And They Became TWO!!!

That's the best way I can sum up Arsenal Football Club's early foray into the transfer market this summer. Oops! Where are my manners? Today, I stumbled on an enlightening comment and I'd like to share that comment as well as my personal opinion (I know, I know, you don't want to hear or read it...but it's my blog, remember?). It's Sports TUESDAY!!! Or rather ARSENAL Tuesday!!! Yipee!!!

So - lexical blunder Live with it :) - as we are in a world of 24 hour news, I tried to get the latest that had been happening with my darling club Arsenal FC since yesterday when I last checked and boy, was there something! Oliver Giroud (YES! OG) had completed his medical yesterday and except Her Majesty, The Queen suddenly decides to change her Nationality and become a Tanzanian, the deal is done and dusted. Then I asked myself the same question all Arsenal fans have been asking with bated breath since the end of the Premier League Season: Is this enough to tie Van Persie down?

Analysts in some quarters believe that Arsenal would boast of a new-look frontline of Podolski-Giroud-RVP next season and they might not be wrong considering the fact that RVP (and indeed his Oranje Teammates) did himself no favours with his lukewarm performance at the ongoing Euro 2012. But I ask myself the question, is Arsene Wenger finally grabbing the bull by the scruff of the neck and signing the players we so desperately need because he's sure that RVP's name wouldn't be on the Arsenal teamlist for next season?

Well, this post is about examining the virtues of newboy, OG and trying to determine iff he's the attacking presence we needed all of last season. Yes, RVP scored and assisted about 50 goals last season but most times, he couldn't just push his way past defenders like other strikers from the other teams which I wouldn't dare mention.

Here's the comment that birthed this post:

As far as being a replacement for RVP I don't understand why people don't consider the idea of forcing him to run down his contract. We don't need the money we damn well do need a striker who scored and assisted 50 goals in one season. I'll never forgive the board or Wenger for not doing that should RVP decide he wants to leave. 30+ million is not going to satisfy that disappointment and what RVP wants is irrelevant because we own him for another season and there is no chance in hell will sulk given his status amongst the fans and his own desire to be seen as one of the best strikers in the world.
We keep him, end of story.

I have no idea how Giroud or Podolski will turn out, but I really hope Wenger doesn't clown around with them too much and play Giroud as a right winger or something like that. People above me have said Walcott is a winger, he's not, he's a striker who has had very mixed performances on the wing. Chamberlain is an attacking midfielder who works well on the wing too.

Look, the simple fact of Chamakh is he has an amazing header, a bullet of a head as good as RVP's left foot but we don't have anyone in the team apart from Jenkinson who can cross balls consistently to cater for his talents. We made Chamakh look crap by not playing to his strengths. He's not a ball playing striker, he hasn't got great feet and frankly he looked lost trying to play the sort of game he was instructed to by being told to always look to bring the midfielders into play and dropping deep, when his natural style was to hang off the shoulders of defenders and attack high crosses, which we simply don't do with any regularity or accuracy. He's a plan B striker playing for a team with no plan B.

What we now have with Giroud and Podolski is two strikers who will turn up in the right place at the right time in the box. I watched Montpellier a lot last season. Giroud was always the first player to get to loose balls in the box and I can tell you he misses a lot of very easy chances, seriously a lot but the fact he can legally outmuscle defenders, knows where the ball is likely to appear makes him dangerous and unlike someone like RVP he doesn't take more than one touch, he doesn't try to bring a ball down and try to play past a defender he hits it first time with whichever appendage is closest to the ball with very mixed results I have to say but he will put fear in Premier league defenders because they won't be able to crowd him too much because he doesn't dawdle in the box.

I just hope we play to his strengths and not try to change his game to our usual "pass the ball into the net" type game. He'll get us goals if we allow him the freedom to just hit ball first time when he gets it. He'll miss a lot because he usually does, but with Podolski also the type of player who turns up out of nowhere in the box we're going to see a lot of scrappy goals next season but it's about time we had players willing to blast the ball goalwards when they get it.

 The comment came from Desmond Kreijne and I agree completely. If indeed we do keep RVP, then we could be looking at the beginning of a revolution. I said beginning because, I still don't believe the team has what it takes to win the league or the FA Cup right now...But it could give us a nudge in the right direction.

I'd been making the calls for Arsene to sign players who know what it feels like to win a trophy; players who know what it feels like to fight for a trophy; players that won't buckle under pressure and I think that message is sinking in already. We have championship winners in Gervinho, Podolski and Giroud. RVP won the FA Cup (incidentally his only Arsenal Trophy) in 2005 and he'd won the Euro Cup with Feyenoord. We now have Arteta, Wilshere and The Ox who are fearless and consistent performers.

Add to that, last season's most improved Premier League Goalkeeper (Szcezesny) and Defender (Koscielny) - in my opinion - and I'd say we have eight payers who we can turn to when we need steel, resolve and determination to defend a 1 goal lead or break a deadlock!!!

I look forward as I have for the past 6 seasons to another exciting season for Arsenal.

Problem-Casting for Sympathy

I'd been wondering - for a while now - if and when I'd get back to blogging on a more regular basis when I suddenly realized that if wondering was all I did, I'd never publish another blog post, ever again. So I picked up my phone and started to type.

At first, I thought maybe I should just write and publish a paragraph to let people know that I've rediscovered the writer in me - I'm not so sure I knew the writer very well before - but then, as I started to type, I discovered I had a message for someone, no, Everyone out there, myself inclusive. The message is simple: Stop looking for Sympathy!!!

A lot of people these days have developed a common habit which I'm not condemning but have come to be discouraged from practicing. I sign into my twitter and facebook account these days and apart from the usual "confusion" that's common to both networks, I see many tweets and status updates directly and indirectly "Soliciting" sympathy.

There's this saying that goes: A problem shared is a problem half solved. Even as I type this, I see the irony in this quote; if sharing problems brings a half measure of solution whenever it is done, then there are only two things that could happen. First, the butterfly effect of "problemcasting" (that'd be the most appropriate word to describe it) would ensure that there are no problems in the world because the moment you tell someone about your problem, it's meant to reduce into half its former size. The second thing that could happen, were that saying true is that in halving your own problems, you're unavoidably adding the other half of your problems to the portion of those people who have decided to listen to or read your "problemcast".

It doesn't require a first class science degree to realize that none of the scenarios above are being played out in our world today because while everyone still has at least a couple of problems, I also don't get burdened with an extra load of problems after reading or hearing about other people's problems. So one might ask, "From whence cometh the solutions?"

Answering that might require a bit of Religious and other references which will lead me away from the point of this post (I'm sorry if its turning into an epistle already). The questions to ask are HOW and WHY have YOU been Soliciting the Sympathy of others?

HOW: you lose your phone on your way back from work at the end of a day in which your boss placed you on probation for something you can't even remember and what do you do? You manage to strike up a conversation with a co-passenger in the BRT bus and you tell him a little part of what had befallen you. Maybe you're lucky enough to have internet connection at home or you pick your wife's phone, sign into twitter and facebook and then you let your 400 followers and 1123 friends know what a prick your boss has been and how cruel the streets of Lagos are.

How does that solve your problem? If anything, you've made yourself an object of discussion at dinner tables, cybercafes, dorms and any other places where your "friends" and followers might be. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't tell anyone about what you're going through, all I'm saying is do not broadcast your problems because Nobody, and I repeat: Nobody can understand what you're going through more than yourself.

In spreading the word about your problem (this is WHY you problemcast), you're invariably soliciting sympathy and you'd get it from some people. But what does it do to solve your problem??? In what way does "Aww...sorry" or "eeyahhh...pele" reduce the gravity of your problems? Most of these people would eventually remember your problems while drinking bottles of beer and they'd have a good laugh about you. Where does that leave you and your problem?