Despite the way they’re very well reported by the official site and in the papers, I maintain that actually viewing Arsene’s press conference gives you a much better idea of the manager’s state of mind than the printed word.
Yesterday’s one was interesting. Obviously you don’t expect him to be full of the joys of spring after the result against Sp*rs but there’s usually a little bit of a good humoured banter between him and the journalists and that was in short supply.
He started with Sol Campbell and was asked if there was any chance of a new deal for the big defender. He said that he’d be sitting down with Sol in the next little while and discussing things based on the player’s focus and motivation. Basically, if Sol’s up for it then he’s got a role to play. He cited his influence on the pitch, saying he was an ‘important player’ and lauded his contribution on Wednesday, saying:
He is not only an important player and a good player but he is a winner. He was ready to die on Wednesday night to win the game and that is what you want from your squad.
For me the clear implication there, beyond giving him the credit he deserves, is that not enough of the others were willing to do that – and I dare to say the manager might feel let down by them. Maybe it’s not as easy to see how some players coast through games until you have the contrast of one player giving absolutely everything.
I think it might have been Tony Adams who said some time ago that it wasn’t so much the breaking up of the Invincibles that was the problem, it was the speed at which it was done. So you had new players arriving and not enough old players who, to put it in rather clichéd terms, knew ‘the Arsenal way’. In the past you had a new signing who would be schooled by men who had been brought up at Arsenal, learned the history, the stories, the legends and what it meant to put on the red and white of our club.
Those players are few and far between at Arsenal now. What is a new signing going to learn from Denilson, for example, about what it means to be an Arsenal player? Sol Campbell knows fine well, both as an opponent during his time at Sp*rs and when he came here and had to show he was now an Arsenal player. Playing with Adams, Keown, Dixon, Seaman etc would have helped too. And I think Arsene now realises that he needs players like in his squad. Let’s be honest about this, Sol Campbell’s display on Wednesday was quite magnificent, beyond any expectation I had of him when he re-signed, and I suspect beyond that of the manager who viewed him as an emergency option and someone he could probably use to trundle through the easier games.
What it did was show up some of the players at the club right now who badly need to learn what is required to win trophies at a big club like Arsenal. They we’re shown up by a 35 year old in the autumn of his career. Not just in terms of attitude but performance and sheer hard work. The manager says we need defensive reinforcments in the summer, citing our vulnerability in the big games in particular, but no matter who we sign and for how much money, you get the feeling Sol Campbell could have a big role to play next season, regardless of how many games he plays.
Then up popped the subject of Cesc Fabregas. Arsene was asked, for about the 95th press conference in a row, if Cesc would be here next season. Perhaps it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but his response was bristling:
Every week, in every press conference, I get asked if Fabregas will stay or not. Frankly, I believe it is not serious. The players are under contract and I always have to answer this.
When you sign a contract with a player, he commits his future to the club and I am surprised that you question the contracts of the players. You act as if the contract doesn’t mean anything. In what kind of society do we live?
He went on to say he couldn’t understand why journalists kept up a ‘persistent campaign’ to drive our best players to Spain and was clearly unhappy at the way things have been reported. Can’t say I blame him. He was asked if he thought the Spanish league was less competitive than the Premier League, he said he thought it was, saying the big points difference between second and third was evidence of the that (like a sunny SPL!). He was asked if he thought moving there was a step down for players, he said he thought it was. So then, within a couple of hours you see headlines like:
Wenger sends out warning to Spanish star or Barca move would be bad for Fabregas.
Of course none of it was that specific, he was asked general questions and gave general answers, but we know how the press here works. It’s not unique to England by any means but it must be frustrating to try and explain your position as well as possible and then see somebody ‘read between the lines’ and instead of a headline which uses words you did say, choosing to use ones you didn’t. He went on to cast doubt over the quotes attributed to the Chairman and denied any secret meeting doing a ‘not this year’ deal with Barcelona.
The Cesc to Barcelona story is one that is not going to go away for countless reasons this summer but it’s strange that despite most of us knowing exactly how Spanish clubs operate when it comes to transfers, flooding the media with made-up stories, and when we know how the press here operate in picking up those stories and adding bells and whistles to them, that the natural inclination of many Arsenal fans is to believe them as if they were gospel.
Reverse it, change the desintation club to Arsenal, the player to David Villa, for example, and we’d almost all be sitting here saying ‘That is a load of made up bollocks designed to sell newspapers’. So when we have the manager saying the player is going nowhere, the player himself repeatedly reaffirming his commitment to the club, why do so many choose to ignore that? No doubt it’ll rumble on and on this summer but really it’s all a big load of made up bollocks for the most part.
In his later meeting with the print journalists he was asked about the goalkeeping situation at the club. He has always given his backing to Almunia, defending him earlier in the season when his form was at its worst, but Arsenal fans will be glad to hear him say of the Spaniard:
I never said that he will be my long-term No.1. He is a great goalkeeper and he is in competition with Lukasz Fabianski. So I want to see how we finish now so I don’t think it is the best period to talk about individual players.
While ruling out a move for Lyon’s Hugo Lloris, both on the price and the belief the player is not going to leave France this summer, the hint that the goalkeeping situation will be remedied in the summer is comforting. Provided he’s not planning on replacing Almunia with Fabianski, which would be a bit like sending back your bowl of vomit stew and asking for the spunk chowder. I’m sure Almunia and Fabianski are both very nice chaps but I wouldn’t be at all unhappy if they both furthered their careers elsewhere. A new keeper must be a top priority this summer, and I think, even if Lloris is not an option, there are others out there who could fit the bill quite easily. More on that as the summer progresses.
There’s nothing new in terms of team news for tomorrow’s game against Wigan, I’ll leave it till then to preview the game. There’s enough to be going on with there anyway. I don’t want to get too involved in the speculation about what we need to do in the summer, who should go, who should stay, it’s important to remember that we still have four games to play and second place is still a possibility. While I feel definite progress has been made this season, I’d like that progress to be reflected in our final league position. Any other stuff between now and the end of the season is mere distraction.
Till tomorrow.
