Hello from Lachlan and quick news roundup

Just when we all started to think that things were going to settle down after the Euros, there is some good news for us all. We have another new writer for the Arsenal Offside! Some of you may know me from the comments section over the past few seasons, but for those of you who don’t, I will try and fill in the gaps.

Disqus handle: LachlanS
Years following The Offside: 3-4 (not quite sure)
Years following Arsenal: 13
Favourite Arsenal Player: Dennis Bergkamp
Favourite Music: Radiohead

Like most of you, I was very disappointed to see the blog collapse during last season. It made the season so much more difficult to bear! I just didn’t know where to go to argue with people all things Arsenal. I was very glad that Perry and Felegy have been able to salvage the site, and I am very honoured to have been given the opportunity to be part of it. I am aiming to work with the other two to keep everyone up to date on all things Arsenal, but most importantly to present these things with my own bias, as all good bloggers do. Some of you may remember the general gist of my stance on how the club should be run, but for those of you who don’t, I’ll keep it as a surprise.

While I am keen to do as much writing as possible for the blog, I am just about to head back to medical school for the next 17 weeks, so obviously that will consume a fair bit of my time. I’ll still be able to do some writing, just not a piece very couple of days. So please bear with me through the semester, and if I go completely MIA, then know that I will definitely be back after my exams (I believe that will be by November 10). Also, I live in Australia, so the most common time for a game to be on is 2AM, so I rarely watch games live, and sometimes not at all (I hate watching highlights, they can be so misleading about how well a player has played). As such any writing contribution I make in relation to the actual football matches may be very delayed due to the fact that I don’t watch matches live too often and that it can take me a while to find the time to sit down and watch the whole match delayed.

I think mostly my additions to the blog will be more news related rather than game related, but I also hope to do some writing about how the club is run. The first such article will take a bit of a look at the club’s current financial position, and should be up before the weekend. I also encourage criticism of my views and opinions, I’m always open to a good ‘discussion’ so criticism is the best way to get this going.

That’s it for the introduction, I hope that we can all get along nicely and have a lengthy and healthy relationship.

I still miss him..

Anyway, I thought I would do a bit of a round-up of Arsenal news for everyone.

Whilst the Euro final had very little Arsenal relevance, I always find a tournament final to be pretty exciting. It was good to see our old captain Fabregas play an important role in the match, and I thought his assist was top notch, Silva didn’t know a thing about it. Seeing him shine for Spain during the tournament just reminded me of what our game has been missing for the past season. Sure Rosicky has been solid for a lot of this season, but he is no replacement for Fabregas sadly. I have been denying the need for us to purchase a good attacking midfielder, but seeing Fabregas shine all tournament has me doubting myself.

It was also good to see Balotelli have a tantrum at the end of the match. Although I feel a bit bad enjoying someone else’s misery, I feel that he is a dick and it is therefore justified.

In the latest of a long string of pointless stories in the Robin Van Persie saga, the club has allegedly turned down a €10 million bid from Juventus. That sounded like absolute rubbish to me, and not surprisingly, the chairman has rubbished the claims and has insisted that we are yet to receive a bid for him at all from anyone. Mancini has kept up his stance of ‘not talking about players from other clubs’ yet we all know that they will be more than willing to strike. At this stage it seems like the only two possible destinations for Van Persie are Juve and City, but neither seems like a strong link at the moment. I am personally of the opinion that I don’t want to know anything about it until Robin signs a new contract or doesn’t, and when it is decided whether he will be staying at the club or not. Until then I really don’t care. Whilst the thought of him leaving, especially to another EPL club, is not a nice one, it is what it is and it is more important that we focus on improving our own club in any way we can.

On that note, it has been announced that Joel Campbell has been sent to Real Betis for the season. I’m not going to pretend that I have ever watched the guy play, but I’m led to believe the kid has reasonable talent and I hope he can have a good season over there and end up with a work permit at the end of it all so he can join us for the 2013-2014 season and win us the league. I hope.

In other annoying news, Aaron Ramsey has been selected for the Olympics. If they do well then he will miss basically all of our pre-season tour of Asia and the match in Africa. That is a bit frustrating, but I guess we can deal with that. However, the only decent player in the squad from whom Aaron might learn something is Ryan Giggs. As such I can’t help but feel that he would be better off having a longer break and then joining the rest of the squad for the pre-season. Other than Ryan Giggs, the only interesting name really is Bellamy, but in my opinion he is a clown so I can’t imagine Ramsey will learn anything useful from him during the Olympics. I guess we can be thankful that Pearce has only managed to get his hands on one of our players, and the rest can do something productive for the next couple of months.

It is also beginning to sound a lot like Lloris will be moving on from Lyon this summer. Obviously I would love to have a keeper like him at Arsenal, but I don’t think it will happen. We have a good young keeper as is, and I can’t imagine us putting down the money to get the world’s best given those circumstances. However, I suspect that it will be Tottenham who can bring him in, of all the Premier League clubs. That would be really annoying. Maybe we should bring him in to avoid that all together? Also rumours have suggested that due to M’Vila’s apparent disciplinary problems Wenger has gone off of him a bit. That sounds plausible and likely to me (that is if Wenger was ever considering him), but I find myself wondering who it is then that we might bring in to our midfield this summer. I suspect that we will instead rely on the return of Diaby and Wilshere ‘being like new signings’. Or worse, we may end up holding on to Denilson if we can’t move him on. Now that is scary to think about. But the transfer deadline is still a long way off, so I am trying to avoid thinking too much about it now.

Whilst writing this article I have begun to realise that it may take me a while to work out how to do all my formatting etc. so bear with me folks. Thanks.

That’s it from me today ladies and gentleman, until next time.

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Category: Arsenal News