Biggus
Established Member
Glovegun said:asajoseph said:There are several issues going on here, which people seem to be confusing.
1 - Freddie's been a nine year servant at Arsenal, and a pretty loyal one. Regardless of what he's getting paid, he did the business for us for many years - and deserves credit for that.
2 - Freddie has not performed for two seasons. There can be no doubting it. Will his talents be missed for any other reason than he was one man standing in the way of Abou Diaby playing on the wings? I doubt that too.
3 - Wenger obviously was prepared to sell him, but his comments in the press, and the fact that it's taken this long to find a buyer would indicate that he wasn't desperate to offload him either.
4 - Having a pop at your former club isn't classy - but that's no reason to disregard the comments he made out of hand
So how do you explain what Freddie said? Well, it's hard to know - but I don't accept that you can just dismiss it because it makes you feel uncomfortable. There probably are several reasons, and yes, saving face is probably part of it. But when the chips are down, if he genuinely felt that things were just drifting at Arsenal, without any real efforts being made to break back into the running for serious silverware, perhaps joining an up and coming side, who're spending big, with a chairman who's willing to invest in his side and play hardball for his team would be an attractive way to finish his playing career. After all, what was left for him at Arsenal? A few years as a bit-part player in some kind of 'project', that probably wouldn't come to fruition in the duration of his contract, might not be that attractive to him - and if he felt he'd been told that there would be investment in the side, that then did not materialise, well, I'd probably want to go somewhere where I could make a difference to something, rather than just hang around and get treated like yesterday's news.
Great post. A lot of the old team have 'slated' us since they left, or at least trotted out poor excuses for going (Henry, Vieira, Pires, Ljungberg). For all their money and whatnot, footballers have a short shelf life. Coincidentally, the amount of time Freddie has left of top-flight football is probably how long it will take our youth project to really come to fruition - 2/3 years. I doubt he wants to put in the hard work leading up to success and then be pushed out just as the trophies come flooding in.
Yes good post Asa. Glove- I've being getting flamed in the past few pages for daring to ask that very reason why all these players are speaking out after they've left or even before in Gallas's case. And while my pessimisism has been well and truly addressed. Nobody has an answer for my question:
Why are all these players speaking like this now?
This is not the Arsenal way, whats going on?