Rant

[Flavs]

Well folks this is it, the most important 20 days in Arsene Wengers Arsenal career. After what has been happening at the club gradually over the past 3 or 4 years and how this was accentuated by last season collapse we were promised a summer of great transfer activity and of “working on the issues in the team” Well has it happened? We seem to still have the stiffs here, we have signed one player for the first team and another two kids. In the pre season friendly we were still playing the same tactic and still getting undone by a poor line and the fact our central defenders have a turning circle larger than the QE2.

On top of this we have Clichy gone, and 95% sure than Fabregas and Nasri wil be gone by the end of the day. Many will feel its good business to get rid of Nasri, a terribly inconsistent player who has loked good ro maybe 35% of the time he has been here (And yet still had the nerve to ask for £100k a week wages) Clichy was a different story, many felt he had reached the end of the road here due to the lapses in concentration and overall poor displays of late, i could have taken this if he had been replaced but he hasn’t, we now have Keiran Gibbs who’s injury record makes Van Persie look more like the iron giant and has always looked out of his depth and Almond(sic) Traore, a player we haven’t seen for 2 seasons. Nasri’s replacement as it stands is a 18 year old Japanese kid who has never played a game for the club and a fat Russian who always looks like he can’t be bothered.

I feel many people will be gutted by the Fabregas transfer, some for the loss of a player of true world class ability, our captain and arguable best and most important players 2 days before the season starts, however more will feel we have been robbed if the amounts coming in are believed. £27mil plus £5mil in add on’s and £2mil from the player in waved clauses? £34mil for a world class, 23 year old player? Compare this to the Andy Carroll and Fernando Torres transfer and it seems we have had our pants pulled down I appreciate only one club wanted him and he wanted only one club, and that they have been being absolute cocks around the whole thing for that log its worn us down but he is a European and World cup winner and has 3 years left on his contract?.

And you know what? I don’t believe for one second that we are now going to go out and buy 3,4,5 quality players to reinforce the team and replace those who have left. And this returns me to the top, should Wenger not fulfil the PR bullshit and not bring in the players we desperately need then we are on trouble, as a club, as fans and as a team, remember next summer RVP and Walcott could well do what Clichy and Nasri have done this year . So should we fail in recruiting and then the team goes on to struggle and find results i can’t see a way Wenger can stay? The refusal to spend, the ever increasing number of kids we have to pin our hopes on and the fact the likes of Rosicky, Bendtner, Eboue etc are still here all add to this.
The only salvation I can see here is for him to buy and well we know how that normally goes...
Finally our starting line up for Toon away, the site of last year’s most ridiculous result. (With injuries)
---------------------------Woji--------------------------------
Sagna--------Kos-------------Squillachi----------Gibbs---
---------------------------Song-----------------------------
--------------Rosicky-----------Ramsey----------------
--Walcott-----------------------------------Arshavin
----------------------Gervinho-------------------------

[Letters]

I'm clinging on to the hope that Wenger has been waiting to see how the Nasri/Cesc situations would turn out, so if they go he'll spring into action.
If they go and he doesn't do anything then I sodding give up. :(

[milla]

I'm clinging on to the hope that Wenger has been waiting to see how the Nasri/Cesc situations would turn out, so if they go he'll spring into action.
If they go and he doesn't do anything then I sodding give up. :(

Lettuce :pal:

[She Wore A Yellow Ribbon]

cant buy before we sell.

already have eboue, bender, almunia and had denilson on the books. we were offering nascunt a pay hike.

signing players would have seen our wages go through the roof (more than they currently are) esp if we couldnt get rid of any of those.

now cesc, nascunt and bender are fucking off, and so has denilson, we are free to sign some players.

we'll get 50m for cesc and nascunt.

we'll spend some of that.

[Ironing]

Why the fuck are eboue / bendtner / almunia still here?

[Kano]

because no ones bought them

[Cripps_orig]

Why the fuck are eboue / bendtner / almunia still here?

2 reasons

1 - They are shit

2 - Even if clubs dont think they are shit, they are on ridiculous wages here which they wont get anywhere else

[Niall_Quinn]

OP is a good summary of another bag of empty promises from the board and Wenger. Yes, they still have until the 31st of the month to do what they have consistently failed to do for years. But a lot of damage has already been done. The players don't have the stoutest hearts at the best of times and I wonder what their true feelings are going into this season. I'm pretty sure they would have all signed up with expectations of playing at the top of the game and winning medals. Now they see the best players rushing for the exit (and even paying out of their own pocket to leave), the board and manager still dithering around and they must be deaf and blind (like Wenger) if they haven't picked up on the sentiment of the fans. Can we seriously pretend this club is likely to move up? Everything, and I mean everything, points to us continuing to slide down. Finishing in the top four will be a massive task this season. And when Euro football vanishes (Europa cup hardly counts) the dangers will start to compound as more players will want away and fewer will want to come. Who the hell knows what goes on in Wenger's mind? Surely this can't be going according to even his plan? We're the new Liverpool from a year back, stuck with a Woy in charge and with a featherweight roster. Liverpool made the changes when they saw the writing on the wall. I don't think we will. I think the board will blindly follow Wenger down the hole Liverpool were disappearing into before they decided to halt the slump. It's hard to believe, we've only ever been 3-4 decent signings away from being competitive but Wenger and the board simply wouldn't take the step. It was never about Chelsea's and City's billions, that was just a shitty excuse. It was always about the board's and Wenger's reluctance to invest what was required in the team. They never had any problems investing elsewhere though, provided it lined their pockets. The only winners here are the board members and we still don't know how Stan has paid them their millions - or at least it's as clear as mud to me. It's shocking what these bastards have done to the club. Lying, theiving shit bags.

[Power n Glory]

It's been a shambles of a summer. I can't see RVP and Theo signing new deals anytime soon.

If the atmosphere at the Emirates gets any worse, Wenger will walk. The fans are frustrated and the season hasn't even kicked off yet.

[Cripps_orig]

It's been a shambles of a summer. I can't see RVP and Theo signing new deals anytime soon.

If the atmosphere at the Emirates gets any worse, Wenger will walk. The fans are frustrated and the season hasn't even kicked off yet.

:pray:

[Fats]

Wenger out and no mistake

[Boss]

It's already too late to have any chance of winning the league given how much the squad is destabilized and how long the new signings will take to settle in.

Only thing left for Arsenal fans is to try and enjoy the good football we sometimes play until Wenger leaves, then we can start focusing on trophies.

This summer will probably end up a more shocking summer than last, and last one was hard to top but Wenger's done the impossible yet again.

[server too busy!]

---------------------------Woji--------------------------------
Sagna--------Kos-------------Squillachi----------Gibbs---
---------------------------Song-----------------------------
--------------Rosicky-----------Ramsey----------------
--Walcott-----------------------------------Arshavin
----------------------Gervinho-------------------------
[/QUOTE]

Surely our injuries can't be that bad that we need to play Squillaci. I'm sure half the injuries were only out to miss the internationals.

[IBK]

Well folks this is it, the most important 20 days in Arsene Wengers Arsenal career. After what has been happening at the club gradually over the past 3 or 4 years and how this was accentuated by last season collapse we were promised a summer of great transfer activity and of “working on the issues in the team” Well has it happened? We seem to still have the stiffs here, we have signed one player for the first team and another two kids. In the pre season friendly we were still playing the same tactic and still getting undone by a poor line and the fact our central defenders have a turning circle larger than the QE2.

On top of this we have Clichy gone, and 95% sure than Fabregas and Nasri wil be gone by the end of the day. Many will feel its good business to get rid of Nasri, a terribly inconsistent player who has loked good ro maybe 35% of the time he has been here (And yet still had the nerve to ask for £100k a week wages) Clichy was a different story, many felt he had reached the end of the road here due to the lapses in concentration and overall poor displays of late, i could have taken this if he had been replaced but he hasn’t, we now have Keiran Gibbs who’s injury record makes Van Persie look more like the iron giant and has always looked out of his depth and Almond(sic) Traore, a player we haven’t seen for 2 seasons. Nasri’s replacement as it stands is a 18 year old Japanese kid who has never played a game for the club and a fat Russian who always looks like he can’t be bothered.

I feel many people will be gutted by the Fabregas transfer, some for the loss of a player of true world class ability, our captain and arguable best and most important players 2 days before the season starts, however more will feel we have been robbed if the amounts coming in are believed. £27mil plus £5mil in add on’s and £2mil from the player in waved clauses? £34mil for a world class, 23 year old player? Compare this to the Andy Carroll and Fernando Torres transfer and it seems we have had our pants pulled down I appreciate only one club wanted him and he wanted only one club, and that they have been being absolute cocks around the whole thing for that log its worn us down but he is a European and World cup winner and has 3 years left on his contract?.

And you know what? I don’t believe for one second that we are now going to go out and buy 3,4,5 quality players to reinforce the team and replace those who have left. And this returns me to the top, should Wenger not fulfil the PR bullshit and not bring in the players we desperately need then we are on trouble, as a club, as fans and as a team, remember next summer RVP and Walcott could well do what Clichy and Nasri have done this year . So should we fail in recruiting and then the team goes on to struggle and find results i can’t see a way Wenger can stay? The refusal to spend, the ever increasing number of kids we have to pin our hopes on and the fact the likes of Rosicky, Bendtner, Eboue etc are still here all add to this.
The only salvation I can see here is for him to buy and well we know how that normally goes...
Finally our starting line up for Toon away, the site of last year’s most ridiculous result. (With injuries)
---------------------------Woji--------------------------------
Sagna--------Kos-------------Squillachi----------Gibbs---
---------------------------Song-----------------------------
--------------Rosicky-----------Ramsey----------------
--Walcott-----------------------------------Arshavin
----------------------Gervinho-------------------------



I think it is nailed on that whoever comes in now, after Fabregas and Nasri have gone, will disappoint us, and be less than is needed for us to be in the hunt for silverware this season.

I have commented in the Fabregas thread on what I think the club has done wrong over the Fabregas saga. I think we send out mixed messages the whole time. I think AW is a ditherer - and if he no longer inspires confidence in us Gooners that he has a plan and knows what he is doing, then how does he inspire confidence in his players?

I've said for a while that the best way for the manager to have made a statement would have been to negotiate Nasri's sale to Citeh for £22M - a massive amount for a player with 1 year to go on his contract who has shown no more than flashes of brilliance, and go out and buy Mata, straight away. That would have said that Arsenal are bigger than any one player. Instead, he has looked a bit stupid and weak. The Fabregas situation has, IMHO been all about money - a game of chicken in which we had already made it clear that we would blink first. Football - and the strength of our team - seems to have come a distant second.

The way I am looking at things now is that AW and the board have abandoned even the pretence of winning the league. We give every impression of treading water in the hope that somehow the Fair play Rules will level the playing field. We have completed our transition from title challengers to also rans with the likes of Villa and Spurs who start the season knowing that they are playing for maybe a single higher league placing - although in our case we are hoping to scrape a CL place.

[Özim]

Got to say the deal for Cesc isn't that great if you look at other deals that have taken place in the recent past.

Barca pretty much told us they were going to get him on the cheap and looks like they were right in the end, 35 million is a lot of money don't get me wrong (though it's not 35 million straight out), but he is young, our best player realistically and one of the best CM's around and has years left on his contract.

In that sense were not getting a great deal.

[Master Splinter]

July the 1st :bow:

[StamfordBrdige]

Until Cesc & Nasri are confirmed as having left arsenal, i think it would be wise to hold off on ranting.

I still don't think both of them will leave arsenal this summer + time is running out for the deal to be completed. They ideally will have to be sold by next tuesday when the CL starts and somehow i can't see it happening.

[Niall_Quinn]

Until Cesc & Nasri are confirmed as having left arsenal, i think it would be wise to hold off on ranting.

I still don't think both of them will leave arsenal this summer + time is running out for the deal to be completed. They ideally will have to be sold by next tuesday when the CL starts and somehow i can't see it happening.

Whether they leave now or leave next year, they've left already. Fabregas has been on strike since April (some captain) and Nasri is a lesbian.

[Marc Overmars]

I think it was naive of us to expect the changes and improvements we all talked about in May/June. Deep down we knew we were likely to be underwhelmed with our summer activity because that's exactly what happens at this club.

The potential signing of Dann is good news at least though.

[bignev]

Whether they leave now or leave next year, they've left already. Fabregas has been on strike since April (some captain) and Nasri is a lesbian.

You f*cking idiot. Fabregas hasn't been on strike. Don't believe all the sh*t they write in the newspapers.........

[bagwan]

buy any combination of Hazard, Sneijder, Mata, Benzema, Cahill, Jagielka, Mertersacker, Baines, and that would appease the fans.

With the cash we get from Cesc and Nascunts transfer, coupled with the famous Wenger's Transfer Warchest, any of those names are possible.

Has Wenger got the balls though?

edit. Chuck Parker on there too.

[Niall_Quinn]

You f*cking idiot. Fabregas hasn't been on strike. Don't believe all the sh*t they write in the newspapers.........

I don't believe the papers have been saying he's been on strike, they've been saying he's injured haven't they? Maybe it's yourself who shouldn't believe too much of what's written in the press?

[Letters]

I've said for a while that the best way for the manager to have made a statement would have been to negotiate Nasri's sale to Citeh for £22M - a massive amount for a player with 1 year to go on his contract who has shown no more than flashes of brilliance, and go out and buy Mata, straight away.

You make that sound far more simple than is the case with these things.

[Niall_Quinn]

You make that sound far more simple than is the case with these things.

True, and our rivals go one step further and actually make it look simple.

[bagwan]

innit.

[Letters]

True, and our rivals go one step further and actually make it look simple.

Not really. I suspect you just don't follow all the ins and outs of their transfer dealings on a day to day basis or remember the times they wanted a player but failed to get them.

[fakeyank]

Not really. I suspect you just don't follow all the ins and outs of their transfer dealings on a day to day basis or remember the times they wanted a player but failed to get them.

We fail all the time though.. we take forever to do any sort of transfer! Nasri was an example.. that keeper from Fulham last season is another, Baptista :lol: etc

[Flavs]

End of season revisit...

[Syn]

Didn't know you could change the font!

This is a game changer.

Comic Saaaaaaaans!

[Flavs]

Didn't know you could change the font!

This is a game changer.

Comic Saaaaaaaans!

That's right bitch, i am a motherfuckin trail Blazer!!!

[Marc Overmars]

The clamour to sign a lot of players probably won't be as big this summer, we were desperate just for bodies last year because the squad was so thin. I think we have a settled squad now, although that could be all undone if RVP legs it. 2-3 good quality players with strong credentials and I'll be happy.

By credentials I mean German, of course.

[Japan Shaking All Over]

Quality over quantity this time round then. . .

[Niall_Quinn]

End of season will pretty much complete another lap back to the same place. Extra quality needed, lots of players to get rid of, a manager who needs to admit he's got a lot wrong and a board that needs to eat shit and die. Which probably means ticket prices will increase.

[Olivier's xmas twist]

End of season will pretty much complete another lap back to the same place. Extra quality needed, lots of players to get rid of, a manager who needs to admit he's got a lot wrong and a board that needs to eat shit and die. Which probably means ticket prices will increase.

Pretty much.

[IBK]

Agreed. We will either simply have trodden water or we will have regressed come Monday next week. If, and only if RVP stays and we sign the likes of M'villato go with Podolski we will have a platform to reverse the trend of the last 6 years. If RVP goes, then I'm afraid that we will continue our inexorable drift away from the top - because we ain't going to see 'bigger' signings than the level of last Summer.

[Olivier's xmas twist]

Agreed. We will either simply have trodden water or we will have regressed come Monday next week. If, and only if RVP stays and we sign the likes of M'villato go with Podolski we will have a platform to reverse the trend of the last 6 years. If RVP goes, then I'm afraid that we will continue our inexorable drift away from the top - because we ain't going to see 'bigger' signings than the level of last Summer.

Id say Pododski coming in as put an end to that theory, he is better then anything we got last summer.

[Fist of Lehmann]

Qualitatively the Podolski signing feels different because of a) his profile b) his age c) the timing.
But quantitatively, a reported fee of 10.9m and what for wages? 80-90k? At a guess? Those figures aren't out of line with the rest of the first team signings we've made in the last few years.

Mozilla, a defensive mid for 22 million burros? Now that would be more of a sea change.


'Inexorable drift' isn't the way I would describe it though IBK, 'Holding pattern' is the phrase that always pops into my head.