After a fairly lack luster pre-season, returning striker Jay Simpson admits he must ‘put away his chances’ in the coming campaign if he’s to make inroads towards Arsène Wenger’s first-team.
Speaking after the Gunners’ 3-2 win over Lincoln City, the 20-year-old marksman spoke about his delight at returning following 3 months on loan with West Brom.
“It’s good to be back, I was looking forward to it (returning). It’s good to see some familiar faces.”
Having honed his trade with West Brom, the natural progression would be return to Arsenal and be involved with the first team. Yet Simpson was left out of the squad which travelled to Austria on Monday, and while he admits it was disappointing, Jay has reaffirmed his targets.
“All us young players wanted to go to Austria, so it’s always going to be disappointing, but we’ve all got our own goals and targets.”
“I’m just focusing on pre-season and getting fit. After pre-season, we’ll take it from there.”
The Enfield born prospect is facing a make break situation. A return to Reserves football seems like the most obvious option at the moment, but having tested himself with relative success in the Premier League, it would be a massive fall from grace. Subsequently, Simpson is determined to take his chance to avoid that from happening.
“I need to work on everything. There’s no such thing as a finished product in football. I’m focused on goals, I’ve got to start putting away my chances.”
Like Nacer Barazite, Jay’s future will be decided when Wenger returns from Austria, a place both players will feel they should have been.
Arsenal’s Under 16’s kicked off their preparations for the new season yesterday with a 2-1 win over Millwall. Following a brief tournament in Sweden, the Gunners really stepped things up on their return to England and secured victory thanks to a classy brace from striker Zak Ansah. Steve Gatting’s boys were without Nico Yennaris and Josh Rees who left for an England training camp ahead of the Nordic Tournament this morning.
Article By – J.Sanderson
I think Simpson really could make inroads into the team, maybe more so than Barazite, if he could hit a rich vein of form, however I’m not convinced that enough of his ability to do so.
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I like Simpson and don’t see why he and Barazite are overlooked so much – get the feeling Wenger would go a host of established first teamers palying badly out of position than give them a real go
Simpson will be sold in January to a average premiership team or a top championship side
BTW Celta Vigo has reached a season-long loan agreement with Arsenal for left-back Pedro Botelho.
J any reason why did Wenger take so many defensive players to Austria if you look at the bench for the last game there were 2 goalkeepers and only 2 attack minded players. Seems very strange when the likes of Simpson & Barazite were left behind. Why take Senderos when he going to be sold?
I think he could be as good as Sylvain Wiltord
He needs to knackle down and put away chances at his disposal. I would like to remind him of Flamini who was given a chance in the middle of the park and took it and never looked back. The boss could’nt touch him when he was doing fine. Gilberto had to come in at centre back. That is what you have to do-gatecrash the party man, just do it instead of moaning like Bentleys or other English who think they have a god-given right.
By God grace,i belife arsenal will make it this seanson
Jay cud u plz tell me if arsenal under 16s won dat sweden tournament thanks
His quotes reveal someone focussed on making the best of his situation. Good things should follow for him, with Arsenal or elsewhere. Why should it matter as long as he’s happy.
Lower end of the Championship player at the very best.Has no chance whatsoever of making it at Arsenal and should stop deluding himself.
Barazite has never been much cop. Let’s hope Murphy can get over all the injury problems eh.
LSOE – I have no idea where you would get that from.
JS was the tournament in Sweden the Gothia Cup?
no swedish torn for u16 this season
he couln’t take a spot in wba who is in the championship this season. How the hell is he going to take a spot in Arsenal who have top class forwards? He should be loaned out to Derby, seems like the manager like our youths. Barazite, watt, sunu, freeman, afobe and even ansah seems like a bigger prospect than him. No vision and decent technic.
Jam, he did very well at WBA, but his performances dropped after he sustained an injury. Before that he was one of their best players every game. However, I agree that he will have trouble making progress this season if he stays here. I’d idealy like to see him loaned out to another newly promoted team. Burnley’s strikers are getting on a bit…
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I like Simpson and don’t see why he and Barazite are overlooked so much – get the feeling Wenger would go a host of established first teamers palying badly out of position than give them a real go
Doug Shoes said this on July 23, 2009 at 10:59 am
Yeah, because if there is anything Wenger is it’s ignorant of youth football and promoting talented youngsters. Just ask Cesc Fabregas, who unfortunately had to leave our academy to get a starting berth at Barca… wait, have I got that right?
Doug and Samuel, I agree with both of your sentiments. Arsene has been brilliant at giving youngsters their chance to shine, but if you look at our team, there’s not a lot of space for the likes of Barazite and Simpson. We’re very well stocked offensively, and imagine how a senior international like Walcott or Eboue would feel if Barazite was selected ahead of them for the RM spot, or Bendtner, another full international making great improvement, or Vela, to whom the same applies, would feel if Simpson was put in ahead of them. I’d like to see them given a chance, particuarly Naz, but it just isn’t feasible – particularly when the likes of Wilshere and Ramsey also lay claim to a place.
Samuel, although you are right Doug Shoes does have a point. I mean, I just watched a re-run of our game against Everton back in October last year. Eboue started on the right wing, Song at right back (yes, right back) with Toure and Silvestre at CB.
We were 1-0 down at half time. Leon Osman scored the goal, for what it’s worth. However, Kolo hurt his shoulder towards the end of the first half and subsequently was replaced at the break with Theo. Theo went RW, Eboue to RB and Song to CB. I remember that game like it was yesterday and thinking what’s Song doing playing at RB? (As many Gooners were when the starting line-up was announced). I also remember thinking we’re gonna have these Toffees in the second period now that there’s no more square pegs in round holes……Final score was 3-1 to us (Nasri, RVP and Walcott the goalscorers). We also dominated that second period.
As great as AW is and there is no manager out there who could do what he does for us, he has this fucking annoying knack of playing people out of their comfort zone thus costing us points and causing the Arsenal faithful to become disgruntled and begin to vent their frustrations at the players, e.g. Eboue vs Wigan.
I have a feeling that if he doesn’t do that shit this season we will have a fruitful season despite all the doom-mongering amongst the cunt press directed at AFC. I really do.
On another note, Arsenal.com says Vela is in Austria/Hungary with the rest of the squad. I was under the impression he was with Mexico due to play in the Gold Cup semi’s. Anyone know where he really is?
FAO – J Sanderson I’ve seen Barazite loads of times. And never thoough much of him. Murphy was much better. He’s been doing better than the gifted and future England star Danny Welbeck as well over the years for England. Let’s hope all the injuries haven’t taken there toll. His pace does seemed to have been affected though.Which isn’t good.
TJ DA GOON said this on July 23, 2009 at 5:39 pm
That was one unfortunate case though. Even Sacchi made a mistake or two in his career. Quite frankly, I’d prefer the boss try Song (an international I rate highly) than Hoyte, who I don’t think was anywhere near ready. Sure, Eboue was the obvious choice and it was a mistake though. However, that was not the point ol’ Shoes was making.
This is different though. Quite frankly, there is no currently better manager in the world in trusting talent, regardless of fan or media posturing of what they think is right. He does not always get this right, no manager has a 100% record, but if you were to trust someone to give a Simpson or a Barazite a chance, if they earn his respect in training/reserves/friendlies etc. then Wenger is the man.
There is a distinction that has to be made though. For example, when we were short of midfielders last season and Diaby was positioned at LM, some were calling for Merida to be given a chance. The boy obviously has some talent, and will hopefully become another great Wengerplayer but he was not ready physically in the eyes of the manager. Our reserves, moreso than anyone, will know what to work on before the manager takes their first team careers on the same path Bendtner, Clichy, Gibbs et al have taken.
Samuel – You are one of my fave bloggers on here. Someone who I can tell, more often than not, knows what he is on about and even your last comment, I agree with 99% mate. However, I can assure you this was not one unfortunate case, as you put it. I love Wenger. Never wanna see him leave cos as I said in my last comment, there is nobody out there that can do a better job than him. But when he does these things it makes many Gooners upset.
Just to name a few:
Eboue LB
Diaby LW (which you mentioned)
Nikki LW
Kolo RW
Kolo RB
RVP LW
Denny RW
Cesc AM
Nasri DM (while Song played in a more advanced role to him)
I understand you can get away with these things sometimes but that doesn’t take away the fact that our team loses something when he does these things. We lose our fluidity. Sometimes I wish I knew what he was thinking….
TJ… Well sometimes wenger does things wrong but we don’t know that and he doesn’t know that before they are done. If we knew what we was doing things wrong before they are done.. would we have done those misstakes anyway? Wenger is a top manager becouse he knows what he is doing. Its so damn easy to blame everything on wenger and tell him what he should have done. Eboue hasn’t played as RB for a long time and to put him in RW where he can defend much higher and cover that area is not really wrong. Also we might have needed eboues qualities as a winger for our link play. Wenger doesn’t put players where ever he wants. He watch them in training everyday and analys everything they do. Song might have shown he can play there too. Eboue did cause us a goal in FA Cup. Everything wenger does is carefully thought-out. We don’t know our misstakes before they are done as I said, thats why its called misstakes. Hopefully he and his staff have learned something from last season and we will win CL and the leauge and Fa cup!!!