Project Youth 2

Some metaphors today:

  • A half-filled spiral notebook
  • Shaking the can of propane to see what’s left in the tank
  • Plastic laser blaster samurai
  • Christmas lights in February

Some observations about Arsenal.

It’s exhausting. I don’t know how I do it. I don’t know how any of us do it. This constant arguing over whether a player is good enough. These constant fact-finding missions about the finances, about player contracts, about whether players are good enough. These constant worries about whether the club will have money to spend, arguing over amortizations, bickering about salary and whether “he’s worth that weekly wage”. Endless days speculating about players we would love to have at the club only to have the club confirm that none of those players will ever come to Arsenal. And the players leaving. It’s the players leaving or staying that really gets people worked up. Also, did I mention the non-stop stuff about whether a player is good enough?

I’ve been doing this for over 10 years and I just have to say that yesterday was one of the biggest deja vu moments in all of my time writing about Arsenal. In 2008 Arsenal had the Flamini saga. Remember that? Remember how Flamini was in the last year of his contract and was a key part of an Arsenal team which had just challenged for the title and how Flamini was all “you got to pay me a signing bonus equal to what my transfer fee would be or I will leave for Italy?” And then he did. And he was paid something like 9m Euros a year at AC Milan (gross). Which made him the 2nd highest paid player at AC Milan behind Zlatan. Remember that fiasco and how all the suddenly Arsenal basically lost him and all of the DMs on the books?

In 2008, we had owner(s) who wouldn’t put any money into the club. We had players who were agitating for moves away (Adebayor). We had a defensive shambles on our hands (we played a crazy high line and teams would often score with one or two shots after a long kick over the top) with Djourou and Silvestre taking turns mucking things up along side Weepy William Gallas and his Crotch of Goals. We had the manager saying that there’s no money for transfers. And we had the club promising that there would be money to spend just over the horizon.

But what energized me, what started me writing about Arsenal that January (2008) was the youth project. Cesc Fabregas in midfield, Diaby, Song, Walcott, Nasri, van Persie, Clichy and Eboue. Young Arsenal players who had come up through the ranks.

After yesterday’s dual announcements of Ramsey leaving for Juventus and Emery saying that there’s no money in January (which I already knew) I’m trying to stay positive. But in a way this feels traumatizing all over again.

Maybe Emery is trying to do Project Youth 2. He certainly has the base players – Torreira and Guendouzi – set. Maybe he let Ramsey go because we has already gotten the midfield of the future. Maybe we just need to let players go after 10 years. Maybe Mavropanos, Bellerin, Leno (who is just 26), and Holding are the future of the back line. Maybe Ainsley and Iwobi are the future up front. Maybe we can get Smith-Rowe and Nketiah into the starting lineup along with Joe Willock soon. And maybe even Danny John-Jules’* nephew (I hope I have that right) Tyreece John-Jules could team up with Reiss Nelson as part of a youth-based Arsenal forward line.

I guess that’s what I’m going to hold out hope for. Maybe the project youth that we loved (or at least respected, most of us) from the 2008 era is being reborn in 2019 with all new players. That’s my only hope right now. The alternate, bleak future of losing players on a free, screaming into the trees about Deadwood (believe me, this is what happens next), and constantly arguing over Amortization FC or how we are going to sign XI Lichtsteiners is far too depressing.

Qq

*World class dancer who also happened to play the Cat on Red Dwarf. Also an excellent person to follow on twitter because he’s such a gracious human being.

43 comments

  1. Good article, had forgotten how similar the situations are.

    I think we will start Project Youth 2, but we will probably see much higher turnover of these players as they have value, to fund the next set.

    I was thinking about the potential transfer of Callum Hudson-Odoi, and whether this is the likely route for many of our young players. Gain value, be sold.

    For example, honest question, are there any young players in our team that we would say no to £35m now? Maybe Nelson or Torreira only.

    Actually, would probably take that for anyone in the 1st team apart from Lacazette, Bellerin and probably Auba.

  2. So two of our academy products have famous uncles with magic feet? Interesting.

    Yes I think we are going project youth all over again. Maybe with the odd Arshavin type signing thrown in, which could be good. A couple of years of Auba and Lacazette gives us a bit of a cutting edge, and one we should do our best to exploit.

    But somehow, the excitement of the previous project youth isn’t there. Maybe in time. One can hope. For the rest, it’s just that we’re along for the ride as Arsenal do what Arsenal do.

    After all this lamentation, we’re probably going to win the EL and make Emery the winningest EL manager (if he’s not already) That also seems like a very Arsenal thing to do.

    1. the difference is cesc innit? i remember being at the stadium for the 2006 version of cesc and universally people were effusive. torreira addresses a need but he’s not the game. guendouzi is supposed to be that player but arsenal fans are fucking morons and can’t see how great he is. or maybe he’s not that great.

      1. You’re right. Cesc was just an extraordinary talent and it shone through. Plus, we weren’t so far removed from the Invincibles so it was a happier time. Less jaded. This feels less like a fresh start and more like a rerun.

        I just hope we can at least play some entertaining football. Something to get behind.

  3. Tim, you beauty! “Weepy William Gallas and his Crotch of Goals”. I’ll be chuckling about that one all day.

  4. Thank you, imothyt, I really enjoyed that Post, and it reflects accurately the angst that most of us have experienced regarding the club’s transfer system and the fall back Project Youth Mark 2.

    As you said, Mr emery stated that there were no funds available to him for player purchases in January rather grated with me.

    What was the case, it seems, is that unlike other club owners who somehow found ways to invest more money into their clubs for players, despite FFP, Mr Kroenke held firm to his policy of not doing likewise.

    Poor old Arsene was blamed by many (most?) Gooners of being curmudgeonly with Arsenal’s money and was responsible for missing out on quality players that he allegedly said were not better quality than the players he already had.

    Now Mr Emery is going to experience that even more so because of the FFP rules coupled with the drop in income for Arsenal because we have not qualifyed for the Champions League for the last two years — and perhaps not for some years to come as well.

  5. Shard,

    You misunderstood my general invitation for anyone to explain why Arsenal had let expensive players leave in the last January window, instead of better managing player contracts.

    Knowing you for some years blogging, I did imply you might want to respond, as you are never short of a word or two thousand on any subject under the sun. That was all — nothing pervy! 🤪

  6. I’ve just finished listening to the most recent Arsecast, and I feel a touch better about the whole money issue and lack of January transfers. Basically, the argument is that the January transfer window is sh*t (which it is), and rather than yet another stop-gap type of signing (Kallstrom, anyone?!), we’re going to buy more strategically, and the summer window gives you the best chance of doing that. Also, maybe the “loan only” is just a message for Barcelona.

    I’m just saying, I’m no longer miserable about the whole situation. Maybe the club has a longer view that will pan out. At any rate, the short-term thinking behind some of our signings in recent years hasn’t really brought success.

    1. Maybe part of the problem was the message sent by only giving Emery a 2-year contract. Is he here to immediately get us back into the CL? Or retool the squad and our playing style so we’re younger and ready to challenge for the next decade?

      If the CL is the short-term priority then back him with transfer funds during both seasonal windows, and help him aggressively overhaul the playing staff so we have the highest quality squad our wage bill can afford.

      If they want to start Project Youth 2.0, then take some pressure off and give him a four-year deal. At least then we know we’re in it for the long haul and all the silly expectations about top four can take a back seat for a year or two.

      I guess we have to respect Emery’s terrifying honesty about our transfer capability. At least it’s a refreshing change from Wenger and the club’s PR guff about there being money to spend during the dark dark Banter Era.

  7. The big difference with the first Project Youth is that only Arsenal among the top teams relied on youth on that kind of scale. Today, you see teams like Liverpool (Gomez, Alexander-Arnold, Robertson) and Spurs (Kane, Alli, Trippier, Winks, Davies) that can develop youngsters and finish in the Top 4.
    Another big difference is that there was less competition for a Top 4 finish than today. A decade ago, City were a joke, St Totteringham’s Day was the norm, and the Reds were inconsistent.

  8. Shard, for me, raised on the most important points about our club, and that is its values. On the Ramsey contract, there are the reported facts of the case by David Ornstein and others.
    The club and the player reached an agreement, the club withdrew not just the agreement, but any offers at all, in totality. Those are everyone’s versions of the facts, including the club. Sanllehi said at the time that they looked at it very carefully, from all angles, and decided on what’s best for the club. What is more, the club came out this week, again through Ornstein, to justify why the decision had been made, on the basis of Emery’s playing style (something Tim and others question on twitter). Why are we dancing on the head of a pin on this? The club itself made clear that it tore up an agreement that it had reached with the player.

    So what Shard had to say about values struck a chord with me, and (as much as I think that club behaved antithetically towards its long-held values) Ramsey is only part of the reason why. Sanllehi said that Welbeck will not be offered a new contract. He will be nursed back to health, and told thanks for your services. I have a problem with that. Im a bit socialist when it comes to work, and I think that we have a duty of care to someone injured on the job, and the duty of care is much more than rehabilitation. It’s why I dont think that we can reasonably expect to get the best of Ramsey between now and June (a point that Tom sorely misunderstands). Too much can go wrong.

    Arsenal is the club that gave Tomas Rosicky 2 more contract extensions than he deserved, because of the duty of care we felt we have to the player. Arsenal is the club that extended Santi when he was ooc and could barely walk (something we admittedly mucked up in the first place). Arsenal was the club that gave superfluous contract extensions to Arteta and Mertesacker, when they understood that neither would really feature much, if at all.

    Values.

    Being self-sustaining is part of it. But how we treat our employees is a big deal too. No one minds if you get rid of players through sales. That’s part of the deal. But, values.

  9. Just thinking… What is wrong with project youth being started all over again? Apart from the dream of buying ‘Pogba(s)’ every window shattered are there any real downside to this project? Help me understand.

  10. I learned this mich from Mark cuban, who is nothing if not a knowledgeable owner, whatever you may think of him otherwise: All of sports is cyclical. Part of sports fandom is knowing where in the cycle your team is. Are they in a championship window? Are they rebuilding? How many teams are probably going to finish above them this year? And then use that knowledge to adjust your expectations, not just for the first 10 games but for the whole season.

    Arsenal are in a transitional period more consummate than even the post Invincibles aftermath. They will finish no higher than 4th. Buying young and developing what they have is clearly their best and only way to reopen a championship window. It’s going to take lots of time. Might as well get comfortable, put your feet up, and roll with the flow.

    1. Funny, just last year when I wrote my “great expectations” post, I remember you being vociferously against me adjusting my expectations. Anyhoo. Welcome to the new club.

  11. Great insightful post…was it ever about “Wenger in” or “Wenger out” or was it more about if we want a billionaire benefactor…or not

    1. It was most certainly about Wenger,and to an extent, Gazidis.
      It’s becoming increasingly clear we’ve been horribly mis-managed on and off the field for at least half a decade.
      We didn’t exactly need Stan to dip into his pocket to compete (although it would be nice if he did). His greatest folly remains his failure to realise the damage Wenger/Gazidis were doing to the club.

  12. maitland niles has been awful since he’s come back from injury. good thing hector’s back.

    i do not understand why xhaka plays every week. he absolutely sucks. he’s the dumbest midfield player arsenal has ever had. he hasn’t a clue what’s going on around him and continually passes team mates into trouble and opposition midfielders continually ghost past him. wenger made a mistake buying him but he didn’t play him. i don’t understand why arsenal extended his contract.

    west ham look decent. great move by pelligrini to monitor the nasri situation and bring him back into football. i always liked samir; he’s always had a rough edge about him, not to mention his talent. if lucas perez comes on, that’s more intelligent talent.

  13. Horrible selection by Emery.. absolute stupidity!! Horrible performance from Niles..someone has to caution the coach.. his selections are beginning to show a picture of a clueless coach

  14. What a garbage display! Slow, indecisive, no sense of urgency at all! Has Emery lost the power to motivate these players?
    Very disappointing.

  15. congrats goes out to granit xhaka for the pre-assist on the game-losing goal. it’s not just today but he does stuff like that several times every single game.

    …garbage!

  16. arsenal are a mid-table team. emery has a history with mid-table team management. sure, he won the lottery and got to coach psg but he also jammed up winning the title in his first season. he’s about a mid table, sevilla-level coach. he’s not a barcelona or real madrid level manager so this is what arsenal fans should expect. if you guys are willing to give emery 3 years, don’t expect arsenal back in the champions league any time soon.

    a month or so ago, tim posted a thread where he said that arsenal, during the unbeaten run, were punching above their weight and that this was unsustainable. arsenal have returned to their mean: mid table.

    for everyone happy with the fact that stan kronke hasn’t put any money into the club, what you may not know is that stan didn’t even use his own money to buy the rest of the club shares during his takeover. he borrowed the money and is using profits from the club to repay the loans. that’s some shady crap. so, the money emery should have to buy players is being used to repay kronke’s loans.

  17. Folks, we haven’t been grossly mismanaged for a decade. We’ve fallen behind our competitors. It’s not the same thing in my book. All clubs miss opportunities or sign players over what ends up being good value for them in hindsight.

    Ainsley is going to have bad games, it’s part of any young player’s Development. The 1-0
    is disappointing. I think we can expect a lot of dour league games in the coming month, so the bang for the buck will be cup competitions. It makes sense; as a player it’s probably hard to care too much for the chance to be 5th instead of 6th or whatever. That’s why playing mid table clubs at the end of the season is the easiest. I think Arsenal are kind of there already and I can’t be bothered too much about that if I’m honest.

    1. I am totally baffled by this post. It makes no sense at all, this especially 👇🏽.

      “as a player it’s probably hard to care too much for the chance to be 5th instead of 6th or whatever. That’s why playing mid table clubs at the end of the season is the easiest. I think Arsenal are kind of there already and I can’t be bothered too much about that if I’m honest”.

      It has, however, inspired me to play Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds.

  18. The Mesut Ozil situation is unsustainable. It also, at this point, makes no sense. I’ve been critical of Ozil, but you cant tell me that he has no place in a squad of 18.

    West Ham are a decent team with an excellent coach, and coaching is sometimes the thing that bridges the gap between teams with resources imbalances. We are watching a real time fall in Emery’s stock. I still do think, however, he should have 3 to 4 years minimum for his turnaround.

    1. Yeah, seeing as we held onto the same coach for over 20 seasons, more than any other fanbase we should be capable of being patient with the new man, and let him learn the limits of this squad and the league’s particular demands.

      But the long wait to bring a title to the Emirates, compounded by Arsene’s last few seasons, has really broken something in our collective spirit that will be hard to repair.

      Good on you for shouting out for Pellegrini Claude. The man’s a title-winning coach and a thoroughly decent human being and as Guardiola’s predecessor it seems to me he’s never gotten the respect he deserves.

  19. I actually feel bad for Emery. He inherited a pretty unbalanced squad. We have two quality players for the CF position but no one in the wide forward positions. So Emery has to play one of them in the wide forward role and the result is less than the sum of their parts. In the starting XI, we have quality players who are aging or some talented players who are still young and learning the ropes. We have many players in the 25 -28 sweet spot and of the ones we do – Xhaka and Mustafi – are two of the most bone headed players I have ever seen play for us. I would love it if neither of them started again for Arsenal for the rest of the professional careers but I don’t think Emery has much of a choice at this point. Our two most creative players are a contract rebel and a rebel without a cause. It’s a sad day when West Ham players look like they have more quality than Arsenal. This is a gigantic mess left behind by the old regime and I suspect it will take us more than one or two summers to fix – especially given we have an owner who seems in no hurry to buy the players we need.

  20. After that great run of 22-matches unbeaten, which papered over a lot of what has been expressed by comments on today’s post, reality has sunk in for me. This was a worrisome loss.

    Man U will eventually finish 5th, while we hold on to 6th. I can’t see this team getting by doing much better in the other competitions and that’s where we are for 2019. It’s unfortunate to write off the season in mid-January.

    The jury will be out for Emery, still. The hope of course is that he gets the time for a couple of proper (summer) transfer seasons and puts together a more robust and competitive Arsenal.

  21. Out of curiosity, what have people seen that wants them to give Emery a couple more seasons, a couple of windows and what (little) transfer funds that may be available? I mean apart from the notion that 1 season might be too short a time to judge. Never mind the losses, what is the plan and identity for Arsenal on the pitch? Should this not have been known when the appointment was made and shouldnt we be seeing it now (even if its imperfect)

    1. About Emery, specifically, I am honestly not sure. But even The Greatest Manager That Ever Lived needed a couple of seasons and an unlimited budget to get the project together at Man City. Klopp has had 2-3 years to get Liverpool to this stage. Why would you give Emery less? What would be gained by pulling the trigger on this project now? Who’s out there that’s better that we could realistically get?

      I’m open to options but I don’t think there are any right now.

    2. personally, i’ve seen nothing, to this point that suggests it’s a good idea to give emery more time but that’s me. i’m not saying he should be sacked but that i don’t see the way forward.

      it’s the biggest difference between what the other managers we’re talking about have done and what emery has done. you were able to see what they were trying to do and you saw a clear improvement to their play. more important, it didn’t take years to see the results. look at what’s happened with the likes of chelsea, man united, or southampton. we don’t see that at arsenal. what’ worse is that we have exceptional resources that aren’t being properly utilized.

      what’s worse is that arsenal have no money. this is because kronke borrowed money to take over the club and is using the club profits to pay back his loans and the interest involved; profits usually used to pay for players. this is a sad state of affairs for the club.

  22. claude, i’m not sure where you get the idea that the club and ramsey agreed a deal and the club withdrew the deal and ripped it up. the club wouldn’t rip up a deal that’s been agreed upon, better known as a contract which is legally binding. to rip it up would be fine but you still have a legal obligation to honor the terms set in that contract.

    what makes more sense is the club ripped up an offer that a player had failed to accept. if ramsey agreed to a deal, it only takes a few seconds to sign his name and, immediately, go from getting paid £100k a week to £180k a week. bottom line, ramsey never agreed a deal. the club got tired of waiting/negotiating and withdrew the offer.

    there’s no immoral value there. the old regime (gazidis/wenger) valued ramsey at £180k a week where the new regime’s valuation was, in all likelihood, significantly less. in fact, the new regime’s offer to the player would likely have been viewed as derisory by ramsey, hence the club’s decision to withdraw the offer instead of disrespecting the player.

    1. ramsey played hardball with the contract. did he lose? only time will tell. he’s, reportedly, signed a pre-contract agreement with juventus that will make him the second-highest paid player at that club, but that’s not a contract. he’s not allowed to sign an actual contract until he becomes a free agent this summer. he could also go out and danny welbeck his knee tomorrow in training. it’s a risk but, i agree with you that we won’t get his best; he’ll proceed with caution in all that he does.

      for me, he reminds me of kobe bryant during his last season. it’s sort of a farewell tour for him. does he care if arsenal wins or loses? nope. does he care if arsenal finishes in the top 4? nope. does he care if he starts or comes off the bench? nope. does he really care about what emery has to say? nope. he’s chilling, no doubt improving himself in training every day but not going too hard. at least, that’s how it seems. it’s certainly what i would do so who could blame him?

    2. That’s the reporting from reputable outlets. The word of the BBC’s venerable sports news correspondent David Orntein, among others.

      An agreement is not a contract. It is quite common for parties to reach a negotiated settlement before drawing up a contract.

      I think you’re cleaving to the “he didn’t sign the contract on the table”, which is kind of loose sports journalese. That’s not the way negotiations work.

      1. Claude, the news reported by BBC was that there was an offer on the table from Arsenal which was later rescinded. There was no news about whether Ramsey had signed that contract or not. Maybe there was a verbal agreement? That part we can only speculate. Ramsey and his agent later claimed they had agreed to a contract but that also begs the question that if the contract was on the table and it had been agreed upon, why didnt he sign it? I can’t believe that the club would put an offer on the table and then rescind it the next day. My guess is while Ramsey was sitting on the offer they had agreed on verbally, and had every chance to sign, the club had a change of heart.

  23. Wotcha Tim – I quite agree! I’ve written a long post about how we are here and I agree that project youth 2.0 is the way forward (but we do need a Cesc level talent for it to work – we actually already have a decent amount of potential future first team squad players coming through at the mo, but every team needs a talisman, and we haven’t had one since RVP left). Anyway if you want to read my post – http://dailycannon.com/2019/01/arsenal-dropped-the-ball-at-the-wrong-time-why-they-have-no-money/ – and lets get you on the podcast again soon. Best,
    Mat

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