OFFICIAL: FC Cologne & Lukas Podolski confirm striker will join Arsenal

Love Podolski already.

Sina wrote:lets just enjoy this signing Bleep other rumours

Anyone know what he is saying there?

getdarker wrote:

Sina wrote:lets just enjoy this signing Bleep other rumours

Anyone know what he is saying there?

"i am happy to be a gunner"

watch this video

http://player.arsenal.com/adverts/video/lightbox?videoid=2113

DAT CHEST PUMP


I need to watch that with volume later.

Seems to have the right mindset:
http://www.goal.com/en/news/9/england/2012/05/15/3103976/podolski-i-can-be-arsenals-utility-man

Legend wrote:

getdarker wrote:

Sina wrote:lets just enjoy this signing Bleep other rumours

Anyone know what he is saying there?

"i am happy to be a gunner"

watch this video

http://player.arsenal.com/adverts/video/lightbox?videoid=2113

Dude looks really excited to be on Arsenal in the vid. Good to see.

Results of his photo shoot: http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/lukas-podolski

You guys should give Podolski the #10 shirt.

if RVP leaves, then i agree

With all due respect to you Arsenal fans, even if RVP stays, i would give Poldi the 10, and the captaincy to someone like Walcott or Sagna. RVP is a great player, but hes shown that he wants to leave. It just so happens that no one offerred enough for him, so he couldnt. He obviously will leave whenever given the chance though.

juventus101 wrote:With all due respect to you Arsenal fans, even if RVP stays, i would give Poldi the 10, and the captaincy to someone like Walcott or Sagna. RVP is a great player, but hes shown that he wants to leave. It just so happens that no one offerred enough for him, so he couldnt. He obviously will leave whenever given the chance though.

This is not FM dude, you can't just strip off jersey number from player under contract w/o his agreement, no matter how much of a douchebag he is.

To give a number to someone else? Theres plenty of number changes all the time.

juventus101 wrote:To give a number to someone else? Theres plenty of number changes all the time.

And they're are done with consent from the players, like Thiago agreed to give Fabregas number 4; or in Serie A, player's are allowed to auction numbers.

Besides, it is just a number, at the end of the day. Podolski wearing no. 10 wouldn't be significant in any way, and by no means does it denote a player as particularly special. There's no reason why we need to take the number away from van Persie. It's not like we decided Gallas needed to wear a different number after he was stripped of the captaincy.

Give captaincy to Walcott

Sorry for bumping this thread but couldn't find another Podolski thread here. So I thought Wenger's recently comments about Podolski playing centrally will bring on some discussions here:

Wenger wrote:“I think Podolski will play more central for us”, Wenger admitted while talking to Tsinghua University students in China on Thursday.

“Giroud is a different target man who would be more the player in a 442, knocks the ball down, protects well the ball, makes play for his partners, and a very intelligent player who has great physique, as well as very strong in the air.”

442 hint with Podolski and Giroud upfront?

Doesn't make sense

we have Arteta, Diaby, Wilshere, Possibly Cazorla, Ramsey, Coquelin all suited to CM/CAM/DM

and there are 2 spots with Arteta/Wilshere securing one 100%. How will it work out ?

Unless it's 4-3-1-2

RealGunner wrote:Doesn't make sense

we have Arteta, Diaby, Wilshere, Possibly Cazorla, Ramsey, Coquelin all suited to CM/CAM/DM

and there are 2 spots with Arteta/Wilshere securing one 100%. How will it work out ?

Unless it's 4-3-1-2

This is the way I see it if we play in a 4-4-2 formation but knowing Wenger it's never as simple as 4-4-2 or 4-3-3, he'll tweak it to complement the players he chooses.


Walcott----Song----Arteta----Ox/Gervinho
----------Giroud-------Podolski

that looks solid, i would go for that. We can use theo instead of podolski at times and oxlade instead of Cazorla

Actually this could explain why Gervinho's being tested centrally in pre-season

And with this it looks also set defensively and we don't even need a DM with another CM added to the midfield. There's still Walcott, Diaby, Gervinho, Ox, Diaby, Coquelin, Rosicky and Ramsey all coming from the bench. Sagna and Gibbs would create width... everything matches just fine. Wenger has a plan

maybe it's 4-3-2-1 with front 3 all being strikers

4-4-2 wouldn't make sense, as said. For starters, that leaves us with three strikers - Podolski, Giroud and Chamakh - and Wenger would certainly want four, maybe even five, in a squad if he were to play two at a time. Yet, we haven't been in the market for more strikers, and are content to let every striker at the club, bar the two new ones, leave (including Afobe on loan). Walcott and Gervinho wouldn't count as they'd be filling in the wide positions.

Secondly, we've too many midfielders. Song and Arteta would be first choice, logically, but Wenger has been quite vocal on his delight that Diaby is fit again, and obviously there's Wilshere, too. Wenger clearly intends to use Diaby a lot, and it's highly doubtful he'd drop one of Song or Arteta to do it.

This, of course, is without considering Coquelin, Ramsey and Rosicky. Even if you discount the injury proneness of the latter, the first two are very promising talents who Wenger isn't going to deny a chance of first team action.

If he wants to play with two strikers, than 4-3-1-2 would be much more likely. There are still three midfielders, so we can use Song, Coquelin, Arteta, Wilshere, Ramsey, Diaby and Chamberlain in there. Then, we could use Cazorla, if he comes, Rosicky and Chamberlain as the "1". Podolski and Giroud would be the strike partnership, with Walcott and Gerivnho (who's been used centrally in training and at the Leibherr Cup) as backups/rotation.

It's also interesting that Wenger has talked about defensive midfielders and box-to-box midfielders recently; two important roles in a 4-3-1-2.

It works out pretty well, but I can't see it happening. Wenger has always liked his width, and narrow formations aren't really suited to a league so focused on wing play, the logical weakness of the 4-3-1-2.

It's possible that Wenger just hasn't decided who he'll use down the middle and we're just reading too much into his comments. In any case, I suppose we'll find out more when we play Cologne. At the moment, we are still playing 4-3-3. If we were to change formation, we surely would have done so by now.

Jay summed it up nicely.

4-3-1-2 would work in Serie A maybe, not in PL.

Theo and Gervinho can both play SS, as can Poldi. Giroud and Chamakh in center makes it the 5 you want. Ramsey can provide another rotation here.
1 can be Rosicky, Wilshere, Ramsey, Diaby, Ox and also Arteta. Versatile players make that possibe.
3 would be effectively DM + DLP/B2B. Frimpong/Coquelin/Song + Song/Arteta/Ramsey/Wilshere/Diaby/<Rosicky>

Wenger will not switch from 4-2-3-1 just yet. The above would work in FM or FIFA, but we'd severly depreciate our chance creation and scoring in a bid to reduce that 49 conceded goals.