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Arsenal News

A BETTER YEAR

The Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has said that he hopes that the New Year will be much better for the club. Arsene Wenger has seen his team go seventh seasons without lifting the trophy. Despite facing a lot of troubles in 2012, Arsenal finished the calendar year on a strong note after the 7-3 victory over Newcastle.

This was the fourth consecutive win for Arsenal in the league, which helped them move up to the fifth position just three points behind their arch rivals Tottenham. However, Arsenal do have a game in hand over their rivals.

Wenger has said that he hopes that the current run of form for the club will be continued in 2013 as well. Aside from the race for the fourth position, Arsenal also have the Champions league match against Bayern Munich to look forward as well.

This last 16 stage of the competition will see the Premier league club are pitted against the German giants, who finished as the runners up in the competition last time around. Arsenal recently managed to secure the future of their British talent like Jack Wilshere and Jenkinson. Wenger is also hoping to tie the 23-year-old winger Theo Walcott on a new contract as well.

“My hopes are that the win over Newcastle will give even more confidence, desire and ambition to our team, and that 2013 will confirm we are a great team. I like the fact Theo can play through the middle because it gives us more opportunities to do that and more possibilities to change from game to game. I will do it again,” said Arsene Wenger after the Newcastle match. Theo Walcott scored a stunning hat-trick in the match, which prompted calls for the club to offer him a new contract as soon as possible.

Arsenal News

WENGER WANTS ZAHA

The Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has for the first time publicly revealed that he is interested in signing the Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha in the January transfer window. He is expected to start with an opening bid of £ 9 million, although Crystal Palace are looking for a transfer fee in the region of £ 20 million for the 20-year-old. Wilfried Zaha has been thought to be the biggest thing to come from the Crystal Palace youth academy since the days of Ian Wright, who went on to play for Arsenal and become a legend for the club.

Arsene Wenger has not shied away from signing highly talented English talent in recent seasons, as he has brought the likes of Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey. Given the fact that the future of the 23-year-old winger Theo Walcott is in a major doubt, Wenger is already looking at other options. It has been thought for some time that Arsenal have made Wilfried Zaha the number one transfer target for the January transfer window, but Wenger has been reluctant to confirm publicly. However, with only a few weeks remaining before the opening of the transfer window, he has said that the Crystal Palace winger is someone who interests him a lot.

“We are looking at every player who could strengthen our squad – but he is not more on the list than anyone else. He has two-and-a-half years left – that’s quite a long time. We have built a team [where] we have a lot of young English players, or British players like Gibbs, Chamberlain, Wilshere. We still have the case of [Theo] Walcott, Aaron Ramsey,” said Wenger when asked about the possibility of signing Zaha in January. Arsenal are currently fighting to be in the top four spot by the end of the season.

Arsenal News

GUNNERS BEAT HAMMERS

Arsenal has defeated West Ham United in a Premier League match played at Boleyn Ground on Saturday. Arsenal won the match by 3-1. This was the third win for the Gunners in the ongoing Premier League. With this victory, Arsenal has moved up to no. 7 in the Premier League points table with 12 points in seven matches. On the other hand, after losing this match, West Ham has moved down to no. 8. West Ham has 11 points in 7 matches.

Arsenal was defeated by Chelsea in its previous Premier League match by 2-1.But, in this match, the Gunners were clinical in their approach. The coordination between them was wonderful.

The Arsenal players started well and showed attacking instincts right from the first minute. But, it was the West Ham team which took the lead in the 21st minute against the run of play. Mohammad Diame was the one who opened the scoring for West Ham by latching on the opportunity created by George McCartney. But, that was the only goal to be scored by the West Ham team in the match. After that, it was all about Arsenal.

The Gunners managed to equalize the scores in the 41st minute with the goal of Olivier Giroud. Podolski set up the goal and Giroud easily beat the West Ham goalkeeper. It was a flat shot by the Frenchman from a distance of six yards.
Arsenal got ahead in the 77th minute of the match when Theo Walcott found the back of the net. Giroud was the one who assisted the goal. His pass was perfectly placed and Walcott only had to get into a good position to strike the ball past West Ham goalkeeper and the experienced Englishman did exactly that.
Just a few minutes later, the score became 3-1 in the favour of Arsenal when Santi Cazorla put the ball into the top corner of the goal post with a brilliant left footed shot.

The West Ham team didn’t manage to level the scores in the remaining seven minutes and lost the match. Arsenal will take on Norwich City in its next match on 20th of October at the Carrow Road.

Arsenal News

WENGER UNHAPPY WITH JUVE

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has criticised the negotiations tactics of the Italian club are Juventus who were one of the favourites to secure the signature of the striker Robin van Persie.

The Italian champions were unable to match a fee with Arsenal for the striker. Arsenal ended up selling the player to Manchester United for £ 24 million, which is an extraordinary amount of business given that the player had only one season left on his deal. Juventus recently spoke about the disappointment of not being able to sign the player, but Wenger said that he was extremely disappointed with the offer given by Juventus.

Even though Arsene Wenger failed to disclose the exact amount offered by Juventus, his first appeared to indicate that the figure was in the region of £ 8 million.

However, Arsenal managed to sell the player for £ 24 million. Wenger has said that whenever Juventus players are linked with other clubs, they demand extraordinary transfer fees in the region of more than £ 50 million. However, there are not prepared to offer less than 10 percentage of that amount to other players for bringing into the club. As a result, they had themselves to blame for not securing Robin van Persie.

“Juventus can’t think about selling their players for €70 million and then buying new ones for a tenth of that amount. That would be too easy – it’s not possible in today’s football. Van Persie would have been a free agent in the summer of 2013 but we decided to sell only after Manchester United made a great offer,” said Arsene Wenger. His comments come after the Juventus Chief executive made comments that he felt that Robin van Persie was hugely expensive for the Italian club both in terms of wages and the transfer fees.

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Arsenal News

WHO WON THIS SUMMER?

The football transfer window always has winners and losers; some teams come out the other side with a lesser squad than when they went in, some overspend on questionable talent, and some fail to spend at all. This season Man United and Chelsea seem to be the big winners with Arsenal possibly squandering their chances of progression by selling Van Persie.

When Man United secured the signing of Van Persie, they not only got one of the Premier League’s best players, they deprived one of their nearest rivals of his services.

ALMUNIA LEAVES DISAPPOINTED

Former Arsenal goalkeeper Manuel Almunia has said that he is extremely disappointed to have left the club are without any major trophies to his name. The Spanish goalkeeper was recently released from his contract by the Premier league club.

He came extremely close to challenging for first-team spot after the departure of Jens Lehman. However, the impressive form of the current Arsenal goalkeeper has meant that Manuel Almunia did not get enough opportunities at the club to play alongside the likes of Cesc Fabregas, despite being the most experienced player. He has now left the club, but has expressed his disappointment that he was not able to win more trophies with his time at the club.

Manuel Almunia spent a long time on the bench as the understudy to the German international Lehman. After the departure of the German international a few seasons ago, Manuel Almunia was made the undisputed number one by the Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. However, he made numerous mistakes during his short tenure as the Arsenal number one, which related to Arsene Wenger losing his faith in the player. The manager subsequently decided not to extend his contract after it came to an end this season. The former Arsenal player, who has since signed for Championship club Watford, has spoken about his Arsenal days.

“As a player at Arsenal, it is hard to see the best players go to other clubs every year. They have missed a lot of great players in the last few years. The first year I came to England, I thought ‘Oh, I’m going to win a lot of things with Arsenal’ but the change then started. The club has been changing every year. One of these years, everything has to come together and be perfect, and now is the time for Arsenal. They’ve signed some good players this year, Santi Cazorla is fantastic,” Almunia said in a recent interview.

Arsenal News

RVP NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE

Arsenal are ready to tell striker Robin van Persie that he will not be granted permission to leave in the summer irrespective of the offer given by the interested clubs like Manchester city and Juventus. The 28-year-old is entering into the final year of his contract.

He has recently revealed on the official website that he would not like to sign a new contract with the club because he does not believe his ambitions do not synchronise with the ambitions that Arsenal have. It is a situation that is extremely similar to last season after Arsenal saw both Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas leave the club for Manchester city and Barcelona.

However, it is thought that manager Arsene Wenger has made it extremely clear for Robin van Persie that he should not be interested in hearing any offers for the 28-year-old Dutchman. After scoring 40 goals in all competitions for Arsenal last season, he is in high demand. Manchester city, though, will not bid more than £ 15 million to secure his signature. However, they are prepared to offer widgets of up to £ 200,000, which is something that Arsenal can never come close to. Juventus are also thought to be interested in the player.

Arsenal will be able to demand around £ 20 million for the striker given that he is in his final year of the contract. He was one of the main reasons for Arsenal finishing the third position last season. Another player entering into the final year of his contract is Theo Walcott, who has been linked with a move to either Chelsea or Liverpool. Even though Arshavin is also out of contract, Arsenal have made it a priority to sign both Walcott and Robin van Persie at the club. Wenger is thought to be extremely disappointed at the decision by van Persie.

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Arsenal News

SZCZESNY IMPRESSED AT TALENT

Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny has said that he is surprised at the amount of attacking talent in the Premier league at the moment, according to the Arsenal News website.

He has also claimed that the Premier league is the best league in the world because of the intense competition between the clubs. In the Spanish and German leagues, only to teams often dominate the division. In Italy, it is slightly better with the likes of Juventus, AC Milan, and Inter Milan challenging for the title. However, the Premier league has an intense competition starting from the top going right until the eighth position in the table.

Wojciech Szczesny believes that it is due to the plethora of attacking options that the Premier league clubs have at their disposal. Arsenal finished the season in the third position, but they faced a mighty challenge to do so. At one stage, it looked like they will be missing out on the Champions League football for the first time in 15 years. However, a strong end to the season meant that they were able to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League without any trouble. Arsenal striker Robin van Persie has been one of the influential reasons in Arsenal finishing in the third position because the Dutchman has scored more than 40 goals in all competitions.

“I think you just have to give credit to the attacking players in the Premier League – some of the players we have in this country are as good as there have ever been and that’s why you see teams scoring and conceding a lot of goals. I like to believe that football is becoming more of an attacking game and it’s good for the league. It’s so tight that everyone goes into a fixture believing they can win it, no matter who they’re facing,” Szczesny told the official website of Arsenal.

Arsenal News

WENGER SAD AT GUARDIOLA EXIT

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has said that he is extremely saddened by the exit of Guardiola as the Barcelona manager from the end of this season. Guardiola recently announced his decision to step down from the post after four years in charge during which time he has managed to convert Barcelona into the greatest team in the world. Arsene Wenger is a known admirer of the very Barcelona play their football. Wenger has not been ashamed of admitting that he has always tried to play the Barcelona way. Guardiola managed to win three league titles in a row in addition to the two Champions League titles as well.

Ahead of the match with Stoke city during the weekend, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said that he would have liked to see Guardiola continue his job at the Camp Nou. Guardiola will be going out after having seen Real Madrid claim the title from Barcelona’s hands, while the club were also knocked out from the Champions League by Chelsea. This meant that Barcelona were unable to become the first club in the history of the Champions League to win back-to-back titles. Wenger praised the philosophy of Guardiola by saying that it is the model for other clubs to follow.

“It comes as a surprise to me because first of all when you make a decision after a big disappointment like he has had in the past week, it may not be the right moment to make this decision. The philosophy of Barcelona has to be bigger than winning or losing a championship. Guardiola is one of the representatives of this philosophy and made this philosophy triumph so I would have loved him, even going through a disappointing year, to stay and come back and insist with his philosophy,” said Wenger regarding Guardiola’s decision to step down as Barcelona manager.

Arsenal News

ARSENAL LACKED SHARPNESS

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has said that his team lacked the sharpness required to beat a team struggling against relegation after Arsenal lost against Wigan on Monday night. The 2-1 home defeat meant that Arsenal are unable to open an eight-point advantage over Tottenham.

Hence, the bid to finish in the automatic Champions League qualification has not been secured yet. Wigan were coming into the match after having beaten Manchester United in their previous match. It provided them with huge confidence that they carried into the match against Arsenal as well, thus becoming the first team since Southampton in 2001 to beat Manchester United and Arsenal in back-to-back games.

It did not take long for Wigan Athletic to secure a stranglehold on the match after they scored two goals in the opening 8 min of the match. Arsenal then brought one goal back through a Thomas Vermaelen header, but were unable to get the second and equalising goal throughout the match. As a result, Tottenham could move to just one point within Arsenal if they win their game in hand. Following their win over Arsenal, Wigan are now five points above the relegation zone, which will ease their relegation fears for the moment.

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