Welcome to the Nationalism fortnight. No football for two weeks unless you count some horrible matches which feature footballing luminaries like Ryan Shawcross tackling the legs out of international powerhouses San Marino. It’s just like the World Cup if the World Cup were held inside of a bone china tea cup and Ryan Shawcross comes along and crushes it beneath his boot. No doubt after he would have a good cry because he’s sensitive.
Since they don’t watch anything other than the England team (and occasionally Spain) this is the time of the year when the British press are unburdened by covering actual football matches and turn instead to human interest pieces on the players and go into hyperdrive on transfer speculation.
There will be the normal fluff interview to look forward to over the next two weeks. You know the kind, where a reporter follows a player like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain around and we get to see what it’s like to be nouveau riche (hint, they buy “rich people stuff”). After that, some dirty secret is revealed (his mum does the washing up) and he tells us all how fortunate he feels to play football for a living and how much he loves Arsenal. If they are really lucky, they get an interview with someone like Adebayor and get to ask him what it’s like to be rescued from darkest Africa and to live in London, the center of the universe.*
The warm glow of that article is usually followed up with one of those hard-hitting investigative journalism pieces where they sit down with a player and get some juicy quotes about how unhappy he is at Arsenal. “I just want to win trophies” and “it’s not about the money” are always good copy because it riles the fan base up perfectly. I know this will shock many of you but these second types of interviews are actually planned out by the player’s management team.
For example, John Cross is reporting that Theo’s representatives are set to have a meeting with Arsene Wenger over Theo’s contract. That John Cross knows this is precisely because Theo’s management team want him to know because he will report it. This has the effect of alerting the fans to the contract situation in order to help put some pressure on the management. I’m sure John will also be phoned next Monday if Theo is ready to “clear the air” over his contract dispute.
That is the typical way these interviews go but Theo’s situation has been anything but typical and I would be surprised if Theo gave the type of bombshell copy that Robin van Persie dropped on July 4th. Theo’s approach to this whole thing just feels more respectful. He hasn’t really moaned about anything and instead has just put his head down and gotten the work done.
I don’t need to read the quotes in the papers to see that he loves Arsenal. His emotion when he scored against West Ham spoke more than any well worn quote in the paper. I’ve also seen it widely reported that Theo stays behind and applauds the away fans and is always the last of the players to go back into the tunnel. I suppose this could all be part of some master plan to force Arsenal’s hand but that’s an awfully cynical position to stake out. No, I think that this is all very difficult for Theo and that if we do see any interview in a week’s time it will be the one that signals the end of his Arsenal career but will be done with the utmost care and respect for the club, the management, and the fans.
Why it’s come to this is the subject of much speculation. It’s no secret that Arsene Wenger has a valuation he places on all players that hove into his field of vision and he won’t pay a penny more or less for wages or transfers. When negotiating with Theo, I’m sure that Wenger had a maximum he was willing to go and we know that Theo’s side wanted more than that. But the difference here is actually nominal. The sticking point is over Theo’s demands.
And what if his demand is as simple as he makes out. That he just wants to be played in a center forward position. How would that work? Would there be a quota? “Theo gets to play 1700 minutes per season for the next four years as a center forward.”? Giving a player that type of guarantee is beyond the pale for a player of Walcott’s stature in the game. Only great players could ask for such a thing and great players never have to. Messi doesn’t need a positional guarantee because he guarantees his position with his play.
None of which begins to touch on the fact that no board would ever put a manager like Arsene Wenger into a situation which forced his team selection on him. Maybe a manager like Brendan Rodgers, but when your manager is a living legend you don’t cut his yarbles off and hand them to a young pup. So, I don’t know how can the club put that (or really any other demand) into Theo’s contract.
However, I’m actually buoyed by this idea that Theo’s reps are meeting with Arsenal’s reps. Perhaps both sides have been swayed by recent events.
Theo has done well to keep his head about him while suffering the ignominy of being dropped to the bench and watching Gervinho take his coveted forward role. That he’s scored four goals in nine apps (seven of which have been subs) is testament to this alone. Your ordinary footballer would have been caught doing lines of blow off a hooker’s chest by now. Perhaps both sides have softened a bit. Maybe Arsene is ready to meet Theo’s monetary demands and maybe Theo is willing to drop his ridiculous contract clauses.
If not, so we are told, Arsenal have lined up Falcao from Athletico Madrid. Falcao is a good player. Falcao would improve the team. But… Athletico Madrid literally just paid £32m to get him on 6 September August of the year of our lord 20122011. And while Arsenal certainly have the money to buy him he would cost something like £15m per year (amortized transfer fee + salary). Do you really think that’s going to happen?
Really? Gee Beav, that just doesn’t seem likely.
That hairstyle is DEEEENCH
*If you can’t tell I am using this ironically then just stop reading. Not just this article, I mean everything. Give up on reading. You’re not good at it.
not that it matters but wasnt falcao signed last summer ?? should be 2011….. sorry i normally dont point out mistakes but i love falcao.. lol
You are correct. I was looking at a report which had the main date as September 6th 2012 but hidden in the report was the “first published” date of August 2011.
I also should have known because he played against Arsenal but since it was an unimpressive game, I could be forgiven.
When was the last time Walcott scored a goal that wasn’t on the break? If you don’t lay the ball on plate for him in front of goal can he score?
If he loves the club so much, why can’t he play where he asked? I’ll give him credit for putting in a shift when he has been subbed on, but I won’t sleep over his contract situation.
Theo’s goal while not difficult, wasn’t exactly easy. It was a well taken, composed finish. Gervinho had exactly the same opportunity against Chelski and all he could manage was a fine back pass to Cech. Walcott could be a very important squad member for us but if his agent’s and Arsenal’s valuations and/or other terms are too far apart, c’est la vie.
p.s when did szcezney get THAT haircut……. DENCH
Could have sworn they bought Falcao the previous season, I seem to remember watching a South American scoring 4 goals for Atletico last season but given the way they get through South Americans it might not have been him.
I can’t see us getting him either though, lots of money for a guy that’s going to take a lot of kicks playing in the Premiership but he is a class act and one of the few players that could actually do better than RvP in our system imo
I read somewhere this morning we are “set to fight man city” for Falcao’s signature and I just laughed. I mean if this is just day 1 of the inter lull, can’t wait to see what day 14 brings!
As for Theo’s contract situation, I don’t know how much money he is demanding but if it’s around the 100k mark, I think we should give it to him – and this is coming from one of the biggest detractors of Theo on this blog. I have two reasons. 1) We need to stop selling our players FFS and have some squad continuity. 2) Like it or not, that is the market wage for an England international these days. There will come a day Ox, Wilshere, Gibbs et al will all ask for more money because they will see how much their English colleagues are making at the other big clubs. We won’t be able to match those wages but we need to find a way to be more competitive in our wage structure. While we all say that no player is bigger than the club, we need to hold on to our best players if we want our club to be successful. Otherwise we will always fall short on our ambitions. We are caught in this vicious cycle right now where we plug the gap and then another leak shows up.
I am beating the same drum again, so I will stop.
Well said, nyc. How do we break of the cycle of nuturing top talent to a level that prices ourselves out of being able to retain the players we’ve developed?
Looking at the wage differential between us and our rivals, I’m estimating we need to allocate about 18 million GBP a year more in wages to be competitive in terms of wages. This allows us to offer 50K/week more in wages to our top 7 players which means instead of offering 120K / week to some want away Dutch traitor, we could offer him 170K. Now this may not still be enough for the aforementioned traitor but may be just enough for others to show more “loyalty”. We are not going to be able to match the wages out there right now but offering something some what close to that at least makes them think twice about leaving a club at the center of the universe to go play for some red nosed cunt face up north. Obviously the most important way of doing this is by renegotiating all our commercial deals which means we will lag behind till 2014. But another way of doing this is also by trimming the squad and not paying as much in wages to peripheral or youth players. I believe this is something we are slowly doing as well but again takes time to implement.
My numbers are mostly guess work. I would love it if someone could put actual numbers together.
The TW saga has become tedious. It is my view that he will be sold in January and is trying to keep the fans on board. It could be that he loves Arsenal, but he might love money more.
I hope he signs, but not dictates.
Falcao as you say not a hope, but signing a ref would be good business.
I’ve heard ManUre are willing to sell Chris Foy on the cheap after he failed to grant a needed penalty and gave only four minutes of Fergie time in the ManUre-tiny tots match. I mean it was at Old Trafford for f***’s sake. Truly bottled it. He was demoted immediately to League 2 the week after so he’d probably be willing to transfer.
We do have a history of signing from lower leagues and bringing them up to Premier League level
nycgunner, I agree with you entirely.
On another note, nice to see the FA grow a pair, man up (and other sexisms) and charge the Chelsea two with being numpties. They’re the kind of sowt ov d’erff that we’ve grown used to being the pretty boys of the organisation.
On the same day benedict-Persie gets away with a blatant elbow by virtue of playing in a match officiated by Old Trafford’s night-watchman. Alack, the earth regains balance..
I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with Walcott wanting to play in the middle. If your team asks you to play out of your preferred position, surely you should do so, but not forever. That doesn’t make any sense. He’s been with us a long time now playing in his non-preferred position. There are certainly other teams that will play him in his preferred position. If Arsene won’t, I don’t fault either of them, just move him for a good fee. Personally I believe he will be great in the center. His finishing is good and his burst over five or ten meters will take him past CBs playing him tight. It’ll also keep him out of the alley he gets caught in on the right.
If you published your blog from a UK domain you’d be top of this list:
http://labs.ebuzzing.co.uk/top-blogs/football
I always suspected that Gooners as a whole were a more literate tribe than the average football supporter, but it’s impressive how many top footy blogs are Arsenal-related.
In other perhaps less erudite and more colloquial words, Rock On Dude!
(BTW, I consider Ebuzzing (a social media marketing measurement and consulting group) a credible source, as I have used their services on past projects.)
See you all after the break…
I checked, they have my feed but I’m not listed for some reason.
Hmm…I’ll look into it. My people will call their people. We may even do lunch. I’ll let you know what I find.
Who else has become numbed like me when the Newsnow Arsenal feed has headlines about us buying a player? It just never ever comes true.
We can’t afford Falcao. Any dummy can see that. One of the 10 best strikers in the world, and our entry in that list bolted a couple of months ago for more money when we had a “home team” discount going for us.
(Messi, Ronaldo, Eto’o, Ibrahimovich, Gomez, Van Persie, Rooney, Aguero, Neymar, Falcao)
Hiya
Falco will never be purchased by Arsenal because:
(1) His team is aiming for the CL next season and he is their Engineer that ensures it happen by May 2013 (2) He is too expensive (3) Chelsea and ManCity are the only teams in the UK who can afford the £50 Million plus signing fee and annual salary (4) There is no guarantee that he will adapt to the EPL (It has been known not to happen for every striker) (5) Andy Carroll is available for less money (Don’t snigger at the back) (6) I believe that Arsene have some unknown European in mind we may or may not have heard of to make into a star who will be just as valuable as Falco is at present.
Theo Theo Oh Theo. I have no bad words to say about Theo.
But he needs to sign da thing. It’s all getting rather boring…besides you can clearly see he loves playing with Cazorla (the best player in the EPL) and why would he want to go anywhere else when the grass is clearly much greener on this side of the fence.
My nephew went to the under 21 game tonight at Barnet (Jake, Frimpong, Bacary, Santos and The Coq) all played. He said both Frimpong and Jake were excellent. Praise indeed coming from him
Laters
P.S. I still cannot believe Robin Van Persie plays for Manchester United and he hugs Wayne Rooney on a weekly basis. It taking sometime to compute in my mind and my heart.
Have the same feeling when I see van Persie celebrating with his United teammates. Surreal.
For what it’s worth, everything I’ve heard from my multiple top-level secret sources inside the club says that Theo is a totally lovely bloke, and one of the few totally lovely blokes in the sea of overpaid little shits that is the world of professional football. So I’m also pretty sure his love for the club is genuine.
You know how to write in the flow…
All the time…I read the complete article…stumble upon the asterisk with the footnote and go up checking for the article where they appear..misses them completely..
Theo’s game as a central striker is not an impossibility…because I think he has good positional skills and have acquired the skills to turn and shoot or place it behind the goalie..
But he is going to be a hundred times more effective coming in from midfield running at the defender..his dribbling is not in moving the ball with his feet..but knocking it farther behind the defender and getting there before the defender can turn and say ..”hey”..Finding it hard to see how Theo is going to survive with a centre back constantly nudging his back..
I think knowingly or unknowingly he is bringing what Freddie used to bring…forget Henry, Theo…just be Freddie for a few years…we’d love you a hundred times more..!!!!
He and his agents are playing Arsenal like an accordion, and right on cue, Hill Wood has chirped in, demeaning Walcott, ridiculing footballers’ salaries (there’s an incentive to join Arsenal, Goetze, its board looks at you like Mitt Romney views union employees!) weakening our position and giving him a potential “out” with which he will be able to leave without damaging his brand too much, so when he plays for Chelsea, or Man City, he will still be able to sell products with the reputation of a “good lad.” pathetic, as usual, from Arsenal Football Club.
Another enjoyable read and I’m glad I’m not the only one that plays hunt the asterisk.
For what its worth (and I can’t make my mind up) Theo is usually one of the last to leave, but he has always done that so its not a contract thing for this season (based on home games where I’m lucky enought to be a season tkt holder)
Theo will announce his departure very soon….no he is staying. Sign da thing. Boring now