*%^@*** hell ref sort them out

Sigh. Yet another non clean sheet.

Yes, Kolasinac is on fire too !!!!

I think Torreira should get his yellow, to sit out the BHA match. Then he can come back for the Pool game.

More great chances created by Kolasinac this half. Superb.

Iwobi danced until he lost the ball again. He is hopeless.

Yay!!!

Özil creates, and Iwobi finishes.

And my curse helped him. He scored !!!!!

Kolasinac just picked as MoM. No disagreement from me there.

I was wondering if you and LTG were watching the same match ...

Good win, Burnley certainly made it difficult and we stood up to it well.

Well done Özil today, major hand in two goals!

A hard fought win with good performances from Sokratis, Kolasinac, Aubameyang and Özil. Thought the ref was appallingly weak, and for a while totally lost control of the game with Burnley leaving their feet, knees or elbows in during every challenge. Barnes, who scored, could have been booked 5 times. And none of them accidental...repeatedly aiming to hurt or rile his opponent. Guendouzi got booked despite not touching his opponent.

Ashley Barnes must have Kevin Davies as a personal trainer.

Might be reading too much into things but I thought Özil looked more engaged today, his body language was more positive and he was getting involved in scraps and several times tried to calm players down when things got a bit heated.

We'll see how it plays out but if Emery has managed to reach through to him that's great. Still creates more chances than anyone in the squad.

We didn't look great or look like the confident side from the unbeaten streak but it's expected as our confidence took a knock the last couple matches. The important thing was the win. Onward and upward.

City 1 vs Palace 3, after an hour...hold on Palace.

Never mind that.

How about Chelsea 0, Leicester 1 at full time. Nice!!!

The end of the match started to feel like one of those from the late Wenger era when it felt that we were going to capitulate, so credit to the team with their make do and mend defence for being resolute. Burnley were very physical but how nice to see an Arsenal team who had players who were more than capable of taking it and giving it back. I thought Sokratis and Kolasinac were great today, they looked like a pair of bouncers which was very welcome in such a bruising encounter. And Xhaka and Lichsteiner are hardly shrinking violets themselves. I thought Özil played alright, the usual mix of great vision to set up the first goal, yet never jumping for any headers that were near him. Maitland Niles I feel is very slowly improving after his injury. What with Chelsea losing its been a good day for us. Hopefully Cardiff can put some icing on today's football cake.

Doesn't make sense not to play Özil more anyway, especially with fixtures congestion and the need to rotate our players. Just play Özil in all our home games, I say.

That’s all wrong. Our third goal was offside. We simulated on three different occasions. We should have had at least one player sent off.
Their players, especially Ashley Barnes, were blameless and faultless and played in a true Corinthian spirit.

Apparently.

According to the Sean Dyche interview that I’ve just watched.

For the third goal that dyce was moaning about isn’t it onside because the last touch came off a Burnley player ?

He really hasn’t got much of a case as Barnes should have had about ten yellows and shouldn’t have been on the pitch to score, he’s properly mugged himself off

I thought Özil did well enough to keep his place. Lacazette didn't have one of his better days. With the squad as it currently stands, I think my first choice eleven for games against many opposition sides would be 4-4-2 as follows.

Goalkeeper: Leno
Back four: Bellerin, Mustafi, Sokratis and ???
Midfield: Torreira, Guendouzi and Xhaka
Creative free role: Özil
Forwards: Aubameyang and Lacazette

That side lacks a bit of natural width, but Emery has been trying to compensate for that by using Aubameyang in a wider position and it hasn't worked too badly as he's still been scoring.

I've put question marks for left back as I don't think it presently makes much difference whether you have Monreal or Kolasinac. The latter played very well today, but often isn't at that level. I'd say Monreal is not only a quality player, but very consistent. Having said that he is getting on and has his 33rd birthday in February. I can see the arguments for both.

There is only one conclusion for these so called feisty games. Ask yourself before the game which team benefits from a feisty game, an overly physical game vs which one wants to keep the ball in play, get the ball down and attack.

These games are often portrayed as two teams going at each other, the reality is one team purposely goes after the other and the other sometimes gives it back to show they aren’t a pushover and can’t be bullied.

Dyche is another brutal dinosaur whose style of football wouldn’t get past the third tier anywhere else in Europe

Their team is suited to League 1. My New Years wish for them & their supporters - I hope Dyche takes them down.

Ashley Barnes is such a pointless horrible footballer, he’s a striker with so little skill that all he does all game is fight and niggle with the CB, knowing that occasionally the ref will give him the free kick. He must spend more of the game wrestling CB that actually kicking a football.

He’s basically a poor mans kevin Davies. Was it Barnes who somehow got away with standing over Guendouzi and putting his studs on his chest!!!??

Not sure how much money Emery would be given to buy new players, but it would not surprise me if Monreal's contract (expiring end of the season) is extended. Could be the same with Čech - unless he doesn't fancy being second choice and we could end up with Ospina as Leno's cover next season. I think Lichtsteiner may be released and likes of AMN, Jenkinson and Chambers could be Bellerin's cover - not ideal but something we might have to make do with.

I think we are quite ok in terms of numbers in midfield and can cope with the loss of Ramsey.

With Welbeck's injury and contract expiring, we lack players upfront and bringing in a new forward could be Emery's priority. Unless Reiss Nelson is seen as the player to take over Welbeck's place next season. But I hope we get someone like Zaha or Dembele next season.

Well deserved

Good to see our key rivals lose. Surprise that both lost to non-Top 6 potentials, and at their own ground. Pool is having a great weekend. We are simply chasing for top 4, so also a good outcome for us. Now for Everton to put Spurs to the sword. Can they do it?

I forgot, is Walcott an Everton player now? I don't recall him scoring or making headlines with them. That said, Wilshere is also unheard of these days.

Apart from matches where we've lifted a trophy by winning the league or a cup final, today is the 40th anniversary of what is probably still my favourite ever game. Tottenham 0 Arsenal 5 at White Hart Lane on 23rd December 1978. Liam Brady scored an amazing goal.

I think Jenkinson really needs to leave the club now. And I know we’ve given him a new deal but Chambers hasn’t done anything to convince me he is good enough. Jenna can go for free, Chambers we could get £10m for at least.
I think without rumoured budget zaha and Dembele are pipe dreams, palace will demand £50m+ for zaha and I doubt Dembele will be allowed to leave at all, if he is Barca will want to recoup as much of their £110m they spent on him.
If we have a tiny budget then go and find players none of us have heard of and let Emery and their staff make them better players. Torreira Sokratis and Guendouzi cost £50m which could easily be our budget again, if Sven can get another 3 players (CB, full back, winger) for that price and that quality I won’t be complaining

I must admit, when I read Goonie's hopes for signing Zaha or Dembele I thought the same as you Rich. A pipe dream. If Palace sell Zaha they increase their chances of relegation greatly. So they'll want an absolute fortune. To tempt Barcelona to sell Dembele would, as you imply, cost an even bigger fortune.

I also suspect you're right about Chambers. I haven't seen much of him this season. But I've relatives who support Fulham and they not only think he doesn't help their major defensive problems, they think he's partly responsible for them.

Very interesting watching Man U play with confidence, a swagger and attacking verve yesterday. I know it’s only Cardiff but some of the inter play was very nice. If they can get Lukaku pogba martial and Sanchez all to the level we know they can reach then they are back in the mix for top 4

I think we need to be offloading players who haven’t contributed and are clearly not in the managers plans to help boost the coffers. Elneny, Chambers could fetch £8-10m each, Ospina has a 3.5m clause at Napoli, jenkinson won’t get a fee but get his wages off the books, Asano on loan must be worth a few million of anyone’s money

Given a limited budget we are going to need to dip in to the youth team to provide cover, Martinez, medley, willock can be bought through to cover Ospina, Chambers, elneny. I think that is fair

Then you have £20m odd generated from sales to add to the pot, that’s another player.

Just ridiculous that we will have had to replace Sanchez, Ramsey and Welbeck from the transfer budget without the £130m those 3 could have raised. Those 3 decisions alone can set us back 2 seasons

Our attack isn't perfect. We lack natural width, but a least with two natural finishers of great quality, and Özil and Ramsey, we are hardly ever likely to run completely dry in attack, as Chelsea did yesterday. We're obviously lacking in cover with Welbeck out, but isn't there a case for focussing our January thinking on doing something about our defence?

On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Chelsea panzers getting bogged down in the sands of Leicester's defence and then Vardy's strike ... lovely.

Are there any good 6 month loans that might be available this January?

Real Madrid could be a great place to loan a player, they won’t get a new manager until the summer and won’t want to sell their big stars until the new man is in. If we could somehow get Isco on loan for 6 months I’d explode

Once again the MOTD agenda was in full swing. They show the arsenal v Burnley game and then show Dyche’s interview moaning about the penalty decision and some other completely inocous decisions about supposed diving. Then did a full analysis of all the things he complained about - giving Dyche’s comments more air time without once showing the provocation and dirty fouling tactics. Why wouldn’t MOTD show Barnes thrust his studs in to Guendouzi’s chest. I can absolutely guarantee that if that exact same thing was done by certain other players (Özil, Sterling, pogba) it would have been the main story of the game.

Isco is precisely the type player we seem to be missing. Can’t see us getting him though.

Rumour that we are interested in signing the winger Ismailia Starr for 16 million plus Martinez going the other way in January. That would make sense and tick some boxes