Which former Arsenal players to watch and how to watch them (in the USA)

23 comments

1. 3 – 0 Walcott!

2. I won’t watch any of them. It’s hard enough just finding time for Arsenal games with a sprinkling of other “big” matches. I think Ramsey wins the Champions League with Juve this year.

   1. You can DVR football matches. Just FYI. I watch a different match every night of the week and several on the weekends. Plus live matches locally. One trick is to give up watching EPL games. Most of them suck balls.

      1. Tim knows.

      2. I’m up here in Canada and we have DAZN. You can’t record games but you can watch them for (usually) up to a week afterwards on demand. DAZN has all Premier League, Champions League, Europa League, Serie A and La Liga rights here. They’ve basically locked up the market.

         I watch 1) Arsenal, 2) games between the big 6, 3) CL games (unless it’s Porto v Shahktar Donetsk for example). 4) the occasional Atletico, Real Madrid or Barca match. I might add Juve to the mix, although I grew up an Inter fan. I can’t watch more than that.

3. Hey, Im the subset who is wishing Iwobi wild success at Everton, while thinking that he was a frustrating finisher, and that we were right to take Everton’s second offer. i wish him FIFTEEN goals, not ten. I also want Ox to do well at Liverpool, but he has a big job getting into that side. He’s a player I’d take back, because (once Ceballos leaves) there’s a vacancy for him to play where he wanted to play or us.

   I watched Everton and West ham matches to see Theo and Jack last season, and I’ll definitely be watching Juventus matches to see Ramsey.

   1. WRT Ox, Claude knows.

   2. I’m with you, Claude. I I wish Iwobi nothing but the best, I really liked him although he frustrated me also a lot.

   3. Agree, Claude.

      Also, it’s worth pointing out that it is not illogical nor even implausible for Iwobi to do well at Everton AND for it to be good (in relation to business and performance) that Arsenal sold him.

4. Until he’s 3 1….how can we blame former boss with so much present and former players still worth watching….i say blame the system.

5. A little off the beaten track.

   I’d like to work on my French, and maybe play with Spanish. The replay channel you recommended might help.

   Any podcasts you (or others) recommend in French or Spanish, ideally ones with pretty clear / not to heavy accents? Thanks!

   1. Duolingo has podcasts. Very good app too. Learned more French from that app than I did taking 10 years of French class in Canadian public schools.

      1. Soccer podcasts!? Awesome.

         1. Umm, I misunderstood. I thought you just meant easy to understand French or Spanish language podcasts in general.

      2. I am an autodidact. I used Duolingo for Spanish, Russian, and Japanese. I learned Japanese in college, the traditional method and Spanish in high school. Duolingo is good if you want to memorize the language but a terrible app if want to learn grammar. I basically had to learn all the rules of Russian grammar on my own. Sometimes the community can be helpful but it’s pretty frustrating for those of us who like a more scientific method of learning a language. It’s a fabulous app if you already know the language and want to practice or brush up.

         Also, they only have a french podcast. No other languages. Not on android anyway.

6. Tim = Sir James Murray

7. I’ll be spending most of my free time watching Gervinho tear it up for Parma.

8. Dont like to see my former employer do trashy tabloid pieces like this, but it’s food for thought nevertheless. I can believe that Iwobi was worth more and Pepe less, but Kosc being worth 20m more tells me that the model is a crappy one.

   https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/49319480?ns_mchannel=social&ns_linkname=sport&ns_source=facebook&ns_campaign=bbc_sport&fbclid=IwAR026xDGvDQvcoFTVgSQZie2hD1-_9MlPPQ2bTZKhTXVo_y-9j09CS7IBUo

   1. I hate these kinds of articles because they don’t show their work and I despise arguing “that model is wrong” when I have no idea what factors they are putting in.

      A good rule of thumb for a big club like Arsenal is that a goal is worth about 0.45 points and that every point above 38 costs that club about £3.5m (this is an older number that needs to be updated for the crazy spend of the last 8 years, but let’s use it for a minute). So, I would look at a transfer like this:

      How many goals is this player expected to add to the club? This is a bit tricky but let’s say Pepe is expected to add (net gain) of 10 goals to Arsenal this season (from 73 to 83 goals for) that would mean a gain of 5 points for the club and would normally cost £17.5m to achieve. Now, if he maintains that level of performance, salary, and everything for 5 years he’s worth £87m in salary and transfer. That’s using 2011 numbers. I dare say that we are well into the costs of more like £7-8m per point above 38 for top clubs.

      If I were working on rating transfers, that’s how I would look at it.

      Trickier is defenders. How many goals does a single defender save you? I mean, Virgil van Dijk’s transfer changed Liverpool’s goals allowed from 38 to 22 in a single season. Is that all down to him? If he’s worth -10 goals he’s up there with Pepe.

      So, the real trick isn’t finding out how much a player is worth but rather how much he adds or subtracts from the team. That’s a really tough one.

   2. i do agree that both koscielny and iwobi were worth more and pepe less. however, i believe analytics has to be very sensitive; almost on a per-player basis to be truly effective. the problem is some certain player qualities are simply too difficult to quantify. analytics should be used as a tool to help with the decision-making process but not a determining factor. the old eye test is still what tells the truth, particularly what a player does away from the ball.

9. Sorry, this is from the last post, but I’m not sure if you read older comments, so I’m posting it here. You said Lampard “is probably a decent coach” in the top 4 post from 7/29: https://7amkickoff.com/index.php/2019/07/29/is-this-the-season-arsenal-get-back-into-top-four/

   “That leaves three teams for 4th: Chelsea, Man U, and Arsenal. I have Arsenal best placed to take it. It’s going to be a tough year for Chelsea. They lost Hazard who was almost their entire offense. And Frank Lampard is probably a decent coach but I’m not sure how he’s going to get that club scoring goals. Christian Pulisic is often touted by Americans as a great player but I’ve watched him for years and never seen much more than slightly above average. He’s a huge downgrade on Hazard.”

   I was surprised that you said that, since club legend coaches generally suck at actually coaching. They can be successful sometimes in spite of that though.

   1. I find it really strange how much plaudits he received for an about par job at Derby. He lucked into the final of the playoffs with a bunch of Chelsea loanees and now he’s supposed to lead a club in chaos? Strange indeed, but then again managers don’t count for much at Chelsea.

      1. Lampard was a horrid choice, and I still can’t believe they appointed him, particularly given the squad and transfer challenges currently at the club.

         Oh well, it should work out well for us! Honestly, it’s stuff like the Lampard thing, and OGS at United, that give me the most hope that we’ll finish 4th, even though I know in my head that the squad has been improved over the summer!

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