This is bananas

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1. Good blog, good to see you back on Newsnow!

   The problem Diouf has is the same problem Phil Brown had when he said Wenger doesn’t ever shake his hand – there are cameras everywhere. If bananas had been thrown, the cameras would’ve caught it – coins are spotted, and they are far smaller. And less yellow.

   So I agree – Diouf should be banned if evidence shows him to have made the story up. Playing the race card without reason is a really cheap trick.

   1. Thanks Pete!

2. Diouf’s claim is absolute nonsense so far. No one has been able to find any evidence of bananas being thrown or even waved. If he is found to be fibbing, he should be banned longer than a coconut tree.

   We at “Untold Arsenal” (another interestig Arsenal blogsite that I suggest you associate with, Tim) have exhaustively discussed the financial quagmire that Liverfool, West “Iceland” Ham-disUnited and ManUre have found themselves in. Of these 3, West “Iceland” and Liverfool’s situations have been dire. If ManUre cannot find a solution within the next 2 years, they may have to find between £150M & £175M to keep their debt & interest repayments on track. That’s really steep.

   The Sol saga is no surprise really. He should not have signed for Notts County in the first place.

   1. @LRV, what’s the URL?

      I did a google search and found something… odd.

      1. Tim: The URL is – http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/

   2. I agree about Sol. He realised after only game it wasn’t for him and – quite honourably, knowing he couldn’t make a go of it – got out.

      1. @Mia, Campbell to Notts County was like watching a train wreck w/ your hands covering your eyes and peeking through the fingers.

3. Sorry for being slightly off-topic but I meant to ask this earlier and didn’t have time. A couple of people said a few days ago that what they wanted from a site like this one was (1) an American emphasis and (2) people to talk to. So what was wrong with arsenalamerica? Was it not American enough for your tastes?

   I liked arsenalamerica in its early years because, paradoxically – and possibly to the annoyance of its founders – it was international rather than exclusively American, with contributors from Europe and Asia – some of the best were from India – providing a lot of the content. This was what for me made it more interesting and upmarket than the more insular English sites, where you could talk about the last game and the up-coming game; you could slag off Spurs, the refs and the media; but if you wanted a conversation about (say) a young Brazilian keeper or French midfielder who Arsenal are looking at, then forget it: the average London-based Gooner isn’t that knowledgeable about football elsewhere.

   Arsenalamerica seems now to have pretty much folded as a discussion site. Why? Is it because no one wants that kind of site anymore? Has the emphasis shifted – as some of Tim’s blogs, yesterday’s especially, seem to suggest – to topics more appealing to a new generation of fans? Merchandise, that kind of thing, sweatshirts, not Chilean left backs?

   Don’t get me wrong. Anything that puts money into Arsenal’s coffers has to be good. But for an older generation of American fans, I’d guess, and most definitely for all non-Americans, merchandise isn’t something you can have a conversation about! To an European it’s a completely alien concept. What do you do with this stuff once you’ve successfully campaigned for getting better, more US-oriented online stores? Wear it when you’re watching games on tv?

   Why did Arsenalamerica collapse as a place for discussions? Because the older contributors gave up or were driven away? Because once they’d gone, there was no one knowledgeable enough to go on providing interesting content? Tim said yesterday that there’s a whole new generation of Arsenal supporters who’ll be demanding a serious site. Yes, maybe, but I can’t help wondering why the old site, which did have good content, didn’t survive.

   1. @Mia,

      I’m not exactly sure what happened to AA but I never found the conversation there too stimulating. There was a lot of “THIS GUY WILL SAVEZORS ASRENEL!!!” backed up with YouTube videos and all you need to do is look at Lorik Cana’s integration into the league to see what a load of crock EVERYONE knows about transfer targets.

      I don’t remember a single person this summer who said that Cana wouldn’t help the team. Even I was on the Cana bandwagon. Yet judging from his performances at Sunderland, he would have been a huge step down from Alex Song.

      I also don’t understand the drive to talk about players who won’t be signing for Arsenal. There’s some speculation about Eden Hazard in this morning’s papers but it’s just that, paper talk. I bet if you wanted you could create an entire site just dedicated to Arsenal transfer speculation. Nothing but gossip, speculation, ruymor and innuendo. Like a celebrity blog before they actually become celebs. After the Summer window closes, you’d go on a one week holiday and then back to chasing ghosts 12 hours a day.

      I bet it would be hugely popular. My most viewed articles are always when I speculate that so and so is coming to the club. But I don’t like spending my time on that. I like to focus my energy on what Arsenal are doing now, not what they might do down the road or which Chilean Sea Bass Arsene wenger is supposedly trawling for.

      As for merch, I don’t know what you’re talking about unless you’re taking the piss out of me for selling a few shirts. of the 801 posts I’ve made on this blog, I think maybe 10 have been dedicated to merchandise, which includes the one I wrote yesterday about usa.arsenal.com and which had a few comments that Arsenal were behind Chelsea in the world-wide merchandising competition.

      The fact is that if Arsenal don’t compete with Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man U in the merchandising department, they will be left behind and that monetary loss will be reflected on the player’s salaries and on the availablity of transfer funds. I find that a much more tangible conversation than whether some 18 year old 5’8″ Lille player will improve our squad. But that’s just me, if you don’t want to talk about that, change the subject!

      I don’t limit conversation on here. I see these articles as a jumping off point for conversation not as a restriction. You want to talk about Sea Bass? DO IT! You want to talk about your tube ride to work or how the Bakerloo line was slow this morning? Please do!

      I don’t know how to make a community happen, but that is exactly what I’m hoping happens on this blog. I want open conversation, I want us all to be friends and meet for beers when we’re in each other’s towns.

      So, please talk about whatever interests you.

      The only thing I ask is that you don’t play Mornington Cresent.

   2. @Mia, I used to be on AA as were some other refugees that have found their way here. My understanding of the AA situation was that a new board came in along w/ new website overseers. This new group decided that match previews and post match discussions were no longer wanted on the main site. The claim was these discussions (which could become raucous at times) were no longer wanted on the site by a ‘silent majority’ who wanted more ‘gentility’. This ‘silent majority’ was also allegedly all paid members of the site since that’s the only way you could put your name in the ‘hat’ for tickets. The main site was to be for travelogues to Highbury from the good old days, the Emirates and other preordained topics. AA would also just focus on being the main conduit for extra tickets to games through there role as officially sanctioned organization.

      So in a nutshell, AA went ‘corporate’ and if you were not ‘buttoned down’ enough, you were verboten. stag131, a frequent poster and a paid member tried in vain to argue against AA becoming like a ‘country club’. In the free market of the net, that type of exclusivity was suicide. I added my 2 cents in a post that got deleted. Somebody at AA must have objected to their ticket distribution being compared to a lottery and antifan from Big Soccer (who jumped in from left field to support the changes) being called a fascist.

      1. That’s fascinating. I remember Stag and Andez, Mazza, Danny… I bet those tossers on the board counted me in to beef up their ‘silent majority’, plus anyone else who’d ever registered with site since its inception. Very democratic. Big shame.

         1. @Mia, stag, mazza, andez were all opposed to the changed (it could be argued that the change was to freeze out ‘undesirables’ like them) and danny t started his own blog on ole, ole (the same community site which has arseblog).

4. On bananas:

   The steward checking my bag at the Emirates on Tuesday asked me to remove the banana. I said, ‘It’s my dinner’. She giggled and said, ‘I didn’t imagine you’d brought it to throw, I just need to see what’s underneath.’

   No, I don’t believe anyone threw a banana! And what is it about bananas anyway?

   1. @Mia,

      monkeys eat bananas

      black people… monkeys… bananas…

5. @Mia, Good points Mia. I can offer FWIW my view. I live in Paraguay, South America. A pretty novel gooner(this is the 2nd season that I follow). I play guitar in a band, and I will proudly wear my 7am tee on the next gig. Probably nobody will know what “likeanewsigning” means, but it makes me feel part of something unique. Hell, I might even wear in on my bday! We use footy t shirts on a lot, not only when watching a game(which I find a little silly, anyway when I watch it alone).

   1. Yan, it would be brilliant if you could tell us about Paraguayan football?

      1. @Mia, Quick reply (and a late one, this times zones business is tricky): Paraguayan football has grown a great deal since World Cup 1998, which was the return of the national team to said competition since 1986. Club futbol nowadays is more competitive. Prior to 2000 There were 2 main clubs which to date is also the main rivalry(still they are the main clubs supporters numbers-wise) Olimpia and Cerro Porteño (I suppport Olimpia btw). Olimpia has won 3 Copa Libertadores de America (kinda european CL). Olimpia, sadly hasnt won a local cup since 2000, and nothing international since last Libertadores in 2002. A recent ranking by IFHHS ranked the Paraguayan league N°10, which was kind of surprising for us too. Prior to 2000 the pitchs were awful, and all sides played the long ball and aerial stuff. Nowadays there are more technical players, and more enjoyable football to watch, though compared to, said the argentinian league, the diference in pace is quite noticeable, the argentinian being the most pacy league in south america. Until a couple of years, our main export product were CBs (see Paulo Da Silva in Sunderland). Now that has changed towars the strikers. You can see Roque Santacruz, Benfica’s Oscar Cardozo, Borussias’ Nelson Haedo and America’s Salvador Cabañas. Those are our main national team’s strikers. Although there are a lot of other strikers playing in Mexico, the preferred destination for them, I suppose, due to language issues. Coming back to club football, Libertad is the local Chelsea, we could say. They have their own Abramovich, but the big difference is that they sustained the buying model for 3 to 4 years, and now their main team is 80% home grown players, which I have to say is the more gifted technically and speed-wise team righ now. They hare 2nd in the table, probably due to youth and lack of experience to close games. The pichichi of the league right now is Pablo Velazquez, who was looked at by argentinians River Plate and San Lorenzo. Oh, that is another important aspect of the sell of our players. It seems that it is mandatory to sell them first to Argentina, and only then they have the pedigree to be sold to europe. See Oscar Cardozo, Justo Villar (our national team’s GK), and a lot of other players.

         I hope it wasnt too confusing! I’m off to work, and there the only internet that I have is on my cell phone, and writing this stuff in it is a pain.

         1. Yan, thanks, that’s absolutely amazing! It was exactly what I wanted to know, and I’m going to keep looking at it as it’s a lot to take in in one go. May come back to you with questions if that’s OK.

6. Tim, the URL for Untold Arsenal is http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/

   I know it looks odd, but once you get past the sligthly weird address, you’ll find a vibrant community of Arsenal supporters, all committed to “supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does” which is actually the site’s tagline.

   So hop on over, and give it a whirl. I guarantee you won’t regret it.

7. You may find this interesting, Tim – http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/2009/09/liverpool-whu-man-u-arsenal-who-will-survive-the-debt-repayments/

8. Did the steward say “Is that a banana in your pocket or are you happy to see me?”

9. For the New Shirt Contest

   7KO’s Priority – Arsenal-Football-Pint-Coffee-Work

10. Tim, I wasn’t taking the piss out of the t-shirts. My question was really addressed to the couple of people who said a few days ago that they wanted the site to be American-centric. I was interested in what specifically they thought that would involve – discussion of US tv commentaries, references to the US league and US sports in general, merchandise?

    Strange that you mentioned Cana, because the first time I looked at this site, early in the summer, someone actually said that he (or she) didn’t think Cana would be the right player for us. I thought, Amazing I’ve at last found a site where people watch the French league and can tell me about it. Then someone else, from the Netherlands, made a very informative comment on Vermaelen (who I at that point didn’t know much about). Is this kind of discussion productive? No, you’re right, it probably isn’t, and transfer speculation is pointless, but to me reading what people think about players I haven’t seen a lot of is interesting, and interest is what I want from a site so I can broaden and deepen my knowledge of football worldwide. I don’t mean transfer speculation, I mean thoughtful, analytical stuff. On arsenalamerica a few years ago you could sometimes find very good things, people with decades of knowledge and insight, but they gave up, and that site, as you say, became utterly dire. Hence my question: why did it happen? why did the thoughtful people abandon the site and others take over? Sites seem to snowball: a certain kind of content – whinging about Wenger, sharp analysis, discussion of finances, tactics, whatever – attracts more of the same.

    I can talk about Sea Bass? Great, but if nobody else is much into Sea Bass it’s going to be a short conversation. That’s why I asked what the people who said they had a preference for American-centric topics actually meant.

    On merchandise: of course, as I said, anything that puts money into Arsenal’s coffers is good, though I doubt if merchandise will ever be a very significant source of income. ManUnited have been going at it hammer and tongs, mainly in the Far East, for over a decade, but its impact on their total revenue has been minimal.

    1. @Mia, Oh merchandise is a big deal. Ask Real about Beckham and his contribution to merchandise sales.

       1. But how much money does it bring in to Real? A drop in the ocean compared to what they’re getting from other sources. The point is not that it isn’t be worth bothering about; every little obviously helps, just so long as it doesn’t involve sacrificing something more important. I remember this debate on arsenalamerica. There were Americans, unsurprisingly, who wanted Arsenal to do pre-season tours of the States and they argued that this would promote merchandise sales. Yes, it probably would, but it’s not going to happen while Wenger is in charge. He values the pre-season in the serenity of the Austrian mountains. Someone on this site just yesterday thought it would be great if we trained in the US rather than Europe. No it wouldn’t! Not from Wenger’s point of view. The long flights, the harder pitches on which you’re more likely to pick up injuries, the dashing about from city to city playing pointless display games to sell a few shirts – pre-season is about quietness, focus, intense preparation, culminating in the Emirates Cup; it’s not, as Wenger sees it, to be turned into a marketing jaunt 3000 miles from home. Chelsea do it, United do it, Barca, Real, and when Wenger leaves, if the club ethos changes, Arsenal may do it as well. But not yet.

          1. @Mia, Beckham alone sold $3m in shirts in his first year at the Galaxy.

             Perez stated that Beckham took Real from earning 7m Euros a year to 45m a year, in sponsorships, television rights, etc.

             Never underestimate American consumer culture.

             I agree with you about Wenger, but I firmly believe that by not doing tours of the states Arsenal could be missing out on a huge, growing market, with affluent fans who have a consumer driven culture.

             Also, this isn’t just about selling a few replica kits. There’s an avoirdupois assload of money to be made in corporate sponsorships, gate receipts (English teams sell out 60,000 seat arenas here), television broadcasting deals, on and on.

             When Cesc pulls on his Nike boots and Nike shirt in an American stadium in front of 60,000 people and another 2 million on television, he makes more money, the club makes more money, AND there’s more exposure of the club to potential long term fans.

             1. Oh I don’t underestimate American consumer culture – how could I possibly after even the briefest glance at this site? – and I’m sure it’s the way Arsenal will go before long, especially if there have to be concessions to Kreonke. But while Wenger is manager, and probably while the present Board is in place, marketing won’t be allowed to disrupt old-fashioned concerns.

             2. @Mia, Yes, Mia, this site is clearly dedicated to American consumer culture. In fact, this is just the tip of my business empire. For the time being I’m in the starring role as the “tee shirt impresario” and I’m raking in the dough selling my shirts for $5 each.

                Next up 7amkickoff back cream, perfume, branded coffee mugs, and little toy cannons which go “pop” when you pull a string.

                All shipped straight from slave labor camps in China!

             3. Tim, I wasn’t thinking of your bloody t-shirts, not primarily, don’t be so sensitive about them – it’s your site, you can sell what you what you like on it! What I actually had in mind were the posts (more than one,as I recall) saying things like: ‘wish they could set up an online catalog, getting an arsenal online store would be awesome’. They’re completely mindblowing to a non-American.

             4. @Mia,

                YOU SHOULD BUY ONE OF MY SHIRTS TO MAKE UP FOR BEING SO MEAN.

                /just kidding
                //the back cream has a higher profit margin!

11. i wish they made Arsenal onsie pajamas… thats more sea bass, o well.

12. I don’t agree with Gazidis’ comment, that the more efficient route to success is to resign players. Resiging Almunia on 80k a week isn’t going to turn him into Akinfeev. Resigning Walcott (though I love him dearly) to 60k isn’t going to turn him into Messi. All it does is over-pay players who haven’t proved they can justify those wages. I’d rather we kept the youngsters on reasonable wages and then spent the savings on someone with experience and talent to win the league.

    We all saw how Arshavin’s signature revitalised the Arsenal, and it’s criminal to think that he’s on the same wage as Walcott.

    1. @Connolly’s agency, Gadzidis is just supporting the Arsenal party line. To say something different and he’s on the first plane back to NY and the WPS.

    2. @Connolly’s agency, Arshavin is one of the highest paid players at Arsenal. He does not earn the same as Walcott.

       Second, it IS more efficient to pay Theo and additional £10k a week as he gains experience than it is to buy Joe Cole or someone else for £15m plus £80k a week.

       Arshavin illustrates exactly what Gazidis is talking about: they had a chance to bring someone in who actually was better than our current options and they did. They will continue to look for players of that caliber but they happen about once a year, sometimes twice a year.

13. I like transfer speculation from supporters who have seen little known players and think they are Arsenal material. I don’t like transfer speculation from supporters who are parroting the tabloids who become the pr flacks for agents hawking their ‘wares’. Hangeland comes to mind. Hangeland is a stiff, plain and simple. We should expose him on Sat. Then there was the ‘buy Huntelaar’ crowd. And on, and on, and on.

    1. Yes, my feeling exactly.

       I thought it worth asking just on the off-chance of there being people hovering over the site who would chip in and say: ‘I live in Rio/Oslo/Delhi, I don’t even know the names of any American teams, but I was watching a Brazilian side experimenting with an interesting new formation and was thinking it might work for us if we played Diaby like this…’ I thought there might still be a demand for this sort of discussion as an English site doing it only last year was getting 300+ posts a day, and there’s a radio programme about South American football which has a huge audience even though it goes out at 3 in the morning and people set their alarms! This suggests there is a hunger for conversations about Arsenal in the context of international football more generally somewhere out there in the ether, just that it isn’t, not at the moment, hovering round here.

14. Arshavin is back. Walcott will make the bench and should come on late. RVP to have a fitness test but should be ok. As we suspected, Fabregas was injured last week and that’s why he didn’t celebrate his goal.

    Fulham are struggling but we should not be a ‘good neighbor’ and help them out.

    1. Vowel-less on Sat? Wenger said it would ‘normally’ be Mannone, which implies we’re going with the abnormal this week – talking of which, Almunia’s failure to get over his chest infection seems pretty abnormal as well. I mean, two-three weeks for a super-fit young man in a nice warm September, what’s going on? Hope it is Vowel-less. I thought he was pretty impressive against West Brom, very calm, very athletic, an amazing recovery from breaking both arms so recently, whereas Mannone – well, best not to look. And I get the impression our back four feel the same way.

15. There’s a good Wenger interview in the Sun(?)where he talks about the psychology education he got watching people in his parent’s bar. He also talks about what it was like for him starting out as a manager at 33yo. Insightful.

    You can ignored that illogical transfer rumor about Osasuna FB Cesar bid for 2m. That’s the kind of stupid tabloid nonsense I was talking about. It makes no sense.

16. Tim – it looks like the ATVO link on usa.arsenal.com links you to the main ATVO site, for which my login worked the same and had the same content. So no real difference, except the price, which is outstanding. They’ve converted pounds to $ w/no uplift, also saving you any foreign transaction fee. This will be much appreciated on my renewal.

17. Been out of town/without computer for a few days but just read the discussion above. Arsenal America essentially kicked out the discussion and many of the same characters are carrying it on at http://youaremyarsenal.com/blog/

    Check it out. IMO it’s an improvement. It doesn’t have any especially American emphasis but it’s pretty well put together for something so new.

    1. Thanks, brilliant, I’ll check it out!

       1. Have just had a look. Seems a bit thin still but I agree it is promising-looking and could soon get quite good. Also thanks to LRV and others for the link to untold arsenal – that one looks terrific already.

18. Mia,

    Thanks for checking us out. We’re starting, we’ve been in existence from the beginning of July when the whole change at AA began. My purpose of site was to continue the discussion as it was going on at AA.

    To some extent I think that is happening. We do need more content. But at AA other people were writing, as of right now I am the only writing. Not that I mind but with matches every 3rd or 4th day – Match previews are where I have focused for right now.

    We do have some things that AA didn’t have. I have created a game day chat room so everyone watching the match can come in and discuss the match ast it occurs real time.

    But I love to read this site, Untold Arsenal is good, as is http://www.theawayboyz.com, http://www.thespoiler.co.uk, andwww.soccerlens.com. The last two are just good for their content and less for duscission. For discussion, here, Cultured Left Foot, Untold and You Are My Arsenal (of course) are my favourites.