Just Arsenal News

There seems to be a fairly even split between the Arsenal fans about which of the two main transfer targets should be signed by Arsene Wenger this summer. Assuming that Arsene Wenger has not undergone a complete personality change, the Gunners will not be buying both Wayne Rooney and Gonzalo Higuain in this transfer window, but it is looking more likely that one of them will soon be a Gunner.

Nobody really doubts that Rooney is a top class player and would certainly add quality to the Arsenal team, but there is definitely a feeling that his current wages of around £250,000 per week are too much and that he is not worth that much. Ivan Gazidis has already suggested that Arsenal could afford Rooney if we want him, although I doubt that Wenger would want to go above £200,000. .......Read the full article here

Arsenal have been linked with Luis Nani before, and it seems that the Portuguese international winger will be leaving his current club Manchester United this summer. There is interest from other clubs, most notably the Turkish champions Galatasaray, and it is through them that we have learned that United are only looking for a transfer fee of around £8 million, so should Arsenal be trying to bring him to the Emirates?

A lot of Arsenal fans do not seem very keen on Nani, partly because he is a United player, but also because of concerns about his form and whether Arsenal would get much out of him. Talksport have compiled some statistics comparing Nani to the three Arsenal players who he would be competing with for a place in the first team, and they make interesting reading. .......Read the full article here

It was not long ago that Freddie Ljungberg was suggesting that Arsenal should not really have been celebrating so hard after beating Newcastle United on the final day of the season. He was not the only person to suggest that fourth place is no reason to celebrate, for a team with the history of Arsenal at least.

He is right, of course, but he also seems to have realised that in the context of the last eight years and the way the season had gone until the last 10 games, it was understandable. The Swede also feels that Arsenal are over the hard times and have a great platform on which to mount a serious title challenge next season. .......Read the full article here

Let’s Play Moneyball by NS

Moneyball (2011), as some of you might know, is a Hollywood movie starring Brad Pitt based upon the true story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s successful attempt to assemble a baseball team on a lean budget by employing computer-generated analysis to acquire new players (Courtesy IMDB). I consider Arsenal to be in the same situation.

I know stats aren’t everything but I’ve tried my best, using limited resources, to analyse some of our defensive performances in the league based upon the stats from whoscored.com. I have also analysed the defensive performances of two players Marouane Fellaini and Etienne Capoue in their respective leagues. I couldn’t find reliable stats on Victor Wanyama which I’m sure would have greatly helped (No one cares about the Scottish League to make stats, sadly :/). But well.. .......Read the full article here

As somebody famous(Brian Clough maybe?) once said, football is not played on paper it is played on grass, but statistics are widely used now in all aspects of the game. I am sure that Arsene Wenger has reams of stats about his Arsenal players, because they do give a good idea of what is going on and how a player is performing. They cannot ever tell the whole story, and there are plenty of anomalies, but over a season they do give a good idea of who has performed better. .......Read the full article here

The young Arsenal and England star Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will probably agree that he did not push on, at least at club level, as he would have liked this season just gone. He proved again though, playing well and scoring against Brazil, that he is a great talent and has a bright future ahead of him.

Arsene Wenger has been working a lot with the young player this season, in an attempt to make him into a more complete player, but the 19-year old feels that he has learnt a lot now and is ready to play and contribute a lot more to the Arsenal cause from now on. .......Read the full article here

Stuart Pearce has been speaking about the Arsenal players Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain following the first game for the England under-21 side in this summer’s European Championships in Israel. England were uninspiring and lost 1-0 to a much better looking Italy side, which led to Pearce’s complaints about the players available to him.

“You only need to look at the development of Theo Walcott,” said Pearce. “He went to the 2006 world cup, and between 2006 and 2013, he’s ended up playing five and a half matches at major tournaments.

“We have to address that and make sure some of our brighter people, the Oxlade-Chamberlains and Jones’s, get tournament experience. Actually playing time, not just going with squads.” .......Read the full article here

Santiago Cazorla could be forgiven for being very pleased with his first season as an Arsenal player. Being voted by the fans as the Player of the Year could make you think that you had arrived and were comfortable at your new club, but that’s not the way the Spanish international works.

He is understandably pleased with how the fans took to him straight away, and how well he settled into the Arsenal team. The Gunners way of playing under Wenger suits him perfectly, but he has also had to work hard to get used to the Premier League and he will continue to do so, promising that he will be even better next season. .......Read the full article here

It seems that whichever way you look at it, Arsenal are better than Tottenham. This will not come as a major surprise to the red and white part of North London or the Gooners all over the world, but it seems like the boys from the lane keep forgetting. It’s strange that we haven’t heard much bravado or claims of dominance since the Premier League finished. Hello, Emmanuel, Andres, William, anybody there?

I have in my hand the world’s smallest violin, and it is playing a very sad little tune just for the spuds. Just to recap; they have never finished above us since Arsene Wenger took over, and not many times before. This season was supposedly the worst ever for the Gunners after eight years of George Osborne style spending cuts finally took the ultimate toll. The stats do not lie, though. .......Read the full article here

I am continually surprised by the way some Arsenal fans feel about Theo Walcott. It seems to be similar to the `Ramsey effect`, in which in some people’s eyes he will never be any good, no matter how well he actually plays. Maybe it is because Theo has been disappointing in the past, but he certainly doesn’t seem to get the credit he deserves.

This was evident last week, when the official voting was revealed for the Arsenal Player of the Season award. I do not disagree with the fact that Santi Cazorla won it, because he was superb and probably out most consistent player. I was amazed, however, by the fact that Walcott only came third, with less than 13 percent of the vote. Koscielny was second, but he only came good in the last 10 games. .......Read the full article here

Will Walcott get his strikers wish? by AH

Theo Walcott ended the season as Arsenal’s highest goal scorer with 21 goals, which is his most impressive return yet, however without being too critical it’s not a high enough number for a team that wants to be ambitious in the challenges in front of them. Although you must consider that for someone who plays on the wing for the majority of the time, this figure is impressive in that aspect, we must also consider that a lot of those goals came in one or two games. .......Read the full article here

It was never really in doubt, but the official Arsenal website has announced that Santi Cazorla has been voted as the Player of the Season by the Arsenal fans, with a massive 55 percent of the votes. It is just reward for the Spaniard who more than makes up for in ability what he lacks in stature.

It was a fantastic signing by Arsene Wenger shortly before the season started and has also proved to be an absolute bargain. The Malaga manager Manuel Pellegrini, who is soon to be in charge at Manchester City, was aghast when the Malaga owners sold Cazorla to the Gunners for less than £15 million and we soon learned why. .......Read the full article here