Arsenal Action

[Jason Goldstein]

For me its simple

1. Buy a centre half (its cites Lescott, Hangelaad)
2. A central midfielder (hardman with workrate)
3. AW must convince best players to stay (Walcott, Fabregas, Ade, RVP)
4. Get rid of others ruthlessly (Denilson, Djourou, Song, Diaby,Bendtner)
5. Win a trophy at all costs, i.e. play strong teams in carling Cup.

[stevedon]

I agree we need a CB and a DM, but I would keep Denilson, Song & Djourou. I would definitely get rid of Diaby & Bendtner though.

I quite like playing youngsters in the Carling Cup and don't care if we never win it. I would prioritise the league and the Champions League, but obviously try to win the FA Cup. The league should always come first though.

I would also shake up the coaching staff and try to bring in a more grown up style of play so that we are capable of defending a 1-0 lead when necessary, instead of charging forward and getting slapped on the counter as we so often are.

[stevedon]

Oh yes - and a new goalie too.

[Reddaz]

Oh yes - and a new goalie too.

I'm not convinced we need a new keeper. I think our defense is the main problem. When we have the defense sorted we will see how good and consistent Almunia is. Almunia can't do all the work on his own and the defense have let him down numerous times this season. There has been times this season that he has kept us in games making great saves.

[7Brady]

Jason agree with 1-5

Plus add

6-Sell Adebayor
7-Sell Gallas
8-Bring in a new Keeper (Robert Green)

[cerbera]

Oh yes - and a new goalie too.

I'm not convinced we need a new keeper. I think our defense is the main problem. When we have the defense sorted we will see how good and consistent Almunia is. Almunia can't do all the work on his own and the defense have let him down numerous times this season. There has been times this season that he has kept us in games making great saves.

Completely agree. I think Almunia is getting unfair criticism.

[stevedon]

I have been trying to judge the performance of Arsenal in recent times in an objective way by looking at the data rather than go entirely with gut feel. My guts might be saying we are a bunch of overpaid, over rated no-hopers with a lack of leadership and a lack of passion….but my guts tend to over react, especially after losing! I think it makes sense to compare Arsenal to the best in the business, Manchester United (sorry but they are).

Man Utd are incredible – surely they can’t keep on like this forever?! Anyway, as you can see Arsenal went from crap to very good in Wengers earlier years, but of late we have been slipping. A huge factor must be the transformation of Chelsea as a result of Abramovich, but that is something we can do nothing about so I would rather look at what we can control.

It has become harder to score goals in the last 5 years compared to the previous five. Both Arsenal and Man Utd have a great capacity to score goals. Man Utd is regularly the highest scoring team in the league, and Arsenal is keeping a top 3 position in the “goals scored” table. However, the most striking recent change has been that whereas Arsenal have improved their defence a little, Man Utd have really made massive improvements on their goals conceded. Man Utd have continued to have an awesome attack but have now added a defence as tight as Arsene’s grip on the Arsenal cheque book. They now have the best attack AND the best defence, which has led to the gap between the two sides widening.

The numbers say that the art of defending is getting stronger in the premier league, and that Arsenal are falling off the pace in this area. That’s what my guts tell me too. I think Wenger believes that the best way to defend is to keep the ball, but I disagree. How many times have we dominated possession and not won the game? It only takes 1 second to score a goal. What we need (please!!) is a rock solid back 4 and a top class holding midfielder in the mould of Vieira sitting in front of them. That, combined with our current attacking potential, would get us back in the top 2. Oh shit, I forgot about Man City……

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[gb19]

In: Alonso, Sakho, Lescott or Hangerland or Bassong, we need an experienced CB

Out: Adebayor, Toure, Gallas

----------Alumnia------------
Sagna--Sakho--Lescott--Clichy
Theo--Alonso--Cesc--Rosicky
---------Arshavin--------------
-----------------RVP------------

Subs: Fabianski, Eduardo, Nasri, Djourou, Ramsey, Silvestre, Nic

[cerbera]

In: Alonso, Sakho, Lescott or Hangerland or Bassong, we need an experienced CB

Out: Adebayor, Toure, Gallas

----------Alumnia------------
Sagna--Sakho--Lescott--Clichy
Theo--Alonso--Cesc--Rosicky
---------Arshavin--------------
-----------------RVP------------

Subs: Fabianski, Eduardo, Nasri, Djourou, Ramsey, Silvestre, Nic

Rosicky's not a left winger and never looked like it. This again is Wenger putting square pegs in round holes. He should be playing his most effective position which is at AM right behind the strikers. I'd put switch Arshavin and Rosicky round. I wouldn't want Toure and Gallas to leave either. They might not be friends but since Toure found form we had a great defensive partnership between them since the start of this year up to the point where Gallas got injured against Villarreal. We only conceded on average 2 goals a month. That's quite fine by me.

[Jason Goldstein]

"If you ask the players in what position, you will never get their position. Everyone can have opinions but the people who make decisions have responsibilities for the longer-term of the club."
Wenger argued that he had spent "big" in buying Andrei Arshavin for £15 million, but estimates that it will be 10 years, when the stadium debt is paid off, before Arsenal have closed Manchester United's financial advantage.
"I'm not chasing any player, I believe my priority is to stay with the squad we have," he said. "It is not all down to spending, it is down to sticking to a policy. Chelsea have spent magic money but still have not won the European Cup.


Wenger`s attitude at times is too risk adverse for my liking, he doesn´t seem to realise that the right investment in star quality has a habit of paying for itself. Were R.Ferdinand or Rooney overly expensive signings? No because a) they solved long term problem positions b) their quality brought the trophies that lead to bigger prize monies and c) they generate the interest that puts bums on seats and causes companies to throw large sponsorhip deals your way and d) at many points during their career they could have been sold on for at least the same value they were bought at.

He also fails to acknowledge that Manchester United have more debt at higher interest rates than us. Although they have a larger operating profit they actually have suffered big losses year on year during the Glazer era, while we have probably been the most profitable football club in the world over the last 3 seasons. So why are we going to have to wait 10 seasons to close the financial gap on them? If we keep on acting small time by the time 10 years comes around their revenue will be far outsripping us just like at Highbury beacuse people pay for winners.

I´m sure Kronke understands that Arsenal need to improve their brand image before it comes to renegotiating our next set of commercial deals if we really are to compete with Man U, and that involves star players and trophies. We understandably got screwed on the last set given the circumstances but we can`t let that happen again.

If we did splash big on a Benzema or Aguerro (30m+), even if it didn`t pan out like we hoped can you really say that we wouldn`t recoup at least 20m+ on them the following season. Is 10m really that much of a gamble considering what those kind of players could bring to the club?

Now I´m not saying we should spend irreponsible but can anyone on here really say we have a small squad? What we have is an imbalanced squad with a plethora of good players but very few top end ones (stictly talking Ronaldo, Gerrard, Torres, Essien, Vidic, Ferdinand, Rooney, Terry type players). We have a massive wage bill becasue Wenger refuses to cut the fat, if he sold a few of the fringe players and plumped the cash together I´m sure he could get enough cash together to get 2-4 quality signings.

For me, we could afford to offload Traore, Senderos, Gallas (simply because I don`t think he would accept a bench spot, and I would rather find a partner for Kolo than him), Diaby, Simpson, Adebayor and Van Persie (because I think Arshavin should be playing in his position) this summer. Which would pull over 50m to add to the summer kitty and would still leave a reasonable 24 man squad:

Almunia, Fabianski
Clichy, Gibbs
Kolo, Silvestre, Djourou, Song
Sagna, Eboue
Walcott, Wilshere
Fabregas, Denilson, Ramsey, Nasri
Rosicky, Merida
Eduardo, Arshavin, Vela, Bendtner

Add to that 2 centre backs, a centre mid and a striker (ideally Zapata, Albiol, Matuidi and Benzema) and we could have a shot of actually winning something.