Tag: chelsea

Could Chelsea superstar be good for Arsenal?

Arsenal make shock approach for Chelsea midfielder

According to British news outlet The Daily Star, Arsenal are interested in landing Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante.

The highly coveted midfielder is out of contract at Stamford Bridge in 12 months’ time, and according to the report, the Gunners believe they might be able to prize him away from their London rivals.

The 31-year-old has made 259 appearances for Chelsea while also racking up an impressive 53 for his national team France.

Despite being a crucial part in Thomas Tuchel’s side, the contractual situation of the player, aided by him being the highest paid player, plus the injury issues he faced last season, The Blues might be tempted to cash in on him in the current transfer window.

Manchester United is another club who have shown admiring glances at the midfielder, but new boss Erik Ten Hag’s priority remains Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong.

Arsenal have also shown interest in whole host of names such as Youri Tielemans, Sergej Milinković-Savić and more recently Lucas Paquetá.

The story about Kante coming all of a sudden does raise eyebrows regarding the reliability of the report.

At 31 years, the Chelsea man will not fit into what we are trying to build at the Emirates Stadium under manager Mikel Arteta.

After recruiting young and developing players last summer, this window’s main focus was crystal clear: adding established players into the squad.

The arrival of Gabriel Jesus and Fabio Vieira plus chasing the likes of Raphinha and Lisandro Martinez is a testament of the strategy of the club.

Kante is not a player who falls under the criteria, as his peak years are well past him. Some might argue that he can still perform at the highest level, but we should not be chasing those kinds of players, surely?

Willian was Chelsea’s Player of the Season when Arsenal came knocking on his door. Everybody knows how his stay at North London went.

We can’t be tempted to sign players who are on a decline and will have no resale value. Despite being an amazing player, I won’t give my nod to Kante’s signing.

What are your thoughts regarding it? Drop them down in the comments section below… we would love to hear your opinions.

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Will Arsenal push on after ‘best performance in years’?

It is not like Arsene Wenger to go over the top when Arsenal have a good game, just as the Frenchman is usually the voice of calm and reason when the Gunners suffer the setback of a bad performance or result, so it was a bit different to hear the Arsenal boss waxing lyrical about the team after the demolition of Chelsea at the Emirates stadium yesterday.

Perhaps it was down to all the frustration we have had with the Blues in recent years, or ever since Jose Mourinho and the crazy spending of Roman Abramovic changed everything. This certainly was an overdue win but it was the nature of the match that had Wenger buzzing, as reported by Metro.

The boss hailed this as one of the best performances from an Arsenal team for years, suggesting that the first half, in which we scored three good goals and could have had more while completely nullifying any threat from the likes of Hazard and Costa, was close to perfection.

He said, ‘There were times in the first half it was nearly perfect. We played with style, pace and movement, and that’s the style we want to play,’ said Wenger after the match.

‘It’s one of those moments in your life as a manager when you think, ‘Today it is a great day’ – especially in the first half.

‘We wanted to play this high pace and put them under ­pressure, play at the very high speed and it worked quite well.

‘I felt in the last three weeks the team was on the way up and this was a test to see if it was real. We confirmed it — from the goalkeeper to the centre forward you cannot fault any performance.

‘I’d say that was one of our best performances in recent years. The inconvenient facts were to get those recent defeats out of our system and we did that.’

If the manager was using this clash with our London rivals as a yardstick to measure just how well equipped Arsenal are for an assault on the Premier League title then no wonder he was pleased. But should we also take into account how poor the visitors were and keep our feet on the ground until we see whether the Gunners will push on from this performance?

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Chelsea now favourites as Arsenal ruled out of Morata signing

Alvaro Morata will not be playing for Arsenal next season, after Real Madrid upped their asking price to £60 Million, which immediately saw Arsenal drop out of the betting in every online sportsbook. Juventus confirmed that Real would be triggering their right to buy-back Alvaro Morata this summer, for a fee believed to be in the region of £25 Million.

Old Lady chief executive Giuseppe Marotta said: “Real Madrid have informed us of their intention to exercise the right to buy back [Morata], we are just waiting for a written offer.”

Reports have been spinning all summer around this supposed situation, with the Spanish giants set to buy the Spain international before selling him on within the same window, with a host of potential suitors believed to be lining up to land him.

Arsenal have been most heavily linked with a move, but are now claimed to have ruled themselves out of the running following Real’s decision to slap a huge £60 Million asking price on his head. Chelsea are now claimed to be leading the chase, with Manchester United also not believed to be keen on spending over £50 Million for his signature.

The Gunners were previously linked with a £20 Million deal to sign Jamie Vardy this window, but he appears to have been persuaded to stay put with Leicester City, and the club will need to branch out as they attempt to bolster their attacking options. Vardy had originally stated that hewould give Arsenal a decision on his future after the Euros in France this summer, but his club officially announced that the 29 year-old had agreed an extension to hiscurrent contract instead of moving to the Emirates.

Danny Welbeck is ruled out with injury until February 2016, and the club will be desperate to at least land cover for him, while Theo Walcott is linked with the exit door at present. Most Arsenal fans felt that we needed a new striker even before Danny Welbeck’s injury, but now it is even more neccesary.

Not many other strikers have been as strongly linked with a move to the Emirates this summer, but should these reports prove to be true, there will be many Arsenal fans who dread the thought of missing out on a top attacking addition once again this summer…

If we really are unwilling to meet the asking price for Morata, and Vardy is staying put, who else should be next on our wishlist? Vincent Jansson? Alexandre Lacazette?

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Arsenal STILL have injury concerns over Alexis Sanchez

I do not know if it is because of all the criticism that the Arsenal manager received back at the end of November after the Chilean striker Alexis Sanchez had to limp off the pitch towards the end of the Premier League draw away to Norwich City.

Whatever the reason, Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal medical team appear to be treating the forward with extreme caution as he works his way back to full fitness and a comeback into the first team. It has been weeks since we heard that Sanchez was close to a comeback but as yet there has been no sign of our star man.

And there is no guarantee that the former Barcelona man will feature in the crucial game against the reigning champions Chelsea this weekend, as the manager explained during the press conference reported by The Mirror that he would not make a final decision until the dynamic attacker had come through a couple more training sessions and proved himself, although Wenger did sound fairly optimistic.

He told the press, “The doubt is that he has been out for a long time and it is a great risk of a setback.

“He has cleared on all the tests. That’s one thing. Then he has to clear training.

“I am cautious with him. We do not want to take a gamble but the signs he has shown in training are good.”

Come on Alexis, we need you mate!

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Proof Cech transfer will secure Arsenal Premier League title?

Arsenal fans knew that we were getting a top quality keeper when Arsene Wenger somehow persuaded Chelsea to let us have their Czech Republic international star Petr Cech in the summer and the fact that moaning Jose Mourinho did not want to let his rival Arsene Wenger have the benefit of Cech´s ability and experience made it all the more sweet.

Having said that I did not really believe the Chelsea captain John Terry when he said at the start of the season that the 33-year old would be worth an extra 12 to 15 Premier League points for the Gunners. According to a report in the Daily Mail, however, in which their football experts have gone over the season so far in order to judge just how many points better off we are because of the new number one and it is pretty stunning stuff.

Even ignoring the calming effect Cech and his experience has had on the Arsenal defence and ignoring games we won well after Cech had made saves at key moments, their estimate is that we have 10 points more than we would have had without him.

Carrying that on for the rest of the season would give Arsenal 17 more points and considering we were only 12 points behind runaway winners Chelsea last season and that this year is much tighter, is this proof that the transfer of Cech will secure the long awaited EPL trophy this season?

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Come on Hammers! Rid Arsenal of Mourinho for good

Maybe the Arsenal fans should not be so keen to see the back of Jose Mourinho, because all his antics seem to have given Arsenal one less challenger for the Premier League title this season, but I would personally love to see him booted out of Stamford Bridge again and I am sure that Arsene Wenger feels the same way.

After being gifted two soft goals by Aston Villa last weekend, Chelsea travel to an in form West Ham and I think a poor performance and result from the Blues could see Roman Abramovich lose patience. Slaven Bilic has already led West Ham to famous wins over Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal ourselves so let´s hope they can add the scalp of Chelsea and Mourinho.

The Portuguese boss is trying to play down the tensions in the camp but it seems clear that all is not right. However, another win on the spin could be just what they need to turn things around and Arsenal do not want that to happen.

So before you get behind the Gunners for the game against Everton, cross your fingers that the Hammers can do us all a big favour.

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WOW! Stats show Arsenal nearly TWICE as good as Man Utd!!

Okay Arsenal fans, I know full well that stats do not tell the whole story and football is about more than the basic facts like possession, shots, attempts on target, clean sheets and all. But stats are used more and more by all the managers and coaches these days and they do give a good indication of individual and team performances.

So it is very encouraging to see the Premier League team stats on the Squawka.com website.

Not only does the table show Arsenal on top with a total of 3,321, above Man City on 2,992, but with Man United back in third with just 2,107 it suggests the Gunners have been almost twice as good as Louis van Gaal´s team.

The stats are based on the three categories of Attack, defence and possession and these in turn are made of many factors like tackles won, shooting and passing accuracy, so they are pretty comprehensive. And you might just enjoy seeing the Chelsea shambles of Jose Mourinho are down in 12th place with a score of just 1,144 and that suggests that Arsenal are three times better than the reigning EPL champions.

How do you like that Gooners?

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Arsenal must show NO FEAR at Chelsea

Although Arsenal beat Chelsea in the Community Shield in pre-season, the Gunners are still to find a win in the League against Jose Mourinho’s side, and Theo Walcott says that his team must simply play without fear to breal that terrible run against the Portugese manager.

“I think we need to play with no fear,” Walcott told Arsenal.com. “You can see how Chelsea have started the season, no one has given them any respite on the ball at all, and I think we need to be exactly the same like that.

“We’re playing with confidence, I know we had that result the other day, but in the Premier League we’ve been getting positive results.

“Chelsea need to react in a good way, so they are going to need to come for us and that could play into our hands maybe.

“Everyone will be fighting for it – we want to have a different result to in previous years there.

“People say [the win in August] was only the Community Shield, but the Community Shield is a competitive match. It’s always nice to win these big games.

“You remember what you did right and the positives from the game come out from it. We just need to do the basics again – we need to do the right things with everyone on it and [doing] their job defensively as well.

“We know that we can keep clean sheets. That’s important in the Premier League now and you’ve seen it with our record.

“It will be a tight game, I’m sure, but we need to make sure we take our chances. That’s key.”

Theo is certainly right there. We have created hundreds of chances already this season, but have only scored a few goals. Either Theo or Olivier need to find their scoring boots quickly and make every chance count….

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Should Arsenal boss accept Mourinho’s handshake offer?

We will have to wait and see whether it happens yet, but it is being reported by The Mirror that when Arsenal and Chelsea meet in the big Premier League game at Stamford Bridge tomorrow, Jose Mourinho will offer his hand to Arsene Wenger in an attempt to put an end to the long running feud between the managers.

If this does happen, how do you think Wenger should and will respond?

If it is a genuine attempt to ease the tension then I would be surprised to see the Frenchman refuse to shake hands with his rival and it could be a good move for both of them and the clubs, although the media will not be happy as they get a lot of column inches and internet hits from the ongoing saga.

On the other hand I just do not trust the Chelsea boss, as he is famous for doing whatever it takes to gain some advantage. And I think that Wenger is well aware of his mind games. Is it a coincidence that Mourinho is suddenly trying to be nice when he has finally lost a game to Wenger and is in some real trouble with his team’s results and there are rumours that his job could be at risk?

What do you think of all this?

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