My fear is we are going to just play in to Spurs' Shanda at the weekend, Wenger doesn't know another way of playing no matter what he says about changing to a back 3. The way we set up can lead to hammerings against better sides.

Mourinho yesterday knew he had lots of injuries and a tired team, away to city he just shut the game down and took the 0-0 he came for.

I think we could beat Tottenham. They are tired and overdue a stumble. Kane bloody loves scoring against us though.

I think we have a good chance. In the last 3 games we've only conceded 2 goals and none in the last game when I thought our defence looked going on excellent.

Strangely we're having problems scoring goals. All our forwards appear to be on bad runs. AW should consider moving up a few kids, not necessarily for this game, with the exception of Maitland-Niles whoo should be used as our replacement for Cazorla

What a sense of humour. You must keep the family amused all the time.

Unfortunately not, Gaz, they tend to roll their eyes and go: "you're so funny, dad".

Pearls before swine I'm afraid.

Loved this part of the online gooner article

For this observer, the post Highbury move era has become known as ‘The Walcott Years’ – a clueless player who should have been drummed out of the team years ago somehow retained and played. But never actually good enough. There are a large number of others that applies to but they haven’t hung around quite so long. Bottom line is that we’ve largely been fed mediocrity in comparison with what we enjoyed before. Wenger chose to develop Denilson and Alex Song rather than pay an extra £2 million to secure Xabi Alonso in 2009. That worked out well. No wonder no title challenge for so many seasons.

How about you - I imagine you can be a bit of a comedian after a few schooners at the Townsville RSL amirite?

Well I think I am funny but my wife seems not to agree. Plus I tend to prefer wine with a cognac at the end of night.

What's with holding being dropped?

I'd rather he played, especially if Kos is injured, than have Gibbs on the pitch?

Hoy here borrowing Gaz's computer. Wenger knows best - what could go wrong.

Whilst I completely agree with the piece about Walcott (don't think that will surprise anyone) he does himself no favours repeating the lie about Alonso. It was bugger all to do with 2 million quid and everything to do with Liverpool not being willing to sell unless they got Barry from Villa, and Villa wouldn't sell him.

That is from the very same person at Liverpool that told me about our 3 bids for Reina that I got ridiculed for when I shared...until Bob Wilson and Reina himself confirmed it to be true later on.

Hi Bubblechris
I think Holding , Ramsey and The Ox were all rested. I reckon they will come straight back in against Spurs.
I hope so with regard to Holding , he was brilliant v city.

Was it Daz who said right now the Europa League was more our level.
Have to agree.
Not sure why the competition is much maligned now that it offers a champions league place.
Its a competition we would have a genuine chance of winning , its a trophy and it gives you CL qualification.
I get the Thursday Sunday dislike but its the same gap Wednesday Saturday.
If managers are on a downer on it straight away then this will obviously filters down to the players.
I hope we take it seriously if we finish out the top 4.
As Mourinho is discovering its another viable route into the champions league with fight for top 4 so fierce now.

Wednesday was as empty as I've ever seen the Emirates. One in three boxes was either empty or sparsely populated. Club Level was maybe 60% full and the general seating had an awful lot of empty seats. I'd put the gate at 45,000 max.

That's pretty odd actually because the match was labelled on the website as 'Sold Out'. Once that was confirmed, I put my four season tickets on the Ticket Exchange, as I've done several times recently. Unfortunately, and for the first time, there were no takers all. I tried amongst family, friends and contacts but I couldn't give em away. In the end, I went with a Leicester City mate and the other two seats sat empty. Sign of the times.

ST renewal time will be interesting.

Any of our members decided to actually not renew?

Anyone thinking about renewing?

Anyone thnking about picking up some of the slack ?

All answers will be strictly confidential .

I remember a similar thing being standard practice in tennis doubles to an opponent who was hanging over the net: smash it towards the groin area/face and if close enough follow through with the racket.

Afternoon David

It's not just Managers. Unless there's a regime change, I'm pretty confident that Arse supporters just won't turn up for Europa matches. They only turn up for the Group stage of the CL because the tickets are part of the Season Ticket. This season, no-one had any real interest in clubs like Ludogrets or Basel in the CL - and Europa Cup teams are many rungs below them.

I mean no particular disrespect to the clubs involved but I wouldn't cross the road to watch us play Spartak Trnava or FC Samtredia. It can take 21 games to win the bloody thing. That's 10 home games against that sort of opposition. 10 bloody dross-filled Thursdays!!

I won't renew if they make me pre-pay for the Europey through the season ticket. I may not renew anyway but that's for other reasons.

Attendances for Arse games are clearly softening but I suppose for context, it's worth pointing out that Man City have only sold out their stadium twice this season. I don't think they sold their allocation for the Semi.

I am thinking about not renewing. Like DHD it's for many reasons and not just the current situation. I take my son to Brentford where we can both have season tickets and that means I don't use my Arsenal ticket nearly as much these days.

Oddly it's my wife nagging me to renew; she tells me I have been an Arsenal fan as long as we've been together and it was one of the things she first liked about me along with speaking Spanish (I'm sure she just forgot about looking like a young Marlon Brando) and that she is upset at the thought of me giving it up.

I sort of know where she is coming from, I have been a season ticket holder since before Wenger arrived, and it will feel weird but as I say I rarely go these days.

I've said it before but for me the thing I miss most about corporate Arsenal is the groups of teenage mates together like we were when we first started going.

If they give Wenger another contract it would make my decision much easier. I guess.

Yeah imagine if Fuchs had been Allan Donald...

Expect more stories about "£200M warchest" or similar.. though I don't think this actually works anymore when fans know that A) it is almost certainly BS and B) it would be Wenger spending it!.

I also think ST renewal time will be interesting, Arsenal appear to have a lot of fans who hold ST's but only attend certain games, if they cannot sell on their tickets to 'floaters' then I would imagine unless we suddenly become more competitive/attractive then pretty quickly they would think about dropping their ST as the cost per game would become obscene (instead of just ridiculous!), especially to potentially watch Europa league football.

Once the waiting list disappears and I suspect it is somewhat exaggerated already, then the fear factor of losing your ST for years in case you want it back also goes, unfortunately the TV money will easily cover any financial implications of unsold seats but it will be sad to see a half empty stadium, perhaps this is just a reflection of the club as a whole though - a sleeping giant.

I was at a (very messy) rugby lunch last week and I was sitting next to the speaker, Neil Back - just the 3 Lions tours! He said that of all his opponents, the Saffers were by a distance the dirtiest.

So it's no surprise to me that Decaf would smash a ball at his opponent's face/groin in mixed doubles. And then follow through with his bat! Real charmers, those Yarpies.

Do women have groins?

Come on Bernard tell us..........................

I will be renewing, simply because I'm not going to let a past it has-been buffon make me give up what has been a massive part of my life since I was a young kid. I don't enjoy going to games that often, although the semi-final was an exception to that observation. If Wenger does sign on for any two years, I think I may end up literally hating him, and sooner rather than later. But as I say, I'm not going to let him remove Arsenal from my life as I'm not going to give in to the obnoxious, selfish old idiot.

I know that the ultimate sanction is not to renew, but whilst I may moan, I am still reluctant to give up my season tickets.

I have been going to the Arse literally for more years than I can remember. I was taken by my grandparents and I have taken my grand-children. Watching the Arse has been an important part of my life, my family and my culture for five generations. I’d have to confess it's not as important now as it has been in the past, but that’s part of the ageing process. It's also a function in recent years of being served up dull, boring football with too many mediocre players. The players may change but the predictability and lack of any sense of freshness doesn't.

Dull predictable and boring - that's us these days and everyone knows it except the Board.

In terms of my seats though, they’re hard won. I choose my matches these days but in essence, I’m where I want to be when I want to be; regardless of the churn rate and dwindling waiting list, it could take me years to get back if I surrendered them. I don’t know that I have those years.

Mr. Back would know a thing or two about cheating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQlJ8K7XjQc

Yes, so a woman can get a groin strain. She would be highly unlikely to suffer from a knob strain or a strain of the conkers, however.
Wenger out.

Respect to a real Gooner


ps I'm not saying the rest of you aren't real gooners, you have your reasons and be they whatever they are you still have my respect.

Regrettably I cannot afford to buy one and if I had I wouldn't anyway mainly because of of getting there and back and age related problems.

That's not cheating - that's magic!

But Back's point about the Yarpies was how dirty they were. It's more or less a given that all professionals will cheat. Not all get caught though.

Pretty sure I was at that game but there was no big screen replays then so no clue of the controversy until the next day.

Caitlyn Jenner?

Read all about it http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/footbal ... 26861.html

More to come

Under Highbury skies

Ok so I laughed at this

The new contract offer isn't 2 years Bernard its 3. Were stuck with him for a bit however..

I'm going to the final and bizarrely despite my protestations I want us to win, *%^@ Chelsea. reason why is that I now know this is the start of the end, he's gone and it's beeen building for several seasons. Wenger won't last another year and if they offer him a new contract he won't last it.

Screw Alsace and economics degrees

Some of the pictures of this are superb

Well done mate

I know you detest The Old Lady but blaming their keeper is a bit unfair?

At 5.15 Saturday afternoon (April 29th) the programme Football Rivalries on ITV4 is about Arsenal and Tottenham.

One for the tourists

It's showing up to be "Penny wise, Pound foolish" for Wenger. But he will never admit it.

Very good. I initially thought you were just playing on the similarity between the word and the goalkeeper's name, but then I noticed I had put 'buffon' instead of 'buffoon'. Whoops!