Arsenal Fans want us to sell our squad players? What kind of fan are you?

WHY ARE ARSENAL FANS EAGER TO GET RID OF OUR BENCH? by Uche

Saying that many Arsenal fans are eager to get rid of our bench sounds like a ridiculous and exaggerated claim but is it? If you are an informed blogger who tracks and reads the comments that Arsenal fans put out there every single day, you will realize rather shockingly that a lot of Arsenal fans would rather we go through an entire season with just eleven players. Let us just use our beloved Justarsenal.com as a case in point. I have lost count of the number of times I have read statements like, ‘sell Coquelin, Elneny, Walcott, Ramsey, Giroud, Welbeck, Paulista etc’. Why is this so? There is a tendency to brush aside such statements as typical and inconsequential fan sentiment but this same sentiment is what undermines our performances half way into the season when our own fans start booing our team and flying around counterproductive banners during live football games!

Frankly I find this ridiculous, childish and shortsighted. Yesterday, we won yet another Community shield trophy beating the strongest team in England who also happen to be the reigning premier league champions. The most impressive part of this win wasn’t just the fact that we beat the best but that we beat the best without our best players. We played that game without Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil, Aaron Ramsey, Laurent Koscielny and Skhodran Mustafi. Talk about playing a big game without the spine of your team. And then who came to our rescue? It was the very same players that our fans want us to sell. Mohammed Elneny was everywhere. I don’t know where that guy’s energy comes from but he was everywhere – passing, linking, intercepting, attacking and keeping the tempo ticking from beginning to the end. Everybody who played that game was excellent. Young Iwobi was slicing the Chelsea defense like it was made of butter and Danny Welbeck was equally running circles around Chelsea’s defence, dragging them around and running them to the ground. Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott came in later in the game and while they weren’t exactly that imposing, they scored the penalties that gifted us the trophy.

Nevertheless, our fans still want this lot sold. Just read the blogs here. Do those of you demanding that these players be sold not realize that a team cannot function without its bench? Seriously? You cannot go a whole season with just eleven players and the players you are demanding to be bought are costing so much now and will not sit on the bench after we have paid such astronomical amounts of money for them. Just look at how protracted the Thomas Lemar signing has been. Does this not tell you anything about how difficult it is to bring in new players of consequence? Why are you so eager to get rid of the players you have when you cannot even bring in the players you want? Where is the wisdom in selling your current house and becoming homeless while searching for the ‘better house’ you want to buy? It is foolishness. You don’t get rid of something or someone important when the replacement is not there. That is madness! Jeez! This is driving me crazy!

Today we can afford to put up Lucas Perez for sale because we have brought in Alexander Laccazette and we also have forwards like Alexis, Giroud, Welbeck and Walcott in our ranks. That is how you do it. Most of us want to see central midfielders like Jean Michael Seri or William Carvalho brought in. Great. But we are not even close to sealing deals for any of these players if at all Wenger is serious about bringing them in. Yet many of our fans would rather first sell the midfielders we have?

Some of the geniuses here want to get rid of Coquelin, Ramsey and Elneny first, even as we are nowhere near bringing in replacements? You think shopping their replacements is like cereal shopping in a supermarket? Do you even understand the consequence of Arsenal dropping out of the Champions league and Neymar being sold for 200mil? With us no longer being in the Champions league, we have lost tens of millions in revenue. That is some significant amount of transfer money gone for now.

Secondly with Neymar selling for that kind of money, average players will now have their clubs demanding for sums in the neighborhood of 50 to 90 million for them. And they will play hardball before selling for such high amounts. We bought Elneny for around 5 mil, promoted Coquelin from the youth team and paid only 16 million to Manchester United for Danny Welbeck. You cannot even imagine how much these same players will cost now if we were buying them afresh from other teams not to talk about buying better players.

Maybe I am overreacting but I doubt it. This kind of ill-informed clamor for players to be shipped out is what eventually morphs into general resentments in all directions. This kind of resentment led to negative banners about our coach and team being flown around during our football games. This same negativity also cost us games so if you think Wenger and the team are the only ones at fault, go look at the mirror. Many of our fans contributed to our downfall with their nonstop negativity and irrationality.

I am a big believer in personal responsibility. If we want a better world or a better anything, we need to be proactive and play our part, rather than blame everyone but ourselves for things going wrong. Fan toxicity is a real thing and is undermining the progress of our club. It has gotten to a point that even when we win, we bitch. If we are going to succeed as a football club, we need to get it right on a lot of fronts and that includes having rational fans that will support our team especially when we are not doing well. That is the whole idea of the twelfth man on the pitch. The fans are that twelfth man and every team needs their twelfth man to succeed. If you are an Arsenal fan and you really claim to want Arsenal to succeed, better check yourself first and determine what kind of fan you are because one thing is for sure. Our club doesn’t need the wrong kind of fans.

Peace.
Uche Edochie

Lagos – Nigeria

45 Comments

    1. Yeah, well said. I totally agree with the general point of the article.

      Fans protest and banners were counterproductive?!… now that’s one thing I don’t agree with though.
      Counterproductive? in the context of last season alone? Maybe. In the longer term? I’d argue to the contrary.
      Fan’s legit protest and banner’s were a clear message to the top hierarchy at the club that they needed to sit up and begin acting. This was a message that both Stan Kroenke and Ivan Gazidis acknowledged at the end of last season. And it seems they’ve started working on it as evidenced by the little strategic changes they’ve made/having been making in the off-season. Little changes, yes. But it is a step in the right direction, and that’s exactly what the fans who protested genuinely wanted.

      1. I beg to disagree. From great clubs like Barcelona to modest clubs like Sunderland, squad layers are sold either to pave way for better/younger ones or to trim the squad due to rules or budgetary issues among other reasons. And the opinion of fans, even though unsolicited, matters.
        I don’t understand why some Arsenal fans think that we should just be docile, mute and passive fans. Ours is opinion but the management decides so why would one want us silent.
        Fact remains, some of our squad players should be sold.

      2. The banners never asked the Club to Sit Up, they were directed at AW, which indirectly affected the players and the team’s performance to a merge extent.

        Maybe, just maybe, if the banners simply asked the board to Sit Up, things would have happened differently.

        This was a message that both Stan Kroenke and Ivan Gazidis acknowledged at the end of last season? Nice try

        AW is still in charge for another two years (which means the board knows something you don’t know about managing a Football Club)

    2. Another thing is… while the focus this transfer window is on improving the quality of the first 11 (Ivan and Arsene has preaching this since the end of last season), it would not hurt us to improve a bit on the quality of the bench if we can and if we have the resources to do so. This most especially considering our situation as a club that consistently suffers enormous amount of misfortune from injuries to it’s first team players at crucial stages of the season.

      But I don’t subscribe to selling all our bench players. Much less so when we haven’t brought in their replacements/upgrades. It’s unrealistic and childish to expect that.

    3. Bitchy fans, I recall how some were all on Kolasinac’s case on his pre-season debut when he clearly was suffering from food poisoning. Jumping on Wenger’s case for playing El-neny at CB whereas, he was being given a crash course in positional awareness and not just run around the pitch like a headless chicken, clamoring for a like for like replacement for Cazorla, a master midfield orchestrator, when we clearly are moving on towards a Xhaka/Alonso like midfield orchestrator, some even were clamoring for Xhaka to be sold or benched. Besides, Cazorla’s strong suit is his excellent technical abilities while Xhaka combines for a good balance of technical ability and a personality that can impose on games.

      1. in terms of failure to get behind the team wenger (last year) invited arsenal fans to look at how liverpool get behind their team. he had a point? win, lose or draw fans sentiment shared there is the team never walks alone.

        *I agree fans have every right to vent frustration but we should be more tempered in doing so as sometimes we’re unconcerned by where we ought to draw a line between protest and buffoonery. we’re a decent club with a successful league history – there’s no need to stoop to something akin to the “sour” spuds.

  1. We have a squad of 33 players!! We can only submit a squad of 25 for the EPL, the facts are our squad is too big!!

    SSN reporting what most us fans kind of knew anyway that we need to get rid of players before even getting anyone else in!! Fringe players hanging onto their healthy pay packs that we stupidly gave out I mean £70k p/w for Gibbs?? No club are going to pay him that……. we seem to be the only club strugggling to get rid of fringe players and I wonder why??

    Gabriel / Campbell / Dubuchy / Perez / Wilshire / Gibbs / Chambers (loan)

    Their is the 8 that can go!!

    Happy for players like Ramsey and Walcot to stay as they are good enough for the squad/ bench I certainly am not asking for them to leave so please don’t question us as fans who spend serious money as I doubt you have been inside the stadium and just watching from you armchair in Lagos!!

    1. Yes, the article author has to see how big Arsenal squad really is:

      telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/08/07/arsene-wenger-admits-needs-sell-players-will-leave-arsenal-month/

      Arsenal has to downsize as soon as possible, otherwise they would not be able to purchase new players. The total amount of the current player salaries is too big, we cannot increase the salaries of the good performers without offloading the underperformers first.

    2. “SSN reporting what most us fans kind of knew anyway that we need to get rid of players before even getting anyone else in!!……. ”

      Yeah, I think that is very obvious. Another thing that Arsene has stated that he has in mind to do this window.
      I agree that list of 8 players are the most likely to go out this summer. Though I’d hope we keep one of Gabriel or Chambers for this season atleast.

    3. Three FA cup titles and three community shield titles won in the past four years and yet when you read the fan opinions here sometimes, you would think Arsenal has just been relegated. Yes I know this is a strongly worded article but the things I said needed to be said. We whine too much on this blog and we are capable of so much more. Walcot scores goals and straight out of a greta performance, I am reading blogs of fans saying he should be sold anyway. If you disagree, you are welcome to counter that with an intelligent response and not insults Tom.

      Everybody who blogs here knows what I mean. The call for players to be sold hardly references our squad size and the players usually discussed are not folks like Debuchy and Chambers. It is players like Walcot and Coquelin. Giroud and Welbeck. These are players that have won us games and grabbed points for us more often than I can remember and they are OKAY as squad players because if they were any better than they are now, they will want out like Sanchez and Ozil. Was it not in one of our preseason games that a fan jumped onto the pitch and attached Arsene Wenger? That is shameful. This is what happens when unchecked fan sentiments run amok. Wenger has his faults but he also has a bag of trophies and built the modern arsenal as we know it. This club, its players and its manager deserve more respect and support than they get. Feel free to disagree intelligently but ditch the personal insults. You don’t know me enough to know that I have never seen the inside of a stadium because i reside in Lagos. That is ignorant and racist. What the hell was that?

      1. Kind of weird you list Chambers in the same racket as Debuchy (deadwood) who had a solid season with M’borough but yet single out the likes of Welbeck who literally has never scored more than 10 goals. People say his energy and pace is vital for the team but what’s the use of a pacy player who can’t score or assist? There are TONS of other players who can convert chances.

        3 empty goal misses in the past few matches (Everton, Sevilla FA Cup against Man City). Not to mention he’s constantly injured. So what has Welbeck to offer us anymore, more than ie. any other pacy forward couldn’t offer?

        Take the money and run!

        1. Welbeck has a knack for popping crucial goals last gasp winner vs Leicester city the season before the last and the winner against man.u in the FA semis 3 seasons back readily come to mind…not many goals but crucial goals.

        2. you’ve a point and “almost” a strong argument. now think in terms of value for your money, and thereafter welbz is suddenly without compare.

          1. Welbz £16 million
            Giroud £10 million (about)
            Cazorla believed to be below £15 million.

            We got Alexis in the same year, Alexis has proven to be easily more than twice as good…

            1. @Midkemma – I believe you’l find the value (eg a player) is what your customer believes the product or service is worth to them. now do the math

      2. Uche, Giroud Walcott and Coquelin were not squad players though were they. Walcott only last season was starting wide right. Coquelin was starting DM. And Giroud for a long time has been our starting forward. Arsene has only come to his senses on Giroud, by sticking Alexis in there last season. But he took Alexis out and gave it back to Giroud, before having to try Welbeck. And Giroud is already making sounds about game time and what not, so he’s hardly a squad player. Walcott and Coquelin should have been improved on ages ago, they got a fair shot. If they had been squad players years ago with better players ahead of them, then yes you’d make an excellent point. Truth is they are some of the ones who held us back, well Arsene giving them so much faith anyhow.

        And what sort of message do we send, failed, oh well, there’s still a place for you at the Arsenal.

      3. How the helll what I said was racist?? Do you not reside in Lagos then? A bit rich taking about knowing someone when you clearly don’t know me enough to play the racist card on me!!!!

        So is it feasible for me to think (especially the article you have come up with) you haven’t stepped in the stadium enough to judge the fans in here who may be passing judgment on your Welbecks , Walcott and Ramsey’s that have seen enough “live” week in week about the frustrations of the player………

  2. Those fans that want the club sell a lot of players there are” Game fans” only.They probably never been to a real game.

  3. Strong worded article – but nice antidote to the usual transfer rumours

    I do agree and believe that we fans are an important part of the team.

    If we were to start booing at every players poor pass, that can only do harm to the player and team.

    It’s why I think Newcastle are doomed to misery forever – because even when they get a good manager they criticise until they drive them away.

    I really hope that we fans can back our team for the whole campaign. Even after a bad game, or loss

    The team can gain strength from our support, better performances, encourages the fans etc.

    Sadly last season the reverse happened.

    Please fans, support the club you and I love – and let’s win this thing!!!

    #COYG

    1. One way or another, the madness of this strange transfer window will cause a big shift in how what and why players move, more and more players will move for free and I suspect the fans attitude will play a big role on what club top players choose to play for and not just transfer fees.

  4. Compulsori for selling:Debuchy,Gibbs,Perez,Jenkinson.(fire sale)
    Injured;will no attract any offer unless they will be actually playing: Wilshere,Gabriel and Campbell.(Timing out)
    The others ;let the manager sort it out who is going to be in the first team and who is going on loan.
    Players in:Only one more at the very last day.Hopefully a very good one.

  5. You are absolutely over reactive! In my opinion, every fan has an opinion. The fact is: we need to sell some players if we are to bring in more. The beauty of football for a player is ‘time in the pitch’. Depending on their perceived abilities, some players are happy to sit on the bench while others are not.Though I know it is necessary to have a big squad, I think it is time to off load Debuchy at al create slots for potential upgrades.

  6. If it’s so ffing clear cut wtf has management been doing since the end of May …the only top flight club in this situation is our club which is run by a bunch of rent seeking ar****** … Seems half of cron(ey)kes family is paid by the club for their consulting skills but can’t eve add … Typical one percenters

    1. If you gonna take this attitude I’ve Better off supporting another team which I’ll never do but putting it this way if you are so bitter about management of arsenal it’s not arsene who bought the club,what of Tottenham who as yet to sign a player they came second and we were second two seasons ago yet arsene and the management got some abuse and derision from some of our fans, this has to stop ✋ people or we drive some better players signing for us because it’s not only the money for a few of the better player’s out there

      1. you`re kiddin right … if you think players dont come to the club because of what fans are writing on the just arsenal website you are even more delusional than the ostrich himself … the football world isnt run through social media its run by owners and managers and as the most corporate club around that distinction is fudged in arsenal to the detriment of the clubs performance for over a decade now … as a fan ten years is more than enough for me to want major changes … beyond that yes we need to get rid of walcott ramsey giroud or welbeck elneny or coquelin debuchey jenkinson and probably gabriel and bring in a smaller number of top quality players to break the 10 year run of underperformance … as a fan thats what i want not some management surrogate telling me who i should be supporting

  7. Central midfield is where I think we most likely need to upgrade on the fringe players too.
    Elneny has shown promising signs in pre season games. He can be really a good box-box CM when he is playing without any inhibitions or doubts. He can move the ball forward quickly and then follow for the return pass (a key ingredient to how the team plays). Like Ramsey his a bundle of energy and stamina. He is tidier with the ball a bit more than Ramsey. He can shoot. And most importantly, he is willing to be positionally disciplined more than Ramsey.
    I’d upgrade on the unreliable duo of Jack and Santi though -too much injuries. That’ll leave us with 4 CMs we can rely on to compete for 2 spots all season long.

  8. the reason Arsenal have not lifted the EPL trophy or the Champions League is due to fans accepting the mediocrity spewed out by the club . Wenger has admitted to the fact that the club has too many players on their books – 33

    so we can only submit a squad of 25 to the EPL .
    the problem with the statement from the author of this article is that

    1. the deadwood that Arsenal fans are clamouring for ie Jenkinson , Debuchy , Akpom , Asano , Campbell – these players will not feature in the 1st team yet they are depleting a large portion of our wage bill . would it not make sense to get rid of them at all cost , even release them from their contracts to free up the wage bill so that we can perhaps offer players like Oxlaide Chamberlain more money to stay or to lure potential transfers like Van Diyk / Lemar to the Emirates .
    2. players like Wilshere , Ramsey , Coquelin , Walcott and Gibbs spend more time on the treatment bench than on the pitch . they are very inconsistent in their performances as well . we may get a few good games out of them before they return to being passengers we cannot afford during a match .

    we fans may bicker about everything from the manager to the players but its all because we have the same passion which is to see Arsenal be champions for decades to come .
    I agree that during the matches those awesome fans that are blessed with watching Arsenal play , should forget all the issue we have with the club and players and get behind them . support and spur them on till the final whistle blows .

  9. Spot on Uche, but I’m afraid a lot of fans won’t agree with you. They will take it as a personal attack on their right. Well you have been called an armchair fan already. I have asked these questions here and there. What is the purpose of these constant moaning and negativity. What are these moaners and negative propagators want to achieve. I believe if they can define their aims and objectives (which is arsenal achieving greater success ) they will know they are not being helpful and actually doing more harm than good. I know human being are inherently insatiable. If you give them A they will tell you they want B. When you make be available, they will tell look Uche is having C why can’t have the same C. A man u fan i watched CS match kept moaning about how they should have bought Lacazzete instead of Lukaku. Such is live of a football fan.

    1. Couldn’t agree more morello, I know some of the problem is arsene making by offering large wage packets and long contracts to some of these player’s

    2. It seems Arsenal has 3 types of fans. The Die Hard Supporters, Those who react according to issues on ground and the Perpetual Moaners.

      1. THE DIE HARD SUPPORTERS: These guys will always support the club no matter the eventuality. They are the last people to ever criticize the club even when there is obvious reason. These group will easily take consolation for having the opportunity to watch an Arsenal match even when we lost. They accept that the outcome will always either be win, draw or lose. Though this group is few, about 10% of Arsenal fans population and they comprise mainly of older fans.

      2.THOSE THAT REACT ACCORDING TO ISSUES ON GROUND: This group will support good motives and despise the wrong ones. They are good for candid analysis of our games and issues. They form about 40% of Arsenal fans.

      3. PERPETUAL MOANERS: This group will always criticize the club irrespective of the outcome of the club’s performance. Arsenal wins a game, they will say the opponents did not turn up. Arsenal buys a quality player, they either say we bought a ‘club’s reject’ or we need more than is expected or we strengthened the wrong position. They act is if they understand the club more than the owners, the manager, scouts etc. Most of them are teenagers and adults who started following Arsenal at a time when Chelsea and Man City were using the financial strength to buy the league while Arsenal was paying for the stadium. They fast to judge that Giroud hates Lacazette for not hugging him as soon as he scored in a friendly match but failed to notice how the guys hugged after the CS penalty shoot out.

      For the progress of the club we need more of group 1 and 2.

      1. So 50% of AFC’s fans are a bunch of moaning teenagers. I have to disagree, god knows who is on the other end of a computer, they could support clubs from all leagues. Every fan moans, it’s a people thing. Don’t know how you got those numbers, nor the categories.

        How a fan behaves will have allot to do with the type of person he or she is.

        There are more sides to people than – Young moaners!!! – Old people!!! who say nothing (that’s a first) and just put up with whatever. And of course the middle category, your category I assume – Those who know what’s right and what’s wrong!!!, and when to act accordingly, yeah! ..ok!

        I’m sure everyone almost will believe themselves of that (2) category, even though they do do allot of moaning.

  10. Uche my brother u nailed it… some of us don’t really know our strength as a club to compete with other clubs… our strength is not in spending extra large.. we don’t have such power yet.. rather our strength is in being function as a team and our strength to function as a team is not based on the the players and the backroom staffs alone but also as fans to create great atmosphere to encourage our team.. we can also draw strength by being studious with effective scouting system… I don’t care much about who plays for arsenal as long as Arsenal win trophies.. though a player not good enough should not crowd the team.. even if Messi is benched in arsenal as long as the team delivers I don’t care… we were all happy with bfg when he marshal our defence in fa cup… give me such performance and I don’t care whether our best biggest players plays or not…

  11. Wenger himself said the squad is too large. Why get burdened by a big payroll just to hang on to players? This is a silly article.

    If you agree with the premise that you hasver to buy players to strengthen the squad, which we did, how can you disagree with the inevitable fact that you will also have to sell players?

  12. Courino to Barca
    VVD and another to Liverpool
    Mbappe to RM
    Bale to UTD
    Sanchez will go not sure who to though

    Arsenal ??

  13. And our own dear arsenal still sells at 13million shows how good d players are. Bullshit. The players in question r not good enough for a premier league winning team. Talking about squad plagued with injury every season the best we can do is reshuffle. Good players don’t come for cheap. We want the likes of gibbs debuchy jenkinson wilshere out of d team they are jst team salary earner nothing more. And i would prefer lucaz perez to stay n walcot to go but i understand d need for homegrown players. The likes of elneny, coquelin, walcot, perez its only a deluded fan that will want them to lead they r not a first tema calliber but atleast dey are good enough as a squad player.

  14. are you saying Wenger is clueless, he said in a press interview that the squad is large. we need to let the average go to add quality.

  15. Personally, Id like it if we were a bit more ruthless at times. I get your point sure Ive brought it up a few times before – how squad players are vital, and how for the most part they aren’t supposed to be the same quality as a first team player. The thing is we give chance after chance, this bugs me. How many seasons have we started by saying Walcott scores goals therefore Walcott would be a good squad player. Then Walcott is our main man out on the right for most of the season. Before having to put Oxlade or Ramsey there because Walcott can’t defend or protect properly. Does this sound like a sound squad player, what’s worse is he’s a first teamer.

    Every fan will have different ideas and every fan will contradict themselves, such is the nature of the game. But there are a couple on here, who basically say, sell every player except my favorite eight players. Just ignore that dude.

  16. The article is a load of crap..so u are telling me since d end of last season he’s just realising that, shouldn’t he have settled that already and sign the quality players we need. The issue is always the same, just because we won the shield. Wenger starts getting comfortable again and most arsenal fans are gullible. I only hope 4 the best and in arsene i donT trust

  17. You point out how difficult the transfer market is and use Leman as an example. The reality is had we made our current offer for him back when the transfer window opened, he would be playing for Arsenal now. We under bid on everyone in an attempt to outsmart everyone and then when it blows up in our faces we complain about how difficult the transfer market is.
    Also, I care less about if we win or lose and more about our effort. There are games where many of our players don’t have the stomach or desire to make a tackle, track back, make a run, or even show much desire at all. I would rather have a less pretty team of hustlers who could care less about instagram than what we currently have.
    It is no wonder that our collective lack of will pushes every player with a drive to win out of the club!
    To me, these are the issues and they are big ones.
    Wenger points out the loyalty the Kop gives their team? Those boys hustle and if they don’t the manager rips them a new one. They don’t have the talent we do, but they fight like lions.
    How I wish Jürgen Klopp was Arsenal’s coach ein or lose…

  18. Uche my brother, yes! thanks so much, let us support our club, criticism, negativity n hatered are getting too much. As per d player , webk Theo og12 coq elny r still important to us,

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