Arsenal dreaming.......zzzzz...........

I was pleasantly encouraged by a lot that Gazidis said this week, certainly the hints at sorting out the wage structure and working to make financial fair play work have to be positives.  I never cease to be amazed how some fans expect Gazidis, and Wenger for that matter, to reveal all the club's secrets, it is so ludicrous and idiotic to expect this.  These fans would do well to remember that extracting maximum value from player sales revolves around a cunning game of bluff and double bluff, the same is true for buying players, our club officials and manager must not reveal their poker hand, they need to be secretive to to the best possible job for AFC.

Anyway that got be dreaming.  I started thinking of Almunia, Fabianski, Squillaci, Djourou, Denilson, Arshavin, Vela, Bendtner, Park and Chamakh.  That is just for starters, that is 10 players on big wages, they must take up about a quarter of our wage bill between them, somewhere between 20-30million of wages I would guess.  I don't think many fans would argue with clearing out this lot, obviously Almunia has already gone, so that leaves nine to go.  I don't think many could argue with this ten for a variety of reasons, Djourou has never been consistent enough and if the club are being offered what is rumoured, we should bite their arms off.

If some of these players do well at the European Championships, Arshavin, and Bendtner the cases in point, then we could actually extract some decent money for them too, also some of them, such as Carlos Vela, have done very well on their loans and could also attract a decent fee.  Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but if we could clear out this ten, bring in about 20-30million in transfer fees and clear a massive quarter of our wage bill, then it would be half the job done.  We could then set about strengthening a much leaner squad, the reduction in the wage bill would leave us room to bring in four very highly paid players without even increasing our wage bill!

Obviously clearing out a good chunk of this dross is a big challenge but I have my fingers crossed, a lot also depends on what happens to RVP and Theo, if they do not sign on then they will be sold, of that there can be no doubt, talk of them seeing out their contracts is just brinkmanship to get big transfer fees if needs be.  If Theo and RVP sign on I think we would only need 3 quality additions to be competitive, if not then we would need to replace them and add three to that.  Come on you Gunners!  The window is still young.

RVP: I think we can keep him if ambition is shown

An extremely interesting article has been published in the FT, written by a journalist, Henk Spaan, who reportedly knows RVP well, it highlights several of the key issues surrounding the future of our Dutch talisman.  The big question is how much to read into this piece?   I would say the general theme is worth our attention but some of the smaller details may well be just the author's opinion, and should consequently be taken with a pinch of salt.

"Can the Premier League’s best player fulfil his ambition with Holland – and Arsenal?"

The title tells the reader what the article is about, in simple terms, RVP wants Arsenal to show him they mean business by signing some top class talent this summer and if the club does this, there looks like being a cracking chance of him signing a new contract.  If the club haggle over small amounts of money, do not clear out the squad and bring in the quality, then RVP may well be off and I don't think many fans would hold this against RVP, if the club does not show the required ambition, we want the club to make us competitive again and show this ambition.

"Andrey Arshavin was expensive, inefficient and unpopular in the dressing room, Marouane Chamakh a mistake, Gervinho inadequate for the Premier League. And manager Arsène Wenger’s protection of the young midfielder Aaron Ramsey, with his deficient view of the game and meagre statistics (only two goals and four assists all season), doesn’t help much either."

Arshavin has been a failure and needs to go, we all know this, Chamakh has been a flop, yes.  I would take issue with the Gervinho comment, I think he has what it takes and will come good, many excellent players have taken a season or two to bed down.  The Ramsey comments are also spot on in my eyes, he has been overplayed and the manager has probably got this one slightly wrong in the way he has handled his exposure to the first team.

On the whole it is a very good piece by Spaan and I agree with the general theme, I will not be angry if RVP leaves because the club have not shown ambition.  This is another warning shot across the club's bow, they need to pull their fingers out this summer and money has to be invested, otherwise it could have significant long term effects in terms of keeping the club at the very top of the European and domestic levels.  RVP is hungry for success and if the board show they are also as hungry, I feel there is a good chance he will sign up with us for a few more years.

Close season musings and shut up doomers!

The close season is a strange beast, one would think that people would chatter less as so little happens, but in fact the reverse seems to be true, there is more chatter because so little is actually happening.  The great problem with this of course, is that people get very over excited by the most flimsy of rumours and I have to say a lot of it is extremely tedious.

Hence the massive over excitement over Eden Hazard's transfer, he is a fantastic talent, but he is just that, he is unproven at the international level, he is unproven in the Champions League, he has been outstanding in Ligue 1 only.  Many greater players than Hazard have moved leagues and failed to adapt, despite being excellent players with proven track records in better leagues and with top international sides.  I think sometimes people are a little bit quick to get excited, a bit of perspective please people.  Over £30million quid seems a lot of money for such a player, but such is life in a football world run by the arrogant unsustainable bully boy spending of Chelsea and Man City, the clubs that are extracting football's soul at pace.

The Arsenal rumours continue.  The M'Vila deal is off, done or on/off depending on whose rumour you read, countless other players are being linked, many of whom have probably been seen on Arsene's copy of Championship Manager and nothing else.  The fact remains that it is early early days and very few deals have been done by anyone, we must remain patient and remember that we have already done one fantastic piece of business in landing Podolski for a decent fee.  Ignore the crap that journalists peddle in order to sell papers when there is no decent news around, rise above it and turn the other cheek.

One thing I must mention and it may not be popular in all quarters, is the fact that a certain repugnant breed of Arsenal 'fan' is already writing off the club's activity as a gross failure, despite the fact that the window hasn't even opened in a lot of mainland Europe!  It really infuriates me and it is utterly pathetic that some of our so called 'supporters' are so keen to see the glass as eternally half empty, I think some people need to grow up and join the real world.  Get a grip you negative dooming whingers.

Onto the England side, well isn't the squad and eleven just a tad average?  In my opinion the style of the Premier League is not conducive to England developing the right type of players to be successful at the international level.  The PL is rapid, breakneck and physical, possession is nowhere near as vital, it can be more like pinball than a game of chess, it is so different to the international game.  We lack players, especially in midfield, with the right touch, technique and class on the ball to retain possession and play the kind of game needed to win a big tournament.

Players like Gerrard, Lampard, Parker, Milner, Barry, Downing et al are all just not good enough or they are too Premier League typed, they lack the necessary craft and technique to keep the ball and play a patient game of high possession footballing chess as some top international sides can.  Despite this, it is strange that the media often chooses to pull up Arsenal as being the root cause of England's failings, why is a club that does actually produce some good technical players blamed?  Especially when there are managers around like Pulis and Allardyce, they are not going to help create a new generation of top technical talent, are they?  Let's all blame the easy option, Arsene Wenger, because he's French, what pathetic lazy thinking....

Deceptive statistics, Szczesny, apples and pears

Statistics is not a simple subject and understanding the validity of rating players based on simple footballing statistics is also a highly complex matter.  In fact I would go as far as saying that most footballing statistics are not really that useful in rating players, some are helpful but many are highly misleading and far more likely to result in fans confusing themselves.

A classic case has always been goalkeeping statistics, anyone who has looked into the subject would have realised that many of the so called best goalkeepers have not had the best statistics, the classic example of this is the '% shots saved' statistic.  How can this be, surely the best goalkeepers will have the best shots saved %? Unfortunately life and football is far far more complex that this, there are numerous confounding factors that make this statistic highly unreliable and not a valid measure of comparing goalkeeper performance.

The way a team defends makes a huge difference, for example teams that defend deep and with numbers will tend to concede more shots from distance, which will help a goalkeeper's stats.  Teams that have a lot of possession with tend to concede fewer shots, but if they defend with a high line and get hit on the counter many of the shots conceded will be extremely good clear cut chances, this will make their goalkeeper's statistics look poor.

Goalkeepers who save lots of shots that are going just wide will improve their statistics by doing this, even though this is technically not good goalkeeping.  Making errors that do not result in goals is often ignored by the statistics charts, so it may just come down to luck as to whether the opponent actually takes advantage of the error, part of this is also related to how good the defence is at helping out the goalkeeper.  I could go on and on and on.  The point is that many of these hard statistics are not a very valid way of measuring goalkeeper performance, it is the classic comparing 'apples and pears' argument.  This is very relevant for Szczesny's statistics, he has been excellent this season, of course he has made a few errors, but 

The same is true for statistics like shooting accuracy and goals/shots ratios, it all depends on where the player tends to shoot from.  One could have a great shooting accuracy and never score, one can also have a mediocre goals/shots ratio because a lot of the shots are long range.  Another classic case is the pass completion rate, for example we all know that the unambitious midfielder who never tried anything risky or attacking can have a great pass completion rate, doesn't make them a great passer though, it may just mean that they are a very cautious player who continually slows attacks down.  

There is a great danger in reading too much into these kind of statistics, Szczesny's statistics being a great example of this, there is very little correlation between certain numbers and performance, this little table demonstrates this perfectly.  I would take Szczesny over De Gea every single day of the week and I suspect many Manchester United fans would too.  The moral of the story is that statistics must be interpreted with great caution, confounding factors are the name of the game.

Transfer alert - danger hot air!

I have no insider information and this summer I shall simply be waiting for official news from Arsenal.com on any transfers.  Life is too short to waste one's time reading manufactured rubbish in the papers, or incessant rumour on sports news channels, we should be wise enough to ignore these lame journalists whose job involves filling column inches and tv screens with their made up bollocks.

I would urge all my fellow Gooners to do the same, do not pay any attention to the rumour, it is a waste of your valuable time, get a life and wait for something to actually happen.  There is more to life that football, so enjoy a few weeks without Arsenal losing and appreciate what else life has to offer.

Anyway one thing to do when there is no quality football to watch is to laugh at Chelsea fans, they really aren't the brightest bunch.  This excellent piece in the Guardian demonstrated just what I have been banging on about, Chelsea and Man City are a joke, they are losing almost 300 million between them a year, they are massive failures.  It is no surprise that they will win a few trophies given the amount their are unsustainably throwing away in transfers and wages, and in the context of their record breaking losses and financial failure their achievements are really unimpressive.

It is utterly pathetic that the Premier League's boss, Richard Scudamore, is refusing to introduce any financial fair play rules in the Premier League.  The Premier League should have acted long ago, the ridiculous spending funded by rich individuals is creating a deeply unhealthy and uncompetitive environment in football in this country, there have already been many casualties in the form of clubs driven under by trying to compete with these clubs of infinite funds.  Shame on the Premier League and Scudamore, what a corrupt bunch of self interested arseholes who care nothing for the beautiful game and sport in general.

Congratulations Chelsea Football Club

I may have been a little hasty to dare criticise Chelsea's Champions League triumph and the quite delectable way in which this fine football club has been managed under the fine and principled leadership of the most benevolent of dictators, Roman Abrahmovich.  I have to say that my original article was just a sarcastic piece, intended to whip up anger in all those idiots who would dare to criticise this fine model of a modern football club.  I have now decided to write this tribute to Chelsea and apologise for my vile words.

This was no dark day for football, it was a victory for free flowing attacking football created in a sustainable manner on a limited budget.  Chelsea's football was masterful, the use of the cross bar and post was majestic in both the semi-final and final, the passing to the opposition was breath taking, the honesty from the likes of Didier Drogba a great example to young children watching, and above all, the behaviour and discipline of their club captain John Terry defined the greatness of the club.

It would be irresponsible, bitter and small minded to point out that this football club has a wage bill of almost £200 million pounds and that they are losing almost £100 million a year despite increasing revenues.  It would also be unfair and spiteful to mention that this club struggles to fill its moderately sized stadium for Champions League games.  It is also deeply flawed and pathetic to point out how many hundred million have been invested in this club and where this money may have come from, this is simply beside the point.

Chelsea are a great model for us all in so many ways, we should all be encouraged to spend responsibly in order to achieve the most beautiful and elegant of victories as this noble football club have done.  In contrast it is quite despicable and disgusting that the similarly lovely football club PSG failed to win the French league title yesterday, they were cheated out of it by the paupers of Montpellier, a disgrace and what a dark day for football this was, if there was ever a lesson that we should teach our children, it is that spending more money aggressively and obnoxiously should be rewarded with such fine satisfying victories like Chelsea's on saturday.

A great victory for football, Chelsea FC, Roman the great and the ever classy John Terry.  Money is making the game great again, let us all enjoy this great moment, nip down the supermarket for a quick bit of shop lifting and then indulge ourselves in a mobile phone involving orgy fuelled by cocaine supplied by John Terry's dad.  Blue is the colour, class and morals are our game, while winning at any cost is a fine principle with which to live one's life!

A dark day for football

Money can certainly buy trophies, but can it buy you class, respect and dignity?  Not judging from Chelsea's performance tonight.  Another extremely lucky result from a side that played some of the most dire and defensive football possible, and it must be remembered that Roman Abrahmovich has had to manipulate billions to finance this pathetic little racket.

Roman Abrahmovich sums Chelsea Football Club up.  Here is a man who has made billions as a result of theft from his own people, he now throws around his money in a wanton fashion, he spends unsustainably and arrogantly, Chelsea are losing almost 100million a season at the moment, and then he achieves the most pathetic and hollow of victories.  This is a man who no one likes, people only feign an interest in him because of his money, I am sure the same can be said for the whores in his life too, and that includes his ex wife.

Football is in a very sorry state at the moment, there is no level playing field, Munich are a great club that is run in a healthy sustainable fashion, the very opposite of Chelsea, Manchester City are just like Chelsea expect they are losing even more money a year, about 200 million a year for City.

This is not sport, this is not competition, this is an unfair game where those with the most ill gotten gains are guaranteed success, while the honest clubs who break even are given no chance in such an unpleasant environment of unsustainable greed.  The honest viable clubs are being driven under by the likes of Chelsea and this is an utter disgrace.

Strangely I have sympathy with Tottenham fans, they have now been bumped out of the Champions League by Roman's classless chavs, and this is despite the fact that Tottenham are a club that has been managed responsibly and sustainably, just exactly the opposite of the shameful Chelsea Football Club.  Chelsea deserve no credit for their success, they have spent many hundreds of millions that has been stolen from the Russian people and that has not been earnt, they are a disgrace to football and sport in general.  Shame on Chelsea on this dark dark day for football.