Tuesday 30 August 2011

Signings, signings, medicals and signings.. Finally some signings!


Wow! After a summer of inactivity and frustrations, we see ourselves linked with all sorts of players. Whilst there is no official announcement on the Park Chu-Young transfer it is clear that has all but been finalised and it seems that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I have it under good authority that this signing will be of benefit to the club but am unable to go into detail on him as I have seen little of this player outside of youtube segments.

I have been holding off writing as I was convinced I would have something concrete to write about today but it seems that “What’s,” “If’s” and “but” is all I have for you today.

It seems that there are a number of signings lined up which could see completion, either later today or tomorrow, including Per Mertesacker, Fenerbahce left back Andre Santos, Alex, Benayoun, Gotze and Clint Dempsey?! Of all those mentioned it seems like Santos and Mertesacker are the two deals that will be wrapped up definitely. Also it seems that we are attempting the purchase of a high profile signing with a £35m bid rejected for Gotze. It is unlikely that we will increase this bid any higher but the signs are promising. I look forward to who we are going to sign but I know this is going to beg the question; is this just a knee jerk response from a board and manager that have become complacent? I personally do not think so, it was always likely that our business, rightly or wrongly, would be done following the champions league qualifier. It is clear to all those outside of the club of what action needs to be taken yet the club itself is not panicked and may be slightly deluded into thinking, the course of the season shall correct our deficiencies. This is not panic buying just the result of a mismanaged approach to transfers.

All of the ones linked to us have the ability to improve our team but following a 8-2 defeat that wouldn’t be overly difficult. My major concern though is once our medical team is done with “fixing” Wilshire, how long he will actually last? He is now one of our best players at the club and as such, we need him to be fit and playing week in week out. I am hearing conflicting reports to not only his return date but the actual problem itself. That is never good news in the best of circumstances but with our medical team at the helm; you cannot discount the notion that he is likely to have an injury plagued season. Of course I hope I am wrong and he will be back shortly.

We have two weeks to right many of our wrongs and the first step is in the next 30 hours or so. It seems we Arsenal fans are in for an exciting day or so leading up to 11.00pm tomorrow. The mere arrival of players will lift the team, players, fans and dare I say; Manager. Despite this, it is clear there needs to be much more work done than just the purchasing of new players. It was the tactical ineptness and naivety that cost us so dearly against United. Not the personnel in itself. A conference team could have gone against the same United team with organisation and discipline and managed to concede less goals than us. I for the life of me cannot stress how hurtful it was to watch your team implode in such fashion. To be honest I probably do not need to as you all saw it, but the fact remains, with those tactics it wouldn’t have mattered who was playing, we just got it all wrong.

So, for me, these two weeks are as much about assessing our training methods, match preparation, MEDICAL STAFF and tactics as they are about the arrival of new “super-quality players”. This is one thing Wenger can have no excuses for and it is of the utmost importance that these issues are addressed before we play Swansea at home.

Again a short post, but I will be writing a fairly lengthy piece on the honour and loyalty of players in the modern game which will be posted either later today or tomorrow.

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the day and I shall speak to you soon.

Goonerverse.

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