Friday 16 January 2015

Bielik brings what to Arsenal?

In answer to my own question, imminent new signing Krystian Bielik brings Arsenal an easier name to pronounce than Szczesny and, erm, potential.

Sadly, I'll be surprised if the 17-year-old Poland youth international gets playing time this season. He's one for the future, I should imagine, but I can't say too much as I've yet to see him play.

However, with Mathieu Debuchy and Mikel Arteta both facing lengthy layoffs, isn't it time that Arsenal started concluding transfer business earlier in the transfer window.

Sorry, but I can't help but be cynical about Arsene Wenger's comments about Arsenal's transfer activity: 'We work really hard in the morning until late night to try to get one or two players in'. When he says 'in', is he talking about other clubs, like Crystal Palace where Yaya Sanogo now finds himself on loan.

Until Arsenal get more proactive and less reactive, to use the popular buzz words of our time, on the transfer market, they are likely to lose out when it comes to trophies come the end of the season. Surely, that is obvious.

A few Sanchez-style signings are needed at the Emirates, where money is virtually no object and getting the man at almost any cost is the objective. That winning mentality off-the-pitch will reap rewards on it too, as everyone will then start to believe the club have serious intentions to achieve big things. A club the size of Arsenal should never just be an also-ran, so it's about time the Gunners started - in typical transfer-speak - winning races for aces!


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Sunday 11 January 2015

Will deadballs count for Arsenal?

Allow me to talk 'deadballs' please as I've just read an interesting article in the Sunday Times, written or ghost written by Kevin Davies. In it, he says: 'I scored a couple at set-pieces against Arsenal. I always remember them having a zonal marking system and I loved playing against zonal systems because you'd get a run on the ball.'

Clearly, Wenger's Arsenal are not about to change their approach completely, but I still would advocate more time spent on the training ground working on deadball situations. Apparently, we would be comfortably in the top 4 if goals from deadballs didn't count!

Davies reveals that Big Sam Allardyce had 7 or 8 deadball analysts and a big screen in the dressing room reminding players of who they were supposed to pick up, where they were supposed to run and so on. I wonder if Arsenal players get the same kind of reminders.

Luckily, Mark Hughes's Stoke present less of an aerial threat than the Tony Pulis sides of yesteryear. We can only hope that for once, deadballs don't count and we get all 3 points.

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