB from the previous stronger squad, it’s just part of the process. Unless hindsight will tell us otherwise in the future!
Have to go, have fun.
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remember when the Sporting Lisbon fans turned up at the club’s training ground and attacked the players and idiots on twitter said its what Arsenal fans should do, well Rui Patricio is cancelling his contract with Sporting is due to the attack and it is reported that Daniel Podences, Gelson Martins, William Carvalho, and Bruno Fernandes are all doing he same,
all their players had 30 days from the day of the attack to cancel their contracts, and be available on Bosman free transfers, Sporting haved confirmed some of the players resignations to the Securities Market Commission. They had 30 days to resign under fair cause
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arsenal are said to be very keen on Gelson Martins, and if he has canceled his contract it would be a bosman deal
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Martins is a self indulgent overweight lump ( not entirely unlike me) I would not touch him with a barge pole.
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think he is Mendes client too, which is never good.
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I see PV4 has been named the new manager of ligue 1 side Nice.
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I’m pretty dubious they’ll get away with this terminating their contract lark.
If true Sporting turned down 30 mill from us for Martins, that would suggest they’re confident that ultimately it won’t go that way.
My bet is if any club tries to do it, Uefa will step in and, probably after working a little quicker than usual, side with Sporting, setting a high-ish fee for player or who knows what else.
Quite the gamble.
Seen virtually nil of the player but pretty sure he’s a sprightly little winger, so is the overweight lump in question the bigger and sometimes sluggish looking Carvalho?
Martins apparently not a Mendes client (just bung name in that transfermarket site), but pretty sure Carvalho is. You can bet he’d instantly double his fee if the free transfer thing is feasible.
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sporting have notified the Securities Market Commission that players have given them written notification of cancelling their contracts.
it seems the players are entitled to cancel their contracts cos Sporting failed to ensure their safety at the training ground. It is a legit reason and would even be outside the control of FIFA, the actual law courts and employment courts would have final say.
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Arsenal partner with TIDAL
11 Jun 2018
We’re delighted to launch a new partnership with global music and streaming platform TIDAL that celebrates our shared commitment to developing young talent.
The agreement will see Arsenal members enjoy access to TIDAL’s extensive library of music – including the likes of JAY-Z’s 13th studio album 4:44 – and unique content including 21 Savage’s 30 Days with 21 Savage, Rick Ross’ album annotations and more.
2018/19 Platinum and Gold members will receive a free six-month subscription to the Hi-Fi service, while Silver and Red members will be given access to the Premium service for the same period. Details on how to activate these exclusive offers will be communicated to members before the start of next season.
Subscribers to TIDAL will be able to access over 50 million songs, more than 200,000 videos, carefully curated playlists and a variety of exclusive content. TIDAL members can also discover up-and-coming musicians via the TIDAL Rising programme and participate in the TIDAL X programmes which connect artists directly with fans via one-of-a-kind events, meet & greets, ticket giveaways, livestreams and more. TIDAL has already held TIDAL X events with artists including Rihanna, Beyoncé, Iggy Azalea, Blood Orange, Ty Dolla $ign and Maleek Berry.
Arsenal and TIDAL are collaborating to create exclusive content that brings the worlds of football and music together. First up – Danny Welbeck, Hector Bellerin and Reiss Nelson have combined their ultimate playlist here TIDAL.com/Arsenal.
Arsenal Chief Commercial Officer Vinai Venkatesham said: “Football and music are great passions of so many of our global supporters. This partnership combines these two passions in a unique way and will give our members access to some fantastic benefits. It is also a celebration of our shared belief in young talent, and will create opportunities to bring together our players with TIDAL’s rising artists.”
TIDAL Chief Operating Officer Lior Tibon said: “Football and music are two of the most universal languages around the world and we’re thrilled to spotlight promising young talent in both of those areas. This initiative is so synergistic with our shared belief in young talent – we’re looking forward to sharing an elevated music experience to Arsenal and its members.”
For more on our partnership visit TIDAL.com/Arsenal.
Copyright 2018 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.
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Seems like all change at the academy level too, with Ljungberg now signing on as the U23s head coach. I guess that means Gatting and Laraman who were under suspension, will leave. This leaves me wondering whether the accusations of bullying were just a convenient excuse to get rid of the two? They won the U23 PL last season so poor performance could not be a reason to remove them. Mark McGuane, now at Barcelona denied that he had been bullied as the newspaper report had claimed.
A coup like shotta said?… Hmmmm..
But anyway. Welcome Freddie. Always a fun player to watch, and his return to coaching at Arsenal is a positive notwithstanding any of the other stuff that may have gone on.
It seems he will be reporting to Per. I wonder how the youth structure will work with Lucassen and the coach from Reading..Herron?
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Good to have Freddie back, but quite a cull has occurred of Wengers backroom staff. Could be part of a wider coup, maybe some at the club/board didnt rate them, or just their time to move on for the new team?
Still nothing on Bould and Jens as far as I know
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With Wenger gone AFC looks to be in shambles. We are looking like a headless chicken. We are direction less piss poor. I pray to God for help at this crucial times.
The great man has so calming influence all those years I wish we could have him back until he retires .
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Thanks to Wengers work over the years putting the club in a very good way, I am pretty sure the club will be fine post Wenger. Hopefully, a very decent backroom staff being put in place, good finances, excellent players, great infrastructure, decent manager, lets face it, one of the worlds most resourced clubs recently chose him, yes they sacked him as well, but some observers suggest UE is at his best with slight underdogs, which is exactly what Arsenal are with the clubs self sustainable model after FFP was bottled.
As long as fans are realistic- ok a stumbling black there, we are not resourced like the doped City, the mega rich Utd- Chelsea, we shall see, but there is no reason, if the manager is given time, we cannot at the very least compete with the rest consistently, and pull off a shock or two with the others.
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new contract and new number for AMN
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Invincible Freddie Ljungberg is to rejoin the club in July as head coach of our under-23 team.
The Swede, who coached our under-15s and was assistant to the under-19 Uefa Youth League team during the 2016/17 season, left us to join Wolfsburg in 2017 and gained invaluable experience as assistant coach in the Bundesliga.
Academy manager Per Mertesacker said: “It’s great to have Freddie back at the club. He brings great footballing experience and the highest possible levels of enthusiasm, energy and encouragement for our young professionals.
“He understands the club’s values and how important it is to give young players the opportunity to grow and develop. When Freddie left for Wolfsburg it was with the club’s blessing and with a return to Arsenal some day in mind. Everyone knows Freddie loves the club and we look forward to him developing his career with us.”
Freddie made 216 appearances for the club, scoring 46 goals and winning the Premier League title twice and the Emirates FA Cup three times. He also represented Sweden 75 times. He was the Premier League Player of the Season in 2001/02.
“I’m delighted to be returning to the club,” Freddie said. “Arsenal has always been a special place for me and I’m really excited at this opportunity to work with our under-23 team.
“I look forward to working with the talented young players we have at the club. I know many of them well and will work hard to help them continue developing and become the best players and people they can be.”
Copyright 2018 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.
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Yassine Fortune has joined FC Sion in Switzerland after being released by Arsenal
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Good news that Freddie and Per are still around to help maintain some continuity with the past. Change can be a good thing, but too much change too quickly, not so much.
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Gatting and Laramar’s profiles have been removed from the staff pages on arsenal.com
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lots of stories about today that Fulham have bid for Calum Chamers
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@passenal:
Is it the usual somewhat bumpy but never the less normal transition from one manager to the next?
OR
A revolution to eviscerate and replace the legacy of the old regime to put an entirely new look on Arsenal Football Clu?
Honestly the evidence is mixed, from my observation leaning weighing towards the former vs the latter. But the evidence is still not definitive, one way or the other. Time will tell.
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Exactly Shotta, we don’t have enough reliable evidence to do any more than speculate, so I’m just doing the ‘wait, support and see’.
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Hindsight is always helpful if not definitive.
I shall settle in for the World Cup on Thursday . Other than the ITK nutters desperate for clicks the club game is switched off for the next month.
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The World Cup for football. is a national disgrace, It is the football, that matters.
Shota, I would refer you to the subsidiary company, Arsenal Stadium Management Company Limited.
This is the Company that holds the Bondholders security, namely the Season Ticket sales. The end-of-year total, will include some future years.
Since 2007, the declarations are all around the £80 millions plus mark. Except 2011 when the total was under £78 millions, and 2013, slightly over £78 millions.
With the new stadium not far away and the poor uptake of renewals, I suspect the alarm bell rang loud and clear in Highbury House.
In my opinion, Mr Wenger accepted that there was no alternative, but change at London Colney!
I will not surmise until February 2019, for whom the bell tolled!
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NOTH!
It’s good to read your words as always.
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reports in Italy say Arsenal have agreed a deal for Lucas Torreira
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Collins lays down the auld Law at the WC, and who would argue with him?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44459554
The much admired referee has put an ASBO on any skanky calls from any skanks and who can blame him when every kid in the park knows that you are meant to:
“give advantage to the attacker”.
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