Arsenal Target Sahin Set For Liverpool

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According to reports, Arsenal have ended their interest in Nuri Sahin after Liverpool offered to pay a bigger proportion of the players wages and agreed a larger transfer fee should Real Madrid sell at the end of the season.

The news around the Twittishere for a long time was that once Song left, Arsenal were going to step up their pursuit of Sahin but it seems they have just lost out to the Reds from Liverpool.

So where does this leave Arsenal?

Arsene has stated several times that midfield is a position we are strong, so to me the “signing of Sahin” was always a red herring to appease Arsenal fans after selling Song, who was one of our most consistent performers over the last few seasons.

What’s Your Prediction For The New Season?

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One thing you can never accuse Arsenal of is having a boring summer.

We’ve lost arguably two of our most consistent performers last season, in former captain Robin van Persie and our “defensive” midfielder Alex Song. And there are doubts over the future of Theo Walcott who has yet to renew his contract, although I’d find it hard to think of another top team that would have the patience and even money to invest in him.

But we’ve also brought in several additions, in Lukas Podolski, Olivier Giroud and Santi Cazorla. They are all very experienced, both at club and international level, and are not particularly young, being 27, 25 and 27 respectively.

So the lack of experience is something that Arsene has addressed.

Thomas Vermaelen is our new captain, and Mikel Arteta (my pick for player of the season last year) is vice-captain.

So on paper at least, things don’t look too bad. We’ve also seen the long-awaited return of Abou Diaby, and should have Jack Wilshere, Tomas Rosicky, Bacary Sagna and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain back soon, and they will be (*shudder*) like new signings.

But where will Arsenal finish?

Do we now have the quality to genuinely compete in the Premier League? Or have we lost too many top quality players over the last few summers?

Tell us how you think we’ll do this season here.

For the record, I think we will finish in 4th, which will be an achievement with Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham fighting for the Top 6 places.

Good Luck Robin, Thanks For The Memories

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Now the dust has settled on van Persie’s move to United, it’s much easier to see the contribution that he made to the club.

He was here 8 years, and that is not something to take lightly. When you consider how long a players career actually is, 8 seasons is a massive chunk of that. And every time RVP wore the shirt he gave 110%. He didn’t sulk or stroll around the pitch like did Adebayor for example.

For me, RVP is in the same category as Cesc or Clichy. They’re not quite the legendary status of Tony Adams, Dennis Bergkamp or Thierry Henry, but up there with some of the best players we’ve ever had like Bobby, Freddie and Ashley Cole.

I’ve never really understood the fan’s obsession about how players behaved behind the scenes. We live in a world with 24 hour news updates and every little detail is reviewed over and over again. How do we know how Maradona or Pele were behind closed doors? They could have been complete arseholes for all we know, it doesn’t take away the fact they were some of the greatest footballers we’ve ever seen.

And that’s my point. I prefer to objectively see what a player does on the pitch, and Robin was a model professional and gave everything for the club while he was here.

Footballer’s come and go all the time. The reason why so many Arsenal fans are hurting is because players are leaving at their peak, and the replacements we bring in aren’t up to the same standard. We’ve lost Clichy, Nasri, Song, Cesc and RVP in the last year and they will go on and win trophies at their new clubs. You can say whatever you like about those players, they are top quality and will be successful in the seasons to come.

If RVP committed himself to the club this summer, the opinion of him with Arsenal fans would have been completely different. But I haven’t changed mine just because he’s gone. He was one of my favourite players because he cared and he was a winner. You could see it every time he scored a goal, you could see it every time he went in for a tackle and in the interviews he gave. He completely immersed himself into Arsenal, and I’d always smile when he talked in his Dutch/Cockney accent.

He scored some simply phenomenal goals over the previous 8 seasons against some of the world’s biggest clubs. He scored some truly memorable goals against Chelsea, Barcelona, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham in his time here and apart from that, he would defend the team, getting into countless scuffles with opposing teams players. There’s no doubting his commitment when he was here.

Who knows what happened off the pitch? We don’t know everything and for all we know he is not the villain in all of this. But coming back to my point, to me that’s irrelevant. Whatever the circumstances of him moving on, we should judge how he performed when he wore the red and white of Arsenal.

And in the previous 8 seasons, it was exemplary.

When he was unveiled at Manchester United, with Alex Ferguson sitting next to him, van Persie stated:

“I would like to start with thanking Arsenal Football Club and Mr Wenger for the last 8 years, because the last 8 years have been part of my history, my life.

“They have always been good to me, so I would like to thank Mr Wenger, the players [and] the fans for all their help, the technical stuff involved with Arsenal because as I said they have always been great to me and I look back on a positive note to the last 8 years.”

After watching the actual press conference, you could see that Robin was completely sincere in everything he said about Arsenal and this was made even more so by the fact Fergie looked uncomfortable at van Persie’s praise for his long-time arch rival.

Did he have to say that? Of course he didn’t. With his stock with Arsenal fans you might argue the speech was pointless? But maybe he does actually care about the club he spent the last 8 years of his life with.

You see all kinds of quotes being banded around which are twisted and used by the newspapers to create an issue when there isn’t. His official statement on his website was dissected at great length but why can’t any of it be true?

Is it completely inconceivable that RVP loves Arsenal? And is it inconceivable that he’s tried to win things with Arsenal but feels like there isn’t enough quality around him to make that happen? What is he expected to think when Adebayor, Nasri, Clichy, Cesc and others go off to pastures new and win things?

Loyalty is important but how about the clubs loyalty to their players? Isn’t there a responsibility for the club and the manager to equip the team with the right players to at least compete?

It is an unwritten fact that 4th spot is good enough for Arsenal. And for the last 7 seasons at least, most Arsenal fans haven’t been happy with the transfer activity during those summers and the loss of our big name players. Some fans will argue “good riddance” as none of these players were good enough to win anything when they were here.

But isn’t this because the squad and team wasn’t good enough? You can’t pinpoint people like Cesc, RVP and Adebayor as not being good enough. We all know the weaknesses in the team but they have never been addressed over the last 7 years. We’ve been close to having a good enough team but for whatever reason – financial constraints or the managers stubbornness to admit the teams failings – we’ve just been that bit short. For a few seasons, we genuinely competed, highlighted with the season Eduardo and Adebayor were electric form until Taylor de-railed our season.

Since then though we’ve been also-rans. It’s the same old story – we are just about good enough to clinch 4th spot, occasionally 3rd.

So having winners like Robin van Persie who want more is hardly the heinous of crimes.

For the last few summers, the main topic of conversation between Gooners was how Arsene wasn’t doing enough or signing the right players to allow Arsenal to compete. Need I remind you of the signings of Squillaci, Gervinho, Chamakh, Park, Bischoff and Silvestre? Suddenly, the question isn’t why aren’t Arsenal doing enough to compete or addressing the key weaknesses, but the focus has turned to these villainous mercenaries such as Samir Nasri, Emmanuel Adebayor and Robin van Persie who are “disrespecting” Arsenal and Arsene Wenger.

Maybe we shouldn’t forget the real problems at Arsenal. You ask why do we always allow our best players to run their contacts down till their last year? It’s because we’re a selling club and it’s the easiest way to sell our top players at top prices, without the outrage from the fans. Arsenal can hide behind this “he wanted to leave” rubbish while pocketing the money time and time again.

A clever system that fools almost everyone.

My Opinion On Arsene, Van Persie and Song

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I’ve been away for a few weeks, busy getting married and enjoying my honeymoon, so while I am in mood which could be described as Jamie Redknapp would put it, “literally over the moon”, I’ve also had ample time to digest and take in the events over the last few weeks, from a distance anyway.

Firstly our captain, Robin van Persie.

Looking at supporter opinion, it’s clear the vast majority of people hate Robin, call him a traitor (among other things) and someone that had one good season and has thrown Arsene’s loyalty to him in his face.

Personally speaking, Robin van Persie was a player I loved, I’m not ashamed to admit it. He was dedicated to the cause, gave 110% every time he wore the Arsenal shirt and I loved him because unlike others at the Colney Creche, he cared. He showed it every time he scored. I’ve said one of our biggest problems was not having players that were winners, that cared enough. We’ve only had a handful of winners over the last few years; Cesc, Vermaelen, Nasri and Van Persie. Every time they scored a goal, they went mental. You can tell how a player is when they reacted to scoring an important goal and those players f*cking loved it. But season after season, we ended up trophy-less.

The problem is Arsene heavily relies on loyalty but that’s not enough. Players want to win things and while people will argue van Persie only moved for the money, who else in their right mind would turn down 2 or 3 times their annual wage? And surely Arsenal would be able to pay the top wages if they didn’t reward mediocre players (like Bendtner, Vela, Diaby and the other dead wood) with ridiculous contracts. These players have won f*ck all but get paid stupid money. The gap in wages that top players like Cesc and van Persie were on compared to other squad members like Bendtner was too small.

I don’t blame RVP one bit for moving. Like it or not, Manchester United prove they can compete for the title year after year, and have done for the last 20-odd years. Who wouldn’t want to move there? Clichy and Nasri moved last season and what happened? They won the Premier League. Cesc left and won trophies as well. We lose our best talent season after season, because for some ridiculous reason we let our top players run down their contracts.

Arsene Wenger is not stupid. He obviously wants to sell these players and keep earning a profit every summer. He spouts things like “We want to keep our best players” and then does the exact opposite. He points to players “wanting to leave” but never addresses why this is the case. It’s because we never compete and 4th place will do for us. Top professionals and winners don’t want this. Cesc even took a pay cut to leave Arsenal so he didn’t leave for the money. The fans are fed up with the lack of trophies so why wouldn’t the players?

Van Persie engineered a move because he’d had enough. But does anyone ask why players want to leave? I tell you one thing, if Arsenal were winning trophies and being competitive then there wouldn’t be a question about whether they wanted to leave or not. And now Alex Song is doing the same.

Loyalty is a two way street. Van Persie has been at Arsenal for 8 seasons and only won the FA Cup. He’s 29 and doesn’t see Arsenal winning anything anytime soon. So why shouldn’t he move? If he had assurances we’d compete then he would have stayed, but selling Song isn’t exactly doing that. He’s seen Clichy, Cesc and Nasri all have success elsewhere and wants some of the glory.

Song leaving is also very disappointing. Along with Arteta and van Persie he was one of our best performers last season. You can dismiss his contribution just because he’s forced a move away – he was an important player for us. He made mistakes but created so many chances for vital goals last year and was improving all the time.

We are now selling players at their peak and the anger is always aimed at the players and not the club, which is something I find strange. Why is no-one addressing the reason why they want to leave? You can’t just label all of them mercenaries and gold diggers can you?

We’ve lost van Persie and Song, and brought in Cazorla, Podolski and Giroud. They are decent acquisitions but we can’t keep bringing in new talent then losing others. It’s a vicious circle and we need to build year on year, instead of being at the same level every season. I have no doubt we will do well in patches this season and a Top 4 finish is probably realistic.

But Arsenal’s fans and players want that bit more.

So Who Is To Blame For All This Mess?

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If we weren’t upset enough at the statement Robin van Persie left on Wednesday, Alisher Usmanov also released an open letter to Arsenal, criticising them for the way they run the club.

So who is to blame for all this?

And what are the problems?

The main problem for Arsenal fans is the lack of silverware, the idea that 4th spot in the Premier League is more important than a trophy and the fact that our best players don’t believe in the club anymore and leave year after year.

And those are the key themes from both of those statements.

Listening to Radio 5 Live’s Football Daily Podcast, it is reported that Robin van Persie had a meeting with Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis on May 16th, just after the season ended. They discussed plans for the future and apparently, Van Persie was shocked and clearly taken aback when Arsene revealed that he believed that in the season just gone (where Arsenal finished 3rd and 19 points off both Manchester clubs) that current Arsenal squad was good enough to challenge for the title. It is reported that there was even arguments about where the club was going, the currently playing squad and transfer targets.

So if that is true, then Robin van Persie was long gone before the Euros even began.

But who’s fault that we’re in this mess?

Is it Robin van Persie’s fault for having some ambition and wanting to win things? While he was not right in what he did regarding the statement, that does not mean the contents are any less true.

Or is it the Arsenal boards fault?

Arsene Wenger has done wonders at the club and I saw a clip on Sky Sports News yesterday where it showed that Arsenal were 19th in the spending charts, with a total of -£21 million spent over the last 5 seasons. There is no doubt Arsene is a genius and has done so much for the club, but imagine what he could do if his hands weren’t tied? I think MAnchester City and Chelsea were top of the spending charts, spending around £380 million (I can’t remember the exact figure, but it’s a lot!), just to think if Arsene had even a fraction of that to spend then what could he do with Arsenal.

The fact is this has been bubbling under the surface for the last 5/6 years now. Arsenal fans have been disgruntled at why we haven’t been realistically challenging for honours and with statements from our captain and talisman, and now a major shareholder, it is just now all out in the open.

Where do Arsenal go from here? Resentment towards the club and departing players has never been so high and I wonder if Arsenal can turn this around and make this team we love so much into a successful one.