I've been away on holiday for a while and
finally playing catch up with all my blogging friends.
Not exact matches
Failure to invest — poor start to the season — panic purchasing of players —
playing catch up to competitors — mathematically impossible — start
playing football — finish 4th / 3rd When will Arsenal fans
finally wake
up and see what is blatantly obvious?
Time for some brutal honesty... this team, as it stands, is in no better position to compete next season than they were 12 months ago, minus the fact that some fans have been easily snowed by the acquisition of Lacazette, the free transfer LB and the release of Sanogo... if you look at the facts carefully you will see a team that still has far more questions than answers... to better show what I mean by this statement I will briefly discuss the current state of affairs on a position - by - position basis... in goal we have 4 potential candidates, but in reality we have only 1 option with any real future and somehow he's the only one we have actively tried to get rid of for years because he and his father were a little too involved on social media and he got
caught smoking (funny how people still defend Wiltshire under the same and far worse circumstances)... you would think we would want to keep any goaltender that Juventus had interest in, as they seem to have a pretty good history when it comes to that position... as far as the defenders on our current roster there are only a few individuals whom have the skill and / or youth worthy of our time and / or investment, as such we should get rid of anyone who doesn't meet those simple requirements, which means we should get rid of DeBouchy, Gibbs, Gabriel, Mertz and loan out Chambers to see if last seasons foray with Middlesborough was an anomaly or a prediction of things to come... some fans have lamented wildly about the return of Mertz to the starting lineup due to his FA Cup performance but these sort of pie in the sky meanderings are indicative of what's wrong with this club and it's wishy - washy fan - base... in addition to these moves the club should aggressively pursue the acquisition of dominant and mobile CB to stabilize an all too fragile defensive group that has self - destructed on numerous occasions over the past 5 seasons... moving forward and building on our need to re-establish our once dominant presence throughout the middle of the park we need to target a CDM then do whatever it takes to get that player into the fold without any of the usual nickel and diming we have become famous for (this kind of ruthless haggling has cost us numerous special players and certainly can't help make the player in question feel good about the way their future potential employer feels about them)... in order for us to become dominant again we need to be strong
up the middle again from Goalkeeper to CB to DM to ACM to striker, like we did in our most glorious years before and during Wenger's reign... with this in mind, if we want Ozil to be that dominant attacking midfielder we can't keep leaving him exposed to constant ridicule about his lack of defensive prowess and provide him with the proper players in the final third... he was never a good defensive player in Real or with the German National squad and they certainly didn't suffer as a result of his presence on the pitch... as for the rest of the midfield the blame falls squarely in the hands of Wenger and Gazidis, the fact that Ramsey, Ox, Sanchez and even Ozil were allowed to regularly start when none of the aforementioned had more than a year left under contract is criminal for a club of this size and financial might... the fact that we could find money for Walcott and Xhaka, who weren't even guaranteed starters, means that our whole business model needs a complete overhaul... for me it's time to get rid of some serious deadweight, even if it means selling them below what you believe their market value is just to simply right this ship and change the stagnant culture that currently exists... this means saying goodbye to Wiltshire, Elneny, Carzola, Walcott and Ramsey... everyone, minus Elneny, have spent just as much time on the training table as on the field of
play, which would be manageable if they weren't so inconsistent from a performance standpoint (excluding Carzola, who is like the recent version of Rosicky — too bad, both will be deeply missed)... in their places we need to bring in some proven performers with no history of injuries...
up front, although I do like the possibilities that a player like Lacazette presents, the fact that we had to wait so many years to acquire some true quality at the striker position falls once again squarely at the feet of Wenger... this issue highlights the ultimate scam being perpetrated by this club since the arrival of Kroenke: pretend your a small market club when it comes to making purchases but milk your fans like a big market club when it comes to ticket prices and merchandising... I believe the reason why Wenger hasn't pursued someone of Henry's quality, minus a fairly inexpensive RVP, was that he knew that they would demand players of a similar ilk to be brought on board and that wasn't possible when the business model was that of a «selling» club... does it really make sense that we could only make a cheeky bid for Suarez, or that we couldn't get Higuain over the line when he was being offered
up for half the price he eventually went to Juve for, or that we've only paid any interest to strikers who were clearly not going to press their current teams to let them go to Arsenal like Benzema or Cavani... just part of the facade that
finally came crashing down when Sanchez
finally called their bluff... the fact remains that no one wants to win more than Sanchez, including Wenger, and although I don't agree with everything that he has done off the field, I would much rather have Alexis front and center than a manager who has clearly bought into the Kroenke model in large part due to the fact that his enormous ego suggests that only he could accomplish great things without breaking the bank... unfortunately that isn't possible anymore as the game has changed quite dramatically in the last 15 years, which has left a largely complacent and complicit Wenger on the outside looking in... so don't blame those players who demanded more and were left wanting... don't blame those fans who have tried desperately to raise awareness for several years when cracks began to appear... place the blame at the feet of those who were well aware all along of the potential pitfalls of just such a plan but continued to follow it even when it was no longer a financial necessity, like it ever really was...
After a few successful running
plays on the next drive — aided by the increasing threat of the pass — the determination to keep drawing
up deep - ball chances
finally paid off when Slayton
caught a 53 - yard touchdown from Stidham.
This week definitely flew by, I was
playing catch up but
finally feel like I am on top of things.
But after years of
playing catch -
up to the rest of the industry, Kia is now a major automotive player by any measure and can
finally afford to settle down.
I did
finally catch up on the story of Z via Extreme Butoden on 3DS (although that's really the worst way to tell a story, and I am thinking of getting the Budokai collection /
playing more of Xenoverse 1 for that very reason) and plan to get the OG DB series when I finish GT, but Super is just an oddball that I'm unsure about.
There is a big problem during online
play, however; non-host players will often find themselves looking at loading screens during battles while their character remains tangible in the game world, meaning when the game
finally catches up they'll probably be dead anyway.
After a long wait PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds has
finally made it to Xbox One — the console version of the game is
playing catch up with the more advanced PC version but is also receiving regular updates and patches to bring it
up to speed.
These last few weeks for been
catch up for Mr Port; I
finally got around to
playing Halo Reach and Halo 4 and I've got to say, quite impressed with where the story is going.
After watching virtually every other major phone manufacturer on the planet move on to bezel-less, all - screen phone designs, it appears that Sony is
finally going to
play catch -
up in 2018.
Meanwhile, the iPhone 8 will be
playing catch -
up in some ways with Samsung's phones, as it's rumored to
finally offer an OLED display and wireless charging.
With Remote
Play for PC and Mac, Sony will
finally be
catching up to Microsoft.
Pandora's
finally handing over song selection to its users with a new Premium service, but it will be
playing catch -
up with Spotify in some areas.
Motorola's staggered release of its Android Nougat update for its Moto lineup seems to have
finally caught up with the Moto Z
Play.