Özil did *%^@ all for the club so better to say nothing than the saaccharine crap the club is trotting out to the media.

Know what you mean. It’s like a virtue PR contest. Just doesn’t need to happen

After signing Čech, Luiz and Willian as players recently, now Chelsea have sacked Lampard as manager what’s the betting on Arsenal giving him a contract as a player?

OGS is a funny one. He reminds me of Biden in the sense that the label on the tin should be 'underestimate at own peril'.

People keep writing him tactically, but, while it is too early to tell, the evidence suggests he certainly has something. I haven't watched united enough to know what that is. Possibly with a team like United, and given the quality of the league the season, Solsjaar's resilience and ability to motivate and keep the peace amongst the players are sufficient?

I disagree. It would be extremely poor form to do otherwise.

Bound to be lots of Arteta/Lampard comparisons in the next few weeks (and every time Arsenal get a bad result and journalists look at the table and see us below Chelsea) - but the comparisons need a heavy dose of realism. Firstly Arteta won the FA Cup against Lampard's chelsea, that brings a certain amount of patience in itself. Then look at the starting point each manager inherited, some may say Lampard operated his first season under a transfer ban, in reality he had first use of £60m Pulisic and got through a loophole to be able to sign Kovacic for £40m because apparently a transfer ban allows you to permanently a player you had on loan the season before!? Finally, Lampard has then had £220m to spend on his squad and Arteta had £75m odd and has had the £50m main signing out injured all season.

I'm still puzzled by Ole and whether hes actually any good or not. It might seem churlish to suggest otherwise considering where he has Man U at the moment but he things that swing me the other way are:
Constantly conceding early and first in games. Forget the comebacks, managers work all week to pick the best 11 and tactics for a game. If Man U keep conceding first and have had some awful first halves where they should have been buried by the opposition Ole is constantly getting it wrong. Fair enough he makes some corrections and is bailed out by a stirring comeback
Individual brilliance. This is a tough one, but it seems that a lot of Man U's victories come from moments of individual quality than any sustained pressure or tactical nous. The other side of this is a manager sets his team up to get those moments of individual brilliance from players
General dominating games. Man U just haven't. They beat Wolves with a last kick of the game deflection in a very drab game, snatched a win v Villa that could have gone either way, Brighton hit the woodwork 5 times against them in a 3-2 win with an after the final whistle penalty. West Ham and Southampton should have seen them off with ease in their matches.
Only 1 goal and zero wins in 5 games against the other 'big 6' so far.

it is hard to argue when they are top of the league and keep getting results but this is a far cry from anything Liverpool or Man City have been doing for the last 3 seasons - or many previous champions.

Hopefully the club have got this all planned out. It would be awkward if we can’t actually play him.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/premier ... d=msedgntp

https://www.football365.com/news/arsena ... i-contract
Arsenal looking to terminate Mustafi's deal now to free up space for new signings. If we want space in the squad for new signings we shouldn't be letting Mustafi being here or not stop that. Just don't include him in the prem squad like we did with Özil and Sokratis. I understand that isn't ideal and is a slap in the face for any professional footballer but it is better than it stopping us bringing in a player we want.

Even if we paid some of them off if we come out of January having moved on Özil, Sokratis, Kolasinac and Mustafi then in terms of 'outs' that is a good start to some squad churn

If we manage to pay off Mustafi that’d be a massive positive. He can’t leave soon enough the useless cart horse.

There is a strong chance Saints will be missing 3 of their regular back 4 on Tuesday. Vestegaard is injured, Bertrand is suspended and Walker-Peters is struggling with an injury. Bednarek and Stephens almost certainly play CB as they did in the cup, then they're bringing in Valery who hasn't started a game this season and someone else for the full-back positions.
They haven't got much depth beyond the front 6 they played against us in the cup. There is no excuse for being over run or out run considering a lot of our players will be fresh and they will be playing twice in 4 days

Absolutely brain dead defender

Remember when he did this in the first minute of a game !

I'd agree but I'm not allowed to.

Is Man Utd for real?

You must think Wenger was a right prat, being it was him that paid £35m for him?

Sokratis has signed for Olympiacos. We might meet him in the Europa league

As I can't watch as much football as I'd want I always enjoy and put some weight to these useful stat heavy graphs.
This is a graph for La Liga's most progressive passers. X axis is number of passes in to the penalty area per 90 minutes and the Y axis is passes in to the final third per 90 minutes.

So players in the top left create a lot of good chances, players in the bottom right progress the ball well (typically deeper midfield players). The very best at both find themselves in the top right of the graph where we find Messi and interestingly Ødegaard pretty much out on their own.

Also nice to see Cazorla standing out there as well.

Hi Gunfire,
I was being a little facetious. Tuchel no doubt knows what he's getting himself into. He'll need to throw all he's got to make it work. Added to the totem pole of managers.

He's also still so young, these numbers will only get better. I see zero, absolutely zero chance of us signing him permanently at the end of the season. Another loan if Real still want to wait, maybe, but other than that, I'd bet whatever you like on this being 6 months and done.

Most bizarre thing about that graph is Joaquin up there to the left, incredible he's still going.

The signings Wenger made that summer of 2016 ultimately cost him his job.

Signings 3 such absolute turkeys was always going to be the end of him

I know Tottenham have this whole idea of not playing football much and just have Kane and Son win games for them, but they have 30% possession tonight against Wycombe Wanderers - a team that's currently dead last in the Championship.

That would be funny if only it were true.

Current stats (at 86 mins) shows Tottenham as having 72% possession.

And as I type that I see that they’ve just scored.

And again as well...

....and again. 4-1 now. Possession up to 73%.

Wish that I hadn’t turned on for the last 10 minutes.

Wasn't watching the game, just looked at the stats which was at 70-30 in favor of Wycombe after like 75 minutes! The fact that it was actually likely says a lot about Mourinho though.

If it was any club other than Real Madrid I’d agree 100%. However because it’s Madrid they have a history of being impatient and always wanting the marquee signing and with that ditching promising players who are right under their noses

Wish him nothing but the best. I like him. Very driven player who would bust a gut for the team. Unlike some .............. (no names mentioned, his name, W....., has been mentioned too often.

Let's hope he wants Willian back in Chelsea

Penny wise, pound foolish signings. Missed the forest for the trees.

Xhaka looked okay to start with. One forum member even said:

'Xhaka looks a very good signing. His left foot is an absolute wand and he was taking the ball off our back four and distributing it brilliantly.'

I wonder who that was.

Real Madrid considers themselves more than a football club they (and some will argue it is is so), see themselves bigger than the sport, iconic. And therefore has become a marketing enterprise as well as a club. They bought Becks purely to sell shirts. They want their stars to 'move merch' (merchandise) as we say in the states.

So, if they can make a young player a household name when he makes it to the first team, fine. If they have someone else who can do the same function but sells shirts, I'm inclined to be cynical enough to think they would sell that young player who doesn't move shirts if they can get a good price.

Maybe I'm too cynical. Maybe its not so, but its what I think I have seen over the years when I became a fan. The Dallas Cowboys were (are) like that. They were nicknamed "America's team" (not sure if its still apt). Great marketing for a team in a country where nationalism is so strong, Goebbels coiuld learn a thing or two.

Mustafi and Xhaka were not cheap. We narrowly missed out out Vardy in that window too.

After one game. After 5 everyone realised he was actually diabolical which is the dilemma of the myth of the player overall. In fact after 5 I think he had already been dropped

Xhaka played in 32 out of 38 Premier League games that season. Moreover he was sent off in two of them, which accounted for some of the games he missed (I presume two at least, perhaps four, or maybe even all six depending on the ban he got for each case).

To be fair I think the most you can say is that “everyone realised he was actually diabolical” except Wenger.

I think that he flatters to deceive. There are some games where he looks like a class act. Those are the games where his deficiencies aren’t exposed. Truly a frustrating player.

every 5 or 6 games a performance will occur where he does reasonably well and we win and everyone seems to forget his bad games. That paired with him lamping a 30 yarder in once every 3 seasons it keeps alive the myth that he should be playing anywhere near a club like arsenal

No i think even wenger remember by October he had been dropped I recall so when he was recalled against forest and scored a 30 yarder he gave it to the fans by giving a "talking hand" Celebration. Even early doors there were issues.

We've had to play him out of necessity really. He's all we've got type thing.

I’m not saying how good or bad he is myself. I just don’t think it’s right to say “everyone realised he was actually diabolical” after five games. If Wenger thought that, dare I suggest he wouldn’t have kept picking him.

Just looked it up, Xhaka missed 5 prem games through suspension in his first season and was on the bench for a home game v Southampton in the 4th game of the season. He started every other Prem match