Wengerball

Not much going on anywhere. There’s nothing new to be learnt from the EURO 2008 so far, no one really stands out. The papers touting the usual crap, agents making the usual noises. Nothing new.

If anything let me point you to this great take on the Hleb situation, very well put by Myles.

And on our friendly neighbours. Felipe Scolari is no doubt a good coach but anyone who thinks he will bring flair and style to Chelsea is sadly mistaken. Scolari gave us the most dreary Brazilian team ever, he won the world cup by sucking the style and flair out of Brazil and adding steel and power something Chelsea has in abundance.

I can understand why Wenger is not in a hurry to sign Nasri. If you listen to the manager since the end of the season he’s constantly highlighting our defensive failings. This makes total sense, we don’t have much of a problem at the other end of the field, and if we want to win everything next season then we have to improve our defence.

It would be a coup to welcome a signing in the mould of Sagna (who have signed a new contract). Someone who can come in and have an immediate impact on the team. A player who can at the very least have Gallas and Toure worried about their position in the starting 11. It will give them the necessary kick up the arse they need.
Ian Wright is now lamenting the decision of Shaun Wright-Phillips to join Chelsea. I say you sow what you reap, everyone and his dog knew that Chelsea was the wrong club for Shaun. I’m a bit suprised by their motivations

“You have to understand, other clubs had come out of the bidding at £14m and £15m when we know that in a proper market - without any of this over inflated stuff - Shaun would have gone for about £10m max. The fee ended up at £21m and they were the champions.

“So when he was going there we were all absolutely over the moon.

“We were thinking: ‘Wow! They really want him, look at how much they paid for him!’

Come on Wrighty, Chelsea would have paid £30m to prevent Arsenal, or ManU gettin him, that doesn’t mean they wanted him that much. Wrighty quotes shows the greed and avarice going on in today’s football, admitting that Shaun was worth no more than £10m. Yet these are the same people shouting about Arsenal lacking funds.

On the topic of money, you must wonder what is going on in the minds of footballers, or rather the minds of the football commenters. How can ManU get Patrice Evra to sign for £55k yet Arsenal is cheapskates for not offering Flamini more than £60k. Either Evra is undervalued by ManU or we have unrealistic expectations of players worth egged on by the greed of the agents, and the desperation of the media.

That’s all for now, hopefully we will have something interesting happen soon

We would all love our manager to buy whoever is the hottest thing out there, yet the word is we can’t even afford to keep our players so how can we afford the big transfers the fans want?

There are so many things wrong the perception of the club finances, that it would take an eternity to debunk them. A perception perpetrated misleading headlines designed to sell papers, and the public consumption of those headlines without question. Let’s look at some of those myths.

Everyone is leaving Arsenal

This is a strong theme latched on to by the media, this is mainly due to the procrastination of Flamini’s decision and the tendency for Hleb’s agent (whoever that is) to mouth off to anyone who listens. Really guys does Flamini and Hleb count as everyone? But what about Lehman? Well I may be wrong but I was always under the impression that this would have been his final season whatever happened.

The infamous “wage structure”

Arsenal’s wage structure is another one of the often misunderstood things. It does not mean that Arsenal won’t pay what players are worth, on the contrary we do pay and do so very well. It’s just that we are not foolish enough to pay Michael Owen £100,000 a week or Flamini £70,000. However we did pay Henry £120,000 a week even Sol Campbell was on £80,000. Paying a player like Flamini £70,000 is just not on. Here’s a quote from D. Fizman on the wage structure

Well let’s just go back. You say ‘we don’t pay the wages that other teams do’. If you look at our total wage costs you will see they are virtually the same as Manchester United and substantially more than Liverpool. Of course we are all a little less than Chelsea who are in a world of their own. But compared to Man United and Liverpool we are good payers. We believe it is a team sport and we do well but we don’t want the disparity between the top and bottom earner being too big. It takes 11 people on the pitch to deliver.

Here’s the top 4 2007 wage figures

• Chelsea -£114m
• Manchester United - £85m
• Arsenal - 83m
• Liverpool - 69m

Lack of transfer funds

There can never be a lack of transfer funds, if Wenger feels that we need to spend £50m this summer and the board agrees then there will be funds made available. It’s not hard for a club in our situation to raise that kind of money.

Again would we even want to spend that much? We all know the answer to that. Liverpool did just that last season and where did it get them?

The bottom line

We are not a poor struggling club. We haven’t won a trophy in 3 years, but who hasn’t? I would love for us to win everything that’s the point of the game. Tell me though at what cost? Ask the other 17 loss making teams in the premier league. Yes that’s right 17 clubs out of 20 cannot post an operating profit. Manchester United, Tottenham, and Arsenal are the only profitable clubs in the league. I for one am happy with the financial direction of the Arsenal, ARE YOU?

It’s a slow news day today, as it will be for the most 70 or so days. We will make signings but not at the rate of 1 a day. So what do we do for the rest of the summer?

Well speculate, make up stuff, and in this brave new world of 24 hour sports news we have no choice but to beat every story to within an inch of it’s life. So, here goes.

Wenger has confirmed negotiations with Nasri and says his signing is imminent. He told telefoot,

“There’s a good chance of it happening, and if it does, it will be before the beginning of Euro 2008.”

Please don’t panic if he has not signed early this week as everyone is sure he will, Euro 2008 doesn’t start until June 7.

The amazing dolphin boy is at it again, telling Wenger to move on. The strange thing is every time dolphinboy opens his snout, he has to mention Wenger or Arsenal. He even goes on to say that losing 2 international french midfielders is careless on Wenger’s part.

That not being enough going on about winning and FA cup is vindication of his decision to leave Arsenal. But wait there’s more…

Dolphinboy would not have left Chelsea if certain “promises” were not made.

One thing is clear, this half man half porpoise surely thinks a lot of himself. Wake up boy, don’t you realise that Chelsea was only too happy to get rid of you, Wenger thought he could help you out but be such and egotistical bastard as you are you wanted more.

I just feel sorry for Portsmouth because no doubt you’re going to shaft them. Methinks you should move on, fish.

All news outlets will have you believe that we the Sami Nasri transfer is almaost a done deal. Getting Nasri will be an excellent addition to our squad, but there is reason to temper our excitement.

Even before the season was finished Arsene had already identified our problem,

“We didn’t give more goals away than any other team in the League on open play, nor on set pieces, but where we gave more goals away was on direct balls, in the air, through the middle, and most of the time on second balls.

adding

“On set pieces and open play we were as good as Manchester United and Chelsea. The numbers are available. But we have to rectify how we deal with direct balls. When a team just goes for long, direct balls against us, we have to improve.”

This is what we need to win trophies, a good, strong, tall(er) central defender.

Contrary to popular belief we don’t have a problem scoring goals, or creating chances. What we do have is defensive lapses and the sooner we address that end of the field the better.

I’m not slating Nasri at all, I am quite happy that we may get him all I’m saying is that, a good central defender will make me more excited than signing the next Zidane.

One more thing. can someone tell me who is Hleb’s agent? There seems to be different names popping up both being reported as Hleb’s agent (Nikolai Shpilevski and Uli Ferber or are they the same person?