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Tag: Arsenal

  • EPL: Arsenal must improve slow starts – Emery

    EPL: Arsenal must improve slow starts – Emery

    Arsenal boss Unai Emery said his side’s slow start to games is an area they need to improve after they came from behind to draw at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday.

    The visitors had taken the lead in the first half through Ivan Cavaleiro’s close-range finish before Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored a late equaliser.

    Arsenal, along with Cardiff, are the only two sides in the Premier League yet to be leading at half-time in any of their matches so far this season.

    “Maybe [starting slow is] one thing we can improve but that comes naturally in our work,” Emery said.

    “The team played with character and we had chances to draw before our goal. We also continued to look for ways to create and to win the game but then we drew.

    “In the last five or 10 minutes, we had the same idea with the risk but also thinking to win.”

    The fifth-placed Gunners are three points behind fourth-placed Tottenham, while Wolves remain 11th in the table.

  • EPL: Substitute Mkhitaryan rescues Arsenal against Wolves

    Substitute Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored a late equaliser to stretch Arsenal’s unbeaten run to 16 matches and deny Wolverhampton Wanderers a famous win at the Emirates.

    Ivan Cavaleiro’s close-range finish looked like securing the Black Country club their most eye-catching victory since returning to the Premier League this season.

    The visitors pounced on an error by Granit Xhaka, Cavaleiro and Raul Jiminez exchanging passes before the former tapped home.

    Lucas Torreira and Hector Bellerin both went close to equalising while leading scorer Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang hit the post before Mkhitaryan’s 86th minute cross went straight past Rui Patricio.

    In a thrilling contest, Wolves almost snatched it in stoppage time when 18-year-old substitute Morgan Gibbs-White hit the bar.

    The fifth-placed Gunners are three points behind fourth-placed Tottenham while Wolves remain 11th in the table.

  • Arsenal to include Ramsey in swap deal to land Welbeck’s replacement

    Arsenal are reportedly considering Roma striker, Patrik Schick in January, Corriere dello Sport reports.

    The Seria A side signed Schick before the start of last season, but his progress has stalled due to form and fitness problems.

    The 22-year-old hasn’t found the net this season and could be allowed to leave on loan in January.

    Arsenal are set to be in the market for a striker, following Danny Welbeck’s injury.

    Welbeck is unlikely to return this season, amid fears he suffered a broken ankle in the midweek clash with Sporting Lisbon. Unai Emery needs reinforcements for first-choice forwards Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

    Roma could look to get Aaron Ramsey as part of a deal to get Schick. Ramsey has been told he will leave the Emirates this summer, after the offer of a new contract was withdrawn.

  • Alex Iwobi sends strong message to injured Welbeck

    Arsenal midfielder, Alex Iwobi has wished his teammate, Danny Welbeck, a speedy recovery after the England striker broke his ankle during the Gunners’ 0-0 draw with Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League encounter played on Thursday night.

    Welbeck landed awkwardly after leaping in the air to meet a cross just after the half hour mark against Sporting, and needed oxygen before being stretchered off the pitch.

    Iwobi, however, expressed sadness over Welbeck’s injury and wished him swift recovery.

    ”It’s very challenging mentally, but sometimes it comes in the game and there’s been a lot of injuries, and unfortunately for Danny he’s had a few so we’re going to wish him the best,” Iwobi told Arsenal’s official website.

    ”Both sets of teams were mentally challenged and we were able to continue with the game, but like I said, we wish him all the best and we will keep on encouraging and motivating him to get back. ”

    Arsenal will now tackle Wolves on Sunday in the Premier League fixture at Emirates.

  • Arsenal’s Welbeck given oxygen after serious ankle injury

    Arsenal striker Danny Welbeck was taken off on a stretcher and given oxygen during his side’s Europa League game against Sporting on Thursday.

    This was after landing awkwardly from an attempted header, hours after being named in the England squad.

    Welbeck jumped for a header in front of goal at the Emirates Stadium and rolled over in pain as soon as he landed, before medical staff came on to treat him.

    He was given oxygen and carried off the pitch minutes later to a standing ovation from the home fans.

    England manager Gareth Southgate included Welbeck in his squad earlier in the day for an upcoming friendly against the U.S. and a UEFA Nations League tie against Croatia days later.

    Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil took to Twitter soon after the incident to wish his team mate well, saying: “Oh no … get well soon Danny’’.

    There was no immediate comment from the club on the seriousness of the injury to Welbeck, whose contract with the north London side ends at the end of the 2018-2019 season.

    Reuters/NAN

  • I’ll buy another club if Kroenke refuses to sell Arsenal – Dangote

    Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, had said he will consider buying a football club other than London-based Arsenal if controlling shareholder Stan Kroenke refuses to sell.

    Dangote has long said he wants to buy the Premier League team, of which he’s a fan, but only after he’s completed one of the world’s biggest oil refineries in Lagos.

    “By the time we’ve finished, we’ll be a $30bn company in terms of revenue,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV at the New Economy Forum in Singapore. “We’ll have an excess amount of cash to start playing around with.”

    Kroenke owns almost all of Arsenal after buying Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s 30 per cent stake in August in a deal that valued the club at about £1.8bn. It was funded with a £557m , two-year loan from Deutsche Bank AG. The 71-year-old American is worth $8bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and also controls the National Football League’s Los Angeles Rams.

    “I’m very attached to Arsenal but if he won’t sell, I might have to change,” said Dangote, 61 years old and worth $11.1bn. “I’m very much a fan of football. I have to have a club. I don’t have to own Arsenal.”

    The refinery is scheduled to start producing fuel in early 2020, and Lagos-based Dangote Cement Plc will probably be listed in London around September next year, he told Bloomberg

  • Arsenal v Liverpool: We want to write a new history – Emery

    Arsenal v Liverpool: We want to write a new history – Emery

    Arsenal boss Unai Emery wants to help the club “write a new history” as the Gunners seek to turn around their miserable record against their major Premier League rivals, starting with Liverpool on Saturday.

    The Gunners won just one out of nine games against Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham last season but Emery is prepared to change that starting with the game against Liverpool.

    “We’re excited for tomorrow but it’s a difficult game,” Emery said during his pre-match conference ahead of the game.

    “We want to write a new history. The new history is in the present and also, with our players, our quality and our capacity, I believe in my players and this project.”

    “We are starting this project with a very positive way with what we are doing.”

    “They have signed a lot of players. They are a good, big example of how you can improve.

    On the game,Emery said: “Each match is a very important match. The most important is tomorrow. It’s a very big test because it’s against Liverpool.”

    “They are a very good team, an intense team, and they require a lot of work for us to battle them but I believe in our team and our players.”

    “We are also going to play our way.”

    “We need to stop them doing their jobs in the 90 minutes.”

    “They have individual players and also are a collective. They are developing moves with the goalkeeper beceause they build up through Alisson, the centre-backs and the midfield players.”

    “They can progress up the pitch with a lot of quality starting with Alisson.”

    “We need a big match in the individual duels against them and also tactically we need to be together and play with our identity and style that we need to impose on them.”

    It’s difficult for 90 minutes but in moments we need to impose our ideas in a duel of 90 minutes.

  • Ex-Arsenal striker sentenced to 50 days in jail

    Ex-Arsenal striker sentenced to 50 days in jail

    Ex-Arsenal striker Nicklas Bendtner has been sentenced to 50 days in jail in Denmark for assaulting a taxi driver, BBC reports.

    But the 30-year-old Rosenborg player has appealed and has been released until a hearing at a higher court.

    The incident took place in September, with the City Court of Copenhagen shown CCTV footage in which it appeared Bendtner struck the driver in the face.

    The Denmark international admitted hitting the taxi driver but said it was because he felt threatened.

    Bendtner said the driver threw a bottle or a can towards him and his girlfriend when they left without paying.

    “We think that it’s not good for the club and not good for Nicklas, but he remains a player in the club. We are keeping him,” said Tove Moe Dyrhaug, the chief executive of Bendtner’s Norwegian club Rosenborg.

    Bendtner, who played for Arsenal between 2005 and 2014, scoring 45 goals in 171 games, missed out on a place in Denmark’s squad for the 2018 World Cup because of injury.

    He had loan spells at Sunderland, Birmingham City and Juventus while at Arsenal before making a permanent move to German club Wolfsburg.

    He moved back to England to join Championship side Nottingham Forest in September 2016 before joining Rosenborg in March 2017.

  • Salah fit for Arsenal trip in spite of arm injury, Klopp assures

    Salah fit for Arsenal trip in spite of arm injury, Klopp assures

    Juergen Klopp expects forward Mohamed Salah to be ready for Liverpool’s trip to Arsenal in spite of a wrist injury, but midfielders Jordan Henderson and Naby Keita are both ruled out.

    Salah was seen training with a protective cast on his forearm this week, but Klopp dismissed any fresh injury concern relating to the Egyptian.

    “Mo, it is nothing really serious — it’s a kind of inflammation of the tendon,” Klopp told a news conference on Friday. “That’s pretty much all.

    “It (the support) was only for protection — the pictures you saw were only protection and it has no influence.”

    Henderson and Keita remain on the sidelines with hamstring injuries and will not be available for the clash at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday.

    The pair are also a doubt for the UEFA Champions League trip to Red Star Belgrade on Tuesday.

    “Hendo feels really good, but it will be probably the start of the week when he will be back in training,” Klopp added.

    “Naby, end of this week. It doesn’t make a big difference match-wise, but that’s how it looks.”

    Klopp is yet to suffer defeat against Arsenal since arriving at Anfield, claiming 11 points out of 15 against the north London outfit in the league.

    However, the German expects a difficult game against an Arsenal side rejuvenated under new manager Unai Emery and on an eight-match unbeaten run in the English Premier League.

    Klopp suggested the departure of long-standing manager Arsene Wenger at the end of last season forced some of the Arsenal players “out of their comfort zone”.

    He said this sent them back to delivering the goods on the pitch.

    “Arsene Wenger is one of the best managers in the world, there’s no doubt about it. And sometimes after a long time when the mood in a club changes, it’s quite difficult to work against that,” said Klopp.

    “If a new manager comes in — it was the same with me here — all players are immediately out of their comfort zone.

    “They all have to prove from the first day that they are not only the name, they are the footballer as well.”

  • Former Arsenal coach, Wenger sets 2019 'return' deadline

    Former Arsenal coach, Wenger sets 2019 'return' deadline

    Arsene Wenger has promised he will be back in football management at the start of 2019, but the Frenchman does not yet know at which club.

    The 69-year-old veteran boss ended his 22-year reign at Premier League side Arsenal at the end of last season but insisted at the time he was not yet finished with football.

    Asked when he would be back in management, Wenger told Sky Sports on Wednesday: “At the beginning of the year.

    “It will seem odd to go somewhere else but I can’t tell you (where) because I don’t know where I’ll be. I’ll be somewhere — but I don’t know where.

    “I have had a good rest and watched football a lot. I have many good memories, so I miss them.”

    Meanwhile Wenger, whose final seasons in charge of Arsenal saw the once mighty Gunners struggling to contend for the English title, was pleased by the North London giants’ start to this season.

    Under new manager Unai Emery, Arsenal are currently fourth in the table, just four points behind Premier League leaders and reigning champions Manchester City, despite losing their first two league games this term.

    “When Arsenal win I am happy,” said Wenger. “I felt I worked very hard and I think I left it (the club) in good shape.

    “After that, I’m a supporter like anyone else — I want them to win football games.”