Arsenal Lobby

Two yellow cards in the space of 6 minutes

Lex wrote:Two yellow cards in the space of 6 minutes

Legend

Boscielny was sent off on his debut as well
dont write him off

It gets worse. Just watched the Football League show, precisely 10 seconds before his first yellow, he was given a verbal warning from the referee

There were also two other red cards in that game, so it's not just Frimmer's fault

Frimpong is clearly a moron, a shame because he's actually a good player.

Koscielny on Canal Plus : "I've bet I will score the winning goal for the title, because I'v scored crucial goals last seasons" *smile*
Amen

Mark Clattenburg has been appointed referee for Arsenal v Man Utd on Feb 12. Arsenal won 13, Draw 1 and lose 1 when Clattenburg officiates.
  

He is pretty good.

"It [the statistic] sounds not real to me," Mertesacker told the club's official website.

"When I first heard it, it sounded very weird. It's a good statistic but we have to build on that.

"I think we have shown a lot of people who criticised us a lot over the last two and a half years that we know each other much better now.

"We complement each other well, so it looks like that's a good partnership.

"I've played with many good centre backs with different qualities.

"But Laurent, he's one of the quickest players I've ever played with, one of the most mobile players, and he anticipates well a lot of balls so he has real strengths to be a good partner.

"For me it's easy to play alongside him. We both take advantages from each other so that is the main key I think."

What an absolute monster

http://vimeo.com/48900778

Källström replaces Ryo in Arsenal's Champions League knock-out stages squad: http://uefa.to/1c0dnDX

John Terry visits ILC for disabled people. Boy in this picture is an Arsenal fan, when Terry greeted him he typed "We are top."

LAD.

Zlatan on Vieira

Samuelj29060 wrote:Källström replaces Ryo in Arsenal's Champions League knock-out stages squad: http://uefa.to/1c0dnDX

Ryo never had a Chance at Arsenal, with all injuries.

MJGunner wrote:John Terry visits ILC for disabled people. Boy in this picture is an Arsenal fan, when Terry greeted him he typed "We are top."

LAD.

   

Raptors sig

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Dennis Bergkamp on the art of lobbing the keeper

Kroenke reportedly looking into creating a new MLS club called "LA Gunners", that will supposedly be based off Arsenal and would be a partnered/sister club:

http://metro.co.uk/2014/02/05/arsenal-owner-stan-kroenke-to-create-american-sister-team-called-la-gunners-4291277/

Slightly dubious source citing another dubious source, but an interesting idea.

Nice

Arsenal's Premier League record at Anfield under Arsène Wenger:

P16 W5 D5 L6 F20 A29

#AFC won 3 of last 4 visits to #LFC.

Preview online soon.

Kieran Gibbs: 'Lukas Podolski is the Arsenal joker'
"Lukas Podolski is always at the centre of some craic that is going on," The Express quotes Gibbs as saying. "He is the biggest joker by far.

"He has just got something on everyone – a gimmick on every little thing. He is a great person to have in the squad. Anyone who has done something in training, anyone who speaks funny. He's always playing around."

http://www.arsenal.com/assets/_files/scaled/416x310/feb_14/zp_467309467_SM_0591_3A_1E9FCC_5327.jpg

what kinda magic Giroud is doing here
why everyone in the awe

https://24.media.tumblr.com/f39422edcf341a5b7d74169019963f58/tumblr_n0mnuwMYBi1s87ddmo1_500.jpg

Loving this one as well

Arsene Wenger admits Bacary Sagna could leave Arsenal for nothing at the end of the season

Arsene Wenger last night admitted Bacary Sagna could walk away at the end of the season.

Sagna, who turns 31 next week , will reach a career milestone at Liverpool with his 200th Premier League appearance – and it could be one of his last.

Gunners right-back Sagna's current deal expires at the end of the season and there is no end in sight to the stand-off involving one of Arsenal's most important players.

Sagna has been offered a new two-year deal on around £70,000-a-week but wants three years and a bigger pay deal. Wenger has even bent his own club rules to offer a 30-something more than a one-year extension.

Galatasaray, Monaco, Paris Saint Germain and several Middle East clubs want to sign him on a free contract this summer.

Wenger has been very bullish about Sagna staying and says he “expects” the right-back will stay but admits that it is a growing concern during Arsenal's title run-in.

“When I say I expect, it's more that I want (him to stay),” said Wenger. “I hope that in the end I am right. We are not close at the moment.

“He wants to keep his options open, because he is at the end of a contract. It is an important contract for him. He is 31 years old. I can understand.

“Because he is a defender we are ready to give him more than one year.

“I’m not alright with that (Sagna keeping his options open) because I would like him to sign just now but I have to accept it. It is his freedom - the decision belongs to him.

“We are always in negotiations with him and we try always to be fair with him. I believe his future is here and any other decision would be wrong.”


Sagna has been one of the best right-backs of the Premier League era but two broken legs in the past couple of seasons have taken their toll.

It is understood that concerns about Sagna's injuries are playing a part in negotiations.

Arsenal only recently decided to bend their rules on players who are over 30 and his form this season has been outstanding as Sagna has played a major part in their title charge.

Wenger paid a glowing tribute to Sagna and urged him to commit to a new contract and finish his career at Arsenal.

The Arsenal boss added: “He’s fantastic, not only a great player but a fantastic attitude.

“You know when you start the game that Bacary Sagna will give you 100 per cent commitment and no matter where you play, against whom you play, he will just commit 100 per cent.

“That is a fantastic guarantee. I believe that his future is here and any other decision would be wrong.

“He can cover in central defence and in the future he will play more central than on the flank.”



Mirror
_________________

Sagna pls stay

Nice interview with Per Mertesacker in the Guardian:

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http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/feb/07/per-mertesacker-luis-suarez-arsenal

Per Mertesacker is lecturing and he is eminently qualified to do so. The subject matter is history and psychology, through the prism of Germany's habit of beating England in international football matches and Arsenal's big, friendly centre-half from Hannover is on a roll.

"You respect us for our footballing past but what happens when you play against us is that it's always the same," Mertesacker says. "All of our young players in Germany, they don't even know what happened previously but in England, especially the newspapers, they remind us how well we did or how frightening we are or how we always win no matter what happens and that makes us even stronger.

"We would normally have forgotten but you always remind us. I think it would be better for the English people if they think that it's now a different German generation and you just try to beat us or maybe try to copy us. You'd have better karma."

Germans, eh? Mertesacker does not even mention the Wembley friendly between the nations from last November, when he headed his country's winner – a personal high in a season of stellar levels. The 29-year-old has great expectations for the World Cup finals in the summer.

But before that, Mertesacker is consumed by another well-worn narrative and it is one that he is determined to rework. Arsenal have not won a trophy since 2005 and, although they sit two points clear at the top of the Premier League with 14 matches to play, nagging doubts remain about their durability. They have form for implosion.

"Nobody knows how to treat us at the moment," Mertesacker says, and he is probably right.

Arsenal have had their season charted by potential crash points, when the tailspin was supposed to happen and Mertesacker describes the one that is now upon them as the "proper test". They visit Liverpool on Saturday lunchtime before they play Manchester United (also a league match); Liverpool in the FA Cup and Bayern Munich in the Champions League. The games come in the space of 11 days.

"There are a lot of mental tests," Mertesacker says. "How good are we when we maybe get another setback? Are we able to come back in the way that we have always come back this season?"

Mertesacker chooses his words carefully but it is clear that he thinks there is something different about the Arsenal of this season, something hardier and capable of taking a surer route. "That's what I try to explain, although it's really hard because we haven't proved anything yet," Mertesacker says.

He talks of the depth to the squad, how he draws "strength" from the sight of players stepping in for injured team-mates to make the difference, as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, for example, did with his two goals against Crystal Palace last Sunday.

Above all, though, he advances the sense of precision and successful fine-tuning, from the club's record signing of Mesut Özil last September to the work of the assistant manager, Steve Bould, on the defensive drills in training. With Mertesacker's partnership with Laurent Koscielny to the fore, Arsenal have been miserly at the back this season.

"Steve likes to work with us, especially with the back four," Mertesacker says. "We are grateful for his influence, his tips and his little hints as to what we might do better in any situation. We've worked just on details and that's what it's about, that's what really pays off now. From the start, he tried to be an influence. He's a good addition on the coaching staff."

Özil, who Mertesacker played with at Werder Bremen, has been a mood-changer, even if he has been quiet at times. "To reach another level, you sometimes need the right addition to lift everybody, not just the players but the whole club and the whole public in between," Mertesacker says. "We didn't need five or six players late in the window, which is what Arsenal got when I arrived [in August 2011]. It is not easy to get everyone settled. We were a good squad and we didn't lose any players over the summer, which was the main part. But we needed that right addition and we can say that Özil was it."

Özil's signing followed the failed pursuit of the Liverpool striker Luis Suárez, whom Mertesacker will face at Anfield. "Suárez is like a cheeky boy, he looks like a cheeky boy who can really switch on and off how he wants to be, so that is really something," Mertesacker says. "When he is on the pitch, what is going on around him doesn't bother him.

"He is just a pure striker and that is what comes out after the transfer requests and him saying: 'It's better for me to leave because I want to play Champions League.' When we heard that Arsenal might be interested in him, obviously we were up for it and we thought, 'Yeah, he would fit in.' But after, we got Özil."

Mertesacker sports a pale yellow bruise to his left temple, the legacy of a stray elbow from the goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny on the training ground and the buffeting, whether physical or mental, has come to feel relentless.

Mertesacker says that he misses the winter break he enjoyed in Germany at Hannover and Werder while he admits that he struggles to sleep after matches, particularly those in the evenings. "After you have won a game, you can maybe smile for a minute and then you have to think: 'How can I recover as quickly as possible,'" Mertesacker adds.

Yet there is the competitor's relish for the challenges ahead and it is plain that Arsenal has got under his skin. He feels that he owes the manager, Arsène Wenger, for helping him through an error-strewn and injury-curtailed first season and he is ready to extend his contract beyond June 2015.

"The first year wasn't that successful but, after that, with how the manager dealt with the situation and helped me to come back even stronger … that is something very special so that's why my target is to extend my contract here," Mertesacker says. "We are in good progress with the negotiations. It's up to the manager, of course, but I am really up for it."

Mertesacker ticks the boxes for fan worship, being stylish, wholehearted and, in the words of an Arsenal fans' song, a big, *bleep* German. "It took me a long time to understand the song they sing about me, that it was not them trying to bully me," Mertesacker says. "People explained to me that it was more an expression of love."

Mertesacker is down-to-earth, as was evidenced by his decision to chose community rather than military service, after he signed his first professional contract at Hannover, and going to work for three hours each day at an institute for the mentally ill. "That kept my feet on the ground," he says.

Arsenal fans also delighted in his on-field berating of Özil following the 6-3 defeat at Manchester City last December; Özil had made straight for the dressing room, and not the travelling supporters. "We have to present ourselves as a unit, no matter what happens," says Mertesacker. "That is what Arsenal stands for.

"He was just angry, so was I and, sometimes, it's good to argue, to let your feelings out. It's nearly disappeared in football life because when something happens, players keep it inside and they are pissed over the next three weeks. That's not what I want to see with anybody. There can be a little battle but, afterwards, shake hands and forget about it. That is a culture I like."

Mertesacker's brother, Timo, has come to like the culture of English football and he likes it so much that he looks to coincide his visits from Germany with Arsenal away fixtures. He travels to them on fans' coaches.

"He loves to feel the atmosphere of the coach and the away fans," Mertesacker says. "It must be really strange for the fans as well because he looks like me. He's three years younger and three or four centimetres smaller. He might say, when he talks to the fans, 'There's my brother, he's playing today.' A few have gone mental. He just wants to improve his English, too."

Mertesacker is focused game-by-game but he cannot resist a peep at Bayern, who knocked Arsenal out of last season's Champions League en route to the trophy. Arsenal did win the second leg of the last-16 tie 2-0 in Munich but it was not enough to prevent the away-goals exit.

"Under Pep Guardiola this season, Bayern look even sharper and with more possession," Mertesacker says. "I thought that they were the best team in Europe last season and it would be really hard for them to improve but they've done it. They have the Barça style in their mind from four or five years ago, when they smashed everyone.

"But it's not a worry because we know that we can beat them. The key is the first leg at the Emirates. We had too much respect for them last time so it's up to us to create something special. Can we compete with these teams or not?"

Great interview. He really is a leader

Andrey Arshavin 2014:

Good old Arsha
actually those cool Q&A sessions on his website was being reviewed on my mind during watching this