Arsenal FC Summer 2008 Thread

The-Frank-Tavern wrote:

Yoda wrote:One good season does not make a player 'one of the best ... in Europe'. Look at Eboue.

can you remind the red sh¡te of this re torres

Torres has been better than Flamini.

Yoda wrote:

The-Frank-Tavern wrote:

Yoda wrote:One good season does not make a player 'one of the best ... in Europe'. Look at Eboue.

can you remind the red sh¡te of this re torres

Torres has been better than Flamini.

Based on what exactly?

They don't even play in the same positions.

Flamini has been our best player this season and deserves to win the Fans Player of the Season.

Yoda wrote:

The-Frank-Tavern wrote:

Yoda wrote:One good season does not make a player 'one of the best ... in Europe'. Look at Eboue.

can you remind the red sh¡te of this re torres

Torres has been better than Flamini.

so what are you saying torres is one of the best in europe? or do you stand by your comment that one good season doesn't make you one of the best in the europe

And Aguero as well Frank

he's one of the best prospects in the world and for that (see nani, anderson et al) you now have to pay mega bucks BUT he is not yet one of the best in the world, one good season doesn't do that

The-Frank-Tavern wrote:he's one of the best prospects in the world and for that (see nani, anderson et al) you now have to pay mega bucks BUT he is not yet one of the best in the world, one good season doesn't do that

Aguero>>young prospects but atm that's about it. He'll need to have atleast another top season before he's considered one of the best forwards around.

He also needs Atletico to qualify for the CL.

Aren't many players around that are regarded as one of the best in their position, who haven't played in the CL, in Europe anyway.

The only one that comes to mind is Toni

The-Frank-Tavern wrote:

Yoda wrote:

The-Frank-Tavern wrote:

Yoda wrote:One good season does not make a player 'one of the best ... in Europe'. Look at Eboue.

can you remind the red sh¡te of this re torres

Torres has been better than Flamini.

so what are you saying torres is one of the best in europe?

No.

Or do you stand by your comment that one good season doesn't make you one of the best in the europe

Yes.


But the hype is more justified in Torres' case (some good prior seasons and one excellent one) than in Flamini's (one good prior season, and one excellent one).

Neither deserve the tags people place on them. Both have the time and opportunity to justify the tags. And I reckon Torres definitely will and Flamini probably will.

Yoda wrote:But the hype is more justified in Torres' case (some good prior seasons and one excellent one)

must have missed those then he's been sh¡te for atletico for quite some time

Tweedle wrote:He also needs Atletico to qualify for the CL.

Or he needs to come to Liverpool

I don't think its been noted on here but Denílson Neves played at Underhill on Monday and played 55 minutes for the reserve team as they hit five goals against the Derby reserves. Hopefully he will be back in first team contention soon, he is one of the players that need we need to give more minutes in view for next season.

Villa: I'd sign for the Gunners

David Villa is ready to snub Chelsea and move to Arsenal.

The £20million-rated Valencia striker, 26, shot to the top of Avram Grant’s summer hitlist after netting 63 goals over the last three seasons.

Chelsea chief Grant is thought to have made contact over a move.

But Villa insists he would rather be a Gunner.

Villa said: “I watch the Premier League a lot and the team I’m most attracted to is definitely Arsenal.

David Villa says Arsenal are brilliant

“Their brilliant one and two-touch football and the whole style of rapid counter-attack which dominates the top level of the Premier League now is the one which suits my game best of all.

“I think I’m made to succeed in England but of course it’s one thing saying it and quite another getting there and then doing it.

“The Valencia president always told me he wouldn’t sell me until summer 2008. If an offer comes in I’m hungry to test myself in England.”

If Villa cannot agree a deal with Arsenal, his next option would be to join fellow Spain international Fernando Torres at Liverpool.

He added: “It’s great playing alongside Fernando. We understand each other totally and we get on brilliantly off the park.”

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article1045670.ece

The usual nonsense from The Sun, much like the £12m Gomes link the other day. How awesome would it be if we signed someone like him though? Valencia are underachieving in La Liga, he could well move this summer.

Cesc wrote:I don't think its been noted on here but Denílson Neves played at Underhill on Monday and played 55 minutes for the reserve team as they hit five goals against the Derby reserves. Hopefully he will be back in first team contention soon, he is one of the players that need we need to give more minutes in view for next season.

Thats nice, since I want to see him in China.

Do you think that the media will be hard with Wenger in case you end the season without a trophy?

Juligen wrote:Do you think that the media will be hard with Wenger in case you end the season without a trophy?

Well we WON'T win a trophy this season.

As many have already said on here, Wenger probably gets it the easiest from the British media when things go wrong. But there has already been much scutiny aimed at Wenger in the last few weeks. He has many issues to address this summer, four years without a Premier League title and three years without any cup is bad for a club that tasted good successes before that. It has already been suggested that key players (Flamini, Hleb) are looking like they are on the way out and the lack of quality depth in the team is also evident to some.

Taking this all of this into account and the fact we have a reported £70m to spend on transfer fees, I think the media will expect Wenger to sign some quality players this summer. If you ask most Arsenal fans they will probably expect to same too.

Cesc wrote: It has already been suggested that key players (Flamini, Hleb) are looking like they are on the way out and the lack of quality depth in the team is also evident to some.

Damn, I think I would like more to see Flamini at Milan than Lazydinho. Cant see you selling him to be honest

Well here's the thing, he can leave Arsenal in July for nothing as his contract will have expired. Milan and Juventus are the clubs said to be very keen on him. Gattuso has apparently been transfer listed giving a strong indication that he will replace him for next season.

Wenger will probably spend most of the summer looking for a replacement instead of looking at the other key areas that need improvement.

Tweedle wrote:

The-Frank-Tavern wrote:

Tweedle wrote:If Flamini leaves of a free this summer the board deserve to be lined up and shot.

why the board, surely wenger recommends if and when he wants to offer a new contract. until this season how many fan would have been v disappointed to see him go? a lot lot less than today.

You think Wenger decides exactly how much money a player gets paid Frank?

Its not as though we haven't been holding negotiations Frank - its the amount that is being argued about.

I read somewhere that Wenger does indeed maintain tight control over what salary bands each of his players fit into...not surprising considering how much of the club he has changed.

What impact do you think David Dein leaving has made on transfers?

Batman wrote:What impact do you think David Dein leaving has made on transfers?

on transfers not a lot i'd say, imho his departure has more affected the negotiations of those already there. love him or loath him, he only ever does what he feels is best for Arsenal. he may not always get it right but none of us are perfect

I miss David "Devil" Dein! If he was still around Drogba would have gotten mysterious Lasagne food poisoning, we'd have drawn Schalke in the Quarters and C. Ronaldo would no longer have toes.

Don't do this on us Arsene!

http://www.arsenal.com/article.asp?thisNav=News&article=490366&lid=NewsHeadline&Title=Traore+-+Why+I+can+follow+in+Eboue%27s+footsteps

Cesc wrote:Don't do this on us Arsene!

http://www.arsenal.com/article.asp?thisNav=News&article=490366&lid=NewsHeadline&Title=Traore+-+Why+I+can+follow+in+Eboue%27s+footsteps

FFS! Either he's off his head or we are in serious debt.

Cesc wrote:Don't do this on us Arsene!

http://www.arsenal.com/article.asp?thisNav=News&article=490366&lid=NewsHeadline&Title=Traore+-+Why+I+can+follow+in+Eboue%27s+footsteps

'Just one experienced player'...

At the end of the season I will start a Wenger summer transfer tracker thread, much like the Alexander Hleb - 10 goals target one. It will be interesting to see if he keeps to his word or not.

Traore would be a horrible winger, his crossing is terrible for a start! I think he should be loaned out next season TBH.

@ Hans Moleman

Quality avatar.

Another Pisstake Pre Season from Wenger. *Sigh*

By Tim Vickery
Tuesday April 15, 2008

He's captain of Brazil, has a World Cup winner's medal and more than 60 international appearances to his credit. But even so, Gilberto Silva is surely one of the reasons that Arsenal is set to complete another season without silverware.

The big defensive midfielder has given good service to the North London giants. But when he has been called upon in this campaign, he hasn't looked up to the task. Maybe the years have taken their toll.

Gilberto is now 31, an age when players start to lose some of their athletic capacity -- and as his strengths are more physical than technical, it seems that he has felt it more than many.

The great Liverpool sides of the 1970s and '80s -- which never, incidentally, got the credit that the quality of their soccer and organization deserved -- should serve as a reference on this point. In terms of team-building, they were utterly ruthless.

Every year they were looking to replace one or two of their team members, the players who they felt were starting to run the risk of going into decline. It is inconceivable that they would have persevered with Gilberto through a season like this one.

In the wonderful boxing book King of the World, David Remnick writes that '60s heavyweight champion Sonny Liston's "punches were not especially fast ... Liston had a way of saying 'Ahem!' and then throwing a punch."

It's a bit similar with the passing of Gilberto. There always seems to be a pause before the ball is released; seldom is the ball off quickly and crisply to its destination. The difference is that when Liston's punches did arrive, they were ferocious.

Remnick quotes Muhammad Ali's legendary trainer Angelo Dundee as saying that Liston would have beaten Mike Tyson at his best. The unimaginative sideways passes of Gilberto carry much less attacking weight. In the vital Champions League tie against Liverpool, when he came on as an early replacement for the injured Mathieu Flamini, the rhythm went out of the Arsenal side.

Defensively, he's also not having an easy time. He has slowed up, the runners are getting past him and to compensate, he's throwing himself to the floor in desperation to make the tackle. As is often the way with tall holding midfielders, he can be off-balance and clumsy when the ball is on the ground. The free kick from which Manchester United won last Sunday's big game resulted from a foul Gilberto had unwisely committed on the edge of the penalty area.

Full disclosure: Even in more useful times, Gilberto has never been my kind of player. I see him as a symbol of a depressing trend in Brazilian soccer. Its central midfielders used to be amongst the finest passers of the ball in world soccer.

More recently -- although there are some hopeful signs -- in the words of high-profile coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo, the Brazilian game has "prostituted its characteristics" in the way its has changed the emphasis in these positions. Giving complete freedom for the fullbacks to push forward has stretched teams out and obliged them to play runners and markers rather than artists in the central midfield roles.

The logical conclusion of this is Gilberto, a converted center back, holding down a role which once belonged to a player as technically gifted as '70 World Cup genius Clodoaldo. And with Brazil, at least, Gilberto's interpretation of his role is lacking in imagination.

I recall a conversation I had with the great Mário Zagallo, who was an assistant coach of the Brazilian national team at the time, a few months before the '06 World Cup. He was commenting on the physical evolution of the game, and gave the example of Zinedine Zidane -- a wonderful artist, he said, but put a man on him to mark him and he won't be able to play, his game won't appear.

Soon afterward, Zidane bossed the game when France eliminated Brazil in the quarterfinals. Surrounded by athletic players to do his running, Zidane tore Brazil apart from a position around the halfway line. And Gilberto seemed unable to read the situation and respond. He stayed miles away, in his usual position almost on top of his own center backs, all of them taken out of the game when Zidane managed to thread through one of his passes.

It probably benefited Brazil that Gilberto was serving a suspension and missed the final of last year's Copa América against Argentina. Coach Dunga was, as a result, able to get his team marking higher up the field, where it carried out its gameplan of interrupting the circuit of Argentina's passing and then breaking right to expose the lack of pace of Argentina's left back Gabriel Heinze.

Those are my criticisms -- and we are all entitled to our own opinions on what takes place on the field. Gilberto can mount a pretty convincing defense. No one gives away World Cup winner's medals for free. He has been a fixture in the Brazil squad under three different coaches and can look back on some very happy and successful times with Arsenal.

He is clearly a good collective influence -- he captains his country and has captained his club -- and the fact that he was Arsenal's penalty taker shows a willingness to take responsibility.

But soccer is ruthless -- it's a "what has he done for us lately" kind of sport -- especially now, when the financial rewards are greater than ever but so is the physical intensity of the game and the sacrifices needed to keep playing it at the top level.

Gilberto has complained this season about losing his place to Flamini, but in truth, the mistake Arsène Wenger has made has been to show an excess of loyalty to the Brazilian.

In all competitions this year, from the Champions League to the Carling Cup, there have been times when Arsenal has needed Gilberto to perform, and he has not done so. If he had been with the great Liverpool sides of the '70s and '80s, he would have been shown the door by now, with no regrets.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/tim_vickery/04/15/gilberto.arsenal/index.html?eref=T1

Our good friends at Sky Sports.com have uncovered two mysteries; firstly where Denilson has been hiding, and secondly why Adebayor has been so useless of late.

Good article from Vickery, and 100% correct as always.

He's the only journo at the beeb worth reading

Calidad wrote: The great Liverpool sides of the 1970s and '80s -- which never, incidentally, got the credit that the quality of their soccer and organization deserved -- should serve as a reference on this point. In terms of team-building, they were utterly ruthless.

Every year they were looking to replace one or two of their team members, the players who they felt were starting to run the risk of going into decline. It is inconceivable that they would have persevered with Gilberto through a season like this one.

'Tis true. Arguably, the beginning of the end was when King Kenny took over as manager, because while the football was probably the best we ever played for the neutral, he was more sentimental about the players than either Shankly or Paisley had been.

What was so impressive (and you could never do it today) was the way in which the system was more important than the individuals. New signings regularly went into the reserves for extended periods to learn the 'Liverpool Way'; when players were injured or rested, a new player dropped in seamlessly.

Roger Hunt wrote:

Calidad wrote: The great Liverpool sides of the 1970s and '80s -- which never, incidentally, got the credit that the quality of their soccer and organization deserved -- should serve as a reference on this point. In terms of team-building, they were utterly ruthless.

Every year they were looking to replace one or two of their team members, the players who they felt were starting to run the risk of going into decline. It is inconceivable that they would have persevered with Gilberto through a season like this one.

'Tis true. Arguably, the beginning of the end was when King Kenny took over as manager, because while the football was probably the best we ever played for the neutral, he was more sentimental about the players than either Shankly or Paisley had been.

What was so impressive (and you could never do it today) was the way in which the system was more important than the individuals. New signings regularly went into the reserves for extended periods to learn the 'Liverpool Way'; when players were injured or rested, a new player dropped in seamlessly.

I actually have quite a few 'season' vids of the late 70s and early 80s and the Liverpool sides back then played fantastic football. So dominant and composed on the ball and its even more incredibly when you bear in mind that most of the pitches back then wouldn't have looked out of place in the middle of no mans land in the Somme