Staring at the "Ring of Fire" is dangerous and make me feel sick

Short and sweet.

So....

We made our first signing in the form of Carl Jenkinson, a 19 year old right-back who I think we can assume will be Sagna’s understudy next season (and not played out of position – please Arsene NO!!). Having the best RB in the league to learn your trade from will hopefully lead to Jenkinson going on to become a top quality player for club and country.

I think it’s pretty clear that this will be the final nail in the coffin of the club jester Eboue. He’s been a great servant to The Arsenal; he had a couple of cracking seasons, before (sadly for him) Sagna arrived and he was then told he was a right winger by Arsene. This led to Emmanuel forgetting all of the good work he had done at full-back the previous 3 seasons; he could no longer defend, to the point he became a liability in both his old and ‘new’ position, culminating in the Wigan game where he was outrageously and horrendously booed by our home ‘support’.

Thankfully he saw the chastising as a wake-up call to try and save his career, and he has since then played much better when called upon; which to be fair hasn’t been that often, due to said liability traits.

I never bought into the ‘Cult of Eboue’ shit, but I preferred that to the nonsensical player bashing, that is now reserved for Denilson and Bendtner. With QPR being bandied about in the media I want to wish him good luck with whatever his next steps in football are. The club will be different without his theatrics and liabilitiness* (not a real word I know) but he is massively popular with the players, so hopefully the team morale doesn’t suffer without him.

The signing of Jenkinson and the apparent future departure of Eboue (other than being sensible!!!) would increase our number of ‘home grown’ players and free up one of the foreign national spaces within the squad. Throw in the fact that we’ve made an 11^th hour bid for Phil Jones at £16m + bigger wags than MUFC and it seems as though AW has finally taken his “economics degree hat” off and has put his, “I’ve got fucking roubles/dollars to spend, let’s go MENTAL with it” face mask on.

It’s a clear sign of intent or madness, but hopefully it’s also a sign that for once, Arsene wants to get the bulk of his player business done prior to August, especially with the Champions League qualifier this year. That said some of the transfer fees being thrown about are ridiculous, £20m for Jordan Henderson? You can FUCK RIGHT OFF. Some fans are questioning why we didn’t go in for him. Here’s you answer: JACK WILSHERE & AARON RAMSEY. Some people.

With the conclusion to the Jones saga yet to be confirmed amid rumours/reports of failing a medical at MUFC this is the start of what I think will be the craziest transfer window ever and it could potentially have started out with Arsenal being the biggest winners thus far. There will be alot more of this sort of shit over the next 10 weeks (which will be nauseating for 99% of the time) but I like the idea of The Arsenal winning....

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it bitches.

Shit, much longer than expected, but meh....

RC

Should he stay or should he go

I’m not really sure what to make of the Samir Nasri situation. Is he being a complete tool, or is just really stupid. After making various comments about Man Utd 2 days ago, he was last night stating that he wants to see how the squad building goes over the summer before committing to sign a new deal. Not sure how I feel about that. I saw one person on twitter say that he should show his ambition by taking a wage decrease enabling the club to spend the ‘freed up’ money to add to the transfer ‘warchest’. Admirable idea, but this is modern football. Never. Gonna. Happen.

Obviously Nasri has seen/heard the backlash from the fans and is trying to now paint a nicer picture of himself but it all seems a bit sad to me. Why is it that the players who show great improvement after 2 years of nothing, then get too big for their own boots? Flamini, Adebayor, and now Nasri; all had mediocre first 2 seasons at the club, before having their best (half) season in the Red&White. Surely you deserve a substantial pay rise after showing consistent improvement, not after a spurt?

Maybe I’m living too much in the real world, but Arsene needs to get his house in order with regards to the wage structure for our players. Stories of Denilson, Diaby, Rosicky, Vela all getting handsome pay rises in recent years, for doing naff all, doesn’t sit well with the fans especially as the season ticket price rise of 6.2% has effectively paid for the increased wages.

Arsenal are a loyal club (by and large) and Arsene a loyal manger; he vehemently defends his players from any criticism, yet some players, who Wenger has helped nurture and given opportunities to,  choose to repay him by either using agents to get away from the club, or make ridiculous demands for wage increases when they provide little (or no) evidence that it is deserved. These players should be running their backsides into the ground for Arsenal, we’ve made them who they are today, Yet they don’t, they try backheels on the halfway line, don’t track back, throw their arms in the air as a teammate makes a mistake. It all seems…..pathetic.

It’s sad to say it, but if said players were at Man Utd, they wouldn’t last more than 6 months. Hate him for being a the biggest knob-jockey in the universe, but Fergusson doesn’t take this kind of shit from anybody; he got rid of his best defender in Jaap Stam at the height of his career because of a bit of jip in Stam’s autobiography. He was a beast of a player, but due to a lack of respect he was out. Can you imagine Arsene doing that? For my mind some of the displays we’ve had to witness from these players have been shockingly disrespectful to the club. Seemingly a few will be off this summer, but does Arsene need to be more ruthless? In my opinion 1000000000000000000000% yes. Players who actually give a fuck about the club, and playing for the manager are what this club needs not players who crab their way round the pitch and then slag off team displays, transfer policy, fans, when they need to look squarely at themselves in the mirror and realise that they are not good enough and they need to work harder because  they are letting not only themselves, but those around them down.

I don’t care if Samir Nasri goes or stays, but he needs to start showing a bit more respect to the people who pay his wages if he does stay, or the backlash from the clubs 60’000 bankrollers could be huge come August.

It's all so slow.....

So it's back to grey again in London town; normal service resumed me thinks.

After a rather lame attempt at cooking a bbq on the sun flooded Highbury Fields yesterday, to wake up to a raft of boring Cesc rumours this morning is like waking up with the most ragingist of raging hangovers after a mediocre night out. Dull, annoying and uneventful. Has all that bollocks started already? it's going to be a long summer.

With regards to Cesc, if he goes, he goes. The Arsenal will live on and is about much more than just one player. As many have said in the Arsenal Blogosphere and on Twiter before me, as long as we replace an outgoing player with equal if not better quality then I don't care who comes and goes. Just my opinion, but meh, it's an opinion, take it in and let it go.

A few current and former Arsenal players played in the England match yesterday. I didn't watch it, as I find England internationals painful to watch at the best of times, but even more so when London is bathed in sunshine and there is beer to be drank and bbq to be eaten (or not in my case).

As it  turns out (from what I've read) Jack had a good game, while Theo and Djourou were poor, both continuing their downward spiralling end-of-season form. JD's downturn in form has been emphatic, and worrying ahead of next season. If anything it's re-highlighted the need for Wenger to buy a top quality centre half; if JD is making Philip Senderos look like an assured defender, then we really can't be relying on him to lead the line with Tommy V next season.

For my money its a TV-Kos6  first choice central defence next season. Hopefully the lack of form for JD is a result of playing more games this season than he has ever before, add in a lack of confidence to his obvious fatigue and you've got an error prone defender, a nice little holiday should sort that out. *praying*

As ever it's all quiet on the subject of players coming into the club at the moment (not that I care one jot currently), but with predictions from the Tiwtterverse of new signings X, Y and Z to be announced next week I'm sure we're in for a bumper-packed, happy-filled, mountain of nonsense, bullshit, guff and bollocks of the highest order to be thrown at us from all directions in the coming days. All hail the saviours X, Y and Z. YAY!!

can't wait...... have good Sunday