Sitting and Waiting and Wishing and Hoping
Aug 23rd, 2010 by 'holic
The lack of white smoke billowing from Highbury House means I have precious little to comment on this evening. So convinced was I that we would all be paying homage to a thirty year old defender that, let’s be honest here, we don’t know much about, I hadn’t prepared anything else.
I watch football from France and Spain most weekends and the new fella doesn’t stick in my memory, so rather than invent a lot of stuff I was preparing to ‘pinch’ opinion from the journos who must have been researching him thoroughly today!
I jest, but only a little. The lines between bloggers and journalists are becoming increasingly blurred on occasion. My view of blogging is that we offer opinions (often biased, and why not?), and provide a platform for discussion between people with a common interest.
Increasingly though there are those that consider the distribution of ‘news’ to be a primary function of a blog. Now I don’t have the divine right to decide what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, or to sit in judgement of others. With so many Arsenal blogs out there the variety of approaches is to be embraced and expected, I reckon.
I’ll make one personal observation though as a reader of blogs, rather than as the author of one. A few bloggers do have contacts in and around the club. Information I receive I generally treat as confidential, not wanting to get good folk in trouble, and grateful for a personal insight into an institution that is a part of my very being.
A lot of the stuff I hear may not come into the public domain, and sometimes doesn’t happen at all. Were I to publish that stuff I would lay myself open to the charge that all bloggers angrily aim at other media sources. That they are simply making stuff up and publishing it as ‘fact’.
I may be biased, but I do try very hard not to be hypocritical.
77 Responses to “Sitting and Waiting and Wishing and Hoping”
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Good evening Holic & Holic`s
This could be a first that I arrive at the bar before everyone else, I doubt it.
I think we will have a new CB by this time tomorrow, a French international no less. As you sir Holic beyond that I have no idea whats he is like.
I am sure a football manager enthusiast will fill us in on his pro`s and cons. I do know that he is 6ft if that helps ?
Large brandy please barman
‘Holic – I really enjoy your blog. No insightful comments from me, but I will take a nice welcoming pint of Timothy Taylors please!
Also waiting and hoping. Was that not a Searcher’s hit? Admire your standards ‘holic. Here’s to the critical two more signings. Mine’s a Margarita, barman!
Ah ‘holic, sweet memories of Dusty Springfield in that headline. Almost.
Good Job ‘holic. Belhaven stout pls.
love your blog, keep up the good work
wishin’ and hopin’ was a Dusty Springfield hit from the 60’s.
If the fella has flown in from Spain, then it’s to have the med and sign, as a fee would have been agreed by the clubs. So he should be an Arsenal player within the next 24 hours.
Seeing Given on the bench seems such a waste.
A Guinness extra cold please, bartender!
Unlike you Holic, I am more than happy to share inside info and get my sources into a right load of hot water!
Squillacci and Buffon will be unveiled tomorrow. They have both been booked into a lovely twin room in a B&B in Guildford, full English from 7.30am sharp.
I thought that bar might be open.
Pint of Doom for me please 😉
You heard about Buffon too then Mug? Could have wheels that one 😉
What Ollie said.
Good evening sir. Good points as usual.
I’ll have a pint o’ plain and a package of Tayto crisps please.
Holic`s
A little more info on Squillacci he was Lyon`s captain for a couple of years as well. But you have to love that name too, sounds like a player who everyone wanted to buy in the 1990 world cup or something
Schwarzer or Given ? I am sure one will arrive before the end of the transfer window which will make 4 new players that’s 2 more than expected so well done Mr Wenger.
Squillaci sounds like a character out of Sponge Bob Square Pants.
Will be a good signing Squillaci. Has international experience, champions league experience and has been a mainstay in the the defense of the 3rd best team in spain Sevilla. Has played a champions league final, won a couple french league titles and if I’m not mistaken has won 2 uefa cups with Sevilla. Add Schwarzer with him and possibly another sneaky signing and we’ll be alright on the night.
A mojito please skip.
Buffon will sign on Friday.
Jack & Coke pleeze
Another great blog!!! So where has the BUffon story come from?
Buffon is not coming. There is another reason Bloggers shouldn’t make stuff up. People believe us sometimes 😉
The lad toto squillaci has been to European cup final won titles in France although he looks quite slender he the one who usually has the personal disks on the pitch
It’s obvious that Buffon is not on his way to Ashburton as Arsenal are in contact with Lille to lure Hazard as new arsenal GK….what, Hazard is not a gk!!! ……what Zidane doesn’t play basketball!!! God I should have watched the world cup in New Zealand this summer
Evening, Holics! Isn’t Victor Valdes’ grannie from North London? I don’t want to leak anything, but if he’s proper DNA…
Hey, I do the jokes in this bar. Pint of Taylor Woodrow and a Husqvarna chaser please, barman.
What are you thinking `Holic? That we come here to read thoughtful posts and cogent comments? Don’t you know we want unsubstantiated rumors and relentless slander? Correct yourself please… How dumb will you look when Buffon passes his fitness test, huh?
It’s not hard, see: Buffon and Messi will sign before the end of the transfer window. You read it first here.
Lagertop today barman, too hot (and too early) to dring anything else.
Lovely post sir and timely too.
Whether all these ‘exclusives’ come off or not is one thing but you make a priceless point when you say that the point of fan blogs is to have an opinion. Information is available from all-comers but a good post, as opposed to a paper, shares something about being a fan.
If we just wanted (mostly wrong) info, we’d watch sky sports news…in HD!
Enough starry eyes though, I’ll have a dark rum and coke to toast the new centreback my mate’s cousin’s step-aunty who works in the arsenal shop told me we’re getting!
Oh and Matuidi is coming also. He will be miles better than Denilsong.
You read it here first.
Buffon!!!! Get in!!!!
Makers mark, coke and lime please. Cheers.
This goalkeeper thing is no joke. We need a world class one right now. This is the only was we will conceed less goals that last season
This may not only be the silly season for the political journalists you know, it dose spill over into football.
Oh you tease ‘Holic – Buffon indeed.
In the real world, I’m not convinced Schwarzer will be much of an improvement on Almunia – maybe though if we DO get him, he can have a go at building some understanding with the defenders in front of him (which is more than either of our current keepers have managed to do).
Tonight Guvnor, I will have a pint of John Smith’s.
PS – how ordinary was that Liverpool team tonight?
Cannot help but think we dropped two points at Anfield after tonights showing. *whinge moan*
What color do you think Buffon’s neck warmer thing will be in the Arsenal kit? Maybe red white stripes?
Guinness, please, sir.
Second game in and we have Song as CB. This shows how weak we are at the back. We need Squillaci, another CB and goalie now.
Not an unreasonable conclusion, Mr Mollusc. I suspect most of us thought it at some stage. Cannot compare the two games in reality…
With hindsight, the inclusion of Theo and Czech the Technique in the starting 11 at Anfield may have reaped benefits that we didn’t see, related to their arguably more direct play then Nasri was able to provide. Mind you, this is not meant to deter praise from Nasri who has played exceptionally, but I’m musing along with iSnail here…
All things considered, number two at the table, nice goal difference= I’m very content.
i dont know too much about our new cb apart from being top scorer in the 1990 world cup
Hey, this blog is suite gold. It’s almost up there with Arseblog in quality. A cup of look, please!
Yes, mustn’t grumble really.
Bathroom suite gold? That’s a bit 1980’s.
That was suppose to be av cup of milk, please. Aw, I hate the iPhone kyeboard sometimes.
Still no confirmation of Squelchy (courtesy BtM, that could really stick).
Surely nobody could be in a bad enough state to be barred from our squad. What’s the holdup ?
Whilst awaiting the news of our new CB, I think I will just hop over and update Buffon’s Wikipaedia entry with the news of his transfer to Arsenal FC. When is it ?
‘Almost’ is it, Pal? Barman, double Tyrconnell for Mr. Lydersen and see if the opinion don’t improve!
🙂
Make that a double double and I’ll delete the almost
Cheers! Count me in! Office is closed tomorrow for the rest of the week, so it’s my Friday!!
You guys have it all wrong, it’s Xavi that’s coming. He went to the doctor recently and was told he had Arsenal DNA.
Pint of the black stuff for me, barman.
I find certain people on Twitter much more annoying than bloggers. With blogs you know which ones are good and those that aren’t quite quickly.
Those who make stuff up won’t last and those who write sensible meaningful and insightful posts, like yours holic, will continue to be popular.
Where with Twitter it is much harder to filer out the gold from the copper. It is so read it here today gone tomorrow.
However despite these certain people making it up, i find it compelling and can’t click the unfollow button.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I always enjoy reading your stuff.
Assuming we do sign SQ** plus a goalkeeper – is the consensus that we have enough depth in all the right places? I tend to think we almost do although no natural fill for Song still has me a bit nervy.
Moreover if we bring in a goalkeeper is Almunia the automatic number 2 – and does he even want to be? Doesn’t he then lose any opportunity to get away due to the late nature of all of this. Or would we loan out the Pole?
Biggest fear – new goalkeeper gets injured and we are left with Fabianski to play for 6 or 8 consecutive matches (I know we faced the same scenario last season but I expect more this season).
Flashback to the weekend – I know he wasn’t under great pressure but was Song not perfect?
Tim – I don’t get it, we have cover in Diaby, Denilson and Eastmond.
I don’t see Chelsea having a better cover to Essien, Mikel is shit, Ramirez is way over rated.
You can have enough depth in areas of the pitch but problems is there aren’t even a lot of good players in Song’s role as it in the whole continent so I think we’ll do with the depth we do have.
You don’t bring in a replacement for 2 games in a season (Chelsea home and away), our backups can deal with the lesser teams and with United’s midfield, you know what? You can maybe add City to that with Toure, but still you have Song, and you don’t bring in a backup for 2-4 games a season.
Our backups will manage.
Don’t see any weakness in this squad now with a good keeper and solid defensive backs. It is a consensus that we are the most talented attacking team in the EPL.
Off topic but watching Liverpool get hammered by a bunch of mercenaries was amusing after Hansen’s stupid remarks on Saturday. I bet deep down he wishes they had a Theo of their own.
Already looking forward to Saturday’s game. BTW Arshavin was on Sky Sports earlier and he was pretty upbeat about our chances of winning silverware this season. He is normally not the most optimistic gunner.
Here is to winning season!
Flashback to the weekend – I know he wasn’t under great pressure but was Song not perfect?
===
Indeed. I see that Theo got MOTM, and while I certainly don’t begrudge our much-maligned winger the honour, for me Song and Rosicky were the best players on the pitch. Especially the latter. How we’ve missed him. People blame Eduardo’s injury (and Gallas’s subsequent ‘Strop at St Andrews’) for our derailed title challenge in 07/08, but I’ve always thought the loss of Rosicky to a long-term injury just prior to that game was the greater loss. Afterwards, we looked toothless going forward, and Clichy–whom Rosicky was expert at protecting–became increasingly exposed. Is it too much to hope that our Little Mozart is past his injury woes?
I didn’t know that Squillaci was such an unknown quantity. It’s obviously extremely rare for a team from the French league to make it to the Champions League final, and since he was in that Monaco side (like Gael Givet and Patrice Evra) he’s been a household name for Francophile football fans. As I mentioned before, he has had moments for Les Bleus where he looked terrible, but he’s mostly been solid.
My French father-in-law who follows Ligue 1 closely rates him very highly with no hesitation (better than Gallas, he said), and I’ve never known him to get one wrong when he ventures an opinion.
Given the other options we have, I would be very surprised if he’s not an automatic starter.
Again, I should say that Alex Song is the unknown factor. If Arsene wants to play Song in central defense, he could be the best option to partner Vermaelen, but I doubt that’s the way he’ll go.
I do think Schwarzer will come in, and that we’ll line up something like this (in the big games, if everyone’s available):
Chamakh
Van Persie
Diaby Fabregas Nasri
Song
Clichy Vermaelen Squillaci Sagna
Schwarzer
I think that leaves Arshavin and Walcott as the most notable absentees, but they’re obviously players who could make an impact coming on. Diaby’s clearly not everyone’s cup of tea, but with 4 attacking players in Chamakh, Van Persie, Fabgregas and Nasri, I think he’ll get the nod ahead of Walcott and Arshavin against the likes of Man United and Chelsea.
@ Snir Geuli
I see your point of view, I guess I don’t see any of them as a natural replacement if that makes sense? I think Song has made incredible progress and would be greatly missed…Diaby would I guess have the best physical match for the role as it seems he can take those huge strides from minute 1 to 90. Perhaps Denilson is ready to step up too…you forget how young so many of them are.
AW has said Song would end up as a central defender – will be interesting to see if that happens. Either way it’s been a pleasure watching him progress these last few years. Songfest over for now….
Tim – You may not rate any of them as natural replacements but do you rate any team other than Chelsea to have a strong and powerful (and physical!) midfield that these lads won’t be able to cope with? I don’t.
I know Diaby, Denilson, Eastmond can handle almost every midfield in the EPL and the ones they can’t Song will 🙂
And maybe, just maybe come next year Song will be able to move to CB when Frimpong will be ready 😀
Fait accompli re Squillaci, it looks like. It sounds like he’s dying to play for us:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/23/sebastien-squillaci-transfer-arsenal?
Assuming (such a dangerous word!) that Kos and Squelch work out, the opportunity may well come for Vermeulen to play mid-field. That I’d truly like to see. Memories of Manu Petit.
Just out of interest, so far this season, the Verminator hasn’t put one pass astray (Guardian chalkboard)
Morning Holic,
Excuse me if I misunderstood your comments,but I can only guess that various posts from myself and others prompted this latest post.
Sensational journalism will always outsell plain boring mundane stories,though I do feel that the Internet is fast becoming filled with too many football sites, though one has the choice to read or not.
It would be a boring world if we all agreed on everything Arsenal .
As for myself I never see the point of so called Arsenal blogs calling our manager and various players c****, on a regular basis as well.
I come on here as a newbee because everyone is greeted with respect regardless of their point of view and that is becoming quite difficult to find in blogworld. we try and run our own site the same way, as sometimes,as you do, I look around other Arsenal sites and more often than not find it hard that these people actually support our club.
433 @50
Can’t see too much wrong with that line up (against the tough ones). lovely…now just the small problem of signing Schwarzer…
Gallas –
Got to be worth a caption competition.
http://twitpic.com/2hg9fb/full
‘Oh wow, I really agreed to this….’
433 @50 again…. in fact, the more I look at it, it really is SOLID isn’t it? I think that the point about Schwarzer – he may be the same technically as Almunia, but I think he’s a lot calmer, and this will spread confidence in the defence as a whole.
Just the one more signing, and I think we have a really good squad. Good work Arsene… now where have all the bleat boys gone?
Tim @58
“heh, heh….just wait until the going gets tough…”
Hello Ron. It wasn’t as a result of anything any one site has done, and like I said, who am I to pass judgement on other blogs. I was just highlighting one of the big problems of bloggers generally getting into areas traditionally covered by those we often take aim at.
http://anotherarsenalblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/fergies-red-herring-and-truth-behind.html
while you wait, have a read into fergie’s past
Well said ‘Holic, this site (like Arseblog, Goodplaya and Three-and-in) is well worth the admission money just for the quality of the writing, humour and opinions. It doesn’t need to be embellished with gossip from around the club, whereas – frankly – some other sites lacking those same qualities have to drop in the odd ‘sensational’ rumour to attract the clicks.
On a completely separate point, I’ve been searching in vain around the Internet since the weekend for a definitive list of the Arsenal players who’ve scored hat-tricks under Arsene’s reign (in all competitions, not just the Premier League). Can any fellow drinkers spot any I’ve missed in the list below….
Ian Wright
Dennis Bergkamp
Nicolas Anelka
Nwankwo Kanu
Ray Parlour
Thierry Henry
Marc Overmars
Freddie Ljungberg
Robert Pires
Jermaine Pennant
Sylvain Wiltord
Julio Baptista
Nicklas Bendtner
Emmanuel Adebayor
Carlos Vela
Andrei Arshavin
Theo Walcott
@ StPaulDavis,
Kevin Campbell snagged a few for us.
Oh, didn’t notice the “under Arsene’s reign” part.
@ Pires #34,
“Czech the Technique” … classic! Gang Starr would be proud. However, I prefer Pete Rock and C.L. Smoooth so maybe we could sing out “Don’t sweat Czech (the technique)”…nah, it’s not as clever as yours.
This crew is on it’s way, mark it down. My sources in Texas, who are close to sources in Silent Stan’s camp, say AW will unveil Ironman as our GK on the morrow. You heard it here first!
Mac-10 neat please, ‘Holic, it’s gonna be a long day at the office.
Vote now for your preferred Squillaci nickname while we wait and wait and wait for the signing:
Press 1 for Squelcher
Press 2 for Squeegee
Press 3 for Scumbag
Press 4 for Other
Press 5 for No Preference
Press 666 for Satan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLHDzqTKajM
This is hilarious !
Snir – very funny vid, cheers.
Nasri @67 – are we gradually putting together the new Seven Dwarfs.
Ironically they are all our biggest players, but we now have Flappy, Kosy, Squelchy, Bendy . . . . who next ?
Ian Wright destroyed Alan Hansen in his latest column. Feelgood read: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/3108306/Alan-Hansens-Theo-Walcott-blast-is-out-of-order.html
Wonderful read, Matt. I hope both Theo and Hansen read it.
Great vid Snir and thanks for the link Matt.
Quick pint of anything on tap, please ‘holic.
‘Holic, A scotch and water please in honor of Sir Alex Ferguson’s watered down excuses for his club’s defensive lapses against Fulham. Make that a double please!
*yawn* where is he?
oh, and the sick feeling in my stomach means we might stick with Manu at least until January………. and don’t worry he’ll behave.
oh and ‘Holic your fresh posts always find me asleep….. see that’s not good – since i have to read them from my phone – which is well…. not an iphone. – Heh
Steven Taylor transfer listed by Newcastle. Not sure we’ll be interested now.
Lunch time glass of red please.
Squillaci signing confirmed!
yey 🙂