Ju Young Park is getting his pre-season training off to a flying start by undergoing boot camp training back in South Korea.
No, it’s not a fitness group made to sound all tough like the one that goes on in your local park, but an actual boot camp he is forced to attend as part of his mandatory military training.
The former South Korean captain received a 10 year exemption from his national service but is required to carry out a 4 week course of basic training.
A spokesperson for Park’s agents, DH Sports, said he would return to Arsenal after this period of training is over.
While it’s clear to all and sundry that he has absolutely no future as an Arsenal player, his absence means it will be difficult to move him on until his marching and so forth is over.
It remains the most bizarre Arsenal signing of recent years. Having been snatched from Monaco as he was about to sign for Lille, Park played just 10 minutes of Premier League football all season before being shipped out on loan to Celta Vigo.
He scored three times for them last season but was fined for missing their final league game of the season.
And he’s in army now, wooooo-aaaah-wooooooh, he’s in the army.
Now.
Weirdest Wenger signing ever. I think it shows that we really didn’t have much cash at the time (despite the sales). (Wenger admitted he also signed Silvestre bc he didn’t have enough money for his top targets)
“Wenger admitted he also signed Silvestre bc he didn’t have enough money for his top targets”
Could you provide me a source about it? Thanks.
Arsenal:The Making of a Modern Superclub
Like I keep saying, it is a must read for football fans in general not just Arsenal fans.
Wenger said that, or the book said that’s what he did?
Quote please.
LANS! (and he will be fit too)
They will teach him to shoot straight, that’s for sure 🙂
Wenger signed Park (and paid more than his worth) to help out Monaco when they were facing a financial disaster. You better believe it.
Wenger – Fraud. Enough said.
Spot on.
Apart form Monaco being owned by a Russian oligarch for the last couple of years.
No idea whether Arsene signed Park to help Monaco or not.But we signed him before this russian owner came. And at the time we signed they were having some financial problems
AND HOW MANY SHIRT SALES IN SOUTH KOREA AND ALL THOSE KOREANS AROUND THE WORLD BROUGHT SHIRTS WITH HIS NAME ON IT ????
GOOD BUSINESS IF YOU ASK ME.
@nishanth
it’s amazing that when we are struggling to find a reason, some of us start thinking “that is not impossible” for the most ridiculous stuff that some others of us make up…………
May be that’s true. I don’t see any other reason for signing him.
it is public knowledge that he was due to sign for Lille and we hijacked his signature.
Danny- idiot enough said
Well, seeing as we’ve helped out Monaco, maybe they’ll help us out and give us Falcao in January, eh? 🙂
Danny – Clueless fool. Enough said.
Everything about Park is so boring and annoying..
You made up for it in the last sentence though.
wooooo-aaaah-wooooooh, you made up for it.
Annyong
Can she play as a striker as well?
Her?
Maybe he will be a better striker??
Meh..
Only if they teach him to shoot! (Thank you for your time, I’ll be here all week!)
If they teach him to use mortars and grenades he’d be ideal to lead the line against Stoke.
He’ll add some more firepower…
(It’s warm, I don’t need a coat)
Never had a fair chance, now did he?
He got as many chances as his talent merited.
But what I always wondered was where his talent suddenly went to. He didn’t seem to be in decline before we bought him, and you can’t be the south Korean Captain without talent, so how did he suddenly get to be as poor as you suggest? I hope Wenger writes a book when he’s finished with being our manager. I want to know what happened. Did he get injured/depressed/demotivated/blackmailed/pregnant/Bendtnered ? While you’re at it Arsene please write a few lines to tell us where you think Bendtner really fits in the striker rankings… T’nth’GSTEL. When you’ve retired from management you… Read more »
I would imagine that Wenger, like most coaches, would decide on the teamsheet based on training sessions prior to the matches. Maybe he didn’t trust Park based on his training performances?
I can’t help wondering if he was bought to sell merchandise in a major overseas economy, like Inamoto?
But think about how much merchandise Arsenal would have to sell to make it worthwhile. It doesn’t make any sense.
Blogs, Din’t we sign Park on 2 year deal. So his contract should expire by September??
I think it was almost a 4 year deal, ending in June 2015. We’re stuck with him for a little while longer. Maybe he’ll get something out of the bootcamp and come back with a different, more ruthless attitude, maybe not. I don’t think he’s nearly as bad a player as some make him out to be, just not enough for us. I do think he should have been given more chances ahead of Chamakh sometimes but he’s not exactly a world beater is he? I wish him good luck whatever happens. I feel sorry for him that we kind… Read more »
Could the signing possible have expanded Arsenal’s fanbase in asia?
Just to clear up the merchandising angle, I live in South Korea and have not seen a single shirt with his name on in my 2 years here. Except the knock-off one that has been in a window in a market in Seoul, unsold for my whole time here. You do see replica shirts here, but mostly Chelsea and United. Incidentally, if the Arsenal commercial guys are reading, the money here is in puffa jackets, millions of Man Utd and Chesea puffa jackets on the street come winter. Weird…
Gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘marching orders’.
Ahem……. It’s ok , I’ve got my coat
There’s something going on behind the scenes with this guy.
A secret that cannot be uttered least it bring eternal shame upon 10,000 generations of Korean ancestry.
@Clockendrider
Monaco were not owned by the rich Russian bloke at the time of Park’s sale.
Get your facts straight before running your mouth.
Private Park is 6ft tall. I didn’t know they stacked shit that high
for all the nay-sayers to this comment, go watch some good films.
Most out in Korea hold a pretty serious grudge against Arsenal for not having given him any playing time. Personally I wish it had worked out and he would have been as successful as Park Ji-sung and Ki Seung-yong. Arsenal might have become a bigger team here. Sad the guy never had the talent to play for a club of our stature.
Are they going to teach him how to shoot at this boot camp?And if so,can Gervinho tag along?
I think he was bought as a back up but just turned out to be worse than that. I don’t believe Wenger would just give money to Monaco for his own agenda. It’s possible that we did have commercial sales in mind when we bought him but he wouldn’t of been bought for that reason alone. It’s frustrating to no know but I think we took a chance on a player that looked decent but was only ever gonna be back and it didn’t work out.
I think it was just a panic buy at the time.
Maybe our other targets just never looked like moving in our direction but still it was a strange move from us and one that deserves an episode of the twilight zone.
Well he scored a very nice goal against Bolton in the Carling Cup, looked a decent prospect to me then. Thing is, we needed another striker, we only had Van Persie and Chamakhkhkh at the time, so I assume he was some sort of last ditch gamble. What was strange to many of us at the time was the reluctance of Wenger to use him even as a sub to give Van Persie some rest when we were winning comfortably, like when we were slaughtering Blackpool (I think, too lazy to look it up) with like a 6 goal lead.… Read more »
never understood that either. often wondered the same thing.
Maybe it’s because Wenger and Park couldn’t understand each other. I don’t think one of the 5 langauge’s Wenger speaks is Korean.
A.W : Alright Park, when the ball goes up front, you make your run behind Chamakh and take a few defenders with you.
Park : Opa .. Gangam style..
A.W : ??? Que Dieu m’aide.. Out. Get him out. Ivan – you twat!!
Oh what a waste, of army dreamehehers.
Higuain and Fellani as striker and DM respectively will be great additions but FOUR top quality players are needed if Arsenal are to seriously challenge for the EPL and ECL. Unfortunately Park, Bendtner, Djourou, Chamak, Girvinho, Diaby and Santos drain 400,000 pound a week. That sort of money is enough to pay Christiano Ronaldo and Sergio Ramos . The money is there according to Gazidis so lets sign Higuain, S, Ronaldo, AM, Fellani, DM and Ramos CB.
Did you take your meds today?
Leave the boy alone, it’s his first day at the hospital.
Hey! Why stop there, lets go for Messi whilst we are at it!
While we do the deal for Messi we can ask what Neymar’s Buyout Cost is. I mean, do Barcelona really need him when they’ve got Song?
They’d do better to sell him to us before he plays for them and picks up any bad habits.
FUN FACT : The real world doesn’t work on the principles of the fable fantasy land of Football Manager.
Please don’t stop him or anyone else from posting stuff like that… I need the entertainment until a transfer happens and then football starts again. I’m begging you.
@Davidnz
It’s a very video game approach you have there. It’s not as simple as that for so many reasons.
The basics: we have been cash strapped and the only reason we have more spending potential is because of improving commercial deals. Also, those additions you mentioned had good prospect, but we weren’t to know how bad they would do for Arsenal/in the Premier League/injury prone they would become/become so immense that they would have the title of TGSTEL, and selling them isn’t easy as they are earning some decent wages.
So much cash spent on so much dross for so long – covered up for by selling best players every year. Wenger just about got away with living off the legacy of his earlier success. These barren years could have been ours. You think we’re sitting pretty now, getting excited about possible Fillaini & Higuain signings – just wait till the big boys open their wallets…we’ll still be fighting for 4th place next season. The whole league will benefit from a big pay rise and the top 3 will move on up a couple more notches. In Wenger we rust.
Your on the right track with shirts, but think deeper. AFC has one of, if not the most active and engaged online foot print. When you’re putting out your business for commercial tender submissions (as we would have done over the past 2 years) you need to provide a tender brief. As you could imagine this document contains a lot is “corporate branding” and you support this marketing/waffle with facts and figures, game attendance numbers, TV audiences numbers ect, fan engagement. Now if you are a large global brand thinking of making a $10m+ investment in a brand, you need… Read more »
Haha, we have that in Switzerland too, 3 weeks every year. Usually was drunk by 09:00am 🙂
I saw him play against Team GB in the Olympics and he wasn’t such a terrible player. He almost scored a header. While maybe not good enough for Arsenal, he’s certainly good enough to play for lower level Premiership teams.
I heard Wenger got pissed off with him selling DVDs at London colney
[…] 来源:[Arseblog News] […]
Going into the army will be a bit of a Korea change for him.
That was a terrible pun. But I kind of liked it.
At least I got him for a good price.
Law out
Don’t all the south korea team that played in the olympics get exempt from national service due to where they placed?
this was a Gazidis imposed signing to sell jerseys in Korea and Asia…… He thought since JS Park and Kagawa where selling so many for other clubs……. Wenger never wanted him…..
Gazidis wasn’t around when we signed Inamoto. Tell me how Gazidis corrupted Arsenal for the dirty lucre when Inamoto got signed.
I think it’s simply a case of us signing players that we could afford and that we thought should be good / looked good on the International stage, and sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn’t.
There’s really no need for conspiracy theories.
I think this was one person who has been judged quite harshly. The guys featured only 4 games and that was 2011 season.
I think he should have been given more play.
He should be played more games compared to the games chamakh. If it took Giroud about the same number of plays before he could start scoring. Its only fair that you try get the bang out of the buck you have spent.
[…] final year rather than paid off like Denilson. Where he ends up is anyone’s guess, he’s got to finish boot camp in Korea […]
[…] 照理说，朴主永是不可能再留在阿森纳了，不过他应该不会像德尼尔森那样被买断，更有可能在合同的最后一年继续被租给别的球队。虽然他的奇幻漂流的结局大家都有自己的猜测，现在是他要先完成他的军训。 […]