"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
We don't talk about him much these days but the young Fabregas was a phenomenal footballer. Almost perfect technically.
Shouldn't have gone to Barcelona. Moved to the only club in the world that didn't need him and had better players. Shame.
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Don't trust goalscoring midfielders, I'm afraid. It goes to their heads and they forget their place and begin to neglect their midfield duties.
Terrific player though, all the same. The only one in his team with brazen-faced bottle and bite, like a street footballer.
Or Dennis Wise![]()
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Agreed. And losing him in the same summer we lost Nasri to those cheating Manc scum was basically what started the end of the Wenger years.
If we could have kept those two, got a world class DM, and over the next couple of years improved the defence gradually and added a new and plan B striker, we could have kicked on.
I don't think I'll ever forgive Abramovich and then City for trying to buy football and ending the game as we knew it.
In the old days, you wanted to get a good manager {GG/AW/MA}, make some signings who turned out to be really good value {Bould/Dixon, PV4, Gabby M}, have some yoof team players come through {TA6/Rocky/Merse, Cashley, B/Ethan/MLS} and maybe make some great big money signings who became completely world class {IWWW/DB10/TH14/Dec} and that would win you things if you got 3 or 4 of those.
{TBC - same applies to Clough's Forest, Villa, Scousers, Everton and Mancs in my life. Robson's Ipswich.}
So that's what people dreamt of.
Now people just want billionaire owners.