Originally Posted by
DollyLongstaffe
My guess is Deek has been sold a pup with Arnason.
I've been consistent on this as previous posts will testify. When we were first rumoured to be interested I didn't want him here, when we did sign him I said I thought it was a mistake, when he didn't feature early I predicted we'd see little of him on the park. All with the acknowledgement that I'd be absolutely bloody delighted to be proved wrong, because I think our defence is weak.
Everything I've seen of Arnason, including interviews etc, makes me think he's an unusual personality for a footballer. His first thought is to look after number 1, and I've a sneaking admiration for how completely open he is about that. He has enormous confidence in himself and his opinions. He's not a guy who's a team player or will easily be told what to do.
Last time he was here, we signed him after an injury. Once he proved his fitness he indicated he was happy to stay here, if we could match what he could earn elsewhere. That put him well outside our budget, so the answer was no. From that point on, first he was completely open about his intention to leave, and second he stopped putting in the same level of effort. There was still about half the season to go.
He was entitled to leave for more money. What he wasn't entitled to do was go through the motions for the rest of his contract. We might have been paying him less than his market rate, but we took a punt on a guy with a history of injuries and rehabilitated him. He signed a season long contract voluntarily and we were paying him. We should have got 100%. He had a good first half to the season here, but why he remained a favourite with many fans by the end of the season is a mystery to me. He used us.
He mainly played as a defensive midfielder here. On the few occasions he played in central defence, usually as cover for guys injured or suspended, he did not look robust enough to be a good central defender in the SPL.
I'm not saying he wasn't good player in his day. At his peak he'd walk into our side and improve it. But he already looked like injuries had taken the edge off in 2011 and he's now 34.
Folk point to his being an international. I remember when Scotland had a better international side, we had some proper international class players. But we are a wee country and even when we were relatively good, our weaker players really were weak. Some real dross got caps. And experienced international players often continued to get picked long after they were past their best. Denis Law, for example, got picked when you could almost hear his bones creaking. Hard to leave out a legend when your pool of quality isn't deep. I'm not surprised Arnason is getting picked by Iceland, I just don't think it means he's still a good player.
As for the constant casting up of the England game, every time a minnow team gets a result that exceeds their wildest dreams you have a team full of heroes. It doesn't suddenly mean they are all better players than they were at the start of the game.
Then there's the manner of his departure from Cyprus. He played 8 games there. By his own testimony the football standards there compare favourably to most of the SPL and wages are higher than in Scotland. Why so anxious to come here? In interviews he implied it was because of affection for the club But he was here for one season and had indicated his intention to leave after about 2 or 3 months here. It never seemed to stack up.
My guess is he'd realised he could no longer cut it in Cyprus and found a club willing to buy out his contract and give him one final pay day. The legs are gone. In the one game he started here he was absolutely abysmal. Folk who thought he wasn't all that bad or no worse than what we've got either weren't paying attention or were watching through rose tinted spectacles.
He may have fallen out with Deek. Both guys have the personality for it, especially Arnason. But if Deek's lost his rag my guess is that it's because he's worked out he's been taken for a chump. If there's criticism to be make of Deek it's not that he's fallen out with the player but because he didn't do the necessary work to establish that he was still capable of doing a job at Aberdeen.
As I've said before, love to be proved wrong and have a classy Arnason doing a great job for us in central defence by Christmas. I just think it's far likelier his contract will have been terminated and he's back in Iceland with his feet up.
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