Selling Arsenal by the pound

So with the season well and firmly over, international friendlies out of the way it is likely to start heating up in the transfer window. There are now only 5 weeks or so until the teams report back to begin their training. With the tour of the Far East, Arsenal could be back earlier than most. However, for a few select players it is likely they will never see London Colney again.

There is a load of speculation that some of the senior players will not be back in a clear out of dead wood. Certainly many of the reserve team players are being cleared out. Now it remains to be seen which of the players in the first team will depart. The names being bandied about are well known to Gunners faithful – Denilson and Bendtner look about as abolute certain shoe ins for playing elsewhere as there has ever been. Other potential departures are Almunia, Rosicky, and Squillaci. Possibly others.

As we’ve looked at the three players I would hope to come in, let’s talk about the two definites that look to be gone.

Denilson

Has there been a player next to maybe Cygan that players want gone more?  Denilson joined Arsenal in 2006 from Brazilian club Sao Paulo. He had just enjoyed a fruitful stint as Captain of the Brazil U17s. And from the start he showed a lot of promise with many thinking he could be another Cesc Fabregas type of find. But, the hype was better than the player with Denilson never living up to that early potential.

Defenders of his will talk about his playing out of position but many players on many teams do. But okay I’ll give you that. He does look like he doesn’t fit into the 4-3-3 and with the likes of Cesc, Nasri, Wilshere, Ramsey and Song before him in the pecking order it was up to him to make a statement he could play with this group. Unfortunately even that Brazillian ankle of his couldn’t save him. He’s just not been good enough for this team.

My primary problem with him is that he slows down our attack when the play comes through him. He doesn’t have the vision of many of our other midfielders and takes far too much time to try and develop the play. This results in any momentum slowing down, as well as allowing opposing players to close him leaving his only option as a multiple of back and sideways passes as opposed to the desired forward decicive passes of someone like Jack Wilshere.

Thank you. You can pick up your gold pen on the way out.

I took a good look at Denilson’s passing statistics on the Guardian and the stats don’t lie he does have a high rate of successful passes. However, upon further inspection you learn that this is probably deciving. First, most of his passes happen either in our half or the middle third of the pitch. Seldomly does he pass in the final third of the pitch. Additionally, if all your passes are back to the centre or full backs or across to a midfield partner I would suspect you would have a high rate of passes. It’s only when you become more definitive going forward that the likelihood of an errant pass happens.

To bolster my point on the slowing of Denilson’s impact on our attack, you only need look back as far back as his last match played which was the last West Brom match. He started the match but in all plays our development of attack was slow it lacked any certainty and was too deliberate allowing West Brom to effectively prepare for it. Only after Denilson was taken off at the half was their any change to our game play. Frankly, in almost every match I have watched with Denilson over the last three seasons that has been the mode for this team.

Denilson realizing his time is up at the club announced on the 21st that he planned to leave the club – much to many Gooners delight.

“I’m still young. If I don’t find another club in Europe, I will go back to Brazil and play there for six months,” he was quoted as saying by the Daily Mirror. “My idea is to accept any offer from Spain, Italy or Germany from a club that is playing in the Champions League. I dream of maintaining a place in the Brazil national team.

“I’ve spoken twice with Arsene Wenger and my decision is clear. I’m not happy at Arsenal and, after five years at the club, it’s best for me to go.

Nicklas Bendtner

Has there ever been a player who hyped himself up more than Nicklas Bendtner and then failed to live up even to his own hype? At least some of the biggest egos in the game could deliver. But for a while this summer it looked like Bendtner might actually be staying as Wenger admittedly said the Dane needed the playing time. However, earlier this week in an interview with sporten.dk – eNicky B had this to say:

I have decided 100% that I must leave Arsenal. I’ve considered this for a long time and was quite clear when I arrived at my decision.

It doesn’t feel particularly strange to not know what my future holds – I’m quite calm and confident that I’ll be fine at a new club.

I’m fully focused on Saturday’s game for now, because it is incredibly important, but after the international is over I may focus more directly on my future [but] I am sure I could easily go on holiday without having to panic about it.

I’m looking to relax, mentally, after a season that was not what I hoped for or expected.

You're the only one listening Nicky

Bendtner might actually deliver on his own potential if had the work rate to go along with it. But from all indiciations he does very little to enahnce the god-given talent he has. And it’s true the lad is talented. I don’t care if it was Leyton Orient but scoring a hat trick is not easy feat. However, experiences with Nicky like that are few and far between.

For a striker of his promise his first touch let’s him down more times than not, his shooting leaves something to be desired , he does not seem particulalry suited to a poachers role but with such poor shooting ability it would be his only saving grace. I’ve also been very vocal of his heading ability. For his size it is something Bendtner could use to his advantage but doesn’t Most of the headers he scores at least to me seem more a case of luck than skill. Looking conversely at Marouane Chamakh, when he heads the ball even when he doesn’t score, the shot is one target, forces the keeper to make a save and is almost always a canon shot of a header.

Additionally, Chamakh brings us something that Nicky B doesn’t do well, hold up the ball. With players like Van Persie, Fabregas and Walcott surrounding him, Bendtner could do well by getting the ball attacking the defenders and when there isn’t a play holding the ball up to bring his teammates in. But in most cases he tries to prove his own self-worth and take the ball into the box almost always losing the ball.

Again here is another player who has been done no favours by having Wenger playing him out of position still, if the 4-3-3 is the way to go for Arsenal and Robin Van Persie stays healthy there is very little Bendy can do but try and adapt or move on. It looks like he will move on.

The rest

As mentioned there are likely to be other departures. We still don’t know what is going on with Cesc Fabregas. Curiously, Barca a week after their Chamipon’s League win have not made an offer signalling either, that they will not make a bid or they are going to actually do this in a respectable manner and through the proper channels. However, Arsenal have already told Real Madrid and Inter that the starting price for Cesc is £50 million. With Barca only willing to pay £30 million it seems like Cesc will be here next season. In a snap poll on a barca site today, Cules were asked who did they want more Thiago Alcantara or Fabregas, – only 16% wanted Cesc. Last year might have been the chance to move. This year looks a little less likely.

Please? I promise I'll be better next season.

More curious is what is going on with Samir Nasri. Wenger admitted that there is a small difference between what Samir wants and what the club offered in terms of weekly wage. Nasri is looking for £110,000 a week (similar to Cesc) and the club offered £90,000. The differnce is about £2.5 million annually. Personally, I think Nasri is holding off on signing his contract pending the outcome of the Cesc ordeal. If Cesc were to go, Nasri could get the money he wants and move this natural position. If Cesc stays, well that will indeed create a curious situation.

The frenchman is a talent no doubt. But I am not sure he has wrranted being paid what Cesc makes after one good season. He has shown glimpses but it was only this season where he actually showed up on the big stage full time. And that is even misleading as for the last half of the season he was abnormally quiet. Had he not been I wonder if some of the results we encountered would’ve been different. And then noone would’ve been clamoring over an additional £20,000 a week.

Gael Clichy looks like he will be gone as LB is one of the desired targets for this summer. Clichy has some tremendous pace but overall his a defencive liability at the worst possible times. His crossing and play making ability is lacking and we would do much better in that position if Arsenal were to sign Leighton Baines. After watching Baines against Switzerland, there is a creativity that comes with that position on attack that Clichy lacks in my opinion.

While there are others, I wanted to talk briefly about Andrei Arshavin. At the end of the season it looked like Andrei would be gone. I frankly said it would be good for the team if he were. For most of this season and parts of last he just disappeared from the pitch. Sure, he could pop up and show us those glimpses of magic that make us wonder where the special guy is more – think Barca. But loking at some other matches and the FA Cup tie where he was practically booed off the pitch – he also frustrates. But in an interview this week, Andrei says Wenger has told him he will see him in July and even though there ws much speculation that Andrei would depart for Zenit, he stated he will come back. So it looks like Arshavin is on his way back to the club for another season. I hope for our sakes it is a mixture of the Arshavin from the Barca match and the one who was defencively amazing in the United match.

Anyway guys, sorry for the delay between posts but I’ve been trying to enjoy some of this off season and been actually working behind the scenes on some improvements. We’ll try and be a little more frequent with the stories.

Unitl then . . . Stay Goonerish!!!!

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