Three and in – not just another football blog

Every so often Lawrence Gray-Hodson, a man who made his name in the upper reaches of Division 2 in the 1970s and 80s as well as being a former Scotland and England international, writes a column exclusively for Three and in.

This week he opines on Arsenal’s need for a new owner

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Much has been made of the troubles at Arsenal at the moment and it would be a blind man who could say that everything was ok at the Emirates Stadium these days.

The team are struggling to find any form or consistency and Arsene Wenger looks like a shepherd that has lost his best sheep and found a shaved dog with some wool glued onto him to make him look like a sheep. Many people say that Arsenal need a new manager, that Wenger is a busted thrush, but that’s the last thing they need.

Wenger is a genius. Who else could buy Kolo Toure for £250,000 then sell him for £14m all the while keeping his rampant bulimia a secret? Who else could have knobbled Spurs by buying Emmanuel Adebayor from Monaco, knowing his despicable nature would mean he ended up at White Hart Lane years later where he will most certainly destroy team spirit with his wicked, eastern european African ways.

Kroenke is the wrong man for Arsenal

No, what Arsenal need is a new owner. You might say ‘They’ve already got one’ but they need a newer one than that. Stan Kroenke might know how to get an end zone in the touch play, or attract many people who have sex with their cousins to his chain of supermarkets, but what does he know about English football?

As an American he’s already 54% less knowledgeable about ‘soccer’, as they call it, and that’s a scientific fact. Their brains simply aren’t wired to understand it, the way ours cannot comprehend the fact that tea parties are for little girls and doll-houses, not for running great nations.

There’s another billionaire lurking about too, Alisher Usmanov owns nearly 30% of Arsenal but to choose him as the man to take charge would be foolish indeed. Usmanov is simply too fat to own a football club. What if, during a pre-game dinner in the Diamante Club in Arsenal’s exclusive area, he had a heart attack brought about by his enormous girth? Then where would Arsenal be? At the whim of Usmanov’s heirs, that’s where, and they might decide that they don’t want to own a football club after all and simply knock down the stadium to build a multistory car park.

Anyone with a brain can see that the influx of petroleum cash into football is the way forward. Abramovich at Chelsea, Sheik Manhoor at Man City, PSG, Malaga and soon Man United will all be run by oil rich owners. So why not Arsenal?

And if the tendency is to look to the middle-east then I believe Arsenal should do it differently. The way they always have done. I remember when I played there once in a cup game in the mid-70s. We were treated so well by the club, giving us a plate of ham sandwiches and some bottles of Tizer in our dressing room pre-game. No other club in the land did that (although Barnsley always laid on some mini pork pies which were very tasty). It was that touch of class that set Arsenal apart, and that’s what they need to re-capture.

If I were Ivan Gazidis I would be on the first flight to Caracas and I’d knock on the door of Hugo Chavez, going nowhere until he agreed to see me. Venezuela has loads of oil to fund the purchase of new players and help bump up Arsenal’s ability to pay decent wages. And Chavez is a man used to fighting the power, upsetting the establishment.

I think he would dovetail beautifully with Peter Hill-Wood, the Etonian and the Revolutionary coming together to create a perfect environment of Conservative Bolivarianism with a Trotskyite flavour that, if you talk to anybody in the game, is the perfect recipe for running a football club. Brian Clough and Peter Taylor managed it in the 70s/80s with Nottingham Forest until Taylor’s Peripatetic leanings caused their split and, ultimately, Forest’s relegation.

Would Chavez sit idly by and tolerate the likes of Sebastian Squillaci as Arsenal got off to their worst start for 58 years? No, he would not. He would also provide the challenge that Arsene Wenger needs to lift himself out of this rut he’s found himself in. One need only look at what Chavez said about Barcelona president Sandro Rosell. “You are an imperialist pawn who attempts to curry favour with Danger Bush-Hitler, the number one mass murderer and assassin there is on the planet”, he said.

Does that sound like a man who would let Cesc Fabregas go for barely half his market value? I’m convinced he would get the most out of Wenger again and that long-awaited silverware would return to Highbury again. If not, it’s a car park or a hypermarket.

Viva La Revolución!

As the news of Bébé slipping back out of the Old Trafford door with as little fuss as when he quietly slipped in, it begs the question; How has his transfer to Manchester United been so easily forgotten about? This was a player who was homeless a year or so before the signing, which is novel enough as a multi-million pound industry story. But on top of that, and here we may find the root of the answer we seek, his transfer to Manchester United had a distinctly ‘dodgy’ aroma to it.

The player was signed by Guimaraes for just half a packet of Rolos, then five weeks later, after a couple of pre-season games, they sold him to Manchester United for over £7m! Without Ferguson having ever seen him play! During the midst of a difficult financial period for Manchester United in which £7m wasn’t far off being their record transfer fee!

But why didn’t Manchester United, with their Portuguese scouting system and former assistant manager in charge of the Portuguese national team, just sign him for free a month earlier? Did he really make his mark during those pre-season friendlies?

But what’s this? Just before he completed this big-money transfer, he was suddenly poached from his existing agent by Portuguese ‘super agent’ Jorge Mendes, also responsible for the sales of Anderson, Ronaldo and Nani to Manchester United? A man who knows Alex Ferguson well? And he owned £30% of Bébé’s ‘economic rights’, so made about £3m out of the transfer for himself?

That sounds a bit suspicious. Has he ever been involved in Alex Ferguson paying over-the-odds for a Portuguese player before now then? What’s that? He handled negotiations directly with Alex Ferguson and Peter Kenyon for the sale of Ronaldo to Manchester United for £12.24m when Sporting had already accepted a bid from Arsenal for just £5.5m? An extra near-£7m? It sounds almost as if someone or other may have made the transfer happen purely for potential underhand personal financial gain.

As does this Bébé one.

Just like another Ferguson family member was once accused of doing on a BBC documentary. Which led to Ferguson blackmailing the BBC. Which he’s still doing. And coincidentally, no press agency is asking any questions about the potential for dodgy dealings behind this recent transfer.

Interesting…

It’s symptomatic of football at the moment that every good performance somehow opens a door to a potential transfer. At least in the eyes of the press.

As we all know, regardless of who you support, every transfer window means your team will be linked with countless players. The bigger the team the more players you’ll be close to ‘swooping’ for. And not just regular swooping. ‘Sensational’ swooping. Or ‘shock’ swooping. That’s if they’re not busily engaging in ‘battle’ with another club over that player.

And mostly, and when I say mostly I mean 99% of the time, there’s about as much truth the story as there is in a politician’s explanation as to where he got that cash he keeps in his safe. Yeah, yeah, your friends had a whip around. You won it on a horse. Pffff.

So when Jack Wilshere played outstandingly well against Barcelona the natural consequence of that that is to be linked with a move to Spain. Forget that he’s just broken into the Arsenal first team. Forget that he’s yet to reach 50 first team appearances. Forget that he’s a young player who still has a lot to learn. Let’s whack out some lazy transfer nonsense.

To his credit Pep Guardiola laughed it off, saying:

He is a great player – a great player for Arsenal. And in any case Arsène Wenger doesn’t sell his best players.

Well, Arsene Wenger does sell his best players but only when he chooses. And the idea that just months after seeing off Barcelona’s attempts to bring in Cesc Fabregas he’d sell the finest English talent the club has produced in years is just staggeringly nonsensical.

I know there’s not much to it, and it was probably a question asked of Guardiola, but that the question was even asked says a lot. And while it’s easy to point fingers at the media, the fans who devour transfer tittle-tattle help provide the market for it.

It’s a symbiotic relationship, each feeding off the other, and each quite willing to point the finger rather than accept their part in it. “We don’t create the demand”, say the papers. “We only read it coz it’s in the papers”, say the fans. Anyway, the point is, in a world full of transfer rubbish, Wilshere to Barcelona is as rubbish as it gets.

Until 2021 when Wenger lets Wilshere and Fabregas go, Overmars/Petit style, for a combined €240m fee.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt sorry for Alan Pardew before.  But seeing him lose his star striker and best player with just hours of the transfer window to go, there was a tinge of sympathy.  Accompanied, admittedly, by a smirk.  Pardew did a deal with the devil when he agreed to work for Mike Ashley, and these sorts of bumps are inevitable on such a rocky road.

I’m sure, come the summer, he’ll enjoy spending the preposterous £35m fee Newcastle managed to get for Andy Carroll.  For now, however, he’s stuck with a paucity of striking options: the erratic (and now injured) Shola Ameobi; the fast but feeble Peter Lovenkrands; a man who took almost a year to score for the club, Leon Best; and the promising but unpolished Nile Ranger.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  And that, undoubtedly, is what signing Jeremie Aliadiere would be.

When Aliadiere came through the renowned Clairefontaine academy, he received favourable comparisons with Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet.  As we speak, he’s been without a club for more than six months.  When Arsenal sold him to Middlesbrough in 2007, Aliadiere complained that Arsene Wenger had ‘frozen him out’.  Not so.  Wenger’s faith in him was unwavering: he received countless opportunities, including starting the 2007 Carling Cup Final against Chelsea.

The reasons Aliadiere failed to make the grade at Arsenal are the same reasons he finds himself a free agent now: inconsistency, and injuries.

When he signed for Boro, Aliadiere said:

“My career is beginning.  Now everything depends on me; the cards are in my hands.”

Well, it’s safe to say that since then he’s dropped the cards in a big puddle of poo, and is currently scrabbling about trying to find them.

When fit at Middlesbrough, Aliadiere failed to deliver, scoring just 11 goals in nearly 80 appearances.  The bigger problem was that he simply wasn’t fit often enough.  Aliadiere is one of that unfortunate breed of footballers from whom injury is something they have to learn to expect, not avoid.  His bones are as brittle as his confidence in front of goal.

To think he’s now on the verge of a Premier League return is remarkable.  He trained with West Ham this summer until that trial was interrupted by, you guessed it, injury.  Now, with the window closed and only free transfers permitted, the Toon could soon welcome a man who flopped so badly at Boro.

If he does sign, I wish Aliadiere all the best.  There’s no doubting that he did once have a good deal of potential, but at 27 it seems a little late to be “beginning” his career all over again.

Apparently, Newcastle’s alternative to Aliadiere is Francis Jeffers. I haven’t seen the rest of that list, but judging by their apparent taste for injury prone ex-Arsenal players, I should probably let Newcastle know that Christopher Wreh is currently out of contract with Indonesian Football League side Perseman Manokwari…

After Stoke’s game with Fulham, Tony Pulis refused to shake Mark Hughes’ hand.  After the game, Pulis confirmed it was a retaliatory gesture after Hughes refused his hand back in September.:

“He has done it when we played in the League Cup and now I have done it back,” Pulis said. “It’s two Welshmen with a bit of competition. I certainly won’t lose any sleep over it and I’m sure he won’t.”

The childish tit for tat tactics of Pulis are surprising enough, but even more so when you put them in the context of his comments almost exactly a year ago:

“Arsene Wenger has made a decision not to shake Mark Hughes’ hand, whether that is right or wrong you’d have to ask him.

But personally, whether I like or dislike someone, you have a responsibility to show the right spirit of the game.

And whether you disagreed with Mark being outside of his technical area at one stage, in the spirit of the game you should still shake hands.

That’s not only for people in the Premier League or Championship, it is also for young teams and young managers to see.

You should shake hands, you don’t have to go for a drink afterwards with them for a tittle-tattle.”

It seems this mans ethics are a good deal more flexible than his tactics.

Thanks to Zonal Marking for the heads up.

Robert Pires might not have contributed much to Aston Villa yet, but he continues to make himself a hero to Arsenal fans:

Clearly a lot of animosity between the pair. Hard to explain, until you remember that it was Pires who dived to win a crucial penalty against Harry’s Pompey back at Highbury. Managers, like elephants and Martin Tyler, never forget.

So Mario Balotelli won an award. It’s the ‘prestigious Golden Boy’ award, organised by Tuttosport. He then said of runner-up Jack Wilshere:

What’s his name? Wil…? No, I just don’t know him, but the next time I play against Arsenal I’ll try to be careful. Maybe I could show him the Golden Boy trophy and remind him that I won.

Yeah, that’d show him. An award most people have never heard of. Perhaps Balotelli was just making a little joke. I have my doubts though as he seems to be a young man who takes everything very seriously. Except professionalism.

Still, let’s look at Wilshere v Balotelli this season:

Appearances

Wilshere, in his first full season for Arsenal has 20 in all competitions plus 1 international. Balotelli 9 for Man City. The Italian has played 90 minutes just twice since his arrival in the summer.

Discipline

Wilshere 2 yellows, 1 red. Balotelli 3 yellows, 1 red. Clearly the City man has a much higher cards to games ratio.

Goals

Wilshere 1 league, 1 Champions League. Balotelli 2 league, 3 Mickey Mouse European competition. A decent enough return for Balotelli given the small number of games he’s played but he needs to score against better opposition than FCU Poli and Salzburg.

Assists

Wilshere has a a grand total of 5, 2 in the Premier League, 3 in the Champions League. Balotelli a whopping 0 in all competitions.

Ego

Wilshere:

Last year, I had to go out on loan to get some games because there were some world-class players at Arsenal, but I have come back with more experience and the boss thinks I am ready to challenge for a place. All I can do is challenge and show them what I can do.

Balotelli:

There’s only one that is a little stronger than me: Messi. All the others behind me.

The ‘others’ that Balotelli is referring to include Cesc Fabregas, Pato and Rafael van der Vaart, former winners of the Golden Boy. Fabregas, with his 300 or so senior appearances, European Championship and World Cup medals, is clearly behind Balotelli. We just needed someone to point that out to us.

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So, to conclude, Balotelli wins ego by a mile and may just edge goals but in everything else Wilshere wins. Balotelli might have a higher profile but that’s more to do with his short fuse and his off-field antics than anything he’s done as a player. There’s no doubting his talent but you have to think the fact it’s an Italian paper giving out the award that’s won it for him.

And you get the feeling he’ll never really know Wilshere because it would be a brave man who’d bet on him being in England long enough.

Arsenal fans today reacted with fury at the club’s elimination from the Champions League at the hands of Barcelona. Arsene Wenger’s men were roundly beaten just seconds after the draw was made.

“It’s a disgrace”, said Top Gooner from 7, The Internet. “I’ve seen some spineless displays in my time but this was the worst I’ve ever seen. Where was the fight, the spirit?”

His sentiments were echoed by AFC4Lifewhenwewin from Twittersville Avenue. “You could tell from the first minute it was going to be one of those nights. Once again Arsenal were spineless. Wenger out!”

“I agree”, said Bob Misery of the well-respected Doomblog website. “It’s as if Arsenal simply didn’t turn up. How can we have any faith in this team if we’ve been beaten so easily, so quickly? It’s clear that only the arrival of Hiddink or Rijkaard, backed up by the signings of Mertesacker, Jagielka, Shay Given and Joe Hart, as well as Kaka, a young Roberto Carlos, Ibrahim Affelay and Eden Hazard can save us now. Otherwise we’re going to playing in the SPL next season”.

The Gunners now face two meaningless games against Barcelona in February and March 2011 in which Lionel Messi will tear the Arsenal defence a ‘new one’. This is particularly harsh as Messi already tore Arsenal a new one back in April which still hasn’t healed properly.

Every week Lawrence Gray-Hodson, a man who made his name in the upper reaches of Division 2 in the 1970s and 80s as well as being a former Scotland and England international, writes a column exclusively for Three and in.

This week he looks at Arsenal’s defence

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Around this time of the year my thoughts turn to my father. No time is a good time to lose a parent but on Christmas Eve, mown down by a drunk santa who had been fired from the local department store for pilfering the Beefeater, is particularly hard.

I remember him as a good man with enormous hands and a smell which was a mixture of carbolic soap and Sweet Afton. He taught me everything I needed to know about life. Such as how to take care of myself. Despite the fact I’d had my nose broken twice by the time I was six it was a valuable education.

It didn’t go well at first. “Keep your hands up at all times”, he’d say and I’d try but the moment I let them down … *POW* … I’d get one right in the mush. I admit I became frustrated and rather tearful. No child likes to be punched in the face by their father even if it is for their own good.

As one lesson became more fraught, my tears mixing with the blood streaming from my nose and lips, my father, who was a real man’s man, lost his temper and yelled “Do you know what your problem is? You can’t defend. And until you learn to defend you’ll never win a fight”. I went at him, ball-headed, determined to land a knock-out blow but he back-handed me across the face and when I woke up hours later he’d gone to the pub.

All of which brings me nicely onto the subject of Arsenal. On Monday night Manchester United were my father and I was Arsenal. I really wanted to win but I just couldn’t because I couldn’t defend. So it is with Arsene Wenger’s men. On their day they can play some wonderful football but to me they’re like a blind acrobat on a tightrope wire. It just takes one small mistake and they’re splattered on the ground with their guts sprawled across the road.

They have no safety net. Alex Song, last year a defensive minotaur, snarling with his four legs and glistening muscular torso, has been transformed this time around into a sort of graceless attacking midfielder. It’s as if someone broke into his house and injected him with a massive dose of Carlton Palmer.

Young Jack Wilshere looks as if he has the talent and ability to be an England regular but his natural game is more offensive and he doesn’t really have the experience to play in the role he’s being asked. He’s a medical student being asked to carry out complicated surgeries and the patients are waking up to find their routine appendectomy has left them most of the way to a sex-change.

And then there’s the back four. Espagna, Koscielny, Squillaci and Clichy. Individually fine players but put them together as unit and there’s just too much … well I have to say it … Frenchness about them. If you’re looking for togetherness and unity in the face of adversity they’re hardly the right people, are they? If you can meekly surrender when your country is being taken over by Germans what chance do you have to get them to fight over a game of football?

What Arsenal fans wouldn't give for three English defenders like these

Since the great English defenders left the club Arsenal have been defensively weak. The team which went unbeaten had Campbell and Cole as regular members, backed up by the African enthusiasm of Kolo Toure and the menacing cannibalism of Laurence. It’s a tough job replacing home grown brilliance like Adams, Keown, Bould, Caton, Pates, Linighan and Stepanovs but I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest Arsene Wenger hasn’t tried that hard.

Anyone could have bought William Gallas but here was another Frenchman who played only for himself. As a nation they like to please and think, not with their heads, but their groins. You could almost see Squillaci let Rooney have room on Monday night so he might make the player’s acquaintance on a social level just so he could instigate an affair with the fragrant Coleen. And well she might when you consider the England striker’s behaviour.

“You’ll never win if you can’t defend” said my father. Equally you’ll never win if your defenders are more interested in masked orgies and wife swapping. And that’s an inescapable fact to which there is simply no answer. I spoke with an Arsenal fan down my local last week and he told me he was sick of the way the team couldn’t hold a lead and he wanted English defenders. “When we had English defenders we won things, Laurence. Why doesn’t Wenger realise that?”

When you look at the incredible array of talent out there you can only come to the conclusion that Arsene Wenger is essentially the most racist man alive. Why would he choose Koscielny or Squillaci over the likes of Jagielka, Cahill, Ferdinand Jr, Upson, Bramble or Richard Dunne. Even when Ryan Shawcross begged with Wenger to sign him, by getting in that famous reducer on Ramsey, Wenger threw a tantrum and complained.

There was Shawcross showing Arsene Wenger exactly what his team was missing and instead of thanking the player and acknowledging it he bitched about so-called dirty play! The man is a stubborn old goat and until he accepts the fact that English defenders are simply better than foreign ones he won’t win another thing with Arsenal.

They used to call Arsenal the ‘Bank of England’ club. At the moment they’re Credit Lyonnais, a town more famous for its potato based dishes. And as the chips are down at the Emirates that seems more than appropriate.

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You can comment below or you can contact Lawrence by email.

They wouldn’t like to admit it, but Spurs and Arsenal are actually pretty similar.  Like bickering brothers, their differences are exaggerated by their general familiarity.  They share geographical proximity, a similarly diverse fanbase, and a reputation for attractive football.

In the past week, that final quality has been discussed throughout the press.  After winning their group in a goal-happy fashion, Spurs have taken plenty of plaudits, with many pundits suggesting they looked the best equipped team to make a stab at taking home the cup with the big ears.

Arsenal, meanwhile, have come under fire in both Europe and at home for being their poor defensive record.  Whatever their attacking artistry, doubts remain about their ability to consolidate and hold out for crucial victories.

The Observer’s Paul Hayward captures the zeitgeisty dichotomy best here:

“London’s Seven Sisters Road connects two versions of one romantic urge. Tottenham Hotspur love to attack and refuse to defend beyond the minimum. Arsenal also exist to advance, but would like to defend if they could only work out how.”

So Spurs are all cavalier fun and games, whilst Arsenal’s attacking game is born out of an inability to do anything else.  What an interesting way for opinion to form.  A look at their respective records in the Champions League stages is fascinating.  Both sides have scored 18 goals, a mightily impressive tally, but Arsenal have actually conceded four goals fewer – and that doesn’t account for Tottenham’s brief collapse against Young Boys in the qualifiers.  Despite finishing second in their group, they’ve also won more games than their lilywhite counterparts.

Yet when Harry Redknapp says:

“We score goals, we let goals in. We score more goals, and we let more in.”

He is applauded for services to quality entertainment.  When Arsene Wenger, however, says of his decision to allow defensive midfielder Alex Song to roam forward:

“I am comfortable with that sometimes it leaves us open in the middle of the park. We want to play in the other half of the pitch and, therefore, we have to push our opponents back.  But my philosophy is not to be in trouble, but to fool the opponent into trouble.”

He is derided as tactically naieve.

It’s not just among the press.  Fans of each club seem to feel the same about their respective managers.  There are as many Arsenal fans who curse Wenger’s reluctance to focus more on the defensive side of the game as there are Spurs fans who embrace Redknapp’s enthrallingly refreshing attitude.

The strengths and weaknesses of the two teams are clearly very comparable.  What separates them, then, is expectation.

Due to their recent history of winning trophies, there is far greater pressure on Arsenal to deliver.  The glass of the beholder, therefore, is inevitably half-full.  They see a team whose emphasis on attacking play costs them success.

Harry Redknapp, meanwhile, manages without the same burden.  He is a master of reducing pressure, constantly re-emphasising the lowly state Spurs were in when he first took over.

They’re the same, but different.  But if the tables were ever to turn, and Harry was to find himself with the albatross of expectation swinging about his jowelly neck, he might soon find that attitudes towards his team’s style of play would swiftly change.  Just ask Arsene.