Are We Seeing the “Real Arsenal”?; Verma To Have Surgery

By: Sairax | January 17th, 2011

Theo van Nasregas celebrates with Eboue

With an emphatic win over West Ham and ManUtd drawing with the Spuds, it turned out to be a decent weekend for the Arsenal. We are 2 points off of ManUtd, who have a game in hand over us, and Man City, who have played a game more than us. The best part of it all is seeing our team play the wonderful football we know they are capable of producing. I think it has become pretty clear that our team plays at a different level when we have our first choice starters on the pitch. Jack and Song have developed an impressive partnership and the beast we call Theo van Nasregas is creating and scoring goals for fun. Theo has said that this is the “real Arsenal” we are seeing, and I’m inclined to agree. The return of Robin van Persie has been a big reason for our improved performances in the league. He doesn’t play as an out-and-out striker, but his movement and understanding with his teammates together with his great skill and finishing ability adds much more to our attack than a traditional striker could. The problem we have is, can we rotate and still play well and get the win? I think with the recent displays in our cup games, we can say that there is a glaring difference between our first and second choice players at the moment. I expect to see most of our starters rested for the Leeds game on Wednesday, so players like Bendtner, Vela, Denilson, and Rosicky have another chance at stepping their game up to show they can come up with the goods when needed.

verma

On the injury news front, we seem to have some clarification regarding Thomas Vermaelen’s injury. Verma is saying now that he believes he suffered from two separate injuries and that he will be undergoing surgery to remove a tendon that is next to his Achilles. Apparently, this tendon has been causing the pain he has been experiencing and removing it will not be harmful as it is pretty useless anyway. He wants to be back for the first leg against Barcelona in the Champions League, but I think we’re all wary of return dates at this point. I would caution against any of us getting our hopes up. The most important thing is that Verma’s surgery goes well and that he makes a full recovery. In the meantime, we wait on Wenger to see if he makes a decision in buying another defender. I think with Squillaci temporarily injured and the Verminator out indefinitely we certainly need one. Rumours are still floating around about Cahill, Samba, and the rest, but nothing solid has emerged as of yet. There’s still time in the transfer window, but I suspect Wenger will wait until the last possible minute to make a move, if he indeed chooses to make one (which he may not). We just have to sit and wait now and hope that our defenders don’t pick up any more injuries. Good times.

We recently found out that our newest signing, Ryo Miyaichi, might be going on loan to a club in the Erdivisie for the rest of the season. At first I thought it was going to be Excelsior, but recent developments indicate he may be off to Feyenoord (though he could still go to Excelsior from there). Arsenal has entered into a partnership with the Dutch club that will see them take in some of our young players on loan. This is a wonderful new development that will be of great benefit to the young players we end up sending there. Dutch teams tend to play the same style of football that we like to play at Arsenal, and the Erdivisie is a good league to play in and gain some experience. You may also remember that a certain Robin van Persie was signed from Feyenoord, so we know our players will be in good hands.

We’ve got a lot of games coming up, though many of them will be home games so we will have a chance to give our home record the boost that it needs. Martin will be back tomorrow with a special preview of our FA Cup replay away to Leeds on Wednesday.

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Category: Arsenal News, Injury Report, Thomas Vermaelen

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Jordan

To answer the question posed in the header: "No".
bapdum

I think maybe injecting some youth into our second team offense would be good? cause young players are always eager to get on the ball and have that yearning to play the game and alot of our second team players dont have that
Gigi_man

Man I saw the game 3 times! ESPN must really think we re title contenders again, since they only run title ctdrs games so much; and twice today!

So, if we will have the same quality and determination, determination, determination (yes like times) then I hope this is the real arsenal, Theo!

Off but relate to Dutch players issue: Does anybody think that Barza buying Afellay could be for tempting us with a Cesc switch in the summer since we were also after him or interested?

I am honored by such an agreement, Feyenoord was actally the first Dutch club to win the UCL back in late 60s or early 70s just before Ajax, and personaly I like them (Ajax too but for some reason I dont like PSV...hhhmmm what reason was that again?)

BTW Flaps had a setback...? Chessny again under the sticks vs Leeds.
Gigi_man

BTW Yesterdays resulsts caught me in a religious festivity in the countryside, no internet at the hotel so I couldnt comment but...Man am I jumping of joy, I always hope for a draw when 2 of our contenders meet, even though this time a win by the Spurs wouldnt hav hurt, I am happy it happened.
Djlazercat

Good idea going with Feyenoord. This should definitely be seen as an investment in some the club's hot young prospects: Leroy Fer, Gini Wijnaldum, and Luc Castaignos are all hot young European prospects. All three of them would fit us well too. Specifically see arsenal investing in castaignos and wijnaldum though.
Henrytheo14

Holy shit i jut looked up Wijnaldum hes amazing why cant AW see this and imidietly replace him for ARshavin...HE IS THE PERFECT REPLACEMENT..look this up on youtube "Georginio Wijnaldum - The super star of feyenoord - New Version" Its fantastic
Djlazercat

that's true, he would play a similar role to arshavin, but he's also very short and only 20. give him another season and he'll be picked up by a huge european club.
Henrytheo14

Yes i want us to pick him up and Arshavin is short and is 29theres not much of a dif besides the expierence and i want him haha
Djlazercat

and by invest, i mean put "dibs on".
Jeremy

Is it just me or could someone take the Verma pic up there as inappropriate?
Gigi_man

Ha yeah i thought the same the 1st time I saw it
Casimir

Feyenoord is a good team and organization in the Eredivisie. IMHO, only Ajax has a better youth system and club stability in the Netherlands. It seems too that some of the players from the Feyenoord squad RVP was on have all gone to do bigger things over the last 5 or 6 years, so I'm pleased to hear Arsenal will be having a partnership. Its a great move.
Gigi_man

Seems like ages that they havent been in Europe.
Darren_V

Ajax isn't as stable as you might think either
Martin

Although I get the sense that they're not nearly what they were, even relative to the rest of Dutch football. Losing 10-0 Eindhoven was humiliating, and they are a couple of points up from relegation at the moment. They've only won one trophy (the league cup) since winning the UEFA Cup in 2002. And like a lot of Dutch clubs, they are trying to figure out how to make it work financially.

None of which really takes away from your central point, but I do think this move serves as a recognition by them that their star has fallen quite a bit, because I can't imagine they really would have considered a move like this even 5 or 6 years ago.
Martin

Here's hoping the Feyenoord partnership works out a lot better than the Salamanca one did, because that one went pretty sour -- they didn't play our players, several players had bust-ups with the coaching staff, and we started just sending players out to other Segunda Division sides instead. If both teams are committed to it, though, it's potentially a very promising development.
Shirish K.

vela and wellington silva had the same work permit problem, so the went to spain to play. wellington is in Levante
Sairax

Eek really? Who did we have over there? Was it Vela? No, he was somewhere else wasn't he?
JG

Vela was at Osasuna and was pretty good. We had Pedro Botehlo at Salamanca and now have Samuel Galindo at Salamanca. By all accounts neither of them ripped up the place there.
Martin

Well, Vela was there for a season, and did pretty well, I think everyone was pretty hopeful about the arrangement.

But after that, Pedro Botelho went there, didn't play all that much, and got basically kicked off the team and shipped back to Arsenal (where he couldn't play b/c he didn't have a work permit, so another loan had to be arranged). Nordtveit went there on what was supposed to be a six-month loan, didn't play, and was recalled by Arsenal, who were pretty frustrated from what I recall at the time that Salamanca had made promises that they would play him and didn't. That one was particularly disappointing because Nordtveit, of course, had an EU passport and didn't have work permit issues, and we could have loaned him out anywhere. And then Galindo is on loan there now, didn't really play and then broke his ankle.

So the track record with them was pretty poor, and I think the club felt burned a couple of times by Salamanca being very eager to get certain players and then letting them rot on the bench and not treating them particularly well while they were there. I may have missed a couple of players in there, as well, but those are the ones I can remember having gone to Salamanca.

Like I said, I hope it's a "once bitten, twice shy" situation, where Arsenal has really made Feyenoord clear on what our expectations our and Feyenoord is prepared to live up to those. Hopefully this will be a situation beneficial to both clubs.
Martin

And I should clarify that I am not necessarily blaming all of that on Salamanca -- they couldn't control Galindo's injury, obviously, and when a player has a disagreement with a coach such that the coach wants him off the team, as happened with Botelho, I'm generally inclined to take the coach's side. And I understand that Salamanca was trying to win things and do well and that, not giving Arsenal's young players time on the pitch, was their first priority.

But I do think Arsenal were at least somewhat justified in feeling like we got lied to a bit, since they asked for so many of our players on loan and then didn't do anything with them. If it had just happened once or twice I might be inclined to give them a benefit of the doubt, but what we saw was definitely a pattern of doing that, which completely undermined the purpose of the agreement from Arsenal's point of view.
Sairax

Ah ok, thanks for that. Other clubs have similar arrangements, though whether they've had problems or not, I wouldn't know. Feyenoord seems to be a good fit though, and I hope it all works out because it would be really good for our players.