Up For Grabs Now

With all the doom-mongering and transfer-related whingeing that’s been going on, only the very perceptive will have emerged from this summer having retained the memory of Arsenal actually owning any players whatsoever. And some good ones, too.

Grabber has done a fine job of swarthily surveying our array of attacking players like the seasoned trooper that he is. Now it’s my turn, with the case for the defence.

Manuel Almunia: combines a career as a top-flight goalkeeper with a part-time role as a German-baiting waiter. Also combines being Spanish with being English, and not getting picked for Spain with not getting picked for England. An Arsene favourite. For years completely unfancied by all, sundry, and everyone else as a bench-warming, cross-flapping enigma, you’ve got to admire the pluck of the man Mad Jens once complained had “only started playing football aged 30″.  Hope he stays fit.

Lukasz Fabianski: A blonde girl in a pub once told me that Fabianski is the best looking Arsenal player since Flamini. Be that as it may, his carefully slicked down fringe didn’t do much to quieten the howls of agony when he inexplicably charged past the onrushing Drogba at Wembley in the spring. Still, we all make mistakes, and he’s made some decent saves. Only 24, and improving. But hope Manuel stays fit.

Gael Clichy: A big season for Gael as he tries to dislodge Evra from the France team. Evra looks permanently furious and fights with passing groundsman at the drop of a rake. Clichy is extraordinarily fast, but developed a nasty tendency to fall over at crucial periods, such as in injury time against the hated foe. Hopefully this will be stamped out and he will finally learn to shoot. A top player who should be looking to last the season this year.

Bacary Sagna: Arguably the best player in the world. Sure, you’d have to argue that one pretty well, but if we had eleven Bacary Sagnas… well, I’d stick four in defence and the rest would have to compete with the others for places. One could probably play in midfield somewhere. And we might get away with playing a couple in the Ladies team. A magnificent defender, a soldier, and a gentleman.

Thomas Vermaelen: If you can’t sign Nemanja Vidic, why not sign someone who looks a bit like him? Steely of eye, iron of jaw and proud of forehead, Vermaelen has all the physical attributes to prove the doubters wrong about Wenger’s ability to buy defenders. Plus, he’s captained Ajax already and at 24 should have valuable experience and some great years ahead of him. I think he will prove to be a very shrewd buy.

William Gallas: Still here. After all the huffing and sulking, Wenger did the unthinkable and got rid of plucky Kolo instead, which leaves a lot of responsibility with Gallas. Unfairly maligned for his generally solid performances in my opinion, Gallas’ experience will be hugely important. He should realise that it’s his last season at the top, nail his colours to the mast and play a blinder. Could still be a world-beating stopper for us if his head is right and he can gel with Vermaelen.

Johan Djourou: Cited by Wenger as one of the many (three) tall players in our squad, this could be a breakthrough year for the young swiss, who has clearly muscled himself well ahead of Senderos in the picking order. Must steer clear of injury, but a first team spot is certainly not beyond him this season.

Emmanuel Eboue: So good, we profiled him twice. Arguably the best player in the world. Mad, bad, and often dangerous to pass to. Let’s hope that when he does get on he plays in defence, that he continues to cut inside so thrillingly (and entirely unpredictably) and that he wins a penalty at Old Trafford with a dive so egregious that it shocks the world. Reportedly wanted by Barcelona as a replacement for the tediously magnificent Dani Alves, and who can blame them?

Back 4 Extras: Arsene Knows. More than anything he seems to know how to find lithe quicksilver young left full-backs. Kieran Gibbs will have to fight it out with Armand Traore to be Clichy’s back up this year, though both players could surely also be useful on the wing if pressed into action. Mikael Silvestre continues to cement his place as a firm fans favourite, which is why we all hope he’s used sparingly.

Alex Song: Turned himself into a bit of a lynch-pin by the end of last season, though that was partly because we didn’t have any other players left. A good start could see him kick on to become a major force, though you still wonder if Wenger doesn’t see him as a defender. The face of Arsenal’s cosmetics range, there is still time to make yourself smell like Song. Prone to dozing off against correctly-termed lesser teams, our soft underbelly is likely to completely collapse without him, unless we get another defensive midfielder soonish.

Denilson: Famously “not as good as Kaka”, as the woman behind me repeatedly insists on pointing out, Denilson is a very promising talent, who must be looking to really impose himself on the team this year. Blessedly injury-averse, the ever-present young square-pass merchant isn’t going to convince everyone, but he’s convinced Mr Wenger, who will want him, like Song, to add a bit of grit and consistency to his game. Also like Song, likely to be the scapegoat for any poor results.

Aaron Ramsey: Tidy, skilful and a future mainstay. Looked overawed at points last year, but should know his way around by now. Not one to hang about and clearly convinced of his ability (just in a Welsh, rather than Danish way, if you get me) Aaron is likely to see a lot of gametime, especially if no other central midfielders arrive. Did I mention that some Arsenal fans want to see a defensive midfielder brought in?

Prognosis: The patient is a bit off-colour for this time of year, and looks thin around the middle. Would benefit from a muscular injection in defensive midfield and centre-half. What an original conclusion.

Thank God the season’s here. There’s been far too much Arsene-bashing from the press and some fans, and futile, circular, transfer-related harping. A win on Saturday would be the best way to forget all about it.

1. Fabregas. You’ve gotta love him. He’s one of the very few footballers who seems to understand what it’s like being a fan and how terrified we are when someone starts claiming that your best player wants to leave. I thought the Out of Contextness of the comments yesterday was so obvious and the jump from Cesc saying “Milan are a great club” to headlines like ”CESC WANTS OUT!” was so big that it was very obviously bollocks. Soon there will be a whole industry (hold on, there is, it’s called the Spanish media) dedicated to asking Cesc innocuous questions and then twisting his polite replies into dire threats of his imminent departure. It really isn’t going to go away as it’s a perennially big story which the papers can run over and over again without doing any actual work, which is exactly the kind of story journalists love.

Yet still, great man that he is, Captain Cesc takes the time to issue a short statement on Arsenal.com effectively saying “don’t worry, it’s all bollocks I’m staying here”. Thierry Henry used to say he wouldn’t respond to every story about his future because if he did he’d have to be doing it all the time and the stories would just come back next week. Well, Cesc does it all the time and it doesn’t exactly seem to be a full-time job, Thierry, and yes he is balancing brief statement-making with the captaincy. Cesc seems to realise that though the stories won’t go away, what matters when Arsenal fans see these stories is that they have some kind of confirmation that they are the same old guff.

Captain Cesc, we salute you. You are a warrior and a gentleman.

2. Eduardo is coming back! Arsene has said he’s been playing training matches, will be back as quickly as possible and should be getting games soon! I think we all know that we shouldn’t expect too much of the boy especially when he first gets back, but I can’t really stop myself thinking about how great it will be to see him back in the shirt and how incredible it would be if he got back to his pre-injury level of performance. It could also be vital for our season, though the icy realist in me (he’s called Olie and he’s been having a great time all season) keeps insisting that we’re unlikely to see him back at anything like his best until next season. Still, haste ye back, Dudu.

3. We’re going to annihilate Wigan. I can feel it. I know as I write this that I might end up eating a My Words roast on Sunday with a My Words sauce and My Words dumpling but I’ll go for this anyway: I think we may have turned some kind of corner. I know we’ve had more than a few false dawns and I don’t expect everything to suddenly be hunky-dory again, but I don’t think we’re going to see as much utter piffle as we’ve been subjected to in recent weeks.

My confidence for the Wigan game is based on two things. Firstly, Wigan are really bad and Titus Bramble plays for them. Secondly, the kids got duffed in the Carling Cup and two of our most abject first team displays have followed triumphant Gunnerlings victories. Not so this time. I expect a three-points-sandwich for Saturday’s supper.

4. Veet-hair-removal-cream-nemesis Ryan Giggs, a player for whom I have infinitely more respect than the detestable Roy Keane (see previous post, the guy resigned by text message – what a clown), has hailed Aaron Ramsey as the future of Welsh football. If this sounds a bit like saying that consonants are the future of the Welsh language it’s because it is, a bit. There’s not much competition from the vowels, admittedly, but I reckon Giggs has seen enough promising young players to have a pretty shrewd idea when you’re looking at a future great and this is what he seems to be saying with Ramsey.

5. Finally, today’s your last chance to enter our Sagnatastic Chant Composition Competition. Write us a top new Arsenal chant and pop it in the comments section and if yours emerges on top from the bloody struggle with all the other entries then we will richly reward you with a crown of laurels* and a photo of Bacary Sagna, signed by His Majesty The Right Back himself. You might as well give it a go.

* the crown of laurels aspect of the prize is purely metaphorical, an e-crown of laurels to be worn with pride.

Update: An additional reason why it’s great to be a Gooner today – Ronaldo almost signed for us but didn’t. Hmm. Don’t know how much support that’s going to get as a reason to feel great, but you will admit that the guy is a complete tool whose victory in the Ballon d’Or was a shame for football. Plus we had Reyes instead, didn’t we. Hmm. I can see this is going to be difficult, so let’s move on.

Can anyone make a whole team of players we nearly signed who then went on to greatness? This might be a bit painful, but off the top of my head there was Cech and Ronaldo (both of whom we were very close to), Terry might have been on the cards before Abramovich arrived, Robinho was fairly close before he went to Madrid and Torres was looked at very seriously when he was 17. Wenger almost signed Makelele before he went to Spain. God, this is depressing – anyone remember any others?

Not so much to talk about today. We’re no longer in the Carling Cup, which is a bit, well, meh, isn’t it? I try very hard to get worked up about this sort of thing, but you can’t always do well in the Carling Cup, and it would be far worse if players like Cesc Fabregas were becoming demoralised and tired from losing away at Burnley than Nick Bendtner, say, who as far as I’m concerned can be as tired and as demoralised as he wants just at the moment, the couldn’t-hit-a-barn-door bastard.

Jay Simpson might go to Norwich. I know people will talk about this young player and his facial hair, but for me the real interest in him at this point is that he’s the second part of the name of America’s favourite yellow father (and not the Chinese sort), as you discover in the episode where you discover that the ‘J’ in Homer ‘J’ Simpson stands simply for ‘Jay’.

I think perhaps his nickname should be ‘Homer’.

Gael Clichy says we can’t afford to drop points, which is a bit like me saying I don’t need any more muffins, in that it will probably happen anyway, and Gael will feel sad for saying it. I think Gael Clichy should stop speaking to the press for a little while, anyway.

Anyway, that’s about all for today. I leave you to continue the chant competition to win our signed photo of Bacary Sagna (signed by him, not by us). For my two pennies’ worth, there must be something doable with the Vampire Weekend song ‘Walcott’…?

Nicklas Bendtner, eh? one week he’s lashing the ball confidently into the Dynamo Kyiv net and exposing his chilly Viking torso to the winter night, the next he’s tapping the ball pitifully into the expansive midriff of Burnley’s gargantuan goalkeeper Brian Jensen. The next one after that he’s doing the pitiful tapping thing again. And the one after that. What happened to confident lashing, Nicklas?

Wenger’s post-match assessment of all this miss-ery was unusually unsympathetic to Nicklas and his striking chums:

We had plenty of chances but when you do not score, you really have to ask yourself why. You can praise their keeper but also question our strikers. We had six one-on-ones with their keeper and did not score with any of them. In front of goal, you have to be much more clinical than we were. We just did not have the right focus in front of goal. We lost a game we should never have lost.

Which sounds about as close as you’ll get with Arsene to him placing the blame at the whiffy adolescent feet of Nicklas Bendtner, or at least putting a big mental question mark over those “berry”-coloured boots.

I think that question mark has been sitting in the minds of most Goons for most of the time that Bendtner’s been in the first team squad. He’s a player that has frustrated us Goons for a long time now – scoring important goals with apparent ease one day, then looking absolutely useless (and in extreme cases such as the Liverpool tie last season, worse than useless) for the next three or four games.

Bendtnerphiles take a long view. He’s still only 20 years old and has scored 14 goals in 28 starts. That’s good going for any striker, especially at his age. Sure, they say, he shouldn’t be in the first team every week and he’s still very raw but he’s going to be an important player in the future.

Bendtnerphobes (in my experience outnumbering the philes about 25 to 1 – it’s always easier to criticise) point out that his goals record needs to include his 34 substitute appearances, in which he is often at his most infuriating. They object that he looks silly and apparently lacks basic footballing ability at crucial moments.

From these two camps, only the more extreme Bendtnerphobes will claim that he the lad hasn’t got talent. Similarly, there is broad agreement that he does look a bit silly.

Finally there’s Bendtner himself, and it is his own view which counts. You see, Nicklas has been Denmark’s main striker for about 2 years now, and in his eyes that makes him a fairly major European footballer. Everyone else might point out that that’s a bit like being Norwich City’s main striker, but not so Nicklas, whose agent-father has muttered about interest from the likes of Milan and Juventus whenever it looked like Nicklas might be spending the season in a tracksuit.

So on the one hand he’s a thrusting Gunnerling with bags of potential and on the other he thinks he’s a bit good. He should probably watch last night’s tape and see how that stands up.

Anyway, I’d be interested to know your thoughts on Naughty Nicklas.

The good thing about crashing out of the Carling Cup is that it means we’ll almost definitely win this weekend, in contrast to past weekends where our kids had flattened their Premiership opposition only for our main men to feel so bad about it that they allowed themselves to be flattened in turn (Hull etc). None of that on Saturday, thanks.

And don’t forget UpForGrabsNow’s SUPER SAGNA COMPETITION. Pen the top new Gooner chant and you could get your hairy mits on a photograph of His Majesty The Right Back signed by none other than His Majesty The Right Back himself. SAGNATASTIC! Just post them on the comments section and we’ll announce the winner at the end of the week.

 Another chance for the kids to show they’re alright tonight, with a trip to the grim northern hellhole delightful northern beauty-spot of Burnley. Arsene has come out asking for his record to be respected in this competition. Odd that ‘Arsene wants his record respected’ caught my eye – perhaps it’s something to do with all those ridiculous blogs calling for his head…

Honestly. If I were our tykes I’d be very unhappy at all the running around in the rain I’d have to do. Particularly given how cold the rain is likely to be. Cold and wet. I bet Carlos Vela doesn’t appreciate the cold and wet that much. I’ve always maintained that Arsenal play best in the sunshine – at the start and the end of the season.

Here’s to hoping that they don’t flop like blancmange this evening, and that the youthful zip which has served them so well so far continues. A comfortable 5-0 victory would suit me fine, with lots of goals for our part-time strikers, and hopefully a blooding for some of the part-timers, ideally Amaury Bischoff and Francis Coquelin, who have the best names in the squad except for Sanchez Watt.

Come on the boys. There’ll be instant response to the game here, so come for all your ranting and raving needs.

In other news, we here at Up For Grabs Now have a very special prize to give away – it is a signed photo of our rock-like right back Bacary Sagna, in all his octopus-haired glory.

All you have to do is suggest a great new chant for the Arsenal. It should be funny and different without being too offensive, and can either be about a player or the team as a whole. It should also cleave to the tune of an existing song – please detail the tune you’re working from.

Simply post it on the comments section and the best chant at the end of the week will win the photo, as well as my singing of the new chant loud and proud at the Emirates each week, until it catches on or I am escorted from the premises.

Not too hard now is it?

In the wake of the gamut of guff being spun about Cesc’s appointment, Up For Grabs Now would like to single out for special attention Arsenal’s erstwhile left-back, Gael Clichy,

In this player’s loveable heart, head and legs lies the beating essence of Arsene Wenger’s philosophy as a football manager. He is as quick as the wind, skilful, attack-minded and young. So far, so erratic Arsenal. But what separates Gael from the rest, and what’s been clear since he joined, is that he will give his all every time he steps onto the pitch. When all around him players are dropping or giving up, Clichy will be there chasing, harassing and driving forward. How many times have we seen him, having run all game, collect the ball in the 80^th minute only to go stampeding up the wing, surprising his own teammates as much as the helpless, exhausted opposing right midfielder? It doesn’t seem to matter whether we are winning or losing – as long as he is on the pitch in an Arsenal shirt he will keep fighting.

This is not to say he never makes mistakes: he had a bad game against Man City at the weekend, and he was responsible for Tottenham’s crucial third goal. Last season it was the penalty he conceded against Birmingham that marked the beginning of the end of our season. Unlike William Gallas he got up, shook himself down and went back to the fight. All players are going to make mistakes, particularly at the start of their careers. This is particularly going to be the case in an attacking team like Arsenal, where movement and speed are prioritised. The difference with Gael is that he always looks willing to learn from his errors, and to atone for them.

As I have written, he was my pick for captain. In hindsight it’s easy to see it was always going to be Fabregas, and I’ve no doubt Cesc will be a great leader of the club. One wonders what Clichy would have made of the talk he would be made captain. No doubt he would be too modest ever to accept the possibility, or at least to say so.

His response to the captaincy announcement was typical of what we’ve come to expect. He addressed some of the expected criticism about Cesc’s age and experience, and made the comparison with Tony Adams which will warm the hearts of gooners everywhere. But more than that he dealt with the Gallas situation, and restated the support he feels from the whole squad. True or not, it is exactly the message of unity the club needs to project at the moment. Even if we suggest cynically that the words were put into his mouth, a PR department could not wish for a finer spokesperson. Gael Clichy, this blog salutes you.

On to other matters, and this evening we face Dynamo Kiev, a game which could cement our place in the next round of the Champions League. With our league form as it is, the European competition is crucial, and a cup run can build a head of steam which carries over into the league. If Gallas, by the end of last week, had become a dividing force in the dressing, here’s to hoping Cesc can launch the new-look squad afresh and let them unleash their baby-faced potential on the world. We’re still missing key players, but I’ve no doubt the importance of the game won’t be lost on the side. One wonders sometimes if the European game holds, for the foreign imports, the magic which the FA Cup holds for English players. It certainly might explain our recent superior form on the continent.

It will also be interesting to see how Gallas responds. Who doesn’t want him to unleash his full defensive majesty on the game and respond to the abuse he’s endured with his feet? I know I do. If he can accept his role in the team and calm down, there’s no reason he can’t play a part for many more games to come, but he needs to knuckle down and get on with it.

Time to silence the critics, Arsenal.

P.S. We wish to apologise to Le Grove and its many, many readers for any offence we may have caused yesterday. We may have the given the completely true utterly false impression that he was mad. We now realise the error of our ways, as he has conclusively proven himself to be a visionary  genius with his revolutionary 2-4-4 formation for Arsenal’s future. What’s more, his 2-4-4 formation includes Bacary Sagna, hitherto understood to be quite injured. I daresay an explanation will be on its way. Perhaps he knows a guy who knows a guy. 

Here is the link: www.le-grove.co.uk