Aug

31

Dein’s return is not good news for Arsenal

Filed Under The Arsenal | 1600 arses

What a shame. A shame that our very encouraging start to the season, something that all Arsenal fans could share, has been completely overshadowed by the news that broke yesterday. News that is likely to bring about as divisive a situation as we’ve ever faced.

Arseblog broke the news yestererday that David Dein was holding a press conference. There were rumours that he’d sold his stake in Arsenal to a Russian for £75. The obvious name was Boris Berezovsky as he’s an Arsenal fan who has a box at the new ground. At 4.30 the press conference took place and news broke on Bloomberg that Dein had sold 14.58% of Arsenal Football Club, the club so dear to his heart, for £75m to Red and White Holdings Ltd, owned by the businessmen Alisher Usmanov (link makes interesting reading - Times profile here) and Farhad Moshiri. Dein is the chairman of the this holding company.

You can read their ever so friendly sounding press release here. Don’t be fooled though. This is no friendly company. This is a company that wants to buy up as many Arsenal shares as possible and takeover the club. At this point David Dein would the chairman of Arsenal. A life’s ambition realised at last. 14.58% of a company that doesn’t pay dividends to directors or salaries to non-club shareholders is pretty worthless, unless you sit and sell when the price goes higher. But David Dein has no intention of doing that. David Dein, who now has £75m in his back pocket - well, maybe a little less if he’s got a few bills to pay - wants this group to buy up as many shares as possible. He’s come on board at the right time too, when Arsene signs a new contract you can be sure he’ll give a little wink and try and claim all the credit for it. And what’s sad is some people will believe it.

What’s going to happen to his old pal Stan Kroenke? Will he sell his shares to Red and White? Perhaps he will, that’ll give them just under 30% and with the Arsenal Supporters Trust welcoming Dein back, according to the Times, that could push them over the mark when they are obliged to make an offer for the club. Of course it can still be rejected.

Now, what about the men who are involved with David Dein? Usmanov is an oligarch. Do I need to tell you how they made their money? Roman Abramovich is an oligarch. We all admire his work so much, don’t we? I’ve received emails which I cannot print but which express great uneasiness about the sort of people who are now significant shareholders in our football club. This is what The Times reported yesterday evening:

Within hours of Dein’s press conference, Schillings, the lawyers, issued a statement on behalf of Usmanov. It read: “Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear that our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records. Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record.”

Ok then. Yes, I was sentenced to time in prison but I was innocent. Innocent, I tell you. Regular readers will know my opposition to Kroenke’s takeover was based on how badly I thought David Dein behaved and the way that it would probably have been financed. My opposition to Red and White taking over Arsenal is entirely down to the type of people we’re dealing with. This is why I think it’s going to be a very divisive issue amongst Arsenal fans. Some see Dein in one light, some in another entirely. There’s this mad idea that David Dein will come back and because he’s friends with Arsene Wenger he’ll convince him to spend Uncle Alisher’s £30m on a striker. Yeah! Let’s go and get a Shevchenko of our own!!!

This summer both the board and Arsene have said there is money to spend on players if Arsene wants to spend it. He didn’t want to spend it. So are we better off having £25m of our own that we don’t spend and being The Arsenal or having £100m of Usmanov’s money and not spending it and being Arseski?

I can’t even begin to tell you how opposed I am to this. I’m never going to tell you what you should think. I’ve never done it in the past and I’m not starting now. I’m just telling you that if this group takes over Arsenal Football Club then we lose so much of what we are. Tradition, values, integrity, history - all these go by the wayside if we allow ourselves to become another Chelsea. All it means is that David Dein is our Peter Kenyon. Man, isn’t that something to think about? Dein might be the front man but money will still be Russian. Slag off Chelsea then, why don’t you?

‘But what about trophies and success?’, you say. But we’ve been over the money situation. Arsene will only spend what Arsene wants to spend and frankly a football club is about more than winning trophies. There’s a way of doing business, a way of conducting yourself, a way of setting an example - which Arsene illustrated so wonderfully in the article the other week about the players helping the Treehouse charity and how the club had a social responsibility. It made better men of the players doing things like that. What the fuck does a Russian oligarch know about social responsibility?

So, if you want to see David Dein as knight in shining shitey armour you go right ahead. That’s entirely your right and fair play to you. If you want to come on this site and leave comments about how you support David Dein then that’s perfectly fine too. After each blog the floor is handed over to you and keep it going all day. There’s no censorship (apart from idiot Sp*rs fans now and again). I’m just putting it in black and white right now, I hate the idea of them controlling Arsenal. Hate it. These people are not representative of what Arsenal is to me.

We can just hope that the idea of this takeover solidifies the current board’s stance against it. Keith Edelman speaks here about how investment is not needed and that the club’s financial results will prove it. He talked about the transfer budget (which appears to be the most important thing for some people), saying:

We have ample cash resources for the manager to invest in the team and the squad. The manager caught his targets this year well within his budgets, which means his budgets will be increased next year.

But Oligarch bring more money. Me want more money. Now we just have go through more ‘Arsenal at war’ and ‘Arsenal in crisis’ headlines when we should be talking about the football. Nice one, Mr Orange.

Further reaction

Henry Winter in the Telegraph,
Arsenal at War in the Mail,
First blow in a bloody battle - David Bond,
Goodplaya on Dein’s ego vs Arsenal ,
Hypocritical Dein cannot be trusted - Gunnerblog
Dein sells Arsenal down the river - Goonerboy

Speaking of football (at last, thank fuck) the draw of the Champions League group stages was made. It was a nice draw too as we got Sevilla or AEK Athens (they play on Monday in a game that was suspended due to the death of Antonio Puerta), Slavia Prague and Steau Bucharest. To be fair that really is quite handy and some nice trips there for the traveling Gooners.

Read about Robin van Persie’s tribute to QPR’s Arsenal supporting Ray Jones who was killed in a car accident last weekend.

Now, time for the Arsecast.

Arsecasts

In this week’s Arsecast, brought to you by OleOle.com, there’s me waffling at length about the Dein business, the Man in the Bar has a player history, the Mugsmasher pops in for a bit of a football chat and there’s a bet of the week with thanks to Bluesq.com - Rosicky to score and Arsenal to win against Portsmout at 5-1. Click here to sign up for a Bluesq.com account if you don’t already have one.

To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes - click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly - click here (17mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here. And you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

Ok then. Plenty to keep us going during the day. More tomorrow.

Aug

30

Three and easy for the Gooners

Filed Under The Arsenal | 1130 arses

We had that rarest of things last night, a comfortable victory killed off by an early goal. If the script had been written to give Sparta an early goal and then for us to hang on and miss a lot of chances before, perhaps, sneaking a late one to make the game safe I don’t think anyone would have been too surprised. However, the game was as good as over after 7 minutes. Walcott was put clear on the right, he went past the defender and drilled a low ball across the goal to give Tomas Rosicky the simplest of finishes. At 3-0 on aggregate there was no way back for the Czech side.

There were changes in personnel. Justin Hoyte came in at right back, Senderos was back in the centre of defence, Diaby and Gilberto were in the centre of midfield while Eduardo started up front with Robin van Persie. To be honest it wasn’t much of a game to look at. At 3-0 we were cruising and hardly going to bust a gut while Prague knew the game was over too, despite the odd threat.

It wasn’t until the introduction of Cesc and Denilson that we started ticking again, and both of them got involved. Walcott had been moved up front, where the boss says he’s going to play more in the future, and Eduardo out left. The Crozilian looked lively out there and set up our second goal beautifully with a classic playground push and run past the defender and cut it back for Cesc to smash it home. The Spaniard dedicated his goal to his friend and U21 colleague Antonio Puerta.

In the 90th minute we made it 3-0. Denilson’s good cross from the right was met, inside the 6 yard box, by Eduardo and he scored his first competitive goal for the club. I’m not sure why everyone tried to smother him afterwards but it’s good that he got off the mark. It can be a weight around players necks if they don’t score for a new club early. Look at what happened to Dennis Bergkamp. It took him 10 games and the pressures and headlines back then were bad enough. In this day and age when a player is written off after just a couple of games it’d be even worse. The type of finish shows exactly why he was brought in though. Inside the 6 yard box, brave, attacking the ball. How long has it been since we had a player like that?

So, overall job done, job done well and goals from midfield and a new striker. If you really wanted to be picky and analytical you could say the performance wasn’t brilliant but that’s as much down to the circumstances as anything. The game was over early, there was no point running ourselves into the ground this early in the season and in the overall context of the season it just goes down as a decent win and a confidence builder.

It was good to see Diaby back in the team but his first game of the season was about fitness, not performance. His passing is better than he showed last night, where he did his best impression of Blindy McBlind the Blindest Man in Blindington. Like Adebayor on Saturday the run out will do him good and we need as many bodies fit and ready as possible. The boss was enthused by Theo’s performance as well, and while he did have some very good moments, I’d love to see him go at defenders with a bit more drive and bollocks. We got the goal when he went outside the full back and he’s got the pace to do that every time. But, he is just 18, and that’s another assist to chalk up to him and an encouraging performance rather than a brilliant one.

You can read the manager’s reaction to it all here.

We go into the draw for the CL group stages as one of the seeded teams. You can see the seeding groups here, so there’s the potential for a very tough time or a rather easier time. A Celtic, PSV, Rosenborg group would be rather tasty but it’s unlikely to be that simple. The draw takes place some time later this afternoon with the usual 3 hours of shitetalk and build-up. I think it’s at 5pm GMT.2

In other news Arseblog revealed yesterday that the club are planning on trademarking the word ‘Gooner’ for use on common merchandise like tops, t-shirts, scarves etc. I have to say it doesn’t really sit easy with me. It’s one thing claiming the crest and the name of the club as your intellectual property, there isn’t a person in the world who would argue with that - least of all me, but the word ‘Gooner’ doesn’t belong to the club. It belongs to the fans. The question I would ask is if the trademark application can be extended at any point beyond those limited items (you can see details of them in the link in that article) to affect things like websites and fanzines that have been using the word for a long time.

There’s quite a debate going on about it in the columns section so feel free to join in if you’ve got anything to add. Sadly, ANR does not allow comments so you can’t say a word about this quite pathetic hijack of the story to wheel out some pro-Dein/Kroenke PR. A new low for Myles, that.

Update: He’s removed the offending crap from his article. Typical. Just for the record it said:

Stan Kroenke would never do that in a million years. Stan the Yank is a flexible, accommodating owner who values his fans very highly and understands PR.

Now, off to do my day’s work. More, including an Arsecast, tomorrow.

Aug

29

Wenger sticks with what he’s got, says no to Adriano

Filed Under The Arsenal | 1175 arses

As expected Arsene had lots to say yesterday and it was an interesting press conference. Let’s get the team news for tonight out of the way and we should have Senderos, Diaby and Walcott back in the squad with the manager listing only Lehmann, Gallas and Eboue as the injured players. How we line up remains to be seen but with the manager saying nobody is going out we could see Justin Hoyte at right back. After that it’s midfielders all the way and who he picks as the strikers will be interesting. I have a feeling he might rest van Persie and play Adebayor and Eduardo but we shall see.

As well as nobody going out the manager said that there’s nobody coming in at this moment in time either, playing down links to Chelsea’s Lasanna Diarra. Apparently we were offered Adriano on loan for a year but Inter Milan wanted an unnamed Arsenal player in return (thought to be Rosicky) and the boss was unwilling to part with him. As well as the four main strikers (Ade, RVP, Eduardo and Bendtner) the boss claimed that he could play Walcott and Diaby there if need be so he didn’t need another striker. There is the feeling that Walcott might be better there but Diaby? Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

As for Adriano I’m not that bothered. The last time we took a chunky Brazilian on loan it was hardly a roaring success, was it? What was interesting was Wenger saying that he has got money to spend if he needs it but he’s just choosing not to. Now, I know he’s got a lot of belief in his squad, and I think that’s great, but couldn’t he have made his squad better by making a signing or two? He talked about the Djourou loan and while he does make sense in talking about the young man getting playing time what he said next geniunely frightened me.

I knew when Djourou left that Alex Song can play in there and Gilberto has played in there already.

Honestly, the very fact that Arsene would consider Alex Song as an option for centre-half is scary. I know the lad has his small fan club but I genuinely don’t think he’s good enough and I know lots of fans think that way too. I’m not trying to slag him off but the thought of him at the centre of our defence is just ludicrous, especially when, you know, we could have just kept Djourou. There’s a long hard season ahead and he played 30 games last time around. With injuries and suspensions there’s every chance he could do the same this season. In fact, he’d have played on Saturday against Man City if he’d been around. That the other justification for it is that our best defensive midfielder has played there doesn’t make a great deal of sense either but given our plethora of midfielders I can understand Wenger thinking of Gilberto as cover. But Song? Mad. On the other hand he must truly have assembled, in his own mind at least, the most versatile group of footballers ever.

He spoke about Jens and said that his position as the number one keeper would go ‘from game to game’. This could work two ways. One is that it keeps Jens on his toes or two it heaps more pressure on him and forces more errors. While competition for places is good you do need players to have some sense of stability or it becomes counter-productive. Some reports suggested there was a bust-up between the player and the boss but we it’s all speculation really. One thing I do know is that Jens hadn’t gone back to Germany as was suggested as late as yesterday morning. So we’ll just have to make up our own minds - I can’ t see the manager allowing him to leave at this moment anyway.

It will be the idea that the squad is now complete until January, at least, that will have most people talking this morning. The other day I said I wasn’t going to get too stressed and if the manager decides this is his hand and he’s going to stick, then so be it. His faith and belief in his squad must enormous and let’s not forget that he spoke a few weeks ago about how the aim this season was to win the title. He has set out these expectations so he must think this group of players can do it. Or at least have a good go at it.

For me there’s no question in my mind that the squad can be improved. I’ll sound like a broken record if I mention the wide areas again but I think most fans think the same way. This is not a question of being critical or unsupportive, it’s simply a widely held belief amongst the vast majority of the Arsenal fanbase that a new signing or two would improve us.

All summer we’ve heard from various board members that there is money for Arsene to spend. At yesterday’s press conference Arsene said:

At the moment the financial situation of the club has improved a lot. I’m not short of money if I need to buy someone.

So we can safely assume that there’s money there. The gamble that Arsene is taking here is a big one, in my opinion. If things go wrong again this season, if the guys playing on the wings fail to deliver again, if too much is expected of Bendtner and Walcott, if Adebayor goes to Africa and van Persie gets injured again and Eduardo finds the Premiership tough going, if we continue to play pretty but ineffective football in too many games, then fans will ask why the money wasn’t spent. And rightly so.

Now, I know there are a lot of ifs in there but after the injuries and problems we’ve had over the last couple of seasons nothing should be a surprise and perhaps we should be better prepared for those kinds of eventualities. I think the squad is too small (in numbers) and lacks proven quality in wide areas and up front. There are certainly players out there who Arsene could buy who would make things better. Don’t ask me to name names, ask Arsene. He’s the one with the encyclopaedic knowledge of footballers!

I don’t want this to sound like it’s a moan. I’ve said all along that if the manager is happy with his squad then there’s nothing we can do but get behind the lads that are there and give them our 100% support. That doesn’t mean we can’t ask questions such as ‘Why not use some of the money to make a good squad even better?!’. Anyway, as it stands things are going well at the moment and I hope they continue that way. I hope the young players shine, I hope Adebayor improves and eduardo finds the back of net with even half the frequency he did in Croatia. The season has started positively and at this moment nobody can have any complaints. I’m just afraid that if things don’t happen this season the backlash will be pretty severe.

Back to tonight’s game and the boss is convinced there’ll be no fallout from the first leg and Repka’s promises to crush Arsenal players like puny ants, or something. Basically we just need to concentrate, make sure we don’t concede and if possible score as quickly into the game as we can. It might kill it as spectacle but frankly I could do without the nervousness of them getting a goal with plenty of the game remaining. Perhaps, backed by the boss, it’s time for Tomas Rosicky to take centre stage.

Robin van Persie says the time he spent out injured is acting a motivation for him, having been injured when he reckons he was playing the best football of his life.

Finally today I want to take a moment to talk about how sad I felt about the death of Sevilla’s Antonio Puerta. I, like many of you, was watching the game on Saturday night when he collapsed so we’ve been with him ever since. Seeing him wheeled out of the ground and rushed away in an ambulance was sickening, especially when you could tell by the paramedics that it was serious. There was hope as many times in cases like this an athlete simply drops and that’s the end. We saw it some years ago when Marc Vivien Foe died during the Confederations Cup.

But as the days passed the doctors grew more pessimistic and yesterday afternoon Antonio Puerta passed away. For someone like me who plays park football and enjoys a pint and the odd smoke and doesn’t always stick to a healthy diet it’s quite sobering. A young man, less than 6 weeks away from being a father for the first time, is dead.

I’ve been reading the coverage in the Spanish papers and it’s heartbreaking stuff. Julio Baptista spoke of the enormous jolt of pain he felt when he heard. Messages of support and sympathy have flooded in from every Spanish club. Ex-teammate Antoñito declared himself ‘broken’ at the news. I listened to the President of Betis, Manuel Ruiz de Lopera, who has had the worst relationship with Sevilla FC and their President Jose Maria del Nido that you can possibly imagine, speak on the radio about Puerta’s death and the genuine emotion and solidarity for Sevilla, their fans and the family of Antonio Puerta was very moving.

Antonio Puerta will be buried today at 2pm Spanish time. A promising career and a young life cut short well before time. Perhaps, as we bitch and moan about not signing a fat Brazilian or any kind of winger, we might think about this and put it all in perspective.

I have never tried to speak on behalf of any other Arsenal fans, but I think I can do so today when I say to the family and friends of Antonio Puerta, everyone at Sevilla FC and all their fans, that we send our most sincere condolences and sympathy. May he rest in peace.

Aug

28

*thwack* *biff* *boof* *groink*

Filed Under The Arsenal | 868 arses

Getting up in the mornings is lame, especially when you have decided to have a lie-in but the Arseblog basset hound has decided he wants to go out for a poo and won’t stop whining even when you shout ‘SHUT UP ARSEBLOG BASSET HOUND. I AM TRYING TO HAVE A LIE IN’, which does nothing but make Mrs Blogs sit up in bed going ‘What the fuck is going on?’. What’s even more lame is when your blogging software decides to not publish the post you’ve just written and somehow delete it instead.

I’m surprised there isn’t more going on in terms of news, to be honest. Even the tabloids have given up making transfer stories (that hasn’t stopped Gunnerblog though) but Obafemi Martins is in The Sun talking about how he is flattered to be linked with Arsenal but prefers to stay and fight for a place at Newcastle. He’s been linked with us all summer long but it was always unlikely, what with Wenger’s policy of not signing players over the age of the 35. That’s why my move to the club didn’t happen this summer too.

Emmanuel Adebayor has illustrated this team’s unwillingness to be pushed around, saying:

A lot of players have learned that we have to fight hard to win games. We know people say ‘they are kids and don’t want to play as soon as we kick them’. But we stand up for it and we are ready for it, if they kick us we are going to want to beat that person.

I can see it in the next game. Someone will foul Cesc then Ade and Robin will grab them and force their hands behind their back. Senderos and the Flamster will produce saps from down their socks and administer a hefty beating around the face before Rosicky nips in and boots him in the balls with the outside of his foot. As he’s lying on the ground Kolo will come racing over, give him a couple of swift kicks to the head and then asks their players, in the style of Mel Gibson from Lethal Weapon, if they fancy a bit more. Meanwhile, Alex Hleb will have taken advantage of the distraction by dribbling up field, stopping the ball on the goal line and looking for a striker to pass it to.

Speaking of Hleb the boss has been singing his praises and explaining that so many of his passes don’t find a man because he’s trying to play through the eye of a needle. Perhaps his sloppy passing is just something we’ll have to put up but if he can continue having an impact on games like he has at the start of this season it’ll be easier to forgive.

The boss will have a pre-match press conference today, as per UEFA rules, so we’ll get the low down on the injury situation. Hopefully Sagna and Senderos will be back, allowing our collection of central midfielders to battle it out for a place in the middle of the park.

Ashley Cole is all over the papers today saying Chelsea can be invincible. Invincible cunts. Invincible shite eating, piss drinking, donkey fisting thundercunts. Nobody will ever come close to being as despicable as this Chelsea team. If football goes on for another million years and through the process of evolution a team is made up from hideous mutants who feast on kittens and small babies before making it compulsary to listen to Phil Collins music 23 out of every 24 hours they still couldn’t be as cunty as Chelsea.

Right, I’ve got to get my nose to the grindstone. See ya’ll tomorrow.

Aug

27

Van Persie angry on a quiet Monday

Filed Under The Arsenal | 656 arses

Good day to you wastrels and other folk. A bank holiday in the UK has robbed us of any real news. Well, I’m blaming the bank holiday in the same way I might blame clouds for hiding a flock of giant, man eating condors who swoop down and lift people from their back gardens.

Most of the talk seems to be about Kaspar Schmeichel. It’s not comforting at all that top cunts like Peter should breed. You see off the elder, confident that the years of ire and spite are behind you, then along comes a younger version. It’s not right, is it? Can you imagine young Robbie Savages or mini Cantonas? Horrible.

Speaking of fucking cunts Robin van Persie has been talking about Blackburn Rovers and their physical approach to the game. He’s absolutely not letting it lie and is unhappy with the media for their coverage of and reaction to the game, saying:

I’m watching Match of the Day, which I think is a fantastic programme . . . and I don’t think it’s honest to laugh at the boss and say, ‘Oh yeah, Arsenal are always the same, they always complain’. That’s not honest.”

Two or three people said it on TV and suddenly everyone’s thinking, ‘That’s the way to beat Arsenal’. It’s not. Personally I will never give in to it. Fabregas, he’s small, but he goes into battle. It’s the same for [Mathieu] Flamini. Same for Gilberto [Silva]. If you look at us, I think this idea is based on nothing more than air.

He goes onto say:

I want to say one thing. However you play, you have to always respect each other. Blackburn didn’t do that. I’m angry about it, still, because I think football’s a man’s sport. You have to be tough, yes, but you have to play fairly.

Right on, there’s nothing like a sense of injustice to spur on a player and I fully expect a hat-trick from him next time we play Blackburn. I also expect him to get a straight red card for gouging out someone’s eyes with his football boots but there you go. You can read more of Robin and his expectations for the season ahead in a decent Sunday Times article here.

And that’s it. There’s really not much else going on. There’s no team news yet ahead of Wednesday’s CL qualifier against the Spartans but we should get some idea which of our walking wounded will be fit and ready for battle.

In the meantime I’ll just bid you a happy Monday.

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