Arsenal Thread

[Shibby]

We have the highest ticket rates plus we get CL money. I hope the stadium is getting paid off soon. Btw, when are we due to re-up our TV rights and sponsorship deals. I know we have really crappy terms now and are going to get a lot more when we re-up.

I thought everyone just got a piece of the Sky/ESPN/etc pie regarding TV rights.

If i remember correctly, your shirt sponsorship is a part of your Stadium sponsorship, which was 10 years? I don't remember when you signed that though.

Your Nike deal, I haven't the slightest idea.

[Nitey]

Nike expires in 2014 summer if I remember correctly. Not sure about the Emirates deal but 10 years sounds about right

[Nitey]

Kick off in an hour. Seeing as Stoke away is a bogey fixture for us I'm gonna say 1-1 draw . We do 'em at home but away we've only beaten them once in 4 seasons they've been in the PL

We all know that if we play how we know we can we'll comfortably get 3 points but harder said than done. Wanna see Giroud start and I think he'll have to as he gives a physical look to our attack. Too bad Bosscielny isn't available for the game, nor is Chesney :/

Edit: Team

Arsenal.com ‏@Arsenal
Arsenal team v Stoke: Mannone, Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Arteta, Diaby, Cazorla, Gervinho, Podolski, Giroud

Arsenal.com ‏@Arsenal
Subs: Martinez, Santos, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Djourou, Coquelin

-

Coq instead of Diaby and Yennaris instead of Jenkinson is what I would have gone for. Wenger obviously rates Jenk ahead of Nico, oh well.

Come on Arsenal

[DINAMO788]

Defense looks good. I was even impressed with Mertesacker. Diaby didnt have his best game but Arteta, Podo, and a few others looked good. I think the physical challenge from Stoke was a good lesson for Giroud. Defensively, i'm quite please.

But offensively, i'm apprehensive. last year, even in games where didnt play well we still created chances. I personally dont really care about the 70% possession in the games when we only create 2-3 chances per game. In fact, out of both games, the only REAL good chance I saw was the Giroud miss from sunderland. I hope Wenger has a way to get them to create more real goal threats.

[Nitey]

Nice summary. Agree with everything you said.

While it is infuriating that we couldn't get on the scoresheet, I'm impressed with how we managed our best overall team performance at stoke for years (imo). We looked solid, plain solid, and that's against a team that knows no other way to play than to be very phsyical and in-your-face, especially when they are at home. We had the chances to win it and we controlled their attack fairly comfortably, as well.

Vermaelan alongside Per looked immense. Never once doubted Per , his physical presence along with his reading of the game is brilliant

I would usually worry about the attack and lack of goals but I take solace in the fact that we had good play and Giroud made some good runs in behind and looked 'up for it'. Wasn't impressed with Diaby or Gervinho (on the right) to be honest. I'm sure the stats will suggest Diaby did his part defensively but way too often he slowed down our play going forward. Such a contrast from Cazorla, who, whenever gets the ball is making things happen. Wenger will argue that Diaby needs minutes that's why he will continue in that role, but it just looks a bit unorganised in the middle there.

I maintain that a midfield Coq, Arteta, Caz is much more balanced than having Diaby in there. Anyway, glad to have this cringeworthy fixture out the way. It's a tough enough fixture even if we had been in top mid-season form, so a draw isn't the end of the world this early. But, it's making last weekends draw look a lot worse and next weekends game against Liverpool much more important.

[DINAMO788]

I agree except that I feel Diaby is well superior to Coq. Diaby is a unique midfielder. he has a lot of skills and is hard to classify, almost the same way Yaya Toure is hard to classify. I like Diaby because he is creative and moves differently and can make something happen. Plus his legs are longer than Coquelin's lol. He wasn't that great today, didnt time his passes well or really break through, but i've seen him do it enough so that I am not worried. even though we had like over 65% possession, the game wasn't open. We never had sustained periods of possession in their third like with sunderland (not that that was much better). We need to find ways to open up games like this and get our runs in. We did not have any true scoring chances aside from the half chance from podolski.

[Nitey]

Fair enough. I see what you're getting at. The thing that stuck out for me today though, is that we still seem slow and laborious when trying to play through the opposition, just like against Sunderland last weekend - I put a lot of that down to Diaby sadly. He should be doing more to help link defence with attack and compliment Cazorla. Too often Diaby would have to process his surroundings upon receiving the ball and then act out what he wanted to do. Complete opposite of the kind of play you need to break down these stubborn, tough, defensive teams. They hate pacey passes and quick movement and we're not bringing that to the table. I think we'll be better against the big teams that go toe to toe against us, but unfortunately we'll need to figure out how to break down tough defences first if we wanna achieve anything in the league. Either that, or be clinical when a chance comes our way

By the way I thought Ramsey looked quite sharp when he came on. Got himself into decent positions. I thought he did well for TeamGB at the Olympics as well . Maybe he's finding some good form at last

Also, fair play to Mannone - he looked decent enough especially as third choice keeper. What a place to go for your first league game in three years lol

[The Boy From School]

I woke up @ 5 to watch this.

Another clean sheet and it was w/ Mannone. Where was Fabianski?

As you guys already mentioned, I was also most disappointed with the lack of creation. We held too much possession to create too little scoring opportunities. This isn't anything new.

Gervinho and Diaby were awful. I can't wait 'til Rosicky and Wilshere come back. They're much better options. Chamberlain needs to start.

I thought Jenkinson was solid which is all we could possibly ask from him right now. I still think Coquelin should start in his place. Let's see how he comes along.

Both our new forwards were very good today. The goals will come, eventually.

We're only 2 games in so I shouldn't expect much. Better moments are ahead of us.

Onto Liverpool.

[The Boy From School]

[DINAMO788]

People talk about how Arsenal is good at business and how we're great at it, esp with barcelona.

well tell me this, how the hell do Spurs manage to get 37m out of RM but we only get 15m out of barca for song. These two players arent worlds apart. I think we undersell almost all of our players. RVP was fine. But we seem to not only buy frugally just sell frugally assuming everyone is just as conservative as us. I also thought 7m for Clichy was too low. Don't even get me started on Fabregas (and i know our hands were kind of tied, but do you think if it were ManU they'd only get 26m?)

[Nitey]

True that, we get ripped off a lot of the time. But players like Song and Clichy were overrated by Arsenal fans and underrated by opposition fans and the media in general, so we don't have much to bargain with when offloading them. Hype goes a long way in football. Luka Modric is one of the worlds most overhyped players (imho) and is never worth the 37m euros Madrid are paying for him. Fair play to Spurs though lol. Btw Song was sold for around 19-20m euros (£15m)

On the other hand we have had some good business as well. Selling Nasri (one year left) and Adebayour, and even RvP (one year left) for the prices we did I'd consider good business

Fabregas we still got good money for considering he would not play for any other team in the world and he wanted to go home

[DINAMO788]

True that, we get ripped off a lot of the time. But players like Song and Clichy were overrated by Arsenal fans and underrated by opposition fans and the media in general, so we don't have much to bargain with when offloading them. Hype goes a long way in football. Luka Modric is one of the worlds most overhyped players (imho) and is never worth the 37m euros Madrid are paying for him. Fair play to Spurs though lol. Btw Song was sold for around 19-20m euros (£15m)

On the other hand we have had some good business as well. Selling Nasri (one year left) and Adebayour, and even RvP (one year left) for the prices we did I'd consider good business

Fabregas we still got good money for considering he would not play for any other team in the world and he wanted to go home

I think City would have paid a lot more than 7m for a starting defensemen. Especially who one should be more capped for France. I mean, he's better than Evra now. Abidal is old.

[Firefox]

Giroud Post-Stoke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrFG1VpWies

[Nitey]

No doubt we should have gotten more for Clichy

@FF I saw that interview yesterday. He's right in that the whole game he was looking for team-mates, I definitely noticed it too. Can't blame him for having a go. I liked the audacity to be honest .

[Shibby]

I'm sorry to have to post this.

[The Boy From School]

The least talented one in that pic is still here.

Expect me to fire back in your thread in a few days.

[Nitey]

Awesome pic. Back when RvP was no. 11

Staying in the top four is going to be hella tough this year

[Shibby]

The least talented one in that pic is still here.

Expect me to fire back in your thread in a few days.

for now!

I'm eagerly awaiting it

[Nitey]

From Sky Sports News earlier: Theo agreed a 'short term' agreement with AFC, he won't be sold this summer. LOL.

Why does it always have to be so weird or shady . To be honest, I wouldn't miss him. Not just sayin that cos there's doubts if he'll be here past next year - he is an infuriating player to watch and if he's being difficult I say cash in on him. English players are overpriced as fuck. Surprised the board haven't cashed in

[DINAMO788]

Anyone else read something like we offered him 75k and he turned it down? I've heard in the past he wanted 100k.

Do you guys know how much he's on now?

[DINAMO788]

Arsenal
Montpelier
Schalke
Olympiakos


very favorable for us, but still not as easy as United's group.

[Nitey]

Yeah it's got the potential to be tricky, but we should top it fairly easy. Giroud going back to Montpellier. Knew that would happen Either that or Malaga

[Nitey]

Can't wait for the game this weekend.

[The Boy From School]

Arsenal
Montpelier
Schalke
Olympiakos

[Cyn]

Good group for us. Should win it but Shalke and Olympiakos are no push overs either. Best of both worlds, no place for any complacency

Don't expect anything tomorrow lads and you won't be too disappointed. Another epically mismanaged summer. lol @ Walcott, guess I was right.