Top of the morning to yall
By the end of today, the draws for the next phase of the
UEFA Champions League and the Europa league would have been completed in France
and English teams Arsenal, Man U, and billionaire clubs Man City and
Chelsea know who they face in the next
round – oh wait; The billionaires! Beh. There is some latent joy in seeing your
rivals falter and their misfortunes are our source of jokes and vice versa.
Anyway back to the draws, and we are in pot 2 where we can draw either of PSG,
Malaga, Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Juventus by the virtue
of us finishing second in our group.
It’s easy to look back and berate the team for finishing
second in a group that they could have won especially on the last day, but the
dynamics of European football looks to be swinging wildly these days and we
could have won the group and also drawn one of Europe’s football powerhouses in
Madrid or AC Milan.
Who would have thought that in a group that consisted of the
league champions of England, Spain, Germany and Holland, Borussia Dortmund
would top the group ahead of the mighty Madrid and give billionaires Man City a
valuable football lesson both at home and away. This is a team that finished
last in our own UCL group just 12months ago. So personally, I take the second
spot finish in good faith and hope for a favourable draw. That is avoiding the
likes of Dortmund, Bayern and Juventus. I definitely won’t mind a Messiless
Barcelona though but a trip to Santi Cazorla’s old club or to the Parc de
Princes would be just fine. So fingers’ crossed we would get a good one.
The club yesterday announced that 5 of our brightestyoungsters have put pen to paper on sparkling brand new long term deals. Kieran
Gibbs 23, Carl Jenkinson 20, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain 19 jack Wilshere 21 and
Aaron Ramsey 21 who are all full internationals committed their futures to
Arsenal football club and I have to say that that is the best thing to happen
at Arsenal in recent times.
 |
| 5 for the future. |
Kudos to the club management as well as having a team with a
core of young talented English players will set the tone for a bright future as
they can concentrate on football for the club in which they grew up supporting.
People have voiced their frustrations on the performance of Aaron Ramsey in
recent weeks and while most are not misplaced, its worth noting that he is only
21 and has had over 100caps for the club and 24 for his country. His rise to
the top has been rather steep and is bound to make mistakes. For the club to
give him a new long term deal, they definitely still believe in his abilities
and its up to him to prove the manager right or wrong.
The obvious omission from the list is Theo Walcott. I wrote
in my last blog post that I still hope he signs for the club, he had a good
game in his preferred CF role on Monday. He has had a much more than average
season so far, he is our top goal scorer and we definitely need him now more
than ever. Maybe he is playing to the galleries, maybe he is playing for other
clubs willing to sign him up to up his value or maybe he’ll sign is the club
improve their bid. The only certainty is as the year runs to an end, so does
the future of Theo Walcott at Arsenal FC.
Bacary Sagna is one who is in a much
more peculiar contract situation. With 18 months left reports suggest he has
turned down a one year extension and prefers a longer duration. It’s a no
brainer for me, he had 2 fractures last season and despite the fears of him not
being back to his best, he has returned to deliver solid performances and prove
that he is still the best right back out there in the EPL. Offering him a new
deal with renumeration that corresponds to his contribution to the team would
go a long way in showing the fans of the managements’ commitment to making the
fans happy. At least if they wont buy quality players, they should keep the
ones we have.
That's all for now folks, and good luck at the draws. God bless
the Arsenal.
Follow me on twitter @nigeriangunners
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