Arsenal Season Preview

               The Guardian, my main source for news on the Barclays Premier League, predicts that Arsenal will finish fifth this season. The prediction is based on Arsenal’s inability to attract new talent to replace the players sold in the offseason, most notably Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Touré; both were sold to Manchester City. The prediction, I suspect, is that Manchester City, awash in new money, will eclipse Arsenal for the final Champions League position. Not so fast.

              Arsenal may need help, but Mark Hughes isn’t good enough to take the talent he’s assembled at Manchester City into the Champions League. For that reason alone Arsenal will finish no worse than fourth. It’s not groundbreaking stuff to predict that Arsenal will finish one place above where the Guardian predicted, but I think they have the talent to make a serious run at the title and, barring injury, should finish in the top two. The three teams that finished above Arsenal last season got, or will get, weaker. Manchester United lost its best player and replaced him with Michael Owen, a forward no one else wanted. Chelsea is a year older, didn’t do much to improve, and, in Carlo Ancelloti, have their fifth manager in three seasons. Liverpool is on the verge of losing Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid.

This all bodes well for Arsenal. Arsenal haven’t won a trophy in four seasons, will have to work significantly harder to win this season, and are slowly becoming a feeder club for Europe’s bigger teams. It’s difficult to replace Mathieu Flamini, Alexander Hleb, Thierry Henry, Robert Pires, Emmanuel Adebaoyor and Kolo Touré with young, unproven players and expect to win the league. Alex Song is not Patrick Vieira, Nicklas Bendtner is not Thierry Henry, and Denilson is not Robert Pires. No other top club in Europe does this. Arsène Wenger’s youth policy is cause for optimism about the future but older players will not wait for Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Kieran Gibbs, and Denilson to come good while wasting the best years of their prime. Add to that the defensive frailties that are no doubt exacerbated by the selling Touré to Manchester City and the team will face some serious challenges this season. Wenger cannot continue to paper over the cracks with castaways like Mikael Silvestre.

             That said, I’m optimistic about this season for a few reasons. The team signed Thomas Vermaelen from Ajax to plug one of the defensive holes and there are talks that Brede Hangeland will be added from Fulham. This will go a long way to fortify a defense that resembled a sieve too many times last season. Patrick Vieira’s possible return will go a long way to bringing experience and a winning spirit to the team but it wreaks of desperation that a player considered surplus to requirements four years ago is now seen as a solution.

The problem with Vieira is that he’s not the player he was in 2005 and he can’t be expected to play 38 games this season. The other problem is that while a defensive midfielder is a necessary addition, a quality one at the right price is not readily available. Roma placed a 30 million pound price tag on Daniele De Rossi, which is about 15 million too high. Arsenal don’t have the money to brazenly throw around like Real Madrid, Chelsea, or Manchester City so bargain basement shopping for Patrick Vieira may be the best they can do.

The real gem this season and the main cause for optimism is Andrei Arshavin. He’s easily the most creative and spontaneous player on the team and, with Cristiano Ronaldo off the Madrid, possibly the entire league. If he can get goals from midfield the way Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard do for Chelsea and Liverpool, respectively, it will go a long way to ease Robin Van Persie’s goals coring burden. Eduardo and Rosicky’s return will be like two new signings. Eduardo is pure class and, if healthy, can be expected to score 15 goals this season. Rosicky is a goal scoring midfielder in the mold of Robert Pires. Both players, along with Arshavin, will give the team an extra dimension it lacked last season. Add to this, Jack Wilshere’s development over the preseason, and it would seem that the reports of Arsenal’s demise are exaggerated.

Regardless of who steps up this season, most of the burden to carry the team this year will fall squarely on Van Persie’s shoulders. He is expected to lead the line this year. This is the one player Arsenal absolutely cannot afford to do without. He’s a good finisher and has a knack for scoring important goals. He also has a knack for missing games, but if he can stay healthy this season silverware can return to the Emirates.

              We will know early what kind of team Arsenal will be this season. Three of their first four games are against Manchester United, Manchester City, and Everton. It’s time for Wenger to prove that he is growing winners and not merely good footballers. Are these players good enough to win the league? I believe they are and if they can take seven out of a possible nine points from the first three games against stiff opposition they can build the confidence necessary for the long campaign ahead.

RIP Michael Jackson. I'm Speechless

What do you say when Michael Jackson dies? You let the silence scream. You let the leaves moonwalk across the asphalt. You watch the plastic bag blow in the wind. You watch the Hudson River ripple, and yet it seems dead. Every motion now seems rhythmic and still inadequate. You turn off your ipod. It sounds like trash, a syrupy bitterness. Youwatch the paper dance atop the air conditioner. You let your phone vibrate. You don't answer. You watch motion, you let the movement tell the tales your words cannot. You watch. You remain silent. These actions,this motion,is more profound than any words you can say. FUCK! MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD? FOR REAL? THIS IS ALL BAD.

Happy Birthday to Tupac Amaru Shakur

Bob Marley, The Beatles and Elvis defy labels and loom larger than their genre.  They are timeless, belonging to history and global pop culture instead of the era that first gave rise to their popularity.  Each added something to society that was bigger than music.  No doubt their influence is partly tied to each being cut down before their time.  Tupac Amaru Shakur is the only rapper that shares this trait, not simply a martyr but a majestic musician slightly elevated through martyrdom. 

Rap music has an ephemeral, shape shifting quality, an industry where artists and eras change daily.  Your favorite song today will be eclipsed tomorrow, your favorite rapper a relic in waiting destined for the scrap heap. Tupac managed to create a timeless persona that embodied the contradictions that exist in many black males--at once idolizing his mother but calling women bitches and hoes, for example.  The thug persona that developed late in his career was merely a mask, a facade of truculent words and behavior to shield the insecurities expressed so expertly on Shed So Many Tears.  

He is the only truly indispensable rapper.  To mire the discussion in who is the best lyricist, who had the best albums, to once again descend into the regionalism that was the east coast and west coast feud belittles the man, the music and the influence.  Tupac will forever be tied to Biggie, tethered by an invisible umbilical chord that binds one man to another, creating a siamese closeness after death that was nonexistent in life.  

I’ve lived in New York for two years now and I can’t think of a rapper that gets as much love in his hometown as Biggie does.  No disrespect to Biggie, but I don’t believe his influence is similar to Tupac’s.  And to take it a step further, once again meaning no disrespect to Biggie, it’s similar to what 50 Cent said to Jadakiss with respect to the latter’s popularity in New York: “that’s only in New York, nigga you local.” Biggie gets love in New York, Tupac gets love across the globe.  Check their posthumous record sales for proof.   

Tupac  provided social commentary that connected consistently in a way that few other rappers did.  He defies categorization, not falling victim to being a caricature.  To C. Delores Tucker, an anti gang advocate, Tupac was infuriating, frustrating and cancerous on songs like Hit ‘Em Up and posthumously released songs like Bomb First and Against All Odds.  But this side is balanced on the libra scale of humanity by songs like Smile and Thugz Mansion, songs that reflect a belief that there is a better day ahead.  Shed So Many Tears is a masterpiece of black male paranoia, a thorough exploration of the ills that plague the mind of many black men who develop in America’s ghettos.  

Dear Mama stands alone as the best rap song about a woman.  I struggle to put into words what the song means to me as the son of a single mother.  Suffice to say, it’s the only song ever to make me teary eyed.  Brenda’s Got A Baby is probably the second best. But lest we idolize Tupac as a champion of the feminist cause he followed this up with “I like the way you activate your hips and push your ass out/Got a nigga wantin’ it so bad I’m bout to pass out.”  It was this ability to give the complete picture of the artist, the absence of a hint of pandering that aided his greatness.

At every turn he expressed his honest emotion and if you felt it good and if you didn’t so be it.  

Happy Birthday, Tupac Amaru Shakur. 

Sonia Sotomayor and Identity Politics

The firestorm that surrounds Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination for the Supreme Court is both depressing and embarrassing.  It shows once more that American politics refuses to shed the albatross of racial fetish, will not slay the racial dragon to engage in more informed political debates that don’t revert back to race.  America was built on racial discrimination and perhaps owing to their unique history Americans cannot, despite their best efforts, move beyond race as a lynchpin issue in public discourse.

Most indications are that Sotomayor will be confirmed and the storm will blow over.  What will be left is the residue of prejudice and racism, the distinct feeling that if a minority is a candidate for a high ranking public office the discussion will center around their cultural or racial background and not the merits of their achievement.I’ve seen very little from those who oppose Sotomayor that go to her judicial record: does she respect precedent, is she an originalist, will she legislate from the bench, is she someone who we can trust to make sound decisions?  These are the questions that are most pressing not whether she’s a minority from the “humblest beginnings” as an article in the New York Times described her. 

It appears that the concern is not whether she will legislate from the bench but whether such legislation will be influenced by her race or cultural background.  In a word, yes.  Her decisions will be very much influenced by who she is and where she’s from, the experiences she’s had as an ethnic minority living in a society that treats people who look like her with prejudice.  Her experiences will likely inform and buttress her position on certain issues but that does not mean her experience will determine the outcome of her decisions. This is no different from Justices Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, or Stevens.  I imagine their lives as white men, most of whom come from privileged backgrounds, play an important role in how they view the world and ultimately how they make their decisions.  This is never talked about, the issue is only discussed when it pertains to minorities.  

I don’t know what identity politics means but I know what is meant when it’s used, it is a way to discredit the decisions made with respect to minorities and suggests that they are guided by a desire to offer positions to their friends instead of offering a job to the most qualified applicant.  Would Sotomayor had been nominated by a white President?  There’s a good chance that the answer to that question is no, but it doesn’t make her any less qualified.  President Obama has done an excellent job of putting qualified minorities in prominent positions.  Not a single minority nominee appears, on paper, anything less than qualified.

John McCain graduated near the bottom of his class and Sarah Palin’s academic record would make even Holden Caulfield seem scholarly, yet they were on the Republican Presidential ticket together.  Similarly, no way a black man who can’t spell potato couldn’t be Vice President but Dan Quayle could.

It is a function of white privilege, and I don’t say this begrudgingly, that you are allowed to be well below exceptional and still have an opportunity to run for, and hold, the highest public offices.  For minorities you have to be what our parents told us everyday growing up, “you have to be better than the best.” From the day you are born your skin color is a demerit and something you must overcome.  And for those who strive, reach and transcend their race there is the toxic notion that they got there only be virtue of the benevolence of social charity, affirmative action. 

I don’t know what kind of Justice Sotomayor will be.  She has an equal chance to be great and mediocre.  What I do know is that attempts to discredit her based on her race and cultural background embarrass those who make the accusations and keep us mired in the muck of racial politics and reduces our ability to discuss the true merits of her case to be a Justice on the Supreme Court. 

Cristiano Ronaldo completes 80 Million Pound transfer to Real Madrid

The Cristiano Ronaldo transfer saga concluded today as Manchester United accepted an 80 million pound offer that will make Ronaldo a Real Madrid player next season.  In truth, Ronaldo hasn’t been a Manchester United player for two seasons now.  The man from Madeira has had his heart set on warmer climes from the moment he set foot in Manchester.  Despite the fact that United developed Ronaldo into a world class talent, a veritable virtuoso who could score close to 50 goals in a season from midfield, he never exhibited an ounce of gratification.  

Ronaldo’s preening, his self indulgent celebrations and his belief that the sun revolves around him will always make him a difficult player to like.  The Long kiss goodbyeIf you can separate the player from the man what you must admit is that Ronaldo is simply the best player of his generation.  With apologies to Leo Messi and Kaka Ronaldo is the player of his generation.  There is nothing he can’t do.  If there is a knock against his game it’s that he’s more of a one man band than the conductor of an orchestra.  Too often he forsakes the team ethos for individual glory.  This would be unforgivable if he wasn’t so successful at doing it. 

The question that few can answer is where will United get the goals that are now leaving for Madrid?  There are talks about a possible transfer for Bayern Munich’s Franck Ribery but the Frenchman, while a world class talent, does not exist in the same universe as Ronaldo, can’t breathe the stratospheric air that Ronaldo so easily exhales after one exhilarating performance after another. 

No doubt there are Manchester United fans who are happy to see Ronaldo go.  There’s a feeling that he was never theirs, that his time spent at Old Trafford was little more than an apprenticeship for the job he really wanted, to play at Real Madrid, the standard bearer of greatness in world football.  The names of players who have swaggered through the hallowed halls of the Barnebeu read like football royalty, Puskas, Di Stefano, Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo (the Brazilian one), Raul and now Ronaldo will add his name next to those names that sit atop world football’s Mount Olympus. 

The puppet master behind it all is Florentino Perez, a man so adept at assembling stars out of this world that a new term was coined to describe his players---the Galacticos.  For his first trick he attracted Figo and Zidane to Madrid and this time around he has the last two winner’s of FIFA’s Ballon D’Or in Madrid, Kaka and Ronaldo.  It’s still too soon to say whether Real Madrid will surprass Barcelona as the team that plays the best football on planet Earth, but what’s clear is that we are unlikely to see a repeat of the 6-2 thrashing Real Madrid suffered at the hands of Barcelona last season. Madrid still need a ball winning midfielder the likes of Mascherano or a sublime passer to pull the strings like Xabi Alonso.  For all his worth to the club, Raul is not what he used to be and a forward the likes of David Villa would go some way to ensure that the capture of Kaka and Ronaldo isn’t fool’s gold but a statement of intent that Real Madrid are indeed ready to compete for honors.

Ronaldo’s transfer from Manchester also proves how fragile the world of elite club football can be.  Before the Champions League final there were talks of a Manchester United dynasty, that the Premier League was the home of the best players in club football but in less than a month Spain’s La Liga now has the last two Ballon D’Or winners and most people suspect that Leo Messi will win this year and make it three. 

This is not, of course, uncharted territory for Manchester United.  They’ve been here before and will bounce back.  People thought they were finished when Cantona and Beckham left the club but each time Sir Alex Ferguson and the Red Devils bounced back and conquered the Premier League and marched on in Europe.  This time around it does feel a bit like they are up against it. Karim Benzema and Franck Ribery are world class players but they don’t amount to a hill of beans when you compare them to a once in a generation talent like Cristiano Ronaldo.  The money they received for Ronaldo suggests that it was a good piece of business but any true sporting endeavor must concern itself first and foremost with the output on the field.  Losing Ronaldo is bittersweet.  Fans grew tired of him elevating himself above the team but I suspect next season they will learn that sometimes, perhaps only once in a generation, a player comes along that makes you realize that there is an “I” in team.