I think Theo will deliver a lot of goals and assists this season. But when he starts the team probably needs more balance on the other side with a more creative player with vision.

Nela wrote:

I think Theo will deliver a lot of goals and assists this season. But when he starts the team probably needs more balance on the other side with a more creative player with vision.

Agree with that assessment.

no player owes the club or the supporters anything. you think we developed song's talents (or waited van persie to get healthy) out of altruism? our management has shown that winning the league is not a priority - if a player gets to the point where we can't match his ambition and better clubs want his services, then that's just inevitable events unfolding.

lets be clear, even when the likes of pires lost his legs or when henry's age and sciatica took away his dynamism or when freddie lost his pace, the fans had no problem calling for them to be replaced because they were "past it" or "rubbish". they owe us nothing, and we deserve nothing from them.

all we can ask is that they give what they can while they're here.

I don't have any problems at all with Song leaving. Professional job on the pitch and always worked hard.

Good luck Alex!

kamikaze wrote:

no player owes the club or the supporters anything.

That's bullshit. As long as the club pays them they owe it to us to act professional and get the fuck on with it. They don't owe us their careers but they have a legal and moral obligation to do their fucking job. Refusing to play unless you're sold and making yourself impossible to be around in training is the opposite of fulfilling that obligation.

Klaus wrote:

That's bullshit. As long as the club pays them they owe it to us to act professional and get the fuck on with it. They don't owe us their careers but they have a legal and moral obligation to do their fucking job.

it's a contract. if he refuses to play, we can just not pay him for lack of performance. barca is now paying us a nice chunk of change to terminate song's contract. it's the same thing with our commercial contracts - i don't know why we don't just breach them, maybe we agreed to a ridiculous termination fee or something.

the practical reality is that signing a player to a 5 yr contract doesnt guarantee we'll have that player for 5 yrs. it just protects his transfer value if he decides he wants to go somewhere else.

Personally I don't see any obvious candidates for a transfer saga next summer. Obviously Theo is yet to sign his contract, so we'll have to see on that one. Most of the transfers of first team players in the last few summers we've all seen coming a mile off, mainly through players obviously having their heads turned, or contract situations. Don't see anyone in that boat right now.

vermaelen or koscielny. wilshere a year or two after that.

Wilshere hasn't played a game for 14 months, so that's clearly nonsense. You havn't got a clue what will happen with him.

Kos and Vermaelen? Nah, their situations are nothing like the players who have left in recent seasons. Don't see it as long as we qualify for CL. Sounds like idle scare mongering to me.

Can't say I'm all that bothered he has gone. He won't get into their midfield but I think he will be a good CB for them.

If it is true that he has been a bad influence this summer and in recent months then we didn't really have much of a choice. You can't just keep a player if he is being a disruptive influence on the whole squad. I think around £17mill was the right fee for him but I think the Barca fee is being quoted without add-ons but I'm not sure.

I did like him as a player but the guy was a liability for us defensively, yes he attacked well at times but apart from that his all round game was lacking and very average. Arteta imo carried him for most of that season, just see what happened to him when Arteta got injured last season.

what situation? i'm sure it's evident by now that the club doesn't have much say in the matter. they're both quality CB's with excellent mobility who are good on the ball. if barca wants one of them, and they fancy life on the spanish riviera playing for the best team in the world, then we will end up selling. puyol's old, which leaves pique, mascherano and song.

how am i scaremongering? create a list of the best arsenal players of the last 7 yrs and then cross off the ones we've sold. verm and kos are the best players we have left. unless we change club management, then once wilshere gets to the point where he can reasonably ask for superstar wages, we'll probably lose him too (you're right, this is assuming he gets back to normal). chamberlain would follow soon afterward.

Just seen Wengers post match comments on Song. Think that pretty much confirms, without explicitly stating, that there had been some sort problem with Song.

The players we've lost in recent seasons have either had leverage on the club with their contracts running down or extremely succesful and rich clubs chasing them incessantly, usually for a year or more.

Kos and Vermaelen on the other hand have both just signed long new deals and have never been seriously linked with a move. They're not superstars being chased by all the big clubs. Football is unpredictable, but there is no tangible reason to expect either to leave.

No one wants to leave a winning club.

Klaus and Timbo are right.

But they had both won everything that matters at United and then went to clubs that went onto win something that matters.