A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

SEVEN HOURS TO GO

• Matej Vydra joins Championship club Reading FC on a loan for 2 million quid.
• Hull's Nikica Jelavic has completed a move to West Ham after clearing his medical. The fee is reported to be 3 million quid.
• Victor Wanyama is going nowhere. His deal with Spurs is off (ugh...).
• River Plate's Tomas Andrade set to make a shock loan to Bournemouth. Getting his medical done at the moment.
• Sky Sports: Arsenal is doubtful to sign anymore players before the deadline. There are rumors that they're looking at Aleksandr Kokorin, but those are from Daily Mail so be skeptical.
• Watford to sign THREE players before the deadline, including Victor Ibarbo.
• Stoke's Jon Walters is rumored to join Norwich. No deal in sight at the moment, however.

edited 1st Sep '15 3:36:03 AM by sanfranman91

Sorry for the triple post, but...

FOUR HOURS TO GO

• Chelsea signs two centrebacks... neither of whom are John Stones. They are Michael Hector of Reading and Papy Djilobodji (now that's a mouthful) of Nantes. Remind me why Mourinho rates them again?
• Real Madrid will not appeal to the LFP, meaning David de Gea and Keylor Navas are stuck at Manchester United and Real Madrid respectively until at least the January transfer window. Their official statement absolutely reeks of the Never My Fault trope.
• Nottingham Forest's Michail Antonio will join West Ham after agreeing to personal terms. His medical will get going in a bit.
• Glenn Murray has officially joined Bournemouth for £4 million after clearing his medical.
• Swansea City wants QPR's Junior Hoilett, but the two parties are discussing terms as the clock winds down.

THE HIGHLIGHTS THUS FAR...

• Charlie Austin stays at QPR
• Glenn Murray joins Bournemouth
• David de Gea trapped at Manchester United
• Celtic defender Virgil van Dijk's move to Southampton imminent
• West Ham have signed at least three players on Deadline Day (Song, Jelavic, and Moses)

edited 1st Sep '15 6:09:33 AM by sanfranman91

"jil-oh-bod-ji", The "D" is silent.

Thanks for the pronunciation help.

ONE HOUR AND THIRTY MINUTES TO GO

• DeAndre Yedlin is going to Sunderland on a loan. I frankly don't want to see one of our top prospects play for a woeful Championship side in the Premier League, but top-flight experience is top-flight experience. I just hope he doesn't pick up any bad habits over there...
• Michail Antonio has officially joined West Ham from Nottingham Forest for 7 million quid. This is their fourth signing today.
• Adlene Guedioura, Obi Oulare, and Victor Ibardo are now playing for Watford, the former two being permanent signings.
• Everton's making a last-minute deal with Aaron Lennon. I'm absolutely gutted to see Lennon being treated like a nobody after everything he did for our club, but I'm happy that an excellent manager like Roberto Martinez has faith in him. I hope he'll get his career back on track at Goodison Park.
• Stoke is trying to purchase Crystal Palace's captain Mile Jedinak. According to Sky Sports, they're dealing with the personal terms but they'll have to move quick.
• Still no news of Arsenal making any new signings. There were rumors regarding Cavani and Rabiot, but they seemed to have died in the last few hours.

ONE HOUR TO GO

• Inverness' Ryan Christie will join Celtic at the end of the season. Until then, he'll be loaned back to Inverness.
• Norwich wants Steven Naismith but Everton has rejected an offer valued at 7-8 million. The Canaries also are rumored to be looking into a deal for Dwight Gayle.
• After four failed bids, it's safe to say West Brom's going to keep Saido Berahino. But it looks like Saido's not happy and now he's declaring that he'll never play for West Brom again.
• Anthony Martial has left Monaco to join Manchester United. At 36 million quid, this makes him the most expensive teenager in the history of the sport.

edited 1st Sep '15 9:49:14 AM by sanfranman91

Absolutely nothing from Arsenal. Surely it's too late now. An injury to Giroud or Coquelin before January can now ruin the season. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

TEN MINUTES TO GO

• Sky Sports has confirmed that Cech will be the only signing for Arsenal. Sorry Best Of.
• Norwich is scrambling over Dwight Gayle and people are now waiting to see if they can get the initial paperwork done. If this move goes through, then Gary Hooper will move to Fulham on a loan.
• Liverpool's Tiago Illori will be loaned to Aston Villa.

edited 1st Sep '15 10:08:59 AM by sanfranman91

Last-minute deals:

• Michael Hector completes his move from Reading to Chelsea for £4 million. He will be loaned back to the Championship club until the end of this season.
• Adama Diomande joins Hull City from Norweigan club Stabaek for an undisclosed fee.
• A potential deal for Emmanuel Adebayor to join West Ham fell through due to settlement issues between Adebayor and Tottenham. He will return to Spurs until at least the January transfer window.
• Talks have broken down between Mile Jedinak and Stoke City, meaning the former will return to Crystal Palace.
• Bradley Johnson leaves Premier League's Norwich City to join Derby County in the Championship. The fee is undisclosed.

THE TIME IS NOW 6 PM, MEANING THE TRANSFER WINDOW IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED.

TOTAL TRANSFER WINDOW SPENDING: £862,750,000 (A new world record in transfers.)

edited 1st Sep '15 10:17:04 AM by sanfranman91

Arsenal's total transfer spending this window - excluding academy purchases - is £10 million. Well, minus the couple of million they got for Podolski and the salaries of all the players who went out on loan.

It really does feel like Wenger has stopped caring about whether Arsenal are able to win anything. Everyone - even within the club, including the board and squad - were telling him to buy. He said he's looking for players that would improve Arsenal in "any sector". Plenty of such players went for affordable fees this season. As the window closed Arsenal had the chance to grab at least one of their targets but failed to do so. I cannot believe that the board, after all the talk about the funds they have available and so on, would tell him to save money now. It must be on Wenger this time.

It looks like the 4th place that was the minimum acceptable result for a season has become the actual peak of Arsenal's aspirations. Very disappointing.

Of course there are still rumours about all sorts of deals just about to go through and pending extension and so on but I don't believe it. The latest is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, allegedly as a result of Arsenal's pursuit of Cavani. BS.

EDIT: Highlights of Arsenal transfer window:

• Only club in Europe's top 5 leagues not to have signed even one outfield player this window.

• Arsenal spent nearly 10% of Manchester United's total. Here are some other ways to view Arsenal's binge: it's 15% of Chelsea's spending, about 12% of Liverpool's, or 7% of Manchester City's.

• But of course Arsenal are aiming to win the league. They squad was already better than that of anyone else in the top-6 or so of last season. Obviously.

edited 1st Sep '15 10:27:47 AM by BestOf

It's going to be a hard season for your club, isn't it? Your club finally got a top goalkeeper but then decided to call it a day. It's an incredibly bizarre decision by Arsene Wenger and I agree with Gary Neville questioning whether Arsene is naive or arrogant at this point. Arsenal fans are going to riot on the streets and ask Wenger to leave, aren't they?

Other post-window news:

• Aaron Lennon's set to join Everton for £4.5 million. The negotiations have been granted an extension by the Premier League and a deal should be announced shortly. Best of luck to you, Aaron.
• Talks between Dimitar Berbatov and Aston Villa have broken down. As things stand, Berbatov is still a free agent.
• Lee Camp has left Premier League newcomer Bournemouth for Championship's Rotherham United.
• Meanwhile, Aston Villa's left-back Joe Bennett has joined Bournemouth on a season-long loan.
• Dwight Gayle's talks with Norwich City have broken down as well. Like Jedinak, Gayle will return to Selhurst Park until at least the January transfer window.

edited 1st Sep '15 10:56:26 AM by sanfranman91

Maybe Arsenal should try to get Berbatov on a 1-year deal, just to have at least someone as back-up for Giroud.

And yeah, the Arsenal Supporters' Trust has already issued a statement demanding that Arsenal start lowering ticket prices and paying back money for season tickets in exchange for lowered expectations. Of course it's not going to happen - Arsenal at the moment are more interested in paying dividends to shareholders than they are in playing football.

I'm struggling to come up with anything positive to say, so here's something of a reach: Joel Campbell is still at Arsenal. Now all they need is for him to be better than Giroud and they're set for that position. Arsenal will also need to design and install some kind of armour for Coquelin to prevent him ever getting injured. Well, either that or have Arteta play the best season of his career so far.

So apparently there is confirmation that the administrative mess that fucked up many transfers was just getting a documet late by 2 minutes.

It's a lot of things. Man United just released their side of the story 20 minutes ago. (as of this posting)

I'll just call it one gigantic mess for everyone involved and have a quiet laugh.

Arsenal fans, do you still think Arsène Wenger has any future at your club now, or are you starting to come along to the side of those who say that he has been a dragging down influence on your club for a decade or more now? And feel now that it's time for him to be given a vote of thanks along with his P45?

Not much of a fan of Arsenal or Wenger, but for all I care, this could just as well be copy/pasted straight from an older post from a year ago or longer. I feel I've heard this song and dance more times than I could care to remember, and I've long since stopped believing in Wenger's departure is this certain, imminent thing.

I would be interested in knowing if any Gooners have thought hard about what "Arsenal after Arsene" might be like and how far away we are from witnessing that, but I am feeling confident Wenger's job is secure through next season and that when he does finally leave Arsenal, it will be entirely on his own terms.

Anything between the start of the stadium construction and 2013 or so is tricky to judge. Arsenal couldn't refuse to sell a player if a decent fee was offered so Wenger was always losing his best players. This or course resulted in poor results. Those results, then, led to a lack of success - which caused players to want to leave. It was a spiral.

It would not have happened if Chelsea and Manchester City hadn't happened to get their infinite purses just when Arsenal were committing to a lack of investments. (Arsenal could have kept up if the league had been the same for all that time but they were completely unprepared for inflation.) Without the anomalies of Chelsea and City Arsenal would've been at least a top-3 club, and probably a frequent title contender, for all that time. That's how their resources were budgeted before they committed to the stadium, and after that it was too late. (The owners didn't offer more money - and, IIRC, the board didn't ask.)

I maintain that practically no other manager could have kept Arsenal a top-4 club for all that time. Perhaps Ferguson, but I'm not sure of even that. Wenger always thinks long-term, and that was absolutely required to avoid falling out of the top-4. If Arsenal had been out of the Champions League for even one season their situation would've become much worse still - they would probably be lower than Liverpool and Tottenham now.

After that period, though, expectations rose. Wenger met some of them by buying Özil and Alexis (and a bunch of others like Cech and Debuchy) while still developing players already on Arsenal's books (Bellerin, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Coquelin etc). Arsenal should have been title rivals for at least 2 and maybe 3 seasons for now, though. The transfer window that saw Van Persie force a move was the last time Arsenal didn't have the option to refuse a sale at anything close (let alone above) an average price. If he had stayed Arsenal probably would've done much better that season, perhaps challenging for the title and winning a cup. Instead, Arsenal struggled for another year.

The next two seasons Arsenal did at times look like they had the quality but didn't have the numbers in a couple of positions, either because Wenger wouldn't buy or because injuries overlapped.

This, to me, is the most frustrating transfer window yet as an Arsenal fan. The past couple of windows Arsenal have either plugged a gap or two in their squad depth (or quality), or at least improved in some positions. Usually I'm still left with the sense that Arsenal could've done more but Wenger has so much faith in his players (well, most of them) that he doesn't want to challenge them - which is silly. Still, I've been at least satisfied that something has improved.

This window is really frustrating in that some players that would have plugged gaps in Arsenal's squad depth or added that little bit of quality that would've made a first-team player or two second choice went to other clubs for fees that Arsenal could have afforded. I listed a bunch of them in a recent post here. I could easily list more.

Wenger can justify his lack of transfer activity by being within range of a title challenge - say, within 5 points of first place - when January comes. (I'll grant the exception that if City run away with the title with no one chasing them even close Arsenal can be forgiven for being merely in the top-3, as long as that at least looks safe.)

The more likely outcome, of course, is that one or two players that are hard to replace get injured (for added points, with their national team) and Arsenal drop points due to a lack of depth. They might be either forced to play a player out of position, or simply rely on one player for some many games that the risk of injuries just keeps getting worse and eventually it ends in disaster.

This is what happened at times over the last two seasons in defence. Now, Arsenal have enough defenders to cover Mertesacker's absence (with Gabriel or Chambers, or even by using Monreal or Debuchy out of position - they adapt well enough).

In any case, Arsenal will probably need to buy a couple of players again in January to cover for injuries, most likely at defensive midfield and centre-forward. If that happens there will be no way Wenger could say he didn't have the chance to prepare for that in the summer window.

If Arsenal do make it to January without dropping out of the race completely (and failing in Europe and so on) I'll have faith in Wenger again through that window. If Arsenal fail the first half of this season, though - as they're clearly doing now - I probably will join the Wenger Out camp. Again, though, I do think Wenger did extremely well during the stadium project, when realistic expectations had to be lower due to Arsenal operating essentially on a mid-table budget. It's only these past couple of seasons that Wenger has really under-performed, and even then he's got two FA Cups, which isn't nothing.

Wenger's position with the board seems secure as long as Arsenal are financially at a position the board deems acceptable - which in practice means top-4. If he fails that, even once, I do think he'll probably be sacked. Who knows, maybe the pressure is building up now to sack him even if Arsenal finish 3rd or 4th again, assuming they don't win a cup. Silent Stan seems happy as long as he's getting a profit on his investment - he doesn't seem to care at all about the club except as a financial asset.

In that sense Usmanov as majority owner would be better, because he's actually a fan of the club. I don't want Arsenal to spend irresponsibly, though - one or two windows like what City did this time would be OK but I don't want it to become a regular thing, no matter how many trophies Arsenal win. I don't want Arsenal to be like Abramovich's Chelsea before FFP - I'd rather have them finish 4th with the club's own resources than 1st with a massive investment from the owner.

The problem with Silent Stan, and to an extent Wenger, is that they don't even use the club's resources when they have them. They could've done a massive deal or two this window and remained financially sound. That is why I'm so disappointed this time.

As if this isn't enough of a wall of text already, I'm also going to think about Arsenal post-Arsene.

First of all, the principles will probably always be the same now that they're so firmly established. Arsenal will (probably and hopefully - for every item in this bit assume that I mean probably and hopefully) - always be a club that develops young players into first-team regulars. (A player who comes when he's 16 counts for me, but someone who comes in at 19 or 20 doesn't.)

Arsenal will also always be a team that spends within its means. I think it's fair to expect every team to at least break even every seasons or every two-season period or so, much as FFP demands. It's wrong to have a club gain a massive advantage from the owner's wealth, because other clubs don't have access to that.

Arsenal will also always be a team that prefer to control the game and attack, rather than parking the bus or relying mostly on counter-attacking football. Their tactics (in terms of formation and so on) might change but I doubt their approach to the game will, except for some tactical variation in special cases.

I think Arsenal will also remain a fair team. They won't be among the worst time-wasters in the league, and they won't try to cause injuries or play dirty in general. I know Arsenal has been really boring and actually harmful to the sport before Wenger - unfortunately even winning trophies like that - but I do believe that period of Arsenal's history is over, and as the game develops so will Arsenal.

Arsenal's financial resources are currently growing at an impressive pace, even with the purchases of Özil and Alexis. The talk of doing one or two deals like that while keeping the books balanced sounds plausible, and that's what Arsenal should do. (Well, don't buy if you don't need to, obviously, but if there's something special Arsenal can get it done, at least financially.)

I think Arsenal are on an upwards trajectory, and the only thing that could break that would be failure to finish in the top-4. Maybe they could get away with one season of that now, but chances are they'd lose some players and possibly fail to attract others, and that would set them back as much as the financial damage from missing out on the Champions League.

So whoever manages Arsenal, a top-4 finish will always be the minimum requirement. The expectation will be to aim higher than that - win a trophy or two, or at least challenge for them to the very end. I think Wenger can keep that much up indefinitely, so long as he doesn't have more summers like this one. He needs to be a bit more greedy in the transfer market and actually get the required player, even if it's £40 or £50 million. That's what it takes now to stay in the top-4 or challenge for it.

I won't speculate on who will eventually be Wenger's successor. There's plenty of that online. There are some managers I would really like - Guardiola first among them - but I don't know who will come and under what circumstances.

Wenger will probably see out his current contract - I think it's until 2017 - and frankly I doubt he'll sign a new one after that. He might do if he wins something bigger than the FA cup. If he fails to make top-4 I expect he'll be fired. After that it's a matter of who's available and who would be most likely to reach at least the minimum target of Champions League football, and preferably more than that.

For what it's worth, I don't think Arsenal will sack Wenger this year. He'll probably talk about aiming for a title push but he'll end up having to worry about falling too far behind the top-4 until January, and then he'll make a couple of signings and Arsenal will go on a run of great results that'll see them barely make top-4 and possibly (if there are not more injuries than Arsenal can manage) win the Capital One Cup or the FA Cup.

If Arsenal had bought someone who would've been an improvement over Giroud and someone who would have been at least as good as Coquelin I would have believed that Arsenal can challenge for the title this season. Now, though, there's not enough depth. One injury in the wrong place and Arsenal will start dropping points at a massive rate. No club should be that vulnerable, but there you go. Wenger gets credit for improving depth in the positions he's done it over the past couple of years - central midfield and centre-back, most notably - but he hasn't done enough even though he had the resources and the time to introduce the new players one by one to maintain cohesion.

Sorry that this post became so long but you know, that's how I am.

edited 1st Sep '15 7:32:40 PM by BestOf

So now the Arsenal Supporters' Trust is is calling for a review of the club's transfer policy.

Personally, I'm just feeling nostalgic for when Gunnerblog turned out this beautiful piece (I really wish YouTube embedding wasn't broken so it would be easier to share). It's funny how much of this video still resonates now, while other parts... ehhh... Remember when Arsenal lost the pre-season Emirates cup to Henry's New York Red Bulls side? At least, there's still those consecutive FA Cups to look back on today.

The central premise of that video - of Kroenke telling Wenger to spend and Wenger refusing - is basically the reverse of what was really the case back then. Now, though, it's much closer to the truth. (It'd be even better if it was Usmanov demanding signings but even Stan would probably be happy to let Wenger buy some quality.)

That said, the Gunnerblog songs are always a treat. I wish he'd do more of them. His post-match analysis doesn't tend to be quite as good (IMO) as the songs. (For what it's worth, I think the best analysis from an Arsenal POV comes from Arsenal's own Adrian Clarke. To me he's spot on about 95% of the time.)

That moment when Iceland defeats the Netherlands 1-0 at Amsterdam.

(Btw, the last time the Netherlands lost at home in a competitive match was... 15 years ago! Against us.)

edited 3rd Sep '15 9:54:32 PM by Quag15

Oh my God, tonight I came back from my ill-flavored vacation (I really regret even having gone with them), and what do I discover? Real Madrid making the most ridiculous Epic Fail in ages. The whole De Gea drama has only increased further my fatigue over the trip back to my house. I really hope Florentino resigns in the near future, because he's truly killing the club.

So, Danny Welbeck has had a knee surgery and will be out for months. This means that the only natural centre-back in Arsenal's squad is Giroud.

With Akpom and Sanogo loaned out, an injury to Giroud would be absolutely devastating. That's why I predict Giroud will get injured during the international break.

Of course there's Walcott. I'd prefer to have him on the right but if he's to play centre-forward Arsenal will have to change their style a bit. Perhaps if the midfield was to hang back a bit and rely on counter-attacks Walcott's pace could be utilised better than it is in Arsenal's current approach.

Welbeck's situation cannot possibly have come as a complete surprise. Wenger absolutely should have prepared for this. A quality forward - even just as back-up - would've been a necessary addition to the squad at this point, but Wenger failed to get it done. Giroud must stay fit and find his form immediately if Arsenal are going to get anything this season.

Wales beat Cyprus by one goal to nil thanks to a header from Gareth Bale. If they beat Israel at the weekend, that's them into the European Championships for the first time in nearly sixty years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34063010

Congratulations to Wales! (And an at least equal hooray! for Iceland, as well.)

Finland are up against Greece today. I expect a resounding 3-0 for Greece. We finally got rid of our failure of a manager recently, and his successor has already been chosen (through an application process) but the new manager won't start until January. He's a Swede named Hans Backe.

Apparently he's worked with Sven-Göran Eriksson and Roy Hodgson before. That suggests a reactive approach: the team will defend quite a lot but also try to adapt to each opponent with changes of tactics and formation.

It's worth noting that Hodgson also managed Finland for a while - almost ten years ago - and brought the team closer to qualification for a major tournament than anyone else had done before. If Backe can replicate that I'll be quite happy. His challenge, though, will be to find a style and formation that'll allow the few decent players in Finland's squad to shine while minimising the damage from everyone else's incompetence.

I suppose I should say that although Hodgson is generally thought to have performed very well as Finland's manager he did have probably the best line-up at the Finnish national team has ever had. Jääskeläinen, Tainio, Hyypiä, Forssell, Väyrynen, and Alexei Eremenko (Roman's brother) were all at the top of their game, while Jari Litmanen was also still very good (but past his peak). Any of those players, in the form they were back then, would walk into Finland's current squad.

In today's game Finland will be managed by someone I've never heard of. Presumably he would have been the previous manager's assistant but I don't know. He'll probably have the team play roughly the same as the previous manager, so it'll be a boring game where Finland try to hold on and get a lucky break while Greece dominate.

Finland's goalkeeper, Lukas Hradecky, has recently transferred to Eintracht Frankfurt and is apparently playing quite well. Our other goalkeeper, Niki Mäenpää, is currently at Brighton and Hove Albion. He seems to be getting games every now and then but he's probably not first choice, and he won't be for Finland, either.

Our only decent defender is Niklas Moisander, and even he's been in poor form for the national team for what feels like at least a year now. He's currently at Sampdoria but I'm not sure if he's even in their starting line-up. It's quite a fall for a player who was recently captain of Ajax.

The best player is Finland's squad is Roman Eremenko. Considered one of the best players in the Russian Premier League for several years now, he's quite far ahead of everyone else in team Finland in terms of quality. He's played for the national side as a central (often holding) midfielder but naturally he's a #10.

The other midfielders worth even spitting at are Kasper Hämäläinen, who plays for Lech Poznan in Poland, and Perparim Hetemaj, currently at Chievo. Hetemaj is a ball-winning central (defensive) midfielder who is quite prone to getting carded but does an otherwise acceptable job. Hämäläinen is a decent passer with a good eye for an unmarked run but he often fails to make an impact because Finland have so little possession.

None of Finland's centre-forwards are worth mentioning, except to say that Eero Markkanen was not good enough for Real Madrid's reserves (I have no idea why they bought him in the first place) and Teemu Pukki continues to decline, having never peaked properly to begin with.

I'd definitely prefer Hasse Backe to Erik Hamrén...

Portugal 0-1 France

Friendly match. Mostly boring. The coach continues to not make younger players play for longer periods of time (e.g. Bernardo Silva) and to bring some oldies, for some reason (e.g. Miguel Veloso, Nani). The goal was scored by Valbuena in a free-kick.

Also, due to freaking Evra catching him with his elbow, Ricardo Carvalho bled a lot.

Oh, and it's been 40 years since we last beat them. How long will it take?

Congrats, Best Of, you guys defeated Greece. Greece is in an omnishambles (and now eliminated), granted, but still...

Meanwhile, in our group, Albania and Denmark drew 0-0. I hope we beat Albania, 3 days from now.

edited 4th Sep '15 2:03:33 PM by Quag15

I was expecting way more of De Rossi-McBride in that elbow shot.