Very true. We just cant afford to allow any other team get well ahead, as their momentum may carry them forward just as Liverpool did last year. By the time they encountered the harder games they were out of site and we never got momentum either in playing style or with our run of games. Now even a draw can be a bad result against numerous teams in the EPL. Belief within the team itself is really important early on.

It feels like the quantity of transfers that are happening now far exceeds the totals even just 4-5 years ago.
Clubs seem to be far more likely to roll the dice and to be more decisive in moving players on….perhaps there is more player (and agent) power forcing the moves, perhaps the Chelsea approach is catching on. Teams are now seeing player trading and creative accounting as a way to stay within the rules and improve their team

The draws killed us last season. Your route to 89 points has only 5 draws.
Last season we drew 14. In 9 of those we took the lead. More emphasis has to be on going for the jugular once we got 1-0 up. Of course if we score in the 85th minute to go 1-0 up then it’s acceptable to protect the lead rather than go all out attack, but all the points we dropped in draws where we led there was plenty of time to go and get the second goal.
There is an argument that if you are drawing against a non title rival then it’s worth going extra attacking for the win even if it risks losing the game rather than settling for the draw. If over 3 games in this draw state you win one, lose one and draw one you’d end up with more points than if you drew all 3. If we really attack teams I’d back us to win more than 1 in 3

Hi Rich,

We just can't seem to master the art of moving players on for anything like top dollar fees.

Of course high wages do not help but even so we must find a way to do better.

By all accounts our potential incoming transfer dealings have come to a shuddering halt because we need to sell some players first.

We've had the best success with our young english players, smaller prem teams just gobble them up. Wages may be a thing but our overall wage bill is far, far less than clubs who sell better than us.

We have Jacob Ramsey going to Newcastle for £40m! Makes you wonder what MLS and Nwaneri are worth - not that I'm advocating selling either.

We must start making better use of our academy players who we don#t think will make the grade, get them proper loans and get them sold.

It feels like we're sometimes too scared to sell in case we make a mistake.....but if you sold a Martinelli for £50m and replaced him with a player who does really well, even if Martinelli goes on to do well at his next club we can still be better off.

Vieira, Nelson, Lokonga, Trossard, Zinchenko and maybe now Kiwior - any serious team should be getting well over £100m for that lot. Kiwior alone should go for £35-40m based on the values of similar players

What we can't afford to do is rely on the outgoings before we bring anyone in. My biggest frustration with Arsenal for about 20 years is we always leave ourselves 2-3 players short (often more) - we're so close now but to not get in the top class left winger and some more creativity would be a huge miss this summer. Leao and Eze would cost you about £120m.......we have £120m worth of players to sell (or close to it). Get them in and do the outgoings after.

From what I've read Zinny wants to stay in London, Nelson only wants a season loan, the deal with the german club for Vieira is faltering, Trossard probably only wants a biggish club (rightly so) and nobody wants to pay a big fee for Kiwior.

I agree but we are hopeless at this selling lark.

The situations with Nelson and Zinchenko strike as similar to Partey where they simply won’t get offers anywhere near the salaries they are on so the best we can hope is they are loaned out to clubs who just cover their weekly salary.

Zinchenko was on 25k a week at city now on 150k. You are looking for a miracle to find anyone looking to agree to that for 3 or 4 year contracts.

Nelson anyone would have to be out of their mind to offer a 100k a week plus a transfer fee for a guy who misses half of every season and would want a 4 year deal.

I think we got lucky with Nketiah but they strike me as scenarios that only get resolved towards the end of the contracts when the players are forced to act.

The wages in football have now outgrown reality. Ordinarily it would be a good idea to offer zinny a renewal he’s not bad but he’s probably only worth 50k a week and his expectation will now be unrealistic

Jesus will be likewise in January if he can get fit. A loan or a termination.

We'd go for one or the other but not both.

Come December when Dowman turns 16 and becomes available for the first team I think there will be a flood of shirts with his name on.

He’s available for the first team now. You can play premier league football in the season you turn 16. You can’t play in Europe til 16. So we have to wait til February to see Dowman outshine Yamal in a champions league knock out game.

Listening to this bbc podcast. Well just given up listening.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/f ... 0721716817

Title is Are Arsenal ready to take the next step. Theo Walcott is on it and, I don’t mean to be mean to people online, but oh my gosh, he is unbearable. The takes are awful and he just rambles round in circles. He’s TERRIBLE. Worse as a pundit than finding space to not just blast his shot straight at a defender’s legs.

I usually like Theo as a pundit if I’m honest. His takes are usually well thought out and a different contrast to the usual sounessy and Keane type “they don’t like it up em” garbage trotted out. Must have had an off day.

However I find kelly cates monotone unbearable so can’t listen to this and I’m not looking forward to her on MOTD either after Lineker got himself fired for having the temerity to suggest human beings maybe try and take care of each other.

Yeah great idea Tone. Let’s strip our most attack minded midfielder of the captaincy a week before the season is due to start for no obvious reason so his confidence is totally shot prior to it triggering an obvious transfer request and Bayern, city, PSG or Chelsea come calling to nobody’s surprise.

https://x.com/afcstuff/status/195569572 ... 2SVs7ar8TQ

Great player but thank god this fruitcake wasn’t made our manager or we’d have been utterly *%^@**

They is pretty vanilla. I think he tries too hard to not appear bias. He makes sure he says nothing controversial or too critical.

There are very few outrageously bias ex Arsenal pundits in the media. Keown is probably the main one. Ian Wright talks about ‘us’ and he’s a fan but he is always quite fair and willing to listen unlike the ex Man U and Liverpool pundits that dominate the media

Who else would be in the Carragher and Neville level of bias and ex Arsenal in the media?

Spurs about to kick off against PSG. Really odious team against another bunch of no marks. This isn’t like the Europa final where I hate both teams and can’t decide who I want to lose.

I hate both teams and bonjour, oui oui, baguette, je suis Parisien ce soir.

Liverpool close to this 18 year old CB for £30m odd. It seemed certain they’d get Guehi as well but some noise coming out that he may be happy to see out the final year of his contract - a factor being its World Cup year and Guehi wants to be assured of game time this season.

If Guehi sits for a year then he could have his pick of clubs on a free transfer and would be able to command a bigger signing on fee and wage.

Spurs possibly lining up in a back 5 a as Frank has done lots at Brentford.

Also interesting to look at PSG’s bench. There isn’t much to scare anyone there. First 11 is top level quality, but like many really good teams there is a big drop off. Injuries can and will have a huge say in where the big trophies go again

If PSG knock us out of the champions league and then lose to Chelsea in the CWC and *%^@*** spurs in the super Cup I will NOT be *%^@*** amused.

PSG have taken it easy after the CWC and aren’t really season ready for this game against spurs. Great. Excellent. Tossers.

Another utterly meaningless cup. On same level of meaningless as world club cup. Ignore.

I mean, I don’t look forward to using that argument with Spurs fans saying they’ve won another European trophy and beaten the champions of Europe…

No European trophy other than CL matters in modern era. They can have their $@$*#y trophy.

Still bloody annoying..

Not annoying with that result. Hahahaha.

Ho ho ho

Break out the pinata folks.

Yeah, I’m going march this year even if he does seem a nice bloke.

“Told you ! We should’ve kept Ange!”

They can change the manager and tactics but ‘Spursy’ still lives on. 2-0 up with 5 minutes to go, draw 2-2 and lose the shootout.

Jokes aside Spurs will be a very different team this year. Frank is clearly prioritising all the things Ange didn’t. Workrate, off the ball, defending deeper, being compact etc. they will be a much harder exam to play against but it will be interesting how spurs play when they come up against a team who want to do the low block even more than spurs do.

Spurs were decent. But to lose that in such a spursy way at the end there

Chef’s kiss

Is it just me or do more and more of these players that do a non traditional run up to a penalty miss them far more regularly?

Players like Jorginho and Bruno have the ‘watch the gk and wait for him to move’ technique pretty good but plenty others don’t.

The one that always puzzles me as well is where the player starts in a straight line behind the ball and the first movement he does is take 3-4 very energetic hops sideways to get to a slight diagonal run towards the ball which is a more natural angle to hit it - why the sideways hops, just start on the diagonal

I prefer the 'smash the ball into a part of the goal where the goalie is not' technique. Bottom corner or high. However, I guess lots of players don't trust their technique, especially under pressure and the last thing you want with a pen is to miss the goal completely.

I suppose the shenanigans are as much about having a routine and dealing with pressure (and possibly superstition) as trying to fool the keeper. If a couple of rabbits hop helps to drive the "*$* me, I'm going miss this and cost us the cup" out of the head, why not?

I share your pain on this. I agree we seem to sit back and I would like to see us try for the 2nd and 3rd. We also need a bit of luck, a fairer deal from the refs and mentality featuring absolute belief. Simple really. Well simple to type it at least.

I’m interested in how Xhaka does at Sunderland, he’s just been named their captain. I’ll also be interested in how the media treat him. They absolutely crucified him while he was at Arsenal, way over the top and it got to the point where too many pundits were relying on a lazy stereotype of him and would never look at his positives. My prediction is that he’ll get lauded often by the media who have an unhealthy bias towards an underdog

Hopefully a big difference this season will be having quality attackers who can come off the bench to boost the attack. In games we’re dominating but can’t get the breakthrough we had so little on the bench last season particularly post Xmas. We could feasibly make 5 subs of Havertz, Madueke, Jesus, Merino, Nwaneri……(Dowman)if everyone is fit….plus hopefully one more attacker to be signed

I love the idea of us going 3-3-4 late in games we need to win. A back 3 of Timber-Saliba-Gabriel….normal midfield of Zubimendi, Rice and Ødegaard and then a front 4 of Madueke, Havertz, Gyökeres, Saka. 2 big penalty box threats being supplied with wide crosses and Rice crashing the box

On this day in 1996: Arsenal signed 20-year-old Patrick Vieira from AC Milan for £3.5m

An odd moment. Nobody knew what to expect from the 2 signings him and Remi Garde.

Without a shred of doubt the greatest midfield player I’ve ever seen. I can’t imagine how he would be terrifying midfields these days. No issues at st james away with Patrick about.

Probably my favorite player of the Wenger era. I was fortunate enough to be at his debut vs Sheffield Wednesday where he came on and completely ran the midfield as if it was the easiest thing to do in the world, which it probably was to him.

One new rule coming in this season, gk only allowed to hold on to the ball for a maximum of 8 seconds, any longer and a corner will be given. Really looking forward to us being the first team to be punished for this.

Also an existing rule that PGMOL have said they will crack down on this season is holding at corners and free kicks. Expect to see this applied with wide inconsistency in the first month and then forgotten about for the rest of the season

We have the toughest first 6 games of any team in the league but I wonder if there is some benefit to us. We’re one of the most stable teams and have everyone fit other teams are integrating a number of big players and still have some injuries.

A tough run at the start isn't too bad. It's when you get a tough league run mixed in with difficult CL games that it becomes a big problem.