Arsenal

[fred milne]

Myles Palmer ain't happy with what's going on at the Emirates......

 

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Arsenal's season : the verdict

By Myles Palmer

 

 

Wenger asked to be judged at the end of the season. What’s your verdict?

 

More of the same but not as good. With Flamini, Arsenal were top for six months and won nothing. Without Flamini, they were never top and won nothing.

 

Will Wenger ever change?

 

Don't be silly. He's interested in his own quality of daily life, his own enjoyment, his own expression, his own ideas, his own experiments. He will never do the hard, monotonous, repetitious work of drilling a back four so that they can function as a unit. He wouldn't know where to start.

 

He prefers to re-invent a sport that does not need to be re-invented. He gets off on skill and fast attacks and his main ideas are pace, pace and pace. He thinks all the best athletes from the same West African gene-pool that was dispersed round the world by the slave trade. When he picks Adebayor he thinks he's plugging into the mother-lode from which scores of gold medallists came, right up to Usain Bolt.

 

Long jumper Bob Beamon jumped out of the pit in Mexico City in 1968. He made a mind-boggling jump of 29 feet and 2 1/2 inches. By doing that he became the first man to jump 28 feet and also the first man to jump 29 feet, beating the world record by 21 3/4 inches and setting a record that stood for the next 23 years. When his teammate Ralph Boston told Bob how far he had jumped, he collapsed. As Britain's champion Lyn Davies told him, "You have destroyed this event. " Bob Beamon came from New York. What part of New York? Brooklyn. What district of Brooklyn? South Jamaica. Trouble is, football is not athletics. Adebayor is closer to Bob Beamon than he is to George Weah.

 

Fabregas this season?

 

In the whole of the Premier League, the player who is best at keeping the game moving is Cesc Fabregas.

Recently, Wenger pushed Fabregas forward into a Stevie Gerrard position, knowing he lacks the pace and power to play that role. So he has castrated his captain, who has the ability to see a longer pass and play it beautifully, and the ability to keep the game moving. He moved Fabregas forward to a role where he cannot dictate the tempo and direction of Arsenal's attacks, where he is facing the wrong way, where he is reduced to nudging three-yard passes into Walcott's run. How insane is that? Why did he do that? To give a French player a bigger role? To turn Nasri into what the French call a "Number 6."?

 

How does he want Arsenal to play?

 

He still wants an athletic, quick-passing team. Fabregas, like Vieira and Bergkamp, was a key player in that concept because of his ability to pass the ball forward early. But Van Persie ruins the concept because he needs five touches, while Adebayor negates the concept because he is so static and predictable. I've watched managers get it wrong for 40 years and 25 of those were in the press box. But I've never seen anybody get it wrong on this scale before. This Arsenal team is a pig’s breakfast, a shambles, worse than it's been since the early Eighties. But Arsenal did not build a new stadium in the Eighties, or redevelop their old one into flats

 

Are you a Gooner?

 

No. I'm an author who scribbles in cyberspace while writing books. Many of my friends are Gooners and this season has been very hard for them. People are gutted and bewildered. Trainer Jed at the gym, who is a footballer, can't believe that Wenger tinkers with Fabregas and Nasri in April, and doesn't think Walcott will make it. Ian Grant is a season-ticket holder who told me the Man United game was “torture” and the Chelsea game was “complete humiliation.”

 

Many people now agree with you on Radio 5 Live, in the papers. Are you now redundant ?

 

Yes, absolutely. I was a voice in the wilderness for three years. Now people agree with me, so I'm redundant. My dad used to say, "When two people are continually in agreement, one is redundant."

 

On Sunday I watched the Manchester derby, the Arsenal-Chelsea farce, half of the Barcelona-Villarreal game - and forgot all about Match of the Day 2. I normally watch MoD 2 or Sky+ it. On MoD2, Lee Dixon analysed the failure of Arsenal's midfielders to track back, especially on the Anelka goal. Alan Hansen said : This team won't challenge next season. They need five players.

 

What about Theo Walcott?

 

His decision-making is terrible. But he is an honest boy who realises he's lucky to be earning mega-money for 90 minutes work every morning. He tries his best. But he's not a winger. Walcott thought he was a striker like Michael Owen. He went to Arsenal and Wenger played him on the wing for three years, so now he doesn’t know what he is. I wish Walcott well, I really do. But I can't see him improving that much. He is a choirboy who lacks a football brain.

 

Playing in an England team of men, with a tactical coach, Fabio Capello, he scored a hat-trick in Croatia. Playing against Chelsea in a team of 22-year olds at the Emirates, he could not hit a barn door from inside the barn.

 

My friend Mair and his son Rob come round to watch games occasionally. Last time they came Mair walked in and sat down on the sofa and 16-year old Rob came in and asked me a question before he had even sat down.

“Theo Walcott- yes or no?”

I was surprised the lad was so sharp.

“No,” I said.

 

Wenger is still regarded as one of the giants among managers. Is that reputation deserved ?

 

He was a giant at Highbury with a medium-sized club punching above its weight. Since Abramovich, and since the new stadium, Arsenal have not competed. We all thought that Arsene Wenger was a big man but his intransigence has shrunk him. A truly big man would listen. A big man would share. A big man would delegate. He is very touchy if any mention is made of Martin Keown's input into the run to the Champions League Final in Paris.While working for his Uefa coaching badges, Keown coached a back four of Eboue, Toure, Senderos and Flamini, playing in front of Jens Lehmann. They did not concede a single goal in seven games prior to the Champions League final, and then Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell played in the final against Barcelona and they lost 2-1. Keown would love to be Wenger's No.2 but he does not think that will ever happen because he is independent-minded. He knows that Arsene FC is a one -man show.

 

Ultimately, it's up to the fans. When they start voting with their feet, Wenger will be replaced. Until then you will be watching a team that can't defend and can't prove the manager's theories right by winning silverware. He is a sports scientist who lives on data, a track-suit messiah lost in his laptop. He could prove me wrong, of course. He could prove me wrong. I love it, just love it, when people prove me wrong. Seriously, I get a big kick out of it.I wish it happened more often.

 

What annoys you most about Wenger?

 

That he talks to his players through the media, and that he does not trust the lifestyle of British players or the underclass they come from. It's already clear that he doesn't fancy Aaron Ramsey, and that Jack Wilshire will be sold on to Blackburn or Birmingham to make millions that will be spent on more French and African kids for his academy. Wilshire was on the bench at the start of the season. After he signed at 16, he suddenly wasn't on the bench. What does that tell you?

 

After getting battered in the first leg at Old Trafford but losing only 1-0, Wenger said, "I believe you will see a different Arsenal next week." To say what he says, purely for the benefit of players who will see it and read it, is, to my mind, pathetic, bizarre and dishonest. It's also insulting to reporters and newspaper readers. It’s O-level psychology. If players are morons, they might believe it. But recent evidence shows that such ridiculous remarks do not work. Arsenal lost the Man Utd first leg 1-0 and the second leg 3-1. And then they got their worst result against Chelsea since 1960.

 

Fabregas, walking out alongside John Terry, knew it wouldn't work. He has not looked happy all season because he does not endorse what is going on around him. The team has slumped since Flamini left, and Fabregas has been average since Flamini left, and he is now a shadow of the player he was. Wenger, the high-tech sports scientist, has run Fabregas into the ground since he was 18, so he is now burned out, depressed, playing out of position, and carrying a far bigger burden than any 22-year old captain should. Just as Wenger ran Vieira into the ground after he sold Petit. PV4 played on and on, often with injections in his knee.

 

Fabregas clearly hates playing in the Stevie G position. When asked on TV how he liked his new position, he snapped," I've been playing up there all season." No, you haven't, mate. You became captain of Arsenal and Wenger had the worst of his 13 seasons. What does Fabregas think of Wenger's comment that, "You'll see a different Arsenal next week."?

 

When will the Emirates have a glory night, a memorable victory that will echo down the decades?

 

I really don't know. When they have another manager, I suppose. It's very, very sad to build a 60,000-capacity super-stadium in London and put a lightweight Afro-French team in it that finishes fourth every year. If that's what Gooners want to watch, they'll pay £1,200 and £1,700 and £1,900 and even £2,500 a year for season- tickets, and £4,000 for Club Level, and they'll keep going because it's a social thing. Football supporters are a species and Gooners are a sub-species. And half of them are Sky Sportsniks, Nineties nouveau football fans who buy into the whole Premier League hype.

 

Will he be the Arsenal manager forever?

 

I hope not. Maybe Wenger assumes he will be there for another five years. No other manager in the world assumes that. I would love to see a proper team again, not a half a team playing five-a-side football with 11 players. Arsenal is a French club playing in England and playing in a league of one, just below the Big Three, and this group of players will go on repeating 2008 and 2009 for as long as Wenger is the manager and he has a contract till 2011.The official line from Ivan Gazidis to the AST on Monday night, is that the stadium and Wenger are the biggest assets of the club. The third biggest asset of the club is one the CEO cannot mention.: the loyalty and gullibility of Arsenal supporters.

 

After the disappointments of Hleb, Rosicky, Diaby, Walcott and Adebayor, have Arsenal made any great signings in the last five years?

 

Gazidis and Arshavin are two great signings in 2009. Everything else about 2009 has been rubbish. But those two give me some hope. Gazidis has made a very good start and has now said something that Keith Edelman would never have said : We had to concentrate on the Emirates, but let’s now focus on improving the team.

 

The player who changed Arsenal's season was Arshavin. He ensured fourth place. It’s absurd for Wenger to say: We were good before we signed Arshavin. No, you were not. Your unbeaten run was against muppets and half of those games were draws. That is a meaningless stat. Nothing to boast about. Against Liverpool at Anfield, Arsenal had five shots and Arshavin scored four goals. Against Chelsea at the Emirates, without Arshavin, Arsenal had 16 goal attempts and lost 4-1. If five of those chances had fallen to Arshavin, it might have been 3-3.

 

Man City have big finance and Aston Villa are improving. Is fourth place sustainable?

 

Yes, Arsenal can be fourth for the next five years. Spurs won’t challenge and Everton lack money.

 

What will happen in the summer?

 

Maybe nothing, maybe huge things. Impossible to say right now. Football lives on hope and fans live on hope. But the extent of disillusion among ANR readers is huge, if my inbox is anything to go by.

 

You used to like Arsene Wenger. What happened?

 

Big building debts happened, I think. Fear happened. Fear and anxiety and the credit crunch. Before that, Arsenal was fun and Arsene was fun. I met him hundreds of times at games from 1996 onwards, as many journalists did, once at a QPR night game, quite a few times at Sopwell House and Colney. In 2001 he knew I was writing The Professor. Just before publication I called his mobile and told him when he would receive a pre-publication copy. I still remember our conversation.

 

Myles : “The book basically says that Arsenal is a very good football club but not perfect, that David Dein is a very good football executive but not perfect, and that you’re a very good manager but not perfect.”

 

Arsene : “Exactly.”

 

After that, more trophies and a decline, all summarised when The Professor was updated to 2008.

 

 

May 13, 2009

 

http://www.arsenalnewsreview.co.uk/index.p...nt01returnid=42

[DanielS]

Hard to argue with a lot of that except where it verges on the racist. If racism actually existed.

[carrafan]

Wow thats a scathing article. Almost sounds like it came from a fan.

 

Love it when its called the Stevie G position though.

[Swipe]

He certainly is a fan of his own opinion this guy

[Benzo-13]

He certainly is a fan of his own opinion this guy

 

He's right though. That clubs a vain madhouse.

[Sion]

He's an absolute muppet that guy

Was telling anyone who'd listen Arsenal missed out on signing Alonso because of a few thousand pound

[Benzo-13]

He's an absolute muppet that guy

Was telling anyone who'd listen Arsenal missed out on signing Alonso because of a few thousand pound

 

I read that and it was countered from a lad from the Echo but I think he's right with his view of that club.

[Rimbeux]

That's pretty savage, but it's pretty much spot on.

 

Wenger got spooked by Chelsea, the likelihood of the new stadium not automatically making them the financial equal of any team in the world, a dream they all chased, Wenger included. In short he bottled it and has been trying to set himself up as the anti-Chelsea, based on f*** all apart from his own disingenuous prattle, sucked up by a gullible media and fans, and an aversion to sticking his neck out on a player for now.

[muleskinner]

I think having 10 men for a good while in the CL final contributed a fair bit to their losing of it. And I'm sure he recognised that at the time rather than blaming Wengers refusal to give Keown a job as he does now.

Edited May 14, 2009 by muleskinner

[StevieC]

He prefers to re-invent a sport that does not need to be re-invented. He gets off on skill and fast attacks and his main ideas are pace, pace and pace. He thinks all the best athletes from the same West African gene-pool that was dispersed round the world by the slave trade. When he picks Adebayor he thinks he's plugging into the mother-lode from which scores of gold medallists came, right up to Usain Bolt.

 

Long jumper Bob Beamon jumped out of the pit in Mexico City in 1968. He made a mind-boggling jump of 29 feet and 2 1/2 inches. By doing that he became the first man to jump 28 feet and also the first man to jump 29 feet, beating the world record by 21 3/4 inches and setting a record that stood for the next 23 years. When his teammate Ralph Boston told Bob how far he had jumped, he collapsed. As Britain's champion Lyn Davies told him, "You have destroyed this event. " Bob Beamon came from New York. What part of New York? Brooklyn. What district of Brooklyn? South Jamaica. Trouble is, football is not athletics. Adebayor is closer to Bob Beamon than he is to George Weah.

 

What a massive c*nt.

 

Presumably the team winning of 'invicibles' containing players from a similar west african 'gene-pool' (step up Henry, Toure, Vieira) don't apply?

 

Small time, goldfish memory c*ntbubble.

[cymrococh]

I've got no idea what the Bob Beamon story/analogy is trying to say.

 

Adebayor is a lazy c*** who would be sh*t at long jump.

[floyd]

I've got no idea what the Bob Beamon story/analogy is trying to say.

Think he's saying that Wegner wouldn't sign the Welsh lad, Lyn Davies, as a holding midfielder.

This Palmer, seen his articles a few times, and my god, he's a thunder cvnt

[psl]

Wenger has had a bit of a go at the Arsenal fans at some fans forum apparently. Said they are creating a culture of negativity.

[Knox_Harrington]

Said they are creating a culture of negativity.

That'll be you, Arsene.

Edited May 15, 2009 by Knox_Harrington

[sutty]

I've got no idea what the Bob Beamon story/analogy is trying to say.

 

Adebayor is a lazy c*** who would be sh*t at long jump.

 

Ron Noades or whatever his name was would probably be able to clarify that analogy

 

I think what he is saying is that whilst the west african gene pool might produce a disproportionate amount of athelicism. atheleticism alone doesn't make great footballers.

[Walrus]

Wenger has had a bit of a go at the Arsenal fans at some fans forum apparently. Said they are creating a culture of negativity.

What???? He's posting on goonerweb or some such as "Arsene Wenger" having a go at their fans?

[sutty]

What???? He's posting on goonerweb or some such as "Arsene Wenger" having a go at their fans?

 

Forums aren't consigned to the intenet - can be face to face meetings.

[Walrus]

Forums aren't consigned to the intenet - can be face to face meetings.

True. "at a fans forum" not "on a fans forum".

[Flight]

They had their shareholder meeting last night.

 

 

 

 

Arsene Wenger turns on Arsenal fans, criticising ‘slaughter’ of his team

 

 

 

 

Arsène Wenger employed all of his charm to quell the ire of some disgruntled shareholders who turned on his Arsenal team last night.

 

Just hours after the manager admitted that he is prepared to sell Emmanuel Adebayor to Chelsea if the striker leaves this summer, he was forced to defend his players during a testy question-and-answer session at the Emirates Stadium.

 

The team were criticised for lacking fight, backbone and leadership on the field and Adebayor was accused of diving to the approval of some assembled who suggested that the Togo forward should depart this summer.

 

Wenger, who said that he does have money to spend during the close season, reacted to the ferocity of some questions by criticising a section of the club’s fans, particularly at home, for turning on the team at the end of a fourth season without a trophy. He said that he and the players should be judged in two years’ time, a prediction he has made in previous seasons.

 

 

 

The tone of the evening was set by the opening question, expressing doubt as to whether the players had taken enough responsibility after their capitulation against Manchester United in the Champions League semi-final. “It is easy to sit in the stand and say that they are not up for the fight,” Wenger said. “What they have done in this season in a negative environment shows what they can do.

 

“There is a massive difference between the away fans, who are absolutely fantastic, and the home ones. It is always that negative way of thinking, that the players do not care. If we do not get there next year [playing in this style] then I am responsible and will stand up for it. But what this team needs is people who are fans of the club.”

 

Wenger was astonished when one shareholder labelled Mikaël Silvestre, the 31-year-old defender, “geriatric”. “I cannot accept that you speak about the players of your club like that,” Wenger said. “You are attacking the players and that is much worse [than attacking me].”

 

The ability of Alexandre Song and Abou Diaby was also called into question after the sale of several experienced midfield players last summer. “People always criticise the players and if they go somewhere else in two or three years you will say ‘why did you let them go, they are great players?’ ” Wenger, who at least gained a round of applause when one shareholder defended him as “a genius” said. “Many times people are upset when the players have gone.

 

“Some players have good periods or bad periods. If they don’t do well it is because they have lost confidence. But the only way to help a guy who has lost confidence is to support him. But by slaughtering him it does not help. We have had negative vibes and manipulation around the team. It is very hard work to keep the confidence and energy demands because we had to support the team against the odds.”

 

Wenger said that the club’s structure and philosophy is correct, claiming that Arsenal are the only club to have kept a high standard while coping with the cost of a new stadium.

 

Adebayor nearly joined AC Milan last summer and Wenger was less than definitive about what would transpire if a suitable offer was made, even if it came from Stamford Bridge. “It’s unusual [to sell to a rival], but we sold Ashley Cole to Chelsea and we bought William Gallas [from Chelsea], so you can never say I never do it, because I’ve already done it,” Wenger said. “If I feel that a player should go, or could go, why not sell him to one of the other top four?

 

“Normally, Adebayor is part of our plans for the future. I believe he has been disturbed at the start of the season a little bit, by bad feelings from the fans because he was close to leaving.”

[Falconhoof]

Nice motivation for his players to be reading all of that before they travel to Old Trafford.

He should have stayed out of it and got on with looking after his team.

 

Its not the lack of recent success so much with Arsene, its the lack of a coherent strategy. Palmer's article is weird in the way it goes on about West Africans but he hits the nail on the head about not replacing Flamini. You can't have a crack at the big trophies without a decent holding midfielder. Why didn't Wenger address that first, before buying Arshavin ? s*** management.

[sutty]

Nice motivation for his players to be reading all of that before they travel to Old Trafford.

He should have stayed out of it and got on with looking after his team.

 

Its not the lack of recent success so much with Arsene, its the lack of a coherent strategy. Palmer's article is weird in the way it goes on about West Africans but he hits the nail on the head about not replacing Flamini. You can't have a crack at the big trophies without a decent holding midfielder. Why didn't Wenger address that first, before buying Arshavin ? s*** management.

 

I think the west african thing is a comment on Wenger's scouting

 

I'd heard his scouting technique lauded - and the technique was to basically to racially profile and then pick the cream of the athletes

[Bailo]

It's nice to see someone else get Rafa-style stick, but it winds me up a treat how these shareholders meetings turn into a "slate individual players" slag-fest. Rafa had to defend Lucas from supporters in a similar forum, it amazes me how many people have the arrogance to query a managers purchases individually. It also must be the most counter-productive thing ever for players to hear.

[MFletcher]

He knew Flamini was leaving for a while as well, and had all summer to tie a deal up but didn't. Instead he spent £32M on Nasri and Arshavin - the latter in January obviously - while completely ignoring the massive hole in midfield.

 

Very poor management.

[floyd]

Be nice if we tempted Arshavin away from Arsenal

[growler]

should have got him in instead of Keane in the summer. can we blame parry for that?