As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
USMartin wrote:He's only at fauly IF the changes he thought needed to be made were actually being made.
Otherwise this is a bit of a red herring no?
The reality is that if a top player wants to compete to win top prizes and his club do not share the same ambition - which appears to clearly be the case - then you cannot be surprized if he doubts his future with a club or even wants to leave for a club matching his ambitions, and basically that's that.
If he's unhappy and wants to leave then he should hand in a transfer request, no?
Or maybe it's better to make thinly veiled pleas in front of the world's media?
As I said, Ade did pretty much the same thing and was pilloried for it.
Yet still folks here would rather pull their own eyes out than actually admit he's prostituting himself.
Barca I believe had little real desire to make a bid for him until he himself did this. Now they're scrambling around robbing Pedro to pay Peter cos they know £30m won't even get Arsenal to pick up the phone.
For the record I was not among those who pilloried him.
As i say I think this is a red herring here. An effort to again avoid dealing with the real issue which is a shameless and and shameful lack of ambition for the football club on our Board's oart while they go about showing plenty of ambition for Arsenal Holdings.
The real question is would this be happening at all if we simply had invested a bit more in the football team the past three years, either to keep some better players or to buy some better replacements?
If the answer is yes then you're dead right about Cesc and his behavior. If the answer is no then I see no real point to this notion other than to absolve the club of responsibility for the consequences of its poor decisions.
richpye wrote:Is there a possibility that Cesc is playing mind games himself?
I wonder if all this is a shot across the bows to the club, to get their arses in gear and get some chance of him winning trophies whilst at Arsenal?
I still feel that Cesc would prefer to win what he can at Arsenal, be a great here and then go home to Barce to finish the rest of his career?
Maybe - the question is would it and could it work?
I mean when Vieira questioned the club's ambition we brought in Sol Campbell and that was the final piece of the puzzle that was the finest Arsenal team of the modern era and the team that would become the Invincibles.
Problem is when Henry did so after we sold Vieira it also fell on deaf ears and I think its fair to say in Henry's case the questioning the club's ambition was actually justified
So I'm not really sure if that could work if that were the case. But if it were the case and it worked it would more than justify a lot of the crap its put us through this past week or so.
I think that all sides have a certain amount of guilt and responsibility here -
Barca have wanted Cesc for ages and are willing to talk publicly about ANY player they want, knowing it is tantamount to 'tapping up'
Cesc has always said he will return to Barca one day, we all knew it would happen but just hoped it wouldn't be too soon. I don't think he wants to put in a transfer request out of loyalty to Wenger and because he genuinely does have some feeling for the club. I'm sure he would rather it was all sorted amicably with Arsenal getting a shed load of cash for him.
Arsenal's squad quality is relatively poor (compared to other top sides) and we just don't know what has been promised or suggested by Wenger to Cesc over the past couple of years. There is a suggestion that Arsenal paid a lump sum to Cesc last season as a sweetener, which suggests he was thinking of going last year maybe? A large percentage of guys on this forum have been saying for some time that failure to improve the squad will likely force some players to choose to go elsewhere.
I don't think you can blame any single thing here for the situation, Barca know they always get away with this tapping up, players know that they have too much power and Arsenal know they have a waiting list for ST's and a full stadium when finishing 3rd or 4th each season so what's the big deal to them? One thing you can guarantee....Arsenal will NOT tell Cesc he's staying regardless and let him rot in the reserves, that will never happen in today's football, there's too much money at stake. It's just a case of how low will Arsenal go bid wise for Cesc.
