Arsenal target boloney keeper, Arshavin on vacation, Messi scores goals, Vela plays, and who is the pass master now?
Who says that there’s no news today?
Arshavin on vacation, officially
The photo above is from a site called “Goaly Molly” and they have rounded up 8 photos of the Arshavin’s on vacation in Miami. Of course, the only photo worth looking at is the one I posted here, but hey, maybe you want to see Julia in a bikini, or look at Andrei Arshavin’s massive gut.
He really is looking quite corpulent.
The Two Keepers of Bologna
Several sites are suggesting that Arsenal are after 24 year old Bologna “penalty specialist” Emiliano Viviano. It’s an interesting story because most places are reporting that Fiorentina are also after him and that Arsenal are after Fiorentina’s keeper, Sebastien Frey.
Both keepers are interesting for different reasons: Frey because French, he’s retired from international football, he’s got a huge build, and looks a bit wild. And Viviano because he’s 6’5″ and his contract situation is a bit odd. It looks like Viviano is “co-owned” by Inter but that he’s out of contract with Bologna. I don’t know what “co-owned” means, can someone explain that?
I think Frey would be the better choice because we don’t need a great shot stopper, we need someone who can organize the defense and terrify opposition center backs on corners.
So, Frey or Viviano? Well, “Fray” means fight and “Viviano” is the name of Starbuck’s new instant coffee, you choose.
Meanwhile, Arsenal’s 4th string keeper is supposedly wanted by Leeds. It would be good for Szczesny to go on loan for another season, I reckon. David Seaman reckons that Szezesny will go on loan too, but then he also reckons that Almunia and Fabianski will be “fighting” to be first choice keeper next year. There’s a lot of reckoning going on about Arsenal’s keepers, I reckon.
As for Almunia and Fabianski fighting it out, I’m all for them both fighting it out, as long as it involves something really dangerous like knifes, guns, or preferably, bazookas.
Vela found his passport!
Carlos Vela found his passport in time to do what he loves doing best: playing for the Mexico national team. He’ll probably score a goal for them and it will almost certainly be a chip.
Then he will be hailed as the future of Arsenal.
Messi, is, uhh, he’s… well, pretty good
It’s worth the 10 minutes. Nuff said.
Tom Huddlestone, Pass Master?
Adding to the long list of columns by Martin Samuel which are completely and utterly wrongheaded and stupid, today he actually calls Tom Huddlestone a “pass master.”
Harry Redknapp, manager of Tottenham Hotspur, says Huddlestone is the best passer at the club and this is a team that includes Croatia’s playmaker Luka Modric, remember.
Clearly, Fourth-Place-Itis combined with the impending English national delusion which always accompanies the World Cup finals have combined to create a fever in Martin Samuel. He even compares the Chef to Gilberto Silva.
Want to see how delusional this idea is? Here’s a chalkboard of Tom Huddlestone v. Denilson in the passes category during Spuds’ 2-1 epic win.
Huddlestone completed just 18 passes, total. In fact, he misplaced 6 passes which was one less than Denilson misplaced. Of course, Denilson completed 40 more passes than Chef Huddlestone for a total of 58 passes to the Chef’s 18.
Proving once again that if you get your “facts” from Harry Redknapp, you’re a moron.
Hell, Silvestre had more passes than Huddlestone and I don’t think anyone would call him a pass master.
Diaby makes the cut
For those interested, Abou Diaby has survived Raymond Domenech’s first cut of the French World Cup team and looks all but assured to travel to South Africa and watch from the bench as Les Bleus are unceremoniously dumped out of the tournament in the first round.
Yay.
Interestingly for Arsenal fans, supposed Arsenal targets Yann M’Vila and Hatem Ben Arfa were both cut by Domenech. Hey, if we buy one of them they will be well rested for the start of the season!
That’s it for today, working on a real article for tomorrow. Hmm… Messi or Denilson?
Comments
Is there any chance we can get funding for Hollywood to do a remake of “Red Heat”, this time starring Andrei Arshavin and Marky Mark instead of Schwarzenneger and Jim Belushi?
As for our goalie situation, which I’m sure we’ll be talking about each of the next 30 days, I’m wondering if we could do a straight up swap of Mannone and Eboue for Frey? Seems the values would probably match up, right? Fiorentina was supposedly interested in Eboue last year and Mannone’s, well, Italian. Makes sense to me.
I’d be very surprised if we got Buffon, and there’s no way in hell City sells us Joe Hart. Arsene buying Hart wouldn’t make sense anyway, as Szcesny is the future at the Emirates. Why spend a boatload of cash on someone 2 years older than our phenom youngster?
Hahaha, i fucken love your blog mate. Been a regular reader since the past month.
Thanks!
Fucking shitty blog and writing hope you have something to fall back on after this trash fail’s miserly asshole..
Speaking of falling back on, why don’t you fall back on that trash bag you sleep on in the alley, you mug. And for the love of god, try to not expose yourself to schoolkids anymore.
@sally, I fell back on your mom with my Hotspur.
@Tim,
don’t mind the haters, this is a good blog. but i’m going to go all arshavin.eu on you and ask you what you actually do for a living?
speaking of arshavin.eu, look at this gem i read on it earlier.
Hello Andrey! I’m 13 years old and I fell in love with football this summer and decided to join the team…… if only I could persuade my mother …… She says that football is not for women, that it will make my calves the sizes of two balls, and in general it will make me the size of a wardrobe………… but I think it’s all nonsense! Could you tell me what are the advantages of playing football?
))
Arshavin: Ask your mom, it seems she knows what she’s talking about
hahaha that site is hilarious
@TonyM, I am the CEO of 7amkickoff.com industries.
Seriously, I’m not telling you what I do for a living. Next you’ll be asking me how much money I make? And from there it’s just twitch away from asking how big my Hotspur is
@Tim,
nah i was just wondering cos it seems like you’ve been posting alot more in recent weeks. i read your blog at work. i have no idea how much time or effort it takes to do it. must be annoying when some asshole gives you abuse for no reason.
you can add palacios to the huddlestone bracket. another player hyped up by redknapp. he can’t pass either. he has 1 goal and 1 assist this season
@TonyM, secret: I usually schedule posts to drop throughout the day before I get to work.
Frey’s been linked to Arsenal every year since Seaman retired or something, and has come out repeatedly to say he doesn’t want to go to England. So unless some dramatic personal life changes have happened for him recently I’m not holding my breath for that one, much as I’d like it to happen.
And Vela IS the future of Arsenal! Until he gets a proper run of games in the first team I won’t give up hope. But this is what I said about Senderos three years ago, so …
@b, I agree, Vela IS the future! I’ve read many bloggers suggesting that we should get rid of him this summer…! It seems that most people have forgotten that he signed a new contract earlier this season. I think he’ll be a brilliant player for us one day!
Oh, and @Tim, brilliant blog! Never mind the haters – I for one love your blog
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This co-ownership sounds a bit like the Carlos Tevez, Javier Mascherano business and should be avoided like the plague.
1. The co owning of a player over here is almost normal. The player is registered at one club, the owner of Football rights, while the Financial rights (i.e. the price of the player) can be split and shared by co-owners by any % agreed upon. (50-50, 80-20, whatever).
2. Wouldnt it be lovely to have a player named Yann ?
3. The grass looks always greener elsewhere. If Denilson were from another team, (or english), praises would come his way all the time.
4. Paraguay beat N. Korea 1-0. Yay!
Oh, a sample of Denilson’s passing range. GGG50 #3, Arshavin vs. Blackburn. You can see Den watching his left while Arsha is making the run and puts a lovely pass for him to finish.
Just read the article…Henry to play for Red Bulls. Does this mean he starts right away? With the WC coming up so soon, why would he risk injury? If you know anything about this move, could you post something on it? Henry is a GOONER for life, so I don’t imagine you are stretching too far by covering him in your blog. Thanks
@mcnabber, Just saw the article myself. I’ll ask around.
@mcnabber, Last fall, I was told by buddies in the DC area, that Henry would be with the Red Bulls after Barca’s season. He wants to wind down what’s left of his career in America.
Henry is joining NY Red Bull after the world cup.
Something has been playing with my brain since Chamakh is about to sign with us. Does it mean end of 4-3-3 and back to 4-4-2/4-4-1-1?!! if we take Van Persie and Chamakh as front 2, midfield is gonna be Song and Cesc, walcott/arshavin/nasri and the new guy (kind of a defensive minded midfielder)?!!
I can’t fit Arshavin and Nasri in that formation, I can see Wenger not buying another midfielder because of that.
I’m having a hard time with this as well, but don’t forget that there will be injuries aplenty (as always). If we go 4-3-3, I’m assuming you’ll have Arshavin-RvP-Bendtner (or Chamakh) up front, Cesc (if he stays) right behind them and Song for sure in midfield. That leaves you with one other player in midfield – my guess is Nasri on the left side. It seems to me that we could do with one less of these not-quite-winger, not-quite-striker players (my suggestion is to offload Rosicky), particularly if we keep Wilshere on. Bring in another defensive minded midfielder, preferably someone that can also handle the pressure that teams like Barcelona put on our midfield.
I have to believe that Wenger wants his first team to have both Arshavin and Nasri out there together. With a 442, can you line up Nasri and Arshavin on opposite wings? They both fancy the left side I think, right? That’s why I think it’ll be more like a 433 on day 1.
The Spanish league really is shite hey…
@Joe, Great observation. That’s pretty much what I was thinking with the Messi article. Their defense is very poor, isn’t it?
Is it just me, or does Shava look like he has “spray on abs” in one of the fotos? He’s probably the only guy in the world who can pull off actually having abs and still look like he’s got a bit of a beer belly. Oh well, as Shava’s fond of saying on his personal blog “All things are possible”.
I found Seaman’s comments rather deflating. Hopefully it was just more of toeing the company line about not slagging off players in public.
Look, no one would say that Almunia or Fabianski aren’t “good guys”. By all accounts they’re both super nice people. But that’s not what matters on the pitch. I’m not as ruthless as some Arsenal supporters in that I actually feel bad for both of them in a way because they do try. But neither one is good enough to help us win trophies.
Fabianski may get there one day, but he’s clearly got to get the mental side of goal keeping down before he’s sniffing the level of being an asset to the side instead of a question mark. If AW truly does see him as potential number 1, then send him out on loan and let him get 1st team play where it won’t hurt Arsenal til he gets his head in line with his physical skills. Bring in an experienced ‘keeper for a couple years and then let Fabianski, Mannone and Wally Cheese duke it out in a cage match (which could be shown PPV on ATVO).
For goal keeper, my vote is for the enigma that is Emmanuel Eboue.. and why not I ask you? He has played and performed decently at four other positions so why not give him a chance between the sticks? We already know he is pretty good at diving.
@nycgunner,
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – It’s an Eboue World. The rest of us just live in it.
Eboue For ‘Keeper!!
Well, we all know how adept he is at getting to the ground. That would certainly be conducive to stopping the occasional penalty kick.
‘Arry is all about salesmanship. Wenger doesn’t have to ‘pimp’ our players to national team coaches since our players have to “earn it”.
Co-ownership is an Italian thing. 2 clubs share the initial fee for a player and he plays for and gets paid by one of the co-owning teams. Say Bolton and Arsenal had a co-ownership deal for Wilshere which usually last for 2 years. Wilshere becomes a stud at Bolton and Arsenal would then say to Bolton: we want to buy out your 50% share of Wilshere. That 50% share of course is now more valuable because the player has proven himself. If the player flops at the end of 2 yrs and neither co-owner wants to bid for the remaining 50% share then it’s adios amigo.
Eboue for GK would be no worse than Jagielka at that position and cheaper too.
I spotted the Henry to NY Red Bulls yesterday on ESPN I think. ESPN says that their source is a Boston paper and that paper quotes a league source as saying that Henry will sign a personal services contract with the RB owner to play and do PR. Sort of like Pele with the NY Cosmos (remember them?). This a long time rumored moved for Henry. He will start for the Red Bulls after France’s quick exit from the WC. The NY Red Bulls have a 4 team tournament at the end of July against Sporting Lisbon among others. The RB have a new 25k seat stadium will need to pump up their ‘volume’ in this area.
http://www.boston.com/sports/soccer/articles/2010/05/16/red_bulls_pony_up_for_henry/
The apparent source for the Henry story. Henry is still ‘only’ 32yo. He has really fallen off the face of the earth at Barcelona. One break in year, one good year (last season) and this year where the jig is up. Wenger knows his Pro Zone. Wait until we get player performance data from GPS satellites. Not only is that suppose to help us ‘prevent’ injuries but could lead to selling off players earlier.
What should be really interesting is that 7/22-25 NY Red Bull tournament will have Man City and S**** in addition to Sporting Lisbon.
I have seen two Henry interviews within the past year where he said he loves NY and spends a lot of his personal time there. It’s like a mirror image of Beckham who spent a lot of time in LA before signing with the Galaxy.
He certainly will not be at Barca next year and I can’t see any European teams willing to spend big money on him, so the only way to extend his career would be in the MLS a la Pele, Beckenbauer, Juan Angel Pablo, Beckham and Freddie.
No doubt in my mind he will be a Red Bull after the WC.
@Caribkid69, http://www.sport.co.uk/news/Football/38374/Barcelona_confirm_Thierry_Henrys_departure.aspx
the season is over and now we have only ramsey in the “injury news” .
next world cup :
its august : its back to the medical camp!
life at arsenal…
“So, Frey or Viviano? Well, “Fray” means fight and “Viviano” is the name of Starbuck’s new instant coffee, you choose.” LOL. This is why I read your blog. Have been one of those quiet readers for a while now. Awesome blog Tim! =D
Julia used to look better.
@jake, Yulia. That’s what makeup and photoshop are for.