Evening everyone.
Today the Club has announced that 11 players will part ways with us on July 1st. These include 6 seniors and 5 academy players.
Bendtner and Park are among the most prominent, but I've talked about them enough here and here, so there's not much to add. I wish them well wherever they end up.
I have also said enough about Sagna and Fabianski, so I'll pass on these too.
Kallstrom and Viviano are more interesting. Not much has been known about their futures till today and though I can't say these departures are shocking in any way, they do leave us short on numbers. Now we definitely need a goalie and should think long and hard about a DM. Arteta is 32 and, by the way, still hasn't signed his contract, while Flamini seems to only be a sub. The Frenchman is a bit of a paradox. He played a lot more during the first half of the campaign, when Ramsey was firing on all cylinders, yet was only called upon in extreme cases from January to May, despite Wilshere, Ramsey and Ozil all being injured. Arsene should have (for whatever reason) lost his trust in his compatriot, thus he needs to think about purchasing someone to fill Flamini's shoes.
Viviano leaving is a bit of a shame, cause he's a good goalie, but you can't reasonably expect him to stay after sitting on the bench the whole year. With the form Szczesny is in we can't guarantee the Italian anything, so farewell to Viviano, and so our search for a keeper begins.
And now, the World Cup. First things first, Suarez was handed a nine-match international ban and suspended from all footballing activity for four months. This means no training with the national team, no entering any kind of football stadium (even training grounds) and, most importantly, no playing for Liverpool till the end of October. The Uruguyan has also been fined something close to $100,000 thousand.
The way I see it, FIFA has done the right thing. They probably could have gone even harder on Suarez, especially taking into account it's not the first time he's bitten someone, but the decision has been made already, so there's no turning back.
Suarez has once again made it about himself, causing trouble to everyone in the process. He's turned his back on his national team (which, I suspect, won't go far without him), he's made Rodgers' summer a headache, cause Lambert is not a suitable replacement and Sturridge, even at his best, cannot bag 35 goals a year. Suarez has shown disrespect towards Liverpool as a whole, both towards the Club that has defended him last year and towards the fans, that have supported him. What's he's done is disgusting on each and every level.
Good news is, we haven't signed the Uruguyan last summer, though it wasn't for the lack of trying. In retrospective, we would have done Liverpool a huge favour, by forking out £40 million for a walking headache of a player. But oh no, they had to defend their best player and retain him at all costs. Well, how much will it cost them to replace a striker of his level? And would he go there?
If it looks like I'm gloating, that's because I am. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I shudder to think Luis could have gone to Brazil as an Arsenal player and done his stunt the way he did. It's not our problem, luckily. I feel no particular love towards Liverpool ever since their trick with that buy-out clause (it's not about the player, it's about their behaviour) and then going on to thrash us 5-1 at Anfield. Were it not for two strikers bang-in-form, the Mugmashers would have finished way worse, since they have conceded 50 (!) goals in the league. With that crappy defence they have, good luck to them in the Champions League and the Premier League without their top goalscorer.
In other news, the final games of the group stage have taken place yesterday, with Germany and USA making it out of Group G, while Belgium and Algeria qualified from Group H.
I've watched Germany vs USA and deeply regretted it afterwards, especially after seeing the highlights of Portugal vs Ghana. Before the game two Muntari and Boateng were both dismissed from their national team for getting into some kind of scrap with their manager, so I wasn't surprised to see them lose. When you have such problems inside your team, motivation is in short supply.
This game was still much more exciting, with chances being created at both ends, Ronaldo being denied time and again, only to then finally score and Ghana falling one goal short of qualification at some point. Fascinating stuff, I should have watched it.
I didn't however. I had to endure 90 minutes of the most tedious football ever. The USA didn't even try to attack (apart from this dangerous last-minute counter), while the Germans found it tough going due to both rain and USA's resilience in defence. Muller scored the only goal of the game in the 55th minute to give Germany the victory, thus ensuring their qualification from top spot.
In another group I have, understandably, witnessed Russia taking on Algeria. A win of any kind for my home team would have sufficed and we have started pretty well, by going in front in the 6th minute courtesy to a wonderful strike from Kokorin.
Algeria then took the initiative into their own hands and kept their foot on the gas until that equaliser on the hour. Kozlov lost the ball on the flank, fouled some bloke to prevent him storming into the box, some other bloke crossed and, with Akinfeev failing to time his clearance, a third bloke equalised.
This was really harsh on our keeper. He made a string of vital saves prior to that, one of them standing out, and, more importantly, was blinded with a laser pointer immediately before the free-kick. I've heard we've appealed to FIFA on these grounds, but I cannot find out how it went. I assume, not well.
However hard it's to swallow this, we haven't played good enough to go through. I've watched two games and both times we were unconvincing at best. It's not the fault of our goalkeeper we cannot score more than one to ensure one mistake or accident won't be fatal. We simply weren't up to scratch.
That's it for today
Until later
Today the Club has announced that 11 players will part ways with us on July 1st. These include 6 seniors and 5 academy players.
Bendtner and Park are among the most prominent, but I've talked about them enough here and here, so there's not much to add. I wish them well wherever they end up.
I have also said enough about Sagna and Fabianski, so I'll pass on these too.
Kallstrom and Viviano are more interesting. Not much has been known about their futures till today and though I can't say these departures are shocking in any way, they do leave us short on numbers. Now we definitely need a goalie and should think long and hard about a DM. Arteta is 32 and, by the way, still hasn't signed his contract, while Flamini seems to only be a sub. The Frenchman is a bit of a paradox. He played a lot more during the first half of the campaign, when Ramsey was firing on all cylinders, yet was only called upon in extreme cases from January to May, despite Wilshere, Ramsey and Ozil all being injured. Arsene should have (for whatever reason) lost his trust in his compatriot, thus he needs to think about purchasing someone to fill Flamini's shoes.
Viviano leaving is a bit of a shame, cause he's a good goalie, but you can't reasonably expect him to stay after sitting on the bench the whole year. With the form Szczesny is in we can't guarantee the Italian anything, so farewell to Viviano, and so our search for a keeper begins.
And now, the World Cup. First things first, Suarez was handed a nine-match international ban and suspended from all footballing activity for four months. This means no training with the national team, no entering any kind of football stadium (even training grounds) and, most importantly, no playing for Liverpool till the end of October. The Uruguyan has also been fined something close to $100,000 thousand.
The way I see it, FIFA has done the right thing. They probably could have gone even harder on Suarez, especially taking into account it's not the first time he's bitten someone, but the decision has been made already, so there's no turning back.
Suarez has once again made it about himself, causing trouble to everyone in the process. He's turned his back on his national team (which, I suspect, won't go far without him), he's made Rodgers' summer a headache, cause Lambert is not a suitable replacement and Sturridge, even at his best, cannot bag 35 goals a year. Suarez has shown disrespect towards Liverpool as a whole, both towards the Club that has defended him last year and towards the fans, that have supported him. What's he's done is disgusting on each and every level.
Good news is, we haven't signed the Uruguyan last summer, though it wasn't for the lack of trying. In retrospective, we would have done Liverpool a huge favour, by forking out £40 million for a walking headache of a player. But oh no, they had to defend their best player and retain him at all costs. Well, how much will it cost them to replace a striker of his level? And would he go there?
If it looks like I'm gloating, that's because I am. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I shudder to think Luis could have gone to Brazil as an Arsenal player and done his stunt the way he did. It's not our problem, luckily. I feel no particular love towards Liverpool ever since their trick with that buy-out clause (it's not about the player, it's about their behaviour) and then going on to thrash us 5-1 at Anfield. Were it not for two strikers bang-in-form, the Mugmashers would have finished way worse, since they have conceded 50 (!) goals in the league. With that crappy defence they have, good luck to them in the Champions League and the Premier League without their top goalscorer.
In other news, the final games of the group stage have taken place yesterday, with Germany and USA making it out of Group G, while Belgium and Algeria qualified from Group H.
I've watched Germany vs USA and deeply regretted it afterwards, especially after seeing the highlights of Portugal vs Ghana. Before the game two Muntari and Boateng were both dismissed from their national team for getting into some kind of scrap with their manager, so I wasn't surprised to see them lose. When you have such problems inside your team, motivation is in short supply.
This game was still much more exciting, with chances being created at both ends, Ronaldo being denied time and again, only to then finally score and Ghana falling one goal short of qualification at some point. Fascinating stuff, I should have watched it.
I didn't however. I had to endure 90 minutes of the most tedious football ever. The USA didn't even try to attack (apart from this dangerous last-minute counter), while the Germans found it tough going due to both rain and USA's resilience in defence. Muller scored the only goal of the game in the 55th minute to give Germany the victory, thus ensuring their qualification from top spot.
In another group I have, understandably, witnessed Russia taking on Algeria. A win of any kind for my home team would have sufficed and we have started pretty well, by going in front in the 6th minute courtesy to a wonderful strike from Kokorin.
Algeria then took the initiative into their own hands and kept their foot on the gas until that equaliser on the hour. Kozlov lost the ball on the flank, fouled some bloke to prevent him storming into the box, some other bloke crossed and, with Akinfeev failing to time his clearance, a third bloke equalised.
This was really harsh on our keeper. He made a string of vital saves prior to that, one of them standing out, and, more importantly, was blinded with a laser pointer immediately before the free-kick. I've heard we've appealed to FIFA on these grounds, but I cannot find out how it went. I assume, not well.
However hard it's to swallow this, we haven't played good enough to go through. I've watched two games and both times we were unconvincing at best. It's not the fault of our goalkeeper we cannot score more than one to ensure one mistake or accident won't be fatal. We simply weren't up to scratch.
That's it for today
Until later