Emirates Cup

27th July 2015: Sleepy Head Day and Arsenal stuff

Posted on by TremendArse

Hei ja tervetuloa. It’s the brilliantly-named National Sleepy Head Day in Finland today, so bad luck to any of our Fennoscandian friends who were the last of their household to wake up this morning – I hope the water wasn’t too cold!

I have to admit, if the UK adopted the tradition, I’d be in as much trouble as the Olympique Lyonnais defence found themselves in on Saturday afternoon. Because I love a Lyon-in.

I’ll get my mac…

And speaking of the Emirates Cup, Arsene Wenger has been highlighting the positives from the weekend’s tournament, which saw Arsenal score seven, concede none, play with shape, pass with zip, and showcase a couple of our most promising young players in Jeff Reine-Adelaide and Alex Iwobi.

He said:

 First of all our defensive stability was very good. After that our game is well structured, we can create chances and our technical level is good. Physically we are already not far from a very good level and some young players have done extremely well. We could give them a chance and that’s very pleasing for our fans to see that as well. We had two different teams, two good games, everybody played well, we have no injuries and we had clean sheets. The young players who played were convincing as well so you could see that it’s a photo of the present and of the future as well. The team spirit is very good as well so everything is positive. It smells like we can score goals. That is something that is very positive. Around the box our passing looks incisive, dangerous, creative, and our finishing has not always been at the level that we want it to be in the last two days but we cannot complain.

No, we certainly cannot. But we might make a few observations. Like Mikel Arteta, to me anyway, looked a little shorn of confidence and a bit sluggish shall we say, on Sunday, which is far from unexpected, given how much football he missed through injury last year.

Arteta is replaced by Aaron Ramsey in our 3-0 win over Burnley last season

Arteta also admitted earlier this summer that the reason for the delay in him signing a new contract at the club was because he wanted to be sure in himself that he could still cut it at this level. An ambivalent yet refreshingly honest admission from the Spaniard, but one which again raises question marks over our lack of defensive midfield cover, should Francis Coquelin be unavailable for any reason.

I’ve said it before but even more than a top striker, I really think we need another high class alternative to Coquelin before I’d be really confident about our title chances this season. Because as the weekend showed, we’ve got plenty of goals, from plenty of places, in this squad, but we don’t have another out-and-out defensive midfielder of Coquelin’s calibre.

There’s still over a month of the window remaining so plenty of time to sign one, unless of course, there’s another surprise package waiting to be unwrapped, already at the club. Isaac Haydon for instance? That suggestion is based on nothing but the belief Arsene knows what his squad still lacks, if anything, in his eyes.

So if he has someone earmarked for the role within the club, someone who most fans haven’t considered, then great. Just so long as we’re not relying on Coquelin to play every game this term, or expecting Arteta to be a like for like alternative. Because he’s a very different player as far as I’m concerned, one who against the better teams, can’t provide anything like the energy and defensive dynamism the Frenchman brings to the side.

Something Arteta undeniably does still bring to our squad however, is experience and leadership, and he’s been speaking to Arsenal Player about the belief in the squad ahead of the new campaign.

He said:

We have been together a while now and we have this belief now that we are capable of achieving something important. It took some time to build this cohesion, this momentum. I think the crowd is feeling much closer to the team at the moment and together we can make it. I think pre-season has been good. The tour in Singapore was great as well, probably the best we have had. Here, the opponents were tough but we managed to play well and win both games.

And finally for today, Arsenal are reported to have added 16-year-old Ajax striker Donyell Malen to their list of summer recruits for our academy sides, beating off competition from Barcelona to secure his services.

If true, I wonder how much of a factor Yaya Sanogo’s loan to the Dutch club was in the deal. Because we seem to quite like getting a promising talent in return when we agree to let one of our players move on – we’re said to have negotiated the signings of Hector Bellerin and Jon Toral in the transfer of Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona back in 2011.

Or maybe Dennis Bergkamp and Marc Overmars just told the lad that the best club in the world is undoubtedly Arsenal. Yeah, I’ll go for that one.

Till Tuesday.

26th July 2015: Unbelievable Jeff lays on Walcott winner

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. You know, sometimes, football really can be a funny old game for a fan to follow.

With Petr Cech so far being our only major signing of this summer’s transfer window, the Emirates Cup was no doubt marked in the diary by many, as the weekend we’d catch a first glimpse of our brand new world class ‘keeper in action on home soil, with the Czech cast as the main attraction for the tournament.

Yet following today’s 1-0 win over Wolfsburg which secured us our first Emirates Cup since 2010, and yesterday’s destruction of Lyon, the name on everyone’s lips isn’t Cech, but another of this summer’s arrivals at Arsenal – 17 year old Frenchman Jeff Reine-Adelaide.

When plucked from the Lens academy and announced with zero fanfare as one of three new ‘young professionals’ by the official site in early July, few had heard the name Reine-Adelaide let alone seen him play. But boy has that changed over the course of the last two days. Following yesterday’s highly impressive cameo, the youngster made his first start for the club this afternoon and capped off another silky smooth showing with a fine assist for the only goal of the game.

Receiving a pass from Mikel Arteta midway inside the visitors’ half, Reine-Adelaide skipped past a challenge, strode forward and bided his time before passing perfectly into Theo Walcott’s path, who had peeled away to the left. The England man promptly applied a poked finish past the on-rushing goalkeeper to settle the match. Exquisite stuff.

It has been quite an introduction into the Arsenal fans’ conscience for Reine-Adelaide and afterwards Arsene Wenger revealed the midfielder would not be loaned out as he continues his development.

Speaking at his post-match press conference, he said:

He is 17 years old and he looks very promising but he needs to work with us for a year in the first team. To be an adult, to play for the under-21s and to develop. There is fantastic potential there but he will stay with us. I don’t know (how much he will play). I honestly don’t know. But today was a good opportunity to see him. In some situations of course, he has the game of a 17-year-old player but on the other hand he has shown great potential as well and looks very advanced physically for his age, and I’m sure he has learned a lot these last two days.

Arsene also had some warm words for the goalscorer Walcott, who had started the game as our central striker, but grabbed his goal having wandered infield from wide following Chuba Akpom’s introduction at half-time.

He said:

Another goal for Theo and I’m not surprised by that because I played him through the middle. I’ve always said that he’s a goalscorer because he has the movement, he has the timing of the run, the speed for the finishing, and he has an eye for taking his chances at the right moments. When he gets into these positions he finishes well. Yesterday he nearly scored when he came on as a substitute, today he scored. I believe that Theo will score goals. He has his own way as well. He’s not an aggressive striker, he’s a mobile striker. He’s the striker who lives from the quality of his movement and the speed of his movement. He turns up in the right spaces in the box and you cannot give that to a player. He anticipates well, he understands quickly and when that is linked with his speed and execution it always makes him very dangerous.

And when asked what he felt was Walcott’s best position, the boss said:

It’s a good question because it’s a complicated answer. I think in all the three positions. If you ask him where he loves to play, I believe that even he will say that it depends a little bit on the period. Sometimes he prefers left. When I’ve played him on the left he likes it as well because if he makes a good run he can score goals as well. In his ideal world he would like to play with a strong guy next to him, a player who is very strong physically, and he play off him. We have so many offensive players which makes that very difficult to combine all of them together.

Which tallies with how I’ve thought we could get the best out of Walcott all along – playing him next to a more physical forward in a two man attack (think Kevin Phillips and Niall Quinn), or from the left (as I mentioned in a recent post) allowing him to cut in onto his favoured right foot.

Wenger says Walcott likes the left-flank

I just feel he looks far more comfortable on the opposite flank to which he’s most often been deployed in his Arsenal career so far. And I think it was an away Champions League qualifier against Udinese (I may be wrong) a few years back where he raced away from their defence from the halfway line to slot home at the near post, having started his run on the left.

There are a few other examples including a great effort for the England Under 21s, his goal in the League Cup Final in 2007, a finish on the end of a brilliant team move heavily involving Alexander Hleb – the list goes on. The only surprise for me is he hasn’t played from that side more often.

And with that bit of positional opinion, I’ll call it a day.

Back tomorrow.

25th July 2015: Six of the best as Iwobi nets and Reine-Adelaide’s cameo wows

Posted on by TremendArse

Greetings. Only one place to start today and that is with the six nil spanking we handed out to last year’s Ligue 1 runners up Olympique Lyonnais in our opening game of the Emirates Cup this afternoon.

Olivier Giroud opened the scoring sixty seconds before the half-hour mark, guiding Mesut Ozil’s cross from the right past the ‘keeper with a deft, headed shouldered finish. And within nine minutes it was four, as Arsenal produced a prolific period of opposition-paralysing dominance, which was reminiscent of our first half goal glut against Liverpool in the league at Emirates Stadium last season.

Five minutes after Giroud’s opener, we launched a counter attack which Theirry Henry and the Invincibles would have been proud to call their own, as we transitioned from defence to attack through Aaron Ramsey and then Giroud, before Alex Oxlade Chamberlain took up the baton at full pelt and buried a low angled drive into the far corner.

It was a show of truly TremendArse composure from the Ox, at the end of a brilliant burst of pace, which gave us a tantalising glimpse of the penetrative, goal scoring potential we’re all so eager to see realised by the England international on a more regular basis this coming campaign.

Jay Jay Okocha’s nephew Alex Iwobi, who had impressed enough in the Singapore tour last week to be handed a start on the left of the front three today, grabbed our third just a minute later when Ramsey fed him the ball inside the area and he stabbed home a first-time finish into the near-post top corner with his left foot.

Iwobi in action for our under 21 team

What a moment it was for the 19 year old and after the game, he admitted he was a little dumbstruck after scoring in front of a home support which included several of his family and friends.

He told Arsenal Player:

When Aaron passed me the ball I couldn’t believe it. I just swung my left foot at it and fortunately it went in and I was like ‘oh my gosh.’ I couldn’t believe it, I was in shock. I didn’t know what to do or how to celebrate but I enjoyed it! I have dreamt about it so many times but I never thought it could feel as good as this. My family, my friends, my close friends even my uncle was here today so I was glad to get a goal for them.

My gosh indeed, because just three minutes later, Ramsey started and finished another swift break, setting Ozil free down the left before the German’s perfectly weighted through ball was intelligently poked in off the upright at the near post by the Welshman. Lyon must have felt like they’d just been combo’d by a cross between Anthony Joshua and Iron Mike.

But how cruel football can be, because they were forced to come back out for the second period and were it not for mass substitutions, which inevitably disrupted our rhythm, they could easily have conceded double figures given the mood we were in.

As it was, Ozil capped his brilliant display with our fifth after 62 minutes, drilling home Giroud’s pass with a sweetly struck half volley across the ‘keeper. That goal turned out to be Ozil’s final contribution of the afternoon because he was immediately replaced by Santi Cazorla who capped off the scoring with a skidding, left-foot free-kick which he cleverly directed under the air-borne Lyon wall, with six minutes remaining.

Overall it was a very encouraging display and although people will rightly point out that Lyon were certainly not at peak fitness as it’s only pre-season etc, the same can also be said for us, and the fact remains that we battered them. Arsene could not have asked for much more from his players than such a confidence boosting performance as we gear up for Chelsea at Wembley next weekend and the start of the Premier League season a week after that. More of the same tomorrow please lads!

But before I leave you, a quick word on Jeff Rene-Adelaide who made his first appearance for the club following his summer move from Lens. The boss had described him as an attacking midfielder capable of playing centrally and on both flanks and he took up a role on the right of the attack when he entered the action after 71 minutes. Of course at just 17 years of age, the Frenchman has a lot of developing to do but from the little I saw today, he looks a great player in the making.

Those who know me will vouch for my over-exaggeration and very early appraisal of new players, but one piece of close control and through ball to Chuba Akpom from Reine-Adelaide was, I thought, ridiculously good for one so young – all the more so against experienced opponents.

He showed a Zidane-esque languidness, which oozed the arrogance all gifted footballers possess. And I know, I know – pre season, he has it all to prove, he’s only played 19 minutes, he’s 17, there’s no way of knowing how he’ll turn out etc, etc. But still. Wow.

The teenager was originally named in the squad for our tour of the Far East before being replaced due to what I’m assuming was an injury concern, but his brief showing today tallied with reports of his skilful showings in first team training.

And the boss was in agreement after the game, saying:

Reine-Adelaide is something special you know. He is a great talent and when he came on you could see that – 17 years old let’s not forget that. In fact I don’t remember how I played at 17 but I didn’t play like that!

With the likes of Gedion Zelalem and Dan Crowley also emerging as highly promising midfielders at the club, we’re certainly well stocked in the starlet category and it does make you wonder how we’ll manage to make use of them all. Yet you can never have enough good players and it’s a ‘problem’ I’m certain Arsene will relish resolving over the next few years.

Right, I’m off to go order my new replica kit with ‘Jeff’ on the back.

Till Sunday.

24th July 2015: Lord Harris blabs ‘budget’ and striker target

Posted on by TremendArse

Welcome back. If you haven’t been in London today, then lucky you, because it’s been raining all day like John Terry’s face in Moscow in 2008. So much so in fact, that an Arsenal XI’s fixture against Boreham Wood scheduled for this evening has been called off.

On a a brighter note however, one of our club directors, Lord Harris, has hilariously decided he’s had quite enough of Arsenal’s undisclosed fees fetish. He’s tired of our insistence for sworn secrecy from other clubs and agents. And he’s had just about as much as he can take of our penchant for cloak-and-dagger transfer deals.

So he’s defiantly disclosed that not only do we have £200 million burning a big, fat striker shaped hole in our club coffers, but that we’re so minted, only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are beyond our financial reach.

He said:

We could go into the market and probably buy any player in the world, apart from half a dozen who are un-buyable. In the accounts, there’s over £200million in the bank. You could say to Arsene we’ve got no money and he wouldn’t worry, or you could give him £100m and he might not spend it. At the moment there are no plans to sign anyone, unless he finds a real superstar like Mesut Ozil or Alexis Sanchez. He’s looking for one of those but there aren’t many available. We would back him to break the club’s transfer record. If he wanted the man, he could have him. Apart from Messi and Ronaldo, he could have any player. We will probably have to break the club record to get the man he wants.

Arsene must have needed a couple of stiff Evians, followed by a lie down when he read that. Unsurprisingly, the boss was quick to back-track on Harris’ behalf when he spoke at his pre Emirates Cup press conference this morning, saying:

He has gone a bit overboard because that’s not true. We are in a situation – I explained many times – where we are working hard if an opportunity comes up to do something, but we are not in the need.

But Harris wasn’t satisfied simply by broadcasting the club’s bank balance. He also brazenly divulged that we’re hot on the heels of a new centre forward, one who is eager to make the switch to the Gunners, saying:

We get a list of the players that Wenger wants. On the list is a centre forward, but I’m not going to tell you who he is. You’ve got to get the other team to want to sell him, but I think he wants to come. It basically comes down to whether the other team can find a superstar to replace him, because they don’t have to sell.

Potential purchases in the striker’s department have already been discussed by most of the internet so far this window, and the consensus reached is that one of Karim Benzema, Edinson Cavani, Gonzalo Higuain, Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Robert Lewandowski must be the mystery target. I don’t think Alexandre Lacazette or Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang come close to that calibre if I’m honest.

Who is our mystery striker target?

Yet looking at those first five names, not one seems attainable. Karim Benzema’s agent insists his client is staying in Madrid, Napoli’s owner is said to wants silly money for Higuain, Lewandowski makes no sense, unless Pep Guardiola’s pining for a false nine, which leaves just the PSG duo.

Yet Ibrahimovic is clearly past his peak as he nears his mid-thirties, and although he’s rumoured to be for sale, a move back to Milan has been strongly mooted. So we’re left with Cavani but if the Swede leaves then surely PSG won’t also discard the Uruguayan? All that considered, I can exclusively reveal that no-one, especially me, has any f*cking idea who the man in question is most likely to be.

Elsewhere, with the Emirates Cup kicking off tomorrow, Arsene has revealed Wojciech Szczęsny won’t be involved as he’s close to a loan move to Roma, whilst Danny Welbeck and Mathieu Flamini will also miss out through injury.

A bit of a short one today but that’s your lot I’m afraid. I’ll be back tomorrow with some thoughts on our game against Lyon, plus the latest revelations from Lord Harris, in which he discusses how Arsenal are in advanced negotiations with Neymar about a sensational switch to north London.

See you then.

23rd July 2015: Wenger on Emirates Cup plus Lewandowski linked

Posted on by TremendArse

Evening all. As we approach the weekend and ready ourselves for this year’s installment of the Emirates Cup, Arsene Wenger has been telling Arsenal Player why he loves the competition like Wayne Rooney loves lard.

He said:

Personally I love the Emirates Cup because it’s competitive without having too much pressure on the games. It’s the first time that we reunite with our fans in our local stadium and I find that great. It’s always a sell-out, and gives opportunities to people who usually cannot come to watch the team. It is vital for preparation. The international players came back quite late on July 11, so when you think that they have less than four weeks to prepare for the first Premier League game, it’s very short. The Emirates Cup on a preparation front is very important.

The best thing about the annual tournament for me, is the fact Arsenal play on consecutive days – something that never happens otherwise. Second, is the chance to see new signings and the best of our academy players play without the extra nervousness that competitive fixtures induce. And third, depending on the invited teams of course, the opportunity to scout highly-rated opposing players at close quarters.

This year, from an Arsenal perspective, I’d love to see Wellington Silva finally don the red and white and also, Krystian Bielik, Dan Crowley, Gedion Zelalem plus our two young summer recruits from Lens.

As for the opposition, I’ll keep an eye out for the likes of Nabil Fekir, Samuel Umtiti and Alexandre Lacazette of Lyon, as well as Kevin de Bruyne, Ricardo Rodríguez and Luiz Gustavo (who by chance, happened to turn 27 today – we still need a DM) of Wolfsburg. But how could I forget the star attraction of the weekend, one half of that legendary reserves strike partnership with Arturo Lupoli – the irrepressible goalscoring machine that is, Nicklas Bendtner. Welcome home your Majesty.

Moving on and the boss has been a bit of a chatterbox today, also talking at length on various other subjects including his thoughts on retirement and Sir Alex Ferguson’s equine past-time. Here’s some of what he said:

Retirement? Yes, it crosses my mind sometimes but for no longer than five seconds because I panic a little bit. When we played at Man United, he [Alex Ferguson] came to meet me after the game. I said: ‘Come on, you don’t miss it?’ He says: ‘No.’ He had enough. He goes to every game. But he has horses. I have no horses. Enthusiasm? That is not a problem, honestly. I am more committed than ever for that. I just think the number of times you have done it doesn’t count. It is how much you love what you do that counts. And the love of what you do is not necessarily diminished by the number of times you’ve done it. Football is new every day. That’s a big quality. It makes you question. Because with every defeat people say: ‘What is this guy doing?’ Every three days you are questioned. You have an exam every three days. You have no way to look back. You have to prepare the next exam and come out of it with success. So it always demands 100% commitment. Of course [there were times I didn’t think we could win the league]. Why? Because when you lose your best players it is impossible. And see opponents strengthen their squad and they are already stronger than you. You just get into the top four because you managed to win and grab every single point and see others still strengthening and on top of that you are losing you’re best players, it is difficult to be convinced you can still win the league.

Wenger’s not ready to wave Arsenal goodbye just yet

Arsene also revealed how he’d love to see a Premier League landscape where each team was restricted to spending £100 million each year, so we could all “then see how good you are”.

Take that Jose Mourinho, Mr ‘I have to make do with my billion pound squad because I haven’t got as much money as the other top teams to buy an Eiffel Tower.’ I must have imagined Chelsea signing Rademal Falcao this summer then. And his club outspending everyone in existence this last decade and a bit.

It won’t happen of course, but how great would it be to see Mourinho forced to compete on a financially level playing field? He’s had blank cheques wherever he’s been after all. I’d wager he’d get found out faster than John Terry facing a pacy striker.

And finally for today, Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski has become the latest big name striker to be linked with a move to the club this summer. Although the boss has admitted trying to sign the Pole in the past and is clearly on the lookout for a marquee forward, I can’t see Bayern letting him go at all.

Back on Friday folks.