Are Arsenal Just Panic Buying For The Sake Of It?

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Thankfully, I have been away for a week in sunny south Spain for the last six days and was fortunate to miss the shambles that was the 8-2 defeat at Old Trafford on Sunday. I did manage to avoid all of the football results and catch MOTD2 on Sunday evening and I was, quite frankly, unsurprised.

Arsenal have a threadbare squad, we all know that. Our best players don’t believe in Arsene and his methods anymore, we know that. And we also know that however optimistic I may have been during the start of the season, the best we can hoep for is 4th place this season.

Moving on though, and finding the silver-lining from the humiliating defeat against Manchester United, it seems that it has kicked Arsene and Arsenal’s arse into gear in the transfer market.

We have completed the transfer of Chu Young Park from Monaco, and are currently trying to obtain the signatures of Andre Santos from Fenerbahce and Per Mertesacker from Werder Bremen.

But don’t these signings reek of desperation?

No offence to Chu Young Park, but I’ve never heard of him before, and from what I’ve read his record isn’t great. Andre Santos you can put in the same category, and Mertesacker is known to be a solid but slow defender.

From the rumoured “war chest” that Arsenal have which is believed to be around £35 million, plus the £25 million for Nasri, £35 million for Fabregas and the rest from the sale of Eboue, then we should be a healthy position to buy more established, and more importantly, experienced Premier League footballers.

We all know about the desperate situation Everton are in, so why not try and get Jagielka and Baines? And the ridiculous saga with Bolton over Cahill is simply embarrassing.

The board keep on giving Arsene their support, but quite frankly they will continue to do so as long as the Arsenal manager continues to make them all a big profit, regardless of what happens on the pitch or how the Arsenal fans feel.

Arsenal Fans Need To Respect Arsene’s Project

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A lot of fans are disillusioned with the state of Arsenal at the moment.

From last season, where we capitulated in spectacular fashion after the Carling Cup defeat, and since then we have lost Cesc Fabregas, Carlos Vela, Denilson, Gael Clichy and Emmanuel Eboue to a combination of transfers and loans. Added to that, it is suspected that Nicklas Bendtner and Samir Nasri have played their last games for the club.

You almost feel as if the players mentioned have had enough with Arsenal and want to move on.

And if Arsene couldn’t think that things could get any worse, we also have Gervinho, Alex Song, Emmanuel Frimpong, Jack Wilshere, Laurent Koscielny, Sebastien Squillaci, Johan Djourou, Tomas Rosicky, Kieran Gibbs and Armand Traore all unavailable through suspension and injury.

So if you take into account that essentially 17 players are missing or not focused on playing for Arsenal, then that would cripple any football team.

And the fact of the matter is, in the first leg of the Champions League qualifier with Udinese, we scored a goal and kept a clean sheet, which is what we would have taken before the game.

So while things might seem bad, they could be worse. And if anything, this current Arsenal squad have exceeded expectations considering the major setbacks they have experienced already this season.

Strangely enough it was not the young players such as Miquel, Jenkinson and Frimpong that disappointed against Liverpool yesterday (in fact I thought they were all exceptional), it was the senior players such as Theo Walcott, Andrei Arshavin and Aaron Ramsey that let the side down. So you can’t fault the performances of the young players Arsene has recruited.

The fact of the matter is Arsene doesn’t have money to spend. There’s a reason why he’s reluctant to spend the money, and it’s because he doesn’t have it. Surely it would make his life easier if he did spend big money on experienced Premier League players – it would get the fans off his back, it would give him a far greater chance of success in terms of trophies and create a better feeling around the club overall. Arsene knows better than most about the animosity some Arsenal fans are displaying at football matches and surely he would like nothing more than to bring in players that would make a difference.

You have to ask yourself why isn’t Arsene spending the money? The only other explanation to not having any money to spend is that he wants to tarnish the legacy he has left our football club and get the sack. Does that sound likely?

The Emirates Stadium project was designed to give Arsenal a solid future and compete with the big teams financially and on the pitch. We are one of the few major football clubs that can balance the books and have also competed consistently at the top of the Premier League. We’ve come close most of the time over the last few seasons, particularly in the 2007-2008 season, and if it wasn’t for Martin Taylor I’m certain we would have lifted the title that year. And how about the Champions League Final in 2006? If we had a bit of luck there as well things could have been so, so different. With those two successes we could have really built on that and had even more success. But as so much in football you need that bit of luck which has deserted us over the last few years.

The model Arsenal are currently embarking on is designed to ensure that we are still a top club in 50 years time. Far too much in the Premier League era we’ve seen “big” teams like Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, Derby County and Coventry City reach the heights of success now to be condemned to the lower leagues.

Gary Neville, of all people, wrote this excellent article last week on Arsene Wenger and it makes so much sense. I’m sure you’ve probably already read it but if you haven’t I highly recommend you take a look.

In Arsene we trust.

Keep The Faith Arsenal Fans! (w/ Player Ratings)

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Arsenal (0) – (2) Liverpool
The Emirates Stadium, London

Although Arsenal lost this afternoon, there are a lot of positives to take from the game.

First of all, I thought Frimpong was excellent. He bossed the midfield, passed the ball well and was everywhere on the pitch. The first booking was just inexperience and the second although rash, was deserved. Replays showed he raised his foot and you can’t do that in the modern game. But apart from that, he was was on our best players.

Defensively as well, we were solid on the whole. Vermaelen, the man I thought should have been made Arsenal captain, was immense. He was Man of the Match for me and was outstanding. He made important tackle after important tackle and kept the Liverpool attacking threat to a minimum. And considering he was playing alongside two inexperienced defenders – 19 year old Carl Jenkinson and 18 year old Ignasi Miquel – the performance is even more impressive.

The two young defenders were also fantastic as well. Carl Jenkinson played well at right-back, and was impressive on his debut. Miquel was also thrown into the action when Koscielny went off injured after 15 minutes, and he was assured throughout the game. He actually intercepted the ball on the Aaron Ramsey own goal and that was hugely unlucky as that could have deflected anywhere.

Also, Szczesny in goal was, again, excellent. Commanding, confident and decisive, he is hopefully the long-term solution to Arsenal’s goalkeeping problems. He couldn’t do anything about either goals and made some important saves throughout the game.

So despite losing Fabregas, Eboue and Clichy to transfers, have Vela and Denilson on loan, and are missing Song, Gibbs, Koscielny, Gervinho, Wilshere, Rosicky and Diaby through a combination of injury and suspension, we competed well with a Liverpool side that have invested huge amounts of money over the last two transfer windows.

In all honesty, a draw would have been a fair result on the balance of play. Both sides struggled to really create anything and Liverpool only really looked dangerous once Arsenal went down to 10 men.

Suarez and Meireles completely changed the game once they came on with their guile, intelligence and creativeness in front of goal. Something which Arsenal are in desperate need of at the moment.

The Arsenal line-up had the surprise inclusion of Samir Nasri, who we all believe to be off to Manchester City very soon. But it is not out of the realms of possibility that looking at the threadbare nature of the squad, Arsene decides to keep him for the year and risk losing him on a free next summer. Because he is the only player in the squad that has any creativity.

We have a far more important game coming up against Udinese which is the one we need to win out of our matches against Liverpool, Udinese and Manchester United.

It is only the start of the season and I am still optimistic! Keep the faith Gooners, things can’t get any worse from here on out!

Player Ratings:

Wojciech Szczesny: 8/10
Commanding and confident. Came well for crosses and corners and couldn’t do anything for the two goals.

Carl Jenkinson: 8/10
Impressed on his debut. Defended well and push forward at times with confidence.

Thomas Vermaelen: 9/10
Outstanding. Showed what we were missing last season. Man of the Match for me and the scoreline could have been a lot worse if we didn’t have Vermaelen in the side. Sadly, probably our most dangerous attacking threat as well.

Ignasi Miquel: 8/10
Without having played a senior game before he did excellently. Intercepted and tackled well and looked settled alongside Vermaelen. Unlucky on the own goal.

Bacary Sagna: 8/10
Did well considering he was playing on the other side of the pitch. Got up and down the pitch well and kept Downing and Henderson quiet when they were on his side.

Emmanuel Frimpong: 8/10
Big, strong and is very quick. Perhaps a little to eager at times, he played well and made some important interceptions. Clearly has an excellent engine and he really impressed me with his performance today.

Aaron Ramsey: 5/10
Wasn’t in the game at all. Struggled to make any kind of impact (except the wrong kind) and Frimpong was left to cope a lot with the defending in the middle.

Samir Nasri: 7/10
Played well, considering the circumstances. Will he stay? Who knows, but if he is leaving then his inclusion in the team today shows how desperate things currently are at Arsenal.

Andrei Arshavin: 4/10
I lost count how many times he lost the ball today. Where is his head at? Because it is clearly not on playing well for Arsenal. The amount of times he lost possession was shocking and he was more of a hindrance to the team today.

Robin van Persie: 6/10
Was isolated and couldn’t get into the game at all as a result. Sad really because he is an outstanding finisher but we can’t must the service he needs. Under the current circumstances he is wasted on the pitch. He did have one guilt-edged chance which he probably should have done better with and it may have changed the game.

Theo Walcott: 5/10
A lot has been said about “footballing intelligence” and Theo showed no signs of that today. Far to often he received the ball and then proceeded to run directly in a straight line. He doesn’t shift the ball, try some kind of skill to beat a defender, he is far to predictable and that’s why the Jose Enrique had him in his pocket for the entire match.

Is Arsene Going To Make Any More Signings?

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We all know that the current Arsenal is threadbare at the moment, and we have some massive games coming up; Liverpool, Udinese and then Manchester United.

Certainly a baptism of fire.

But despite the fact we have players such as Song, Wilshere, Fabregas, Nasri, Eboue, Diaby and Denilson unavailable through injury, suspension, loan and departure, we still have not added to the squad.

I still have the early season optimism that we will use the Cesc money, or at least part of it, to bring in some experience before the transfer window slams shut.

You might call me stupid, but why would Arsene release those players (as well as Vela, Bendtner and Clichy) in what can only be described as a mass exodus? Surely Arsene has people lined up to replace them?

Or is he waiting to see if we qualify for the Champions League?

Or worse, maybe he doesn’t actually have any funds available to spend and he is just taking the fall for the football club?