UNTOLD ARSENAL: The most read Arsenal blog in the world
07/05/2008 by Tony Attwood.
Carlos Vela – Arsenal’s first Mexican player – is a striker, born in 1989 and signed on Jan 1 2007. He then went on loan first with Salamanca and then in Spain’s first division with Osasuna. By completing his time in Spain, Vela has been able to apply for citizenship, and thus have an EU passport. This makes him eligible to play anywhere within the Union – and hence at Arsenal.
In 2005 Vela was top scorer with five in the FIFA U-17 World Championships: which gave Mexico its first ever international prize. He also represented Mexico at the FIFA U-20 World Cup.
According to that astonishingly reliable source the Daily Mirror (you have to say that with irony otherwise it doesn’t make sense) M. Wenger said, “I like his intelligence and his pace. He scores goals but he can also create them. He’s a special talent and I believe 100 per cent that he will make it at the highest level.”
06/05/2008 by Tony Attwood.
If you read the press on the subject of the “biggest clubs” in football a couple of weeks back you’d have seen Man U at the top of the list.
And you might well have thought that those guys at Untold Arsenal were a bunch of twirps, with all their talk 3 months earlier about how Man U was actually in serious trouble.
Now the truth has emerged.
As we know when the Glaziers bought Man U they put all the borrowings to buy the club, back into the club – effectively making the club pay for itself! But cleverly, for accounting reasons, a separate company is used to show these borrowings – which are now £666m – the highest ever in football history. That’s right – Man U have more debt than any club ever.
But that’s not all – Man U owe money everywhere – they are not even paying off the interest on their debts – and the total now due is an amazing £764m, which includes £56m owed to other clubs on players that the “Ferguson” character has bought BUT NOT PAID FOR. The warning to all of football is clear: if you sell to Man U it will be a while before you get paid.
Man U have to pay £81m in interest on debts a year – last year they managed to pay just £42m, before running out of cash. Now there is nothing illeagal here, but the situation can’t go on – and in 2016 the money must be paid unless Man U can find someone else to take on the debts. They have been trying to do this all year, but without success.
So now we can see – the income of £210m that Man U made such a huge fuss about in January (along with “profits” of £210m) was a sham – because it did not include all the issues relating to the borrowed money. Add everything together and Man U lost £58m.
So does this mean “trouble”? Yes it does, in my opinion, because the interest levels are rising (because each year they owe more and more interest not paid the previous year) but income can’t. Most Man U money comes from match days, and there is huge resistance to more and more price rises.
Arsenal on the other hand is completely solvent – and genuinely does make enough profit to pay for its borrowings (which are secured through the stadium). The mortgage is being paid off month by month, and there is still the bonus from the sale of Highbury and the redeveloped property to come through in the months and years to come.
06/05/2008 by Tony Attwood.
The first time we saw Kieran Gibbs was when he scored in both legs of the FA Youth Cup Semi Final against Manchester United last season.
Since then he has been in an Emirates Cup game, the league cup team against Sheffield Utd., on loan at Norwich, and on his return to Arsenal from the loan, immediately played for the reserves before being an unused sub in the game against Everton – as he was a year before in the end of season game at Portsmouth.
He plays either central midfield or wide on the left, and has been called up for England.
On September 10, 2007, Kieran signed professional forms with the Club – put that lot together and you have a first team squad member.
There is talk of a further loan deal just to bring him up to standard, but insiders say that won’t happen until after the transfer deadline and Wenger sees exactly who he has got for the cup teams.
Even if Gibbs does go on loan it won’t be for the whole season, and he will certainly play an ever greater part in the club’s future.
05/05/2008 by Tony Attwood.
When has a player left Arsenal and done better for himself?
We can think of Liam Brady and maybe Stapleton, but otherwise?
In effect players who leave never ever make it so good again – quite simply because Arsenal have always worked on getting the best out of players.
Wenger was the operator of the magic wand this time, turning a player who couldn’t even make the bench a year ago into a sensation. And now he wanders off into the darkness of a team that is far less likely to win anything than Arsenal next year.
The good news – and it really is good news – is that Fabregas has matured and matured again so that we now know exactly what sort of player we have got. Denilson has come on well too – very well given the paucity of this opportunity. So we can see exactly what we need in the middle with Fabregas.
Because of world-wide scouting (after which I really ought to put a trade mark sign since I invented the phrase but others now use it freely) we will be able to bring in the right player. But it is a shame, because Flamini was just the sort of person you would like.
He is a dolt, an idiot, a turnip, a twirp, but he will soon find out. After three months drift he’ll the first thing he will do is change his agent.
05/05/2008 by Tony Attwood.
The number of shots on target tells it all as Arsenal Ladies once again had a stroll in the sunshine and won the FA Cup.
That makes three FA Cup and League doubles in a row. In any other sort of competition the organisers would give the trophies to the club for eternal display marking their sensational achievement. But it is the Arsenal Ladies we are talking about so they won’t do that.
In fact more journalism was given over to the fact that the Ladies actually drew one game in the league this year, rather than winning every match – as happened last year.
So there we are – a 4-1 victory, the third double in a row, and all following the all-time record crowd for a ladies match in the UK, when 5,000 turned up to watch us thump Chelsea.
What we need next season is more games at the Emirates, with a bigger allocation of seats – say 10,000 rather than the 5,000 limit this time. And (given that they won’t let the ladies play at the Emirates all the time) a better ground to play some of the other matches at.
04/05/2008 by Tony Attwood.
The huge gap between the top 3 in the EPL and the rest was confirmed today with a win for an Arsenal team that ended with just 3 first team regulars on the pitch.
Lacking the entire first team midfield, playing the most junior of the four strikers and ending up with two left backs Arsenal outplayed Everton for much of the game, and readily held their own when Everton stepped up the pressure.
For this was no end-of-season run out for the reserves and retiring older players. Everton needed a point to secure a place in the Diddly Widdly Euro Cup next season, and came out with a packed defence. Arsenal eventually found a way through in the second half.
Although it was a triumph for Arsenal with such a junior squad, and it must be depressing for the 5th team in the EPL to see just how far they are behind the top 3, it was a particularly feeble display by Sky Sports.
Already the laughing stock of football with their insane predictions that Arsenal would finish mid-table, and Tottenham would sneak into the Euro League next year, the Sky team kept speaking of Arsenal’s need to buy big this summer. Theuy showed complete ignorance of the fact that 2 men from the top league in Spain are already on their way: Merida and Vela.
It must be a tough life at Sky with all that talking to do and no facts to base it on.
So – unbeaten at home this year. Second top scorers. And the ability to stay in the top 3 even when most of the first team are out injured. Not a bad starting point for the future.