Arsenal

26th November 2015: Wenger wants to buy as Edu reveals Pato discussion

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. Arsene Wenger held his pre-Norwich press conference this morning and aside from providing an update on team news, the boss also revealed he’s looking to buy in the upcoming January transfer window.

He said:

We are in a  position where we want to do something. If I find the right quality I will do something.

With Francis Coquelin ruled out for the next 3 months, signing a defensive midfielder is, you’d have thought, the manager’s priority if we can can find one we like. But as last summer’s pursuit of Karim Benzema showed, we’re still on the lookout for a quality striker too. So it was interesting to hear one of our former players reveal Arsene had enquired about the availability of Alexandre Pato recently.

Edu, a member of our Invincibles and now the Director of Football at Brazilian club Corinthians, was in London recently on a fact-finding mission and as well as visiting two of the capital’s lesser clubs in Chelsea and Tottenham, also dropped by to have a spot of lunch and a good old chinwag with his former boss Arsene at Arsenal. Here’s what he said:

I wasn’t there to tout him (Pato) around but if people ask about him, I’m going to answer. I talked and they asked questions – not just about him, but about a few of our players. They know them well. I had lunch with Arsene Wenger and he asked about (Pato) and about others.

The rise and fall of Pato is a bit of a weird one. Brought to Europe by AC Milan aged just 17 in 2007, he went on to score 63 goals in 150 games for the Rossoneri, before injury troubles and an alleged party-lifestyle led to the Italian club selling the striker to Corinthians in January 2013.

After scoring 17 from 62 appearances, a change of manager resulted in him being loaned out to Sao Paulo just a year later, where he’s netted 38 times in 95 games, including 26 in 56 this calendar year. So statistically-speaking, Pato has certainly been preforming well of late, regardless of how highly you rate domestic Brazilian football.

From what I’ve seen of him over the years, Pato’s pace and quality as a footballer is unquestionable, but there has to be other factors at play with him as an individual which have prevented a return to Europe before now. I mean, the shortage of ‘top-level’ strikers in our continent is something Arsene often bemoans, so to have a player, who at his best is certainly among the best of the world’s central strikers in my opinion, not being chased by top clubs in Europe, is odd.

Yet he’s still fairly young, having turned 26 in September, and at an age where, if he’s overcome his injury troubles, settled down a little in his private life and is determined to get back to his best, still has his golden years ahead of him. His loan deal with Sao Paulo reportedly runs until next month, which indicates Edu was indeed in London to offer Pato’s services to English clubs, even if he denied it above.

The other thing with the potential signing of Pato is he’d be relatively cheap. Less expensive than Jamie Vardy in all likelihood, and as big a fan as I am of the free-scoring Leicester man, I’d prefer Pato if he can rekindle his best form.

It’s all hypothetical of course but worth a wonder I thought because there certainly seems to something stirring with regards to a move for Pato to England in January given recurring reports over recent weeks.

Anyway, as usual, Arsene discussed a lot of things at his press conference, including his penchant for a bargain, team news, Alexis Sanchez being a jungle cat and more. But I’ll go over that lot tomorrow.

See you then.

25th November 2015: Awesome Ozil and spritely Sanchez keep us alive

Posted on by TremendArse

Greetings. So our 3-0 win over Dinamo Zagreb last night, combined with Bayern Munich’s 4-0 success against Olympiacos, keeps alive our hopes of progressing to the knock-out stages of the Champions League.

But those results also ensure we’ll play in the Europa League should we fail to get the right result in Greece in a fortnight’s time. A win by any score-line other than 1-0 or 2-1, will be enough to see us make the last 16, so fingers crossed we can complete a remarkable comeback in our group and continue in Europe’s premier competition in the New Year.

Last night’s starting line-up saw Arsene Wenger make two changes from the team that started against West Brom last Saturday; Mathieu Flamini replaced the injured Francis Coquelin and Joel Campbell came in for Kieran Gibbs, with the fit-again Aaron Ramsey taking a place on the bench.

Dinamo actually started the game on the front foot and tried to catch us cold, but in truth, never looked like scoring before we took control of proceedings and played most of the first period in their half of the pitch. Mesut Ozil was our standout performer in the opening 45, so it was fitting he should be the one to break the deadlock just before the 30 minute mark.

The move began in our right-back area as Santi Cazorla, Hector Bellerin, Oliver Giroud and Ozil all combined superbly, albeit with a smidgen of good fortune, before the ball found it’s way to Flamini in space on half-way. The Frenchman adroitly played it forward to Alexis Sanchez on our left flank, while Ozil and Giroud sprinted into Dinamo’s box. Sanchez spotted Ozil’s run and sent over an inch-perfect cross for the German to convert with a stooping header without breaking stride.

Four minutes later, we doubled our lead. Dinamo tried to pass out from the back, Nacho Monreal nipped in to win the ball, flew forward and centered for Sanchez to coolly side-foot home. We’ve developed quite a knack of scoring goals in quick succession in games this season and here was another example in what was a must-win game.

It was more one-way traffic for most of the second half and we killed the game off with about 20 minutes to go. Campbell picked up the ball on the right, cut infield, played a precise reverse pass into Sanchez’s path, and our hyperactive Chilean danced around their keeper and fired into the roof of the net from a tight angle.

At that stage, we’d made just the one substitution, with Ramsey replacing Giroud and I’m sure I wasn’t the only Arsenal fan hoping Jeff Reine-Adelaide might get his first competitive minutes for the club. Alas, it wasn’t to be and instead Arsene sent on Calum Chambers and Mathieu Debuchy for Cazorla and Bellerin with eight minutes remaining. The big spoilsport.

After the game, the boss had this to say on our performance and chances of qualification:

We played at a good pace, produced a game of quality that we wanted. I believe the speed of our movement and passing gave Zagreb a problem. From then on, once we had scored the first goal you could see the chances were coming. It was important that we did not concede the first goal as we looked dangerous [going] forward. Overall we had a game of quality that we controlled well. What we wanted was to come out of this game with a chance to qualify and we needed to do the job and Bayern Munich needed to do the job and they did that well. It gives us a chance but how big the chance is I don’t know. I believe we can do it.

We now have Norwich away at the weekend, then a full week to prepare for Sunderland at home before we travel to Olympiacos for what will be a decider for second place in the group.

Hopefully we’ll have Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and perhaps even Theo Walcott, available by then for what will be a difficult task in one of the most vociferous and hostile atmospheres in Europe. But that’s two weeks away and attentions now return to the Premier League where we need to get back on track after picking up just 1 point from two games either side of the international break.

I’m not sure if Arsene will hold his press conference in the morning or on Friday but either way we should at least have an injury update tomorrow as the boss usually speaks with the official site on a Thursday.

Till then.

24th November 2015: Do or die time as we face Dinamo

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. Tonight we’ll find out if we have any chance of progressing to the knockout stages of the Champions League this season as we entertain Dinamo Zagreb at Emirates stadium.

Of course, a win for us wouldn’t necessarily be enough to keep our hopes alive heading into the final fixture, we also need Bayern Munich to beat Olympiacos at the Allianz Arena this evening.

We go into the game having failed to win both our previous two games but Arsene Wenger doesn’t sound too concerned, saying:

In the last two games we have dropped points. We know as well that before that we won five games on the trot and you can go through a spell like that – it is how you respond to that and that is what makes your season. That is why it is a good test for us. It is true that we need a positive result from Bayern, but that only has an impact if we win, so let’s focus on what we can do. I believe that when everybody is back we have a squad to compete in both [the Premier League and Champions League]. If we go through now in the Champions League we can be very dangerous for everybody.

In terms of how we might line-up tonight, my guess would be that Mathieu Flamini will come in to replace Francis Coquelin and Aaron Ramsey will return to the right of midfield with Alexis Sanchez being restored to the left and Kieran Gibbs making do with a place on the bench.

I suppose the alternative would be to play Ramsey alongside Santi Cazorla, but that would mean either Gibbs or Joel Campbell playing on one of the flanks and I’m not sure we can risk that in such a crucial game.

Similarly, I don’t think tonight’s the time to give Calum Chambers a go in the defensive midfield role, despite Arsene talking up the former Southampton man’s talents and potential in the position. He said:

Calum Chambers has been educated as a central midfielder. He has a big stature, good technique, good vision as well. He has played in defensive positions so I think he can develop in the future in a position like defensive midfield. It is very important to balance our team, so the defensive role and the efficiency in this position is very important, because we are a team who like to go forward. All teams needs a strong, reliable player in every defensive aspect.

I have to say I like Chambers as a defender but I’m not sure I share the boss’s optimism when it comes to Calum playing in midfield. Time will tell but my view is that he isn’t nimble enough to play in that position. I think he’s good on the ball and in the air, is fairly quick, has decent passing, can tackle  obviously, and offer a physical presence, but is he quick-witted enough to play alongside Cazorla and Ozil through the middle and make it work? Not for me.

In games when we’re resigned to having far less possession than our opponents, like against Bayern or Barcelona say, I think Calum could be useful in midfield. But those games are few and far between and for the majority of our fixtures, when we’ll be the ones bossing the play, I don’t think Chambers in midfield would work.

It goes without saying that I’d love to be proved wrong, and usually I’m a big fan of trying players in new positions, but only when I think the player has attributes suited to a role.

Anyway, kick-off is fast approaching and I need to get my pre-match meal in. I can never eat while watching Arsenal. Must be the nerves.

Back tomorrow.

COYG !!

23rd November 2015: Coquelin absence confirmed. How do we cover?

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. So Arsene Wenger held his pre-Dinamo Zagreb press conference this morning and confirmed Francis Coquelin’s knee injury would rule him out for ‘at least two months’.

He said:

I’m always cautious. It will be at least two months but I don’t want to speculate more than that. He has a scan today – we will know how long this afternoon.

Since then, a couple of pieces on the official site quote Arsene as saying ‘at least a month’, so either they’ve misheard the manager, or have been given a more positive update following the scan. Either way, considering we play tomorrow, we should get a more informed estimation of the likely length of his absence after the game.

Obviously it’s a bitter blow, however long the Frenchman is out for, especially in an area we are already deprived of the services of long-term absentee Jack Wilshere, with another central midfielder in Aaron Ramsey only just back from a spell on the side-lines himself. Yet the boss thinks we still have enough options in the squad to cover for Coquelin’s absence. He said:

It is of course a disappointment to lose him on the longer term but we have players who can compensate. We have lost a player of quality for a while and we know this can happen during the season. We have players who play in this position, like Flamini. We have players like Chambers [too], because he has been educated as a central midfielder. Sometimes this is a good opportunity for other players to turn up and show they can do the job.

Which is basically always the boss’ response when a player is ruled out for a sustained period and of course he’s right. Without a bit of an injury crisis in midfield a year ago, Coquelin would have remained on loan at Charlton and never had the platform to make himself such an important first-teamer in the first place.

I suppose the difference this time is that we don’t have an obvious candidate who can view this as a chance to make the position his own. Not unless you count Calum Chambers, and I don’t, despite what the boss says above.

It goes without saying I’d love to be proved wrong and for Chambers to come in and perform like a cross between Patrick Vieira, Claude Makelele and Diego Maradona alongside Santi Cazorla in our engine room, but I don’t see it personally. I think he’ll end up a fine central defender but I’m not sure he has the attributes required to play further forward, especially in a technically-intricate style of play such as ours.

Which leaves Mathieu Flamini and he doesn’t have anything to prove or show. We know what he is and that’s a decent back-up to shore things up late in games and start the odd one here and there. But asking him to play in every game would be asking for trouble, as far as our hopes of success this season are concerned, in my opinion.

The transfer window in January would obviously be one place to find a solution of course but as Arsene pointed out today, we can’t access the market right now, so we have to find a way to cope from within the squad.

My preference would be to get either Aaron Ramsey, or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, to try to mimic Coquelin’s qualities. I think they both have the energy required in the role and as intelligent young professionals, should be able to suppress their naturally attack-minded instincts and focus on the defensive side of midfield play; reading danger, making interceptions, tackling, staying positionally disciplined and generally disrupting our opponents through dogged physicality.

After all, that’s basically what Francis did himself, having fancied himself as more of an attacking midfielder for a long time. Wilshere’s another option of course but he’s some way from fitness just yet.

Whichever way Arsene chooses to compensate for Coquelin’s absence though, he has to decide soon and it has to work straight away, because we have a must-win game in the Champions League tomorrow and the busiest portion of the campaign is on the horizon.

Back with a preview tomorrow.

See you then.

22nd November 2015: Reports say Coquelin out for 3 months

Posted on by TremendArse

As if Sunday evening wasn’t depressing enough in it’s own right as we ‘look forward’ to another working week, reports have emerged from France suggesting the knee injury sustained by Francis Coquelin during yesterday’s defeat at West Brom will keep him side-lined for 3 months.

Arsenal fans the world over will be losing their sh*t right now and understandably so, because not only is Coquelin crucial to our side, but we’re approaching the busiest period of the season and as I and many others have been saying since pre-season, not signing another quality defensive midfielder last summer was a massive gamble by the boss.

Well, if tonight’s reports prove true, I’m afraid just like last season when we suffered in the opening months of the campaign having failed to sign another central defender, we’ll only have ourselves to blame. We do have Mathieu Flamini of course for the immediate future, so the Frenchman will now have to up his game and form an understanding with Santi Cazorla until Coquelin returns, or we sign another defensive midfielder.

The alternative would be to ask another player, like Aaron Ramsey for instance, to adapt his game and focus on the type of chasing and intercepting Coquelin’s so good at, or perhaps even see how Calum Chambers fares in front of the defence given that Arsene Wenger has previously suggested he could play there.

That said, the only time I can remember Chambers playing for us in midfield was in the defeat at Southampton a year ago, so if that game is any kind of gauge, we’re better off using that as a very last resort.

In terms of who may be available to buy in January, obviously I have absolutely no clue but I’d suggest even if players aren’t being openly touted by clubs, we ‘make’ them available by bidding high enough.

If, for instance, Sevilla’s Grzegorz Krychowiak has a release clause of say £20m, as reported last summer, then trigger it. Just don’t say nobody good enough was available or we can’t resort to the transfer market every time we sustain an injury.

Of course we can’t, or given our rate of accumulating knocks, we’d have a squad of about 450 players. But with Mikel Arteta and Flamini surely being shown the door at the end of the season, we have a definite need to buy in the defensive midfield area. So do it January rather than July.

Bid for William Carvalho. Or Victor Wanyama. Or whoever the hell is deemed of the required level to play for us, but just get it done. For the record, I haven’t seen enough of Krychowiak, Carvalho or even Wanyama, to have a definitive opinion on their quality or suitability to our side, but the management must already have a good idea of who they’d like and I’d trust their judgement.

Before this news broke this evening, I was planning to go over yesterday’s game again and perhaps take a look at some of the post-match reaction but I think that game is best off consigned to history.

We play Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday so Arsene will have his pre-match press conference tomorrow and we should get more information on Coquelin’s injury then. But for now, we’re forced to envisage the foreseeable future without one of our most important players. And it’s worrying.

See you next week.

21st November 2015: Beaten by the Baggies

Posted on by TremendArse

So we’ve gone from joint-first to fourth in the space of a few hours after we lost 2-1 at West Brom today, but the biggest blow of the afternoon isn’t the three points we surrendered in my opinion, it’s the injury to Francis Coquelin, if it turns out to be a serious one.

The fact Manchester City were outclassed 4-1 at home by Liverpool means we didn’t lose ground on the team I think remain favourites for the title, but since the summer, my stance has been that to have any chance of winning the league this season, we’d need to keep Coquelin fit, because we simply do not have another player in the squad capable of doing the job he does for the team.

Hopefully we’ll get some good news regarding his knee soon, but looking at the tackle that caused it, the extension of his leg and the jarring impact, it could quite easily be ligament damage. Please don’t let it be as bad as that …

The game itself was one we could have won, but in the end, marginally lost after the hosts responded to Oliver Giroud’s Mesut Ozil-assisted opener after 28 minutes, by scoring twice before the interval to turn the game on it’s head.

In yesterday’s post I wondered if Kieran Gibbs’ goal against Tottenham just before the international break may tempt Arsene Wenger into handing the left-back a starting spot at the expense of Joel Campbell, with Alexis Sanchez swapping wings to the right and Gibbs lining up ahead of Nacho Monreal, but concluded it was unlikely. Yet the boss did just that and to be fair, it worked okay.

Our problems were more defensively on the day, and as much as I appreciate what Mikel Arteta has brought to the club in his time with us, he’s simply not good enough anymore judging by his performances. I think it is telling that he admitted he’d thought long and hard about signing a contract extension because he wasn’t sure he was up to the level required. In the end, he clearly felt he could still offer something but unfortunately for us, that ‘something’ is being a liability.

Although he was unlucky to concede the free-kick that led to the Baggies first goal, getting a toe to the ball as he did, his part in defending the delivery was poor. Giroud was furiously berating his own team-mates as their players wheeled off celebrating and I’m fairly certain Mikel was the target of his anger.

As for West Brom’s second goal, Arteta was in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to defend the near post but succeeding only in impeding Petr Cech from doing his job and deflecting the ball past his own keeper. That he instinctively tried to stop the ball with his hand was symbolic of a player who’s not just slow of foot, but also of mind, at the moment.

I realise that may sound harsh but when you’re talking title challenges, you’re speaking about fine margins and to be fielding a player so fragrantly not up to the task, both physically and mentally, is madness. Sentiment should have absolutely no place in competition. Hindsight’s 20-20 as they say, but Mathieu Flamini should have replaced Coquelin when he hobbled off after 11 minutes, not Mikel. In all honesty, Flamini’s far from an adequate understudy for Coquelin in my opinion, but he’s infinitely a better bet than the player Arteta is these days.

Santi Cazorla may have salvaged a point for us but did a John Terry and slipped as he tried to convert a late penalty. But we can’t really blame the little Spaniard as it was bad luck, combined with a little unsporting behaviour in trying to put Santi off his spot-kick by the West Brom players, that led to his miss I felt.

Other points to make about the loss include Per Mertesacker’s worrying recent habit of not attempting blocks. I mean, he just stands there at times, refusing to even attempt to close down a shot, assuming, i’m guessing, that he thinks opponents won’t hit the target or that Cech’s better off having a clear sight of of the strike.

Ross Barkley’s deflected effort off of Gabriel’s attempted block at Emirates stadium recently perhaps justifies Per’s reluctance to attempt blocks but I’d prefer we tried to stop shots at source whenever possible. The way Per was manhandled by one of their players for their equaliser was also annoying to see and overall our defending as a unit was poor on the day.

Hector Bellerin looked like a player who’d just returned from injury and wasn’t yet up to match speed and even Laurent Koscielny, our best defender, didn’t play at his best.

Given this was an away match at a difficult ground against organised, resilient opponents straight after an international break and with us still deprived or several players through injury, our performance and the result doesn’t worry me too much.

As I’ve said, it’s the potential long-term absence of Coquelin and if our worst fears are confirmed I think a January signing in that position becomes an absolute must. Identify the player, pay the price and if that means the likes of Arteta, or anyone else for that matter, is pushed down the pecking order to the extent they fail to make match-day squads, then tough luck. We’re trying to win the league, not running a retirement home.

More on Sunday. Til then.

20th November 2015: Premier League Preview – Back to business against the Baggies

Posted on by TremendArse

So here we go. Four months of club football without the irritating interruption of an international break and we begin by travelling to West Brom tomorrow afternoon looking to maintain our fine Premier League form.

We’ve won five of our last six in the league since succumbing to a Mike Dean-inspired Chelsea two months ago, and glancing at our upcoming fixture-list, we now have a great opportunity to rack up the points before we entertain Manchester City a few days before Christmas.

After our trip to the Hawthorns, we play Norwich (a), Sunderland (h) and Aston Villa (a), so 12 points from 12 is far from unfeasible. If we do manage to take the maximum tally available from those 4 games, hope of a first title success since 2004 might start morphing into excited expectancy.

Looking at City’s next four fixtures in the league, they begin by hosting Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool tomorrow and Southampton next weekend, before travelling to Stoke and hosting Swansea – on paper a much tougher run than ours, before our meeting with them on December 21.

We had the team news yesterday of course and Hector Bellerin’s return to fitness should see him come straight back into the side at the expense of Mathieu Debuchy. We have question marks hanging over both Laurent Koscielny and Olivier Giroud’s involvement, due to the emotional toll of the tragic events of a week ago in Paris, but I’m expecting both to play seeing as they were involved in training today.

Elsewhere, the team picks itself, with Joel Campbell retaining his starting berth on the right, unless Kieran Gibbs’ goalscoring substitute appearance against Spurs two weeks ago has convinced Arsene Wenger he deserves a start.

I highly doubt it though, as it would mean either asking Alexis Sanchez to swap wings to the right, or playing Gibbs as a right-sided attacker. More likely is that Arsene will be encouraging Gibbs to build on his goal in the north London derby by offering a genuine attacking threat from the bench again, if needed.

As for our hosts, they are struggling to score goals so far this season and come into the match with the joint-fewest in the division. Yet in Salomon Rondon and Saido Berahino, they have two strikers of good quality so we’ll need to be mindful of their threat. When asked about the former, the boss said:

He’s a fighter. He has a physical ability to resist the challenges of the centre backs and he has a good nose in the box to be where you have to be.

One major reason I think we can be confident in our defending against Rondon and co tomorrow is the return of Bellerin. Assuming Koscielny plays, we’ll be at full strength back there, with a nicely-rested and hopefully re-energised Francis Coquelin protecting them with typically tenacious defensive midfield play.

And Nacho Monreal has been praising his compatriot Bellerin’s meteoric rise at the club, saying:

He’s a young player, only 20 years old, but he plays like a guy who is 30. He’s very mature and he plays with a lot of confidence. He trusts in himself and that’s very good for us. Since he’s started to play the level of the team is improving so we are very proud of him. When I was 20 like him, I was scared every time I had to play at the beginning, but he’s not. That’s the secret for him, that he’s so confident in himself. He knows what he has to do, he goes on to the pitch and he does it. It looks easy but it’s not easy. He’s only 20, he has a long way to go, he has to play more games but obviously everything he has done is brilliant. He just needs to keep going in the same way. I’m 100 per cent sure he will play for the Spanish national team. I don’t know when as that’s the question. At this moment there are another two right backs like Juanfran and Dani Carvajal. Hector is still playing for the under-21s but if he carries on, he will play with the senior team 100 per cent.

If there’s a better right-back in the Premier League than Bellerin at the moment, then he’s doing a fine job of going undetected. The point Nacho makes about our cockney Catalan’s maturity is, along with his searing pace obviously, the most startling thing about the 20-year-old in my opinion.

When he’s been faced with tough opponents and struggled initially, he’s had the intelligence to adapt his game mid-match, to turn the tide of the duel in his favour. It’s great to have him back and after a depressing last seven days in he context of the wider world, it feels great to have the Premier League back.

Back post-match.

COME ON ARSENAL!

 

19th November 2015: Wenger talks team news, contracts and West Brom

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. Arsene Wenger held his pre-West Brom press conference this morning, as we look forward to the return of Premier League football in a couple of days’ time.

Team news is that Hector Bellerin is fit and available again after missing both our trip to Bayern Munich and the home encounter with Tottenham before the international break.

But Aaron Ramsey and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain won’t won’t be risked for the Hawthorns, with the boss saying the pair should be available from Monday. And on Theo Walcott, Tomas Rosicky, Jack Wilshere and Danny Welbeck, he said:

He (Walcott) is doing well, he could be a bit ahead of schedule but still you count a few weeks more while Rosicky, Wilshere, Welbeck will be later.

Following the tragic events of late last week in Paris, Laurent Koscielny was visibly emotional on Tuesday evening as England hosted France at Wembley, and when Arsene was asked if his defender would be in the right frame of mind to play this weekend, he said:

I will talk with him. It’s a big game for us. I have not talked to him yet, but I will talk to him to see if he’s completely recovered and focused.

Arsene also remarked that he thought Laurent was a different player against England from the one he saw enjoy a fine performance against Germany on Friday. He followed up by saying that every player needs to be completely focused on the task at hand in the Premier League, so if there is any doubt at all in Laurent’s mind that he’s ready, the boss won’t select him.

Obviously only the player himself can say how he’s feeling but it’s reassuring to know we have a well-rested Per Mertesacker and Gabriel, in case that’s the partnership we need to go with.

Moving on and there have been reports over the past few days that Alexis Sanchez was nearing an agreement on an extension to his contract with the club and that Mesut Ozil would follow suit shortly. But Arsene revealed today that although he’ll sit down with the pair in the coming months, no negotiations have yet begun with either player:

We have not started to talk about that (a new contract) with Mesut. We are in the same situation (with Alexis). At the end of the year they have two-and-a-half years left on their contract so we still have some time. We are not in a hurry. Of course we want them to stay here at the club and we will start the negotiations at some stage. At the moment we have not started them.

Reassuringly however, Arsene suggested there would be no repeat of players running there contracts down to the last year like Robin van Persie or Samir Nasri, or to it’s end like Bacary Sagna, because the club was ‘in a stronger position to negotiate.’

Finally for today, the boss was asked what he made of Saturday’s opponents West Brom, and said:

I watched them against Man United and they looked a very well organised team which is absolutely – as always with Tony Pulis – fully committed. On top of that they are in a difficult situation a little bit in the Premier League and you expect what you always expect in the Premier League – a committed, physical, fast game and a game where we cannot afford to make any mistakes. I would even say that you don’t even look at the table any more because you know what you get. The difference between the teams has narrowed and today it is more about how much can you be close to your best which will decide the result, more than the team you play against.

I’ll be honest, I’ve paid next to no attention to how West Brom have performed so far this season but they have some dangerous attackers and will no doubt prove highly organised opposition.

That said, we’ve been sensational on our travels in the league so far this term so, as always, I’m confident we can secure all three points.

Back with more on Friday.

Til then.

18th November 2015: Wenger on FIFA

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening. I’m a little late to this but Arsene Wenger has been speaking about the FIFA presidential election and has tipped future World Cups to be expanded to 40 teams.

For a bit of background, the tournament was played by 16 nations between 1934 and 1978, apart from on two occasions. In 1938 only 15 took part after Austria was absorbed by Germany, and in 1950, India, Scotland and Turkey withdrew, leaving just 13 to battle it out.

The World Cup has twice been expanded since then; in 1982 to 24 countries, and again in 1998 to 32 competing nations.

Anyhow, speaking to  Arsenal Player, here’s what the boss said:

It is now or never – you would like to put it all on the table. You see the European Championship has gone from 16 to 24 teams. I bet you [because of] the way the system was organised, to be elected as new president of Fifa, the programme would be to move the World Cup from 32 to 40 teams. Why? Because Africa today has five countries in the World Cup and Europe has 13 – that cannot work for much longer. You cannot take countries away from Europe and if you want to be elected as Fifa president, you need the votes from the African countries, so you want to give more to Africa. So the next World Cups will be 40 teams.

Insightful as ever from the boss and unless you follow bidding processes and the political side of football closely, which I don’t, because it bores me more than watching Chelsea play, you’d probably have been unaware of the importance of Africa in the race to replace Sepp Blatter.

And you’d probably never have paid much attention to the fact Africa, and Asia for that matter, has been hugely under-represented at previous World Cups.

So if expansion is the only way to ensure proportionate representation of continents, then I suppose It’s inevitable and long over-due, regardless of any presidential plays.

However, a more inclusive World Cup would also possibly mean more games for already over-worked players and possibly a longer tournament schedule-wise, which would irritate clubs sides more than international football in it’s present form already does.

Inevitably, the boss has also had his say on the club v country debate:

We face a situation where it’s impossible for the players to get through a season and have rest. This kind of friction that it creates between the clubs, national teams and international competitions can create a split. One day the clubs could move away and say, ‘Enough is enough, we pay a huge amount of money for our best players so we’ll get them together ourselves and organise our own competitions’. It’s important that all of that gets on the table while we have the opportunity.

This is obviously a long-running issue which is always brought into sharp focus every time a player is injured while away on international duty.

You would imagine at some stage, surely, clubs and international football can come to some kind of arrangement  where players are afforded more time off during a calendar year. Lets see.

Back tomorrow.

17th November 2015: International involvement + Ozil on improvement

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. There are a few Arsenal players in action for their countries tonight, but not as many as there might have been, after the match between Belgium and Spain was called off amid security concerns.

The cancellation of the fixture means that Santi Cazorla will have had a full week off since playing competitively when we face West Brom on Saturday, which is obviously welcome news for Arsenal.

I’m writing this with one eye on the television as England host France at Wembley, where Kieran Gibbs has started the match for the hosts and Laurent Koscielny for the visitors. Olivier Giroud has been left on the bench for the right-footed Oliver Giroud – Andre-Pierre Gignac.

Elsewhere this evening, Alexis Sanchez, Petr Cech and David Ospina could all feature for their respective nations, whilst Gabriel and Joel Campbell will play for Brazil and Costa Rica respectively, if selected tomorrow evening.

With plenty of our international players already in London due to injury and Mesut Ozil given a pass for these internationals by Germany, it means we should be relatively well-rested as a squad for the weekend, which considering how jaded we looked against Tottenham, is just as well. Collectively we needed a breather.

Our one big fear, fatigue-wise, remains Sanchez of course, but with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain nearing a return to full fitness, perhaps we can rest the Chilean in some of our upcoming games as some have already suggested. We’ll see.

Moving on and onto some words from Mesut. Our assist king has been discussing the development of the Arsenal team and his own ability to dictate games. He told Arsenal Player:

I think as a team you can see that we’ve become more mature. We’ve learnt from our mistakes and you can see on the pitch that we’re more steady. We’ve had some setbacks this season but we’ve learnt from them and it shows on the pitch that my team-mates are looking for me even more and I’m able to control the game better. You can see that we function well as a team. It doesn’t matter who plays from the start, we’re always there. You need a big squad if you are to be successful and that’s why things are working well. When you look at the past seasons, we’ve always been a technically-strong team but when we played against big teams, we dropped points. In the second half of last season and in this year so far, we’ve proved ourselves against the biggest teams. You learn from your mistakes and we can measure ourselves with the best. That distinguishes us as a team.

He’s right of course, the maturity of this Arsenal team in terms of ‘game-management’ has been very noticeable this term and I think a big reason for that must be the Cech influence.

When I heard him yell “small details” to Per Mertesacker at the end of our Community Shield victory over Chelsea at the start of the season, it was confirmation, for me at least, that Cech would have a hugely positive effect on our squad off the pitch as well as on it.

Yet, another big reason we’re able to control games is the mesmeric ability of Mesut. He’s already produced 10 assists, broken records and generally just been a joy to watch. I said it in a recent post but if he maintains his current form until the end of the season, he’ll take some stopping from being crowned the best player in England this season.

Til tomorrow.