It’s utterly irrelevant there is no mystical magic that deems our league different to every other. Wenger couldn’t win a European competition like Villa boas did and he was in his 60s.

He was brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed the work he did.

One thing I've noticed about you TG is that you get all narky if someone else has a different opinion to yours.

Just accept that it's a game of opinions and chill a bit. It is perfectly reasonable (given recent form, team selections and man management etc) for people to harbour doubts over Arteta's stewardship, just as it is perfectly reasonable for people to suggest he needs more time and more transfer windows. Whatever camp you are in doesn't make you stupid or a bad fan.

It is perfectly reasonable to see Arteta's lack of experience as an issue, just as it is to question why he keeps picking Willian and Xhaka and Bellerin, why he chose to ostracise Özil, why he dumped Guendouzi and probably reduced his market value by £20m in doing so, why he chose to embarrass Saliba by not even picking him for the EL squad. Big decisions that have divided opinion and need to start proving him right.

Well said.

I’m not narky at all and in fact I’m not sold on Arteta yet totally myself as it’s too early to tell however I can’t let people talking nonsense pass without comment.

If you genuinely believe that Artetas date of birth is affecting Granit xhakas ability to bring a ball under control in less than 5 touches then frankly somebody should be around to suggest your being daft.

You can shut up n all !

I'm not sure these are the mysteries that people have been claiming. Bellerin is the best right back in the club. Willian is out of form but no worse than half the team but still a talented winger as demonstrated by the Corsa for Gabriel's goal against Wolves.

Özil had produced nothing in a year and it's extremely likely that if he was in the team now most would be demanding that he be dropped.

Guendozi clearly has talent but I don't think anyone can sent he had an attitude problem (and had one at Lorient as well) perhaps it was decided time at a smaller club may give him some perspective.

Saliba has apparently been struggling with some deaths in his family and living outside of France for the first time. By all accounts he has been ok but no world beater in the U-23s. It doesn't seem likely that he he is mentally ready to perform for Arsenal.

As the above demonstrates, Arteta has inherited an unbalanced squad that very few managers in world football could get performing, regardless of experience.

With almost every post on here being a negative one about Arsenal's current state of affairs - myself very much included I thought I'd list out a few reasons to be positive (some of which people may disagree with)

Our last 2 main signings have looked fantastic purchases, Gabriel slotted in very well and leads the defence. Partey from what little we've seen looks like the central midfielder we've needed for years

Saka is the man for all positions - only just 19, a regular with England, left back, left wing, right wing, central mid. The kid is very talented and it will be fantastic watching him grow

Martinelli is nearly back. Another kid who looked superb before his injury. Exactly the kind of dynamic, flexible, pacey, high tempo, high press player we should be looking for more of to build our forward line.

Injuries generally clearing up - I think Partey is our only injured player now.

Old players moving on. In 6 months we will move on Özil, Sokratis, Luiz and Mustafi. That is a huge amount off the wage bill, probably in the region of £30m per season

In another 18 months Lacazette, Chambers, Kolasinac, Elneny all have contracts running out. If we're sensible we move all of them on this summer. With the above that is immediately 8 players moving on. Any time failing players move on it gives rise to optimism for new players coming in. Even if weirdly we didn't want to lose any of these players the hand will be forced.

Pépé's red card v Leeds may, may just have ignited something in him. If ever there was a player in our squad whose natural talent has the potential to catapult him to a much higher level then it is this guy. Lets see what happens

Saliba, remember it wasn't just Arsenal after this kid, lots of top teams wanted him. We're having to wait longer than we thought but he's still so so young and central defence is a tough place for any youngster to come in to, let alone in a dysfunction team like ours. The natural attributes are there, pace, strength, height, poise, passing ability.

Hale end crop - this is not necessarily on the basis that they all turn in to 1st team players but we have a crop of english youngsters who have had plenty of 1st team exposure, if we wanted to sell they should fetch a decent price. We rejected bids of £20m for AMN this summer.

The January transfer window is only 22 days away. At least it feels like the club do know there are multiple issues to be resolved. That is certainly a step forward from the days when Wenger almost blindly refused to add anything to his squad. Whether Edu et al can add what we need is another question - but I think we should agree they know the squad we have is not good enough

We're actually coming in to a decent run of games after a tough start to the season playing city, liverpool, man u, spurs all away, and even Leicester and wolves at home. In our next 9 we have Burnley, Saints, Palace, Newcastle, Chelsea at home, and Everton, West brom, Brighton, Saints away. A real chance to pick up at least 6 wins from 9 there and bring ourselves back up the table.

I'm still fairly optimistic considering where we are. It's not a bad team on paper. Defending used to be our issue now its the attack. When I was despondent about the defense, we didn't have good defenders (wave at Mustafi ). We have good attackers so it seems easier to solve.

Permission to speak, sah!

There's quite the difference between getting the squad to perform and languishing in 15th place in the division. The very least to be expected was a continuation of the form shown at the end of last season, and even that would have been a disappointment given the signings.

As to some of the points above:

Willian starts every PL game. Lacazette gets dropped. Pépé gets dropped. Nelson plays well in the Europa league but can't make the squad.

Nobody expects Özil to be a world-class player anymore. But surely he is worth a place in the squad. Throw him on for 20mins if we are trying to break down a defensive team. Kolasinac is in the squad despite the fact that we have Saka, Tierney and Cédric.

I fully understand his stance on Guendouzi. But why does AMN barely get a look-in?

There are clearly some issues with Saliba, but would it not benefit him to be in the Europa League squad? We were drawn in a simple group. He is playing for the U23s. Would playing EL against weak opponents in empty stadia not be more beneficial? He may be very young, but this kid has a season in Ligue 1 behind him.

Arteta made an impressive start to his managerial career but this season has seen things go backwards and he needs to turn it around. I think he probably will too, but it needs to happen pretty soon.

Runnarson, Chambers, Mari, Mustafi, Cédric, Elneny, AMN, Emile Smith Rowe, Willock, Pépé, Nketiah.

Could be Cédric at left back and Chambers at RB in a back 4
Could be a back 3 with Cédric and AMN as wing backs
Could be smith-rowe on the wing if we play a 4-3-3, or in the No.10 behind a front 2 of Pépé/Nketiah if we play a 3-5-2

Substitutes
7Saka
8Ceballos
16Holding
33Macey
38Balogun
41Cottrell
44Hein
66Azeez

So it looks like the team against Burnley will be the same as that against Spurs...........................

When will we ever see our team play in their proper kit? It seems to have been a long time now.

My prejudice coming in here. Sorry. Not really up on Irish football.

That stadium is a lot posher than I had anticipated. Pitch still looks like a cabbage patch though.

Poxy blue kit.

Any reason why they’re not playing in Dundalk? Have they played all there games in Dublin?

It’s the Aviva in Dublin LTG. National stadium for football and rugby.

Thanks DHD. Just been looking it up.

This is where they normally play (and the sort of standard that I had expected) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriel_Park

Match being played in Dublin because Dundalk's home pitch is a Level 2 ground, and not suitable to host Europa League matches.

Well done Nketiah. Fox in the box eh?

Elneny!!!!

Hell of a goal.

If only we could play Dundalk every week.

Did I just see what I thought I saw???

Up there with Jensen’s shot against QPR

Frustrating night so far for the Spanish David Moyes crowd

We’re winning, unable to micro analyse Leno or Aubameyang as they aren’t playing.

but not quite as unprecedented and hopefully not a once off

Sorry. All of that way over my head. What does it mean?

Somewhat frustrating was that he scored three times for Denmark whilst an Arsenal player.

Elneny off.

Saving him for Burnley?

Yeah. Super hold up play by Balogun.

And he can score as well. Nice finish.

Beautiful free kick delivery from Flores for Dundalk for that goal. Mikel get Joorabchin as his agent and sign him up!!

Great result

Good effort by Dundalk but they didn’t do enough to exploit Mikel Artetas age

Would be such a shame if we lose Balogun for free at the end of the season. Hope we can convince him to sign a deal. If he’s looking for a clear pathway to first team football he’s only really got Aubameyang, Lacazette, Martinelli and Nketiah in front of him right now. Lacazette will probably be off in the summer and Aubameyang will only have 2 years left, you’d hope a young player would see that as perfect, a chance to train and learn from one of the best whilst picking up a fair few minutes and take over when he moves on.

It’s an interesting one as he’s such a promising player. The club are going to need to offer him a big contract because in a few years time he’s blatantly going to be a 40m Plus striker.

In all 3 games we have brought him on we instantly look like we had a shape that didn’t exist when we had Nketiah up front instead. Also the elephant in the room is he’s blatantly better than Nketiah but the usual football manager bollocks about seniority will mean he won’t get in the side ahead of him.

Arteta on Balogun: "He said to me he wants to stay at the club so hopefully we can reach an agreement and extend his contract."

I think Nketiah gets a bit of a hard time by Arsenal fans, he's more often criticised for the things he doesn't do than praised for the things he is very good at. In and around the 12 yards he comes alive - at the moment he doesn't seem quite the level we need, but he's still very young. We need to make a decision on Nketiah because his contract only has 18 months left to run. This summer must be extend or sell.

I'd like to see Balogun on the bench v Burnley. I'd like to see more of tonight's team start vs Burnley but sadly I think we know it will be the same faces again.

Smith-Rowe also gives us something different than other players do in the squad. Whatever you think about his readiness he is comfortable on the ball in the attacking 3rd, dribbling, creating and getting in the box - he's certainly not content with 60 sideways passes over 90 minutes.

Someone’s off their medications