Marouane Chamakh Is Finally An Arsenal Player

by Rachid



He's heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!



In typical Arsenal fashion, the signing of Marouane Chamakh was drawn out and became an uneventful matter but it finally took place today.



Chamakh signs for us on what Arsenal.com refers to as a "long term deal", which I'm guessing is 4 years. He'll be wearing the number 29.



About the deal, Arsene Wenger says: 

"We are delighted that Marouane Chamakh has joined us. He is a player we have admired for some time now and I know he will provide our squad with great quality. Chamakh has proved he is a great player with his performances for Bordeaux and Morocco in recent seasons and we’re all looking forward to him joining us.

"Chamakh is a striker of real quality and has all the attributes suited to come to England and do very well. He is also a fighter, not only a good football player, but a fighter as well. He is very good in the air and also a good team player. He is a great addition to our squad.”

Chamakh had a few words to say too:

“This is a dream come true and a great joy to be joining Arsenal. My goal was always to play in the Premier League and Arsenal was the choice of my heart.



“Without any hesitation, Arsenal was my preferred club. The team and history of Arsenal, they make me dream. My goal was to join Arsenal out of the all the English clubs because it is a club that makes me dream and I have been a fan since I was a child.



“I’m very excited about playing at Emirates Stadium in front of the Arsenal supporters. I have heard many great things about the stadium and I cannot wait to be playing there in an Arsenal shirt.



“I will give my best to this Club, the Club that I used to support. We have many great players at Arsenal and I will be giving everything to help the team win trophies next season.”

Now while I'm obviously delighted we've signed a player this soon and we're showing early intent for next season I'm curious about the role Chamakh will play. I've seen him play for Bordeaux in a 5-4-1 formation in two different roles. He can be employed as a wide right or left striker, much like Cristiano Ronaldo but he can also be used in a target man role in the center of attack. It means he's a very versatile player and I look forward to that.



I hope Arsene Wenger doesn't use him as a target man unless necessary. By that, I mean I don't want to see him competing with the likes of Bendtner and van Persie for the target man role and he should play it those players are unavailable. Chamakh is a lot like Nicklas Bendtner as a target man. He even misses sitters just like he does. What I'm saying is that we need to add to this team - add things the team doesn't already have.



We need more consistent wide players as the likes of Theo Walcott and Andrey Arshavin have days where they perform and days where they go silent. Chamakh's pace and technique on the wings would be very useful to us because his crafty footwork makes him a bit of an unpredictable entity in our team. Do I think he has all the technical abilities of Thierry Henry? No I don't. I don't think we can bring back the flair to the team Henry has for a while but I think Chamakh can go a long way to provide that 'something out of nothing' to our football that it's lacked since Henry left. This is of course, if he's allowed to play a wide role where he's free to roam the pitch a bit. He's very energetic and I believe his work rate will allow him to be more consistent than Walcott and Arshavin have been for us over the course of the season. I'll even go out on a limb and say if used correctly in a wide role, he could do for us what Ronaldo did for Manchester United.



I'm very excited about this signing and I can't wait til the preseason matches start to see exactly what role he'll be playing in this team.



Are you excited too? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below and follow the blog by hitting the 'follow' button to the right of the page. Until next time, dust!

Honour or Appreciation?

by Rachid



It's customary for teams playing at home on the final day of the season to take a lap around their pitch and greet their fans. It's become known as the Lap of Honour. In recent times at Arsenal it's been known as the Lap of Appreciation.



For some fans there seems to be a bit of ambiguity in the terms and I've noticed that our lap of appreciation yesterday was met by some Arsenal fans with negativity. I've come across people calling it an "embarrassing parade" as well as other similar terms. The real embarrassment is how people have misunderstood this whole custom.



Many people who have an opinion on this see it as the fans honouring the Arsenal players for their achievements. This is why they view it with such negativity, because they believe there's nothing there to honour. Perhaps if we'd won a cup or had a much better season where perhaps we reached a cup final and/or stayed in the title race until the final day then it would've been the players taking a lap of honour for the fans to thank them for their accomplishment. This is when it's a lap of honour. It's not though, for a reason I'm about to discuss.



As there was no silverware gained this season and things began to peter out at the end, it's actually a lap of appreciation. They're actually thanking the fans for sticking with them through thick and thin this season. It's also for acknowledging that they could've done better but didn't and it's their way of making ammends for how the season panned out, saying "We could've done more this season but we fell short and we're thankful that you're putting up with us".



Looking at the crowd on hand after the match leads me to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what people who are offended by the lap of appreciation think. Think about it. Those who truly appreciate their efforts would have stayed and it's their opinion that counts, not the fair-weather fans who only support their team when everything's going right. Not the fans who leave before the final whistle or the fans who boo the players because their performance hasn't exactly been up to par and it definitely doesn't matter what those who call themselves fans yet want Spurs to finish above us think. Those who stayed behind yesterday for it are the truly appreciative ones and they're the ones who see something worth appreciating in the players, given the fact that we've actually stayed in the title race longer this season, while having to cope with so many unfortunate injuries as well. It's these fans that the players should take a lap to thank, not the ones who don't truly appreciate what this team has gone through this season. If the non-fans had stayed around they wouldn't have been deserving of a thank you from the players.



It must've been a poignant event for those who were there because seeing some of the players walk around with their children served to remind us that they actually have a life off the pitch and they're humans like us. It reminds us that they must have put the season into perspective and realised what they could've done better throughout the course of it. They too must've been affected by the season taking the bad turn it took towards the end. Lets also note that many of those players who were out there were out injured for quite some time. It helps us to put things into perspective and realise that given our injury difficulties, to finish third and stay in the title race for as long as we did deserves some level of praise and appreciation.



Another thing I've noticed about this is that there was no William Gallas there. Why's that? Apparently he's off in France receiving therapy for his knee injury. There's word Arsene Wenger's going to meet him there to talk about signing a new deal. I'm a fan of Gallas' efforts this season but I know I'm only one of a minority of fans who want him to stick around.



Anyway, I've babbled on long enough now. Here's a video of the lap of appreciation:







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Kthanksbye!