We have not even talked about the forwards. Left with Giroud,Podolski and Chamakh. Two of those are new to this league and I can't even remember when Chamakh last scored a goal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/aug/31/tottenham-rafael-vandervaart-hamburg-medical VDV has buggered off to Germany. He was a pain in the derby's. Glad to see the back of him.
Whereas last year we had RvP, Chamakh and Park... If RvP was injured we might as well had played without strikers. You could see Giroud and Podolski will come good even after 2 goalless draws, they in no way look out of their depth like Chamakh. It's just 2 really negative games against negative teams. We have more variety in front of goal this year and I'm sure the goals will spread through more players.
There will be no improvements from last season, just wait and see, it will be another fight for top 4, and no trophies. same old Arsenal.
And instead Spurs have brought in an exceptional goalkeeper and potentially Joao Moutinho who is a very nifty player. There's no denying it, if they complete those signings, they've had a killer last day to the transfer window.
Too early to say, we saw just as much from Chamakh in his first 2 games as we have from Podolski/giroud
We got lucky last year and RVP had the season of his career. We need three quality forwards for me. Dempsey would be a good transfer right now. Already plays in this league and can play through the middle or even out wide.
hey, who needs to buy a goalkeeper when you have mannone and fabianski? who needs to buy another world class midfielder, when you have the likes of the injury plagued Diaby, the useless Aaron Ramsey, and two other average midfielders in Coquelan and Frimpong, what more do we need? We're good to go, and have a lot of squad 'depth', hey, did you forget, the injury plagued Rosicky is still coming back.
Moutinho, I think will play deeper. Even then he does not get the goals VDV does. He is very good finisher and with only Ade and Defoe in the striking department, I am surprised that they let a finisher like VDV leave.
Coqulein is not average. Inexperienced, yes. He has the talent and for our sake we have to hope that this is his breakthrough year.
I don't think they had a choice really as VDV's wife lives in Hamburg and I think his family was really settled there. Unfortunate for Spurs really but as we learned with Fab, if a guy really wants to go to a certain club there's not much you can do to stop them. You also raised a very good point about Dempsey that I was going to bring up- would any of us take him? I think he'd be great cover in midfield and is certainly a very talented player with a nose for goal. We could probably get him really cheap too, so we could still make a profit in the window!
Any wonder it's turning to doom? Sold: 39m of players (top goalscorer & top assist maker) Bought: 39m of players. Despite 25m from property development coming in, and making a profit this year, and every other year, and other players leaving on loan / sold. There is money to spend, players are required, they're not being bought. Arsenal have no ambition to win. This is not a football club being run as a business, it is a business that happens to play football.
Spot on. There is simply no football people in charge at the top and Wenger is not willing not try and kick up a fuss and make them change their ways, he is happy to go along with it. Where are we going? Every year happy to make the top four. We needed the players we got, when we had RVP and Song. If those two stayed put, would we have got Cazorla for example?
RvP scored once (in an irrelevant 8-2 scoreline game) in his first 5 games last season... and all that with none of the utility we saw from Podolski at Stoke. - This season we start with Arteta from the start of the season, adapted to the side, and one of the best in his position in the league. (based on performance, not name power...) - This season we start with the new players making most of the preseason training. - This season we do not rely on a 1.98m, slowass German to be a starter on his first season of the EPL. (love how people have forgotten his shambolic defending when he came in.) - This season we have Cazorla playing in a position which was filled by a) Ramsey, b) Rosicky, c) Benayoun... - This season we get Wilshere back - This season we get Diaby back - We actually have choices up front - We have a Gervinho that isn't banned 3 games right off the bat when we are short on players CALM THE **** DOWN. Like I said, if we had gotten these 3 new signings this week instead of on time for pre-season people here would be ecstatic by "ambitious signings". Utterly ridiculous.
Great way to show you have no idea about what the **** you're talking about. You do know Mertesacker didn't start against Liverpool and Manunited last season when we lost in both those games? HE WASN'T EVEN ****ING SIGNED BY THEN.
-And who will cover for Arteta when he is not playing or if he gets injured? - Do we? Thanks to the Euro's they have not really had a full pre-season and on the pitch you can see that they are still adjusting. We could have slowly brought them into the team if we did not keep selling out stars from the previous season. -Per did not play against Liverpool or United when he first came in. The defence is a positive this season and I am happy with that. -Again, another positive happy with that. -Let's not count our chickens yet, He has not even started full training and when he returns we have no idea how he will cope after being out for so long. -Diaby is an injury waiting to happen. Sorry. -Do we? We have Podolski and Giroud. That's it. Compared to last season that's not bad, but that's because our planning for last season was again, utter ****. -I tried to stay positive with Gervinho, but I can't any more. He is just clueless and simply does not know what he is going to do next. How can his team mates build any sort of connection with someone like that?
