‘Can good enough for a top club, but doesn’t fit in at Liverpool’

Emre Can: Could face France

Emre Can: Could face France

An interesting question regarding Emre Can has been posed on our forum, while Arsenal’s boardroom situation is discussed.

Arsenal ‘are stuck between a rock and a hard place’

Al: I fear we are stuck with Kroenke long term, and Wenger for at least two more years. Kroenke manages at arms length; which is has some benefits.

If you look at the NFL and the Washington Redskins or even the Lakers in the NBA, you would not want owners to meddle too much in the day to day operations.

However, he needs to set clear goals; which must include winning the big prizes, but at the moment this does not appear to be the case. He did make significant funds available to Wenger last summer. Based on our current plight I would have to say that the money was not well spent; Xhaka has been particularly disappointing.

I think a new manager is what is needed right now. I do not think Kroenke would sell to Usmanov. Maybe if someone from the middle east with vast sums of money were to make an offer, then maybe Kroenke would sell. All I am saying is that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Ahmad1973

 

Kroenke in for the long haul

There is no reason at all for Kroenke to sell up- why would he?

I read a few weeks ago that the value of the club has almost doubled since he came onto the scene, it’s nearing £1.5b now. He’s hardly in need of any cash despite spending an obscene amount of money on his new Texan ranch.

Arsenal Football Club is appreciating very nicely thank you and that despite such limited success recently compared to Wenger’s initial spell. Additionally, our commercial deals are still dwarfed by most other “big clubs” and that has been the case for some time, but that does not cloud the bigger value picture.

If and when we fail to qualify for the CL and it looks increasingly unlikely as this season progresses, Kroenke’s moustache might twitch for a second, but according to our CEO ( is he still alive?), our business plans accommodate such “temporary” lapses.

No, Kroenke is in here for the long run as no doubt the AFC asset will continue to rise in value. Think what it would be worth with a half-decent manager, who knew what to do though?!

Jeff

 

‘Better the devil you know…’

Ahmad, that’s what worries me. If we could somehow get Kroenke to sell up, we’d have absolutely no idea who would replace them.

At least in the case of the manager, how ambitious the board will be with the next appointment remains to be seen, but at least there’s some control.

In the case of new owners, it could be absolutely anyone (well…..anyone with a spare £1.5b) and there are enough cases of incompetent boards/owners wrecking big clubs to be very wary.

We might not have the best owner and board in the world, but they’re a long, long way from the worst and, as the saying goes, better the devil you know. A bad board can do a lot more damage to our club than a bad manager.

Al The Gooner

‘Replacing the board is a utopia’

@Al I agree that replacing the board is a utopia and to be honest there are a lot worse examples than Stan and the gang out there.

However you can replace some idiots on there without affecting the board that much. There are to many financial muppets on there and they are not that great to be honest, sell cheap and buy expensive.

I mean come on 17 million for Perez and he has played what 2 games in the PL? I like Perez as he should get more oppurtunities than others but that much for warming the bench is stupid to me. Better to buy a real talent and let him grow than this.

muffler_1

 

‘I don’t get this Gary Neville love-in’

I really don’t get this Gary Neville love-in – he’s by far the most irritating to me; I ended up watching the Burnley game with no sound as he just ruins the televisual experience for me.

You’d think that with all of Sky’s technical jiggery pokery they could offer a selective audio choice of muting out the Co-Commentator. He always adopts the typical “lazy journalism” approach of picking up on a single incident/short spell in a game, nails his colours to the mast, which then continues to define his opinion about everything in terms of who is the better team for the rest of the game.

He then chunters on about it ad nauseam if it is still representative of the game even when the whole dynamics and scoreline have totally changed. Like an oil tanker that takes 75 minutes to change direction.

A Co-Com (who is always an ex-pro) should only be invited to open his mouth when he can provide an expert insight into a part of the game that the main Commentator would not be able to understand and explain as well as the person who has played the game.

That’s more how it used to be, but these days we suffer from the trade-off of increased quantity vs decreased quality of co-comments.

Red Herring

 

‘Would you take £15m for Can in the summer?’

Emre Can: Juventus links not going away

I think we can all agree that Can has had a poor season (insert numerous reasons)

Can he be our number 6? I don’t think he has the positional awareness or range of passing for that role

What is his best position? Does he have one?

With the track record of long term calf injuries i cant see how we can rely on him to fill in. So the question is do we keep him? Would you take 15M for him in the summer? I would

(that’s me done on the Can discussion)

AK

 

Can ‘doesn’t fit in’ at Liverpool

Can is good enough to play well for another top club but he doesn’t fit in here with how we are setup and want to play. It’s really annoying that he only has 12 months left on his contract, who knows what this will do to his value this summer but I think we need to tear this band-aid off and sell him.

We need to find a top quality DM, if that guy from Leipzig is of the quality that we need and we can get him then brilliant, let’s go get him.

Mr Makaveli

 

‘Discipline a problem for Pogba’

Paul Pogba: Praised by Mourinho after FA Cup exit

Discipline seems to be a big problem for Pogba, but if anyone can drill that into him than I’m sure Mourinho can.

Given lots of time over the summer (no Euro’s etc) to train him to be able to play in a midfield 2.

We could see a much better Pogba next season. Otherwise use TFM to be that holding player next to him. Give him some games if he is ready for it and we wont need to spend more money on a defensive mid.

Stuntman_Matt

 

‘Not sure’ Fosu-Mensah’s United future

TImothy Fosu-Mensah: Defender penned new deal

Stuntman…would love TFM to be some kind of saviour but his lack of football is a huge worry.

Can’t make the first team bench, doesn’t play for the under 23’s who are crying out for a leader and doesn’t seem to be in favour with any of the important people at the club.

Not sure he is ever going to be a Manchester United footballer and I find that sad, he looked a prospect last season.

Personally I’d have been throwing him in this year and bringing back Pereira from Grenada next season but I’m not sure either is high in Mourninho’s plans.

Wonderfuel Gas

 

Pereira in Mourinho’s thinking

Andreas Pereira: Surplus to requirements

Pereira has said that Mourinho is in regular contact with him this season so I’m thinking that he is in Mourinho’s plans for the future.

I think Mourinho doesn’t have the luxury, this season at least, with giving too many young players a chance. Results are vitally important in getting the team to where it needs to be.

If things were going better and we were established in the top four that might be different but with it seemingly an endless struggle to get out of sixth place he’s sticking with what he knows.

What next season will bring I don’t know. Also we can say what we like about TFM and other youngsters, they’re obviously not producing the goods on the training ground or they’d be in the squad.

killyboye