Well .. Sol Campbell is off to Turkey or Portsmouth or somewhere and while a part of me is sad that Sol chose to leave us I do believe Wenger let him go because he no longer had the one attribute Arsenal must have if Wenger manages them…Speed. Look at it…every player in Arsenal..barring Jens is very very quick . Okay Sendy isn’t but he has other great qualities like leadership in him. Sol has lost that extra speed over the last 2 years and has to rely on his brain rather than trust his legs. So Wenger said he could leave if he wanted to. The wage bill comes down bigtime as Sol was on a reported 80,000 a week.
What worries me though is that now that Sol is gone we’ve lost yet another of the old guns. That makes it Bobby , Bergie and Sol all in 1 season. So all we have left in terms of experience are Titi , Lauren(no longer first choice) and Ash(who may still leave) which is very very scary. I’m sure AW knows what he’s doing , he always does and I’m sure the kids he’s bought have it in them to be big , bigger than the unbeaten invincibles
but how much time will it take? Will we be able to challenge on all 4 fronts with just the great kids? Looking at the CL and the final stretch at the EPL last season , I’d say Yes but its still tough on the kids to do it for 50+ games without any experience to back them.
Do we buy Thuram or Cannavaro or Stam or some aged warhorse or do we just trust Wenger .. I’d say trust Wenger to bring in the right person..if its Curtis Davies because he’s got something that Sol had or hadn’t so be it. If its Thuram or Kompany or some 35+ guy to groom the kids so be it. Wenger knows best.
The only experienced player we cannot afford to lose for another 7-10 years at least is Arsene Wenger.
Your thoughts???
9 Responses to “Experience sacrificed for youth??”
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July 25th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
I think that young guy Ljungberg has been around for awhile & Jens is 36 so I think he’s experienced as is Gilberto.
So I think the experience thing is overplayed by some here who want to concentrate on the high-profile players or the players that have been here the longest. But that idea dismisses experience gleaned from elsewhere in my opinion.
July 25th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Losing Sol is not the big problem, the problem is losing a CB that was thought to be good enough … Also the scary thing that we all thought that Sendy can surely take his job, but he is not as good … we lost also an Englishmen …
With Sol leaving, we lost an expereinced CB, lost and English men but saved some buck for his salary. We might see Cygan more oftern (Oh god noooo).
The move here : BUY an expereinced well known CB … Or a very high profile young (21 -23 years old) CB …i.e. Davis …
July 25th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Thuram has already joined Barcelona so he will not be coming in. Although I trust Wenger completely, I would like to see the arrival of Appiah, who not only is experianced, but also displayed grit in his performances for Ghana, something which we can often be missing.
July 25th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
I too think the experience card is being a little overexaggerated right now. The need of a new cb is obvious. Does Trablesi play cb as well as full back? He was being linked with us for a while (skysports said we had offered him a contract). I heard “Pool were interested in him, too and then I heard nothing…
Speaking of Appiah didn’t he state a desire to come to us? Since he could be cover for Gilberto, why haven’t we signed him? Cover at the dm position is definitely needed.
I think if we brought in Davies, Trablesi and Appiah, we would be fine. Also, Juan Pablo Sorin. With the apparrent eminent sale of Ash, why not replace him with someone like Sorin?
July 25th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
Just read that we are entitled to 25% of any transfer paid for Jermaine Pennant. Are we brilliant or what? Here’s to hoping Liverpool buy the drink-driving twerp so we can cash in on him again.
July 25th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
That might just net us the taxi fair which he should of paid to get home that night.
July 26th, 2006 at 7:39 am
I just don’t understand the demand for signings. Yes, we need a centre-half following Sol Campbell’s departure. Some have suggested we sign a centre-half who did very well for one of the relegated teams - even at a cost of ?10m. Well, we have one of them already - Justin Hoyte! Why pay ?10m for Davies when we have Hoyte with approximately the same amount of experience!!! Unless Wenger has decided that Hoyte is not up to it or cannot play centre-half (he was used at full-back by Sunderland and in pre-season by us), we have a young English centre-half to step into Campbell’s shoes. Behind him, we have Connolly who did well in the reserves last season. If you forget about injuries for a minute, we have planty of experienced defenders now - Eboue, Lauren, Toure, Djourou, Senderos, Cygan, Cole, Clichy and Hoyte. Add in Connolly, Traore and Garry as promising youngsters. Sure, if Cole leaves, we need someone in the short term. A Gallas type, experienced and who could play at left-back and centre-half would be ideal.
Further forward, in midfield we have Fabregas, Gilberto, Diaby, Flamini, Song, Reyes, Ljungberg, Hleb, Rosicky and Walcott. Up front there is Henry, Adebayor, Van Persie, Aliadiere, Lupoli and Bendtner. Once you add in the three goalkeepers you have 31 players listed in this post, nearly enough for three teams. You only need about 25 to fight in all three major competitions so I don’t think there is a need for lots of signings.
One or two top quality players with experience would be nice but is not essential. We could have a great season without signing anyone else. However, replacements for anyone else who leaves would appear to be essential.
July 26th, 2006 at 9:53 am
some would say when the chips are down you need an experienced head to steady the ship.
If youth are picked and play and win, then there will be no problem, but if they lose, an experienced head needs to put in a performance to inspire the younger players.
I personally dont want to finish 4th again this year.
Liverpool are looking strong as are Chelsea and I hope we have the squad to grind out the results to lift the EPL.
In England we are 7/1 to win the league. That is like a 12 point gap between us and Chelsea.
Win the big games against, Man U and Chelsea and we will be closer to the title.
July 26th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
I see where your coming from and i agree to an extent but i do feel that we ought to be strengthening our squad with big strong powerfull players 1 in defence and 1 in midfield up front should be ok, I have often thought of …. even before the world cup but definately since that Yaya Toure is the man for midfield he was exceptional and I do feel AW can get him and he wants to paly for us but AW is draggin his heels and if he dosent hurry up he’s gonna miss out, as for defence Curtis Davies is gonna be too expensive and AW wont be held to ransom so he will go elsewhere im sure no one really springs to mind to be honest so maybe you have a thought or two on that?