I was out with a good mate at our local pub of choice last Thursday, causing some serious damage to the financial state of the quiz machine. The England Under-21 match had finished an hour or so ago and, being pre-occupied with Battleships 2, I wasn’t aware of the result. To be honest I’d forgotten it was happening until the nicely-placed flat screen above the bar started showing the highlights.
I missed the first goal, but England’s second goal grabbed my attention by the scruff of the neck as I saw one of the England players perform a nice-looking overhead kick. During the celebrations I caught sight of the name on the back of his shirt and it was our new loan signing Henri Lansbury.
I hadn’t heard of Lansbury before the deadline day comments over at WHTID suggested we were looking to sign him. There was some excitement about bringing him in, and people had actually heard of his quality, which is a nice change for the usual young starlets we’ve become accustomed to signing over recent years. “Here, who’s this Savio? Never heard of him.” “Me neither, but they say he is a real star…”
Lansbury went on to score again, as well as assisting two of England’s goals and, if I remember correctly, was voted Man of the Match. It’d be stupid to judge him on this one set of highlights but if you couple this performance with his reputation then we might have something special on our hands. You can see his goals and the highlights HERE!
He’s struggled to break into the first team but that’s no surprise considering he had the likes of Fabregas and Nasri in front of him, but that does pose the question of why he wasn’t retained for this season after those players departed? Surely it would have been the best opportunity to chuck him in the first team and see if he can live up to his billing?
I read that we’ve signed him for the season but have first option on him next summer, though I don’t know how true that is and can’t seem to find any confirmation of it. Just where he’ll fit into our team is interesting. From what I’ve read about him, he could fit perfectly in the centre of midfield alongside Nolan, but that would leave Noble and Collison high and dry. It’s a tough one because Collison is committed to the club and has bags of potential, and Noble has his qualities too, as well as a few flaws, but now is not the time to debate those. Lansbury looks pacy and skilfull, with a great delivery and great finish – more than superseding the slightly gutting loss of Junior Stanislas.
Lansbury played a big part of Norwich City’s promotion to the Premier League so he’s familiar with playing in the Championship. If he is as good as they say he is, I hope he’s given the first-team chances that he cited as the main reason he moved to the Irons. I get the impression he’s one of those players that could fit straight into the team and make a real, exciting name for himself – much like Jack Wilshere did at Arsenal.
West Ham News 24/7
Henri Lansbury was the Championship Young Player of the Year Runner-up to Abdel Taarabt(?) last season, so I expect him to be a big part of our season.
Again, Arse Wenger makes some strange decisions, whilst numerous independant and Arse fans can’t understand why Wenger didn’t make Scott Parker his first signing this summer and then goes and lets Lansbury go to West Ham when he could contribute to Arse’s season.
I mean can you see Alex Song dominating midfield like Scottie does??
Thanks Arsene, your loss, our gain
If we Don’t sign him next summer, then we are essentially stifling our own youngsters development to improve another team’s prospect.
Good point! It’d be great to sign him next summer and have a real quality youngster thrashing about in our midfield!
I think he could be starting the 11, he has been described as being tough tackling on top of everything else, so might offer more cover for the defense than Noble does, and give away less free kicks in doing so.
That’s what I was hoping to hear. If he has the quality I hope we don’t hold back and chuck him in!
I would like to see him begin as a sub, bring him on against Portsmouth when players are tiring and add a bit of spark.
With regard to the future signing, in my opinion once Wenger lets a youngster out on loan he rarely gets back in first team contention (exceptions recently have been Wilshere and Ramsay) but several others with promise have found it difficult to get back in with Wenger once away from the Emirates, Lansbury could well fit that bill especially if he gets regular starts and plenty of playing time and we get promoted, after all a key player in our midfield or a bit part player for Aresenal is a no brainer for the lad in my opinion.
Strange how we never had any of these situations under Grant! Does anyone actually know what he did for his time in the managers chair at West Ham?
COYI!
Grant was always busy…..counting his money.
I thought everyone knew that.
And all those scouting missions…….that was just him laughing all the way to the bank.
Who is this Grant that you all talk about?
At uni got a Norwich fan and he told me how good he is, so maybe a decent signing I’ve heard he doesn’t want to leave Arsenal so personally I don’t see us signing him in the summer I hope I’m wrong if he proves to be a decent acquisition. I just don’t see why we signed both him and Diop, our central midfielders noble, nolan, collison, lansbury and diop personally I don’t see us needing 5 players and who is going to be dropped? I see we would play 3 out of the 5 if we play BS “4-3-3″ however, we’ve signed Baldock so that says to me we will play 4-4-2 so we have 5 central midfielders to play in 2 positions slightly concerns me as it means Collison will be left out again and he is such a decent player unlikely to play on the wing with bentley and taylor but on the upside it does give us the opportunity to play different ways.
Also Demel being a Football Manager geek when i was younger he was always the player to sign at the back on the cheap would be solid then sell for lots of money, I’ve always known him as a right back, will he take O’briens place? Or will he play central defense so Tomkins or Reid will lose out. He is too good of a player to be a bench warmer however if he goes in at right back O brien is now cover for defense and midfield so 6 central midfielders now. All in all i think we have had a brilliant transfer window but don’t see the point in signing Papa Boupa Diop.
I think in the England U-21 game Lansbury was playing at least part of the time as an old-fashioned no. 10 in a 4-4-1-1 kind of formation behind WIckham. Might be interesting to link him up with Cole like that.
A good problem to have. I’d rather have too many good players, rather than throwing in some scrap. Who’s to say Wenger will make it threw this season. In a 4-4-2, Green. Demel. Reid. Tompkins. McCartney. Bentley. Lansbury. Nolan. Taylor. Baldock. Cole.
its all about squad depth long season and sadly injuries are inevitable COYI
ECH, the dilema is do we play him and alienate Collison and Noble ? in a 4-5-1 one of them will play but in a 4-4-2 both miss out for me … I always liked Berahmi when he played in the central role because his engine just closed everyone down … neither Noble or Collison have that extra half yard Landsbury has …
Henri Lansbury scored again tonight and I think he will score plenty for us roll on Pompey and Millwall,6-0,6-0!