Tag Archive for Squillaci

Monreal Is Cause For Renewed Positivity

February 1, 2013 Arsenal 50 comments

The transfer window has slammed shut and Arsenal have managed to sneak in a deal for Peter Crouch lookalike aka Spain international Nacho Monreal to the delight of some supporters. To the chagrin of others it seems that one was not enough and whilst I agree that the team needs further strengthening I have woken today with a renewed positivity.

I feel I have always been good at looking at the positive side of things, especially when it comes to Arsenal, whilst maintaining a reasonable degree of balance. I have never identified with any group or acronym that exist nor will I probably ever. I am an Arsenal supporter and my opinions are my own and not defined by others and I’d like to think the majority of Arsenal supporters would see themselves the same way.

Our newest signing... and a good one to boot

We’ve signed Peter Crouch!

I think we have the makings of a special team. The current squad I think are good enough to make the Champions League spots and good enough to win the FA Cup too but probably a few players away from title winners. The players that will “complete” our squad will hopefully arrive in the summer and I’m quite confident that hopefully is actually certainly.

Arsène said that he almost signed one more player and I wouldn’t want to speculate who but I think it would have been a big money move.

We were close to one more signature, it did not happen because of the desire of the clubs to sell or not sell. It is only linked with that.

Arsène Wenger – 01/02/2013

The signing he did make I feel has really added to our squad despite being told yesterday that Monreal lacking a YouTube video means he is a bad player!! Read more

Arsenal and the Curse of 9

May 26, 2012 Arsenal 11 comments

Luck, it’s a funny old thing. When things aren’t going your way you say you have bad luck. When things are going well others will say that you have good luck. The smug will respond by saying “you make your own luck”. We all know that luck plays a big part in football or at the very least there is something in football that exists that until so named differently is described as luck.

23 years ago today Arsenal had some great luck to win the title on virtue of goals scored with a 2-0 win at Anfield. Liverpool had a number of chances to equalise but squandered them. Arsenal scored with 25 seconds to go to reach the scoreline they needed to clinch the title and even managed a late interception of a through ball that could have lost them the title in cruellest of manners.

I’m probably a little too young to do Anfield ’89 justice so I’ll leave that to other bloggers but I do want to talk about luck.

Thomas scoring the title winner

Arsenal have had rotten luck in the past 7 years that has extended to cruelly losing out on three cups in unlucky circumstances and a league title after suffering mental capitulation from drawing a game due to a stupid defensive mistake (Gael) and the leg break of the first person who looked likely to break the curse of “9”. I’m not really a superstitious person but I wonder if Wenger did something to offend a Japanese spirit or something whilst he was over there to give him bad luck. The number 9 in Japan is very unlucky and pretty much every player to wear a multiple of the number 9 at Arsenal during Arsène’s tenure has been anything other than a roaring success and at best had been unspectacular in their steadiness.

Japanese #9. Looks like a guy bending over.... bracing.

We’ve not had much luck with our number 9’s, 18’s or 27’s. Read more

Arsenal’s “Deadwood” – How bad are they?

May 23, 2012 Arsenal, Transfers 15 comments

After my post yesterday about do I still trust Wenger in the transfer market I predictably got a lot of responses, mainly on my twitter, naming Wenger’s dud buys. Every club buys players that don’t work out but no-one mentions Bebe or Shevchenko or Jo because it seems only Wenger buys bad players and every other club buys great players.

I don’t really like the term deadwood but I can’t think of another name. I want to explore the “deadwood” and give my thoughts on whether or not they are/were as bad as many of us, myself at times included, have made them out to be.

The so-called “deadwood” are Almunia, Arshavin, Bendtner, Chamakh, Denilson, Diaby, Park, Squillaci and Vela.

Almunia

I remember a time when Arsenal fans were clamouring for him to play instead of Jens Lehmann…. how ironic that they all say Szczesny is our first decent keeper since Jens!

AlmuniaSzczesny
Apps/Mins98 / 880853 / 4770
Clean Sheets3719
Goals Conceded9068
Average Goals Conceded Per Match0.961.28
Penalties Faced/Conceded14 / 810 / 7
Penalty Save Percentage43%30%
Total Shots Faced844524
Total Shots On Target Faced359200
Saves269136
Save %74.9%66.7%

As the table shows Szczesny, statistically, isn’t much better. He keeps fewer clean sheets on average and concedes more goals with a similar amount of shots on goal. However, what Szczesny has in abundance that Almunia always lacked is an unshakeable self-confidence that even if he makes a mistake he won’t make another. When Almunia dropped a clanger he looked completely crestfallen and was prone to making more errors.

Confidence aside I don’t really think anyone can call Almunia “deadwood”. He is a decent keeper, maybe not up to the standards of the great keepers we’ve had over the years but if he was earning 50% of what he has been earning I don’t think many people would have objected to him staying as 3rd choice keeper. Read more

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

End Of Season Fire Sale

May 11, 2012 Arsenal, Finance in Football, Transfers 9 comments

Earlier this week I focused on the financial aspects of Arsenal’s trophy drought, in particular the correlation between Arsenal being unable to challenge for the title and the rise in wages elsewhere in a fashion that best attracted top players.

Today I want to explore what clearing out the “dead wood” is actually going to do for us. Will our end of year sale actually make us win something?

As we all know there are players on Arsenal’s books that based on the quality of their performances over their entire career with Arsenal (Ramsey’s few months of bad form not considered) who most Gooners believe do not deserve to be at the club, especially if we are claiming to have designs on winning trophies. More so than that there are players being paid far beyond what the average fan would call acceptable for their worth and value to the squad.

Sell the lot?

I want to examine moving these players on but before we can examine the moving on of players we need to actually see what our squad of 25 could look like and where additions or replacements need to be made.

The premier league 25 rule is this:

A squad can have a maximum of 25 senior players. They can also use as many players as they like who are under 21 or will still be 21 or under on January 1st of the year the season starts.

Of that 25 at least 8 must be “home-grown”. Home-grown means a player that had been registered with an English or Welsh club for at least 3 years between the ages of 16 and 21 irrespective of nationality. If a club cannot name 8 home-grown players then they must sacrifice one of their 25 places in the squad.

With that in mind I want to examine who will make the squad next season, who can we afford to let go and how easy it may be to have a clear out.

It will be our intention to trim a little bit and if possible add one or two players

Arsene Wenger on the summer transfer window

These are the players currently on our books and/or in the first team squad. Benayoun is not included as until such time we buy him he is a Chelsea player next season. (Red means loaned out this year)

Read more

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