₦airaland Forum

debosky:
I still disagree - having many passes is one thing, being able to stamp your control on games is another.

Iniesta clearly dominates games alongside better creative like Xavi. In Modric's case, he's supposed to be the main creative force, not the magician's assistant like Iniesta.

he's not supposed to be the main creative force - after 30 yrs, you still don't understand football. teams who use traditional wingers expect the creativity to come from the flanks. . . .this is where aaron lennon/corluka + assou ekotto/bale come into it. when modric gets the ball, they don't play it through the middle like say arsenal or blackpool. . . . .they spray the passes to the flanks and lennon or bale is expected to deliver a cross into the box.

man utd play like this. . . . .if you are expecting carrick to cop any assist, you will wait till rapture. teams like arsenal who don't really use traditional wingers rely on their pass-n-move central midfielders to dictate the play from the middle. this is where nasri and cesc come into play and then you can expect to see slide-rule through passes from the deep. it depends on how the gaffer wants his team to attack.

Ibime:
Valencia is better than Ashley Young . . doesnt mean I pay three times more for Valencia than Ashley? They both produce what I need so I may pay £5m more for one or the other, after which it doesnt serve my utility.

it depends on how long they have left since they signed their respective contracts. if ashley young has just signed a new contract 12 months ago for 5 years and united are buying him now, his transfer fees will triple that of valencia(never mind who is better amongst the two). all those little indices kick in when the transfer fees are determined cos the buying club must buy the remainder of the player's contract. . . .

And what makes Modric a GREAT by the way?

Do you know this ninja has never showed up at the top of Opta stats for any of the key indicators? 

only essien, danny murphy and barry ferguson made more successful passes than luka modric in the whole of last season. . . . .he's also ranked 4th in the charts of total passes. modric is the real deal considering he plays in a more advanced role than the others above him on these charts. it's easier for players in the defensive zone of the pitch to complete more passes where there's little or no pressing than the offensive zone where modric basically operates from.

as an aside, modric also has the premier league experience. can tadic perform on a cold night in stoke?

debosky:
In my opinion Modric is overrated - his productivity isn't close to where it should be to command such fees.

you can say the same for iniesta as well. iniesta has only scored 25 league goals for barcelona in 9 seasons. . . .that's less than 3 goals per season.
modric is not overrated. one of the most technically gifted midfielders in the division. he seems overrated because tottenham's attacking outlet is from lennon and gareth bale(2 superb wingers). . . . .it's similar to man utd as well(the assists come from mainly from the flanks), fletcher, carrick, anderson and scholes don't really create as such.

Ibime:
Lampards time is up whilst Modric feed you 3 goals and 3 assists per season? I laugh in Boko Haram.

No be the same Modric aided and abetted by pass masters like VDV and Huddlestone who copped only 38% possession in our match at White Hart Lane and were also dominated at Stamford Bridge?

What's the obsession with chasing Modric past £30m when Borja Valero and Dusan Tadic do the same job for less than £10m?

modric is better than valero and tadic.

mystikal:
Pedro is the only talent I see up there

so sergio busquets and gerard pique are what? i dunno what else to say about arsenal fans?

ritchboy:
Do these ones qualify as GREAT talents? Are any of them as good as Rooney?

all of them are as good as rooney if not better. . . .

busquets: the best defensive midfielder in the whole of europe since 2009. his positional play is peerless. yes, he dives and his antics can be termed as unethical but no single player is better than him in the position he plays. single-handedly, he has destroyed rooney, ozil, sneijder, etc and many attacking midfielders he has played against since his debut season in 2009. busquets is what makes barcelona tick. without him, barcelona are nothing.

pique: one of the best central defenders in europe. without having to scratch your head, he's better than any central defender to have played for arsenal since the days of tony adams and co. technically, if pique walks into the arsenal team, fabregas has to relinquish his captain's armband to him. his record speaks for himself - he has won about 3 champions league titles(2008, 2009, 2011), 3 la liga titles, 1 world cup and 1 european championship. he's a starter for his national team and he has not missed any big game whilst playing for the best team in the world.

pedro: the rookie wing forward that displaced thierry henry. one of the best dribblers in europe. he's at home with both feet, makes darting runs and exchange flanks with david villa. he also plays for the best team in the world and he featured regularly for spain. what has rooney got that pedro hasn't? which football club will not sign pedrito in england? he broke into the limelight barely two years ago and he has won a lot in that period. if you consider the fact there's even more room for improvement then it's scary to start to imagine what barcelona would look like in the next 5 years when these players peak!

all these players are better than cesc fabregas - it's not coincidence that cesc cannot even get a start for spain. he is at the lower rung of the ladder in comparison to pique, pedro and busquets. i doubt spain will function properly without the trio bar pedrito whereas cesc is dispensable! make no mistakes about the boys from spain. they are much much better than their counterparts in europe.

ritchboy:
How many "great" Spanish talents have emerged after Rooney besides Cesc?

is this a joke?

do the names pique, pedro, busquets ring a bell?

chamotex:
Its just sad.
Since Wayne Rooney emerged, I cant think of any other English talent that has actually been great.

with 90 mins football per week, they will learn nada. no wonder huddlestone looks like a pregnant cow trying to chase after a rabbit.

nanidee:
1) Popping champagne unnecessarily with their friends in order to gain attention 

men are closing business deals and celebrating with few bottles of bubbly and it disgusts you?
verdict: get a life!

2) Staring at you like their lives depends on you. The terrible thing is that they make it really obvious, and then get you feeling sort of funny

well. . . .women come to clubs dressing like indecency-stars. what do you expect the men to do? they are men not mannequins.
verdict: dress appropriately without the disgusting weaves and cheap shoes.

3) Having this annoying mindset that you would automatically hit it off with them, because one of their friends happens to be a friend to your friend

it's called socializing. . . . .
verdict: not all the men looking for a nice chat want to hit it off with you.

4) Asking you for your cell-phone number >> hello…I did not come to the club to make friends, I only came to ease out  some stress 

see above.

5) Offering to buy you a drink, believing that that might make it easier for you to feel relaxed with him. Oh good Lawwwd, not everyone that comes to the club is a drunk!! 

offering to buy you a drink is a gentleman gesture. . . .men offer their fellow men drinks, is it because he wants to sleep with his fellow men?
verdict: you must come from the hills of congo-brazaville.

6) Not getting the point when a girl is acting funny. Please when a girl is not showing signs of interest in what you are talking about, it simply means she aint feeling you. Do we have to spell everything out?   

thousands of girls have showed signs they weren't interested at first only to change tunes after the guy's persistence.
verdict: men stick to the formula that works for them. . . .they know sometimes a woman's no often means try harder.

7) Trying to get too familiar by moving their hands around, because you agreed to dance with him. I cant stand it when a guy reaches out to try to hold me on the waist, just because I am trying to shake what my mama gave me!!!   

then stop shaking what your mama gave you provocatively. dance in a way where you can see your dance partner.
verdict: you can shake your bootay in the other direction - if you offer the man your bootay, it's natural for him to reach out and grab it.

8 How on earth would a guy go to a club all by himself and pop a bottle of champagne …this beats me   

because he can afford it. . . . . .why would a girl go a club all by herself and buy alcopops?
verdict: you are dumb! the most ridiculous point i have ever seen on a forum.

9) Trying to get to know everything about you, just because you bothered to lend an ear to him. You wanna know where I work, where I live, and personal stuff? Oh puhleeasseeeee 

once again, it's called socializing.
verdict: what else do you expect him to be talking about? the price of beef in the meat market?

10) Wearing dark shades in the club. Hello…. Shades are meant to protect your eyes from the harmful rays of the sun, not to feel cool in a dark club 

this is laughable. men wear shades in the club for different reasons. they don't want you to see what they are staring at, they protect their eyes from the flashes of lights in the club, they don't want you to see their bloodshot eyes from alcohol, drugs, etc.
verdict: it's a standard everywhere in the world for people to wear shades in the club, only nigerian women see it as a taboo.

11) Pestering you for a dance, when you have clearly said NO!!!

persistence pays. . . same logic applies when a guy is wooing his prey. multiple nos and a final yes and then it ends in. . . .
verdict: if you don't feel like dancing, stay at home with your grandpa's gramaphone and dance alone - clubs are what they are, where folks meet and dance the night away.

chamotex:
How 11 year olds can pass and keep the ball like that is just simply amazing.
They played similar to how the first team plays . . . starting their attack from the back. When the young goalie got the ball, he just threw it to the RB or LB rather than kicking it long. I actually enjoyed watching the clip.

the kids in england are screwed. . . .

firstly, let's not knock off the ethics of english managers, the fa are actually the biggest twunts screwing youth development in the british isles. in england, the ridiculous rules restrict managers to have proper coaching time with the kids . i think the 90 min rule is the real mccoy english kids are pathetic with the ball. english kids cannot train longer than 90 mins per week with the ball whereas in the continent, barca kids train as long as they wish. . .

barcelona can scout any kid anywhere in spain, in england, clubs cannot sign kids 90 mins away from the academy so you have to choose from the locals(limited options). that is reduced to 60 minutes for those under 14. in contrast, spanish clubs can recruit any kid at any age from the whole country. then the english fa make them play 11 vs 11 unlike in spain when the kids play 6-a-side till they hit 16/17. 6-a-side makes them good with the ball, high-level tekkers, amazing vision and dribbling skills whilst the english kids only know big pitches and hoofing the ball becomes a natural thing to them.

the fa must revamp youth football in england. if they are not willing to remove the ridiculous restrictions, big clubs should set up academies in europe. barcelona are about opening an academy annexe in england. the current academy rules state "Academy regulations state that young players can receive no more than 3,760 ‘contact time’ hours on the training pitch up to the age of 21". young players at the ajax academy in holland and barcelona’s la masia facility, which adopted the ajax model under former barcelona coach johan cruyff in the early-1990s, can expect to receive 7,000-8,000 hours of coaching between the ages of 10-18.

slimshay:
@Sharon, you it is standard MO for Fergie to double up on our outlets whenever we meet. He doesn't do it against other teams cos its a given ya'll set the pace. Not against the Arsenal though.

stop making excuses. united play the same way against arsenal and tottenham. walcott has never had a good game against man utd since he joined arsenal. . . . .lennon has outsmarted united's left back several times. matter of fact, united fans get the chills whenever lennon comes against evra. he is a better player than walcott by any means. walcott should have been a sprinter like usain bolt - he lacks football sense.

slimshay:
Sharon when has Fergie ever had enough balls to leave Evra alone with Theo? What, he needs park to hold his hand against the kid?

lennon still performs with js park/evra on the pitch. why can't theo do the same?

chuckdee4:
With all his key passes, how many assists did he rack up, giving the fact that Tottenham create just as many chances as the top 3 teams do.

this is because assists are solely dependent on the team-mate scoring from it. you are not in control of what happens after laying a good ball for your team-mate. if he scores, you get the assist, if he doesn't you don't get it. this is why a key-pass is a better judge of a player's brilliance than a goal assist.

Face it Lennon is a piss poor player, never use him and Fab4 in the same sentence, he should first try to out score and out assist Walcott before you can even dream of making such claims.

i think you should look back into lennon's career at tottenham when they had brilliant strikers(berbatov + keane + defoe). lennon copped 13 assists in 2006/7 and a dozen assists in 2009/10. theo walcott's highest number of assists in his entire career is 10(this season).

Which of them would you rather have in your team?

i will have aaron lennon because i am not convinced theo walcott understands football. patrice evra has been the best left back in this league for the past 6 seasons and he gets bytch-slapped by lennon. walcott has never had a good game against evra in about a dozen games they have squared to each other. who is walcott?

dayokanu:
[flash=500,400]http://www.youtube.com/watch=/v/dd8WeXr1CIo&feature=youtu.be#t=4m30s[/flash]

Cougar,

Watch this video and tell me how any team can hope to surpass Barcelona in the near future

Those boys play better football than Arsenal senior team, and I can wager on them to win some trophy before Arsenes team

i saw that video just before the champions league final in wembley. those barca boys are under 11 and they have some amazing techniques already with a far superior possession football than any premier league team. it is their ethos. every player must learn how to pass, dribble and utilize the space. if the rest of the world are not careful, barcelona would dominate europe for the next 20 years.

StarBoard:
Hmmm the fixtures are tricky,but it's good. . .if we can navigate them early,i think we will be fine

dirty fixtures handed to us again by mr bernstein. compare our fixtures to city's fixtures. . . .3 huge games(chelsea, arsenal, spurs) in our first 5 league games is too heavy. hopefully, this will get fergie to quickly tie up his transfers and bed-in the new players together for another roller-coaster season.

omega25red:
it's people like you that perpetuate the spreading of the disease.

the disease is widespread before i made my comment. . . .

When are you all going to be responsible for your actions? you are having sex with a girl for two years you didn't even consider getting a test or seeing her own test and now you want to kill her. Who knows if he had been living with the disease before he even hooked up with her? instead of committing violence tell him to get a blood test and have her know that you know also have her tell the ex so he can get his $h!t together so as not to give it to someone else too. Folks will never learn

where in my post did i encourage violence?

cutieisme:
I receive a call from my best friend this morning and up till now am still in the state of shock, this is how our conversation goes
Me:Hello guy how far
My friend: Omo he don happen o
Me:wetin happen
My friend:my babe has killed me
Me: How, why,
My friend:few weeks ago we dey together and had fun without protection and this week monday i found out she had sex with her ex without protection before she came to visit me and yesterday i saw a paper in her wardrope saying she should go for vigina swamp ,hiv test etc, i think she went to see a dr cus she was having virgina discharge
Me:then
My friend:as i see the hiv test my heart skip so i quick go see solomon (our dr friend) and he found out am positive and you no na only dis girl i dey f since 2 years ago you know am too busy to be haing sex around
Me: what, did you see her own result first
My friend: she did not tell me about wanting to go for test and i dont expect her to show me result na
Me :obviously na she give u , guy i dey come house soon hold on, no tell any body again o, u don hear
My friend:come quick i don dey mad ooo


We have been close friend since primary school days, we know our self too well and we are both batd guy, as for me i am only thinking of way to get the girl result and if she is positive too na she give my friend and i swear my friend will not wait for the hiv to kill her before he queeze life out of her and i am playing leading role in doing that, i need advise before i do something bad,,,this girl is a dead meat

tell your friend to go for a second test. . . .if he remains positive. . . .tell her to withdraw all the money he's got in his various banks and head straight to the village of the babe that infected him. . . .let him start a shagging spree there and give back what was given to him. he should take no prisoners. every chic from age 18 till age 70 must feel his fury until he gets zapped up. the good book said "give back what you earn".

slimshay:
There is no player more one-dimensional in the premier league than the spud midget. He messed up a lot of Totoyam's attack last season. He had to be training with U-15s to feel among for forkssakes.

walcott was worse.

Sharon jus as you pointed out with Baines, Totnum's attack come mainly from the wings. That's why planet-of-the-apes and the midget register high number of key passes. But don't really cut it in assists, they are always looking for high-tension pole to knock it down for VdV. Talk about percentage football.

you will find out the assists stats dried up for lennon after they lost 3 quality strikers in berbatov/robbie keane/defoe(last season). peter crouch doesn't even head towards the goal. . . .he knocks it down for van der vaart or an approaching team-mate to score thus robbing the wingers of their deserved assists.

Walcott shytes on the midget, planet-of-the-apes and every overhyped nonsense they put out.

walcott vs lennon? lennon wins everyday of the week. if arsenal had lennon in the last six seasons, they would have won at least one trophy in that period.

proudly9ja:
coogar Hansen, 

If Usain Bolt can play for United,

http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/865870-usain-bolt-i-want-to-play-for-manchester-united

what is wrong with Walcott using his pace?

let him play first and let's see if running around like a rabid dog is the same as what xavi and iniesta do.

debosky:
All this nonsense about 'key passes' - how many goals did Lennon score?

Theo had 13 goals and 10 assists, Aaron had 3 goals and 7 assists. I'm sure even a cougar named Sharon has sufficient arithmetic ability to determine who contributed more to his side.

yes key passes is the difference in team quality. tottenham had no potent striker last season. the kind of passes theo was supplying arsenal strikers in the box were converted to goals while pavlyuchenko and crouch were fluffing their lines from lennon's crosses. who is walcott compared to aaron lennon?

deborah is posting last season's stats to strengthen his claim as if football started only last season. by your logic, odemwingie is better than rooney, dj campbell is miles ahead of drogba and van persie is better than torres!

in the last 4 seasons,

walcott: 31 goals, 27 assists
lennon: 19 goals, 50 assists.

chuckdee4:
What the $%£&^%, Lennon better than Fabregas, Nasri and Van der Vaart, i guess that means he's worth £60m.
Silly stuff

in the statistics of key-passes not overall performance. the use of english is your problem.

debosky:
*Imagines sharon saying quality like Benitez did*
This is pure unadulterated madness, even for you sharon.

shut up, deborah!

dayokanu:
Definitely Wankott is one of the most unidimensional players in the EPL

very useless

i am not sure theo walcott understands football. he's got bundle of pace to burn but he's always running into blind alleys.

StarBoard:
I'm supposed to trust Fergie after he admitted buying the dud Bebe without seeing him. when he buys Ashley Young and Phil Jones. . .
Coogar says Bebe's game was improved upon joining United but it didn't meet United's standards. . .hmm

Quality?Which type?Ariara market?

yes, he bought bebe without actually seeing him play. nothing wrong with that. bebe scored 2 goals from 3 starts, 7 appearances for the senior team. he scored 6 goals in 13 appearances for the reserves. he's a winger not a striker. if you compare the stats to the other premier league debutants, then you will realize bebe is a king.

he was unearthed in the 3rd division of the portugese league. . . . .there was a marked improvement in his play but still not good enough to upstage the likes of nani, valencia, js park or giggs. in all fairness, how many wingers are better than the united wingers in europe? none! do you think bebe won't get a regular shirt in everton, stoke, blackburn, bolton, etc? i don't know where this criticism is coming from at all. bebe had a better season than torres, gerrard, walcott, ramirez, etc.

lennon is better than taraabt and miles better than theo walcott.

it's one thing to demote one's self to the championship and shine. . . .it's another thing to do it with the big boys. eboue will win the player of the season if he plays in the championship. taraabt will be another etherington at best next season. he's such an overrated piece of animal shyt.

walcott on the other hand is stagnant. he showed brilliance in patches last season but he's yet to progress since 2006. wenger should have loaned him back to southampton to gain more match-time and hone some skills before hitting the ground at the emirates.

lennon is a premier league standard winger. he's quick, pacy, intelligent. lennon made the same number of [b]key passes [/b]as nani, charlie adam and modric. which makes him better than cesc fabregas, van der vaart, wilshere, nasri, giggs, kuyt, gareth bale.

i repeat, bebe is quality.

proudly9ja:
There must be something wrong with the table though, how did Chelsea score 25 points from 8 games in 2009??

one more reason for dayokanu to stab arsenal fans with his venom-tipped dagger.

what graph is this?

points won in the 2nd half of the season or what?

now i get it(it's the points won in the last 8 games of every season since 2007) the question is why stop at the last 8 games, why not at the last 20 games? then again, the quality of the opposition played in those last 8 games is the key. since each of the teams don't play the same opponents, the theory drawn from that statistics will be flawed. another point is. . . .there's a tendency for a team to be complacent once it's established the team cannot win the league title. since arsenal have not win the league in the years between 2007-2011, there's no reason to expect them to have copped more points than the teams fully in the title race.

proudly9ja:
Correct me if Im wrong, you play same set of teams in both halves of the season?

not exactly. . . . otherwise ferguson wouldn't have screamed blue murder in 2009/10 when united played 10 teams that finished directly below them in the previous season away from home in the first half of the 09/10 season. the moment united got those tough games out of the way, they went on a roll of 14 clean sheets.

debosky:
I disagree completely - if you're 3 points behind when the nations cup started, how can we have lost the title then? Is a 3 point gap in January now equal to losing the title?

3 points behind when the nations cup started does not tell the true story. what kind of opposition had arsenal met before the nations cup started? if the majority of the games won were against the bottom sides then the 1st half of the season will be better than the 2nd half and vice versa. in the last six seasons, arsenal had their best winter run in 2009/10 season.

proudly9ja:
Isa Hayatou is on NL, just so you know

exactly why i posted that so he can fix the nations cup between may and august. the january-march schedule is not beneficial to top european clubs.

debosky:
I don't think things were different as such - Arsenal was still very much in contention the weekend the ACN started, only 3 points behind Chelski. At the end of that period, we were a 5 points behind them. Our falling away that season had more to do with an unforgivable lack of strikers that saw us playing a midget called Arshavin as a point man instead of signing a striker in January. The lack of strikers had nothing to do with the ACN.

between dec 19 and april

december
arsenal 3-0 hull
arsenal 3-0 aston villa
pompey 1-4 arsenal

january
arsenal 2-2 everton
bolton 0-2 arsenal
arsenal 4-2 bolton
a-villa 0-0 arsenal
arsenal 1-3 man utd

febuary
chelsea 2-0 arsenal
arsenal 1-0 liverpool
arsenal 2-0 sunderland
stoke 1-3 arsenal

march
arsenal 3-1 burnley
hull fc 1-2 arsenal
arsenal 2-0 west ham
arsenal 1-1 birmingham
-------------------------------------------------
apart from man utd and chelsea, arsenal did well against the other teams so it's fair to say arsenal lost the title in the events before the nations cup in 2010.

So the problem is with Africans now and not even ACN?

same difference. avoid africans by all means. . . .it works for man utd, others should borrow a leaf.

debosky:
If Wenger bid for Sanchez I would have him committed to an asylum. The only attacking player I want Arsene to bid for is a striker; that aside it's CBs, a GK and maybe a DM.

sanchez can play anywhere upfront. . . . .he will certainly work harder than arshavin. arsenal are well-equipped in the midfield. the defence is mehhhh though. wenger needs shay given, gary cahill/richard dunne and cheikh tiote(all less than £50 million). . . . .sell cesc(move nasri to cesc's role), sell almunia, bendtner, denilson.

debosky:
Fair challenge, but I think it's too easy to blame it on the nations' cup. There was no nations' in 2011 yet the post February slump was of epic proportions. That seems to indicate there is a more fundamental explanation for this.

so why was 2010 different?

Clichy didn't go to the nations' cup when he conceded a late pen against Birmingham in 08, neither did Gallas who lost his rag in the same game. Senderos' own goal against Villa could be said to be ACN related, assuming Kolo would've played instead.

firstly, that wasn't a penalty. the referee/line assistant just lost his balls when birmingham fans yelled at him. if there's anyone to blame in that match, it's clearly emmanuel adebayor who could have squared the ball to bendtner(facing an empty net) to take arsenal to 3-1 but his personal quest to outscore ronaldo was placed above his team. adebayor didn't go to that year's nations cup but he's still african.

dayokanu:
When you now look at it much closer, You would notice that Nations cup end around February and Arsenal players get back around Late February and Early March. Those poor result is a yearly trend that even pervades to non AFCON years

Everyone knows that From late February to April is when Arsenal start losing games every year.

Its something a good manager would have worked on but Wenger is clearly incompetent to do that

i doubt 2010 was like this. arsenal had thrown it away long before the start of the nations cup!

debosky:
I'd go for Baines as well. . . .his crossing stats are phenomenal. Given the poor crossers we have in general, the potential for actually taking advantage of the height of the likes of Chamakh, and keeping RVP in the box for corners, I'd say it's a bigger gain for us.

In terms of their defensive play, I think they are different LBs in some respects - Clichy clearly tries to intervene more often than not - he'll make more tackles, try to intercept and the likes. Baines seems to read the game better and keeps his positioning so that less tackles are required.

Arsenal's biggest weakness at set pieces supports getting Baines too - he's better at winning aerial clearances (though a lower total number compared to Clichy).

it's the way david moyes wants him to play. leighton baines is essentially a winger for everton. the number of crosses he generates is unusual for a left-back. he might not get such instruction from wenger or any other manager if he moves away from everton. baines is one of everton's outlet to launch attacks. every team has it's own route to attack - the question here is will wenger allow baines such freedom knowing koscielny and djourou are liabilities?

mystikal:
Talk about De Gea getting off to a bad start with Man Utd fans. He has admitted to wanting Barca to win the CL final. Cancel the deal, pass him to Arsenal . . . .

you can't afford de gea. y'all better sign ben foster. birmingham went down and foster will prefer playing in the top division. £5 million should be enough to sign him.

StarBoard:
I Stopped answering the bullfrog a while ago.
He thinks everything in the transfer market is about Man. City

debosky wishes it's his club bidding for sanchez. . . . .just like his manager was coveting ronaldo here.

[flash=425,400]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhTIIT1CMIA&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"[/flash]

ferguson nearly stove wenger's head with the microphone.

debosky:
So there is some sense hidden in that lanky frame.

Proudly is correct in highlighting a potential issue with signing African players, but evidence seems to suggest we haven't been affected as much as perceived. This is another example of perception not reflecting reality.

As for losing Eboue for two months, I wouldn't really mind if we lost him forever.

you might need to look into that evidence again. it has the same pattern. when african players jet off for the competition, arsenal don't miss these players per se as they always nearly win all their league games during the african competition. it is when those players return back to arsenal that the problems start. i dunno if they bring back some sort of complacency or they just get tired. arsenal's run of results after every nations cup is abysmal.