Arsenal Sign What They Actually Need in January Transfer Window

Britain may have left Europe yesterday, but Europe is still very much coming to Arsenal, in the form of Spanish central defender Pablo Mari and Portugese full back Cedric Soares.

Much was lauded over Arsenal's big summer spending, but very little of that spending was on defenders, who have been desperately needed by the Gunners for so long. To some extent, that has been rectified in the January transfer window, with the arrival of Cedric Soares and Pablo Mari.

 

Cedric Soares, a proven Premier League defender

 

Cedric Soares is a proven Premier League defender, having made more than 100 appearances since joining Southampton in 2015. He is a much needed back up to Hector Bellerin, who has suffered frequent injuries in recent times.

Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, said: "He knows the league and he doesn't really need to adapt so I'm very pleased. We were short at right-back, we've had some big issues in that position before. We only have two players there and Maitland-Niles isn't really a right back and Hector [Bellerin] has had injuries so to bring in a player of that quality wasn't easy."

Pablo Mari, a 6’3" defender

Pablo Mari is a 6’3" defender, who became a hero at NAC Breda, in the Dutch Eredivise, scoring in a match against Heerenveen, which lifted his side out of the drop zone and secured three of the four points that they needed for survival. Mari captained the Dutch club in his spell there and was in the team of the month, twice, during his time in the Eredivisie. He then moved to Deportivo La Coruna, where he was ranked as the most accurate passer in their division.

At Flamengo, Pablo Mari won Brazil’s Serie A and Copa Libertadores last season. He is the first Spanish player to have won the Copa Libertadores.

Both players have been signed on loan, with an option to buy, should they prove as successful as Arsenal would hope. 

Arsenal's summer signings have not covered themselves with glory, with the notable exception of Gabriel Martinelli, who has scored 10 goals in 22 appearances, since his arrival. But Nicolas Pépé has not been able to transfer his Ligue 1 form to the Premier League, David Luiz has proven as unreliable as many expected, Kieran Tierney has been almost permanently injured and Dani Ceballos, who has had his moments, may be too slow for Arteta's style of play. 

Cedric and Pablo Mari, may not be the marquee style names that some Arsenal fans are looking for, but they they are experienced players in the positions where Arsenal need improvement most. Let's hope that they can flourish at the Gunners, under Mikel Arteta's leadership.

England Storm into Rugby World Cup Final with Win over World No. 1 Side

England 19-7 New Zealand

England dominated the mighty All Blacks to qualify for the Rugby World Cup final, in Japan today.

They played New Zealand at their own game, with a highly mobile pack who tossed the ball around between them. Lock Itoje and flankers Underhill and Curry were exceptional, but all over the park England players defended robustly and created breakthroughs.

Sam Underhill ball carrying and punishing tackling

Manu Tuilagi opened the scoring, with a try, only one minute and forty seconds after the kick off. It was the result of a fast build up and the ball moving quickly through the hands from one side of the pitch to the other. When New Zealand halted the England movement, five metres short of their line, England quickly recycled the ball and Tuilagi bulldozed through their defenders to finish a spectacular opening phase.

Manu Tuilagi opens the England account.

England managed to cross the New Zealand line twice more, once either side of half time, but both times the TMO was called upon and he disallowed both tries.

Aside from a single glaring error, when England completely messed up their own line out, on their own 5 metre line, resulting in New Zealand's only score of the match, England ruled all over the pitch.

Once again, as in the case against Australia last week, England's defence was more than impressive. But as was required against the All Blacks, England defended very high up the field and all over the ground, winning the ball at breakdowns and quickly putting an end to all New Zealand attacks.

Owen Farrell picked up an early injury. He stayed on the field, but handed spot kicking duties over to George Ford, who was up to the task. Ford converted four penalties, which proved to be the final difference in the scoreline. But this was no boring England kicking game and if the number of tries did not reflect the difference in the performance of the teams, the final scoreline nearly did.

England celebrate beating New Zealand for the first time since 2012

England have put in two superb performances in the last two weekends, against two of the southern hemisphere juggernauts. They are peaking at the right time and it really doesn't matter who they meet from the second semi-final, they will more than have their work cut out to stop England going all the way and carrying home the Webb Ellis Cup.

The Webb Ellis Cup. It's coming home, oops wrong code. England look to be carrying it home.

What is Emery's problem with Mesut Özil?

Arsenal slid to another embarrassing away defeat, to mediocre opposition, last night. In the process missing a great opportunity to put themselves in the top four of the Premier League. But, no matter what goes wrong in the midfield, Unai Emery seems determined not to play their highest paid, most decorated and arguably best player, Mesut Özil. 

Mesut Özil in action, a sight rarely seen at Arsenal these days.

Özil has frequently been out of favour with sections of Arsenal fans. His laconic style and and occasionally not delivering to his full potential and his own exceptionally high standards, is enough to have many fans decry him as useless and other similar insults. But his stats speak for themselves. A World Cup winner, who helped break Arsenal's nine year trophy drought in the first season that he arrived. His numbers, for chances created and actual goal assists, far outweigh any of his team mates at Arsenal, since his arrival, pretty much double the chances created by his next nearest colleague,

What Emery has managed to do, with his refusal to play the proven contributor, is to unite Arsenal fans behind Özil and against himself. 

 

Exactly what is his problem is with Özil? Is it because he's better than Zidane, he's Arsene Wenger's man? Well that's probably part of it, but several other theories have been suggested.

Power Struggle 

 

In an interview the Spanish online magazine The Tactic Room, before he was recruited by Arsenal, Emery said:-

“One day, Jorge Valdano [former player, coach and director at Real Madrid] made me the following reflection, 'At Barcelona the leader is [Lionel] Messi; at Madrid it is [president] Florentino Perez, and the Atletico de Madrid [leader] is [Diego] Simeone. … A player, a president and a coach. Each time, a different leader profile. I know when I'm the main person in a group and when I'm not.”

So, obviously, Emery wants to be the main person in the group at Arsenal, not a player with a higher profile and higher salary than him. He asserts this by leaving Özil out of the side, or even the match day squad, even if this means losing games and loss of creativity in the midfield.

Tactical 

 

Emery's playing system is significantly different to Arsene Wenger's, it depends on his players running, pressing and staying at it throughout every match. These are not the traits that Özil is known for. Emery's system does not use a traditional No. 10, Özil's most natural position, so he is forced to the flanks or deeper into midfield, where he is less effective. 

 

Injury and Illness

Since joining Arsenal, six years ago, Özil has missed 101 games, but has only had one major injury during that time. Illness has often been quoted as a reason for his absence, but that may be, in many cases, just a cover for him having been dropped again. 

So What Does Özil Think About the Situation

Speaking to another online magazine, The Athletic, Mesut Özil said: 

 

"When I signed the new deal (in 2018) I thought about it very carefully.

I didn't want to stay for just one or two more years, I wanted to commit and the club wanted me to do the same.

You can go through difficult times, like this, but that is no reason to run away and I'm not going to. I'm here until at least 2021.

Whenever people see me in the street I always say, 'This is my home'. I'm going nowhere."

So come on Emery, you are stuck with him. So you had better make the most of him. Otherwise it is just plain mismanagement and you will eventually be seen for that by the club owners.

Rugby World Cup Coverage Pathetic for Fans in Australia

Once again Australian sports fans have been shortchanged in the availability of a major world sporting event. The Rugby World Cup began on Friday and only 11 of the 48 games will be shown live on free to air television in Australia, despite the tournament taking place in their own timezone.

The control of major sporting events by pay TV channels is now almost complete. Fans who can not afford their monthly fees have limited, or no, access to world championships in the most popular sports, We have seen this in Soccer, Cricket and now Rugby Union.

Australia is known as a multicultural country, but if you wish to see any national team, other than Australia, take part in a major championship, your chances are very limited.

Rugby World Cup free to air TV Schedule. 

Free to air provider Channel 10 have chosen to only pick up the games in which Australia are taking part, from the pool rounds of the competition. The opening match of the tournament between Russia and the hosts, Japan, was added as a late afterthought.

It is very disappointing coverage of a major world sporting event. The All Blacks fearsome battle against South Africa was not seen by most Rugby fans in Australia. There are more than enough ex-pat Kiwis, South Africans and Brits, of all persuasions, in Australia to warrant showing all of their games live.

There are 20 national teams taking part in the Rugby World Cup in Japan. 

You will be lucky to see many of them on TV in Australia

It seems obvious that controlling bodies for these sports have little influence and even less interest in growing their sports. When they award exclusive coverage of most of the games to the pay TV channels, for a quick buck, they are ensuring that the majority of the public will not see the games and and the chances of the World Cup generating more interest in their sport is negligible.

We know that Rugby Australia has a pathetic record in growing their sport, having allowed the successful Western Force to be eliminated from the Super Rugby competition, while New Zealand, with less than a fifth of Australia's population, have more teams than anyone else. Argentina, over 12,000Kms away, field a national team and Japan, from the wrong hemisphere, has a less than adequate team taking part. 

Only Wallabies fans can be happy with free to air TV coverage of the 2019 Rugby World Cup

For the FIFA World Cup last year, the pay channel that monopolised it could not support the demand and released all of the matches to the multicultural, free to air channel SBS who did an excellent job of covering the tournament. Dare we hope for a similar change in fortune for Rugby fans in Australia?

Arsenal Paid Too Much for Their New Recruits

Arsenal paid too much for their new recruits and let go of their players for far too little, according to a formula calculated by a London-based investment company.

The data centres on the 'intrinsic value' of a player - a calculated fee based on performances for the selling club and the projected impact on the buying club, as well as taking into consideration their prime age.

It calculates that Arsenal paid almost £31 million too much for Nicolas Pepe and William Saliba.

Alex Iwobi and Laurent Koscielny were let go for £39 million less than their intrinsic value.

The one redeeming factor, in all of this bad business, is that they picked up a bargain in David Luiz, paying £27 million under his intrinsic value.

We can only watch and see whether time will tell if the formula is reliable.

Summer transfer window: Who carried out the best business?

Huge Summer Transfer Season for Arsenal

It certainly has been a big summer transfer season for Arsenal, with six major recruits joining the club and far more spent than the forty odd million pounds that was threatened to be the limited budget as the last campaign ended.

Of the six major recruits, one of them is a loan, another was immediately sent out on loan.

Dani Ceballos on loan from Real Madrid

Many Arsenal fans are over the moon at this new found and untypical splashing of the cash. While I wish all the new recruits the very best and hope that they do well for the club, I can not help but reflect that much of this spending may have been in the wrong areas, given the results of the last few seasons.

Let's bear in mind that Arsenal conceded 51 Premier League goals last season and also had some heavy defeats in the various cup competitions. At the same time, only Man City and Liverpool scored more goals than Arsenal in the Premier League and this has been true for several seasons, Arsenal being among the highest goal scorers, but concede more than any of the top five and even more than some teams that finished below them.

Armed with this information, the Arsenal management chose spend the vast bulk of their transfer budget on attacking and midfield players. They let go two goalkeepers and two right backs and never replaced any of them. They replaced one older central defender with another one, bought a young one and immediately sent him out on loan. They may have bought a decent left back, but he is injury prone and injured at the moment. It's all very well spending a lot of money and bringing in a lot of recruits, but how much change is that going to make, if they are not in the positions where the weaknesses are apparent?                    

David Luiz, older central defender

  

William Saliba, immediately sent out on loan

                           

Kieran Tierney, injury prone and injured at the moment 

               

Nicolas Pépé, record signing, a lot of money

Gabriel Martinelli, youthful forward

Let's also spare a moment to consider the departures

Alex Iwobi - Often the whipping boy for many of the unhappy fans, he was and is highly rated by football managers and other players. As evidenced by his £34 million transfer fee. He never scored an awful lot of goals for Arsenal, but he made some very significant contributions.

Laurent Koscielny - Long term captain and best of a bad bunch of central defenders in recent years. I never rated him as highly as many Arsenal fans, but there is no doubt that he made some major marks and will be missed at Arsenal. I would be interested to know what happened at the club to change his attitude so dramatically. Maybe the new regime, after Wenger, was not to his liking.

David Ospina - A more than adequate back up keeper and first choice for the Columbian national team. His departure baffles me, especially as no replacement has been recruited.

Carl Jenkinson - I don't think Carl was ever given enough opportunities to show that he was probably the best back up right back at the club, especially after his successful spell at West Ham. A talent under utilised by Arsenal and another strange departure that has not been covered with a replacement.

Krystian Bielik - Came in as potentially the next big thing at centre back, never really played at lot of games at Arsenal and apparently never developed to requirements. Left as a midfielder.

Cohen Bramall - There was a huge fanfare when he joined the club and much discussion about his rapid rise from non-league ranks. Again, never got many opportunities to shine and has now gone to a League Two team. The ups and downs of a football career pretty much defined there.

Danny Welbeck - Oh Danny! Danny, Danny Danny! So much potential, so many injuries. He did some great things for Arsenal, just nowhere near often enough. I hope he can find some success before retirement.

Aaron Ramsey - What more can we say about Aaron Ramsey? Releasing him, on a free transfer, was one of the most stupid decisions the Arsenal football club has ever made. For all the money Arsenal have spent on midfielders in this transfer window, have they really replaced the man who should have gone on to be a long serving Arsenal legend?

Petr Cech - Arrived from massive rivals Chelsea and is often accredited as one of the best ever goalkeepers in the Premier League. He was past his prime when he arrived at Arsenal, but still did very well for them, especially considering he spent much of his time behind one of the most suspect defences in the whole table.

So, while a very big transfer window for Arsenal, I can't help but have my concerns about the wisdom of many of the decisions made. But we wish all of the new recruits success and hope that they can bring Arsenal back to really competing for the top prizes in the game.

Unbelievable Finishes at Lord's and Wimbledon

What a day in sport!

Both the Cricket World Cup final and the Wimbledon Men's final going right down to the wire, at the same time, in different suburbs of London.

Congratulations to England and Novak Djokovic on your wins.

Commiserations to New Zealand and Roger Federer, who fought so hard and came so close.

In case anyone missed all of the action in London yesterday, here's a write up that describes some of the nail biting exploits, both at Lords and Wimbledon.

England win Cricket World Cup: A golden hour ends in a champagne super over 

You have to feel for the Kiwis, missing out on the Cricket World Cup. I believe under the old rules they would have won in normal time, as they lost fewer wickets in scoring their 241 runs than England did. They also would have won if the two runs that Ben Stokes scored in the final over had not turned into six when the return ball amazingly hit his bat as he was reaching for the crease and deflected to the boundary for the most incredible six ever scored in a World Cup final, if not any game of cricket, anywhere.

The ball bounces off Ben Stokes’s bat as he dives to make a second run during the Cricket World Cup final at Lord’s