Reyes not playing - speculation increases.
49 Comments Published by Red Square on 8/08/2006 at 19:50.Jose Antonio Reyes' future is again in question after it was revealed he would not start in tonight's match. Instead he's on the bench fueling speculation of a move to Madrid.
Reyes would be cup-tied for the Champions league if he plays substantially reducing his potential transfer fee.
Tomas Rosicky makes his first competitive start in what should be a straight swap with Reyes.
Now this could be Wenger wanting to let Rosicky start, after all Reyes is going to be more tired then Rosicky who may not play the full 90 minutes, we could just be jumping to conclusions. Then again I could be making excuses, clinging onto any false hope.
If Reyes plays tonight he stays if he doesn't he's gone. That my theory.
Update: Well...I guess that settles that then, Reyes is a goner Gooner.
don't read too much into this. i feel wenger will unleash him later in the second half. and then he'll show he's a true gunner...
he ain't a true gunner dip shit -
he's on his way to madrid.
and good riddance to the gypsy.
I can't believe you just said that, what's wrong with being a gypsy? how do you know he is on his way anywhere? you are just being a reactionary twat
To be honest i was pretty depressed when i didnt see him start! I hope he stays.. he's got great potential and we clearly needed his penetration skills in the 1st half..
i hope this D.Zagreb team dont have a trick up their sleeve.. and i sure as hell hope Reyes plays in the 2nd half to put an end to all this transfer nonsense!
let him go to wherever he wants, we don't need him now dat we are close to completing the transfer of mr ribery...ashley you can go 2 chelsea, we'll have gallas or abidal(world class at d world cup for france)
dickhead joe - you will see that he will be on his way somewhere in no time at all.
get a brain chump change - do you think there is any loyalty out there?
i might be a reactionary and a cynic but at least i'm not a cretin who believes that players are loyal.
all i'm saying is wait and see and don't be racist. his background has nothing to do with who he is.
he has said time and time again that he is staying with arsenal, he is on the bench, he could well play tonight.
also, there is no reason to resort to calling me names for goodness sake, can't you have a discussion in a reasoned and rational fashion rather than calling me names.
1 You started the name calling Joe - 'reactionary twat' I believe was your description of me...
2 Fair enough - I won't call names if you don't.
3 I am not a racist.
4 He is a gypsy. This is a fact. I have no issue with gypsies but this is what the kid is.
5 And due to him being a gypsy, he has a very limited education. He is unable to write or read Castellano properly so he was never going to figure out English or adapt to life in England.
6 Come now - don't you remember his confession to the Cadena Ser DJ that he wanted to leave?
Olive branch held out...
olive branch taken but in response,
why mention he is a gypsy, its not relivant as is his ablity to write. i think that when you see a guy who says he has not said these things over and over again, and yet you still read it in the papers over and over again that he wants to go, then you have to say, ok someone is talking shit, so we wait and see. what annoys me is when people start to insult him as a person based purely on what they read in the papers. the Spanish football press in particular is well known for false quotes and bullshit stories.
if he could fit in anywhere (other than his home) then it would be at arsenal where players are really well looked after. he has played well for us (without setting the world on fire) and i think he is owed a bit of respect, at least untill i'm proved wrong
oh i don't base him on what i read...
i know his story a bit better than most.
firstly he played for sevilla - they wouldn't sell him to real madrid which was the move he wanted. so he had to go via another club.
lets be realistic - this kid is happier in spain than england.
and why not? better food, better weather...
but he does want to go - and he did admit that clearly when he was duped by the Cadena Ser DJ -
i just hope all this talk comes to a head i dont think reyes will leave (only time will tell) but as with the cashly cole shit i hope it all gets sorted soon wat gets me why are we going to let one of our biggist rivals get thier man! it really f**ks me off oh 3-0 come on you reds!!
sol cambell to portmouth now thats some funnny shit right there
we all know the reason ash is going to chavski there sponcered by samsong plenty of mobiles to stick up his arse
Goodbye, Reyes!!
Reyes is definitely leaving and I think it is a real shame. Rosicky only had 30 minutes pre season before tonight, he was not going to start so obviously there has been an offer from Real and Reyes is on his way before really proving his undoubted talent. Really disappointed.
On the game i thought we looked really good. Slick passing, skillful interchanges, but we do look a very small side. Can we deal with the more physical sides in the premiership? Doubtful
message to gelbs: not but for a weak team
Reyes did not play.... Nobody can argue that all these talks are pure speculation. Negotation are in an advanced stage.
Our team this year :
Eboue (lauren) Senderos (Djourou) Toure ???
Freddie Gilberto Fab Ribery
Henry Van Persie (Ade)
If we let Reyes go, and it seems we are, Arsène already has a man to fill the gap. Apart Ribery, I don't see.
??? at left back could be Abidal, Trabelski,Gallas... Really don't know.
A Madrid transfer is possible, too. Baptista, Robinho... No one talk about Gravesen, but he's leaving... Experience, solidity in midfield... could be a target, isn't it ? Not the best one, but why not...
3-0 ! A good thing, perhaps the most important.
Ced the swiss
I have to say - Ribery will be superb with Henry. They seemed to establish an understanding in the World Cup and I suspect that the Ghanian trialist will be the other signing.
Wasn't Djourou excellent tonight? Hoyte was ok, but give him some time....and he's English!!
Good win, good Lord Fab's found his shooting boots - both balls superbly placed....
Rosicky is going to shoot outside of the box!!!
Gutted.
It looks very much like Reyes is leaving. I was really hopeful that he would be a big player for us this season.
To be fair though, if the guy aint happy and his heart aint truely in it, let him go and with best wishes. I for one consider Ribery to be more than a decent enough replacement.
Be interesting to see if any Real players will be coming our way as part of any deal?
Also, didnt Hleb arrive at the club as a left winger/forward?
i agree Begeegs. Djourou had an awesome game. Could this be the end for Cygan?
Khunthol, very true. There's a lack of physical balance in the team. We can't always play against that type of team that had too much respect for us. If they really had some belief in them, they could have heart us before we did.
We looked a ballanced team tonight. Imagine the scoreline if TH14 had been playing. Impressed with Rosicky, but more so with Djourou. Its a pitty about Reyes, but has he ever really ever done it in an Aresnal shirt for a consistant period!! Not so sure about Ribery, could be another temper tantrum man like Anelka!!. Would much prefer to see a solid DM come in as back up/competition for Gilberto. Remember his back injury!!
Impressive 3-0 away win which virtually guarantees our entry into the champions league draw.Djourou particularly caught the eye.However what happens if he or Toure get injured - we only have Cygan until Sendorus returns in 2/3 months time. Also,Hoyte looked a bit shaky at LB. If Arsecole goes this week,surely Wenger has to get in an experienced left sided defender who can cover CB and LB positions as soon as possible.
wenger said he never played reyes because rosicky was fit to play and reyes was unsettled by the media circus. would it not have been sensible (if wenger wants to keep him) to bring him on for last minute so he was cup-tied.
Herdie shity ! if you are not a racist then you are thick as hell.why do you have to call Reyes a gypsy.Yeah he is a gypsy so what? He plays for arsenal you do not and you will never ever play for arsenal. Reyes the gypsy knows something about football better than you.We have seen him play.Stupid twat you are herdie shity,he is Jose Antonio!
Hey Guys lets concentrate on the postive for the team that was out there tonight it was a mighty fine effort Fabregas ,Rosicky,Van Persieand Djourou all had great games so any new signings anf those players coming back from Injury will all add to the team .As for Reyes I would be surprised if he goes .BTW whats gping on with Laurens comeback is he still injured on holiday or what any body know whats gong on there ?
Red Square- Good call having hoyte in your predicted line-up, I never thought he would put him above flamini in a million years, so much respect to you sir.
Good performance against what is a very decent team. However wenger is beginning to annoy me. I think its pretty obvious arsenal are in discussions about selling reyes & wenger denying it & making up silly lies is pointless. If reyes was unsettled by the transfer rumours then why take him in the first place if he wasnt mentally right to play? Secondly, why did wenger say rosicky would definately be starting from the bench as he wasnt fit enough to start & then playing him virtually the whole game? My real worry though is that wenger was more than a bit definate in his interview afterwards that we have not made bids for any player & that even if reyes & cole go he may not bother buying. If that happens then to me wenger will have lost the plot, as good a performance as that was last night that squad & team would be nowhere near the top 4 after a long league season.
I was a little depressed when I saw the early excahnge between 'Joe' and 'Herdee StringCity' earlier on in this thread.
But then I think it's remarkable how you both sorted it out and returned to the decent intelligent comment this site has become known for. Thank you both.
Please don't ruin that 'Real'.
Sadly if Reyes really wants to go, I think he will go. I'm sure Wenger could have picked him but didn't need to last night.
I woke up this morning wondering what we would all be writing about if Ashley Cole didn't leave and Reyes stayed as well. Imagine that. Could happen. Unlikely, I'll agree, but could happen.
On the point you made Mick - I'm not sure what good would it serve Arsenal if Wenger did go public about the real transfer discussions Arsenal are having with players coming either in or out.
Shouldn't we should allow Wenger to be economical with the truth if that serves the club? He's not breaking any laws after all, he's just playing his cards close to his chest (as Arsenal have always done quite successfully).
We all know transfer negotiations in the Premier League are always delicate and it's like a game of poker. You don't reveal your hand.
Of course, WE would love to know the truth (especially ME!!), and so would the papers (they often don't which is why so much is made up).
Patience, faith and optimism!
DAF- I agree with you to a point. Wenger has every right to keep deals close to his chest & as you say be a bit economical with the truth, however lately he has just become an out & out liar which doesnt serve anyone well & makes him look silly. If reyes wants to leave why not let the world know & then maybe other clubs would come in & push the price up, obviously that may not happen but it is a possibility. The thing that got to me was how definate he was that no bids had been made for players, it wasnt just him being cautious not to give anything away, he was absolutely adamant they he may not be bothered signing anyone. On ATVO he was saying a defender may arrive early this week but as I think everyone knows by now that was clearly shilla illiasu & there are problems between his current & former clubs so its delayed any transfer to the point it may not even happen.
No matter how big a wenger fan anyone is I dont think you can look past how small this squad actually is. That performance last night gives people false hope because a team as young & inexperienced as that would never be able to continue that through a whole season for 60+ games. Henry is saying this morning that we need to buy & if he feels like that you can certainly understand why the fans do.
Hey we will just have toi wait and see what happens but one is for sure we cannot afford to lewt people go without having replacements ready to come in .We do not want to sell players and not be able to replace them beofre the deadline and risk having more gaps in the squad like we did for thew first half of last season after we sold Viera.
Lets hope we do this in time if Reyes and Cole go
i think that "if" reyes goes then a swap with baptista / robiniho would be good - robiniho = winger with pace and trickery, baptista = solid attacking midfielder that can share the responsibility with cesc... but i thought i heard that baptista would struggle to get a visa or something...
Wenger said he definately didnt make an offer for Ribery but has laready gone on record saying he will buy certainly 1 maybe 2 players. Also said he may buy again (but not necessarilly) if we sell more players. Well thats my understanding of his coments.
As for last nights result - an understrength young side put 3 past a handy croatian side without conceading. About 9 more senior players to return with possibly 2 new faces. That does give me hope and its certainly not false.
Who are the 9 senior players missing? Henry, Lauren, Cole, Senderos, Clichy, Diaby, Ljungberg, Walcott & I cannot think of anyone else. From that Walcott & Diaby have barely played a game for arsenal so you cannot say they add anything other than numbers. Clichy is big time injury prone, as is ljungberg these days. Senderos has never played a full season & cole is off. Lauren, Henry & Ljungberg are the only players you could really consider senior so that means our whole team & squad is what we had yesterday (minus reyes) plus those 3. If you honestly believe thats good enough to get through a 60+ game season then thats fine, but I dont & neither does henry who is clearly getting agitated by wenger's refusal to buy any quality at all. Also wenger may have said he wants to add 1 or 2 but he has changed his mind again as shown by his interview yesterday. He said he may buy if players leave but even then he may not bother.
skeeny baptista has a spanish passport now so he shouldnt have a problem playing for us, on the othere hand i dont think i would want him at arsenal as he had rejected us too many time and i personally think he isnt all that good.. Fabregas on the other hand had a great game you can see that he is much stronger this season as he was able to fight off the defender that was marking him to score.
Does anyone know if uefa changed the rules again regarding players who appear in the uefa cup being eligible for the cl? I ask because ribery has been selected in the squad for marseille & the coach said he is playing. As they dont want to sell him you can be sure he will appear for them in that match. Last season players who played in the uefa cup were still able to appear in the cl for another team eg Diaby but the papers are reporting that rule has changed again so he would be cup tied?
Well said, Denise!
There's just no pleasing some people! Would you rather us lose last night, so we can see our own shortcomings?
Just remember, that a large majority of these "kids" got us to Paris last year... the futures bright! The future's Arsenal!
firstly, an excellent game last night. add Henry to that and we have got some team. get our injured players back and we have also got depth. Biggest plus points were Djourou and Fabregas going up another notch, but even Hleb (who had a big hand in all 3 goals) and the strikers looked v good.
Reyes must at least be in negotiations with Madrid. OK so he may not go in the end but AW could not risk ruining a deal by sticking him on in the last 10 minutes. If reyes stays wenger has to be seen to be backing his player and not making it impossible for him to walk out in front of 60,000 at ash grove. so take what wenger says with a pinch of salt - he may go. I think there were late discussions yesterday afternoon, the game in Zagreb forced Madrid's hand and I think they probably called Dein and said look we may want him, please dont use him tonight.
I sort of agree with Henry that if Cole goes we need to buy a top quality replacement and not rely on Hoyte, but Henry needs a bit more faith in what AW is doing rather than calling for some quality new signings. For example, if AW sold all our young english talent and bought international stars, then we would not satisfy the UEFA home grown quota of 8 in 2 years time. wenger has to juggle all these things.
someone said earlier that if we replace reyes, campbell and Pires with 3 players then we have not made steps forward. well yes, the squad would be the same size but if we replace them with better players then it is a step forward. the ideal squad size is about 22-24 players. Arsenal have that plus a few really young players that we'll use in the Carling cup. numbers wise arsenal dont need players. quality wise we do.
Point is if we get Gallas, Rosicky and Ribery then that is better than Campbell, Pires and Reyes. no?
Are you saying the squad is physically small because it is certainly not numerically small. Last night we had a team who comfortably played v difficult opponents, without 7 (inc Cole & Reyes) recognised 1st team players not available. There are not many PL teams which would have got that result in those circumstances.
It is a difficult balancing act. We have talented players still not getting a game so we just don't know how good they can be. Buy and you deny them the chance even more. If you buy then it has to be someone who is going to be a lot better than what you have got already got or a Grimandi like old pro prepared to be a useful squad player.
Last year we lost Vieira & the cry was why didn't we replace him. How can you replace Vieira? At his best he was unique, absolute world class, there is no one to replace him just like MU can't replace Roy Keane. As a ready made you would only get nearly as good & that would not be good enough.
AW went down the route of promoting Cesc, a talent who could mature into the top class, and his performances in the World Cup justified that faith.
I would say if anyone goes buy, or there is an absolutely outstanding opertunity buy,but if not take the gamble & see how good these youngsters are. Do you really want to see them playing for someone else?
I think Arsene would have been more coy and less catergorical when asked if Jose was going, if he really was going. Wenger is always honest with us when it comes to our players. It is different when talking about potential signings. If Reyes does go, however, we will bring in Ribery, and possibly Robinho or Baptista. We will definitely sign players. We have practically qualified for the CL now, so players are sure they'll be in there with us.
I agree with Dean. I think Reyes is unsettled, Real Madrid are trying to get him but AW wants him to stay and hopes to convince him to. Who knows what will happen but I think we will all find out quite soon, what the transfers in & out will be. Last night's result will clarify the situation.
Does anyone think TH14's interview may indicate they are attempting a reconciliation with Cole?
Henry and Mourinho have both hinted that Cole might be staying Arsenal. can you imagine that? he'd be the most hated man in red and white for many a year. god knows how we'd all handle that. would we want to boo and heckle any player playing for us? if it harmed our chances of winning a game then clearly we should leave him alone. we'd have to hate him in silence.
just about to write about that gazzap
Here's another one for you...why the f*ck cant we do our transfers in June/July rather than late August? its the same every season.
oh yes. and I was loving the red and white kit last night... it felt right. I think the players could see each other quicker compared with the dull redcurrent. makes it easier for everyone.
Seems to me everyone is getting carried away with the fact we beat dinamo zagreb. Decent team they may be but they are no chelsea, liverpool, man utd, spurs or even blackburn, bolton or newcastle (under roeder anyway). Can someone please let me know one top club that has won major trophies in recent years without buying any players? Winning a few games in the champions league last year seems to have blurred everyones mind. We had the easiest group you could possible get & we won 3 matches after that, 1 against Real Madrid, 1 against Juventus & 1 against villarreal. However look at our league form we lost 11 matches & although people will point to our end of season run actually go back & look at who we played. We couldnt beat spurs, portsmouth, bolton or man utd in that run. The only top team we beat was liverpool who gifted it to us & the rest were the likes of villa & badly out of form sides like charlton & man city. Any team who had something to play for we failed to beat. The fact we got outplayed at home by the spuds says to me our youngsters are not good enough yet & they never will be unless they have some experience to learn from.
reyes has pratically just said he wants to leave on sky sports news...
mick, we outplay most teams we play. we outplayed chelsea in both league matches and lost them both. we dont have a problem with the way we play but we need to be a lot more solid defensively. even last night Zagreb could have stolen 2 goals from us with better finishing, and thats in a game where they had almost no sustained possession. partly its to do with quality of players but its far more to do with the system. If chelsea played a 4-4-2 this season I bet they would not get any more than 80 points and may not win the league, but mourinho knows he isn't there to entertain, he is there to win games. so he will play a boring but very effective 4-5-1 which converts to 4-3-3 in attack. Arsenal also go to the CL final with this system even though we had fairly inexperienced players. wenger has to realise this and I think he does but he stubborn as hell. he plays 4-4-2 but if we go a goal down then its 11 man behind the ball from the opposition and I dont care how much better we are than the other team even Arsenal struggle to break down 11 defenders.