Finally Wilshere’s seven month investigation comes to an end. Let’s all try to get on with our lives.
July 10, 2012
Jack Wilshere has been officially warned about his conduct by UEFA following the very small amount of controversy that he generated last December when he sent that tweet where he joked about having a bet on Emmanuel Frimpong to score a goal.
Remember that? No? Basically he said that he thought Frimpong was ‘worth a cheeky £10’ to open the scoring against Olympiakos and then when he saw him hit the side netting Jack tweeted ‘Frimmy nearly won me some money there!’
Not a particularly juicy story to be honest and not a particularly juicy outcome but two things stand out for me here. Firstly The Sun report the story under the line: ‘Wilshere rapped for Arsenal wager boast’ which in my slightly hungover fug this morning I read as ‘Wilshere raped for Arsenal wager boast’. Really. I just sat there staring at the story, half awake, half asleep, trying to imagine any circumstances whereby UEFA would be allowed to dole out a punishment that steep for such an apparently minor offence, and how on top of that The Sun could report the story in such a casual way. ‘All he said was that Frimpong was worth a punt! This punishment is entirely incommensurate with the crime! The world has gone mad!! Platini is out of control!’
The second thing is that once I realised my error and actually read the story I saw that UEFA’s decision to reprimand Jack was as the result of ‘a seven month investigation’. A seven month investigation? What were they investigating for seven months? He’s not even been accused of making a bet, just saying that Frimpong was worth a bet. A tenner at that. What were they doing for seven months? Trawling through all of the available evidence? There were two tweets. By definition those can’t be any longer that 140 characters each. This wasn’t the Maastricht Treaty.
At least now we know where all that money they get from Arsene Wenger’s fines goes to. Funding pointlessly long winded investigations into very minor offences.
Elsewhere most news outlets seem to be under the impression that the club are discussing a new deal and contract extension for Laurent Koscielny. I don’t think any fan would argue with that. Kozzer was our best and most consistent defender last season and has entirely justified the faith shown in him by Le Boss in signing him as a relative unknown from Lorient two years ago. Now he’s an indispensable part of our back line and looks likely to become a first choice for the French national side in the years ahead.
Great to see real talent and performances rewarded and hopefully we can ward off any chance of a Van Persie/Nasri situation there.
On the subject of Van Persie, David Dein in an interview with Sky yesterday reiterated in part what we at the Marble Halls have been saying over the last week when speaking about RVP’s contract situation:
All I would hope, for the stability of the club, is whether he stays or whether he goes, it happens quickly.
You don’t want to see what happened last year when you had Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas stringing it out.
Clubs this week are going back for pre-season training. You want to have a settled squad.
I hope that whatever happens with Robin, it happens quickly.
He’s dead right and it’s down to the club to make that happen. They need to be strong and vocal and set out a timetable to suit their own ends. Their one brief statement on the subject aside the club have been very quiet over the last week. This week I want to hear a clear and sensible plan for how they intend to proceed.
The clock’s ticking.
If You Liked This...
- Our seventh greatest run in history!? + Wilshere ‘tells pals’ what Arsene Wenger already told press
- Let’s all laugh at Nasri! + Arshavin reveals reason for dip in form
- Adrian in, Andrei out? + Wilshere’s absence makes corporate hearts grow fonder
- Another stress fracture for Jack adds injury to transfer window insult
- Kroenke seems to claim he’ll fund £150 million spree as Wenger eyes up Götze and Podolski
Comments
10 Responses to “Finally Wilshere’s seven month investigation comes to an end. Let’s all try to get on with our lives.”
Leave a Reply
If David Dein really cares about the club the best thing he could do is throttle his son Darren, he is the one who is causing the trouble.
Henry, Cesc, Clichy, RVP & others who have ended up wanting away, this includes Song so expect him to start not wanting to talk about contracts
Spot on Big Lebowski! His son has slowly been dismantling our team and getting rich off of doing so. Fans of the club, utter tosh – they both got rich off the club.
I did think it was slightly funny yesterday when I read Wenger say that money has never been a motivation so he didn’t consider moving from Arsenal…might have something to do with the wages he’s already paid, more than Alex Ferguson for example. It’s a mad world.
The great shame is that Dein is a football man. He pushed the World Cup bid (admittedly unsuccessfully) tirelessly, earning enough air miles to fly to Mars. He clearly has contacts all over the shop and was immersed in Arsenal; formed a close bond with the players and a highly effective partnership with Arsene.
But then, this of the money. Unfortunately for rich men, there is always somebody richer. While Dein pushed sugar daddy investment as the future of club management, he made a ton out of the deal. And as you say Lebowski, you have to wonder what his son is all about, what the hell they talk about when discussing the future of the club etc. Cos the club’s interests tend to get left behind for the $$$.
Maybe Dein would make Wenger more accountable. I feel like someone has to. You cannot get away with the player parity wage model. Someone has to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We cannot shift the deadwood and we cannot retain superstars, we’re a big enough club to address this. These kind of dealings aside, Wenger is still great manager – let’s see how much the backroom shake-up wakes him up and hopefully modernises his approach. Ferguson changes things about, new no2 etc, with far more regularity and that’s clearly been to his/the club’s benefit. Let’s hope Wenger hasn’t forgotten how to listen and adapt.
Yup, Darren Dein is a cunt alright.
@Zinc
How likely was/is SAF to achieve keeping Arsenal competitive in the circumstances AW has done over the years?. Zinc=Metal=Dense=Thick.
And Arsene Said – I’m not comparing the managers abilities, purely the fact Wenger was trying to claim money isn’t a motivation despite being paid more than the most successful manager in the EPL – slightly funny – like complaining about other, bigger clubs signing your best players while he himself goes off to much smaller teams to sign their young and brightest talents. Sometimes he speaks without thinking it through.
Wenger earns over £7 million a year, he presumably held contract talks using his agent asking for that much money – if he doesn’t care about money perhaps he could work for £100k a year and donate the rest of his wages to the transfer fund?
@And_Arsene_Said – Are you suggesting that Wenger’s achievements outweigh SAF’s over their careers?? Wenger is more deserving than SAF? Not sure about that. Don’t forget, as I feel the point you’re trying to make has something to do with this, Man U have more resources – global reach, more revenue etc. They could afford to pay more. If Arsene was at Utd, would he earn/demand to even more? That’s an interesting one.
In any case, I I think Wenger’s a fantastic manager, love him at the helm, love his character, enormously impressed with his achievements, philosophy at the club etc. But the fact stands that things have stagnated recently as the game moves in the direction of a global elite. The worry is that Wenger isn’t adapting – too idealistic, not pragmatic enough. If you can’t accept this kind of thing, fall back on name-calling etc, you fall into the fanatic category. A decidedly pro-Wenger cult of personality above reasoned care for the club.
Spot on UmBongo – Wenger, like any man has his strengths and weaknesses, he’s made fantastic calls and made mistakes – we as fans just need to be honest with the facts when discussing him and not choose to only acknowledge one side of his character or one side of his record.
Part of our stagnation as a club comes from the fact that the entire landscape has been transformed since Chelsea and more recently Manchester City became such rich, well funded clubs – something outside of Wengers control and realistically it makes competing for the prize much harder as before 2005 our only consistent competition for the League title was Utd. On the flip side, while Wengers wages have risen during his trophyless years, our ticket prices have become the biggest in the country and our fiscal security has grown we’ve seen a lack of ambition in the transfer market – instead of one great player we’ll now buy two good ones, instead of adding depth we’ll wait for injury struck players to get fit again and consequently we saw us finish last season with 10 losses and 49 goals conceded. Finishing 3rd is superb for us but the manner we did it in wasn’t good enough to sustain CL football so we need tweaking.
I believe Wenger is still capable of taking this team forwards we just need to tilt the balance slightly away from where we’ve been – keep the strong youth policy but make sure the experienced players like Arteta, who have an immediate effect on our fortunes are in place where needed. The problem we’ve always talked about over the past 5-6 years is about how we’ve been just two or three players short, it’s time we weren’t any more – especially when the board seem so concerned about building a strong global brand – you don’t do that by dropping out of the CL spots and not winning anything.
@Zinc
Money may not be a motivation for AW, but his family and future generations wellbeing might be; Maybe like Arsenal Football Club and their future???. How many managers with his ability would have risked their reputation, sacrificed their own trophy count, turn down offers of bigger earnings and put in a shift of whats looking like a life’s work only for some flippant comments, and a lot more worse elsewhere, like :
‘I did think it was slightly funny yesterday when I read Wenger say that money has never been a motivation so he didn’t consider moving from Arsenal…might have something to do with the wages he’s already paid, more than Alex Ferguson for example. It’s a mad world.’
Questioning AW’s tactics, player choice,club philosophy/direction with reason and alternative suggestion is not only okay, but good. Suggesting AW’s motivation for being at Arsenal is money idiotic.
@UmBongo
‘@And_Arsene_Said – Are you suggesting that Wenger’s achievements outweigh SAF’s over their careers?? Wenger is more deserving than SAF?’ No I’am not!!! As Marble Halls once said “FOCUS MAN!”
You’re contradicting yourself there – he wants to earn more money for family security but money isn’t a motivation? If making sure your family is financially secure then surely money is a massive motivation?
Sorry, you can’t claim one of the best paid managers in Europe who would have been involved in engineering his current contract is simply indifferent to money. His claim was just plain wrong – he’s simply letting us know he could have earned more elsewhere, but when you’re earning that kind of money at your current club where you enjoy the type of job security he has leaving doesn’t make much sense. He could have gone to Madrid but they would have fired him very quickly if he didn’t win things.
As for your reply to UmBongo you heavily imply that you think Alex Ferguson wouldn’t have been capable of achieving what Wenger has done in the past 7 years (no trophies) when you ask me an explicit question then call me thick afterwards. McLeish has won more trophies than Wenger in the past 7 years, go and look at the budget he’s had to spend.