Would he even want to go there permanently?

Yes

True. There really isn't enough corruption in football.....

Hope you enjoy it.

Rooney as player/coach at Derby in January. This ought to be fun to watch.

Koscielny’s unveiling at Bordeaux has him taking off his Arsenal shirt to reveal a Bordeaux shirt. Seems a bit tasteless but entirely in keeping with his exit from the club. He backed Srsenal in to a corner and I’m glad they dealt with him quickly and seemingly ushered him out the back door. We have to be utterly ruthless with any kind of behaviour like this.

Surely the irony isn’t lost on Koscielny that he seemed to think that Arsenal should have respected his tenure more by giving in to his demands of a free transfer but his actions in forcing the move have shown anything but respect for the club.

He’ll remain a footnote in Srsenals history over a strange period for the club

Few reports saying we’re close to the Rugani deal from Juve. 1 or 2 year loan deal with an obligation to buy for €40m.
Risky move but we don’t have the money now so what option do we have. If he is a success €40m will be pennies in two years. If he’s another Mustafi it is going to be embarrassing having to buy a player who we know is rubbish

Got to say this does have the panic look about it. But what alternatives do we have.

In relation to our other signings they signal a potential change in the way we play. I would not be surprised if Özil is not a lot happier this year. A number of our players including Pépé can play very well on the break from what I am hearing on podcasts. I think quick transition will suit a number of our players better. I know Kiwi is a great fan of tippy tappy but let us hope it will be disappearing from the club.

Don't know much about Rugani but what we need is someone to marshall the defence when the going gets tough. Maybe Sokaratis or Rugani can do it. Just looking around there is not much talent available in the CB positions so yes we are paying a lot of money. But then in relative terms we paid a lot for Chambers,given his inexperience, and taking into account wages we have paid he really is a dud at the back. Kolasnic was apparently a fullback of the year in Germany but his defense is often terrible so I suppose a gamble on Rugani may be essential with no guarantees at the end.

Just watched the shirt unveiling. Bit strange but I think that they have used our clubs images from the jersey for there own promotion purposes. They should therefore have to pay a sum for that use. I think 50mil would be okay as a settlement.

I won't miss him at all - cost us 2 trophies and never acted like a proper captain ala Adams, Campbell.

Everton close to signing Sidibi on loan from Monaco. That would have been an idea 1 year loan for a decent right back who can cover that position until Bellerin is back and still get plenty of minutes

Some mention online from a totally unreliable sources that Özil's representatives looking at the US as an option. So what about Coutinho in and Özil out. I doubt it, but lets just start adding to the wild speculation all over the internet.

I’m not sure about that guy. Surely there’s a reason he’s not getting games at Juve. We could be walking into Mustafi version 2.0

Surely anyone is entitled to wear an Arsenal shirt whenever they like, so I don’t see how we can expect anything like £50m. I was hoping to show him respect when he left but his departure leaves a bad taste in in the mouth. A poor captain. A fine player over the years he played with Mertesacker, whose arrival went some way to making him. I also firmly believe his departure as a player compromised Koscielny’s form along with now getting old and injury problems. But not one of the best central defenders we’ve had.

50 mil just happens to be a number that would purchase us a CB. As to who can wear an Arsenal shirt I would be shocked if Arsenal did not have a clause in his sale about use of our products by him, particularly to represent himself as having a connection with the club. By putting on the shirt and having it placed on social media he is representing a continuing (beyond the time he signed his new contract) connection with our club. It is good business to have a clause when separating from an employer that prohibits such actions. I am pretty sure nothing will come of it other than him looking like a total tosser, but depending on the split and relationship I would never rule it out.

One thing is sure he has burnt his bridges with the club. I think you are absolutely correct in that Mertesacker was the making of him. When Mert started to fade he did not step up to be the skipper like he should have. The sooner all the remainers from the Wenger era are shunted out the door the better. They failed to achieve but also had almost a sense of entitlement. Just not sure how deep this goes is unclear - does it extend to Iwobi and M-N who were technically under Wenger.

I think I would. I know a lot of people rate Smith-Rowe highly, but from the few times I've seen him I haven't seen that it factor. If we were looking at someone who's 28-29 I probably wouldn't want to give Smith-Rowe up, but when there's a chance to get a 20 year old potentially top class centre back I would be ok with it.

Spurs being linked to a lot of expensive signings, Dybala, Le Celso, Fernandes, Coutinho.
Spurs total wages are significantly lower than he rest of the top 5, but with their new found ‘success’ they will find that those wages rise rapidly. There is talk of Dybala wanting to be the highest paid player at the club - £300k per week, higher than £250k per week Kane.
For clubs like Arsenal our wage bill creeps up but I suspect not at a faster rate than spurs. For example when we lose a player Čech, Welbeck, Lichtsteiner, Ramsey, Koscielny and replace them with a big signing Pépé, Saliba, Torreira, Leno it is likely their wages are relatively similar. But if spurs get Dybala they are going from llorente wages to Dybala wages. Obviously the step up in quality is huge but spurs have survived with wage budgets a lot less than the rest, it will be interesting how it plays out - not only do they put big wages on the incoming player but it sets the bar for the rest of the squad.
Wenger once said the only guarantee with expensive signings is big wages and he is exactly right

The whole situation with Koscielny is so strange. From everything we’ve heard, Emery rated him and saw him as an important player for this season. He’s been at the club for 9 years, and it’s not like Fabregas and van Persie who wanted to go to bigger clubs to win trophies. Don’t get why Koscielny suddenly disliked being at Arsenal so much that he would go on strike. One of Wenger’s last unknown gems, there was a 2-3 year period where he was one of the best central defenders in the league. Shame he chose to leave the club like this.

A lot of rumours out there but seemingly with very little substance and often contradictary.

I would have thought that today was the last chance saloon with players needing to get flown in and medicals etc needing to get done.

It will be a shame if we don't get a LB and CB.

It will undermine what was shaping up to be a fantastic window.

I can only assume we don't really want Kierney as surely a deal would have been done by now.

To be fair to him, he has Chiellini and Bonucci ahead of him, two of the best central defenders in the world. I’d be fine with him, even if someone like Upamecano sounds more exciting because of the potential upside. Don’t like the rumour about a loan with an obligation to buy though, it would suck if he turned out to not be good enough and we had to buy him.

It does seem quite odd if we go into the new season and are actually weaker defensively than we were last season, and we were terrible then.

People might argue that Chambers coming back is a plus but he's not an elite CB by any stretch.

We've made some very exciting midfield and attacking signings but defence is where we needed massive improvement and the evidence of pre-season suggests nothing much has changed and that teams are still going to find us far too easy to create chances against.

Saliba could be a gem but he's a season away from having any kind of impact and even then he will still only be 19 and probably not an immediate starter.

Not sure I’ve mentioned it here, but I’d heard that Koscielny was firmly a Wenger man and he even wanted to leave last summer, the first without him. What I can’t do is guarantee whether the rumour is true. But I have certainly heard Koscielny wasn’t keen on staying once Wenger went.

It would be very disappointing to not get any defensive signings in, but remember that Klopp arrived at Liverpool in October 2015, and it wasn’t until January 2018 he shored up their defense with the signing of Van Dijk. Before then he had already turned Liverpool around though, making them into a threatening attacking side that was a challenge for any team.

So there’s still a lot of work to be done with the team, apart from improving our defense. We need to set a formation and a starting eleven, and build an attacking identity for the team, and then we can try again to improve the defense in January or next summer.

Hoping we can pull something out of the hat before tomorrow though. Deadline deals can happen in a flash, as we’ve seen before.

Unfortunately with the LB we put our faith in getting Tierney. He is still not fit and even if he was to start training next week he would not be match fit until well into October. He has now missed 5 competitive Celtic games in this season. I am starting to think Lennon actually wants shot of him and is trying to pull a swifty by always being in the newspapers telling people how Arsenal won't pay his price. If he is so sure lets do a deal like this. We pay 25mill but for every week he is unable to play until full match fit they drop 300,000 per week. We judge when he is match fit. I bet he would shut up pretty quickly. He has played very few games since mid November last year and has had a lot of injuries. Look elsewhere

Don't see how that’s relevant. We wouldn’t buy a 22-year old just so that he can play for us in August and September, we’d be buying him with the view to make him a part of our team for years to come obviously.

And now he's gone.

It’s different because we could face a situation where we have to buy a player that we don’t want. Any signing could flop, but it’s another thing having to pay for someone who has already proved he’s not good enough, if that turns out to be the case.

I’d read that Koscielny blamed arsenal for mismanaging his chronic Achilles condition and that his missing of the World Cup as a result of it finally going was the final straw. I think there could be some truth to that.

So you support buying a player who cannot pass a fitness test, whose recovery date is unknown and who has been basically injured since last November?

Looks like Nketiah will go on loan for the season. With Pépé and Martinelli and John jules we could cover the cup games that Nketiah might have started in.
Leeds are rumoured to want him, it would be a fantastic loan for him.
The best thing for us this season would be to keep him, the best for us long term is to get him out on loan in a competitive division where he plays every game

He played 40 games last season, 55 before that, and 40 games in 16/17 so he's hardly the crock you make him sound like. I've seen Celtic fans describe him as one of the biggest talents the club has ever produced. It seems very short sighted to lose out on such a player just because he's currently recovering from an injury.

Exactly ! Monreal played 36 times last season and Henrik mhikitaryan 39 and nobody is running around saying “let’s sell that crock Monreal cause his injury record is appalling “

I have Celtic fans in the family and they say he’s a huge talent and they don’t want to sell him.

To be fair Wenger did chronically over play him as our most reliable defender. His failure to add decent defenders around him probably didn’t help at all.

However I’ll leave you won’t the words from big Tone who played with injuries for us several times to help the cause and really again highlights Kosielny must be a bit of a *%^@...




"Ending my international career may open things up. I may find that with the amount of time I have to recover I'll be able to go on for longer," he said.

Adams, 34, whose recent career has been blighted with injuries, said last week he felt obligated to Arsenal.

"I want to give the benefit of the time I have left in the game to Arsenal. I can't keep being cruel to them by playing for England then missing club games.

"It's not fair on them because they have been very good to me."

Arsenal have turned down a £25m plus £5m add on offer from Everton for Alex Iwobi......very interesting.

Everton are going to spend some heavy money on deadline day I think. Plenty of irons in the fire

Too true ..... I just love it when our back four exchange 15,000 non threatening passes among themselves prior to any attack .

Bergkamp . Henry , Pires and Ljungberg used to really p***** me off going straight for goal .

We offload Mustafi for anything over $200,000 this will have been a very successful window .

Was less than impressed with Emery when we totally capitulated against all those minnows late last season but his clearing out of so much junk this term is definetly cause for hope .

I found the recent comments Iwobi made about leaving peculiar and wonder if the club have had a word in his ear about an offer that was made by another club or if one be made he would be available for transfer.

I hope we don't sell Iwobi. He has another level to grow, and in a more settled side we might finally see the best of him. Plenty of talent there, he's an Arsenal product and turned 23 pretty recently.

I’d sell if they can conjure up a little more money.

We have Nelson, Saka and Pépé now. His best position is at no10 but he isn’t good enough to play for a club like Arsenal in that role.

Everton seems likely his level

Not sure Saka is really an option for this or next season, the kid is yet to turn 18. If Everton offers enough I think he goes, but I would be very reluctant to get rid of homegrown players like Iwobi. Seems to be okay with a squad role as well.

I saw Tony Adams two days ago. Walked passed him on the beach. The person I was with said go on I’ll take photo of you both but i really didn’t want to be that annoying *%^@ who does that. Just wanted to catch his eye and give a meaningful nod or shake his hand or something. In the end I did neither. He was in his shorts and I think with a kid so I let it go. Ah well. I’ll always have such a vivid memory of him bursting through against Everton at Highbury and “That sums it all up!” Thankyou Tone.