An important six weeks for Arsenal
Friday, 18 July 08, 12:10 AM
So, yesterday Aliaksandr Paŭlavič Handbrake Hleb completed his move to Barcelona for a reported fee of £11.8m. One suspects that he'll need to improve considerably if another club is likely to envoke his new £71m buy-out clause.
As we know, Hleb was a decent player for Arsenal, but the lack of end product means that he won't me be missed very much. 7 league goals and 11 assists in 79 Premier League games was a paltry return for a player of such obvious talent. Personally, I think Hleb was simply fed up getting kicked all over English football pitches week-in, week-out, although this would certainly have been a more valid excuse for leaving than saying "Hampstead is too noisy". I live less than 1 mile from leafy Hampstead, and it's not Trafalgar Square I can tell you. Still, he's gone now and I won't be joining in the chorus of boos and hisses that fans generally bate departing players with. He'll probably do a very good job for Barcelona, and create a lot of assists for his team mates, but I still don't think he'll score many goals because he's simply not designed that way - he didnt score many for VfB Stuttgart either, so in hindsight maybe we got what we asked for.
Since January, Lassana Diarra, Mattieu Flamini, Gilberto Silva and now Hleb have all departed the club for a variety of reasons. Losing four midfielders in six months is not something that I'm used to experiencing as an Arsenal supporter, and I won't deny it leaves me feeling a little insecure. I'd rather not submit to the theory that Arsenal are becoming a cash-saving, youth-rearing machine unless we win nothing again next season and Fabregas decides to call time on his Arsenal career, but for me the next six weeks transfer activity will go a long way towards appropriating the viability of that scenario. We all have our own transfer hopes and expectations, and with pre-season about to start the clock is ticking for Wenger to satisfy them.
At present, Arsenal have lost a lot of midfield experience and quality, although there's no doubt that this loss has been offset by the fact that the club was over-saturated by midfield players last season. Subsequently, Wenger has purchased two new midfielders, Aaron Ramsey and Samir Nasri, but they won't yet provide the quality/impact that Hleb, Flamini and Diarra would have provided had they remained at the club. Wenger is well aware of that, so let's see what happens. One thing's for sure, he won't be buying Gareth Barry for £18m - more like £12m + Hoyte, which would be good business. That alone and a world class centre back would give me a sense of relief and optimism. A high-profile replacement for Adebayor a sense of delight.
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Im in 100% agreement with the sentiment of the article. I enjoyed Hleb's contribution, his work for the team,and while his productivity in frotn of goal left me as frustrated as everyone else, ill miss him next season.
It looked to me that Hleb more than any other player was the object of some brutal kicks, and during the season i kept wondering why he would stick in the EPL and put up with this sh*t, alas he didnt. I hope Nasri isnt a driect replacement in this regard.
Sometimes it's good to ask arsenal fans this question... after naming those players who's left us, and we're not talking about back up players, but first team players who drove us to real title challenge since end of 2004...
To say the coming team will be better than these nuts? is ridiculously stupid. So difficult was it, after going through 3 years of transition, which they call. After getting the right gem, to gel the team together as one great unit, however hampered by injuries made us realise we needed more good backups, not eboue to back for hleb he's out. But instead Wenger has a mastermind plan it seems, after nearly 4 years now since the EPL was us.
Those who says trust in AW, for he had delivered them before... well let me give you a note. The teams we see today, even last season's team was nothing compared to the team during Wenger's first 6 years in charge.
Now we are so less ambitious. We are content to be able to fight till end of Feb, then lose out the title from then, and claim 4 points behind MU, like it was actually that close, but in fact we've lost out early on, and Chelsea from nowhere had gone ahead of us and made the final title challenge.
Wenger has never got us into a 4 years without anything (apart from that FA Cup which we played terribly but won). He didn't prove before he could overcome this problem. That's what distinguish him and Sir Alex Ferguson.
Ferguson when he first came to MU, he couldn't win the title in almost 4 years, was performing averagely and bad.
But a slow start, a failure drove him to know what success is like. He found the recipe to success by learning his failure.
Wenger came in and won medals for us, successful first 6 years, and then what happened? Did success turn him into arrogance?
Think about it. It takes time to let new players, and let's not say YOUNG NEW Players, to gel together with the team and really play like champions, for none of them had won anything except Gallas who won with Chelsea.
You have more faith than me, I for one wont be suprised if wenger doesn't buy anyone else. You don't want to subscribe to the feeder club theory, I wonder what you see different to the last 3/4 off seasons, take a look at the invincible team, then look at this one, tells you all you need to know. The truth is, take away our beautiful football and you see we haven't done sh** for a number of seasons now! That's fine if you don't care about trophies!
I do care about trophies and thought we were definitely heading in the right direction last season. Losing Diarra was careless, Flamini a little naive, but I'm not sure what Wenger could have done about Hleb and possibly Adebayor.
For me, the centre-back position is all important and could transform this team into winners, but Wenger seems happy having what I would call a highly insecure back four. There is a big question mark regarding the players' composure when it comes to the business end of the season - and for me the problem has gone on too long to be ignored.
If he does not make the right purchases then I will certainly make my voice heard - but only at the right time. Let's see what Wenger does first - he has earned the right of our full support up to now. How much longer that should continue is probably worthy of debate, but not ingratitude.
arsene personifies both arrogance and astute stubborness..good quality but after 3 years of not delivering, i am beggining to doubt...
Fair points you raise, you see in one breathe you and others can't say wenger knows,then in the next say the defense needs work. Of cause it does, you need a commanding CB in this league prefarably two. But no wenger sees sendros and song able to do this. I am not saying wenger out, just show some ambition. Last point, I wish it went back to two teams only that qualify for CL, then we would see how ambitous this club really is!
13 Comments
You hit the nail on the head here. I think Arsenal has lost a bulk of experience in the middle of the park. Hopefully Nasri would settle in fast enough.
Of the players that have left, diarra is the one that we shoudl have kept. It was bad management by Wenger to let him go especially as Wenger was prepared to let Gilberto go and there was always a doubt over Flamini's future.
Nasri is a better player than Hleb.