The First Departures Announced
Jun 8th, 2019 by 'holic
The official announcement of the players released this summer contained no real surprises. Petr Cech had already announced his retirement from playing before the season is out. It seems likely that he wasn’t prepared to continue as a cup tie goalkeeper. A return to Chelsea as director of football is rumoured.
He signed a four year deal in 2015 for a reported £10m and in his first season he won the FA Community Shield and the Golden Glove. Injury denied him a place in the FA Cup winning team against his old club Chelsea, but in the following season’s opener he was back for our penalty shoot-out win against Chelsea and a second Community Shield win with The Gunners.
Petr remained our number one until he was injured against Watford at the end of September, but in his role as cup tie goalkeeper he was instrumental in us reaching the Europa League Final. We wish him well in the future.
Stephan Lichtsteiner was an interesting signing last summer on a free transfer from Juventus. If he was perhaps no longer at his best his arrival had one massive positive for the club. Genuinely feeling his place was under threat Hector Bellerin returned to the player we had seen prior to his injuries in 2016/17 and prior to picking up another bad injury this season. That meant that Stephan made 23 appearances for the team this season.
Aaron Ramsey will be a big miss for the club after devoting a decade to the service of The Arsenal. Regardless of the reason for his departure on a free transfer to Juventus his performances in his farewell season were worthy of the highest praise. Professional to the end, we will remember his goal at Wembley against the neighbours and his subsequent celebration. His comeback from a broken leg at Stoke should inspire many who suffer serious injuries in the future.
Danny Welbeck too has been allowed to run his contract down although a serious injury restricted our options to make any money for him in January. I’m told the club did make him a new contract offer very much on a pay as you play basis, but Danny has better offers on the table. Fair enough. The goals he popped up with against his former club, Manchester United, and in the 2015/16 season against Leicester, will stay with us.
Thank you all for the memories you gave us.
Three young Guns were also released. Julio Pleguezuelo has signed for FC Twente in the Netherlands. Charlie Gilmour and Cohen Bramall are now free agents, and hopefully the club are still active in seeking clubs for the youngsters they let go.
It is safe to assume there will be further departures as Unai Emery seeks to take advantage of his third transfer window with the club. After just one season at the club it already feels as though this will be a critical season for his Arsenal future. As supporters we have to hope that he returns success to the club next season.
49 Responses to “The First Departures Announced”
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Did you really mean “no further departures”, Holic? I was hoping we might sell a few ne’erdowells in the next few weeks. Your talking releases only I’m thinking?
I’m very sorry to see Ramsey and Wellbeck go. Very poorly managed by Gazidis and Co.
I’m up for a social seminar with your good self, cba and Bath.
I’ve laid out my best blue suede shoes and electric pink socks. Wearing nothing other than that, I’m thinking I can kick cba’s Mullingar gigolo look well and truly into the shamrocks under the downtown lights.
you’ll do for me big man
you’ll do for me
?
Blimey, another post? I was hoping cba could blag his way to an half a bag of sand!
Good luck to all the released and retiring players. Shame Cech feels the need to return to the chaos. He should’ve been an Arsenal player even before he went there. Work permit issues or something scuppered that deal.
Would’ve saved us all those years of dodgy keepers, post Jens!
here big man
song for ye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=027ZJX5XVjs
a heartbreaker of a tune
.
and contrary to the mighty trevs notion
i am not good company
i rarely say more than two words
the internet has afforded
the flap on the side of my head to open
and let spill bullshit for all to not care about
anyhoo
hope ye enjoy the song
it’s a particular favourite
chez arsed
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A good read, H. Sad to see Aaron leave especially without even a button as compensation. Shameful mismanagement by the club executives. Unai’s third window, H? I don’t think he had any influence over last summer’s incoming players bar perhaps Gwen. He was told we wouldn’t be buying anyone in January but almost certainly shares responsibility for the Suarez fiasco. I think this summer is a bigger test of the executives and the owner (failed already really) than the coach.
There will be blood at that dinner date, I tell you, there will be blood.
funniest fucker at the table
?
i heart baff
Thanks Guvnor, fair and generous as ever.
I was thinking of The Magnificent Seven but
then some of them lived at the end.
An aging Fantastic Four maybe, with Cech as a
less elastic than he used to be Reed Richards.
Licht as The Thing, who can’t quite clobber ’em
as he used to, Aaaon as The Torch who looks good
flaming around the sky until he’s doused with a
bucket of hamstrings. But there’s no Invisible Girl…
until I remembered Suarez 🙂
He certainly isn’t Jessica Alba but he was useful for
something after all.
Now to see what happens with Emi, Jenks, Nacho, Kos,
Mus, Elneny, Xhaka and Iwobi.
The futures of Mhki, Ozil and Kola don’t appear too clear
to some either.
I can’t remember a summer with so much uncertainty
about so many of the squad.
Stefan O’Connor was released
by Newcastle- best of luck to
him too
A delight to see the usual suspects here. Thanks all. The point that our temp, Sven Mislintat, may have orchestrated most of last summer is not lost. Who will get Carrasco over the line? ?
Tierney has had cruciate, groin and hernia issues already. He looks like a perfect fit for the Kolasinac shaped hole at LB. Ready the treatment table for his arrival.
https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/celtic/arsenal-odds-on-favourites-to-sign-celtic-star-kieran-tierney-why-he-s-worth-his-26m-valuation-1-4942864
Charlie Gilmour is another talented youngster who shows how hard it is to make the breakthrough from U-23 mainstay to the first team. He is reportedly off abroad in search of regular first-team football, abroad being back home to Scotland in his case.
Another one likely going abroad is the U-18’s well-regarded right back Daley-Campbell, according to Jorge Bird. Fellow U-18 defender Bayli Spencer-Adams is also leaving. Neither can see a path for themselves from the Academy to the first team.
Cohen Bramall seems just not to have made it but had fierce competition at left back from Dominic Thomson and Jordi Osei-Tutu. Will be interesting to see if Bramall lands at a Premiership club or drops down a level.
This season could be make or break for many of the most promising youngsters, notably Eddie Nketiah, Joe Willock, Reiss Nelson, Emile Smith Rowe, Deyan Iliev, Krystian Bielik, Bukayo Saka, Xavier Amaechi and Zack Medley.
Plenty of talent there that could save Emery a bob or two in the transfer market, especially on the wings. Those savings could then be used to buy defenders, which the Academy struggles to produce.
Forza azzuri
Ned
I’d like to think youngsters like Emile SR and Nelson are a couple of years away, at least from being naked or break. Even Eddie is only 19. Considering the chavs have players loaned out in their mid 20s would suggest theres still time for most on your list.
nother strange day
not gonna say bereft without football
like some*
cos the
last fuckin game i watched
was fuckin infuriating
wee rest – champion
.
anyway
first reports back bout wine
distributed wee while ago
all positive
and
they’re fuckin believable
cos messages relayed
were clearly first hand slash dictated
and there’s a few o those dictating women
as scary as bastardin fuck
but
all things considered
successful enterprise
fellas in the good books
with a wee drop of country wine
ladies swooning at the thought of who made it
?
.
.
.
.
*you know who you are
feigning fuckin interest in the women’s world cup
just fuck off
“aw but the skill level”
balls !
Women’s World Cup rocks and in a way the tired old men’s game may not recapture, cba commentary notwithstanding.
loadabollocks 8ball
notwithstanding notwithstanding
which is a wonderful word
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(sneaky bottle o Mary’s sake behind the cash register for ye , enjoy fella)
oops
erase Mary
insert herself
right , well that’s not ideal either
?
Was thinking of inserting herself until you made that timely clarification cba. Thanks for the sake of an early summer afternoon.
I would rather see any number of these women score a goal than Cristiano or Messi who have been doing it almost as long as the geriatrics of men’s tennis.
.
.
anyhoo wwc
don’t even try to persuade
i won’t be [rhyme]
That’s a beauty cba and all the better for having Aly Bain accompanying the ladies. Love Karen Matheson.
wonderful btm
thought ye’d like it
.
a favourite of me mother
who not unlike her eejit son
seems determined to reach the ton
.
god love her
funniest fucker i know
Competitive might be a generous description for these Scots lassies on the other hand.
Was thinking of inserting herself
On a Sunday? :-O
I’ve been at a five a side tournament today watching my grandson. His team eventually won the final on penalties but what struck me was tge quality of the play. Harry’s team are coached by someone who took a team to Wembley in the FA Vase but it is clear that young lads are being much better educated in how to pass and move, how to play out from the back and the importance of your first touch. It is small wonder we are seeing English age-groups sides do so well. It is a pity the senior side still has donkeys like Eric Dier playing for them!
As has been said there is huge uncertainty about who will be here next season . Almost anyone could leave if we get the right offer but we will have to be creative with our ins and with no replacement for Sven and after the fiasco that was Denis Suarez I am not holding my breath. Let’s just say the optimism that surrounded Unai a year ago has dissipated . In TTG’s house anyway.
I’ve spent the last two or three years watching people coach who have UEFA B qualifications, at a non league club, and not once have I seen any of these “qualified” coaches doing any work on defending. No shooting drills, nothing on set pieces (either taking them or defending them) and no attempts to work on developing weaknesses in a player to turn them into strengths.
As long as these UEFA badged coaches own some cones to run between and some slalom poles to run around, they appear to be quite content.
I reckon we were better coached at school, personally, or via Jack “you go in gurls son” Charlton with his tv show. Or even that old Football Handbook partwork that had coaching sections.
UEFA licences are a joke, from what I’ve seen (and it’s not just one or two coaches, it has been five).
Mind you, when I was a kid you just knew what you had to do anyway. Can’t shoot left footed? Spend an hour whacking a ball using only your left foot.
Common sense.
Cynic speaks the truth.
So I played the “Can you name all our PL opening-day opponents?” game at the dot con and just to quell my budding optimism for the new season was reminded that we have only won 2 of our most recent 9 matches on the opening day of the season. 🙁
Fuckin’ doomer.
As if to quell my budding optimism for the coming season, I think Cynic just called me a fuckin’ doomer.
Shock.
Outrage.
If we weren’t all doomers before look at this analysis by the AST to see how little wriggle room the club have financially because of the financial mismanagement by Gazidis & Co and the unwillingness of KSE to refinance the club to free up capital. It’s not a happy or optimistic picture set against our main rivals . Those of you who didn’t fear KSE’s ownership hang your heads in shame .
https://www.arsenaltrust.org/feed/afc-finances/2019/-SimonHillfinancialanalysis
Great. I had planned to do a live comparison of the performances of Carrasco and Fraser in the Belgium v Scotland Euro qualifier, but both are on the benches.
Rethink something for tomorrow night now. ☹️
TTG. – I did try to tell you all we didn’t want his sort round here.
Goonerholic – Fraser is the one in the army uniform with the big bushy eyebrows.
I’ve met him up here on occasion. ?
?
Ghost of PHW,
Thanks for the fences thing.
I hadn’t realised the fixtures
were out so soon. Thanks bt8
even if you are a fuckin’
doomer, I appreciate the
heads up
Tried the 73 World Cup stars
quiz on the dot com
– difficult to type so many
names in 12 minutes on an
iphone – moan, grumble,
excuse, excuse.
Don’t know Matt but Ljungberg must be in there somewhere. Somebody told me typing on an iphone is the best way to stave off arthritis but that seems a bit far fetched. A new ad campaign designed for the over 60 crowd?
Kroenkes ownership was only ever positive for me when it was between him and the Uzbek gangster as to who was going to be the clubs majority share owner.
I still am glad Usmanov is no where near the club, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take that Stan is basically sleeping the fan base by refusing to loosen the purse strings.
^^^
Fleecing
OM @ 41
I started well, gave up after 2.43 minutes 🙂
Odds that we play pool/city/United/Chelsea/spurs in the first 10 games of our fixture list is very tempting to take, certainly doing so and most likely to have more away than home games as well initially. Not that anything makes any difference for I am not even bothered nowadays.
The day we sign 2 proper centre backs’ shore up the full backs and go into a season ready will be when I can look forward else I will watch with no expectations and my prayers as well nowadays do not work.
Carrasco?? the Athletico one yes the china one not even sure what to expect. Tierney yes please, praet as well good addition but who will install the passion to the team, the passion and desire so obviously being missed and been missing for some seasons now.
The best way to stave off arthritis is to dump your digital devices and take up the abacus.
In fact, you can count on it.
🙂
In the bt8 estate all figures are tabulated in my head as a means of staving off Alzheimers. The accounts have gone haywire to be sure but that’s a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. Please let me know if and when my drinks become too repetitive.:)
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