afc Arsenal squad in Austria

[Drift]

yeah hes better but the problem would still remain. also he barely comes off his line to take pressure of defenders so we would be suffering (more than usual) from aerial balls, least almunia deals with some of them. we need an all rounder who can organise his defence like lehmann before he went mad.

[TF S4DK]

Its not just the goalkeeper that needs to be commanding and organising, the defenders should be able to organise themselves as a unit, as good as a season Gallas had, its bait Gallas didnt talk to man and it was a follow my lead ting...The mistakes in certain games I'd like to think Given would not have made too. Things like Birmingham & Man City away or Wigan & Blackburn away.

[anelka]

How has Henri Lansbury been doing?? heard he scored the 3rdFergie n that are talking up Cleverly, I thought Lansbury did well also at Watford, particularly in the 1st part of the season, from what I saw and have been told Cleverly was betta but not head & shoulders above him..Does he have a future?

[TF S4DK]

Yes, if Denilson is the benchmark.Long-term he's a Prem player but not an Arsenal player imo. So far all I see him do is run, never really puts a foot wrong but then he never does anything out of the norm.

[anelka]

On the GK situation Wenger has been f*ck*ng it up for yearsSeaman was kept for too longFailed with Manninger who had all the attributes to become a top keeper, but didnt work enough with himRichard Wright was ruined Then all the cheap quick fixes like Rammi Shabban, Stuart Taylor, Almunia & Fabianski = all not good enough

[TF S4DK]

On the GK situation Wenger has been f*ck*ng it up for yearsFailed with Manninger who had all the attributes to become a top keeper, but didnt work enough with himRichard Wright was ruined Then all the cheap quick fixes like Rammi Shabban, Stuart Taylor, Almunia & Fabianski = all not good enough

Manninger left Arsenal and has never become a top keeper. Again when did Wenger become this goalkeeper coach...Wright ruined himself. He made 22 appearances in one season at Arsenal, he was definitely given a chance, but when you start punching the ball into your own net...Stuart Taylor was from the youth team.

[TF S4DK]

[mp*]

smh at the last pic, come like hes trying to backhand it into his own net

[Michel Kane]

Showerpic.

[Taurus]

Lol @ Almunia

[Trilliam]

Lol @ Almunia

[darkman]

I dont particularly blame Wenger, he admits goalkeeping isn't his speciality and he refers to the advice of others. The best keeper he has had he inherited (Seaman). I think we all smart enough to know he didn't singlehandly identified and sign Sean McDermott or Damian Martinez last summer, nor did he Vito Mannone or Szczesny before that. They was recommend to him highly by our scouts, the price was cheap, they was young, he said okay, lets see how they work out when they get here in training and if the COACHES can aid him to fulfil their potential.I blame Wenger for not signing Shay Given. I blame him for putting his faith in a keeper he bought as a number 2 and who should have stayed a number 2.But then I look at it like this, what others keepers could he have got? There isn't a abundance of keepers available, nobody wants to sell a good goalkeeper and we aren't walking into other clubs and saying see your keeper we want him dont care what the price is, we are taking him, lot of you acting like we got no budgets or limits... Even Schwarzer, its a signing which won't please everyone and we probably will still questioning the goalkeeping position in a years time. So Wenger really is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

You dont blame Wenger for continuing to persist with a keeper thats CLEARLY not good enough. Who's fault is it then? Does he not manage the team?You don't need to be a keeper specialist to know they're not good enough, everybody can see it. Same way we can all notice a top class keeperNo coach in the world is gonna make a average keeper into a world class one. You either have it or you don'tHoward and Taibi weren't good enough for Man U so Fergie gave them the boot. You're saying he should have fired the keeper coach instead? lolYou're talking bollocks

[Fearless-Guy]

bet that still went in, smh

[TF S4DK]

You dont blame Wenger for continuing to persist with a keeper thats CLEARLY not good enough. Who's fault is it then? Does he not manage the team?You don't need to be a keeper specialist to know they're not good enough, everybody can see it. Same way we can all notice a top class keeperNo coach in the world is gonna make a average keeper into a world class one. You either have it or you don'tHoward and Taibi weren't good enough for Man U so Fergie gave them the boot. You're saying he should have fired the keeper coach instead? lolYou're talking bollocks

Blaming Wenger is as easy as praising him. Almunia is not good enough this we all know, but who else is there? Almunia took over as he was the cheap option as we had no p. Like I said Arsenal do not have the financial muscle to breakdown clubs and take their established quality keeper, so they have to stay playing lottery to find a quality keeper.Your chatting sh*t Gomes looked average for 6 months at Spurs under Ramos, then at times a top top keeper under Redknapp and a new goalkeeper coach.The situation is as simple as this...

Championship winning teams almost always have world class goalkeepers. Just look at the champions of the major European leagues. Inter Milan, Barcelona and Chelsea all boast stoppers who can make a genuine case for being the best in their position in their respective leagues.Arsenal fans may point to the unbeaten team of 2003-2004 (when Jens Lehmann played almost every game), but that was an exceptional squad with outstanding players in almost every other position.How many of the current crop would get into the starting line up for The Invincibles? Fabregas would be the only definite, with Robin Van Persie possibly troubling a 35 year old Dennis Bergkamp for his place. Besides, the closest competitors that season hardly had unbeatable keepers of their own – Fabien Barthez was clumsy and brilliant in equal measures, whilst Carlo Cudicini was probably the best the league had to offer.Since the season ended in May, Arsenal have been linked with everyone from Gianluigi Buffon to Shay Given. Even the addition of Joe Hart would be an improvement, but the past tells us that only a top tier goalkeeper would be enough to elevate the Gunners to genuine title contenders.The chances of Arsenal recruiting somebody of the quality of Petr Cech, Iker Casillas or Julio Cesar however are less than zero. So then you have to start looking at the next tier, and the likes of Sebastian Frey, Joe Hart and Hugo Lloris. Even then you are faced with obstacles.Lyon, due to their financial stability, are in no need to sell, whilst Manchester City would be daft to do business with one of their close rivals. Frey on the other hand looks likely to leave Fiorentina after the Italian club completed the signing of Artur Boruc from Celtic last week.It seems to be looking increasingly likely though that the “anyone but Almunia or Fabianski” brigade will have to settle for the man who conceded four against them on the final day of last season, Mark Schwarzer. Sceptics will point to the Australian’s age (he will turn 38 in October) as a reason to avoid him, but he is at least an improvement on what is already at the club, and he would also give the highly regarded Wojciech Szczesny another season to prepare himself for the demands of the Premier League.

Read more: http://soccerlens.com/the-curious-incident-of-the-frenchman-in-the-transfer-market/50776/#ixzz0uWtaTYEh

[darkman]

You dont blame Wenger for continuing to persist with a keeper thats CLEARLY not good enough. Who's fault is it then? Does he not manage the team?You don't need to be a keeper specialist to know they're not good enough, everybody can see it. Same way we can all notice a top class keeperNo coach in the world is gonna make a average keeper into a world class one. You either have it or you don'tHoward and Taibi weren't good enough for Man U so Fergie gave them the boot. You're saying he should have fired the keeper coach instead? lolYou're talking bollocks

Blaming Wenger is as easy as praising him. Almunia is not good enough this we all know, but who else is there? Almunia took over as he was the cheap option as we had no p. Like I said Arsenal do not have the financial muscle to breakdown clubs and take their established quality keeper, so they have to stay playing lottery to find a quality keeper.Your chatting sh*t Gomes looked average for 6 months at Spurs under Ramos, then at times a top top keeper under Redknapp and a new goalkeeper coach.The situation is as simple as this...

Championship winning teams almost always have world class goalkeepers. Just look at the champions of the major European leagues. Inter Milan, Barcelona and Chelsea all boast stoppers who can make a genuine case for being the best in their position in their respective leagues.Arsenal fans may point to the unbeaten team of 2003-2004 (when Jens Lehmann played almost every game), but that was an exceptional squad with outstanding players in almost every other position.How many of the current crop would get into the starting line up for The Invincibles? Fabregas would be the only definite, with Robin Van Persie possibly troubling a 35 year old Dennis Bergkamp for his place. Besides, the closest competitors that season hardly had unbeatable keepers of their own – Fabien Barthez was clumsy and brilliant in equal measures, whilst Carlo Cudicini was probably the best the league had to offer.Since the season ended in May, Arsenal have been linked with everyone from Gianluigi Buffon to Shay Given. Even the addition of Joe Hart would be an improvement, but the past tells us that only a top tier goalkeeper would be enough to elevate the Gunners to genuine title contenders.The chances of Arsenal recruiting somebody of the quality of Petr Cech, Iker Casillas or Julio Cesar however are less than zero. So then you have to start looking at the next tier, and the likes of Sebastian Frey, Joe Hart and Hugo Lloris. Even then you are faced with obstacles.Lyon, due to their financial stability, are in no need to sell, whilst Manchester City would be daft to do business with one of their close rivals. Frey on the other hand looks likely to leave Fiorentina after the Italian club completed the signing of Artur Boruc from Celtic last week.It seems to be looking increasingly likely though that the “anyone but Almunia or Fabianski” brigade will have to settle for the man who conceded four against them on the final day of last season, Mark Schwarzer. Sceptics will point to the Australian’s age (he will turn 38 in October) as a reason to avoid him, but he is at least an improvement on what is already at the club, and he would also give the highly regarded Wojciech Szczesny another season to prepare himself for the demands of the Premier League.

Read more: http://soccerlens.com/the-curious-incident-of-the-frenchman-in-the-transfer-market/50776/#ixzz0uWtaTYEh

So you think with a better coach Almunia would be a top class keeper?

[Seth Rollins]

No.But as someone touched on, to put it another way, David Dein is NOT at the club. Arsenal no longer put their arm around a player and say "Come and join the Arsenal mate", slap money on the table and leave the room. We send faxes with smiley faces and xoxo at the end and hope they say yes.This ain't FM. Anyone worth purchasing will cost BUCKS, and if Chesney is as good as everyone says, if we go and spend dough we might as well sell him now.I've learned, same as TF, that Wenger just simply isn't going to do certain things. Any GK worth buying is in the region of £15-£20mil. NOT HAPPENING.

[TF S4DK]

No, when did anyone say this? Almunia has got worse and thats why I look at the coaches, same way I feel like Fabainski has got worse. They've been given gametime and the confidence by Wenger to go out and play yet have got worse, Fabianski I could say has got found out and at times been very unlucky, but still he has got worse, hasnt pushed on in the slightest.Titus Bramble is never going to be World Class, but whenever he has been around Steve Bruce and his coaching staff, he looks a better player, not great but better, stop acting like coaching and confidence cant improve a player performances.Wenger looked around at keepers and saw 6-7 out of 10 keepers being sold for 10m+ and said I aint got 10m+ to spend on a keeper, looked at what he had which was Almunia, and said your a 5/10 keeper, if I and the staff work with you, if I give you confidence, you may improve and become a 6/10 keeper, maybe a 7/10 keeper in two years, its bait he says if your professional and you listen you can improve (hence why he still has faith in Denilson). He tried a ting, it didnt work, he knows it, we know it, and its no coincidence that as our financial situation improves, Wenger is moving players on without a care in the World. If our financial situation was the same as it was 2 years ago, Senderos and Silvestre would have got new contracts FACT. Like I said the Wenger that managed our club for years before the Emirates move was not tight at all, he bought f*ck*ng Francis Jeffers for 8m FFS, his stanced changed when he had no money. Look at Alex Ferguson now talking about no value in the market... Cos he got no f*ck*ng money.Anyway I'm strolling from the subject, Wenger is not alone in blame for the goalkeeper issue. If the club has no money, he works with what he's got or gets something cheap and tries to improve it. No money is the clubs fault, not Wenger's.If the club doesnt employ a chief executive to go out and aggresively make transfer deals happen, thats not Wenger's fault thats the clubs.If the coaching staff cant improve a player, thats the coaching staff fault.If the scouts recommend players of potential and they turn out to not have much potential thats the scouting staff fault.Granted Wenger bares the brunt as the manager, but lets not act like there aint a 50+ deep team of staff behind him.

[Tom]

Is Given being ousted at City to let Joe Hart in?

[TF S4DK]

No.But as someone touched on, to put it another way, David Dein is NOT at the club. Arsenal no longer put their arm around a player and say "Come and join the Arsenal mate", slap money on the table and leave the room. We send faxes with smiley faces and xoxo at the end and hope they say yes.This ain't FM. Anyone worth purchasing will cost BUCKS, and if Chesney is as good as everyone says, if we go and spend dough we might as well sell him now.I've learned, same as TF, that Wenger just simply isn't going to do certain things. Any GK worth buying is in the region of £15-£20mil. NOT HAPPENING.

This.

[TF S4DK]

Is Given being ousted at City to let Joe Hart in?

Only Mancini knows.

[darkman]

No.But as someone touched on, to put it another way, David Dein is NOT at the club. Arsenal no longer put their arm around a player and say "Come and join the Arsenal mate", slap money on the table and leave the room. We send faxes with smiley faces and xoxo at the end and hope they say yes.This ain't FM. Anyone worth purchasing will cost BUCKS, and if Chesney is as good as everyone says, if we go and spend dough we might as well sell him now.I've learned, same as TF, that Wenger just simply isn't going to do certain things. Any GK worth buying is in the region of £15-£20mil. NOT HAPPENING.

We've spent that amount on outfield players why not a keeper?Baffed why man is bringing David Dein into a keeper quality discussion thoughSending 'faxes with smiley faces' manged to sign Arshavin, Vermalaen didn't it?Scouts always get players wromg but thats when the manager has to come inI'm not saying coaching won't improve a player but if you're not good enough you're not good enoughYou're forgetting we signed Almunia when he was 26/27 not like he was a youngster. About potential

[TF S4DK]

Our transfer record is 15m, and even thats not outright. What top keeper can we get for 15-20m, name one obtainable target?Ajax aint got money and their fans feel we overpaid. Nobody was really after Vermaelen or Arshavin, if they had been faxes and smiley faces would have got us nowhere, and lets not forget Arshavin got on a plane of his own back, and flew here to make the move happen, we was still sending faxes nd exchanging pokes with their player sitting inside our stadium. Besides both we're signed after Gazidas arrival to replace Dein, which took nearly 2 years... Almunia took over after Dein left, Dein left cos he was trying to get Wenger more transfer funds as we had no money, so when he leaves we have no money and no real executive to go get players. How can you argue the effects has no meaning on why trash like Almunia has been given such a long run and then blame Wenger for it?!You think Wenger scouted Damian Martinez, Sean McDermott, Vito Mannone, or Szczesny?! The scouts came back having watched/tipped of about them and told him to act upon it, at best he watched their DVDs or got them over to train, found out the fee required (which was peanuts for Arsenal) and gave his approval to the deal.Its a f*ck*ng goalkeeper, not a box to box midfielder you mug, David James for example was probably better at 32 than 26. As he started to maximum the potential he had with experience.

[Seth Rollins]

No.But as someone touched on, to put it another way, David Dein is NOT at the club. Arsenal no longer put their arm around a player and say "Come and join the Arsenal mate", slap money on the table and leave the room. We send faxes with smiley faces and xoxo at the end and hope they say yes.This ain't FM. Anyone worth purchasing will cost BUCKS, and if Chesney is as good as everyone says, if we go and spend dough we might as well sell him now.I've learned, same as TF, that Wenger just simply isn't going to do certain things. Any GK worth buying is in the region of £15-£20mil. NOT HAPPENING.

We've spent that amount on outfield players why not a keeper?Baffed why man is bringing David Dein into a keeper quality discussion thoughSending 'faxes with smiley faces' manged to sign Arshavin, Vermalaen didn't it?Scouts always get players wromg but thats when the manager has to come inI'm not saying coaching won't improve a player but if you're not good enough you're not good enoughYou're forgetting we signed Almunia when he was 26/27 not like he was a youngster. About potential

I should have stopped reading after the first sentence but I just HAD to keep going.SMH @ this whole post.

[Francis Coquelin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJ-kVKIP9w

[darkman]

Our transfer record is 15m, and even thats not outright. What top keeper can we get for 15-20m, name one obtainable target?Ajax aint got money and their fans feel we overpaid. Nobody was really after Vermaelen or Arshavin, if they had been faxes and smiley faces would have got us nowhere, and lets not forget Arshavin got on a plane of his own back, and flew here to make the move happen, we was still sending faxes nd exchanging pokes with their player sitting inside our stadium. Besides both we're signed after Gazidas arrival to replace Dein, which took nearly 2 years... Almunia took over after Dein left, Dein left cos he was trying to get Wenger more transfer funds as we had no money, so when he leaves we have no money and no real executive to go get players. How can you argue the effects has no meaning on why trash like Almunia has been given such a long run and then blame Wenger for it?!You think Wenger scouted Damian Martinez, Sean McDermott, Vito Mannone, or Szczesny?! The scouts came back having watched/tipped of about them and told him to act upon it, at best he watched their DVDs or got them over to train, found out the fee required (which was peanuts for Arsenal) and gave his approval to the deal.Its a f*ck*ng goalkeeper, not a box to box midfielder you mug, David James for example was probably better at 32 than 26. As he started to maximum the potential he had with experience.

Like you mentioned before Shay Given. I think Cudicini is better than him tooWhere have I mentioned Wenger scouted any goalkeeper?Can't even be bothered with this discussion anymore. One minute Almunia is good enough but the coaches are sh*t the next your calling him trash. Make up your mind