Mar 22
Ed. Note - We kind of went over this last week, but since it’s a slow news week…
Well this is a question i will let you debate upon. Personally i think he should have stayed, i liked him and even though was thirty, he brought something to Arsenal that he is bringing with Lyon and that is experience and goals. I think Dennis not flying and Freddie getting injured has had an effect on our season, maybe not Freddie as mauch but certainly Dennis in europe. We could have done with Wiltord.
p.s I really miss Ray Parlour, not only was he Arsenal but he was a typical gooner.
22 Responses to “Should Wiltord Have Stayed?”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
March 22nd, 2005 at 1:50 pm
Joanne.
Wiltord was absolutely SLATED here by Arsenal supporters.
I liked him. Often defended him. He didn’t get a fair shake last year, and was considered surplus to our needs.
I guess he’s showing Arsenal, and the world…. that he IS in fact one of the best strikers out there.
I am quite happy for him. Always gave his best effort. Big, strong, and not able to be intimidated.
If I were Lyon, I’d send Arsenal a BIG thank you note, and ask if there are any other players we are done with. Perhaps they can poach Pires next year. Oh, yes… they are still in the CL, and we are watching. They went further last year too.
March 22nd, 2005 at 2:12 pm
Yes exactly, Wiltord wanted to go and now he’s doing very nicely.
He wasn’t technically good but he scored loads of goals and I got the impression he was really thoughtful and kind. I remember a Carling Cup game which went to penalties: he was captain so he went first - and he fluffed it, I’m sure deliberately so that the kids - there were some really young ones - wouldn’t feel so scared. We won the shoot-out so his tactic of taking the heat off the youngsters, if that’s what it was, paid off. I think Quincy was the only other player to miss.
March 22nd, 2005 at 2:59 pm
Wiltord got a fair deal. He played nearly every game in every competition.
Wenger gave him a chance as a right winger, left winger and a forward. Wenger literally got him ont he side to play him.
Wiltord gave back a great hat trick, FA Cup goals v Chelski and an OT goal that bludgeoned ManYoo.
But he also gave us a lot of whineing, blaming others for his woeful plays, laziness and a lot of comments when things ddnt well.
He also famously gave us that woeful giveaway v Valencia that cost Arsenal 12mil in CL appearance fees as he laughed about it on the sidelines when he presented Carew with the goal that destroyed the club.
He also showed the youth players v West Brom that if things dont work out, PUBLICLY SULK AND MAKE SURE PEOPLE KNOW YOU HAVE A RAW DEAL GETTING 50K a week, cause that is one way to get what you want
shoudl we have kept him?
only if he ROTTED IN THE RESERVE OF THE RESERVES
March 22nd, 2005 at 3:00 pm
i don’t think he would have made much difference to our season if he had stayed. he would have chipped in with his fair share of goals but i barely thought of him this year.that says it all. ive never really thought “we could with wiltord right now” even though his goalscoring record should command more respect than that.
i didn’t like his personality as a player in the same way as i don’t like vieira’s. that resigned, oh well s**t happens look he gave after every mistake. the moment that especially springs to mind was when he gave ball away on the touchline against valencia two years ago, and they scored. wiltord stuck his tongue out. if i was in the mestalla that night i think i would be serving life in a spanish prison right now.
good riddance i say, didn’t like him. not enough passion. now he’s gone, there’s only two rotten eggs left, vieira and lauren. purge them stalinist-style and our team will be the better for it.
March 22nd, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Brilliant!
Lauren just plays his heart out every match… and for all your wishes, Vieira probably will stay on as captain.
Cole is going. We don’t need his type. Maybe we can sell Sol too… He’s British and he’s hurt too much!
March 22nd, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Though not on the same topic it does concern Wiltord.
I watched l’Olympique Lyonnais play their game against Werder Bremen: Olympique Lyon 7 - 2 Werder Bremmen. What a stunning game that was for Wiltord with a hat trick. Though the score doesn’t really show it, it was also a good game to watch. I couldn’t believe how much they looked like Arsenal in their style of play.
I’m picking Lyon as the “dark horse” to win the “Champions League”. I’d love to see Liverpool beat Chealsea but that might just be poetry, or justice, or some kind of vain glorious “wet dream” or whatever you call that when ur a gurl
March 22nd, 2005 at 3:23 pm
Some players do their best playing in their home country. Let’s hope AFC, with almost their entire roster of foreign players, don’t continue to discover this.
March 22nd, 2005 at 4:18 pm
Well I want Cole gone…. and Sol can go too, hurt to often and he stands in Senderos way from making the big time. This way we can field and entire team of Non-Brits for almost every match!
This will REALLY piss everyone off, and even more so when we win the CL with a team of foreigners!
THEN, you’d see hatred for a team. (never mind the growing hate for Chelsea)
I always wanted to sing: “No one likes us, we don’t care”!!!
March 22nd, 2005 at 4:34 pm
Always thought Millwall ahd the greatest t-shirts. If you don’t consider how they got their reputation, that is.
I agree, though. I LOVE being the odd one out and the outsider.
March 22nd, 2005 at 4:44 pm
Lauren can play his heart and every other organ out, but it still doesn’t change the fact he goes through terrible spells during a season and no one has any idea when its going to happen. he just falls apart, without warning, for a period of 6 or 8 games. he then bucks his ideas up, like he’s doing know. gotta go.
ill reserve judgement on cole. just need to know more about general situation. would wenger really defend ‘young ashley’ if cole was such a bad guy? i doubt it.
sol campbell to go? are you being serious or having a laugh? (real question) he and senderos have makings of a defence of alcatrazian(?) proportions.
March 22nd, 2005 at 5:06 pm
That’s absurd. So you’re saying that Wiltord deliberately fluffed a penalty in a cup match? Surely all that would do is heap pressure on the young players to make up for his mistake.
Besides the fact it would be totally unprofessional, he is paid to score goals, not deliberately miss them.
March 22nd, 2005 at 5:11 pm
I’m glad he’s gone, never rated him at all. He had no pace and was incapable of beating defenders one on one. Because he knew this, he would be countlessly caught offside because he was always trying to gain that extra advantage.Otherwise, nearly all his passes went sideways because he had nowhere else to go.
And if you look at his goals, most of them were against the smaller clubs. I didn’t like his attitute towards the end either, I remember a Carling Cup game where he played with Kanu, who worked his arse off, but Wiltord was extremely lazy and obviously couldn’t care less, which didn’t set a very good example to the other kids on the pitch. He would have done nothing had he stayed.
March 22nd, 2005 at 6:28 pm
One thing I’m sure - had Wiltord stayed, anything went wrong this season, he would be among the “usual suspects” for being made as the scapegoats.
Fans aren’t that loyal to our own players these days.
Personally, I like Wiltord. He’s a team player, he may not have caught the eyes with some brilliant individual plays, but his link up play with teammates Henry, Pires, Bergkamp, Ljungberg the likes made our attack flow smooth and fluent. We miss him on this aspect in particular. And he’s a hard working professional, despite being asked to play out of the postion throughout his years with us, he always went out and did his job. And may had complained about it, yet the important thing is - he DID his job professionally on the pitch, that’s what it matter.
March 22nd, 2005 at 7:21 pm
Why shouldn’t he do his job professionally? 99% of players do. The fact is, he wasn’t good enough, everyone knew it, so he was got rid of.
Just because he scores 3 in a 7-2 thrashing against an awful Werder Bremen team, people seem to assume he would be bagging hatricks for Arsenal against Bayern Munich. Well quite simply, he wouldn’t.
March 22nd, 2005 at 9:17 pm
Wiltord?! Good riddance. Lazy. Slow to track back. Always getting caught offside. Seldom beats his marker. Gives the ball away cheaply. OK so he scored the odd goal but give me Kanu anyday. Kanu was entertaining. U can expect him to try the unexpected. And u don’t hear him sulking when things do not go his way. Wenger obviously know something which most of us here do not when he released Wiltord. Let see how long his honeymoon with Lyons last.
March 23rd, 2005 at 4:27 am
No, Wenger was totally right to let him go.
Andy Cole was excellent for ManUtd, does that mean Arsenal should have kept him?
Vieira and Henry were nobody’s before Wenger got hold of them, so does that mean their clubs were wrong to let them go to Arsenal? Of course not.
It’s a case of “horses for courses”.
And remember…Cygan was player/defender of the year in France just before we got him.
March 23rd, 2005 at 6:05 am
Wiltord and Parlour both should have stayed they were good squad players and better than ljungberg on the right. Our midfield has been very weak this season and has exposed the defence. Although we would never win the champions league with the likes of Parlour and Wiltord it has meant we are lying in third place.
March 23rd, 2005 at 12:47 pm
There is no way either Wiltord or Parlour should have stayed. Ok, Parlour was Arsenal through and through and in that respect it was very sad to see him go, but in Flamini we have a younger and far superior player. Flamini is excellent, gets about MORE than Parlour, it technically better and is young. Keeping Parlour would have meant not signing Flamini and that would have not been worth it. As for Wiltord, I guess being in America you didnt see him play too much. He is a player without a footballing brain. Arsenal played too quickly for him. He was offside more than anyone I can remember, he didnt know what to do with the final ball, and his finishing was not of the standard you would expect at Arsenal. Yes, he has a champions league hatrick this season, but Dado Prso was last seasons top scorer and he has hardly set Scotland alight. Wiltord was demanding huge wages, he once even refused to play for Arsenal at the end of a season and quite rightly he was let go. He wasnt good enough for Arsenal and wasnt clever enough for the way we attack.
March 23rd, 2005 at 1:48 pm
I don’t think Lauren is the best at his position in the world, but I do think he is a very solid right back. If he has a “bad spell” then… play Hoyte, play Ebuoe. Every player has a bad spell. I don’t see Lauren as our major problem.
Cole. HAS TO GO, in my opinion. His actions caused immeasurable harm to the team. He met with the enemy DURING the season, a few days before our biggest match (at the time) of the year. No excuse. Let the team down. Let the other players down. No turning back. SELL HIM.
SOL. Half Joking. Half not.
He is injured far too much. How old is he. We are coping very well recently without him. Maybe we don’t really need him. Take his money and Cole’s, add in the supposed “war chest” that Arsene has for Summer spending, and we could potentially buy anybody we want.
I did say it in jest. Then we’d have no starting Brits and the world would be in a uproar.
March 23rd, 2005 at 3:33 pm
I don’t assume anything with my comments of Lyon’s victory over Bremen. Wiltord had a good game. It takes a team to win - if your a striker and you don’t get service your shite out of luck. Lyon’s team looked great in that game. There was another 4 goals on top of Wiltords 3. Some beautiful set-piece work by Juninho (sp?). I’m certainly not crying over Munich and I don’t know the outcome if Wiltord was on the squad - it’s mere speculation.
March 23rd, 2005 at 8:07 pm
If you have seen ANY of the matches Lyon has played in the Ligue1, you’d see that he has played well all year.
He wasn’t good enough for who? Lyon is possibly better than Arsenal. They’re in the final 8 again. We are watching again.
Lyon should be trying to poach our players. Maybe we have some more bargains for them.
Don’t agree that Wiltord wasn’t good enough. He was scapegoated. He was a gritty tough player who you can’t knock off the ball. Unlike many of our strikers who wilt (no pun intended) at physical contact.
March 23rd, 2005 at 8:10 pm
I don’t agree that Wiltord wasn’t good enough. The wages had alot to do with it.
But Parlour and Wiltord brought and intangible grit, determination and toughness that the “kids” don’t have. It can’t be taught.
I’d still rather have Freddie than either of them.