Tag Archives: Gonalons

gonalons-capoue

Pumafergiespurspocalypse: with any disaster, opportunity knocks

At about 4pm my time Tuesday, while all decent souls in England slept, The Mirror reported that Arsenal were set to sign a 5 year shirt deal with Puma worth a reported £170m. The response on twitter was immediate, the jokes began to flow, the congratulations, the moaning, and of course everyone began spending the money that Arsenal won’t actually bank until at least 2014.

Just to give you a sense of how big this story was in the Arsenal online community I made a joke on Twitter about how this image (below) was an “Exclusieve” look at the new Puma-Arsenal WHITE away kit and I received something like 1000 retweets in just a few minutes.  puma

Instead of giving twitter free traffic, I pulled my tweet down and posted a longer version of the same joke here on 7amkickoff. After all, hits mean money and money means I get to go to England to see Arsenal next season.

I kind of knew this would happen but within minutes my site was down and it stayed down until around 2am. The story has all of the markers of a huge hit generator for Arsenal web sites: new kit, money, the hint of transfers, and of course I used “white away” which pushed the button of the memory of that white away turd that Nike foisted on us a few years back.

Jokes aside, my real reaction to this story is that we need to all take a deep breath and wait for some facts. You know, “stuff not reported by John Cross”. I’m not saying he’s the worst reporter or even that he has his facts wrong but with deals this big you always have too look at the details before you can say much of anything.

Sadly, some people are already spinning the deal as negative: it’s not big enough, it’s not the biggest deal in English football history, it’s only average, Puma kits are ugly, etc. These folks wouldn’t be happy no matter what Arsenal do: win the League Cup and “it’s not a real trophy”, win the League and “we should have won in 2007-2008″, get a massive shirt sponsorship deal and “yeah but its front loaded which makes me wonder why Arsenal are so cash strapped!” Etc.

Here’s how I’m going to measure this and every deal (TV money, Emirates sponsorship, Puma, Thomas Cook, Pringles, Gauloises, Trojan warming gel, whatever) until August 2013: by the players Arsenal buy and the trophies we win. That’s all that really matters.

Of course there will be smaller stories about how much money we have, whether we have the £100m or so that I think we need to spend on this squad, and where the money is going but ultimately I just want to see the next Henry, Bergkamp (think we already have him in Cazorla), Campbell, and Vieira. That’s it.

Before the furor had even begun to subside over the Puma shirt news story, Sir Alex Ferguson sensed an opportunity to one-up his old rivals and decided to announce his retirement from football. Good. It’s about time.

I don’t give two fucks, TWO FUCKS, about his record or any of this other shit we hear about “what a great man he is” or how he “helped English football.” Save the hagiographies for when he’s actually dead. I have never liked him or the things he got away with in the media, on the field, and with his teams on the pitch and I’m not going to go all jelly soft in the middle over him now that he’s retired. Besides we all know that he’ll be back in 6 months when he takes over for Moyes or whomever fails in his place.

Who will take over from him? Well, that’s the real question now. United announced that the next manager would be “cut from the same cloth as Busby and Fergie” which has led many to the conclusion that Moyes is tipped to take over. It led me too believe that the next manager will be a diaper (because Fergie is full of shit). I have no idea who is taking control but you can bet your bottom dollar it won’t be Sam Allardyce, no matter what he says he could do if only he had a bigger team.

That said, I feel like all this is an opportunity for Arsenal. There seems to be a lot of money sitting around. The figures have been guestimated between £70-100m last summer and even more this and more the next summer when the Puma money comes in, especially if the Puma money is front loaded like reports say it is. That ability to buy for two consecutive years is important because no team, not even City and Chelsea, are able to get all their targets in the first year.

And there are plenty of positions that need filling at Arsenal: I’ve been banging on about getting a keeper at Arsenal for years — if Szczesny’s good enough the competition will make him better; we also need to replace Arteta, who is a hugely important player and leader, but he can’t play forever — get in one of these guys like Gonalons who is big and can make a pass; Arsenal need forwards — Gervinho has played 2 years with Arsenal and scored 11 goals, we need to call time on this guy, sorry, but there are other dribblers out there in the world who don’t need to be molly-coddled. And that’s not a complete list nor does it address issues with depth at Arsenal. For example, Bony is only £10m folks, £10m. That’s what Arsenal paid for Gervinho and I can tell you that Bony is a far sight better than Gervinho.

What we have here is a fine example of Ivory Coast center forward, and he ain't too damn "Bony"

Another opportunity is that a lot of players are leaving Arsenal this summer as well which will clear plenty of Salary room to make a big name signing. Squillaci, Arshavin, Fabianski, Djourou, and others are coming off the books, their salaries combined are over £200k a week. That money could buy a player like Cavani, Lewandowski, or Bale, big names, big salaries… money we will have.

But first, Arsenal need to qualify for the Champions League and to do that they need to win their last two games against the two worst defenses in the League: Wigan has allowed 67 goals and Newcastle has allowed 66 goals. Yes, they are both battling to escape relegation but Wigan has to play Man City in the FA Cup final, then three days later Arsenal.

4th place is in our hands, no matter what Spurs do, Arsenal have 4th place locked up if they win their last two games. And frankly, if we can’t beat Wigan and Newcastle we don’t deserve 4th place.

And talking about opportunity, 3rd place is even open for us, depending upon what kind of disaster strikes Chelsea and Tottenham. See… opportunity from disaster.

Qq

gonalons-capoue

Bang a Gong (Gonalons)

I will make no bones about it, I think Arsenal need to strengthen the spine of the team. I have called for Arsenal to buy a keeper for a year and a half, for Arsenal to buy a defensive midfielder for five years, and while I haven’t been on the center forward bandwagon as of late, if Arsenal were to buy a top quality center forward I wouldn’t complain.

The keeper comment will get me in trouble, I know, because it’s unpopular to say anything negative about Wojciech Szczesny. The way I have phrased this in the past is that Szczesny needs a legitimate backup. Someone like Mark Schwarzer of three years ago who can back him up and take over if needed but who isn’t in direct competition for the long-term. I’m going to be more direct: Szczesny needs competition.

There are better keepers out there, like Simon Mignolet. And if Arsenal bought Mignolet and Szczesny can’t beat Mignolet for the starting spot right now then he we have to question whether Szczesny deserves to be starting right now? I’m sorry but if we saw Almunia flapping at crosses the way Szczesny has been the last few weeks, or parrying shots back to the middle the way he has the last few weeks, there would be riots in the streets of Islington.

Maybe Szczesny is just going through a bad patch, I’m not sure. Maybe he will be a great goalkeeper one day, I’m not sure. I am, however, pretty sure that he’s not a great goalkeeper right now. His one saving grace, his supposed “presence”, has gone missing and I happen to believe that he needs someone to push him to get that back. Vito Mannone is not that someone. Nor is Fabianski if he ever gets healthy again.

In front of Szczesny it would be nice if Arsenal could stop tooling around with undersized midfielders and get someone of the stature and power of Patrick Vieira or Emmanuel Petit back into this team. I have made no secret that Vieira is my favorite player. Of course, Henry played the beautiful game, but it was Vieira who could pick out a pass as beautifully as Cesc Fabregas in one moment and stand up to a thug like Roy Keane in the very next.

Vieira often gets a bad rap as a destroyer but as Gunnerblog points out in his tribute to the man he was so much more: he was so much more that Arsene has to use three midfielders now to do what Vieira and Petit used to accomplish as two.

There are players out there who do what Vieira used to do, big, muscular players who don’t shy away from a tackle, who get their head in on challenges, who understand basic defending, and who can switch from defense to offense in a flash. Arsenal, sadly, don’t have one. Diaby is not that kind of player because let’s face it, he’d rather be playing in Cazorla’s position than Mertesacker’s. Arteta (bless him) is one of the best passers in the world right now but he lacks the physical presence of Vieira.

Wilshere could be that player. He would stand up to Roy Keane, no doubt. He also has that silky smooth dribble and the natural inclination to go forward that made Vieira more than just a defensive midfielder. But I think he needs someone next to him to help with the physical battles so that he’s not going it alone so often. Someone tall, who can fill in at center back when needed and who wins the aerial duels that Wilshere can’t. Someone to hunt with Wilshere in a pack, like Petit and Vieira. Wilshere could be the mini-Vieira and that would mean that Arsenal could use a bigger version of Petit — though, Petit wasn’t exactly tiny at 185cm.

Reportedly, Arsenal are scouting Maxime Gonalons tonight as Tottenham play Lyon in the Europa League. And Gonalons sort of fits the bill of the type of player that I would like to see at Arsenal. He’s 4th in Ligue Un in tackles per game (3.7) and tied for 7th in interceptions (3.1). He’s also 8th in the Ligue in fouls (2.1) and 12th in being dribbled by opposition midfielders (1 per game). So, he’s a very active midfielder who gets stuck in to the tackle but also gets bypassed and is known to commit fouls. Where Gonalons really shines though is in his passing and especially his accuracy from distance.

gonalons
As you can see from the chart above, Gonalons is very Arteta-like in almost every stat. He’s a tidy passer, who is plenty accurate from distance (83% is very good), and keeps possession at a rate that puts him among the best. I tend to look at turnovers (which are unforced errors) as a key indicator of a player’s touch and as you can see he’s only had 17 tunovers this season. He’s also been consistently playing at this level for two years. There was a slight uptick in his long ball percent (he was 77% last season) but all the other stats have been roughly the same.

Two of Gonalons’ goals have come from headers and he is surprisingly good in the air both offensively and defensively. He has won 73% of his aerial duels and that is a better rate than anyone at Arsenal.

That said, I can build a case for Arsenal to go after Etienne Capoue instead of Gonalons. Capoue’s got more of the pure destroyer in him than Gonalons, despite the fact that Gonalons has more tackles. Capoue is a much more physically imposing midfielder, he wins a lot more headers than any other midfielder (8th in Ligue Un), has a significantly better clearance rate than Gonalons, and has only been dribbled past 10 times.

His passing numbers are not great but they are workable and he’s a real threat off set pieces and is a powerful midfielder in the counter attack. Gonalons and Capoue met earlier this year and despite Capoue having a poor passing game, he really outplayed Gonalons. The last goal in particular was, well, you watch it and tell me who this reminds you of:

Personally, I’ll take either Capoue or Gonalons. But if I have to choose I think Capoue would fit with Wilshere better. You’ll note that I also included M’Vila in my graphic. I still think M’Vila has the talent to make it at Arsenal, but I’m not sure that he has the mental strength. After falling out with the French national team he has really hit a slide. His transfer to Rubin Kazan for just about £12m was a significant discount on the £20m Arsenal were quoted this summer.

None of those players are going to be cheap. Capoue will break the Arsenal record as he is now attracting interest from PSG who want someone to play along side Blaise Matuidi now that Motta is 30 and Veratti is struggling. Gonalons is the darling of the French press right now. And a keeper like Mignolet is not going to be cheap.

But Arsenal have the money.

Qq