Is Carlos Vela's Arsenal Career Over?

Carlos Vela

In November 2005 the father of then 16 year old Carlos Vela announced that his son was on his way to Arsenal, having signed a 5 year deal, commanding a transfer fee of around £2m. Albeit not really starting at the club until 2008, due to work permit issues. Five years after originally signing, his Arsenal future was in doubt. A year after that it appears to be non-existent.

In a question and answer session at the Emirates today, Arsene Wenger had this to say about his strikers: "We lose players like Chamakh and Gervinho to the Africa Cup of Nations, so hopefully touch wood we do not get any injuries to our strikers. But if an opportunity turns up in that department then we will buy." Vela is undoubtedly a talented striker, a glance through his goals in an Arsenal shirt show that much, but he has never seemed to be able to put in the right performances at the right time. Arsenal fans have often only seen his best when he has been wearing a Mexico shirt. Currently on loan at Real Sociedad, Vela seems to have found his feet in Spain, with two goals in three games, including the fantastic overhead kick against Malaga, pictured below. 

Vela scores a stunner on loan at Real Sociedad

Capable of playing through the middle or wide left, Vela still is an exciting talent, but things have never really clicked for him in N5. A hat-trick against Sheffield United and numerous cheeky chips have shown the Arsenal fans what he can do, but he's never really had a run of games to prove himself. With such a talented player on the books, I can't help but feel that Arsenal would be better placed to look to recall Vela from his loan spell, rather than looking to splash the cash on a new player. Prices are, of course, always inflated in January.

With Marouane Chamakh being reported as increasingly unsettled at the club, Niklas Bendtner wanting away and Park unproven there may be opportunities for Vela through the middle at some point soon. Andrei Arshavin also seems increasingly likely to leave, being well and truly behind Gervinho in the pecking order - though he will have the ACN period in January to prove himself - there may also be opportunities for Vela on the left of the front three in 2012/13. Personally, I feel that it would be a real shame to see him leave, I have always liked him as a player and still believe that he can make it at the Emirates; so long as he gets a run of games. If he doesn't get the chance to succeed at Arsenal, I can definitely see him becoming a top player somewhere else, another one that might get away.

Should Vela be given another chance at Arsenal? Comments or Twitter as always!!

The Arsenal Back 4

Santos clutches his injured right ankle vs. Olympiacos

Yesterday Arsenal confirmed that summer signing Andre Santos will be out for around three months, following the decision to send him to Brazil for surgery after damaging ligaments in his right ankle in the Olymipiacos game last week. This news compounds Arsenal's defensive problems, with Kieran Gibbs and Bacary Sagna all out injured too. Both Jenkinson and Gibbs are around two to three weeks away from any return to first team action and Sagna is unlikely to return before January - although he tweeted yesterday that he expects to be back running soon.

In the 1-0 victory over Everton, Arsenal fielded 4 centre backs and it showed. There was a real lack of width, the Gunners struggling when attempting to work the ball wide. Many are also unconvinced by the pairing of Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny in the centre of defence. It must be said that they played much better as a duo on Saturday than in their last outing together. Koscielny had been providing cover at right back in recent weeks, but was shifted into the centre of defence to allow Thomas Vermaelen to provide cover at left back. This combination worked alright, but Johan Djourou did not look comfortable at full back. I personally feel that reverting back to the centre half pairing of Mertesacker and Vermaelen with Koscielny at right back would be a sensible move. Koscielny definitely is more comfortable going forward and providing the width to work with Theo Walcott in attack. 

In order to do that, the issue of who plays left back comes to the fore. From an attacking perspective I think that the solution is simple and is Ignasi Miquel. From what we saw against Olympiacos he is comfortable going forward – he provided the original cross in the build-up to Arsenal’s goal – however he is an inexperienced player. If the game this weekend was not against Manchester City, then I would have no issue whatsoever with starting the young Spaniard. He has had some game time this season, getting a good run out in the 2-0 reverse against Liverpool and some good performances in the Carling Cup. All these things suggest that he is ready to be given a chance at the weekend, his assured performance against City in the League Cup can only count in his favour, and I feel that he would help to provide some of the width that Arsenal will need to create chances at the weekend. It will be a very tough ask to work opportunities on goal if everything is going through the middle of the pitch.

Looking beyond this weekend though, I believe that it would be sensible for Wenger to look to bring in some cover in the full back position for the second half of the season. With two capable left backs in Santos and Gibbs a loan move is probably most likely and most sensible. I have seen suggestions that Wayne Bridge should be brought in from City temporarily, and I feel that this could well be a sensible option. With a sizeable amount of Premier League experience, and some in the Champions League he may well represent the best short term solution with Gibbs unlikely to be fit until January (and an unconvincing injury record) and Santos now out for the majority of the season.

Who do you think should be brought in as cover? Is it even needed? Let me know on http://twitter.com/#!/Goonernl or in the comments below.

Mixed Messages from the FA

On a day when many have screamed hypocrisy at the FA about Wayne Rooney, this isn't really about that, this is to talk about some of the other things that the FA is saying one thing about, and doing another. Like coaching.

To start this, I need to give you some of my own background. I am 17 years old and a Level 2 football coach. Almost all of my coaching is on a voluntary basis, though I occasionally do some paid work for my local football league club's community department. I give up my Saturdays to coach at my local grassroots club, my lunchtimes to coach younger kids in my school and I give up any afternoons I have free from lessons to coach kids at my old school. I do this for nothing, yet it has cost me nearly £300 to get to the level of qualification I have. Some people will be thinking that that is a lot, which it is, but my county FA offer courses to under 19s for half price. The reality is that with a Level 2 you're not going to be coaching much more than grassroots football, but will have spent £500 or £600 to get there.

I can understand the cost of these though, the need for administration fees, the need to pay for a course venue and for a course tutor. Where it becomes ridiculous though is when you look to progress further up the ladder, to get your UEFA B Licence. That will cost you somewhere in the region of £1000. The FA talks of how it wants to increase the number of grassroots coaches there are in England, yet the UEFA B costs that much. To put things into perspective, until January 2011 the UEFA B equivalent Level 3 Certificate in Coaching Football could be completed with a county FA for less than half the cost by an adult, and for me, I would have been able to do it for £200. What justification can there possibly be for that increase? Not only is the course now far beyond what I and the vast majority of grassroots coaches can afford, but I am no longer able to go on the course, because of new age restrictions. You must now be 20 years old, rather than 17 a year ago.

The FA says that there is fewer than 10% of the number of UEFA B qualified coaches in England than countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Germany. I can't understand why. The cost in Spain is almost exactly the same, so it's not that. The FA must be getting something else wrong somewhere though for there to be such a significant difference.

Another cast that has gone up recently is for the re-branded FA Coaches Association. In it's new guise as The FA Licensed Coaches Club, it costs £20 more than last season for the same package, with nothing really different other than the look of the website. The website is - by the way - woeful, it looks nice, but the content leaves much to be desired. I read part one of an article on the guided discovery approach to coaching, which was informative and interesting, and promised part 2 next week. A month and a half later part 2 still hasn't materialised and my email moan 2 weeks ago hasn't even been acknowledged. That is poor.

Another issue with FALCC is the necessity for CPD. I was of the opinion that this was a really good idea, but then I saw how much it was going to cost to do the relevant CPD each year. As with everything else the FA does, it's not cheap. Last weekend it was the FALCC's annual coaching conference at Wembley, for which tickets were originally on sale for a mere £69.95 for Level 1 and 2 coaches or over £100 for UEFA B, A and Pro licence holders. Cheap. Obviously not a best seller either, as halfway through last week I received an email offering me a ticket for half price. For the FA's big grassroots coaching event, that should be the envy of everyone, the top ticket in town, to be offering the tickets at half price, six days before the event, something must be going wrong. It's not like the conference had a bad line up either, with speakers such as Sir Trevor Brooking, Gareth Southgate and Stuart Pearce. I think that the FA have gone wrong with the pricing. Again.

In the world we live in, life is more and more expensive. I've been making a loss even when I've been doing paid coaching paying for my petrol to get to work and back, yet the FA has increasing revenue streams, with their foreign TV deals being renewed for a reported £48m this week. To me it seems that they have the resources to be able to offer the likes of the FALCC conference to members for nothing, to provide free CPD opportunities - after all, it's the FA that will benefit in the long run, with better players coming through the ranks and into the England set up.

So I really do think that what the FA is saying is all posturing, sounding good for the press. I'm yet to see any evidence to back up their claims over how hard they're trying to improve grassroots football. They're all about making money. I just think that it would be nice for the press to start asking the FA what is actually happening to improve the quality of coaching at grassroots level and the number of qualified coaches at grassroots clubs. It would be interesting to see what they could come back with.