Morning all, hope you had a good weekend. There was a nice Arsenal flavour to it as well with a 4-0 win over Barnet in that new kit which really does look the business. Thanks to Tom for his top notch blogging. Not only did he get an Arsenal win, for a change, he also got to tell Barcelona to fuck off in proper style. It could have been, and often has been, much worse. Cheers, Tom.
So, as expected the return of the manager and the return of football means lots more is actually happening than us trying to think of new names to call irritating Catalans. There’s not a great deal you can draw from a training game like the one against Barnet but there were a couple of notable absentees. Despite both being named in the squad on Friday, Eduardo and Manuel Almunia were nowhere to be seen.
The word on Eduardo is that he’s about to sign for Shaktar Donetsk for around £6m. It would be no surprise whatsoever if this were true. It was clear last season that Arsene no longer felt willing to play him and the way his Arsenal career has withered away has been very sad. There was always the worry that the injury would prove too much and I think, unfortunately, that’s the case. The effects, both physical and mental, have robbed him of the ability to play Premier League football. A change of scenery might just do him good and if he goes I wish him nothing but the best.
And maybe it’s something for the Taylor and Shawcross apologists to think about. A man’s career has been hugely affected by a despicable act. Leaving aside how nice the tackler is or how he’s not that kind of player the bottom line is Eduardo looked like he was going to be a star at Arsenal. Now he’s off to Ukraine. We can only hope that Ramsey’s relative youth and a bit more luck means he won’t suffer the same fate. It’s all a bit sad really.
As for Almunia, the boss said he was ‘ill’. He’s a very sickly type, really. Always ‘ill’ here and ‘chest infection’ there. Some rumours said he was, like Eduardo, off meeting a potential new club, but I can’t confirm those in any way. Which leads me to Arsene’s quote about our keeper situation. After the Barnet game he said:
At the moment, in pre-season, there is no No 1 – you have to give a chance to everyone to show how good he is. You cannot decide that today.
Which isn’t exactly what anyone would want to be here but when playing down reports of a move for Mark Schwarzer he confirmed we’re still on the lookout:
We are still looking at various situations, but I would not like to come out on any individuals.
Which is much more comforting. The reason there’s no number 1 at the moment is because we don’t have a keeper who is clearly better than all the others. We’ve got a flappy Pole, an average Italian and Wojscez©® who is probably going to go out on loan again from what I hear. Then there’s Sickboy. So the task is very simple. Find a goalkeeper who is better than all the other ones we have, give him the number 1 shirt, and let’s go. Of course it’s not as easy as that, I’m told we’ve been nosing around trying to find the right man for some time now, but as the season grows nearer we’ll have to make a decision. It’s hugely important that we have an established, quality number 1.
Despite two goals against Barnet the word is that Jay Simpson is surplus to requirements and could be on his way out. If we move Eduardo out then Chamakh will be seen as the replacement there, with van Persie, Bendtner, Walcott, Arshavin and even Vela as part of the forward line. I think he’s got too much in front of him to make it with us, especially as he’d be competing with the first three for that central role.
From reading around about the Barnet game first impressions of Chamakh seemed quite positive while the new boy at back Koscielny needs a few creatine pies and a couple of months in the gym to bulk up. You can have all the ability in the world but unless you have the strength to hold off beasts like Drogba and Rooney you’re going to struggle. At least that’s something he’s aware of himself.
It’s interesting that Arsene hasn’t really been quizzed on our defensive needs. As Joe Cole remains a ‘maybe’ and most of us struggle to fit him into the side given the players we’ve already got, another centre-half remains a priority and another defensive midfielder wouldn’t go amiss either. There’s been a bit of a buzz about the performance of Emmanuel Frimpong at the Barnet game but he’s just 18 and we have ensure our expectations of young players aren’t too high, especially after what was just a training game.
Reports at the weekend say we made a £14m bid for Everton’s Phil Jagielka. I’m not sure that’s quite value for money, to be honest, but he’s a decent player and in terms of the profile, his experience of the Premier League and his age, he’s the kind of player we should be looking at.
With the squad on its way to Austria today for the training camp I’m sure we’ll hear more on any potential deals throughout the week. Wasn’t it during the Austrian sojourn that we signed Jens Lehmann way back when? I think it was.
We should get a list of the players on the Austrian trip a little later today. The training and the games out there will help the manager shape his squad for the new season. Questions will be asked and answered. Some will do enough to convince him they’re ready for first team football at Arsenal, others may find themselves out on loan, and perhaps any doubts he has about one or two will be confirmed or put to rest. I expect us to work hard out there and I expect that the gaps that still exist in our squad will be filled sooner rather than later.
And that’s about that for this morning. It’s nice to be back and it’s nice to have other stuff to talk about than you know what. Thanks again to Tom, more tomorrow.
