Taller than the single storey of a cantilever stand
You could hear the collective scratching of heads, like fingers scraping down a blackboard. This isn’t right, a club in crisis, they should be queueing to leave like rats from a sinking ship. Laurent Koscielny rebuffed the French media, Arsène baffled the same by not leaping like a lord to take the PSG reins, Wojciech Szczesny will not be boarding the transfer express. What is going on, consecutive wins with clean sheets cannot be that good, can it?
Apparently so. Even Per Mertesacker is happy. Well, he might have been happy all along but he’s just so damned tall no-one could see his face to tell. Previously derided as having the turning circle of a barge, the German is now flavour of the month. Held to blame for White Hart Lane and as popular as the FA on Tyneside, Mertesacker became the public image of the defence, something was rotten and the backlash vicious. Munich and Swansea changed that, recognition that he can’t have been all that bad coming without the need to count the number of German international caps he possesses. Which meant he was ripe for transfer talk. Just as Petr Cech was unable to imagine moving to Arsenal, Mertesacker has no plans to repatriate himself,
I’m very happy at Arsenal and want to stay to build on the reputation and respect I’ve earned so far. I don’t consider a return to Germany. I am under contract with Arsenal and I am planning to stay on at Arsenal for more years from now.
It’s a bit of a love-in at the moment. Nothing wrong with that and let’s hope it continues beyond the first stumble in the recent upturn in form. The defensive about-turn has not been without casualties, most noticeably the short-passing game derived from the Iberians. A more direct style is suited to the English game, the away performances bolstered by a ruthlessness displayed when chances present themselves. Arsenal have an adaptability to play more possession football if required. That offers an edge over the more rudimentary approach of others, in theory. The practice this season has been somewhat different.
Like the mythical clean sheet, the perfect attacking performance does not exist. Conceding none does not mean that openings were not created by your opponent, it simply means that the defence / goalkeeper were able to deal with and when they weren’t, the forward was so hopeless that the chance went a-beggin’. Likewise, a single goal victory is a poor excuse to chastise the attack. We’ve seen enough goalkeeping displays through the seasons which suggest a hapless custodian is itching for a move to a bigger club by pulling off a string of spectacular saves. You take the rough with the smooth and that concept seems alien to the media, presuming that all failings are the excuse to falsely predict incomings and outgoings. Why anyone is interested now when the events impact next season not this, is beyond me.
Elsewhere, Arsenal are reportedly interested in Alexis Sanchis whose spell in Catalunya is apparently over. Either that or like David Villa, he is expecting a new contract offer to be made. North London, it seems, is a convenient point of reference for agents to make through the media when bargaining current or potential employers. Or in this case, former employers. Like those moving out of The Emirates, it is not likely to happen. A more likely chase is for Isaiah Brown, a teenage prodigy who has yet to sign a professional football contract with West Bromwich Albion. At £1m, he is within Arsène’s price range although no doubt some transfer executive at the club will try to knock it down to £500k. Presuming West Brom will talk to said executive if rumours are to be believed. We shall see.
’til Tomorrow.
Anicoll,
Chances are Mansour is looking to make money from the academy via player trading. I’ll be shocked if they actually imagine it as some youth policy’ strategy to replace first team acquisitions, no matter what he says in the media. As Bill said, having a group of brilliant players emerging at the same time from the same academy has a lot to do with luck than planning.
If Barca are able to maintain their domination through another generation of promoted youth players, then I’d be more inclined to believe that their planning had more to do with it than luck.
Coll
It is a matter of balance. I agree with a lot of what we tried to do with project youth but I think the goals we set were far to lofty and the way we executed the strategy had significant flaws.
We tried to do something very different from the norm with our project youth. There were no instruction manuals or blue prints. There were bound to be bumps in the road and issues that could not be seen prospectively. In a situation like that you need to be realistic about whats happening and make accurate self evaluations rather then excuses and you must be willing to adapt on the fly. I don’t think we did that which was the biggest problem.
Anicoll:
I cant speak for anyone else and I know its silly but the inability or unwillingness to make accurate self evaluations is why I sometimes get frustrated with the “positivista” (your word) mentality. I really like and respect Paul N and i have no problem with him believing whatever he wants but it frustrates me to no end that our management seems to operate by his evaluations of players, tactics and results. . . Nothing wrong with hoping for the best but you have to assume the worst and try to fix what is wrong rather then always looking for positives. No?
The Arse in The Gamb
“Otherwise you are left with a world that is full of half empty (or just plain empty of what you want) glasses.
That’s a big assumption on your part, and wrong.
Lets just say I have tired somewhat of footballers who think they are superstars when they have played 25 games, ghost write books about their careers i.e about fuck all, and a whole host of other reasons I can’t be bothered to list,
I am an Arsenal season ticket holder for thirty years and was a resident of the North bank before that, enjoyed lots of football ups and downs.
City haven’t learned the lessons of Chelsea. When Abramovich was looking to save cash on transfer spend, they invested heavily in youth but cocked it up monumentally to the point where the talented youth left, e.g. Sinclair, to pursue a career.
Henristic,
I have no doubt that Citeh anticipate recovering cash by trading on youngsters who do not fit into their plans. My impression however is of a substantial operation the purpose of which is to identify the next Messi and sign him up whether he lives in Longsight, Madrid, a suburb of Riyadh or Peru.
They can expect to kiss a lot of frogs but I suspect this is the future
Bill/YW
The notion that you might set up project youth and it will bear fruit I agree is dubious – but probably the major problem is that your system will bear fruit during the first harvest and thereafter every crop will be equally reliable or better
What does a club really expect, really need for their youth set up ?
One probably, maybe two players at the most a season coming through and making their mark
Roman is clearly bonkers so what whim he focused on for five minutes is perhaps not the best measure
Blue chip youth operations – Ajax FCB prominent examples have taken many years to establish, develop and earn their reputation – I would be delighted if our set up was the EPL equivalent a few years down the line
It is not just about money or status – Southampton have an Academy to be proud of
Lovely evening here in Devon. Bonfire in the woods, first of the year, nice bottle of red and an excellent quiche. Plus we burned all the crap from several years of building ‘projects’. Moon, wine and fire.
Nothing and nobody else.
Bloody excellent.
I don’t know anything about Ajax but i think Pedro is the last player from FCB to make any sort of mark and he is not a regular starter and has be around for about 3-4 years. Asking for more then a player every 2-3 seasons to become regulars in top 12-15 players in the first team is asking a lot from the academy of a “big team.”
heh, if Walcott puts two more goals this year, he will be our 20 goals a year player this year. Giroud need to put 5 more to get to that number. That is still possible but i reckon its more likley Walcott ends up like that.
20 goals and11 assists? not bad at all. mind you his assists will probably go up to before the end of this campaign…
I see our U21s had a decent win tonight
As for Barca Bill they have home bred regulars in the most successful side in football all over the pitch
I appreciate if you have Messi Xavi Iniesta Busqets Puyol Valdes Piqué Pedro Tello then it might be quite difficult for the new youngsters to break into the team or even the 1st team squad
As Cesc has found though it ain’t easy
Anicoll
True, probably very difficult to get into the barca side for a young player now. Don’t know what sort of prospects they have. They did have that incredible group that is playing for them now coming thru their academy, , but I suspect that was a fortunate non repeating event rather then a recurring pattern. perhaps time will prove me wrong and they will get another group like that but for the last 3-4 years they are being forced to use the transfer market to replace players and freshen the squad. The idea of a revolving pipeline from the academy which allows you to avoid using the transfer market to build and maintain a squad for long periods is not something I have seen happen in my relatively short history as a football fan.
So Bob, pyromania’s therapeutic, eh…?
LOL…
maybe Fire worship..
Definitely.
http://www.aclfarsenal.co.uk/?p=10860
Today’s post has arrived.