The Beautiful Groan

To a certain extent, you can make allowances for players not being sharp in pre-season, but just five days ahead of a Champions League qualifier, and a young side likely to play against Sevilla tomorrow, tonight’s game against Ajax was the last chance for many of the first team to complete their preparations.

With that in mind, there were some disappointing aspects. While the football in the early stages was delightful at times, the finishing was again fairly poor, although strikers can need time to find their shooting boots. I’m sure many will be quick to criticise Adebayor for his early misses, but his determination was there and he scored twice in the second half. Yes, both were tap ins, but you have to be there to score them, and positioning is one of his greatest strengths. He gets so many chances precisely because he is in the right place. That won’t stop his detractors, and undoubtedly he has brought some criticism on himself this summer, but let’s not be quick to destroy our leading forward.

There may be comparisons to Huntelaar, who showed his predatory instincts with a fantastic finish for the second goal, and I know there are those who think he is exactly the sort of striker we need. But we already have a deadly assassin in front of goal, the trouble is he’ll miss the first few months thanks to one Martin Taylor.

We will score goals, we always do. The trouble is not at that end of the pitch, it is that we are unable to win 1-0, ever. Our defending tonight shows exactly why. First an innocuous chip into the box caused havoc, and a poor defensive header was superbly taken advantage of by Suarez, and then the defence went to sleep at a free kick, Eboue especially culpable for allowing his man to run off him and head the ball back to Huntelaar. The finish was perfect, but the goal was far too easy.

Our main concern is in the heart of that defence, and the protection offered from the centre of midfield. In Clichy and Sagna we have two fine full backs, but the Gallas-Toure partnership looks as shaky as ever, and with no Flamini or Gilberto, there is no one to provide that defensive shield ahead of them.

It is a problem for Wenger to address, and I won’t be churlish enough to naysay his decision making until we see what happens. After all, Flamini himself stepped forward last season, and someone, perhaps Diaby, may do the same this season. Denilson also has a chance, and it may be no coincidence that he has been seen snapping into tackles with an enthusiasm we haven’t seen before.

There has been a lot of focus on our front line this summer, but I feel that is the strongest area of the team. The trouble is we won’t win many matches scoring once.

A story caught my eye this morning, run by the Daily Mail, in which they claim that Wenger will be offered a place on the board to ensure he remains within the Arsenal fold. On the face of it, it is a story promoting good news, albeit news that is highly unlikely while Wenger is still manager.

But dig a little closer and it becomes clear that this is yet another story promoting the club’s ‘financial insecurity’ and how Wenger is feeling a lack of support from the board. And it is painfully transparent.

For once, it is a Mail story that does not directly reference Usmanov and Dein, but it is clearly built for their wishes. By scaring fans into thinking Wenger’s unhappy, they create the idea that to make him stay, the money men have to come in and take over. Which is precisely the message Dein was promoting before Wenger signed his last contract.

There were strong signs last month that his relationship with the board is being stretched. He sent a coded message upstairs when he revealed, in the wake of Alexander Hleb’s departure for Barcelona, that ‘the strategy of the club is to sell every year and buy less expensive players’.

In reality, Wenger’s just putting his economics degree to full use, selling the players he thinks he can replace with younger and better versions, and not spending lavish sums on mediocre players as so many others have done, all while maintaining a championship challenging squad.

Hardly a coded message, but then the story is so heavily weighted against the current board, talking about how finances are crippled ‘while they service the astronomical loan for the Emirates Stadium over the next 17 years‘, when this loan is perfectly under control and still allows for Wenger to spend.

Wenger doesn’t spend because Wenger doesn’t want to. The board have said it, he’s said it, and no amount of Mail/Dein/Usmanov propaganda will change that fact.

The problem is simply that too many people will fall for this garbage.

The real football ebbs ever closer, and the pre-season matches are hotting up as a result. Match sharpness is returning and we are beginning to get a feel for who is likely to be taking up those eleven spots a week on Saturday.

So far, the stars of the show have been some of the up and coming players, three of them in particular.

The first is Bendtner, who probably has mixed feelings about Adebayor staying. Putting aside whether they actually get on or not, there is no doubt that the Dane would play a great deal more first team football if Adebayor left. On the other hand, to win trophies you need to keep your best players. Either way, Bendtner has been staking his claim in these early games, linking up well with teammates and looking lively in front of goal. This could be a big season for him.

Another who has shone has been Carlos Vela. After a long wait to arrive in England having signed back in 2005, the Mexican has certainly looked the part - fast, skillful and with an eye for goal. He will be a threat.

The final one has come out of left field. We knew about Jack Wilshere from his impressive exploits for the youth side last season, but no-one expected him to look so assured in pre-season, especially against the serious opposition of Real Madrid, yesterday. He’s sixteen, for goodness sake. But here is a real talent, and he has now been given GIlberto’s old number 19 shirt.

All three will be in and around the team, but it would be a surprise if any had forced their way into the first eleven, if there are no injuries. The only new man with a shot is Nasri, simply because he is replacing Hleb, but the trio I’ve been talking about are likely to start on the bench. In Wilshere’s case, even that is a massive step up.

Year after year we are accused of lacking depth, right up until someone watches our kids play.

Twelve days to go.

Let’s start with the transfer news, and the long suspected arrival of Amaury Bischoff has now been confirmed by the Arsenal website, with his signing likely to be the one Wenger claimed he was ‘definitely going to make’. Now all the remains is the second one that he ‘might make’. In all honesty, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the last of the action.

There are those that will slate this signing because Bischoff isn’t a big name, but they will mostly be jumping on the media bandwagon that buying famous names is the only route to success. There are also those that will rejoice and talk up the player, simply because he is a Wenger signing.

Let’s be honest, we know very little about the guy, perhaps unsurprisingly given how much time he’s been out injured over the past two years. Fingers crossed he won’t be joining Rosicky and Van Persie on the treatment table.

All I will say is that at 21, we should expect to see quite a lot of him in the first team over the next two years, as he doesn’t have as long to develop as some of the younger midfielders now presumably behind him in the queue. If he isn’t destined to be a first teamer, his signing is a strange one.

Elsewhere, the captaincy debate is raging on, with some saying Gallas is a good leader and others saying he is one of the worst in recent years. I tend towards the latter - the example he set at Birmingham was unforgivable, at his age he shouldn’t need to ‘learn to talk my players better’. Captaincy is something you are ready for when you get it, and if you screw it up, it is taken away.

Having said that, I’d be surprised if Gallas wasn’t wearing the armband this year. This time last year, he suddenly started making the right noises, as if he already knew Wenger’s decision, and he is doing it again now. The trouble is, he seems a good captain when things are going well, but when the going gets tough and he needs to step up, he doesn’t. That for me is the biggest disappointment.

Following Wenger’s comments that he will intends to sign one more central midfielder this summer, there has been considerable conjecture that the man in question is none other than Gareth Barry, chased by Liverpool for the past few months.

To be honest, I don’t see the logic in that conclusion at all. There is no doubting that Barry is a fine player, and his workrate and eye for a pass would complement Cesc beautifully, but the reason the negotiations with Liverpool have stalled is that Villa are inflating the price due to him being English.

Now, if Villa are demanding 15m from Liverpool, it is reasonable to assume that they would ask the same of us, and for Wenger to spend that kind of money on him would be extremely out of character for a man that thrives on the bargain. Surely he would think there is better value for money to be had elsewhere?

The only way I could see Barry joining is if Villa drop the asking price, which they may be forced to do if their captain is determined to leave. But if they did, Liverpool would rejoin the hunt.

As I said, I’d be surprised if he joined.

Elsewhere, two pre-season matches have been played, a 2-1 win over Barnet and a draw last night with an unpronounceable Austrian side. In both there were flickers of magic from the likes of Wilshere and Bendtner, but its far too early to be drawing conclusions. The main issue is that the players get match fit without getting injured.

Which leads us to Kolo Toure, who has contracted malaria. Fortunately, it is being reported that it is a mild strain, and he should be fit for the season opener. That said, malaria is a disease that can hang around for a while, so we’ll have to wait and see. Get well soon, Kolo.

It is nice to be seeing a bit of football again though, isn’t it?

A common trend among fans is to talk up, praise, and defend a player when he plays for your club, only to criticise them as soon as they move on and take up employment elsewhere. It is all too easy to see past the flaws of those who pull on the same shirt as you, and then feel resentment when they begin to kiss the badge of another.

Sometimes this is justified, if the manner of their exit is sour in any way. But sometimes it can smack of bitterness. Football is, after all, a business, and these players are just employees. In the business world, people change jobs all the time, working their way up the ladder towards the peak they envisage for themselves without ever looking back. So why is sport, and football in particular, so different?

The trouble is that we expect our players to have the same attachment to the club that we do, as fans. But they aren’t fans, especially in the multinational state of the game, where they grew up supporting clubs in their home country, probably never even paying the English game much attention. When they sign for us, they do so as a career move, to stretch and further themselves, not to realise a lifelong dream. It is not their ultimate fulfilment to play for Arsenal as it would be ours.

Take Flamini, who fought tooth and nail to succeed at the club, and then when he shone, chose to move on when his contract expired. We all know that Flamini is not world class - very good, certainly, but realistically his stock has never and probably never will be higher. The business analogy is if you just closed the deal of your life, and suddenly your newfound reputation saw you offered big bucks to be a consultant to others. It would be a great surprise if you didn’t cash in on your success without question.

Even Adebayor has a business equivalent. If he is being offered massive pay rises elsewhere, he is entitled to ask his current employers to match them. His trouble is that he probably isn’t actually being offered those sums, and is simply being greedy, an entirely different situation.

We cannot expect players to stay at Arsenal just because they feel attached to the club. Some become so in their time here, as Cesc as done, and that makes them eligible for additional adulation, not to mention the possibility of the captain’s armband. But this is a bonus rather than the standard. What we can expect is honesty. If a player wants to renegotiate his contract because he feels he is worth more, fine. If he intends to move on when it expires, fine. Just as long as he doesn’t lie about it.

Ashley Cole is rightly despised by Arsenal fans, not because he wanted more money, that he felt that he should get that infamous extra 5k, but because he lied about his dealings with Chelsea. He deceived us, or attempted to, effectively spitting in the face of those who sang his name. More recently, Hleb attempted to pass off a meeting with Inter as accidental when he ‘went for an ice cream’. Those are the sorts of deceptions that destroy the memory of a player in the hearts of the fans they leave behind.

But if they treat their contract with respect, and treat us with respect, then we should do the same for them, even if they are moving onwards and, in their opinion, upwards. So Gilberto and Flamini, thanks for all your efforts.

Always remember - they are the employees, and we are the fans. No matter what they do, how they leave, what they go on to achieve, we are the only ones who stick around for a lifetime. No player is bigger than a club, and no club is bigger than its fans.

A month away from the start of the new season and the summer that has so far seen very little action all across the continent is finally springing into action. And our players are very much part of the merry-go-round.

It all begins with Barcelona, who are having a changing of the guard. Deco has already joined Chelsea, and with new manager Josep Guardiola making it clear that Ronaldinho wasn’t needed either, every attacking midfielder with any talent has been touted their way.

The main two have been Arshavin and, of course, Alex Hleb. Tonight’s confirmation that Hleb has indeed made the switch probably ends the Catalan interest in Arshavin. Hleb moves for around 12m, possibly rising a couple of million higher on clauses that hopefully don’t rely on goalscoring. The man amusingly labelled Belarus’ greatest ever (go on, name me another) predictably claimed to love Barcelona on arrival, which will last precisely as long as it takes to realise the Spanish city isn’t a quiet country retreat.

Barcelona’s funds have come mainly from the sale of Ronaldinho, who has now confirmed his move to Milan, with the Italians since claiming that their spending is done for the summer, slamming the potential of a big money move shut for Adebayor.

Our Togolese frontman now appears to have only one possible destination, and that is once again Barcelona. But they already have an abundance of strikers, even if they do jettison Eto’o as has been mooted, and they are unlikely to pay Arsenal’s asking price for a reserve.

All this leaves the agents of Adebayor and Arshavin with egg on their faces, having attempted to get the clients a big money move, and in turn secure themselves a large fee. Neither now appear to have a viable destination, and while Arshavin may be able to return to Zenit having not himself expressed a desire to leave, Adebayor may find it somewhat trickier to win back the affections of a fanbase that had begun to warm to him. This summer may be one he ends up regretting.

Arseblogger makes a good point about the state of the transfer market today, explaining how many of the top clubs are resisting the big money purchases this time around. And he’s right - if you take a look at the blogs of other clubs you’ll see a considerable wave of discontent. Some Liverpool fans are uneasy about their signings so far, as Benitez does not have Wenger’s success when buying unknowns, with more Voronins than Cescs, while United haven’t yet moved to improve their squad, may lose their forty goal winger, and of course were usurped on the Ramsey purchase.

Only Chelsea have pounced, but even they’ve been quiet by their standards, Deco’s arrival perhaps signalling the end of Lampard’s time with the club. Our 16m outlay on Nasri and Ramsey suddenly looks considerable.

And more will surely come if Gilberto does make the switch to Greece, as our defensive options in central midfield wouldn’t stretch far beyond Diaby.

The next month could be very interesting.

Lots to get through today as the rumour mill moves into overdrive.

First, the news that Samir Nasri has finally arrived from Marseille in that most rare of circumstances - a Wenger transfer known about well ahead of time. He has signed the traditional ‘long term contract’, and that probably paves the way for Hleb to leave. Six years younger than the Belarussian, he is still raw but has more of an eye for goal so will perhaps be the better option in the long run. With Hleb likely to generate more money that Nasri cost, it is likely to be a very tidy piece of business.

Another man who may need replacing is Adebayor, so unsurprisingly the papers are suggesting strikers that we may want to sign. Slightly unusually, they actually have some quotes to back their story up. Colombian Radamel Falcao says:

“I know there is interest from Arsenal and that excites me. If there is an agreement between the clubs I’m ready to go. It would mean a huge leap forward in my career.”

He plays in Argentina, is 22, and has a prolific record for River Plate. All in all, it does sound plausible. Let’s wait and see.

Elsewhere, Arshavin’s agent is telling anyone who’ll listen that an English club have bid 19m for him, but had the offer rejected. I’m skeptical - United don’t need him, we won’t pay that for a player of his age, and Chelsea don’t need him either. My guess is if there has been an offer, it has either come from Liverpool, or its Chelsea trying to stop anyone else getting him.

If I’m honest, I don’t think we’ve ever been in the market for Arshavin, and I’d be surprised to see him come to England at all. He’ll end up at Barcelona, I reckon.

Finally, Charles N’Zogbia says he wants to play for us. Only two problems - one, he also says he’d happily play for Spurs, and two, he’s not actually that good. Which probably means he’ll end up at Spurs.

The summer rolls on.

Yesterday, I spoke about the way that the media try to portray Arsenal as a club in crisis, misrepresenting where they can and ignoring any evidence to the contrary. Today, both the Mail and the Sun illustrate my point perfectly.

First, the Mail, who make the ’startling revelation’ that Hleb hates the noise in London and wants to move to a quieter city. They do this with an apparent disregard for the fact that the interview is over a month old and has been covered in great detail before. How does this stuff make it to print?

And then there’s the Sun, who claim interviews with both Ken Friar and GIlberto, in which it is made apparent that the Brazilian is on his way to Greece. Friar is quoted as saying:

“As far as I know, the player and his agent will travel to Athens to meet with the Panathinaikos representatives. If Gilberto reaches agreement with them then we will reach agreement with Panathinaikos.”

While the player’s version is:

“I have no problem to come to Greece if financially happy. We will get the proposal in my hands and then stop to think about it.”

If true, this all seems very amicable, don’t you think? So how do the Sun start the article?

 GILBERTO SILVA will rock Arsenal by signing for Greek giants Panathinaikos.

He will ‘rock’ Arsenal? Really? It seems from the quotes as if we are perfectly happy to let him go, but then I’m not trying to sell newspapers or score cheap hits, so perhaps my interpretation is different.

The quotes seem to have come from nowhere, however, with the Sun not claiming to have held the interview, so I have to admit I’m a touch suspicious of them. If they are genuine, then his departure would be a disappointment, if not a surprise. His experience would be useful for another season, but at his age he just wants to play. Having shown perfect professionalism in a difficult season, I wish him well whatever he does.

A shame, but hardly cause for crisis talks. But don’t expect this to stop anytime soon.

Journalists have a few options on a slow news day. They can rehash old stories, they can wildly speculate about a transfer involving huge sums of money, or, as seems the norm these days, they can try to engineer an illusion of crisis around a club.

Take Hleb’s quotes that you may have seen in all the papers today, generally under the headline such as ’Hleb’s position untenable after Cesc blast’.. Here is the quote regarding our favourite Spaniard:

“With scoring opportunities he’s more selfish than I am. Given the chance to shoot he always goes for it, unlike me.”

Dressed up as a criticism, many are suggesting he is lashing out at Cesc, while being misguided about exactly why he doesn’t score enough goals himself. It then becomes easy to ridicule him, which is precisely the aim of the story. But imagine this question in front of his answer:

“It has been said that the midfield needs to contribute more goals. Cesc has taken up that mantle with double figures this season, what can you take from his improvement?”

“With scoring opportunities he’s more selfish than I am. Given the chance to shoot he always goes for it, unlike me. Perhaps I need to take my chances more.”

I’ve put in bold the quote that remains in the papers today. Doesn’t seem quite so bad now, does it? And I imagine it is that sort of question that led to his innocuous answer.

It is a well known journalistic trick to ask a question, record an answer, and then place that answer in a false context, much like the above example. In fact, this trick forms the basis of many stories that directly affect fans’ opinions of a player. And yet they work, every time.

Furthermore, it seems to happen to Arsenal an awful lot, seemingly because the media like to persist with their angle that we are a club in crisis. It is the same every year - last summer we were falling apart without Henry, and now we’re apparently doing the same. Why this is spun out every year is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps the Arsenal model breaks the tabloid black and white world of big money signings leading to success. Maybe they are waiting to Wenger to fail, just once, so that they can scream ‘I told you so’ to every story they’ve run for the last decade.

Or perhaps it’s just laziness. It is, after all, so much harder to generate a crisis story around a club spending big, at least until those players turn out to be flops.

So let the media live in their world, where youngsters cannot step up to greatness and if you don’t spend 20m on a player at his peak, you will fail.

Choose instead to live in the real world.