Arsenal
Phoenix from the ashes? The rebuilding begins
Phoenix will rise
By Merlion
September 6 2011
Now it is time for the 4th Team to break the Emirates Curse and turn it into a fortress that opponents fear. That every opponent will turn up not fancying getting a result, but has only one thing in mind. How to keep the score down without a rampant Arsenal winning the game within 20 minutes?
Part 2 for introduction read part 1
2011 to ?: The rebuilding begins now with that “8-2 OT thrashing” a watershed event and akin to Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, a point of no-return that Arsene Wenger had embarked upon that will result in utter annihilation of his “Ajax Model of team Building” or total victory in creating his 4th and greatest Arsenal team.
Since 1998, it is the only 2nd time in Arsene Wenger’s career that he bought such a large slew of youths and experienced players to rebuild his team, recognizing the shortcoming and failure of wholly dependence on youths to overcome the “buying power” of ManLeeds, Abu Dhabi City, Chelski and now, John Henry’s Liverpool.
But yet, when Arsene Wenger is right (and I still believe he is still right) in rebuilding his 4th Team, he must follow his brand of “Special Togetherness” and remembered that what made Rinus Michels’ Ajax 1970s so successful is that the players played for each other, harmonious both on and off the pitch.
Contrast that to his 3rd Team, with no loyalty to “Arsenal FC”, mercenaries all with Arsenal FC as a “transitory stop”, a shop window for whores to display their wares, disloyal players and cliques formed in dressing room, reaching its pit with that notorious Adebayor’s head-butt against Bendtner at, of all places, our greatest rival, White Hart Lane.
Whither Arsenal FC?
I am glad that Arsene Wenger had addressed those “deficiencies” in his 3rd team as follows and now turning to a 4th team:
1) Lacking Premiership Experience
Twenty-nine year old Arteta and 31 year old Benayoun addressed our greatest weakness in lacking an experienced midfield and lack of guile and creative playmaker in our middle. A relative inexperienced Aaron Ramsey is a typical English player (okay he is Welsh), all graft, and grit, fully committed but lacks that vision and creativity of Fabregas or even the guile of Nasri to function as our numero uno central midfielder.
That is, Arteta and Benayoun will complement Ramsey in providing that experience and playmaking ability that he lacks, as well as lifting that massive burden of his young shoulders of being the one and only creative midfielder that is fit to start for the next 3 or 4 months due to an injured Wilshere.
Moreover, playing alongside Arteta and Benayoun, it will allow Ramsey to develop his game of simple and direct passes and drifting into the box or creating his own shooting opportunities outside the box, which is actually one of his strongest attribute – goal scoring as an attacking midfielder. The other bonus is that a young Ramsey, training and playing together with experienced players like Arteta and Benayoun into an integral midfield will develop his understanding of the movements of his team-mates, tracking them and deliver a more accurate and proper weighted pass in his simple and direct manner.
It is Jack Wilshere who is the closest thing to Fabregas, that is:
- Playing with his head up and always scanning the pitch thinking two or three steps ahead of his opponents;
- Pass and move in anticipation of the movement of his team-mates and defenders;
- The knack to spot an opening or passing channel a split second before opponents;
- The ability to spray long passes with accuracy and proper weight;
- The ability to drift and ghost into the box to score;
- Or to create shooting chances outside the box.
Therefore, Arteta and Benayoun are exactly what this Arsenal team needed:
- Premiership experience;
- Hungry and committed players who want to win something and who want to play CL Cup;
- That both of them are transitory in nature and functions as catalyst to develop the likes of Ramsey, Wilshere, Oxadle-Chamberlain and Ryo Miyaichi into full-fledged squad players by January 2012.
And there is also another long-term Plan during January Transfer Window. That is, Arsene Wenger may very well go ahead to buy his primary target in Eden Hazard or Johann Gourcuff or Gotze or some other “marquee players” to complement Wilshere, Ramsey, Oxadle-Chamberlain, Ryo Miyaichi and Aneke.
2) Our woeful Strikeforce
From our past trends, we really have “half-a-season” wonders as follows:
- Chamakh with a dreadful 2nd half of the season as the Invisible Man. His confidence seemed shattered and really worse than Bendtner.
- Van Persie, that perennial “half a season” wonder;
- Walcott, another “half a season” wonder with injuries hampering his season;
- Bendtner and Vela not integrating into the team.
The problem with Arsene Wenger’s attacking “4-2-3-1” formation is that he expected we need to score in every game and the function of the “Lone Striker” is that holding player he needed to bring the attacking midfielders into play to score goals. That is, the ideal goal tally should be as follows:
- 40% from Strikeforce or Forward-3
- 50% from Attacking Midfield-3
- 10% from Defence and “own” goals.
Van Persie is a selfish player – perhaps an attribute of a goal-scoring centre forward – who will rather shoot than to pass to a better positioned team-mate. That is, he is no “Henry” or “Bergy” who has the vision to slip through a pass to a team-mate or to hold the ball to play one-two with a team-mate running into the box. And Van Persie is no “Alan Shearer” nor “Drogba” as a centre forward as his instinct is to run in from deep to score. Nor does Van Persie have the instinct like Eduardo’s “fox in the box” ability.
Bert Van Marwijk’s Holland 11-0 thrashing of San Marino may give us a clue as to the best role for Van Persie in “4-2-3-1” or Fluid Football. The clue is that Arsenal needs a “Huntelaar” upfront with Van Persie given a free role to play behind him.
That is, Walcott or Park CY to play in that forward role, the ability to run between defenders or across defenders, and the ability to hold onto the ball to slip it to a deep running Van Persie. And of course, as seen by the first 3 to 5 games of the season, the interchanging of flanks between Van Persie, Gervinho and Walcott and the ability of Walcott and Gervinho to cut in from flanks and into centre as a goal-scoring threat to stretch the opponents.
There is where if Van Persie is given a free role, he can hover more at right flank with Walcott spending more time in the centre with his pace and “off-the-shoulder” running to tear open any defence, with Van Persie coming in from deep as a deadly goal scoring threat.
And there is one element of goal-scoring threat that is missing form our arsenal. Reyes and Van Persie, cutting in from right flank and curled their shots into goal with their left foot. (We all saw that with Ashley Young and Park JS scoring against us).
Perhaps, by buying Park C Y, it is just a “2-year transitory period” to allow Theo Walcott and Benik Afobe to develop as that centre forward that is missing from our team since Henry left. And perhaps, Joel Campbell will get his work permit within 2 years’ time to replace Park C Y in 2013/14 season.
In summary, Arsene Wenger now has the option to revert to orthodox 4-4-2 with Walcott-Van Persie pairing or Park-Van Persie pairing as needed to win games. And also an insurance policy in case Van Persie goes off to another of his annual
pilgrimage of “3 to 4 months layoff” at Colney Medical Centre.
Having dealt with attack and midfield in part three I will turn to the defence.
End of Part 2 return to part 1 here
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:09:11:12:06:20 by Padre Pio.
I think you`re wrong about Robin. He`s held the mantel of main striker since TH14 left and therefore he may have appeared to be `selfish`, but IMO he has the ability and the skill to play the 2nd striker role and have the likes of Theo through the centre, Ox, Gervinho and Ryo suplying and coming into the box at pace.
Watching the internationals, the concept of RvP playing in the hole, as he has for Holland recently, takes our attack back a few years, to the period when Bergy had Anelka, Henry and Overmars doing things at pace rather than a lot of passing.
A time when things felt better.
The only problem is Robins fitness, but one can only hope.
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Since the end of WW1, 1919, when the FA restarted its 4 tier football league, with Arsenal fc in the 1st div, there’s only ever been one club to have never been relegated from Div 1/ EPL.
Arsenal fc
Let’s keep making history
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Quote:Now is the time for the 4th team to break the emirate curse and turn into a opponents fear
they have to get teams to fear them again 1st before they can even think of turning the emirate into a fortress.. how can you turn your home into fortress when you can barely strike fear in the heart relegation bound teams..
we must 1st deal with the injury curse before trying to deal with the emirate curse.
Can We Now Trust The Process 🤔🤷🏿♀️ or Should We Still Remain Cautious 🙇🏿♀️
Skipper Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott, Thomas Vermaelen, Andrey Arshavin and Johan Djourou are in the final season of their contracts.
Boss Wen-ger said: "We will try to sign them but we have tried before. The gap on that front has become bigger for us. I cannot say that if we go to our maximum wage we are sure to sign the players.
"We will try to convince them. Our desire is there and we are ready to sit down with them. After that we will see where we go."
Wenger was unable to promise that the star quintet will stay — although he may be happy to ditch Arshavin and Djourou.
Samir Nasri, with just a year left of his deal, joined Manchester City for £22million last month as he could have signed on a free transfer next year.
Skipper Cesc Fabregas also joined Barcelona despite Arsenal's best efforts to keep him.
Van Persie is Wenger's priority and could take his pick from any club. He is currently on £80,000 a week.
The Dutch striker is unlikely to commit until next year as he is waiting to see whether Arsenal finish in a top spot.
If they fail to land a European place, it could be difficult for Wenger to hold on to Walcott, Arshavin and Vermaelen.
[www.thesun.co.uk]
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Let's be brutally frank:
If Arsenal FC can't afford to offer 100.000 to 160,000pw to RvP and TV5, then it is best to sell 'em by June or latest July 1, 2012 to prevent another ridiculous "Cesc_nAsri' sag to disrupt our 2012/13 preparation again.
The primary aim si to rebuidl the 4th Team and if summer 2012 turns out to br a re-run of summer 2011 with RvP-TV5 in lieu of Cesc-Nasri, then we should get rid of Arsene Wenger for mismanaging the situation all over again.
There is no way Arsenal FC can rebuild the 4th team with non-committal players.
Walcott?
Arshavin?
Djourou?
No great loss if they are not willing to commit to Arsenal FC. Just get rid of 'em by June 2012 if they refuse to sign the contract extension.
We have Ryo, AOC, Benik, Aneke, Miquel, Kyle Bartley and if we buy Cahill, then Djourou and Squillaci are redundant.
Walcott?
Easily replace by AOC or Ryo or even Joel Campbell if he gets a work permit next season......
Only 2 players are irreplaceable - RvP and TV5.
Since we move to EMirates in 2006/07, it was supposedly to propel Arsenal FC intot eh rank of "marquee club" and be able to compete financially with the likes of ManLeeds, Chelski and Liverpool?
What happen?
- Szczesny
- Alex Olade-Chamberlain
- Coquelin
- Frimpong
And a few more waiting to break into senior rank:
- Miquel
- Angha
- Bartley
- Benik Afobe
- Chuks Aneke
- Conor Henderson
- Lansbury
- Jenkinson
- Ozakhup
- Ebelicio
- Boateng
let's hope that this season, they cna reach the CC Final like their predeccesors did in 2006/07 season. And they went on to have a scintillating seaosn in 2007/08....
Back in February Van Persie stated “The bottom line is that I want to win trophies with Arsenal, not with anybody else. I know you can win trophies in many countries and in many ways, but I want to do that in our way and in an Arsenal shirt.
“I’m sure I could win things at another team in another country, but would it feel like our trophy, my trophy? I’m not sure it would. Anything we win here will come from the heart and that’s what I want.”
......... but for Van Persie he has finally come to terms that things are not right here, unless drastic changes are to be made.
I think we expect players that we love to always be happy and when they come out showing a little bit of annoyance and frustration we come out attacking them instead of actually taking time to think what made the player feel like that in the first place. Van Persie conceded “When I came to Arsenal we immediately beat City. But in recent years much has happened in England.”
[www.footballtransfertavern.com]
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No matter which way you looked at it, Aug-31 buys are panicky in anture and did not isntilled any confidence in Van persie that Arsenal FC is ehading in the right direction.
The fear in Van Persie is that he is 28 year old and if he waited for that "Phoenix" to rise in 2013/14, he will be 31 yea rold, on the decline, with no certianty that he will win at elast one peice of silverware.
Contrast to what he said in February 2011 and now, October 2011, a mere 8 months span.
That Cesc-Nasri Saga had did untold damages to the morale and fibre of the TEAM with perhaps Wenger at loggerheads with the Board did no favour in the rebuilding stage.
Privately, have all those senior players like Van Persie given up that dim hope in February 2011 that Wenegr sitll cna turn aorund the team, that Wenegr have the whole-heartedly support of the Board, bakc-up by cash to buy the players Wenegr needed to strengthen the squad.
That Juan Mata Saga is very telling with Arsenal FC alleged fail to even put up the 18-mil to confirm the interest to buy Juan Mata after all terms and conditions had agreed upon.
If Arsene Wenger is to rebuild this TEAM as a title-contender for 2012/13 season, and also to retain Top-4 status, then these vital steps need to compelte by Dec 31, 2011 before January transfer Window will create a major upheaval in team building with all senior players' heads turned on all those lucrative offers by Abu Dhabi and other European clubs:
1 - It is vital for these 3 irreplaceable players in Van Persie, Vermaelen and Song to sign a contract extension.
2 - Van Persie's deal should be modelled on "Cashley Cole" contract extension: i.e.
- Persuade Van Persie to sign on a one-year extension where there is a "get-out" clause that if Arsenal Fc is out of Top-4, he is free to negotiate with any European team after Euro2012. That he is free to join any premeirship club with a "get-out clause" of 30-mil.
- if van Persie refuses to sign any contract by Dec 31 2011, keep him for 2-years and he can leave on a Bosman in July 2013....no great loss as Van Persie is vital to us for this 2011/12 "transitory' season to give Wenger that breathing space to buy his replacement in July 2012.
3 - Start negotiating with Song and Vermaelen. If they refuse to sign-on, buy their replacements in Janaury 2012 and sell 'em in July 2012.
4 - Walcott? Arshavin? Djourou?
Good riddance if they refuses to sign by Dec-31. Just get rid of 'em in January 2012 and buy players that are willing to play fro Arsenal for the next 3 to 4 years.
It is time to play hard-ball to defang "Player's Power" at Arsenal FC. Otherwise, there is no way to rebuild the 4th TEAM with committed players with plenty of deadwoods and c.unts wearing the shirt they are not committed to play for.
We must not ever have anymore "Summer of Discontents".
Furthermore, there remain indications that the latest dynasty of players nurtured calmly and quietly by Wenger at Arsenal can propel the club back to the summit playing the brand of exhilarating football which still sets this team apart from all corners.
This, after all, was a youthful side who had subjected Liverpool’s mixture of first-teamers and reserves to a 6-3 hammering which served to demonstrate this team true potency. It was the Merseysides’ worst home defeat in 77 years, and a glimpse of what the Gunners youngsters could achieve.
There was the Brazilian prodigy Denilson on one flank, a player once courted by Liverpool but enticed by Wenger to London, and England’s Theo Walcott on the other.
It says much that the most expensive teenager in British football was rather eclipsed by his contemporaries that night.
Alex Song and Cesc dominated central midfield;
Aliadiere proved his pedigree as a slick forward runner;
while Justin Hoyte, Johan Djourou and Armand Traore were a sprightly presence at the back,
with the excellent Kolo Toure directing play with the authority that, at 26, belied his years.
Wenger later admitted that developing his latest team represented one of his most satisfying achievements in management.
‘This team has been 5 years in the making, a long project,’ he said. ‘They are the best group of young players I’ve ever worked with. It’s a sensational feeling to work with them, go through it all with them and see them and know that they will never give up.
They have the heart and resilience and it’s fantastic to see people coping with the pressure at such a young age.
They say life is too easy for young boys these days, but it’s just a question of motivation; whether you want it enough.
Quality players really want to win and ready to fight.’
“Arsene Wenger The Biography” Xavier Rivoire (2007)
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That was the "Core" of Wenger's 3rd team or Wenger Wunderkind Mark 1. And they went on to a scintilating start in 2007/08 season on the verge of winning the title, but only to be let down by senior players who stopped playing for Arsenal FC in the aftermath of February BRUM match.
Only 5 of those Wenger Wunderkind Mark 1 remains at Emirates:
- Walcott
- Song
- Djourou
- Diaby
- Denilson (on loan to San Paulo)
And only one of 'em, Alex Song, made it as "Starter".
The jury is still out on Walcott and he mayveryw ell be sold in July 2012.
Diaby, Djourou and Denilson are squad member and failed to fulfil their potential.
The rest of 'em in Justin Hoyte, Aliadiere, Armand Traore, Fabregas, Flamini, Kolo and Adebayor are gone.
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We are now in a similar situation of 2006/07 with Wenger Wunderkind Mark 2, with new names like Szczesny, Gibbs, Ramsey, Wilshere, AOC, Frimpong, Coquelin, Miquel, Bartley, Lansbury, Ryo, Aneke, Benik, Conor Henderson, Ozakhup, Freeman, Ebecilio, Toral, Bellerin, Gnarby, et al.
But will they suffer the same fate as Wenger Wunderkind Mark 1, so much potential but yet failed to develop at all?
Perhaps, this latest crop of youngsters are the real thing and Wenger finanlly got it right (after 15 years), and we may see their full potential int eh new year when we fianlly got a fit senior squad, plus of course, hoepfully, new buys of quality players that we desperately need to strengthen the yougn squad during January 2012.
Makes sense.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:10:08:04:08:19 by Mad Jens.
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