Monthly Archives: July 2014

Just what have Everton, Spurs, and Man U been up to?

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In part two of our ongoing, two-part series, we again play the part of nosy neighbors in order to learn just what it is our friends elsewhere have been up to. It’s a bit of keeping up with the Joneses, except we want to do much more than keep up with the Joneses. We want to pummel them and leave no doubt in their minds as to where things stand, pecking-order-wise, and to put them back in their rightful places, leaving things crystal-clear, nice and tidy so that there are no unpleasant misunderstandings. Yesterday, we looked at the three clubs that managed to finish above us (in large part, it had to do with out-spending us). Today we’ll look at three other clubs with designs on leap-frogging us: Everton, Spurs, and Man U.

Everton, of course, enjoyed a very brief but dangerous spell above us in the waning weeks of the campaign, bouncing back from being bounced from the FA Cup to defeat us and hold onto to fourth, only to fade under the pressures of qualifying for the Champions League for the first time since, well, ever. Despite failing to prove manager Roberto Martinez’s bold prediction of doing just that, Everton will play in the Europa League, having finish fifth, seven points behind us. In what ways have they tried to bolster their squad to this point in the transfer-window (set to close 31 August)? Keep in mind, we’re focusing here on major or likely-to-be major contributors…

Players in:

  • Romelu Lukaku, centre-forward, Chelsea: £31.2m
  • Muhamded Besic, defensive midfield, Fercencvaros (Hungarian League): £4.2m
  • Gareth Barry, defensive midfield, Man City: free transfer.
Players out:
  • Gerard Deulofeu, winger, Barcelona: end of loan.
It’s been an eerily quiet summer thus far for the Toffees, with Lukaku as their only major signing to this point. We know full-well how potentially dangerous he can be. The question that arises is this: will Lukaku thrive or struggle under the price Everton have paid? For the last two seasons, he’s played with the relative freedom of being loaned-out. Now, however, he has to earn his keep. He’s still just 21, and it will be interesting to see how well he lives up to the expectations of being his club’s #1 centre-forward rather than being that chap whose club loaned him out. At a lower level, the arrival of Gareth Barry may lend a more-stabilizing, wizened sense of things, as the no-nonsense 33-year old knows the pressures of playing top-flight football and may lend a steadying hand to a squad otherwise short on battle-tested mettle. On top of that, Martinez will have a season under his belt and that his squad, largely unchanged from last season, will be more-familiar and more-competent with his system and expectations. That’s a threat not to be underestimated, even if the new stress of Europa League blunts their Prem ambitions.
On to Spurs. By contrast with last summer, they’ve been very, very quiet. Once bitten, twice shy, as they saying goes. After bringing in some seven new players and a new manager, it’s likely that Spurs have drawn the conclusion that a bit of stability might be a good thing. Indeed, their only significant additions to this point have come from within the Prem, be they players or manager:
Players in:
  • Ben Davies, left-back, Swansea: £11.1m.
  • Michael Vorm, keeperk Swansea: £5.1m.
Players out:
  • Gylfi Sigurdsson, midfield, to Swansea: £8.9m.
  • Jake Livermore, midfield, to Hull: £8.9m.
It’s easy to sneer at Spurs. You probably did it each time you saw the word. Spurs. There. Did it again, didn’t you? However, their most significant addition won’t appear on the pitch: Mauricio Pochettino. The additions of Davies and Vorm look to be back-ups, at best, but Pochettino might be the manager who finally makes good on Spurs’ perennial promise to finish above us. He was good enough to guide Southampton to its highest finish since 1990 when they finished 7th in the First Division. Between the departure of Bale, the arrivals of Lamela, Soldado, Paulinho, Eriksen, Capoue,  Chiriches, Chadli, and a few others, and the switch from Villas-Boas to Sherwood, there’s been a great of turnover at White Hart Lane, and a lost season of sorts is to be expected. However, like Everton, they may yet benefit from a more-stable approach to things. We’ll be counting in Carl Jenkinson, who will face them as a loanee to West Ham, to put an early season dent in their ambitions.
Last, but certainly not least, is Man U. It’s a bit odd to ponder just how far they’ve fallen (their lowest-ever in the Prem) and to heap scorn on the fact that they failed to qualify for European competition in any form for the first time since 1989. They’ve ben deprived of even Europa League competition thanks to Hull City’s qualification via the Tigers’ appearance in the FA Cup final. Still, that absence of a European distraction may just their biggest asset as, like Everton and Southampton, they’e been strangely quiet to this point…
Players in:
  • Luke Shaw, left-back, Southampton: £33m.
  • Ander Herrera, attacking midfield, Atletic Bilbao: £31.7m
Players out: 
  • Alex Buttner, left-back, to Dinamo Moscow: £4.9m.
  • Patrice Evra, left-back, to Juventus: £1.3m
  • Rio Ferdinand, centre-back, to QPR: free transfer.
  • Nemanja Vidic, centre-back, to Inter: free transfer.
Truth be told, the list of players exiting Old Trafford would include about 10 other players too young too make meaningful contributions. This, to me, highlights the problem at Old Trafford: too many long in the tooth, too many not yet shaving daily. Yes, Evra, Ferdinand, and Vidic are gone, but those are three Prem-tested warriors you can’t simply replace. In their place, Man U have managed to add Luke Shaw, an intriguing player but not one who can single-handedly replace the experience of Evra, Ferdinand, and Vidic. Yes, there is a stable of young, ambitious starlets chomping at the bit to replace them, but few if any are ready to deliver the consistency and tenacity of the departed. As with the 2013-14 season, I’d love to see another season of depressed expectations, led by the increasingly petulant and petty bleatings of the Dutch Skunk, among others (Rooney, I’m looking at you…). I wish we could write off Man U at that and be done with it. 
However, as with Everton and Tottenham, the real story with Man U may lie with the manager. Louis van Gaal is no ingenue. He doesn’t strike me as being in over his head as Moyes so often did. Whereas Moyes seemed to play it safe too often, a hold-over from his days with a cash-strapped Everton, van Gaal weds a Dutch, “total football” strategy with Man U’s all-too-familiar financial largesse. Suffice it to say that, for as much as we hope to hunt down Man City, Liverpool, or Chelsea, we’ll have to keep an eye on those behind us. Man U, perhaps more than Everton or Spurs, will challenge: no European competitions to distract. A legacy to uphold. A manager with a track-record. Financial reserves to exploit.
In any Prem campaign, success or failure sometimes comes down to just a few matches. We’ll face these hungry, ambitious squads six times, all told, and our ability to open up a can of whup-ass on them each time might just make the difference between winning the Prem and failing to qualify for spoils as sorry as the Europa League.
Amen.

Enough about Arsenal. Just what have our rivals been up to? (Part the first)

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We’ve done a nice bit of business to this point in the transfer-window, no doubt about it, having added four players and a physio who might help them and the rest of the squad stay on the pitch. We may still crave and perhaps even need a few more players, such as an out-and-out striker, a holding midfielder, and a centre-back, and rumors abound around a few names sure to get us salivating. However, for as busy as we’ve been, it’s well-worth investigating our competitors’ affairs to see whether we’re merely running to stand still or running away from the pack. There is still a month and change left before the transfer-window closes, but we can use this time just as well as anyone else in the Prem. Here, we’ll look at the clubs that finished above us in 2013-14.

He who laughs last, laughs best…

First up, Man City. They won the Prem, of course, and as such are the club to beat. We’ll face off in the Community Shield, to be played 10 August. More on that another day. Our focus is on who will be in the City squad for the season. Of course, we all have one name in mind thus far: Bacary Sagna. Who else, then has City added or lost?

  • Fernando Reges, defensive midfield, FC Porto: £13.2m
  • Willy Caballero, keeper, Malaga: £7.1m.
  • Bruno Zuculini, midfield, Racing (Argentina): £2.2m
  • Bacary Sagna, defense, Arsenal: free.
These are just the major names, so to speak. There are a few others who were loaned out and have returned but who are unlikely to make much of an impact. It’s been a markedly modest window for City, who in previous windows have splurged and spent in a fashion that would make drunken sailors blush. They’ve seen a few players depart, namely Joleon Lescott, Gareth Barry, and Costel Pantilimon, but each of them left on a free transfer. Their balance-sheet is therefore still in the red by about £23m, but this is a pittance by City’s standards. None of these additions looks like he’ll make a dramatic impact or even start, for that matter, but such is the depth of City’s squad that this hardly matters. They’re still the club to beat, and if they’re content to shuffle a pieces here and there, that signals less a lack of ambition and more an awareness of strength.
Next up is Liverpool. They’ve been busy little beavers, in part to make up for the departure of one particularly bitey l’il beaver. It’s not every summer that a club has to replace a 30-goal, twice-bitey forward, but so it is for the Liverputians. They’ll have to figure out how to rebuild a squad that was once built almost entirely around Suarez. If nothing else, they’ve spent what they got for him:
  • Adam Lallana, midfield, Southampton: £27.3m.
  • Dejan Lovren, centre-back, Southampton: £22.3m
  • Lazar Markovic, winger, Benfica: £22m
  • Divock Origi, forward, Lille: £11.1m
  • Emre Can, defensive midfield, Bayer Leverkusen: £10.6m
  • Rickie Lambert, forward, Southampton: £4.8m
Again, there are others returning from loans elsewhere, such as Pepe Reina (who might just replace Mignolet…). This is an almost-Tottenhamian number of signings, bringing in six new players in one summer, with many of them expecting to start or at least get regular minutes. Incorporating them, especially Lallan, Lovren and Markovic, into the Southampton of the North, will be a challenge to Rodgers, who somehow has to revamp his entire squad after the deparutre of Suarez. How he’ll do that while also grappling with the entirely new challenge of European competition will define his season and the success of this transfer-window. I don’t see Liverpool staying in the top-four, even if they do get out of the Champions League group-stage.
Which brings us to Chelsea. Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea. So resplendent in riches, so destitute of dignity. Keeping up with years past, the Chavvies have been busy in the transfer-market, but whether this is enough to see them keep their desperate little claws clutching to a third straight third-place finish is anyone’s guess. It’s a bold statement of intent to outspend just about everyone while not improving one’s position on the table, but it might be Chelsea’s speciality. To wit, they’ve brought in the following:
  • Diego Costa, forward, Atletico Madrid: £33.5m.
  • Cesc Fabregas, midfield, Barcelona: £29.1m
  • Filipe, left-back, Atletico Madrid: £17.6m
  • Didier Drogba, forward, Galatasaray: free.
  • Thibaut Courtois, keeper, Atletico Madrid: end of loan.
Whenever it comes to Mourinho, we have to keep an eye on mind-games. Did he sign Fabregas because he needs a creative Spaniard in his midfield? Somewhere, Mata mutters. More likely, he wanted to tweak Arsene’s nose. Similarly, does he see Drogba terrorizing us as he so often did in bygone years? Perhaps, but this is less likely after having splurged on Costa. With Luiz off to PSG, Lukaku signing with Everton, and Ba off to Besiktas, Costa looks likely to take over the centre-forward role from Torres, who might enjoy scoring more than ten Prem goals for the first time since 2009-10. Whoever it is scoring the goals, we know that besting Chelsea comes down to breaking down their defense. Courtois may have returned to compete with Cech, but somehow Chelsea will have to find a way to replace Luiz, Cole, and Lampard. They’ll still be contenders, to be sure, but I’m not sure I see them moving up from that third-place finish that Mourinho apparently covets.
At least as far as transfer-business goes, I have to admit that I feel pretty good about our progress. We’ve replaced Sagna (some might say upgraded from him, sacrilegious thought that may sound), found a winger-cum-striker who can create for himself, added a keeper who might just be a bit better than our current #1, and, with an eye to the long-view, brought in a player who could end up as a right-back, centre-back, or holding midfielder. Is that enough to climb to the pinnacle of the Prem? Time will tell.

Enough about Arsenal. Just what have our rivals been up to? (Part the first)

8 Replies
We’ve done a nice bit of business to this point in the transfer-window, no doubt about it, having added four players and a physio who might help them and the rest of the squad stay on the pitch. We may still crave and perhaps even need a few more players, such as an out-and-out striker, a holding midfielder, and a centre-back, and rumors abound around a few names sure to get us salivating. However, for as busy as we’ve been, it’s well-worth investigating our competitors’ affairs to see whether we’re merely running to stand still or running away from the pack. There is still a month and change left before the transfer-window closes, but we can use this time just as well as anyone else in the Prem. Here, we’ll look at the clubs that finished above us in 2013-14.

He who laughs last, laughs best…

First up, Man City. They won the Prem, of course, and as such are the club to beat. We’ll face off in the Community Shield, to be played 10 August. More on that another day. Our focus is on who will be in the City squad for the season. Of course, we all have one name in mind thus far: Bacary Sagna. Who else, then has City added or lost?

  • Fernando Reges, defensive midfield, FC Porto: £13.2m
  • Willy Caballero, keeper, Malaga: £7.1m.
  • Bruno Zuculini, midfield, Racing (Argentina): £2.2m
  • Bacary Sagna, defense, Arsenal: free.
These are just the major names, so to speak. There are a few others who were loaned out and have returned but who are unlikely to make much of an impact. It’s been a markedly modest window for City, who in previous windows have splurged and spent in a fashion that would make drunken sailors blush. They’ve seen a few players depart, namely Joleon Lescott, Gareth Barry, and Costel Pantilimon, but each of them left on a free transfer. Their balance-sheet is therefore still in the red by about £23m, but this is a pittance by City’s standards. None of these additions looks like he’ll make a dramatic impact or even start, for that matter, but such is the depth of City’s squad that this hardly matters. They’re still the club to beat, and if they’re content to shuffle a pieces here and there, that signals less a lack of ambition and more an awareness of strength.
Next up is Liverpool. They’ve been busy little beavers, in part to make up for the departure of one particularly bitey l’il beaver. It’s not every summer that a club has to replace a 30-goal, twice-bitey forward, but so it is for the Liverputians. They’ll have to figure out how to rebuild a squad that was once built almost entirely around Suarez. If nothing else, they’ve spent what they got for him:
  • Adam Lallana, midfield, Southampton: £27.3m.
  • Dejan Lovren, centre-back, Southampton: £22.3m
  • Lazar Markovic, winger, Benfica: £22m
  • Divock Origi, forward, Lille: £11.1m
  • Emre Can, defensive midfield, Bayer Leverkusen: £10.6m
  • Rickie Lambert, forward, Southampton: £4.8m
Again, there are others returning from loans elsewhere, such as Pepe Reina (who might just replace Mignolet…). This is an almost-Tottenhamian number of signings, bringing in six new players in one summer, with many of them expecting to start or at least get regular minutes. Incorporating them, especially Lallan, Lovren and Markovic, into the Southampton of the North, will be a challenge to Rodgers, who somehow has to revamp his entire squad after the deparutre of Suarez. How he’ll do that while also grappling with the entirely new challenge of European competition will define his season and the success of this transfer-window. I don’t see Liverpool staying in the top-four, even if they do get out of the Champions League group-stage.
Which brings us to Chelsea. Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea. So resplendent in riches, so destitute of dignity. Keeping up with years past, the Chavvies have been busy in the transfer-market, but whether this is enough to see them keep their desperate little claws clutching to a third straight third-place finish is anyone’s guess. It’s a bold statement of intent to outspend just about everyone while not improving one’s position on the table, but it might be Chelsea’s speciality. To wit, they’ve brought in the following:
  • Diego Costa, forward, Atletico Madrid: £33.5m.
  • Cesc Fabregas, midfield, Barcelona: £29.1m
  • Filipe, left-back, Atletico Madrid: £17.6m
  • Didier Drogba, forward, Galatasaray: free.
  • Thibaut Courtois, keeper, Atletico Madrid: end of loan.
Whenever it comes to Mourinho, we have to keep an eye on mind-games. Did he sign Fabregas because he needs a creative Spaniard in his midfield? Somewhere, Mata mutters. More likely, he wanted to tweak Arsene’s nose. Similarly, does he see Drogba terrorizing us as he so often did in bygone years? Perhaps, but this is less likely after having splurged on Costa. With Luiz off to PSG, Lukaku signing with Everton, and Ba off to Besiktas, Costa looks likely to take over the centre-forward role from Torres, who might enjoy scoring more than ten Prem goals for the first time since 2009-10. Whoever it is scoring the goals, we know that besting Chelsea comes down to breaking down their defense. Courtois may have returned to compete with Cech, but somehow Chelsea will have to find a way to replace Luiz, Cole, and Lampard. They’ll still be contenders, to be sure, but I’m not sure I see them moving up from that third-place finish that Mourinho apparently covets.
At least as far as transfer-business goes, I have to admit that I feel pretty good about our progress. We’ve replaced Sagna (some might say upgraded from him, sacrilegious thought that may sound), found a winger-cum-striker who can create for himself, added a keeper who might just be a bit better than our current #1, and, with an eye to the long-view, brought in a player who could end up as a right-back, centre-back, or holding midfielder. Is that enough to climb to the pinnacle of the Prem? Time will tell.

Our most-important signing won't even play a single minute..

5 Replies
Forget Alexis. Forget Debuchy, Ospina, or Chambers.  Ignore any reports around any other player we may or may not sign. Those players, after all, will vie for time on the pitch with other members of the squad, rotating in as necessary or deserved and, more crucially, replacing them when they’re injured. Arsenal’s most significant signing of the summer won’t compete for time on the pitch . He won’t reduce anyone to time on the bench. His job will consist entirely of keeping our players on the pitch as much as possible. Shad Forsythe, fitness coach for Germany’s national team, will come in to work alongside our current fitness coach, Tony Colbert. Forsythe’s name may not be as drool-inducing as some of the players we covet, but his contributions off the pitch could prove to be even more vital than any contributions any players could make on it.

After all, even before the additions of the aforementioned four, this was a squad that held firmly onto first place for 128 days, keeping Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man City at arm’s length until the wheels fell off. Injuries and fatigue denied us the services of player after player after player to the point that, collectively, our players missed 289 league games, far away the best (worst?) record in the Prem, more than double the number missed by Chelsea’s players (109) or by City’s (142). If Forsythe can reduce our injury-record even marginally, we could see a significant improvement in our fortunes.

Forsythe’s speciality is in recovery, which some take to mean “getting injured but healing quickly.” However, this reflects only a partial understanding of his role. “Recovery” as Forsythe practices it is a concept much broader than that, involving bloodwork, nutrition, and other treatments tailored specifically to each athlete and his or her extertion levels. In this piece he wrote for the PerformBetter! website, he explains his methods and work with the German national team. I’ll boil it down a bit but encourage you to give the full article a read. What he emphasizes is a regimen that will enhance an athlete’s body to recover from exertion more quickly, enabling the athlete’s tissues and joints to recuperate more fully between matches, thereby reducing the risk of exhaustion, which causes some injuries and can increase the risk of other injuries.
For example, Forsythe writes:

Post workout nutrition should consist of: a mixture of carbohydrates, fats, proteins (based on the athletes body composition and exertion level), electrolytes (based on the athletes perspiring levels), and water for hydration. Cryotherapy should consist of cold water immersion (55 degrees F) for at least 5 minutes. Athletes exerting the whole body (Rugby/American Football) should be fully immersed with only the head showing while athlete primarily exerting the lower body (Cyclist/Soccer) immersion to above the waist is acceptable.

Daily treatments that include stretching, cryotherapy (that would be the cold-water immersion), self-massage, and professional massage may not sound like revolutionary techniques, but I’m sure that Forsythe’s work with the German team and ours would consist of more individualized regimens. Earlier in that same article, he talks of “blood samples weekly throughout the [2006 World Cup] to monitor signs of stress and overtraining” and how team-doctors reported “the lowest markers for stress and overtraining in the history of German National Teams during a tournament and credited the results to our consistent recovery regimen.” Germany may not have won the 2006 World Cup, but they did win in 2014 despite playing in the heat and humidity against an Argentinian squad theoretically more-comfortable with such conditions.

Forsythe may not be able to prevent the kind of injures that Oxlade-Chamberlain or Walcott suffered this season, by he may very well be able to prevent the other knocks, niggles, and strains that build up over the course of a season. How much better might Mesut have played in his first Prem season, his first away from La Liga’s softer winter? Would Ramsey have suffered his thigh-strain in the first place? Could we see Diaby play an entire season? We lambasted our trainers all season for failing to prevent injuries or get players back on their feet as quickly as we were told they’d be. I’m not saying that Forsythe will set us up for an injury-free season; far from it. If he can mitigate our injury-woes in any way, though, he might just be the best addition to the squad.

Our most-important signing won’t even play a single minute..

5 Replies
Forget Alexis. Forget Debuchy, Ospina, or Chambers.  Ignore any reports around any other player we may or may not sign. Those players, after all, will vie for time on the pitch with other members of the squad, rotating in as necessary or deserved and, more crucially, replacing them when they’re injured. Arsenal’s most significant signing of the summer won’t compete for time on the pitch . He won’t reduce anyone to time on the bench. His job will consist entirely of keeping our players on the pitch as much as possible. Shad Forsythe, fitness coach for Germany’s national team, will come in to work alongside our current fitness coach, Tony Colbert. Forsythe’s name may not be as drool-inducing as some of the players we covet, but his contributions off the pitch could prove to be even more vital than any contributions any players could make on it.

After all, even before the additions of the aforementioned four, this was a squad that held firmly onto first place for 128 days, keeping Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man City at arm’s length until the wheels fell off. Injuries and fatigue denied us the services of player after player after player to the point that, collectively, our players missed 289 league games, far away the best (worst?) record in the Prem, more than double the number missed by Chelsea’s players (109) or by City’s (142). If Forsythe can reduce our injury-record even marginally, we could see a significant improvement in our fortunes.

Forsythe’s speciality is in recovery, which some take to mean “getting injured but healing quickly.” However, this reflects only a partial understanding of his role. “Recovery” as Forsythe practices it is a concept much broader than that, involving bloodwork, nutrition, and other treatments tailored specifically to each athlete and his or her extertion levels. In this piece he wrote for the PerformBetter! website, he explains his methods and work with the German national team. I’ll boil it down a bit but encourage you to give the full article a read. What he emphasizes is a regimen that will enhance an athlete’s body to recover from exertion more quickly, enabling the athlete’s tissues and joints to recuperate more fully between matches, thereby reducing the risk of exhaustion, which causes some injuries and can increase the risk of other injuries.
For example, Forsythe writes:

Post workout nutrition should consist of: a mixture of carbohydrates, fats, proteins (based on the athletes body composition and exertion level), electrolytes (based on the athletes perspiring levels), and water for hydration. Cryotherapy should consist of cold water immersion (55 degrees F) for at least 5 minutes. Athletes exerting the whole body (Rugby/American Football) should be fully immersed with only the head showing while athlete primarily exerting the lower body (Cyclist/Soccer) immersion to above the waist is acceptable.

Daily treatments that include stretching, cryotherapy (that would be the cold-water immersion), self-massage, and professional massage may not sound like revolutionary techniques, but I’m sure that Forsythe’s work with the German team and ours would consist of more individualized regimens. Earlier in that same article, he talks of “blood samples weekly throughout the [2006 World Cup] to monitor signs of stress and overtraining” and how team-doctors reported “the lowest markers for stress and overtraining in the history of German National Teams during a tournament and credited the results to our consistent recovery regimen.” Germany may not have won the 2006 World Cup, but they did win in 2014 despite playing in the heat and humidity against an Argentinian squad theoretically more-comfortable with such conditions.

Forsythe may not be able to prevent the kind of injures that Oxlade-Chamberlain or Walcott suffered this season, by he may very well be able to prevent the other knocks, niggles, and strains that build up over the course of a season. How much better might Mesut have played in his first Prem season, his first away from La Liga’s softer winter? Would Ramsey have suffered his thigh-strain in the first place? Could we see Diaby play an entire season? We lambasted our trainers all season for failing to prevent injuries or get players back on their feet as quickly as we were told they’d be. I’m not saying that Forsythe will set us up for an injury-free season; far from it. If he can mitigate our injury-woes in any way, though, he might just be the best addition to the squad.