Tag Archive for Campbell

A Squad Of Arteta’s Is Better-s

October 14, 2012 Arsenal, International 23 comments

It’s been a while since my last post and this is only a short one so please forgive me if you had planned for one of my epics. I had planned to come back with a really big piece but whilst doing my research I found that I was completely wrong and the blog was a duffer.

I had planned to do a piece in the run up to the West Ham game as we would be facing a Sam Allardyce team that looked at the size of the Arsenal team. It was going to be titled “Are Arsenal Big Enough To Win The League?”. I have seen Arsenal lean towards smaller and more technical players over the past 10 years and was convinced that our average squad height was significantly below the average height for the eventual champions. Our title-winning squads under Wenger were built on a mixture of strength, power, flair, technical superiority and physical dominance. We were a big team and our natural athleticism aided us in overpowering other teams with ease. I spent a while researching the squads of every Arsenal team and the eventual champions since 2002 and calculating the height of every player that would qualify for a league medal (using as many references as possible as different sites have different heights for players) and coming out with a squad average height and an average height for outfield players and I was a little surprised to see that Arsenal have been getting a little shorter over the years but have kept in line with the champions of those years. I thought we had been smaller for years and this year was different as we have a few more “big” players and was building up to saying we could win the league because we have the mixture of the past including the height now but it seems we’ve always had the mixture but maybe it just was with poorer quality ingredients?

I thought we were getting shorter….

However that piece kind of led me onto this piece as there has been a lot made by some bloggers and some journalists about Arteta’s brilliance in his new role and how the “DM” (I prefer holding midfielder) role has changed and destroyers are no longer a necessity if you have intelligent players in those positions. Whilst looking at Arteta for Arsenal for the past year and especially more so since he moved back a bit I have formed an opinion and that is the topic of today’s blog.

I’d like to have a squad full of Arteta’s.

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Why We’ll Score More Without Robin – Looking Forward & Looking Back

August 17, 2012 Arsenal, Premier League 15 comments

The new season is upon us and to celebrate I want to have a look forward and a look back at the same time. Many of you regulars follow me on twitter and those that do know that I am getting married in a few weeks (mid-September) so blogging time is scarce at the moment and I’ll probably be hosting a number of guest posts over the new few weeks so keep an eye out for them and get in touch if you want to write something yourself.

First things first I believe that we are ideally situated to win something this season. I know we say that every year but this year is different as I said in this post last week.

I don’t want to get caught up on Van Persie as I’ve already expressed my feelings on this but I want to say this and I want to make it clear that I have tried my best to allow bias to dictate my views. I believe that despite United going close last year that there squad is completely underwhelming and that even the addition of RvP does not improve them that much (as their midfield is poor IMO) so I think we should be focusing on challenging Man City who haven’t improved much at all.

He was supposed to destroy the dark side not join them

We’ve obviously had a fantastic summer player acquisitions wise but I think that we have improved across a number of areas. I wrote a piece on player wages and “dead wood” about how we have a large wage bill but maybe it was disproportionately dispersed. I believe we have changed this with our new signings and have made efforts to move on high earners who for one reason or another were not contributing much to the first team. Read more

Wenger And Arsenal Do It Again! Time To Win

August 6, 2012 Arsenal, Transfers 98 comments

The year is 1999 and Arsenal have just finished the season without a trophy. They have been comprehensively beaten by an inspired Chelsea by 5 goals to nil in the Worthington Cup, have exited the Champions League in 3rd spot behind Lens in 2nd and group winners Dynamo Kyiv, lost the FA Cup semi-final to Manchester United in extra-time and missed out on the league on the final day of the season to Manchester United by 1 point. (Incidentally United conceded 37 goals that year and still won the league, Arsenal conceded 17 and finished 2nd. These days “defensive frailties” are often quoted as a reason for not winning the league but I would suggest that United’s 80 goals scored to our 59 and Man City winning the league on goal difference shows that attack is quite often the best form of defence.)

Giggs knocking Arsenal out of the FA Cup

Arsenal had started the season poorly with 4 draws and a loss before the end of September leaving them with just 10 points and though they fought extremely hard to get back into title contention they ultimately finished the season pot-less and with a bitter taste in their mouth. Things for the fans were about to get worse.

Picked up for £500,000, free scoring Nicolas Anelka looked to be the buy of the century until Real Madrid came calling and Anelka left in a £22.3m deal. Financially it was very good for the club but having come so close to retaining the title and with no prolific striker in the ranks with Ian Wright having left the summer before the fans were understandably tetchy and worried about our ability to compete.

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The Bosingwa Theory

May 28, 2012 Guest Bloggers 11 comments

Today at ’North London Is Red’ I am delighted to welcome my first ever guest blogger, Cian Boyling (@ciansblog). Cian is a young up and coming blogger and I’m sure you are going to enjoy reading his post and the debate that is sure to rage on afterwards. Thanks @thedanielcowan. Take it away Cian…..

Hello fellow Gooners. I’m the newest addition to this whole blogging thing so don’t be too hard on me. Thanks to Daniel for giving me the opportunity to post on his website.

So as the title says, I’m going to be talking about Jose Bosingwa who has been released on a free transfer by Chelsea. I think a player of his ability and experience could be of great use to Arsenal next season as we are severely lacking in players that have the experience of not just challenging but actually winning league titles. Gervinho and Chamakh have won the French league but apart from that no-one in our club has been part of a title-winning side. We are also lacking in players that have experience of the premier league. Bosingwa could bring both of those to us.

Bosingwa has won 2 Champions Leagues, 3 Portuguese Leagues, 1 Premier League title and 3 FA Cups. He has made 24 appearances for Portugal, starring in Euro 2008 and being included in the team of the tournament. He is now retired from international football which is another plus as he can’t get injured or fatigued while others are off on duty.

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Arsenal Need To Buy Big, First They Must Bargain Hunt

May 17, 2012 Arsenal, Transfers 9 comments

Okay let us imagine that we are super lucky and manage to sell all of our “dead wood” (see my post on end of season fire sale) which I personally don’t think we’ll be able to do.

For arguments sake I am going to say that we sell Almunia, Mannone, Squillaci, Denilson, Arshavin, Park, Bendtner and Vela.

Our squad will then consist of:

Szczesny, Fabianski, Sagna, Jenkinson, Gibbs, Santos, Djourou, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Song, Arteta, Frimpong, Coquelin, Wilshere, Diaby, Ramsey, Rosicky, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lansbury, Walcott, Gervinho, Ryo, Chamakh, Podolski, Campbell, Afobe, Van Persie

KEY: GREEN = HOME-GROWN BOLD = Under 21

7 of these players do not need to be registered and probably will not be.

Of the remaining 21 players only 7 are “home-grown” therefore we need one more or we submit a smaller squad.

I think we could lose Fabianski this summer and that would take our squad down to 20. I believe that Afobe will be loaned out next season and we could potentially see Campbell back out on loan, then we’ll only have 3 strikers; RVP, Podolski (who will mainly play on the left) and Chamakh.

I have a feeling that Lansbury will be signed permanently by West Ham if they are promoted (and for the purpose of this blog I will assume they will be promoted).

We are now down to 19 so can sign 4 players. Who should those 4 be? Read more

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