On the morning of the takeover, around half an hour before it was announced, I wrote an article explaining how I believed GFH Capital and Ken Bates had effectively managed to throw our season away. At that point we were floundering near the bottom of the league and the season looked well and truly beyond us.
Of course, as soon as the takeover was announced as completed all that was forgotten, we had something positive to look forward to and the arrival of Alan Tate and Jerome Thomas on an emergency loan seemed to be enough to change things. We outplayed Crystal Palace, who were the form team at the time, before going on a nice little run of results.
Throughout all of this, we knew that January was only around the corner, and if we could just stay in the play off mix then we’d be in the perfect position to bring in players of real quality and make a second half of the season push towards promotion. Christmas came, we were up there, we’d made it to January.
What we didn’t expect however, was to completely capitulate in the few weeks that followed. Performances got worse, confidence dropped, and the honeymoon period for GFH Capital ended abruptly.
One thing I’ve always found with us as fans is that despite craving the success of years gone by, we’re realistic in what we expect. If we’re up against a quality team, we know not to expect miracles. The same goes with playing teams that are struggling, teams such as Barnsley.
No disrespect to Barnsley, as they more than deserved their win yesterday, but prior to us arriving they’d practically forgotten how to win at home. They were bottom of the league, managerless, and completely out of form.
I’m tired of hearing Neil Warnocks excuses. It’s Becchio’s fault, his head’s been turned. It’s the referees fault for not sending someone off. That’s football Neil! You’ve been around the game long enough to know how all this works. If Becchio didn’t have his head on the game, why not take him off and let Ross McCormack, our top scorer last season, have a go up front rather than in a position that wastes his goalscoring talents?
I noticed on his ‘NO EXCUSES’ article on the official site (which is littered with excuses) Warnock claims our midfield didn’t peform well and were non-existant.
Of course they were Neil, they spent the entire game watching the ball fly over their heads. We brought in Tonge on a permanent transfer and Ross Barkley on a loan, two creative, goal scoring midfielders who love to pass it around and chose to bypass them completely and hope that a long ball to Becchio would somehow split open the entire Barnsley defence.
But regardless of Warnocks bad tactics and excuses, he is not entirely to blame for the joke that our season has become. The long drawn out takeover saga put us five furlongs behind everyone else at the start of the race. Considering negotiations began in the summer, well before pre season, it was ridiculous to see them completed some 6 months later.
I’m in no doubt that Ken made things as difficult as possible for GFH-C, but at no point did they come out to explain anything to us. I remember David Haigh tweeting ‘Working hard’ about fifteen times a day, which explained nothing. I mentioned at the time that the hard work hadn’t even begun, and so it has proved.
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To conclude, this season is nothing short of a shambles. GFH and Bates got us off to the worst possible start, and Neil Warnock is currently applying the finishing touches. Forget promotion, this season is done, and if Salem Patel and David Haigh think that tweeting ‘MOT’ or bowing down to fans demands for retweets of pictures of their pets in Leeds shirts is going to be enough to re-engage the fan base then they seriously need to reconsider their strategy.
It remains to be seen as to how much longer William Gallas’ time in English football will last, but in regards to his Tottenham Hotspur career, the end is beginning to look nigh for the Spurs’ colourful Frenchman.
With Andre Villas-Boas’ recent admission that he’s looking to trim down on his current crop of central defenders next season, four into five simply won’t go at White Hart Lane. And when speaking to reporters ahead of the side’s 2-1 over Lyon last week, the Portuguese’s sentiments towards the ex-Arsenal defender seemed glowing in the most ominous of ways.
“William has been a massive player for us this season,” Villas-Boas said.
“Whatever we decide regarding his future, we’ll have to wait and see, but we are aware of what a presence he’s been for us this season.”
It hardly sounds like he’s giving Gallas his last rights as a Spurs player, but the smart money would be on the quartet of Jan Vertonghen, Michael Dawson, Steven Caulker and Younes Kaboul retaining their places in Villas-Boas’ side next season.
But for however you wish to interpret the manager’s recent comments towards Gallas, one thing that it isn’t in any doubt, is his musings about the Frenchman’s contribution to this Spurs side this season. Because while he’s never going to be remembered as one of greats to pull on a white shirt, the professionalism and experience that he’s brought to the club over his two-and-a-half seasons in N17.
Short of scoring a hat-trick against Arsenal, doing a cartwheel in front of the away fans and carrying Arsene Wenger in a wheelbarrow back across the channel, there’s nothing Gallas could or can do to erase the ties he holds with his former club.
Even if those on the red half of North London hold little in the way of affection for him, the 35-year-old’s name is greeted with warm applause at White Hart Lane, but very rarely with anything approaching exuberance. Of course, cheering Gallas on holds no real ignominy, but seldom will you hear a song sung in praise.
Although should Gallas leave at the end of the season, even though nobody will be expecting much in the way of an emotive goodbye, supporters’ shouldn’t let his chequered past undermine what has been extremely effective and often underrated spell with the club.
William Gallas was never brought in to be a mainstay in this Spurs defense, under neither Harry Redknapp nor Andre Villas-Boas. His remit has always been one of steadying the ship through both troubled and also unknown waters.
When supporters look back at their Champions League adventure during the 2010-11 season, it will always be likes of Gareth Bale and Rafael van der Vaart that illuminate the memories. But Gallas’s contributions remain one of the most understated elements of those wonderful European nights. Was he world-class? No, he wasn’t, but when called upon – most notably against the two ties against AC Milan in the last 16 – Gallas was absolutely magnificent. No fuss, no hassle and most notably, little in the way of any credit. But that’s generally been the theme for much of his Spurs career.
It may or may not come as a surprise to some, but with just over four-and-a-half months left to run on his three-year deal, the former Chelsea defender has racked up 74 appearances in a Spurs shirt so far, which is probably a hell of a lot more than most people would have expected when he signed in 2013.
Which makes some of the critique that he took earlier on this season especially, seem a little startling in its ferocity. There’s no way that Gallas should have made 17 starts for the club this season, but given the horrendous injury problems that have disjointed Villas-Boas’ back-four the fact is that the Frenchman has had to play.
Has he made mistakes? Yes, of course he has and despite his advancing years, some of his defending at times earlier this season has left a lot to be desired. But with the side on the cusp of a Europa League quarter final and four points clear of fifth-placed Arsenal in the Premier League table, Tottenham are enjoying a great season. And Gallas has played his part in that.
And if some of the Spurs support hasn’t appreciated the Frenchman in this side, you only have to listen to those around him to gauge the impact he still maintains in this squad. Steven Caulker spoke glowingly about how Gallas was talking and helping through the now infamous 3-2 victory away to Manchester United back in September.
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Jan Vertonghen has been the toast of Tottenham’s defense this season. But according to the big Belgian himself, he already owes a lot to Gallas and how the veteran was treated him as his ‘little brother’ since he broke into the side.
Again, Gallas hasn’t performed at the sort of level for Spurs that we saw at both Chelsea and Arsenal. But this doesn’t mean that he hasn’t still done an excellent job at the club.
He’s never going to receive anything in the way of a standing ovation and supporters are hardly going to be devastated to see him leave the club, giving the talent they now bestow in defense. But if he does leave at the end of the season following another fourth placed finish, supporters would do well to remember the role that William Gallas has played in the successes of the last three years.
QPR manager Harry Redknapp has reignited the issue of his England snub last summer when Roy Hodgson was appointed in place of Fabio Capello before Euro 2012, despite the then Tottenham boss appearing the overwhelming favourite for the vacant post. However, as with anything Redknapp says, factoring in his customary re-writing of history, should he really be blaming his former employers over his failure to secure the role?
For those of us with memories longer than a few short months, Redknapp’s latest airbrushing of events to suit his own agenda will not come as a surprise, he’s done it several times before – the financial collapse of Portsmouth, Southampton’s relegation, Tottenham’s form and how Gareth Bale became the star player he is today – yet his latest assertion that his buy-out clause in his contract at White Hart Lane was the main stumbling block to him taking the England job seems a bit rich.
Redknapp told Twentyfour7Football magazine in an interview published this month: “I wouldn’t take it [the England job] now, no. Not now, not in the future. That was my time, really, if I was going to get it. Last year there were a lot of things that went against me surrounding that massive contractual clause. People will always deny that is the reason, the FA couldn’t say that and I won’t say, but it didn’t help me.
“I had such a badly loaded contract it was crazy, in Tottenham’s favour. That’s what you get for not reading your contract properly. It was a massive amount that someone would have had to pay to get me out of it. If they sacked me it wasn’t so massive and that was a bolt out of the blue, a shock, I genuinely never saw it coming.”
It’s clear what he’s trying to do, he’s trying to paint himself as ‘the one that got away’, the man that was considered too much of a rogue for the suits at the FA to control – in essence, the modern day Brian Clough, the greatest national manager that England never had, while Hodgson is portrayed as the cheap, safe and hassle-free option. While that may be true of the former West Brom and Fulham boss, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t first-choice all along.
Redknapp was widely portrayed as the ‘people’s choice’ and by that they mean the sort of plonkers that consider Alan Shearer the height of TV football punditry. The sort that are the lowest common denominator, let alone appealing to anything less engaged. The casual football fan likes ‘Arry because he seems a usual bloke, a man of the people not bogged down by complicated things like tactics or morals. He’s an old-fashioned ‘football man’. Of course, while the media may have seen him as the heir apparent, I could genuinely count on one hand the number of people I know that wanted him to get the England job and even fewer Tottenham fans that were upset by his eventual exit, despite the fawningly over the top rhetoric that the tabloids trotted out about it being some great injustice.
His successor at Tottenham Andre Villas-Boas was initially painted as some sort of clown, with one even going as far as to say he had ‘borderline Aspergers’. Now, you can like Redknapp, but when it strays into deeply insulting personal attacks, that simply goes way beyond the call of professional back-slapping. The Portuguese was disliked because he wasn’t Redknapp. Stories of dressing room in-fighting were simply invented and the club in crisis narrative went into overdrive. It’s only died down now because the club have done so well this season, yet his critics still lay in waiting, for an opportunity to do the same again all in the name of furthering Redknapp’s cause.
The true timeline of events is that the 65-year-old had an existing contract which had one year left to run on it and when everything was going well and Tottenham were flying high in the league, Redknapp attempted to play hardball with chairman Daniel Levy over a proposed new three-year contract. However, a run of just two wins in 12 games after February all but ruled the club out of the title race and saw Arsenal overhaul a 12-point deficit to finish third. Finishing fourth in a three-horse race was embarrassing enough, but when Chelsea went on to win the Champions League in the most dramatic of circumstances, the club’s misery was further compounded by being demoted to the Europa League instead.
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Redknapp brought on board Paul Stretford, Wayne Rooney’s agent who tried to push through his move to Manchester City in 2010, but it backfired spectacularly. It was reported at the time that Tottenham were asking for a £5m transfer fee in addition to the remainder of his £3.1m a year deal left on a contract which still has 18 months to run. Meanwhile, Hodgson was available for nothing. The choice was simple. The club’s fans will have noted how, following Stretford’s engagement with Levy, stories linking Redknapp to alternative posts – such as Chelsea – began to appear in the media, just as they did when Rooney’s Manchester United contract talks stalled and the England striker was linked with a move to Eastlands.
The reasons for Redknapp’s downfall rest squarely with him, though, but as is a common trait in football, taking responsibility for your own actions is never an option. It was him that openly flirted with the England job after winning his court case in February, telling reporters: “It has knocked me for six. At the moment there has been no approach. But if the opportunity comes, and I get asked, I’ll have to consider it.”
Even as far back as April 2010 he was touting himself as Capello’s natural heir, telling TalkSPORT: “I’m English, who wouldn’t want to manage England. There’s not an Englishman – whether it’s me, Roy Hodgson or Sam Allardyce – who would turn the job down because it’s our country and we want to manage our country. No one is ever going to turn that job down.”
He went on to say even as late as the final week of April last year, with Tottenham’s form in the gutter: “It’s a great job to be manager of your country. I’ve got a job to do at Tottenham and I’ve got to really keep concentrating on my job there, which I do 100 per cent, and see what happens at the end of the year.I have never been approached by England or anybody else. I have said all along it needs an English manager. I think it’s a job for a more experienced manager. I’ve got to weigh it all up at the end of the year and I’ve got to do what I feel is right for myself and what I feel is right for my family.”
What other club would stand for such brazen disloyalty and such flagrant disregard for his current employers? You could call Redknapp’s position arrogant, even if he believed as much in private it was unwise to air it so publicly, but he was the clear favourite for the job. He clearly thought he had it in the bag.
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Nevertheless, many of the underlying issues that became eventual roadblocks to his appointment were self-inflicted; it was him that blamed the England job as a distraction for his players and responsible for their loss of form, only to then turn around a few weeks later and say the exact opposite when it seemed as if he would be overlooked by the FA and was desperate not to be sacked by Spurs, with his tail firmly between his legs. It was him that failed to rotate his squad enough, leaving them exhausted down the home straight. It was because of him that the club carried out some woefully short-term deals during the January transfer window only to see his side become less competitive – the club were clearly worried about handing a man with his eyes set so firmly on another job any significant kind of budget to work with.
In the end, Redknapp had one job and held another within his grasp but he only succeeded in talking himself out of both. Being a media-friendly manager is great when everything is going well, while the regular newspaper column to use as your bully pulpit helps win friends and influence in powerful areas, but it also creates a circus around you. He became the story, not the team and when that happens, it’s time to leave the stage. By trying to play the FA and Tottenham off one another when the club’s form was outstanding, he held all the cards, only to be left caught short with a rotten hand when they collapsed post-February.
Money may have been a factor in avoiding Redknapp from the FA’s perspective, but it clearly wasn’t the motivating factor behind the snub, as he clearly still feels it was. The faint whiff of hypocrisy is never far behind Redknapp and it’s somewhat ironic that the one thing that made him the favourite for the post – his relations with the press and his penchant for a soundbite – may have counted against him above all else in the end. He played a game of bluff and he lost, so to apportion blame anywhere other than himself is a serious distortion of events bordering on the absurd.
Mauricio Pochettino will ‘welcome new signings’ this summer despite being pleased with his current squad at Southampton.
The Argentinian tactician has impressed since taking over at St Mary’s from Nigel Adkins in mid-January as the side are now virtually guaranteed another season in the Premier League.
And, when quizzed about his plans to bolster his ranks when the summer transfer window opens for business, Pochettino revealed his current crop of players are of a high standard, but that will not stop him strengthening with new blood if the opportunity arises.
“I think there is already a good level of quality of footballers in my squad,” he told the Daily Echo.
“But we are open as a club to try and reinforce in the positions we feel we need to improve – logically if we have the chance to improve then of course we will go for those players and I’m sure that my squad and the club itself would welcome new signings.”
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Queens Park Rangers chief executive Philip Beard says no first-team stars will leave on the cheap over summer.
With relegation looming, several R’s players are expected to leave over the close-season but Beard insists they will only move on for the right price and if boss Harry Redknapp agrees to sell them.
“We agreed that if we’re relegated, we have to bounce straight back,” Beard told the Mirror.
“To do this, we need the strongest squad possible and for that reason every player under contract must stay unless we get the right offer and Harry agrees to let them go.”
With Rangers 10 points from safety it appears relegation is now a formality but Beard is looking at the positives and believes the future of the club remains rosy.
He added: “The commitment of the shareholders, including Amit Bhatia, is clear for all to see, and despite what has been a desperately disappointing season, the long-term future is very bright.”
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It’s a shame that overall there isn’t too much to play for as we approach the final weekend of the season. Wigan’s exhausted display against Arsenal on Tuesday night sealed their fate, and of those also involved in the relegation scrap, with an inevitable 4-1 defeat at the Emirates, whilst the title race at the top of the Premier League has been decided for quite some time. Yet there is still one season-long battle yet to be decided – who will claim the remaining Champions League spot?
But more than just a simple contest between two top flight clubs desperate to make it into Europe’s most prestigious club tournament, the battle between Arsenal and local rivals Tottenham for continental qualification is filled with side-stories, sub-plots and drama, and has the potential to become a cross-roads that will determine the near future of both halves of North London.
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With their fate now in their own hands -being sat currently in fourth place and a point above Spurs – the pressure is on Arsene Wenger’s men not to get pipped to the post on the last day of the season by the noisy neighbours, in a reverse in fortunes from the campaign previous. It’s a contrast in terms of motivation for the Gunners in comparison to the latter half of their season, who’ve come back from a slow start to play without fear and the weight of expectation – having been eliminated from every domestic cup, the Champions League itself and the title race early on – allowing them to muster together one of the hottest runs of form in the division, with their last defeat coming in March’s North London derby.
The Emirates boss will be intent on making sure his players don’t fall trap to the nervousness of the situation, during their clash at the weekend against Newcastle. The Magpies’ poor season may well now be over, but Alan Pardew will be determined to conjure up a positive display, or else the fans will undoubtedly be making their feelings felt following the final whistle regarding his bipolar tenure.
Despite being the underdogs, the Lilywhites will be certainly feeling the pressure too amid their final fixture at home to Sunderland. Champions League football is what the club, the fans and the players have been desperate for ever since their first taste under Harry Redknapp in 2010, and Tottenham’s knack of falling at the final hurdle will no doubt be a weight on everyone’s mind.
Similarly, playing at White Hart Lane could well work against them. Spurs’ style of play is much better suited to away fixtures – being allowed to soak up pressure, only to unleash Gareth Bale into acres of space in the hope that the Welsh wonder can produce further world-class magic whilst running with the ball at his feet. The starting XI’s chances of victory will be boosted by the return of this season’s unsung hero – Aaron Lennon. The Englishman is the ying to Bale’s yang, and taking your eye off Lennon in a bid to halt the threat of Bale will only result in one’s own undoing.
But whereas only a small contingent of St. James’s Park will be getting hot under the collar on Sunday, the whole of White Hart Lane’s home support will be itchy and nervous. A single goal from Arsenal could quash the atmosphere in its entirety, and should it come to a hairy final few minutes, the players may be overwhelmed by the situation and the franticness of their own fans, desperate for history not to repeat itself.
That being said, no one will be feeling the pressure more than Arsene Wenger, whose reputation will be on the line and has the most to lose from Arsenal’s failure. Although his achievements during the first half of his tenure should never be ignored, claiming Premier League titles, FA Cups and making it to a Champions League final, under the Frenchman’s watch, the club has transformed over the last decade from a squad of ‘invincibles’ into a gang of Europe’s ‘next best’ talents, with every new signing being a less adequate, less talented and cheaper replacement for any particular individual from the now lengthy cast of Arsenal stars to leave the Emirates in search for silverware or a more competitive wage.
The club is in malaise, and seemingly cursed amid their eight years without a trophy. Even Ryo Miyaichi, who’s spent the season on loan to Wigan, now has an FA Cup to add to his CV following his year away from the Emirates. Arsene Wenger has vowed to change his ways, promising huge financial investment in marquee signings in the summer, but without the carrot of Champions League football, they will find it hard to bring added quality to the Emirates in the coming transfer window
Furthermore, Wenger’s only noteworthy achievement in the club’s recent history – their continual Champions League qualification year upon year – will go out the window, and suddenly the justification to keep the Frenchman on, despite the Gunners’ obvious decline, will go with it. With just a year left on his contract, finishing in fifth will spell out to many that Wenger’s era has quite simply been and gone, and if the club wish to move back towards the title race a change in management will be required.
Similarly, losing out to Spurs will seriously alter the balance of power in North London. Both sides can claim one victory a piece in the derbies, but this season presents the best opportunity to date for the Lilywhites to topple their rivals, who have maintained their historical dominance throughout Tottenham’s rise to ascendancy, and finishing above Arsenal will be as much of an achievement in itself as qualifying for the top tier of European football. Above all, it would be a crushing blow for Gunners fans, whom will for the first time in a generation have the unusual feeling of not being privy to bragging rights in North London, which will only further signify how their club is moving backwards to the benefit of their most hated foes.
On the other hand, Daniel Levy will be more disappointed than ever, should Spurs not make it into Champions League for yet another year, despite the current campaign representing their biggest opportunity to do so. This season has seen the Lilywhites owner depost his former manager Harry Redknapp, on the grounds of Spurs’ inability to get the results against the bigger teams, in favour of a young buck full of ideas but lacking in experience in Andre Villas-Boas.
The victories have come against Arsenal and Man United, but somewhere along the line, the former Chelsea boss has let it slip. In addition to the sizeable summer funding for new recruits – bringing in a top goalkeeper in Hugo Lloris, a Premier League Team of the Year centre-back in Jan Vertonghen and a midfield powerhouse in Moussa Dembele – Levy is desperate for his change in leadership not to have been in vain, and for his investments to pay off.
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Furthermore, the question will be ‘where do Tottenham go from here?’ should they fail to qualify. Without elite European football, it’s questionable as to whether Gareth Bale will see out the summer at White Hart Lane or be lured into signing for a continental super-power, whilst there will be further hesitancy to join the club on the part of long-term transfer targets Joao Moutinho and Leandro Dalmao, following another year of stalled progress in North London.
It will present further evidence that it is more a mentality than anything else holding the Lilywhites back. The squad is in place, all be it lacking in depth in a few departments, the young, exciting, visionary manager is at the helm, and they even have a world-class talent to underpin the successes of the first team. Yet history appears determined to repeat itself; the fans will think back to the now infamous ‘lasagne-gate’, and last season’s misfortune of losing out on a Champions League spot, despite finishing up in fourth, to the hands of Chelsea following their crowning as Champions of Europe.
Spurs certainly have more to gain from qualifying – it will be a new height for the club, and signal how they have risen from mid-table obscurity into a continental force, with a stellar cast including the likes of Bale, Vertonghen and Lloris. Yet, it is often not the reward that motivates the player; it is rather the desperation to avoid failure, which is undoubtedly Arsenal’s and Arsene Wenger’s sole motivation. The Lilywhites will once again be bitterly disappointed should they finish up in fifth, but on the other side of North London it would represent catastrophe – a club in decline, a squad lacking in talent and a manager still greatly loved but coming up short year upon year.
I can only see it working to Arsenal’s advantage. They have been here before, they are unwilling to let the club’s reputation come into disrepute and they have dealt well with overwhelming criticism on more than a handful of occasions this season. Many have anticipated a shift in power in North London and in the Premier League, however, I predict that the Gunners, a proud member of the old guard and traditional top four, are not prepared to let slip their Champions League status just yet, whilst a psychological block continually remains in Tottenham’s way.
How many years has been without winning a trophy for Arsenal now? Eight heartbreaking years so far, but Arsene Wenger will believe that wait can come to an end by winning the Capital One Cup this season.
Their loss to Bradford in this competition last season was frustrating and one of their priorities this year will be to put that right and go on and win it.
They’ve made a strong start to this season, sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League, and they’ve got £42million Mesut Ozil in the ranks to add to their quality. If you add Aaron Ramsey’s goal-scoring form and the fact they’ve won their last 10 matches away from the Emirates to the equation, you’d be silly to bet against them reaching round four.
Furthermore, the last time Arsenal won a trophy was the last time West Brom managed to beat the Gunners at the Hawthorns. So you get the feeling at least one of those waits are going to have to end at some point this season.
Saido Berahino, who scored a hat-trick for the Baggies in the previous round, is expected to start for the visitors, but Shane Long and Matej Vydra are missing through injury. Despite that, it’s likely Steve Clarke will field a strong side.
However, it won’t be the same story for Arsenal. Wenger will rest a number of key players for this round three match and Nicklas Bendtner is all set to make his first Gunners appearance since August 2011. If there’s ever a time to prove your critics wrong, tonight is the perfect time to do it.
Statistically, though, it doesn’t look good for the hosts. Four of their last five League Cup matches at home to sides from the same division have ended in defeat, while all three previous meetings with Arsenal in this competition have been lost 2-0.
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Arsenal, on the other hand, have lost just one of their last 19 games in all competitions and have scored 15 goals in their last three away matches in the League Cup. Aaron Ramsey’s goal record of seven goals from nine shots this season will also be cause for concern for the Baggies, and he’ll just one player of many they hope will be rested.
Juventus president Andrea Agnelli has confessed that the club may sell midfielder Paul Pogba in the not too distant future.
The 20-year-old has established himself as one of Europe’s top young players since leaving Manchester United, attracting the attention of his former club as well as Arsenal and Chelsea.
Pogba elected to leave Old Trafford last year in search of regular first-team action after finding opportunities hard to come by under Sir Alex Ferguson.
He has excelled in Turin, but Agnelli has hinted that the Old Lady may let the youngster leave due to the financial muscle of English teams.
“If I was to judge it from a footballers’ point of view, Italy is no longer the final destination but a transit destination,” he said during a Italian Football conference,” he is quoted by the Daily Star.
“I am trying to think what will be of us in two or three years’ time if we get a massive offer for one of the best talents we have today, Pogba, the French 20-year-old.
“Would we be able to retain him? I don’t know. I don’t think at the moment we have the strength to retain such a player.
“Look at what happened to AC Milan. They had to give away Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva to pay the cheques.
“At the end of the day you can be attractive, but you also need to have the economic strength.”
Pogba was linked with a return to the Premier League over the summer, but rejected the possibility of leaving Juve by claiming that he was happy in Italy.
However, the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and United may make move for his services in the future if he continues to develop at his current rate.
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Olivier Giroud has a number of excellent qualities to his game: work rate, the over-emphasised strength and presence that English football can’t escape, and the selflessness to work in tandem with any one of the midfielders or attackers around him.
Yet over the past few months, the Frenchman has shown himself to be below the standard of striker that will convincingly lead a title charge in the Premier League. And that’s not to take away from what he does do well; it’s simply an admission of what he isn’t capable of.
Against Manchester United on Wednesday night, Giroud was once again wasteful with what he was given. He’s shown an inability to pick up the ball and drive at a back line, and even if that isn’t his game, the very fact that he spent most of the game facing his own goal rather than United’s is worrying.
What this isn’t is an attack on a player who is showing clear signs of fatigue. Instead, it’s to look at the little in the way of attacking threat he brings to the team. You’re unlikely to hear of central defensive pairings in England who are genuinely frightened of Giroud based on the reputation he’s carved out for himself.
With Arsenal possessing only one striker (that Arsene Wenger is willing to use), the team need someone who is capable of taking on such a level of responsibility, notably this season and in seasons to come where the club are likely to be challenging for silverware. Giroud’s limitations, coupled with Wenger’s refusal to change things either internally or via the market, for now, means Arsenal can only go so far with what they have.
The thing about Giroud is that he’s proven to be an excellent foil for Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey. In fact, throw Lukas Podolski into that discussion too, as the duo formed a very good understanding last season. On his own, Giroud lacks the cunning to craft out chances for himself. He’s also lacking the intelligence to work effectively with a playmaker like Mesut Ozil, who, on the evidence of Arsenal’s draw at home to Manchester United, was left frustrated by the lack of movement ahead of him by Arsenal’s lone centre-forward.
But it’s not to say Giroud isn’t good enough to play for a team competing for silverware. He’s already won a domestic title in France with Montpellier. Currently, Giroud is required to run into space, to exchange intricate passes with his teammates to a good enough level consistently, and of course take full advantage of the opportunities he gets, which has hasn’t been able to do.
Fans are already cursing that look of frustration from the French forward whenever he skews a header wide or takes a fresh air shot. You can see that he understands his role and responsibility in the Arsenal team. He’s clearly more than aware of how delicate Arsenal’s position in the title race is.
In the Premier League and specifically at Arsenal, Giroud is a second-choice striker at best. He and the team have benefitted from other scorers in the side, either coming from the flanks or deeper in midfield. Yet when he’s relied upon to be the only source of goals, Giroud has failed to stand up to the test. He’s only scored in one big league game this season, Arsenal’s 1-0 home win over Tottenham. What is interesting, and perhaps a little worrying, is that Nicklas Bendtner immediately put the ball in the back of the net against Manchester City, only to be wrongly waved off, after Giroud wasted a host of chances.
Provided Wenger properly addresses this problem in the summer and uses the funds available to him to good effect, Giroud will be relegated to backup, yet one who will remain a very important player to the club. He’ll have had two seasons in which to acclimatise to the Premier League and will help to maintain a good standard on the pitch, even if Arsenal buy someone of the ilk of Mario Mandzukic or Karim Benzema.
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But from now until the end of this season, it’s clear that Giroud isn’t the forward that will win Arsenal the Premier League title.
Following news of Juan Mata’s £37million move to Manchester United, the deal surprisingly found critics in Arsene Wenger and Manuel Pellegrini. Their condemnation wasn’t necessarily due to the transaction itself, although both appeared rather miffed that Jose Mourinho had the audacity to strengthen the Premier League champions after Chelsea had already played them this month, but rather with the concept of the January window.
The Arsenal boss told reporters in a press conference; “Chelsea have already played twice against Man United, they could have sold him last week. I think if you want to respect the fairness for everybody, this should not happen. I can understand completely what Chelsea are doing, and they do not make the rules, but maybe the rules should be a bit more adapted for fairness.”
His Manchester City counterpart soon followed suit; “United are getting a very good player, but personally I do not agree that a transfer like this can happen in the middle of the season. I do not think a player should be allowed to go from one club to another in the same league in January. The rules are the rules, so you play by them, but I just think they should change. I am not saying scrap the January window, just change it.”
Mourinho has responded by accusing his title-rivals of simply moaning, especially Wenger. And to be frank, the Gunners boss doesn’t have a leg to stand on with that accusation – rather than using this month to bolster his Arsenal side for the campaign’s final run-in, he’s spent it telling anyone who will listen that the January window should be abolished, labelling it an ‘unwelcome distraction’. He then followed up by insisting it’s been scientifically proven that Arsenal have received the least rest time between matches of any Premier League club over the last few years, in what must be the subtlest anti-Gunners conspiracy of all time.
But whingeing Wenger aside, you can certainly see his point, and that of Pellegrini’s. With that in mind, is it time to reconsider the rules of the January window?
Mata’s recent Premier League switch isn’t the only criticism one could make regarding the winter market. Although it’s relatively amusing for the neutrals to watch Liverpool splash out £35million on Andy Carroll and Chelsea snap up Fernando Torres for £50million, two deals which took place in January 2011, both transfers have been a complete disaster in footballing and financial terms.
The entertainment factor of a mid-season deadline day is duly noted, but there’s no doubt the pressure of the January window contributed to two of the Premier League’s flagship clubs making horrendous transfer decisions with legacies prevailing through to the present day. Added excitement for the sake of excitement is the kind of thing you’d expect in the NFL, not in English football.
But abolishing the January window would clearly be a step too far; over £100million has been spent by the Premier League this month, and it will probably reach the £200million mark by Friday night. That may not be a patch on the £650million splashed in the off-season, but none the less, the January window’s utility remains obvious through this statistic alone.
It remains particularly pivotal for the clubs at the less glamorous end of the table. Of all ten clubs in the Premier League’s bottom half, only Crystal Palace and West Brom are yet to strengthen this month.
At the same time, you can’t imagine too many players being happy about committing a full year of their career to a club without the freedom to opt out in January, whilst chairmen can change their managers at a moment’s notice, which can have a drastic effect on playing time.
Take Mata for example – he had no idea Mourinho would prioritise so many attacking midfielders above him in the Stamford Bridge roster this term, and if the Spaniard wasn’t allowed the opportunity to leave this month, it would have seriously affected is World Cup plans for the summer. There are countless more Premier League players facing the same conundrum.
So Wenger’s recommendation is too drastic, but what about Pellegrini’s? Should we refine the rules of the window? By the City gaffer’s recommendations that would include blocking Machiavellian practices like Mourinho’s sale of Mata to a Premier League rival a by disallowing players to ply their trade with two clubs within the same season (providing they’ve made a noteworthy amount of appearances).
But by my reckoning at least, that would be a rather futile enterprise. Of all the inward Premier League transfers this month, only Shane Long, from West Brom to Hull, has moved up the table via transfer, and even that is a rather sideways move. The rest of the interior switches, such as Nikica Jelavic to Hull and Kenwyne Jones to Cardiff, are players the selling clubs don’t particularly want, and would rather get off the wage bill to make room for new recruits.
The same can be said for January 2013, with the exception of Demba Ba’s move from Newcastle to Chelsea.
So it seems Mata’s move is a rare exception rather than the norm – not that his £37million fee and the fact he’s the first player to move between both clubs since Juan Sebastian Veron in 2003 wasn’t a big enough clue. The Premier League convention of top clubs customarily refusing to do business with each other is a competent enough safe-guard against deals of the Mata variety ever becoming a common occurrence.
Rather, is this a case of sour grapes? We all know Arsene Wenger would love to sign Juan Mata – in fact he attempted to whilst the attacking midfielder was at Valencia. Is it inconceivable that the Arsenal boss is feeling rather miffed about the Spaniard’s services not being offered his way, in addition to his loan deal for Demba Ba being blocked in the summer, whilst Chelsea are more than prepared to serve their two-time Player of the Year on a plate to the reigning Premier League champions?
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At the same time, Pellegrini is probably wondering why Chelsea willingly strengthened his local rivals and a club that have continuously dominated the Premier League since its incarnation. He’s been in England just a matter of months and he’s already witnessed the second most expensive transfer in the history of the January window.
But does that justify a rehash of the January rulebook? Certainly not. The January window may be a theatre for the ridiculous and extreme, but to suggest it causes more problems than it solves is simply ridiculous. Wenger and Pellegrini may moan about one of their Premier League rivals being strengthened mid-season, but that’s just football.
Seeing as they’re two of the seven Premier League managers who are yet to add to their squads this January, I’d suggest it’s time for them to start competing in the winter market, rather than shun it for the sake of the moral high-ground.