Been away for about five months, had some personal reasons but that’s all in the past now … back to the world of Arsenal!

So what have I missed? Season ended like shit, from almost there to being happy with securing third place. Some positives, some negatives,  but thats football.

Since then, we have added -

• Ramsey - undisclosed from Cardiff, expected to be around 5mil … Our new number 16
• Nasri - undisclosed from Olympique Marseille, expected to be around 11mil … Our new number 8
• Vela - back from a 2 year loan spell with Salamanca then Osasuna after being granted a working permit … Our new number 12

We have lost -

• Flamini - Free to Milan (best summer transfer according to goal.com)
• Lehmann - Free to Stuttgart
• Gilbert - on loan to Leicester

As of the time of writing this, these are the only official deals. According to the press, Hleb to Barcelona is a done deal and should be announced today, while Gilberto is off to Panathinaikos or Everton. Adebayor to Milan or Barcelona has been on and off on an hourly basis for the past month. I think it would be safe to assume that all three will be off eventually.

Personally I think that all 3 plus Flamini will be missed. Adebayor would be the most important of the 4 only because of his physical abilities, but at the prices that have been quoted around in the press, I wouldn’t mind seeing him go at all. I would see him as a 10-15 mil player at most, if these 20-30 prices are accurate, then it would be good business. He is a one season wonder as far as we know, he scored 24 goals in 36 games. Put in mind that people like James Beattie and Keving Phillips scored 23 and 30 in their prime, WITHOUT the services of people like Fabregas (19 assists, leads the league) and Hleb etc.

Gilberto has been a great servant to the club, and deserves all the best in whatever he does. Flamini was just as greedy as Adebayor, and in my opinion is another above average player but nothing special. Its just a shame we didnt make money off of his exit. Hleb is my personal favourite from the 4 who left, and I would have loved to see him stay one more year. He never fulfilled his undoubted potential to the fullest, but he was never considered a bad player, he is definitely special!

Whether the new arrivals can replace those who left is yet to be seen, and who else will be added is also not clear. We have been linked to about 80% of all players on earth, so its just guesswork for now and is useless.

One pleasant surprise has been the lack of constant speculation on Cesc’s future at the club! I thought that this will be the main problem, especially after his excellent performances during Spain’s winning Euro campaign. I am hoping he is smart enough to realize how he can become a god (Bergkamplike) at Arsenal if he stays long enough.

I want to start off first with some transfer news. After his excellent performance in the African Cup of Nations and winning keeper of the tournament for the second time in a row, reports are now linking the Egyptain Esam El-Hadary to us. He is an incredible keeper, and has also been instrumental in Al-Ahly’s great run (see earlier post). He even managed to score a 70 yard goal in the African Champions League! He would have been a perfect signing …. 7 or 8 years ago! Although he still performing at his peak, he is 35, and that peak doesn’t have much more left in my opinion. Unless he costs something like 100,000 and is happy to be our backup keeper, then this makes absolutely no sense.

Yesterday, Milan played Livorno in a game that ended 1-1, and more significantly, ended Ronaldo’s season with what seems to be a very serious knee injury. Apparently even Livorno’s keeper heard his knee pop and he was left in tears as he was stretched off. I’d like to say this is good news, but no serious long term injury is good news. Let’s just say I hope he recovers on March 5th and not a day sooner.

Speaking of Milan, we just replaced them as the 5th highest-earning clubs of 2007. According to Deloitte, the new table has four English teams in the top 10, which was the case last year, but all 4 have risen up the table.

1 (1) Real Madrid £236.2m
2 (4) Manchester United £212.1m
3 (2) Barcelona £195.3m
4 (6) Chelsea £190.5m
5 (9) Arsenal £177.6m
6 (5) Milan £153.0m
7 (8) Bayern Munich £150.3m
8 (10) Liverpool £133.9m
9 (7) Internazionale £131.3m
10 (12) Roma £106.1m

It won’t be long till the top 3 will be taken over by English teams replacing the Spanish duo who have traditionally been top two. One interesting point is that Barcelona has slipped to 3rd from 2nd, which looks bad for them. There is, though, one point that is forgotten here, and that is Barcelona’s sponsorship money. While teams like ManU are making more than £14.1 million a year, Barcelona, on the other hand, are actually donating money through their sponsorship with UNICEF. They are donating a minimum of €1.5 million a year and are spreading the name and message of UNICEF globally.

While English teams are planning a 39th game worldwide to guarantee more income, you have a team like Barcelona using the strength and power of football and its name to try and make a difference in the world. I’m happy we’re climbing up the money tables, but it also saddens me seeing others doing good and keeping the soul and conscience of football alive and not us.

First things first. Apologies for not updating the site for such a long time. I had my reasons, and hopefully its back to business as usual from now on.

Now to football. I will not go over the games I missed because they have been discussed at every other blog already and its too late to go into details about them. In summary, we lost to spurs in the beer cup, we beat Newcastle twice 3-0 in the FA Cup and the league, and finally a 3-1 win at Man City capped up the week. Adebayor has been on fire, scoring 6 goals in the last 4, and 12 in his last 8 games! Adebayor has scored in every game he’s played in 2008.

We are extremely lucky that Togo didn’t for the African Cup of Nations this year! Losing Adebayor would have been a total disaster, especially with his current form. The tournament has been exceptional in terms of quality and goals. So many goals, this is actually the most goals ever in an African Nations cup! 98 goals scored so far, thats an average of more than 3.1 goals a game!

Yesterday’s 3rd place game was typical of the tournament. Ghana beat Ivory Coast 4-2, and the best thing about the game was that Gerard Gili, Ivory Coast’s coach, rested both Kolo and Eboue for the game, but played Drogba and Kalou the full 90 mins! I would like to think that Gili was doing his fellow Frenchman Arsene a favour, but I have a feeling it was a result of the shocking display by our pair in their embarrassing 4-1 loss to Egypt. Kolo in particular had a total nightmare of a game, and I’m glad he got that bad game out of his system in an international game and not an Arsenal one.

Song on the other hand has been magnificent for the Cameroon. He is one of the main reasons Cameroon have reached the final. In fact, he has played every minute except for the 1st half of the first game against Egypt, which ended 3-0. When he came on for the second half, Cameroon were significantly better, and his solid performance continued for the rest of the tournament. He will prove to be the perfect answer to everyone’s doubts about selling Diarra and Gilberto leaving.

We have been able to cope surprisingly well with the loss of Kolo, Eboue, and Song. Senderos has stepped in for Kolo and has proved how solid he is with almost faultless performances. Hopefully the knock he got from the England game is minor, but it seems like he is a doubt for our next game, which means Toure will have to be rushed in as soon as he arrives. Thanks again Gili for keeping him rested for our game!

In other international games, Fabregas was great for Spain as they beat Gallas’ France. Bendtner scored for Denmark for the third time in a row. Walcott scored for U21s. Lehmann kept a clean sheet, and there’s more about our players international games on the Arsenal.com website.

On a final note, you may have noticed the small award banner on the right side. Many thanks to Jammathon from third-gen, who started this initiative, and I am the lucky recipient of the first New Blog award! I feel like I betrayed that trust in not posting for so long, but hopefully I’m back to business from now on!

The most talked about position at Arsenal this year has been the goal keeper. Fighting over the position, talking to the press about the other players, and now transfer rumours in and out are being associated with the goalkeeper position.
Let’s take a look at what has happened this season -

We have had our German Mad Jens in goal for the past 4 seasons. This year started just like the seasons before, but only 3 games and 2 big mistakes into the season, Lehmann was dropped because of ‘injury’ and replaced by Almunia after the Blackburn game.

For the next game against Man City, this is what Wenger said -

“Jens is out and he will miss two weeks, maybe more. He is going to see a specialist in Germany. He had this injury before but it has got much worse. Apart from the mistakes, he had good games. The first mistake he changed his mind and he was caught and the second one maybe it was the flight of the ball. This is the first time I have seen him make this kind of mistake. With his feet, things can happen but with his hands he is usually 100 per cent secure. I am convinced that he is still top drawer.”

So Almunia was in for now, and started well with 2 clean sheets in a row. He actually had 6 clean sheets in his first 8 games in goal.

Come October, Lehmann is fit enough to play for Germany. After the game, he says :

“I am fully fit now and expect to be back against Bolton. I expect him [Wenger] to play me. So no worries.”

So he automatically expects to start again, which is understandable being the #1 keeper for 4 years. What I don’t understand is why players say such things to the media. Saying such things to the press is an indirect way of putting pressure on the coach and setting up for a confrontation. Wenger’s reply? Not even giving Lehmann a seat on the bench for the Bolton game!

“Jens has to be a little bit patient. Patience? Yes, that is not his first quality, but he has to fight and be patient and be ready. In our job you always have to fight hard and cope with any situation. At the moment Jens has to deal with that. And I’m sure that he is strong enough to do that. I just decided to leave him out for this game. I decided to go with Almunia, but the next game after that we will see.”

Only a few days later, the turning point in my opinion of the whoe ordeal happened. In an interview with German television said the following -

“It could be that at some point I feel like commenting on the whole issue, but right at the moment I just accept everything as part of the humiliation. You have to let it happen,”

“But I think - and this is directed towards my dear coach - that you should not humiliate players for too long. I am an Arsenal player and I will not just fade away quietly.”

“I am convinced I will soon be playing again. Almunia hasn’t shown that he can win us matches just yet. I have been through this situation once and know how the other keeper is situated mentally. I can’t imagine he will handle this.

“Wenger has spoken of three world-class goalies. I guess I must be one of them. The others have proven their class by winning titles? I’m just thinking about it, and I can’t recall any. But yet today they are considered world class.”

The last two paragraphs ended his Arsenal career in my opinion. Saying that you expect to play is one thing, saying that you expect to play because your teammates are shit is a different story. The young team Wenger is building is based on a very good team spirit, and stupid comments like that from senior players are obviously against everything the team is about this year.

The way Almunia responded goes perfectly with what Wenger expects -

“I will stay positive. The goalkeeping position is a difficult position. I’ve been here almost three years without playing in the league. It’s normal for people to assess the situation

“I forget the past now I’m playing. It’s not a problem. I don’t care about pressure. I only want to play well. If I read the papers and listen to what other people say about me, then I’d will turn crazy. I don’t want that.

“When I’m playing well I honestly don’t mind other things that are happening. Maybe if I was playing badly I would be more worried. But now for me life is fantastic and I want to take my chance.”

Very well said Manuel. Now that Lehmann is considering leaving, things are turning out to be not in his favour. His reputation is probably the main reason now why Dortmund fans don’t even want him back in their team! Funny how everything you do and say comes to bite you in the ass at the most critical time of your career. He’s 38, he needs to play to retain his place in the German team according to his coach. Since being dropped, he only played 2 games, an easy home game against Bucharest in the CL and the FA cup game against championship Burnley.

There are many factors that combine to make his Arsenal career over. He is 38, his body and reflexed may not be as good as younger player, and the mistakes he did could prove that. Almunia has been doing a decent job as the #1 keeper. And most importantly in my opinion is his talk.

Now to the important factor - numbers. Lets compare their numbers -

These stats are up to 1/1/2008

All these numbers are for games in the premiership only, and I did not include seasons where one of them played 2 or 3 games.

Looking at these numbers, apart from his first season, Lehmann’s numbers are almost equal if not less impressive than Almunia’s.

The % of clean sheets shows Almunia having a better overall percentage, and this year’s goals against is much better than Lehmann’s past 3 seasons.

Obviously the team’s defending has alot to do with this stat. I honestly believe that when players like Gallas and Toure are not 100% sure about the goalkeeping, they will step up and make a better effort of making him work less, which is a good thing.

I was going to post about our strikers before the game, but decided to wait till after the game just in case. The game only proved what I had worked out earlier.

Before the match, and for the past week or two, everyone has been talking about 2 issues -

1. 4-5-1 vs. 4-4-2
2. Why Wenger doesn’t start Bendtner ahead of Adebayor following his performance in recent games.

I will not discuss the first issue now. Instead I will discuss the latter issue using statistics.

Wenger today played with Bendtner and Eduardo up front giving Adebayor a rest. Unfortunately Bendtner had a total nightmare of a game which ended disgracefully or rather stupidly from his side with a rash tackle. These things happen, this is football, and he still needs some more experience. We’ve seen these kind of silly mistimed tackled from lack of experience happen before with Denilson this season and Fabregas a couple of years ago. Hopefully its a learning experience for Nicklas.

On the other hand, Eduardo proved his reputation as a cool finisher with a killer instinct. Following his excellent finishes as Blackburn, he had two more today at Everton. The guy makes finishing look too easy. His record at Zagreb and for Croatia is nothing less than amazing. People have been on his back here at Arsenal so far this season, but in fact he has been excellent too.

Now the numbers part, which striker is the best of the pack this season??

I took the number of minutes each player played, and then got averages for goals, assists, and shots on target. I also got the percentage of shots that are on target from total shots. It will all make sense in a minute I hope -

These statistics are for all competitions this season.

Eduardo is a true striker. In his limited opportunities, he really made the most out of them, leading the way in terms of goals per 90 minutes played. He is also the most accurate, with more than 64% of his shots being on target!

With his excellent finishing, and these impressive statistics, I’d like to hear from people who still don’t rate him.

We are blessed this season with an excellent forward line full of talent, but in recent years we have been criticized for our lack of an out and out striker. Let’s hope Eduardo will fill that slot for us as well as he did previously in his career!

This is a football blog that will be dedicated mostly to Arsenal and all fans who appreciate “the Arsenal Way” of football.

I picked the website’s title also as a tribute to Arsene Wenger, keeping his initials in the website’s name. He is the man behind the Arsenal Way that we enjoy and others envy.

Personally, I am a big fan of statistics, and I enjoy the tactical side of the game. Hopefully both these aspects will be prominent in the posts to come.

Any suggestions or comments from people with established football blogs or from any readers are hugely welcome.