Be very quiet, don’t say a word. There’s good news at Arsenal « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
By Tony Attwood
There’s a review of the Q and A session that Ivan Gazidis had at the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association AGM this weekend on the AISA web site and I won’t try and expand on that here, save to make one comment.
Mr Gazidis confirmed that once again season ticket renewals had held up and very few people had given up their seats. So that is two renewals since a certain blog told us in no uncertain terms that over half the season ticket holders were not renewing, and what we have is a churn of about 2% over two years. Maybe a bit less.
But of course the truth never put anyone off their cherished position, and it is interesting that despite an outbreak of good news, the negative blogs have either been quiet or negative.
Consider this…
Chamberlain signed for Arsenal despite interest from other so called top clubs like Manchester Untidy
Miyaichi unexpected got his special talent work permit which gives us yet more options up front
Fabrigas and Nasri are still here. So while people complain about us not having completed our transfer activity with the season almost upon us (one person made that comment at the AGM to Mr Gazidis and I felt he dealt with it very well) it is clear that other clubs are having the same problem. In case you didn’t notice, both these players were supposedly off weeks ago.
There’s other things going on – like comments starting to appear all over the place about the fact that the Premier League’s bubble is about to burst. I noticed a big article on this today in the Guardian for example, comparing England with Italy, just before their crash.
That again accords with Mr Gazidis’ commentary in which he made clear that the objective of Arsenal is to be sustainable. Quite clearly Chelsea, Man City, PSG and the like are sustainable as long as the owners are interested and there is no revolution back home. As for the rest, there is not a single club in the EPL running a sustainable model. Of course some would like us to join them, but fortunately for the club, not the board.
Anyway, back to the good news. As you will know Ryo has been granted the work permit he requires to play first-team football for Arsenal this season. Just when we thought he would have to go back to the Netherlands to play, the FA Panel met. Arsène Wenger spoke personally, and there was backup from the Japan Football Association, which (according to Arsenal.com) significantly helped the process.
Ryo has played in all pre-season matches played outside the UK, which tells us something.
So now we have our first squad of the season, the squad for the Champions League Play-Off Round.
It consists of 25 players in List A and an unlimited number of players to List B. This squad only applies to the play-off round, not the main competition.
A player qualifies for inclusion in List B if he was born on or after January 1, 1990 and has been eligible to play for Arsenal for an uninterrupted period of two years or more since his 15th birthday. Ryo is not included because although he has been given clearance the formal paperwork has not come through yet.
Anyway there’s some amazing names on the list…
List A…
- Manuel Almunia
- Andrey Arshavin
- Nicklas Bendtner
- Marouane Chamakh
- Abou Diaby
- Johan Djourou
- Emmanuel Eboue
- Lukasz Fabianski
- Cesc Fabregas
- Gervinho
- Kieran Gibbs
- Carl Jenkinson
- Laurent Koscielny
- Vito Mannone
- Samir Nasri
- Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
- Tomas Rosicky
- Bacary Sagna
- Alex Song
- Sebastien Squillaci
- Armand Traore
- Robin van Persie
- Carlos Vela
- Thomas Vermaelen
- Theo Walcott
List B…
- Aaron Ramsey
- Wojciech Szczesny
- Jack Wilshere
- Benik Afobe
- Chuks Aneke
- Zak Ansah
- Daniel Boateng
- George Brislen-Hall
- Francis Coquelin
- Craig Eastmond
- Luke Freeman
- Emmanuel Frimpong
- Sead Hajrovic
- Conor Henderson
- Gavin Hoyte
- Jernade Meade
- Ignasi Miquel
- Rhys Murphy
- Nigel Neita
- Oguzhan Ozyakup
- Gilles Sunu
- Sanchez Watt
- Nico Yennaris
As I say, it gives us a clue as to who will be featuring for us this season.
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