Beginning of end for Alexis and Arsenal?

Beginning of end for Alexis and Arsenal?

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Sanchez will leave and Arsenal are fine for centre-backs
Alexis Sanchez will play for Chile tomorrow, if he further injures his reported hamstring injury, he’ll likely be out for around six weeks. Given that I just wanted to make a prediction. I believe this will happen and I believe it will directly result in Sanchez leaving Arsenal. We know already that the two parties have been conducting contract talks for some time without success, we also know that Arsene Wenger can be pretty unforgiving at times. I think that if Sanchez plays and if he ends up out for a while, Arsene will see this as a massive betrayal in a season where we have a realistic chance of winning the title, thereby irreparably damaging the Sanchez/Wenger relationship. I reckon he’ll be gone by the end of next summer. All in all if I was Wenger I’d be having a serious look at bringing in a tough, mobile centre forward for January. Lacazette looks like a good fit to me but Arsene doesn’t seem keen.

In fact now we’re on the subject, I must disagree with F365 about Arsenal needing a central defender, for once we really don’t. We have five viable options – and I take the point about the drop in quality, but Mertesacker is the definition of useful squad player, Holding has looked excellent so far, and Gabriel…well Gabriel looks like a psychopath attempting to control himself for the entire 90 mins but has shown ability. Not sure the’re many better squad of defenders. Vertongen, Alderweireld, Wimmer, Dier? No, good first-choice pairing, not sure about Wimmer and Dier has looked poor this season at CB. Plus there’s only four of them. Terry, Ivanovic, Cahill, Zouma, Luiz? Not for me. Smalling, Bailey, Blind, Rojo, Jones? No thanks. Stones, Otamendi, Kompany, Kolarov, Sagna? Maybe, but a) I wouldn’t swap Kos or Mustafi and b) Sagna’s cheating but I have seen him play very well at centre back.

What we need is either a CF as described above or alternatively that’s exactly why Arsene bought Lucas and what we actually need is a left-sided wide forward. Or a right-back, depending on your views on Jenks and the progress of the missing persons search that I believe is currently combing the Brecon Beacons for Debuchy.
Matt, AFC

Welbz is no back-up
Interesting article about the squad depth of the top sides today. Man Utd vs Arsenal should certainly be interesting this weekend.

I have a tiny niggle though. You labelled Danny Welbeck as a ‘backup forward/attacking midfielder’.

I can see how you came to that conclusion since he hasn’t played for ages, but when fit, he would be picked ahead of Walcott or Iwobi. Wenger really likes him in that position (probably due to his work-rate) which you can see from the amount of starts he has had when fit.

So really, he should be labelled ‘first choice attacking Midfielder/backup striker’.

There are probably more important things to talk about in the world of football but I think it shows how many first-choice players Arsenal will have out this weekend.
Adonis Stevenson, AFC

Anyone else have brown trousers?
Wasn’t concentrating when reading ‘The Arsenal test’ and somehow thought Kante, Costa, Pedro and Moses were all injured on international duty.

I need to lie down. Phew.
Charlie, CFC

Who would take Rooney on a free?
To answer as ‘scientifically’ possible, who would take Rooney on a free…I’ve come up with the following criteria:

– Has to be either first choice in position.
– Has to play striker (i.e. not midfield).
– Team has to be ‘reasonably able*’ to support his wages

Based on my randomly generated criteria going from top to bottom….

– Liverpool: DEFINITELY NO: Not better than Sturridge / Firminio
– Chelsea: MAYBE NO: Not better than Costa, but would probably start ahead of Batshuayi
– Man City: MAYBE NO: Not better than Aguero, but would compete with Iheanacho
– Arsenal: DEFINITELY NO: Not better than Sanchez, would not compete with Giroud
– Spurs: MAYBE NO: Not better than Kane, would compete with Jansen
– Man U : N/A – current club
– Everton: MAYBE NO: Not better than Lukaku, would compete with Niasse
– Watford: N/A: wages too high
– Burnley: N/A: wages too high
– Southampton : YES : Would start ahead of Austin

So there we have it – Southampton would be, for my money, the only club that would play him as first choice as a striker and be ‘reasonably able’ to support his wages. The ‘Maybe Nos’ above would probably take Rooney as a back up to their first choice, but not on his wages. Obviously, I am not sure that Southampton would be able to support even £200k p/w, but on a one-year contract, maybe they could.

The reason this is interesting is because Rooney is on a top four team’s, first-choice striker salary, but would only be taken an affluent mid-table team at best. He is not even nearly in the top five strikers in the league anymore (Sanchez/Aguero/Costa/Kane/Ibra/Giroud/Lukaku are all significantly better than him). The likely reality is that a team like Southampton wouldn’t dare commit that amount of money on a striker who is not virtually guaranteed 20 goals + per season. This means Rooney will end up going to a club where salary commitment and actual on field performance are currently not as closely correlated i.e. USA or China.

* reasonably able = me having a guess based on size of stadium. Sorry, couldn’t come up with any better measure on my lunchbreak!
Lee

They can have him…
In response to Bodych, and as a United fan, I can honestly say that at this point I would happily loan him out just to get him out of the squad. The dream is that a Chinese or Qatari club is hoodwinked into paying a fee for his services, but at this stage I just want him gone. He admittedly has improved slightly since the Watford game – going from a huge hindrance to the team to more or a minor negative or, on a good day, a ‘nothing’ player whose good contributions are equal to the bad ones – but he is just nowhere near the required standard anymore, never will be again, and is a gigantic waste of money in wages all things considered.

So yeah, any takers?
Rustin Cohle

Why go English at all?
The current insistence for an English national team manager seems particularly odd considering the land grab each time it transpires a talented ‘foreign’ may be eligible to play for England, because they’ve spent x years in an English team’s academy, or whatever the criteria happens to be.

I could understand some hesitation after Capello, who had more than a whiff of mercenary about him, but when the English choices on offer are about as inspiring as the candidates for the US Presidency, then surely it makes sense to broaden the talent pool.
Matt

Cheer up you miserable sods
Jesus English people are miserable gits.

And that’s why international football has reached a low in this country.

England Win 3-0.
Against massive local rivals.
We have three shots and score three goals.

And all anyone does is f***ing moan about it!!!!

Well before hand I bet half of you were saying, bet we lose, bet it’s a dull 0-0 etc etc,

Well we didn’t and it wasn’t..

Stop ya f**king whining please.

When other teams play ‘badly’ and win by scoring from their only three chances at goal, they are clinical, quality, class counts etc etc but when we do exactly the same thing.

Poor, sack everyone, terrible Stones, awful Sturridge, sack the manager again.

Why don’t you all shut the hell up and actually enjoy yourselves you bloody miserable sh*ts?
Al – LFC and off to Wembley to ENJOY myself on Tuesday night.

Enter the Dragon
Ok, Paul McDevitt, I’ll bite. In your own words ‘it comes down to how you play’. Well, if we check Wales’ results in competitive fixtures since the start of qualifying for Euro 2016, it reads as follows:

P 20
W 11
D 6
L 3
F 29
A 14

Let’s also consider that in this period Wales have played Belgium three times, and Portugal and England once each.

Let’s also consider that Wales have also played against Serbia, Slovakia, Bosnia and Austria who can all be considered competitive teams at international level.

Regardless of manipulating the seedings (and this should be praised, not criticised) I think over the past two years ‘on the pitch’ Wales have been fantastic, and let’s not forget are still undefeated in their current qualifying campaign, two points of a play off spot. They are doing just fine.
Naz, Gooner (and half Welsh!)

Kenya played well too…
Allow me to also chip in with my congratulations to the Kenya National team, Harambee Stars, for playing the best football in years. The boys were excellent and they played one-twos and short crisp passes that left our opponents, Mozambique bamboozled and chasing the wind. Our captain Victor Wanyama bossed the midfield like Donald Trump on The Apprentice. We won 1-0 courtesy of a wonderful finish by Mathare United winnger Eric Johanna. We should have won by two or three goals were it not for woeful finishing. We’ve moved 43 PLACES us FIFA rankings…and we’re now ranked 86th in the world. This is important because if we move inside the top 80, other Kenyan footballers would find it easier to join the English Premier League.
Keg Baridi, Nairobi, Kenya
PS. Rooney on a free to Sunderland would be hilarious, ROFL

Hailing the good guys
‘Some men drink from the fountain of wisdom, others only gargle.’

Thank God for Gary and Gareth. Great article John Nicholson.

Also loved the recent spotlight on Chris Kamara, legend and very clearly a thoroughly bloody nice bloke.

Perhaps we need to combat the PFM with the BNB (Bloody Nice Bloke) and the IAG (Intelligent Articulate Gentleman). G&G appear to be both of these things, Kammy probably just qualifies for the BNB but we love him all-the-more for it.
Thom, Bristol-based Spur