Not qualify for Europe at all? Who on earth is going to knock Arsenal down to 7-8th place? Wigan, Man City, Fulham and/or West Ham? The lowest Arsenal will finish is 6th, regardless of how badly they're doing at the moment. And that will get you UEFA Cup this year, provided United crush Spurs in the League Cup. And no you couldn't beat Fulham or Stoke... but you did beat United and Chelsea. Your tie with Roma is completely up in the air. In fact at the moment I think it's fair to say all 4 English clubs' CL last 16 ties are completely up in the air.
^As I said, there is a strong argument that we would not enter the Europa League (the new name for the UEFA Cup) if we finished in a qualifying spot.
Has that argument come from within the club? I mean, I can see how participation in such a tournament may be a detriment to some clubs financially, but surely if all those little clubs from Belgium and Serbia and Greece and so on can enter without problems, Arsenal can too?
A club refusing to enter the UEFA cup? Oh how football has lost its way Well Derby have lost Barnes to Fulham. No great loss really, great player but we've hardly had him in the team for the last 18 months anyway so doubt we'll miss him that much. I'm much more worried by the Commons/Newcastle rumours...think we would miss him. I see we're trying to hijack Cardiff bid for Motherwell's Porter.
At most, Arsenal would probably enter the Carling Cup team. Put it this way, if Arsenal go to Russia to play Zenit St. Petersburg in a Champions League group stage game and beat them, they get guaranteed TV money (which is a lot) and also a lot of prize money just for the three points. If Arsenal go to Russia to play Zenit in a Europa League group stage game and beat them they have to negotiate their own TV rights and the prize money is a lot less. In both situations, Arsenal have travelled a long way to play a game on a Thursday and will then have to beg and plead with the Premier League to move the Saturday league game to Sunday. Arsenal would have to be amongst the favourites to win the tournament, but the short term glory of doing so would not be worth the risk to our chances of getting back in to the Champions League.
Tito's attracting interest from Greece and Switzerland as well. Looks like he may go before or on Monday. Perhaps on a related note, it's claimed on the Galway United website that we're not pursuing our interest in Jay O'Shea due to a 'rapid decline in our finances'. That, coupled with the sudden departure of Barnes and likely departure of Villa is raising a few concerns. The fee that we'd previously agreed for O'Shea was in the region of £300k, and suddenly we can't afford it? I'm reserving judgement until the window closes on Monday. Barnes and Villa out may free up cash and wage budget to bring a few much-needed players in (defenders!). If we just end up selling players, and our better ones at that, and not replacing them, then I'd imagine that more than a few people are going to be mighty pissed off. Looks like we're going head-to-head with Cardiff over Porter; http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11688_4873121,00.html
Lots of gloom and doom about Arsenal, have to say I'm not too worried, even if we do finish outside the top four (which I doubt). It's obvious this team isn't quite it, but considering the fact that Arsenal have been punching above their weight for so long something was bound to give eventually. Not saying it couldn't have been prevented, it could have, just saying the problems are far from irreversible.
According to Sky Sports, Arsenal have got a work permit for Arshavin. Even though they haven't signed him yet.
And not to offer excuses, because a big club should have quality in squad depth, but there have been quite a few injuries this season with some carrying over from last. And a couple of those players, Eduardo in particular, will be coming back into games soon and can make a difference. I said here some weeks (months?) ago that winning the league was already lost and fighting for a spot in the next Champion's League is the goal. Arsenal don't have to beat the world this season. Just make up the five points on Villa. Very, very doable.
Shay Given is being allowed to speak to Man City, which is a slap in the face to Joe Hart so I hope a big club comes in for him. Also Spurs will not continue there chase for Keane so if I was them sell Bent in the summer and buy Owen.
Villa have been shite recently, but have been bagging points. It will come to an end sooner or later. Now that they've bought Heskey, expect to see a return to the classic Martin O'Neill long-ball tactics. Though arguably they never went away.
According to The Sun, we've signed Chris Porter, and in time for tomorrow's game against Coventry. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article2193200.ece Watford are apparently considering an offer from Cardiff for Tommy Smith. A sum in the region of £1.5m apparently.
Late show by Liverpool/Torres but the ref got it wrong with sending Lampard off and should of sent Boswinga off late on when he studded someone literally in the ass . Also am calling it that Portsmouth will get relegated, that defending yesterday was awful, they tried to play offside when there were inside the oppostion half someone need to read them the rule book. If pompey go down they will become the next Leeds, Leicester and Forest by imploding and ending up in League one because they are heavy in debt and will lose majorty of there players and unlike Leeds n Forest have no youth academy to bring players through.
And so it's finally here: the last chance for everyone to lose their best players until the summer, Transfer Deadline Day. Let the exciting rumours and unexciting reality begin!
Sky Sports News have video of Andrei Arshavin outside a Hertfordshire hotel close to Arsenal's training ground. Edit - And now it's off again as Arsenal apparently haven't stumped up enough cash.
I don't think you're going to get him - Arsenal will stick to their valuation and Zenit will stick to theirs. Arsenal fans will be unhappy, Arshavin will be unhappy and Zenit fans will have to put with keeping a player who doesn't want to be there. The only deals I've heard of that I want to see happen are Pannuci to Hull, N'Zogbia to Wigan and Olivier Dacourt to Fulham.
The best I can see happening is that we get him on a six month loan deal and it all gets sorted out in the summer.
Just to mess everything up even more, the 'adverse weather conditions in London' have caused Arsenal v Cardiff to be postponed. I am not happy about that at all. This was a good time for Cardiff to play Arsenal again - it's been moved to Saturday February 14th now.