Saturday, August 6th, 2011 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
By Tony Attwood
More than 17,000 people voted in a poll about the midfield of Bar Bar Barce this season.
It appears (I have to say this since my Spanish is next to non-existent) that El Mundo gave its readers 12 alternative midfield line ups and people had to vote on the ones they liked best.
The players who made up the different approaches were
- Fábregas,
- Sergio Busquets,
- Xavi,
- Andrés Iniesta,
- Thiago Alcántara
- Javier Mascherano.
68% went for Busquets-Xavi-Iniesta and 8% want Mascherano, Xavi and Iniesta.
In fact only 18% of the votes included Fábregas in any form at all with half of them going for Busquets-Xavi-Fábregas.
So this suggests that the fans in Barcelona don’t particularly care for our Cesc in the way that the press here have suggested they do. And it raises further the question, what is going on.
The obvious implication of press coverage in the UK is that Barce and its fans are desperate for Cesc, but if the fans’ view is reflected by the club then this one has to wonder. So here’s some scenarios…
1: The club want Cesc although the fans don’t. But that seems silly, since we can all see that they have got amazing options in midfield.
2: The club want Cesc as a back up, a squad player. But then do you really spend £23m (their current offer) on a squad player? Especially when the club is so bust that it bans colour photocopying and gets rid of its bodyguards.
3: The club don’t want Cesc at all, but are doing it because Arsenal keep buying young Barce footballers. (I think the latest was Jon Miquel Toral Harper, and before that Ignasi Miquel – but if I have got that wrong please do correct me).
4: The club don’t want Cesc at all, but are doing it all for show – not specifically against Arsenal but to keep up the vision that Barca can disrupt anyone anytime, and that if they click their fingers players come running. It might also be a way to deflect from their financial disaster, from which there is no way out. Having successfully got the press to avoid the utter embarrassment of not being able to pay players a year ago, they are doing this as a PR job. But the money will run out soon, they have no strategy to change their finances, and everything is downhill on the money front.
5: Cesc wants to go, and doesn’t realise he will be doing a Flamini – moving from a club where he is guaranteed a game when fit, to one where he just plays the odd few minutes at the end of each match. Seems unlikely.
6: Arsenal don’t want Cesc and are trying to get much more money for the player than he is worth. We know he has a string of injuries, and that although when fit he is very good, maybe the situation is he just ain’t going to get fit. So to get £25m for a player who isn’t going to hack it would be good business. Mr Wenger has done this before, starting with Anelka and moving on through to players like Adebayor.
7: It is Henry II. Mr Wenger sold Henry to Barce when Barce didn’t really need him, and they ended up playing him on the wing. He only played 80 games for Barce, despite going there for €24 million and being paid €8 million a season and then leaving for next to nothing to go the the USA. In other words Henry cost Barca half a million Euros a game, and was a central cause of their bankruptcy.
And there we have it. Mr Wenger has been so annoyed with the way other clubs treat Arsenal he has gone on his own mission to destroy them. The debts that piled up as a result of Henry’s transfer can be multiplied again by selling an unwanted Cesc to Barcelona.
Of course you may not like option 7, but if not you have to opt for something in 1 to 6 and none of them really have the ring of truth to me. But, since Mr Wenger is not going to confess, we can all have an opinion.
Tonight Mr F does not play, and according to Mr Wenger there’s quite a few injuries around. So this is what we have left…
One of the Polish pair
Sagna/Jenkinson, Vermaelen, Djourou, Gibbs/Traore
Song/Frimpong
Rosicki, Ramsey (Lansbury as sub)
Gervinho, Chamakh, Arshavin (with Vela as sub)
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