slimshay:

Samba is reported to have said he was close to joining Arsenal in January. I was expecting him to be the first experienced signing in the summer. But bidding for Phil Jones kinda puts things in a different light. Will Blackburn be willing to sell another defender?

That is the 43 goals conceded question. . . .I guess it comes down to how much we bid and how much Samba wants to leave.

respectfully i do not agree about gallas. he has a winning mentality and wanted to win things. i am not so sure about quitters like nasri and fabregas who gifted the return leg to barcelona;clearly a psyhological block.

. nasri is a good player but in common with fabregas lacks bottle; the steely reserve typical of the likes of keown,bouldon,adams,vieira and manu petite. unfortunately wenger seems to have lost control and is running a democracy.
feuds exist in squads all the time. i am not sure how we determine one party is to blame if two people quarrel

the current squad should have won the premiership.the problem is coaching,tactics and psychology. compared to liverpool ,tottenham and even man u who have spent fortunes arsenal are a great squad, problem is tactically arsene has shown he has only one gear. did they lose to birmingham because they did not spend?arsene allows his players to believe failure is acceptable. adebayo was right when he said mourinho would have won that game
that is the koko
they did not because arsene lost the plot. he made it clear he did not think they could win the champions league.
compare this with mourinho at porto. in football mental strength is as good as quality and that is where arsenal's problem is.

regarding disruptiveness nothing can be more disruptive than the drama surrounding fabregas. wenger should have dealt with this by letting him go to the highest bidder and restored order and stability.

Quote from @gunnerblog on twitter

Arshavin: "Cesc gave gifts to each player. I asked him, 'A parting gift?' He said nothing. It says there is something behind this silence."

Here's the full story CLICK

aribisala0:

respectfully i do not agree about gallas. he has a winning mentality and wanted to win things. i am not so sure about quitters like nasri and fabregas who gifted the return leg to barcelona;clearly a psyhological block.

Gallas wanted to 'win things' - I don't question his desire to win. What I do question is his performance as a captain. Having a desire to win is not sufficient if you alienate your team mates and are unable to drive them to success.

Gallas was too individualistic and could not really bring his winning mentality to bear on the side. Furthermore, he created divisions within the squad.

aribisala0:

feuds exist in squads all the time. i am not sure how we determine one party is to blame if two people quarrel

Agreed we can't always determine the party to blame. However, when one player is constantly implicated in feuds with a variety of players, then it becomes obvious that the particular player is to blame. Gallas had issues with Nasri which are well documented, but he also had issues with Kolo to the extent that the soft spoken Ivorian asked for a January transfer. Gallas was the reason Kolo left, and his comments to the press undermining his team mates was the ultimate treason.

You NEVER get a captain going to criticize his own players publicly the way Gallas did. He was a self centred person who felt anything going wrong was someone else's fault.

Arsenal make contact with Lille for Eden Hazard (arseblognews)
Best news I've heard in eons. Just hpoe Nasri gets whatever it is he hankers for, then getz tossed in the next window to the highest bidder even if it is Hull City!

v3:

Quote from @gunnerblog on twitter

Arshavin: "Cesc gave gifts to each player. I asked him, 'A parting gift?' He said nothing. It says there is something behind this silence."

Here's the full story CLICK

Well Barca are skint. They have just €40k to spend (excluding player sales) so Fab will do well to go and collect his parting gifts back!

Who made Gallas captain? Abi na him hand pick himself? Didn't Wenger sideline a drama free Berto for drama queen Gallas

Will Gallas please kindly stfu!! These same guys he's going at were jamming until they needed their experienced captain to pull em through. What did he do, he went all Jeremiah meets John the Baptist on them.
Like someone said, 'you lose the right to pass judgement on anybody the moment you knowingly and willfully chose to become a spud'

debosky:

Gallas wanted to 'win things' - I don't question his desire to win. What I do question is his performance as a captain. Having a desire to win is not sufficient if you alienate your team mates and are unable to drive them to success.

Gallas was too individualistic and could not really bring his winning mentality to bear on the side. Furthermore, he created divisions within the squad.

Agreed we can't always determine the party to blame. However, when one player is constantly implicated in feuds with a variety of players, then it becomes obvious that the particular player is to blame. Gallas had issues with Nasri which are well documented, but he also had issues with Kolo to the extent that the soft spoken Ivorian asked for a January transfer. Gallas was the reason Kolo left, and his comments to the press undermining his team mates was the ultimate treason.

You NEVER get a captain going to criticize his own players publicly the way Gallas did. He was a self centred person who felt anything going wrong was someone else's fault.

you are entitled to your view which i respect but totally reject.
gallas does NOT have a history of conflict not at chelsea or tottenham or the french squad. he is well liked. arsenal have a badly run dressing room there have been issues with van persie kolo toure adebayor and nasri among others . clearly arsene does not enforce discipline and so players speak out of turn all the time we have seen this with denilson too.
regarding why toure left it is presumptuous to pretend to know why. you ha ve a GUESS which is as good as any.
there are countlesss examples of beef in teams. regarding so called soft spoken did he not come to blows recently.
my point is given the same set of facts it is quite possible to come to opposite conclusions about gallas. my opinions are just that opinions same as anybody's so this categoriality with which you pronounce is puzzling

gallas=two feuds
toure=two feuds

where is the constantly/variety of players

roy keane criticized his players publicly every day of the week.
andy cole /sheringham did not speak for as long as they were teammates. your argument selects evidence in support and ignores glaring contradictory facts

Aribisala are we talking about another Gallas?

@ aribisala

This same Gallas famously threatened to score an own goal at Chelski. . . . is that a history of conflict or not?

More pertinently, Gallas and Nasri had a falling out in the national team - what more history of conflict do you need?

Keane criticized players for poor performances, but if he ever PUBLICLY undermined the team the way Gallas did, he would have been dropped like a hot potato.

Was Keane ever fined £180,000 for his comments about his teammates like Gallas was?

Roy Keane's public criticism only came at the end of his United career. Lest we forget, he was literally sacked for constantly haranguing Cristiano Ronaldo and Ferdinand, a laughable event given the fact that Roy Keane is a minion compared to Ronaldo in terms of status and ability. It was a case of a player having delusions of grandeur and acting way above his status. In hindsight, both Roy Keane and Ruud Van Nistelrooy should feel embarrassed for ever having clashed qwith Ronaldo.

aribisala0:

respectfully i do not agree about gallas. he has a winning mentality and wanted to win things. i am not so sure about quitters like nasri and fabregas who gifted the return leg to barcelona;clearly a psyhological block.

. [b]nasri is a good player but in common with fabregas lacks bottle; the steely reserve typical of the likes of keown,bouldon,adams,vieira and manu petite. unfortunately wenger seems to have lost control and is running a democracy.[/b]feuds exist in squads all the time. i am not sure how we determine one party is to blame if two people quarrel

[b]the current squad should have won the premiership.the problem is coaching,tactics and psychology. compared to liverpool ,tottenham and even man u who have spent fortunes arsenal are a great squad, problem is tactically arsene has shown he has only one gear. did they lose to birmingham because they did not spend?arsene allows his players to believe failure is acceptable. adebayo was right when he said mourinho would have won that game
that is the koko[/b]they did not because arsene lost the plot. he made it clear he did not think they could win the champions league.
compare this with mourinho at porto. in football mental strength is as good as quality and that is where arsenal's problem is.

regarding disruptiveness nothing can be more disruptive than the drama surrounding fabregas. wenger should have dealt with this by letting him go to the highest bidder and restored order and stability.

God bless you!

I hope we can do the Samba deal asap before City becomes interested!

I also hear Gervinho and one other African LB are being considerd.
My fear with all the African players though is that we will lose them In January/February during the Nations' Cup.

Thanks Debosky
I was about answering @ aribisala, when he said Gallas was not a troublemaker before he crossed over to the Emirates.
While I cannot question his(gallas) commitment, he was a poor leader of men and the first Arsenal captain to be stripped off the captaincy.
I blame AW though for ever making him a captain.
Imagine,an ex Arsenal captain is playing for the Spuds

Arsenal officially sends in a bid for Hazard.

I personally hope he isn't a direct replacement for Nasri. Il be sad to see Nasri leave Arsenal after spending two years to bring him to the level he is now

like i said selective.why was nasri dropped from les blues. why are arsenal players struggling to make french team. you have obiously backed down from your claim about him having conflict with a variety of players ompared to other arsenal players.

i am not holding brief for gallas all i am saying do not IGNORE clear evidence that counters your position while magnifying selected evidence.
there have been many troublemakers ,if you want to call them that, at arsenal, gallas is not outstanding.

regarding my comment on roy keane if you don't understand sorry i can't help you.

In other news:
Samir Nasri's agents are claiming a deal has been agreed with Manure.
I Doubt this happening!

aribisala0:

like i said selective.why was nasri dropped from les blues. why are arsenal players struggling to make french team.

Are you sure about the highlighted.
Even LK6 was invited to the French team after only half a season with Arsenal

one man's constructive criticism  is another's undermining. was roy keane not dropped for that same reason.
not talking about performance but people thinking they were superstars because they earn xyz.

and the prawn sandwich remark slating the fans??

well, like i said just focus on evidence u like

aribisala0:

like i said selective.why was nasri dropped from les blues. why are arsenal players struggling to make french team. you have obiously backed down from your claim about him having conflict with a variety of players ompared to other arsenal players.

I have not backed down from any claims - if ONE player, has fights with two players so much so that they stop speaking to each other, what other evidence do you require? Must he have conflict with 100 players before he is deemed to be a divisive element?

I repeat - there have been no captains at Arsenal as divisive as Gallas - you have provided absolutely zilch to disprove this, having to resort to a tenuous claim about Roy Keane. Last I checked Roy wasn't an Arsenal captain.

i am not holding brief for gallas all i am saying do not IGNORE clear evidence that counters your position while magnifying selected evidence.
there have been many troublemakers ,if you want to call them that, at arsenal, gallas is not outstanding.

You have not put forth a single shred of evidence to point out other trouble makers. You're just dancing around the subject - where is the so called 'clear evidence'?

regarding my comment on roy keane if you don't understand sorry i can't help you.

You can't help because you're making things up - Roy Keane never disclosed private events in the dressing room while a player and publicly denigrate his team mates. Provide evidence instead of making things up as you go along.

aribisala0:

nasri is a good player but in common with fabregas lacks bottle; the steely reserve typical of the likes of keown,bouldon,adams,vieira and manu petite. unfortunately wenger seems to have lost control and is running a democracy.
feuds exist in squads all the time. i am not sure how we determine one party is to blame if two people quarrel

Absolute nonsense - of all the players you mentioned, three are central defenders, and the other two are combative midfield players. Those players' prime duty was to tackle and fight, while Nasri's is to create and score goals.

It is quite disingenuous to make such a crass comparison with little or no basis. We might as well be comparing Almunia's finishing to that of Ian Wright.

Secondly, Wenger is running a democracy yet Denilson has been moved away from the first team without so much as a peep, Arshavin has been dropped and subbed so many times the bench's design is imprinted on his backside. so has Almunia and Eboue. Only someone with shallow understanding of Arsenal will claim Wenger has lost control.

This judgement of bottle is the most subjective assessment in the entire world. Cesc Fabregas lacks bottle yet comes on in the WC final to lay on the decisive pass. Cesc lacks bottle yet went against a vastly superior Vieira when he was in his teens and made him look ordinary.

Arrant nonsense I say.

aribisala0:

like i said selective.why was nasri dropped from les blues. why are arsenal players struggling to make french team.

Arrant nonsense yet again. I might as well stop here - you are now inventing stories for the fun of it.

Oddly enough, it is the Gallas you're sucking up to that is 'struggling' to make the French squad - in fact, his latest frustrated comments came after Blanc refused to select him.

Against Belarus - Nasri, Sagna and Diaby all played, so what are you going on about? Against Croatia - Nasri and Clichy played, Koscielny and Sagna were on the bench.

i too can spell arrant nonsense abeg talk another tin

Ibime:

Roy Keane's public criticism only came at the end of his United career.

rubbish! roy keane has always been vocal. he invented the prawn sandwich brigade ish as far back as 2000.  

Lest we forget, he was literally sacked for constantly haranguing Cristiano Ronaldo and Ferdinand, a laughable event given the fact that Roy Keane is a minion compared to Ronaldo in terms of status and ability.

he was sacked for criticizing some of his teammates on mutv. darren fletcher received the heaviest criticism on that interview before it was yanked off the air and keane was sacked as a result. that was in 2005.

It was a case of a player having delusions of grandeur and acting way above his status. In hindsight, both Roy Keane and Ruud Van Nistelrooy should feel embarrassed for ever having clashed qwith Ronaldo.

yet more rubbish. keane is a legend. he won the champions league when ronaldo was still 14 yrs of age. keane was fergie on the pitch and his constant haranguing team-mates got the best out of the team. keane is a leader of men - he protected his team-mates from their rivals as much as he criticized their performance when they came up short. keane's criticism could have been the reason ronaldo became more

Aribisala sorry my pentium1 is slow today. Arsenal players can't make french team? Cos they are disruptive or cos they are not good enough? Your argument is a bit all over the place.

Nasri was called up and made captain after the SA fiasco, Diaby was perhaps the only french credit at SA, once Evra was dropped Clichy was picked, Sagna is no1 on their team sheet, Koscielny is a newbie and he's already been called up, Squillacci is an old man, what exactly are you on about?!

Give it up, Gallas is a c-U-n-t, for forks sakes which self respecting man agrees to wear a c0ck on his chest.

aribisala0:

like i said selective.why was nasri dropped from les blues. why are arsenal players struggling to make french team. you have obiously backed down

. Because they have a stewpid coach who chose players based on their star sign and not choosing Arsenal players got them far nau right ?

the logical corollary is " not choosing EYIMBA" players got nigeria far in the world.cup??

god!!

naijababe:

. Because they have a stewpid coach who chose players based on their star sign and not choosing Arsenal players got them far nau right ?

Madman Domenech.

Are these players worth arguing over ? Really ? Arsenal is probably the only club i know that has a player flirting/is reported with another club each and every fricking summer . I mean if it's not Fab/Arshavin with Barca, it's Bendtner with Moroka Swallows. Personally, i think this says alot about the club and how things are done there. What are we criticizing Nasri over ? He's doing the same thing virtually every player in the club has at one summer or the other utilised to achieve their (selfish) ends.

We all know who the fault lies with so lets stop these 'ostrich head in sand' comments.

Edoyad, then maybe you really don't know a lot of clubs.

And no, what Nasri is doing is a bit different, something akin to what Adebayor did, a mix of money with other clubs.

Its okay for your gf to thing some guy is fine, only insecure people fret at that. But when she starts telling you if you don't upgrade her Bold2 to a BBTorch she will consider him, that's when backhand slaps start flying