Who’s paying Squillaci: Arsenal’s row of coasters is making me sick
By David Swaden
It has been a funny old few weeks. We’ve had: The most one-sided 2-1 you are ever likely to see against Manchester United, a couple of frustrating draws against Fulham and Shalke, a somehow nervy 5-2 and a lacklustre (at best) draw at Aston Villa.
Make no mistake, the Villa game was there for the taking, yet in the end we were lucky to escape with a point. Why? Because we rotated and it didn’t work. Once you scratch even a little under the surface of our first 11, too often you discover a gaping chasm in class.
See Wilshere to Ramsey and Giroud to Gervinho. That means we at once can’t keep our big guns fresh enough, and also can’t rely on their replacements. I want to stick to my guns over the Gunners. Saturday was yet another desperately disappointing performance, but in terms of a result, and a realistic finish, we remain OK.
To expect to place higher than the 3 big spenders is unfair given the way our club is set up. Moan if you like but it’s that simple for me. So with that in mind, a 4th place finish is satisfactory, and despite his protestations to the contrary, I dont believe Wenger feels he really has a title challenging team at his disposal.
Around us, no-one is setting the world alight. Spurs are inconsistent, as are Everton, West Brom are doing great but won’t last and do Newcastle look any better than last year? No.
Teams, with the exception of Manchester United, ebb and flow at the top of English football and always have done. Look at Liverpool for one example. The exception with Wenger is that he is the only manager I can think of who has managed a transition from best of the rest, to the top and back down again. Maybe the fact that he created champions from challengers has allowed him to stick around for the ride on the way down.
But there is something that has been really bugging me, something that I can’t accept, something that was almost lost a couple of weeks ago amongst the Capital One cup drama.
What am I talking about? Our roll of coasters. We genuinely have a welfare dependency problem within our club.
Wasters like Chamakh, Squillaci and Djourou are on upwards of 50k a week, and Arshavin is one of our highest earners despite hardly playing a game. They add nothing, but no-one else will pay their wages so they stay. They know they won’t get the same wages at another club, so have no incentive to put themselves in the shop window. These people earn more than you or I do in a year, per week.
Yet where is their fight, Arsene’s famous “mental spirit”? They stay for the money, refusing to move elsewhere for regular football and a deserved pay cut. It’s disgraceful how they prefer to stay and not play, just so they can collect their wages -your money. If they did have pride as athletes, Chamakh and Squillaci would be long gone and we would have the space to bring in hungry new recruits.
Chamakh, for example, should be an option, he should be a card to play when things aren’t going well. But as it is he’s just, quite literally, wasting a space. That’s why when Wenger needed a lost throw of the dice offensively on Saturday, there was no-one to answer his call.
I can’t believe it is helpful to have this kind of attitude in the squad and I fear that may be one of the reasons we are seeing such a lethargy at various points this season. To succeed, your squad needs a competitive culture, where every level pushes the next and wants to improve. I fear we don’t have at that at the moment, I worry what we actually have is a culture of complacency.
The wasters don’t play so they are rusty, and the rustier they get, the further they become from playing. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m no expert, but I doubt any other Premier League team has this problem quite to the extent that we have at our club. If they do, they are City, United or Chelsea. A lot of argument goes on about Arsenal’s board being only interested in profit. But on this subject, there can be no argument. Both the football and the financial point in the same direction. If we’re meant to be so financially sound, our utmost priority should surely be to address this glaring excess.
So that’s what has my goat at the moment. We need hungry players pushing our first-teamers and able to add real depth when required. In Cazorla, Wilshere, Arteta, Giroud and Podolski, to name a few, we have some really top quality driven footballers in our first team. But we must get rid of this complacent attitude that is poisoning the squad.
As much as I want to see re-enforcments, I also want to see exits in January. But maybe it’s not possible, maybe they will just refuse to budge.
For Arsenal’s sake, indeed for their sake, let’s hope not.
I want 2 ß gunners player, and i dn’t have d money. You should help me please. I’m from Nigeria[+2348064984979]
You are a scammer mate……get a life!
You want to be a gunners player? and you don’t have the money?- please tell us what you not having money has to do with you wanting to become a player for Arsenal.
Well, I think the best way is to name and shame them. Here’s my list of people we should get rid of, either because they are not good enough or because they are injury prone. I also have a ROUGH idea of how much they earn a week, through various sources.
Djourou – 40k
Denilson – 50k
Diaby – 60k
Bendtner – 50k
Santos – 50k
Arshavin – 70k
Squillaci – 60k
Chamakh – 50k
Fabianski – 40k
That equates to 470k a week of wasted wages.
Promote the likes of Miquel, Gnarby and Aneke who are already better than a few of the above, and you can still afford to get 5 better players with those wages.
All down to mr wenger he should do the right thing and GO
You should do the right thing and go Billy Bee…you aren’t worthy to lick Wenger’s boots.
I’d keep Djourou if we can (I know he wants first team football). Call me crazy but I still remember when he was pretty good 2 seasons ago.
The rest can go.
Yanga….your various sources are pure BS…the ONLY source you used was out of your ass! Stop trying to a BITK and return to your mudhut hovel where you play Fantasy Football Manager on your Unesco computer.
To be fair mate yes you can blame the players but surely the blame is the person who bought them and the person who put them on there wages, would you leave your job paying 60 grand a week to take one on 15 grand a week?? i agree they should have some pride and leave
AW architect of current social wage structure. It has backfired, it attracts journeymen, retain crocs and stars leave in disgust. Arsenal wage bill is 3rd in the premiership and the club has not punched above its weight for years. This season is among the worst in decades. AW pigheaded defense saying he knows best because he has coached for 30 years smacks of his mind really freezing over. His flair is long gone. Kroenke is mediocre too, just look at his US clubs.
Let’s hope you wrong. I really desperately hope we budge some new player. At least 1-2 players. Also we still in the middle walcott negotiation. I believe our chance to still him in the Arsenal almost at 30%. He is not really good, but with the connection he built with giroud, and compare to others he still the best choice.
Hit the friggin nail on the head, bigtime!
This us the sole reason we are not going to win something apart from maybe COC, if were lucky! Something must be done to stop bleeding good money on coasters!
Felt a bit sorry for Chamakh, played and scored twice against Reading but not seen since. Might as well use him. Good article
And whose fault is this…WENGER’S! He hired them and set their wages. But not a word from you about Wenger’s culpability. Instead, you just blaming the players. Stop being naive. You’d do the same if you were them.