YAMACAST S2E3: the one where we aren’t brainwashing you
Arsenal certainly have tried doing everything they can on the pitch to right the wrong that was the loss to Aston Villa on opening day. Their 3-0 drubbing of Fenerbahce and 3-1 dismantling of Fulham as resolute performances as can be expected from a squad that finished out the previous season with 11 games unbeaten.
The key to those performances could be said are a result of a team intent on proving its doubters wrong and to some extent that’s probably right. This version of Arsenal does seem to show more mental resoluteness then other recent interations of this club. However, there was also the performances of Aaron Ramsey.
Ramsey is up until recently a fan favorite for criticism. I should know, I have often criticized him for his lack of “simple” play. In the past he tried to hard to force things. He made what I can only deem as stupid decisions, like trying heel passes that 9 times out of 10 always were intercepted resulting in play breaking down. Now, there is more confidence and strength and now some of those errant passes are finding men in red shirts.
It should also be noted that he is showing the promise alot of us expected at the time he suffered his injury. At the time both he and Jack were coming up only to have his time cut short and the light shining brightly on jack. Now with Jack just returning to the fold its Ramsey’s turn to shine in the light and its not hard to argue that right now the midfield is performing better with Ramsey in it then with Wilshere.
No, its not a slight on Jack. Jack is going to require possibly this whole season to wind up being the talent that made Barcelona look silly. He’ll get there but right now as he finds his way fully back and gets integrated more into the team its Ramsey who looks more effective along the likes of Rosicky and Cazorla.
So with the ship seemingly wrighted, it now runs into two more matches in August before an international break. First up is the 2nd leg of the Champion’s League tie and I am sure this what Bayern supporters felt heading into the 2nd leg against us at the Allianz. 3-0 seems a tough nut for Fener to crack. A draw or even an Arsenal win secure a 16th consecutive trip to the Group Stages of Europe’s premier club tournament. And while I would always urge caution if Fenerbahce come in with the same attitude as last week, i would say its a done deal.
As for the second match its sort of anti-climatic if you will that a we face of against Tottenham. North London Derbies are always cagey affairs and in the last few years have actually had some meaning to them. One this early in the season is only going to be for bragging rights as the result for either team can easily be overcome with 35 matches left on the schedule should either get the result they don’t like.
We discuss this and more with this week’s guest James McNicholas. James is a blogger known on twitter as @gunnerblog who also writes for various outlets including Bleacher Report. james and go over all the topics we just previewed and pay specific attention to Ramsey and Wilshere and their respective roles in the squad.
Tom and Bill are off this week so you are left with me in the YAMA Broadcast center trying to avoid those brainwashing air waves from the English Media.
We hope you enjoy this episode. . . Until next time Stay Goonerish!
All episodes of the YAMACAST can be accessed on iTunes via the following link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/you-are-my-arsenal-yamacast/id615279052
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oh wow. how exciting… Spurs are signing everybody…
Arsenal are linked to everybody and signing only FREE transfers…
and Wenger comes up with this gem…
he doesn’t rule out bringing back the incredible Nick Bendtner!!!!
what fcking choice does he have? Nobody wants the bitch!!!
oh Arsene, you may have outdone yourself this transfer window… you want to be
fired for f*cking up this club royally, and falling out of the Top 6?
carry on…
Flamini was my preferred utility signing. He closely mirrors the qualities Arteta brings but is 2 years his junior. As well as cover for the (deputy?) skipper he acts as cover for FB/CB. He won’t play CB but he’ll allow either Sagna or Jenkinson to do so if the need arises. He’s a perfect utility signing for Arsenal given our needs in CM and defence.
Importantly, he can integrate quickly given his knowledge of Wenger’s methods and his 3 weeks of training with the current squad. Add to this the medical team will have assessed him carefully and at some leisure so hopefully there are no hidden fitness surprises to worry about – this is why Wenger could be so bullish on this front.
But why everyone asks have we left the other signings until the close of the window? In some ways that’s mystifying, in others perhaps explainable if not correct. Wenger, and Arsenal, have historically hated spending a lot of money. You can run your finger down the list of signings through the ages and you will see truly big name signings are few. Wenger, even in the early years shopped for bargains. Some reference Henry as an example of spending but his fee wasn’t that ‘big’ at the time. Wenger has spent around the 10m pound mark for a decade. That seems to be his comfort level.
So why this growing use of the transfer window close as a key buying strategy? Is it negligence or planned? I think a good part of it is planned. You see competing for the elite names or even the 2nd tier is a hard process. The other major buyers of the day will often have an eye on a particular player and during the transfer window proper clubs essentially compete with both the selling club on fee and the player on package. Arsenal don’t like this open market – because, to be fair, there are other massively wealthy clubs prepared to enter a bidding war. So, what to do?
The close of the window offers a final opportunity for clubs prepared to play poker. Many (most?) of the big spenders have already fired their shots during the window proper and are not that serious about chasing the targets that might remain at the close. So this period offers Arsenal with an opportunity to sign players without many of their competitors muddying the water. Arsenal have cash, will have researched who they want and have a sense of how much they value a player at, both fee and package. So at the death they’re able to play a game of pressure and brinkmanship where the selling club and the player are under extreme time pressure (unless they simply don’t want/need to sell) against a prepared Arsenal. The club doesn’t have time to shop around for other offers and so Arsenal might get lucky and get the player for a reasonable fee and wage. Arteta was a good example. If we’d solicited Arteta during the window proper Everton could have looked for other offers and tried to start a bidding contest, we left our run until the close and they had a straight choice – sell or not. Similarly Arteta was under pressure to accept our offer and seemed to accept a modest package.
It’s a high risk game, it has real downsides (no preseason to integrate the player in the team) – but if it works you can get a player at a better price without the normal bidding process and clubs piggybacking Arsenal as a scout.
or… all the teams you are competing with, and willing to spend money to improve and attempt to win trophies… all get BETTER…
and you stand still watching them.
A lot of major moves happening today…
Spurs have brought in a few more really good players… will see if they play well there, but they have had a very good transfer period… no doubt doing all they can to overhaul Arsenal for a Top 4 spot… brought in about 5 players, and sell Bale… didn’t spend much of their own money… if they get Chicarito, which is rumored, WATCH OUT.
Chelsea just signed Eto’o… they are absolutely loaded with talent, deep depth… and have Mourinho running the show… Title Favorites?
ManCity is loaded… too many players to play every week… great depth, great skilled players.
United… back for Fellaini and Baines.. in for Real Madrid stars… Rooney staying.
Arsenal?
LINKED to EVERYONE. Just got Flamini on a FREE.
So far… Sonogo and Flamini on FREE TRANSFERS.
Just wonderful ambition from the club.
We look at the lack of transfers in (i.e. none bar Sanogo) and immediately imagine the problem lies with the clubs own in-house capacity constraints in concluding these elite deals or Wenger’s low motivation to see these deals actually happen. There may be truth in both. There may also be another dimension that is coming in to play. We may now be paying the price for our recent history of being uncompetitive and avoiding making elite or even just higher priced signings. The players we seek may simply not be as interested in Arsenal as they are in other clubs that they think are more attractive because they have higher aspirations.
A player is ultimately motivated by two things – the competitiveness of the club and the financial package on offer. Both are uppermost in their minds. Arsenal as Gazidis has said may now be more able to compete on the later but the former might be acting as a handbrake for the elite. Players are like fans, they look from the outside on the club and make an assessment of how serious the club is at competing in the various competitions in which they participate. Arsenal can offer CL football, but does that alone attract an Ozil? I think not. It attracts a Koscielny, or a Vermaelen, or a Cazorla – a player who the top tier clubs have overlooked. For those players Arsenal presents as a club who participate in the biggest competitions and so it allows them to taste it and be seen – albeit with limited likelihood of ultimate success. It also means that there is a chance of a big fish coming in and offering them another chance – so a Barca, Real or Bayern might come in for Cazorla and offer him the chance of actually winning something.
So what does Arsenal need to do given it is a newbie at the high stakes table? I suggest two things. First it needs to accept it might have to overpay for an elite player. It might have to pay more (both to the selling club and the player in wages) for an Ozil to entice him away to join The Emirates. Second, the club needs to be seen to be actively and visibly developing a really competitive squad, and this means signing several lesser fee players (like a Cabaye or a Casallis) early in the window so that the bigger names feel more upbeat about the clubs chances.
Sadly, Wenger’s long-run low impact transfer M.O. is just not helpful. He’s too slow. And he is too obsessed with finding only bargains. It acts as a disincentive not only to fans but to the prospective players that the club now desperately needs to compete. The better players want to sign at a happening club, not one perceived to have low prospects. Arsenal just aren’t convincing – and it’s not just the fans that are staying away.
Hello…hello…hello
Anyone out there…there…there
The words; injury situation, nightmare and crisis are often used together. So much so in fact that we become immune to what this can mean when it REALLY happens. Well, I think it is happening.
Over the summer we pruned the squad significantly and culled out the deadwood – kudos. The upside is we’re carrying a more realistic squad containing only players who are likely to play, with no dregs. The downside is that we didn’t top-up our squad in the summer and so if we have an injury spike (like we are) we’re short on numbers.
We currently have Podolski, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arteta, Diaby and Vermaelen out. That doesn’t sound a HUGE amount but it is when you tally up the number of outfield players we now have available to fill the 10 starting roles. We’re down to only 12, and this includes Rosicky (who we know is incapable of playing too frequently and is susceptible to injury at anytime) and Koscielny who is suspended, and assumes the knocks/strains to Wilshere and Ramsey are not significant and can be played through.
Only 12 outfield players. That’s incredible.
We need another 4-5 players all of whom are capable of playing first-team football. Even then we are a small squad. Have a look at the subs bench over the last week… it’s threadbare.
Wenger squads have always been small, but over the last 8 years he has made this untenable by carrying several players with poor levels of robustness and durability. I’ve beaten this drum for a long time. But carrying guys like Rosicky and Diaby (and RvP in the past and Gibbs and perhaps even Wilshere) has meant Wenger has to play the other core guys in the squad more than he’d like. Look at the current scenario, Wilshere should be handled with care, he’s a diamond but a recovering one. And yet Wenger may overplay him simply because we don’t have other meaningful options. This really is NUTS. It’s so jolly obvious that one wonders what the backroom team at Arsenal actually do with all the data available and yet we make the same drongo mistakes for 8 years.
This is where Wenger can’t seem to see the interplay between his squad size, the bad risks (Rosicky, Diaby etc.) and the need to buy in a timely manner. I mean, why wait until now, the eleventh hour to restock? Why haven’t we signed 2 or 3 players over the summer? Is every signing really that hard? Or do we play hardball poker with every transfer?
yes, its pretty crazy … that’s why I think we could literally use 5 PLAYERS.
Tottenham keep bringing in players… just signed Lamela…
We keep being linked to players we will NEVER get, and Wenger keeps commenting on them… Chelsea are NOT selling Juan Mata to Arsenal… get real!
I think the only hope is getting players from Real Madrid, because they are bringing in Bale…
so, they will sell a few to cover costs, not that they need the money…
But we’ll possibly be bidding against ManU for some of these players… are we likely to outbid them? I HIGHLY doubt it…
absolute Wenger Madness, as usual…
Didn’t see the match… followed it some on BBC commentary…
figured it would be relatively easy, as long as we didn’t concede an early goal.
Glad to see Ramsey doing well… he’s taken a LOT of crap, but you can never question
this players desire and heart… he always gives maximum effort.
There’s usually a place in any time for that type of player… see “the Romford Pele”… Ray Parlour…
We are now being linked with just about EVERYBODY.
No activity. Just links. and time is running out…
Kiwi, I agree with you 100% on Tottenham… they are a good team, even without Bale. If by some miracle, he stays at Tottenham this year, they are a definite threat for CL spot. I’d say they are deeper than we are for sure…
If they sell Bale for 85 Mill, then they are already buying players and lining up others to fill in the already good squad.
Arsenal, at the moment, are fucking spectators…
and if you don’t give another club the chance to replace the player you are buying from them, then they are MUCH LESS likely to sell.
Waiting until the last minute is just IDIOTIC on so many levels… you are more desperate, have to pay more, and teams are less likely to deal…
Yet we do it every year.
I hope Wenger makes fools of all the non-believers and buys 5 players…
but I seriously doubt it…
I saw part of this CL second leg tie. Well navigated by Arsenal, albeit with a serious injury to Podolski and some worries about Wilshere who was on the receiving end of a series of cynical kicks to the ankles and Ramsey whose energiser-like running and new-found goal-touch might be in jeopardy with a suggested groin strain.
The fact we’re concerned about Ramsey says a number of things. Here is a guy whose profile until this season was one of the eager trier. Lots of running, we were told, with seeming limited effect. A good preseason seems to have flowed in to the season proper. He’s enjoying his football and seems to have found a place for himself in this side. It makes me think a bit about another eager trier whose shadow darkens our doors again, Marseilles treacherous one Messer Flamini.
The parallel between Ramsey and Flamini is interesting, neither player looked particularly convincing in their early stages at the club, both looked perhaps odd amongst their ball playing highly technical peers. But each had a certain battling spirit, persistence, and a willingness to run and run. And interestingly each in persevering found a place to call their own amongst the more technically talented peers. Flamini we recall became the minder for Fabregas, Hleb and, when he was fit, Rosicky. He patrolled in front of the back four and pinged the ball to the trio. I thought of him, fondly, as our water carrier. I liked his little nasty streak so needed by that ‘nice’ team. Perhaps we’re now seeing Ramsey shape a role for himself that might become more permanent. His strengths in running and chasing every cause from minute 1 to minute 95 allied to his not inconsiderable ability in most other aspects of the game just might be enough. Few Arsenal supporters would feel anything other than a warm sense of pleasure given his horrible injury and continued commitment.
Let’s move from a comparison of players, past and present, to a comparison of clubs. Are we seeing the emergence of Spurs in a similar vein to a pre-Abramovich Chelsea? If we turn our minds back Chelsea’s rise didn’t actually start in 2003 with Abramovich and Mourinho it happened much earlier than that. Chelsea got the bit between its teeth and started doing a series of ‘right things’ in management appointments and in increasingly impressive player recruitment. Under Gullit, Vialli and Ranieri Chelsea started being more ambitious and winning more often. This moved them from being a midtable participant to an upper table club who won a series of cups from 1996 to 2000; 2 FA Cups, a League Cup, a UEFA Cup Winners Cup, and a UEFA Super Cup. Not bad – wouldn’t we have liked that over the last 4 years! At that point they were eyed by Abramvoich who as we know took them to another level.
We might now be seeing another London rival in Spurs make moves to iteratively improve their standing in the English game. They’ve always been big, certainly bigger than Chelsea, but in the current footballing world order they’ve remained a participant and not a rising competitor. But that might be changing. I sense the clubs leadership/ownership is now more determined and calculating in their desire to move from being a fifth or sixth placed team to being a CL participant. And we know from our own experience once you get to the CL level you really are on a different plain.
Spurs seem to be appointing good managers and backing them up with a series of good player recruitment decisions. They don’t seem to be overwhelmed with setbacks such as their failure to get that magical fourth place for the last two seasons. In fact, they seem even more determined. And the loss of Modrić and perhaps Bale look more to be met with measured acceptance and a savvy use of finances in a manner reminiscent of Arsenal with Anelka, Petit and Overmars. Arsenal’s timid ambitions may have left the door ajar for another London rival to walk through.