₦airaland Forum

jalether:
Dudu and ritchi give it up, only you two, thinks Vela has the potential to become great

he will not get into southampton's 1st team that's how useless he is.

Na you know, look to your own team, the same was said about Diaby last season and Song the season before that so it aint nothing new. Our boys keep matching forward.

eldee:
Vela is a hustler?? Well . . . maybe I need to start watching more Mexico matches.
You know the typical EPL striker, and you know it's not Vela.

Are you having a laugh?? How can you say we didn't lose all our strikers?? Eduardo?? Come on.
Wenger comes out from time to time to remind us that Dudu is not yet mentally back.

My question is, what better chance will he have than this season??
Remember he's in the same age bracket as Bendtner and Walcott?? Both of them have aspirations of leading Arsenal's line if they ever get better.
I don't know if he should leave, but what I do know is that he's lost a career changing opportunity this season. . . especially for a team like Arsenal where young players are treated as pros.

This is what Arsene had to say about Vela on 21st Feb 2010

[Quote]
Wenger said: "He is a good player. I hope he will he play for Mexico in the World Cup. I don't make the team, I make only the Arsenal team. For me Carlos Vela is a very talented player who missed the preparation of the season and was then injured. Today he had a groin problem and that is why I didn't consider him."

The Arsenal boss added: "What he needs is to be injury free and get a good run of games. He is a very talented player who is maturing now. When you are 17, 18 it is easy. At 20 you realise it is not as easy as it looks. He has gone through that stage now and I am confident he will do well."[/quote]Arsene is commited to playing Theo anyway because of the whole English player wahala, you cannot say that Vela has been given the same opportunities as Theo depite starting like a house on fire in the Carling cup run last season. Vela's opportunity will come and I'm sure he won't disappoint.

Meanwhile, our old enemies down the road are being knocked out of the FA cup by Pompey. We can almost confidently say the FA cup is going to chelsea.

I disagree eldee, if Wilshere can become a first teamer at Bolton, then Vela will not only survive but thrive in any mid table to lower PL team, Vela can not only play but can also hustle, yu guys definitely haven't been watching him play for Mexico. He just hasn't settled into our first team picture yet for whatever reason.
There wasn't injury to every other striker as Eduardo was available, after we dropped points at Sunderland with Eduardo leading the line, I think Arsene just wasn't confident enough to play him then with our PL charge hanging in the balance.

[quote author=A-40 link=topic=400313.msg5871805#msg5871805 date=1271005185]@Duduspace
Its not enough to run at players the question is does he get past them on a consistent basis? Also u need to realize that Vela plays in the Concacaf with opponents like Costa Rica,Honduras,Panama these are not exactly accurate barometers to judge Vela's talent with! Now while i am not doubting Vela can make it at Arsenal mehn he has nothing in common with Messi and has not shown 10% of Messi's abilities[/quote]My statement was never a direct comparison of Vela and Messi, Vela gets past players very well, why does Messi go to Argentina and then fail to score against the likes of Bolivia and Peru
Messi is a great player playing in a great team and there is no basis for comparing him with Vela who is apparently not as precocious a talent as Messi was either due to innate ability or time and chance.
My statement was made on the basis of what I saw as the core attributes of the players, it is akin to saying that in the old SE setup Okocha was the closest we had to Maradona, you and I know Okocha never had the same impact Maradona had.

Messi's main attributes that make him so dangerous in my opinion are:

1. Pace over long distances
2. Acceleration within short distances and spaces
3. Composure in front of goal
4. Flair and creativity to do what opposing players least expect
5. Confidence to shield and protect the ball
6. Balance and a low center of gravity

In the current Arsenal squad, a number of our players have some of these attributes but the only player I see who has a combination of all is Carlos Vela, the only other who comes close is Arshavin but the only thing he lacks IMO is pace over long distances, we all know what Theo is lacking in while Eboue lacks composure in front of goal.
Wellington Silva who is at Fluminense is our other player who combines all these attributes, while Wilshere also seems to lack a bit of pace.

eldee:
@Debosky

What exactly do you think Vela can bring to a Burnley or a Bolton??
These clubs are efficiency-driven where a Fuller has to give his best all the time and work with a specific formula.

They work with either physical strikers with heavy box-presence or just the short, extremely fast striker.
Both ways, Vela fails. . . the only club in England that plays that way is Arsenal.

What exactly do you mean? did you ever watch this guy play for Salamanca as an 18 year old (where he assisted about half of their goal in a season and had them in a promotion spot until he got injured) or did you watch him play for Osasuna as a 19 year old and led their line for a full season keeping them in the La Liga?
I have been keeping tabs on Vela since he was bought in 2005 and know what this boy is about, Vela will feel at home in any team because he has got quality, you don't become a main feature in your national team at 18 if yu're lacking in all the quality you guys are harping on about, it is your likes who were making fun of Bendtner until he got his opportunity to prove himself after your darling Eduardo messed up.

It is a bit of a pity Arsene is stuck in his ways when it comes to hierarchy and player succession, if the person ahead of you doesn't mess up you simply don't get a chance and that is what is keeping Vela back presently but I'm sure his quality will come through.
Vela will get his opportunity and prove himself, only that you guys won't come here to eat your words when that happens, I'm not too surprised as it was the same way you lot saw it as comedy when I initially started posting Diaby's stats on here indicating how important the guy's contributions were for us.

debosky:
God bless eldee and A40. These guys were making it seem as if I was dissing Vela unduly. The fact is that he hasn't done anything to prove he should remain at the club!
If bendtner comes on and scores against spurs or walcott comes on and makes an impact, Vela has no excuse. Besides doesn't messi fly to South America and still perform?
I suspect he might not (yet?) have the mental ability to fight for a place at Arsenal. We can fault Nick for many things but he has cojones to FIGHT for a place.
Why do I give dudu benefit of the doubt? He's proven at senior level and had an ok first season before his injury problems. If anything, maybe Vela needs to be loaned out to get dome confidence and playing time. If he Never got a look in when we had NO strikers then something must be wrong.

The point is, has he been given the opportunity to prove anything? remember Flamini before the 07/08 season? a lot of fans like you wanted him flogged off to Birmingham when he hadn't even gotten the opportunity to play in his preferred MF position, Gilberto unfortunately missed pre-season and that gave Flamini the opportunity to play for an extended period in the position due to necessity and that was the end of Gilberto's career in Arsenal.

I don't know what is up with Vela and why he didn't get appearances while RVP was injured (maybe he was injured at the same time or maybe Arsene preferred to go for the experience of Eduardo who messed up anyway before opting for Arshavin as he didn't have much room to experiment at that time we needed to stay in the race I do not know). He may be a bit lacking in motivation and possibly unserious as his passport episode shows but those are issues that can be easily corrected for a boy who has just clocked 21.

Vela has been played wide this season starting a paltry 5 games and did make 2 assists while playing wide in the West Ham match which is one of the few matches he started, he also had to play with mostly weakened teams consisting of none first team players in most of these matches.

[quote author=A-40 link=topic=400313.msg5871437#msg5871437 date=1270999974]Vela is not in Messi's mould not even close the only thing they share in common is that they are both Latinos[/quote]This is my original statement A-40, it was in terms of a particular attribute.
[Quote]
he is the closest to Messi we have in the team at present in terms of running at players.[/quote]

eldee:
Let's be frank with this, Vela has had many chances to prove what he can do.
We had a period where we had to use Arshavin as our striker, Wenger must have seen Vela in training to know that the short Russian will be better up front.
He might be gifted, but he's not got anything that can keep us expectant in the English game.

Bendtner just clocked 22 in January . . . we knew he had the physical presence that we know we'll still get at the end of the day.
Walcott is fast . . . at the end of the day, that kept us expectant.

But Vela is a type of player that you don't see anything in him that you can hold on to while you wait for his talent to shine. That's the problem we all have with him.
It's a risk, he's not the most intelligent player his age, he's not the fastest, he's not strong, he's not as hardworking as one would expect, he's got flair but who cares about that in England??
He looks like a player that will grow into a Berbatov at best.

As to that portion in bold, you should know by now how Arsene sets his team out from Pre-season (which Vela unfortunately miss out on due to injury and international commitments), once he has set the order of players at the beginning of the season, its going to take a major mess up from his first choice for him to make a change. Bendtner got his chance only because it became obvious Eduardo/Arshavin werent working out.
I'm expectant of what Vela can do because of some of his performances I've seen for us last season and for Mexico, Form is temporary but class is permanent, there is a reason that boy won MVP at U17 level as a 15 year old.

ritchboy:
P.S. No one is comparing Vela's ability to Messi's. . . Dudu simply meant he is in the mould of Messi.
Una no go school?

Thanks for bailing me out my brother, I was beginning to wonder why people abandon all their literacy skills at the mention of Messi's name (the chap must trully be Jesus' strike partner).

Dr Kitaun:
Duduspace
dont u think dis manure financial crisis is a tad over bloated?
Debosky is right dude!

It is a bit of a stretch for anyone to postulate that Manure will be doing a Pompey soon because that is simply not true, the fact however remains that they are not in good financial condition which is why there is unrest and all the Red Knight/Black Knight brouhaha.

Some people think the Glazer's involvement started with their takeover in 2005 but they clearly forget that the Glazers already had a 15% stake by the end of 2003 and were already on the board with power to influence purchases of players which was about the time of Abramovic's emergence and the rising of Chelsea's financial power.

The Glazer's basically convinced the existing board members that the way to go was to compete financially with Chelsea and this led to the exit of the other board members with less financial muscle selling out to the Glazers.

It is also true that they still had the core of that great team Manure built in the 1990s, the addition of expensive purchases like Rooney, CR7, Berbatov, Hargo and co led to such strength in depth that Arsenal could never match during the mid to late 2000s and they did deserve their success in that era but times have changed and Barcelona have shown that expensive signings is not the only way to build an all conquering squad.

Cristalz:
We all know if Fergie decides he wants David Villa tomorrow he'll somehow spring the cash to get him, no long thing.
This isn't even worth arguing.

Na lie, there is no coach in this world who doesn't "want" David Villa in his team (who no like better thing?), needing him and having enough money to buy him are different matters entirely though.
Welcome to the world of prudent spending and downsizing in football, you'll have withdrawal symptoms from financial doping and might have some difficulty adjusting like Debosky but you haven't got much of a choice anyway, adjust you shall.

debosky:
I agree with you - Fergie has the ability to pay up for players he really wants, unlike Wenger, who will claim that he didn't want the player because he is in cahoots with the board.

@Debosky

Why are you casting envious glances at our neighbours Benz when we're busy building a Ferrari in house I tire for you o.

Fergie can waste Manure's money and drive them into debt along with the Glazers for all I care, I know for certain they don't have an unlimited credit line and this summer shall reveal all. That Carling cup might be the last trophy they will be seeing at OT for a very loooooooong time.

Myself2:
Surely you meant this as a joke,right?
Vela is a very good contender for the biggest flop of the season.He started his first season with some flash of brilliance,but that fizzled out quicker than it takes to end a very quick quickie.These days he plays like the word self belief and confidence have been extricated from his dictionary,I seriously think a loan spell out of the emirates will do him some good

Are you saying what yu've seen yourself or just regurgitating some popular opinions? how many games exactly has Vela played this season for you to come to this conclusion about belief and confidence? I'm almost beginning to doubt that you understand the meaning of those words. Someone who always plays with a smile on his face as if he's at a party toasting babes is lacking in belief and confidence 
what won't you hear from ignorant Derby fans masquerading as Arsenal fans, no be yur fault, it is the fault of our own masochistic fans who are always pulling down our players.

debosky:
With due respect, Vela is NOTHING like Messi, he is one footed, lacks close control and has little physical stamina. He is looking like a wasted investment after so many years, with Ramsey having a bigger impact than him even with his injury.

Wasted investment? I agree Vela is one footed but wasn't Maradona also one footed? the rest of your assertions are totally not true, Vela is definitely not lacking in close control, has reasonable pace (next to Theo in the team), and is one of the best one on one dribblers in the team (check out the solo goal he scored for mexico going past 3 players). Wasted investment you say? this is a boy who just clocked 21 (the same age RVP was when we bought him from Feyenoord 6 years ago). Only a mad hatter coach would want to sell a talent like Vela.

Vela in my opinion basically has motivation issues and possibly needs more game time like Diaby, it is not likely a player who won the MVP at U17(while yet to clock 16) without any glaring advantageous attributes of speed or physical size at such a young age would have such lapses like you suggest.

I trust Arsene to sort out Vela's psychological issues as he did for RVP, individuals never mature at the same rate but Vela is a massive talent waiting to emerge. Starting a paltry 5 games and being a substitute in 9 (mostly in the last 10 minutes of matches) is not enough to judge how good he is, go watch his partnerships with Jay Simpson and Bendtner in our Carling Cup run last season to remind you how immense a talent this lad is.

debosky:
Eduardo? Maybe a proper pre-season again will help him - frankly I see little of a future for him if Arsene sticks to 4-3-3 with a lone striker model.

Debo, I find it a bit amusing that you are so accepting of Eduardo's lack of form this season but not willing to extend the same to a boy who has just clocked 21 in a foreign land, usually flying all the way round the world to represent his country and actually had injury problems of his own early on in the season.

debosky:
Integrating what? How well have we integrated the 'upcoming' ones already close to the first team? We CANNOT afford to bring in more inconsistent (but likely talented) youth performers at this time - we need to consolidate and bring in some fresh bodies from outside. The best we can do for the upcoming generation is loan them out to lower rung EPL sides and then hope they come back with some quality.

Right now, we don't need any more 'upcoming' players close to the first team beyond the likes of Gibbs, Eastmond, Ramsey and even Vela would be in that category. I could possibly make an exception for Wilshire, but the others are nowhere near as close as they need to be.

Unless we want to be in the same perpetual stage of being nearly good enough, this youth strategy must IMPROVE the side and not simply make up the numbers - there should only be room for the most exceptional youngsters, not bringing in players as stop gaps just because we can't afford any better.

Integration I said and not replacement, as long as we don't lose any more first teamers, we'll be fine, the case has been made by some (not that I necessarily agree) that some of the upcoming ones are actually better than the ones in the first team. While you say that only Wilshere is good enough, I totally disagree as the likes of Lansbury and JET have done extremely well in their loan spells, JET has almost single handedly revived Doncaster's playoff hopes in the Championship within such a short spell and Lansbury along with Cleverley of Manure are by far the best players at Watford. Infact, I believe those 2 would fare better than Wilshere in the PL at present due to their being better physically developed than Jack and also because we have quite a number of old heads in the creative positions who would be ahead of Jack that he might never get to play.

Whether fans like you accept it or not, it is not easy to "instantly" improve this Arsenal squad without spending oodles of cash, seriously speaking, how much better players than Song, Diaby, Nasri, Cesc and Denilson at their age or even any age for that matter can you get without having to seriously splash the cash, we have a team already consisting predominantly of U23 players (7 of the players who started agains Barca) already consistently getting into the latter stages of the UCL and seriously competing for the PL.

We are commited to developing our own players, we are already reaping the benefits and can only get better as these players grow older. We are a bit lucky a player like Chamakh is willing to risk his career to come to us on a free or can yu remember how much Bordeaux were asking for, about 14m I think? We went for Smalling (who is actually an unproven player too) but you remember what happened with Manure buying him for 12m? if we had to buy those players, we are already talking of spending about 26 million and I've never known Arsene to spend that much in a single transfer window during his time at Arsenal.

While we look to improve some areas of the team, it is also important to remember we need to give playing time to our emerging players, its a fine balancing act but I trust Arsene to achieve equilibrium if there is a possibility of it being achieved.

debosky:
Rotation is not something you practice much at CB - the key is having capable back ups which we lack. I hope Djourou shows some form next season, with Wenger getting rid of Silvestre and Campbell and buying a quality CB to give us a full complement again. The issue with Gallas is that he will always have a major injury close to the business end of the season - it's happened almost every season since he joined us.

I agree we can't rotate the CB pairing too much but surely there is a balance to be found not to run our players into the ground, this is the second season running we've had crucial players falling to obvious muscle fatigue related issues at the tail end of the season (Clichy has possibly not missed out again this season because he was injured earlier in the season but see how the Eboue/Sagna rotation has kept our RB position fit and fresh all through the season). This might be due to Djorou's injury and Senderos' issues whatever they might be but there must be improvement next season, We need 2 backup CBs Arsene is not scared of playing and surely Traore and Gibbs have proven themselves capable backups for Clichy in he LB position.
I'll still like to have Sol Campbell around though, he's been an inspired buy.

debosky:
Secondly, the fate of players like Vela and Eduardo must be closely examined. Do they have a future at the club or are we just wasting our time?
Gunner 1965

Vela is not going anywhere (he is the closest to Messi we have in the team at present in terms of running at players), Arsene has got to get him translating his mexico form into his performances in the Arsenal shirt, he also has to sort out his laid back attitude which recently led to the loss of his passport and his missing the Barca match (Messi is only a year older so the guy shldnt see himself as a kid any longer). Eduardo, I'm not sure and don't even know if I'm bothered, that injury messed up Dudu really bad and while I feel sorry for him I think we just have to move on. Its the upcoming generation I'm bothered about.

I do feel its about time we started integrating more of the upcoming generation, I would go for Lansbury and JET for next season since Owen Coyle seems to want Wilshere anyway and I think if the deal can be arranged quickly he can become the creative fulcrum of Bolton's team just like Cesc is for us particularly if he has a full pre-season with them. This would give him more time to physically adapt to the PL without costing us points and games while gaining immense experience. I trust Coyle enough to get the best out of him if he can have the likes of Muamba scoring goals.

JET and Lansbury have proven themselves in the Championship and are more physically suitable for the PL just like Rambo, I feel it is time to give them their chance. We can rotate early on during the season and keep our players fresh for the latter stages. Arsene really must rotate more and stop this stable central partnership of playing Gallas and Vermaelen in all PL games during the season.

If you truly want value for money in terms of bringing in youth players, how much better than Adem Ljajic at 19 can you get? Anyway, don't want to get into a continuous repetition of words that lead to strife, we will compare notes in the new season God sparing us all. The trend is there for the wise to see now, but some people will stay in denial until reality hits.

@Emperoh

I gbadun you, but I wouldn't expect Manure to come wash their dirty linen in public. Some recent purchases by Fergie have me wondering and some of them even look a bit hasty and possibly rash in my opinion. Have you seen Smalling's recent performances for both club and country? Arsenal fans are now starting to thank God you lot hijacked the deal.

Also, Hernandez was outshined by the likes of Vela and Dos Santos at under age level for Mexico and progressed to the National team ahead of him despite being younger (you could make the case that players don't progress at the same pace and his initial performance in the national team are quite encouraging but he has only played 4 games for mexico and they've all been friendlies as he wasn't part of the Gold cup squad or that which qualified for the world cup) but you should worry about a player who was reported to have even considered his career as a professional player in recent time before hitting a rich vein of form.

I agree we can't draw any firm conclusions until next season kicks off but I stand by my initial assertions, Manure's recent purchases have been more of bargain type than marquee signings and we've not even factored in the Ljajic transfer saga, if this trend continues into the next season, the truth of Manure's financial situation will be firmly established.

dayokanu:
bayern needed a 3-2 loss to qualify and we did the minimum needed. Why do we need to bust our guts on a minor like Man Utd

Let me tell you if we needed to beat you 10-3 we would have done that easily.

For the last 15 minutes we could have scored 6. Even Lvan Gaal removed Robben(a goal threat) immediately after the goal for a defensive midfielder

Man Utd is no match for us. If we play 10 times Bayern would surely win 9. gba be

You've been playing too much of Fifa 10, Manure no wowo reach that, you guys did ride your luck. The truth is, as Manure's team goes into transition they will have more of what I call the "Know how" problems that afflicts the arsenal squad and most other youthful squads as exemplified by Rafael's intransigence. There is a very good reason why clubs pay for experience, but on the flip side there is also good reason why clubs go into administration.

Emperoh:
Duduspace

The fact that Wenger's smallings have not matured into big goons doesn't mean others won't.
It also doesn't mean we can't afford to buy big quality if they come at the right price.
Benzema and Villa were over-priced and u & i know how Fergie sought to buy them. . . .United is not in the market to flex muscles with those with soo much money to throw about. . . .sensible spending is what is needed at this moment!!!

And i bet the small money talents have propects of blossoming into real players!!
If Valencia was bought for 16.7m, doesn't it tell you that we will still do them big players when the right amount comes by?
Big money spending doesn't get you trophies. . . .getting quality does!!!

Here comes a Daniel to judgement but your postulations are wrong, a good number of Wenger's smallings have come good and a lot of them are presently on the borderline of making that transition.
All I have done is compare trends, why are you lot getting all jumpy and defensive, possibly cos yu're afraid there is truth in it?

tkb417:
i reiterate, you dont have sense

in simple terms
UTD do not have to buy expensive players to prove points!
The ability of the successful clubs to spot bright talents when they are not expensive is what makes them where they are today
The crux of the UTD side that won the 1999 UCL came through the youth team and oh yeah, the team was one of the richest in the world then.
so if UTD sees young cheap, talented players and opts to buy them (soemething the club is known for for decades)as against buying overpriced 'mercenaries' then it means UTD are broke?

Ure brain dead!!

Did you read the post at all or you're typing because your fingers are idle? look at the trend in purchasing and convince me I'm wrong in my assertions, if you can't do that can you please let people who aren't from your looney ward contribute more meaningful posts.  

tkb417:
how much did Barca buy Messi? and since the credit crunch hasnt hit your club, show us the players you have bought that are expensive
dont tell me sylvestre and Sol Campbel

You gaynners are not intelligent

Why are you sounding so dim witted, wetin Messi get to do with this? All credits to Barca for getting such a talent at such an early age, I don't think anyone can take anything from what Barca have done with Messi.
I'm only examining recent purchases by Manure and comparing with past trends in their purchasing, if you don't have anything intelligent to say and want to discuss like Baba Suwe I'm sure DK is more than ready to indulge you. 
Now can we kindly stick to the issues I raised and discuss like people with a considerable percentage of grey and white matter in their skulls?

Cristalz:
@duduspace
You saying there were no 'low cost' purchases at the time dem expensive players were bought as well?

So a club must buy 11 players within the price range of 16-50 million to be financially sound in your eyes. Nice.

When Fergie sees costly quality, he goes for it. When he sees quality that costs cheaper, he goes for it as well. Merges both effectively.
As for Arsene, once quality falls under 'expensive' he runs for dear life.
That's not good management.  .  .that's cowardice. Sometimes you've gotta stick your neck out to reap big.
Any wonder why yet another trophyless season looms for the Gunners?

Presently, no manager in his right mind is learning from Arsene.

Also, check this:
No crunch, 15m was spent on Ando, 13m on Ronaldo.
Crunch, 16m was spent on Valencia, which according to you is ''low budget''.

If 16m spent post-crunch is low budget, what do we then call the 15m and 13m spendings pre-crunch?

Herez some advice.  .  .find something better to do with your time other than examining United affairs with a cracked up, dusty magnifying glass.

@Cristalz

You're way off mark CR7, Rooney, Anderson, Nani, were all bought at such high costs while Under 21. Valencia is no spring chicken at 24 and Smalling has already hit 20. For a club that got a windfall of 80m from CR7's sale it is quite weird to see such budget value purchases.
There is an obvious change in strategy here, it might be to do with the general recession in world football that Arsene has always spoken of or just the business side of football in Manure waking up and smelling the coffee that some models are simply unsustainable.
You have a point though, I still wouldn't bet against old man Fergie splurging out during the summer even if it drags Manure into Portsmouth territory.

Is the signing of Javier Hernandez indicative of a change in Manure's spending policy? there has been a recent change in the transfer costs of players bought at OT, instead of buying big, there now seems to be a tendency towards low budget purchases, since the exit of CR7 here are Fergie's recent acquisitions.

1 Obertan                         3m
2. Mame Biram Diouf         4m
3. Chris Smalling              12m
4. Javier Hernandez          6m (potentially rising to 10m based on apps)
5. Valencia                       16m

These costs are a far cry from the 25m on Rooney, 13m on CR7, 19m on Hargo, 30m on Berbatov, 18.6m on Carrick, 15m on Anderson and same on Nani in past years. Has the credit crunch finally hit manure, or is he finally starting to pick a few tips from Le Prof on how to run a football club sustainably?

Emperoh:
Haters
Rejoice ye in the success of ya neighbour cos u know not what the Lord God hath prepareth for ye!!
Rejoice ye not the failures and downfalls of ye neighbour cos u knoweth not what the Lord shall afflict you with!!
See wetin UCL they cause!!! i don begin quot bible[/color]

You don't need all this long sermon, "Do as you would be done by" is simple enough. And yes, there is that one about people rejoicing when the wicked encounter misfortune as Manure did. That is what you get for being red devils in deed and in truth. 

Sauron, what is your excuse for losing out to DK's goons?  

Dr Kitaun,

Wetin Verm for do when Silvestre kept on passing to Messi? I do agree that as good as Verm is, he is not as proficient defensively as the likes of Vidic but the lad just clocked 24 and is in his first season, get him a stable partner and let them build an understanding and yu've got a massive CB in there.

One thing I can't fault Vermaelen for is commitment, I could see him frequently trying to drive us forward from the back yesterday, the one aspect of his game I think can be improved is his communication on the pitch.

The truth is that we were beaten by a better team with an exceptional player in Messi yesterday but that shouldn't be a consolation or excuse for the lads and I know it is not for Arsene, all our young players can look at Messi as an example of what they should be aiming for, all our players can also learn a thing or two from Barcelona's work ethic, for all their beautiful football those guys put in one hell of a shift in playing their game. That team deserves to win the UCL back to back for the first time, they are that good.

edoyad:
All these useless haters and rivals, don't you people know when to show love and compassion to your enemies ?

Na so life be Ed, let them have their few hours of laughter, Arsenal matches on nonetheless. I believe in the way the team played today than the football brutucu chelsea put up last season which was rightly ended by a last gasp goal from Iniesta. The boys have got to run first before they fly and they can only do this by having confidence in the way they play the game.

[quote author=kay_pumpin link=topic=400313.msg5843402#msg5843402 date=1270586670]A lot of peeps talk about how Barca are a great ball-passers but that is not the most salient attribute of the team.It is the way they press the opponents when they do not have the ball and stiffle you like a pack of wolves.[/quote]This is one of the major areas where the lads need to improve greatly to make the next step up. The way they closed up all passing avenues and made Almunia kick out long punts up the pitch was impressive, our players never do that.

We came up against the best player in the world and he showed us why he bears that tag. All our players can learn a lot from Messi.

All those who have pacemakers should check that their batteries are fully charged, quoting Slimshay "This is not for the faint hearted", The Gooners are rolling into the Nou camp with an indomitable spirit. It is not over until the final whistle goes. Battle stations at the ready, The great Barca must fall tonite.

@Debo

Don't mind the british media and their silly misconceptions to anything Arsenal related, Cesc's role IMO is the one we have the most strength in depth in the team, anyone of Nasri, Rosicky and Denilson can and have done good jobs in that position either with us or their former clubs. That is the role both Ramsey and Rozz play for their national teams presently and that is the position Nasri played at Marseille. Cesc is a player anyone would like to have playing in their team on any given day but his absence is not the disaster the media is making it out to be.