Obviously, Arsenal's transfer policy and constant antics in the market have not exactly brightened up the average fan's day, but it has a reason. As many criticize "Silent Stan," and "Ivan the Terrible," there are very specific reasons for their actions.
Arsenal have always been slated for their spending and financial status. Despite being one of the world's wealthiest and most valued clubs, every year Arsenal fail to bring in the big name players that everyone is desperate for, in order to make our team great once again.
Arsenal have managed to consistently compete at the highest level on a relatively low spending budget.
Your high point, low point and funniest moment of the season. by NS
Well, it's all over.
Overall, a frustrating season for Arsenal. That was a season of Deja vu for many. A promising start, strange team selections at the mid point, Rosicky returning late on, injuries to Diaby, captain sold and a monumental end to the season to catch and overtake Spurs to secure the 4th place trophy.
Having spent the entire season berating Robin van Persie on Twitter for fairly sensibly as it turned out leaving Arsenal to join Manchester United in pursuit of silverware last summer, wobble-chinned, spittle-flecked, so-pleased-with-himself-it-actual-manifests-as-physical-pain-in-others celebrity Gooner, Piers Morgan (otherwise and henceforth referred to as "Arsenal's shame") got his comeuppance yesterday evening when he received a little gift from the United press office courtesy of a certain Dutch striker.
Mikel Arteta has expressed how changing roles this season has been a fulfilling experience, and one that has dramatically helped the team's overall structure.
Previously Arteta had been more of an attacking midfielder, thriving at Everton in this position. However after the Gunner's saw holding midfielder Alex Song depart for Barcelona last summer, Arsene Wenger saw Arteta as the logical replacement.
Fiorentina forward Stevan Jovetic is expected to be one of the sought after players in the summer transfer window and it is not surprising to see the 23-year-old linked with several clubs like Arsenal. He is capable of playing as a striker or just behind in the hole. Despite his injury problems throughout the campaign, Jovetic managed to score 13 goals for Fiorentina last season.
With the best two football teams in Europe set to battle it out in London tomorrow for the Champions League final, we decided to put together a list of the top WAGs in European football. The only restriction was that the player associated with the WAG has to be playing in Europe.
As if playing in front of massive crowds of fans who cheer you on with every touch of the ball isn't a good enough reason to want to become a football star, the women that come with that glory seems to be the icing on top.
The football world will have all eyes on Wembley this weekend as Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund prepare to battle for the Champions League title. Both Dortmund and Munich have enjoyed long successful seasons to date, but none of that will matter when the German rivals take the pitch tomorrow evening.
After Benteke's comments yesterday about Arsenal, I've seen fans calling for Wenger to sign him as if he was the world's best player stating that he always dreamed of playing for Arsenal, however he's not. Back in reality he's a 22 year old striker for Belgium who had an exceptionally good season, but is he really what Arsenal need right now?
It's a pretty well-known fact that in order for Arsenal to improve then we need to ship out some of the ‘deadwood' and replace it with talent that can seriously build on our team and make it a strong competitor. If I'm honest I really don't think we are that far off a great team, we have the buildings of it already at the club, we just need to go out this summer and buy, in my opinion 3, maybe 4 top quality players.
Just as it seemed that Arsenal were losing their grasp on one of the top transfer targets, a couple of stories in the Spanish media have offered renewed hope that Gonzalo Higuain could be a Gunner next season. The striker's father Jorge and brother Nicholas work as his representatives and Nicholas has declared that the reports of an agreement with the Italian champions are premature.
There is a good chance that the goalkeeping situation at Arsenal will stay the same; and to be honest the topic is becoming more and more redundant as time goes on because Szczesny is a great keeper, and will be one of the best in the world (only an idiot would say otherwise).
Fabianski might be content with staying as Arsenals #2 keeper considering he is getting chances to start matches here and there, looking eager to overtake his young Polish compatriot, but who knows what decisions will be made by him or management during the summer.
Arsenal cannot win the title without major changes by SS
Every summer I hear Arsenal fans saying that next season the club will be back for a title challenge, I repeatedly laugh at that because I and anybody who is realistic knows that Arsenal simply cannot make a title challenge unless there is drastic changes to the whole club.
The jury has been in deliberation all season about Olivier Giroud at Arsenal. Of course, the French international has been given some leeway by us Gooners, although not much by some, as it is his first season with the Gunners and we have seen players take time to get used to the English Premier League before.
On another day of Arsenal transfer madness, the latest player to be linked with a move to the club is Valenica's French centre back Adil Rami. Rami is thought to want a move away from the club to guarantee him Champions League football and Valencia will be happy to sell him so they can raise funds for new players if they get a decent fee for him.
I have written articles about what the former Arsenal midfielder Stewart Robson has said before and it has pretty much been non-stop negativity, especially towards Arsene Wenger. Robson never played under the Frenchman, but he clearly considers himself an authority on him.
The Talksport regular has been telling us all season that Wenger should go and was clearly going to fail to finish in the top four this season.
If Arsenal are to be a successful football club then they need to have more than a good group of players. You need an entire squad full of talent that can be rotated for fitness, quality and replacements if an injury or suspension occurs.
Too many times over the last few seasons, we have seen our squad decline in quality, a prime example is the Carling Cup final that we lost two years ago against Birmingham City.
I've mentioned in a couple of previous articles that our form at the tail end of last season was incredibly impressive. However, it goes back a little further than that. On the 1st December last year, we welcomed high flyers Swansea to the Emirates.
I sit here on a warm African winter afternoon, my tele switched to ESPN classic. They have a vintage Arsenal game going and im glued as if it were live. Its Highbury....Its Sol Campbell, its Vieira, its Bergkamp, its Thierry... its an Arsenal routing of Manchester United.
Arsenal must buy early – now is not the time to wait by DG
I have a question I would dearly like to ask the Arsenal board. When does saving money end up costing you money?
In recent years, we Arsenal fans have grown increasingly fearful of summer windows. Long periods of big stars courting opposition clubs, ending with a dramatic late sale and no replacement forthcoming until the next window.
Somebody is having a right bubble. That is surely the only explanation for the story that Arsenal are prepared, or even eager, to sell our captain to anybody who is willing to cough up £5 million. There about a hundred reasons why this story is ludicrous, but I will just deal with a few of them.
Firstly, if Arsene Wenger had decided that Thomas Vermaelen was no longer a part of his plans for Arsenal in the future, he knows that he could sell him for much more than £5 million.
Arsenal must stick to their Guns over Jovetic transfer by FD
Yes, I know it's the nature of transfers, but it's still highly frustrating for Arsenal fans. I'm talking about the on/off/on/off, will he?/won't he? saga that's developing over the possible move of Arsenal target Stevan Jovetic from Fiorentina to the Emirates.
In the last few weeks of the season when the transfer rumours start flying, all I have heard about Arsenal is sign this keeper, sign that keeper, Jovetic is close to agreeing a deal, Higuain is close to agreeing a deal, Yaya Sanogo has joined the club. All these different transfer stories that involve the club are leaving me very confused and no doubt the Arsenal squad will be too.
Arsenal need another striker, at least. I think we all agree on that. We don't necessarily agree on who it should be, other than the favt that we want someone who is a proven goal scorer. Of the transfer targets we have been linked with, all of them have some kind of drawback, whether that is fair or not.
The Higuains or the Bentekes: What Arsenal Needs Versus What Arsenal is Likely to Get by Uche
Hello fellow Arsenal fans. This is Uche Edochie, your co blogger and this is my first article on justarsenal.com. I hope you are all well inspite of this Higuain/Jovetic confusion.
I write to you today because it is the transfer season and as with most transfer seasons in recent memory, this is a typically rough time to be an Arsenal fan.
Mikel Arteta – True Arsenal Captain Material by FD
The concept of a football captain as being an inspirational figure, a natural leader and on-field representative of the team's manager is probably more of a British phenomenon. I think back to such iconic captains as Billy Bremner, Billy Bonds, Bobby Moore and our own Tony Adams.
Jack Wilshere feels that Arsenal should hit the ground running next season in order to mount a serious title challenge for the first time since 1997/98.
The Gunners have the fourth-lowest odds to win the 2013/13 Barclays Premier League title, according to several worldwide online sports betting companies.
One thing that was noticeable this season and in fact in a lot of the previous years is that our squad doesn't have many outstanding players that the rest of the team can revolve around. Last year we had Van Persie, and that's all in my opinion. Before then Van Persie and Fabregas, maybe Nasri.
According to popular opinion this summer is going to be different we are told we have money to spend, we are told we don't need to sell.
There is increasing clamour for expensive signings from the fans, the press are doing their best in fuelling the expectation further maybe with the clubs PR doing the briefing, who knows.
Don't get too excited the change in refereeing in the Premier League from next season is not the one we have been asking for (demanding even) in which we request the number of referees that PGMOL supplies to the Premier League is greatly increased. Such a move would reduce the [.
After a rousing finish to the Premier League season, Arsenal have managed to avoid the storm of protest that was seemed to be heading their way since August. By avoiding defeat in the last 10 Premier League games, Arsene Wenger and his players grabbed the final Champions League place and broke the hearts of Tottenham.
Right end of the season, thank god Arsenal have made it into the Champions League, still feeling shaky today after those four added minutes! To calm everything down, I have created a transfer window game. The evaluation of a player's price and wages are dependent on current wage, the amount of years left on their contract, and their form over the past few seasons.
Mouthy Arsenal supporter Piers Morgan has revealed he today received a signed photograph of Manchester United striker Robin Van Persie the man he calls 'Van Pursestrings'. The double-sided framed photo was sent in a package from United's press office, which was accompanied by the note: "Robin wanted you to have to this.
Playing tiki-taka with the interwebs Lionel Messi talks about his defining moment: being given Barcelona's number 10 shirt [YouTube] Rio Ferdinand signs a new one-year deal at Manchester United [Man Utd] Titus Bramble set to leave Sunderland. Shocking that Paolo Di Canio doesn't want to keep him [BBC] Tony Pulis writes in the local newspaper [.
Laurent Koscielny gave us fourth place this year. And a lot more.
Before coming to us he played in the third, second and then first division of the French League the last with our old pals Lorient before signing on 7 July 2010. He was voted the most effective signing [.
There have been a lot of Arsenal transfer rumours about the possible departure of Thomas Vermaelen, and it could be a distinct possibility now that it has been revealed that the Gunners are close to the signing of Swansea's Ashley Williams.
It has been reported that after the THIRD meeting between Arsenal and Williams' representatives, personal terms have now been agreed between both parties, but now the actual transfee fee needs to be agreed with his club.
As you may have read Manchester City and the baseball team New York Yankees (who previously had a liaison with Manchester U) have agreed to buy a franchise into Major League Soccer, as the new club, to be known as New York City Football Club will be franchise number 20 in [.
And so it begins... The summer is nearly here and you know what that means transfer speculation. The first in a long line of start players to hint at an upcoming move is Aston Villa's Belgian star Christian ... Continue reading →
In Antwerp (my home town) some 30 years ago we had 3 teams in the top division. Antwerp (the oldest club in Belgium), Beerschot (the second club one could say) and Berchem (the small sympathetic club – the one that still is my local club as I lived near the ground that [.
