Yes I did. It was Brady I'd written to Terry Neill about too. I remember one of the things he asked me was who I'd like him to sign. I said Steve Williams. He said words to the effect of no, because he's a nasty bit of work.

The reason he gave was that Southampton used to invite local school teams to their training ground to play their first team. Apparently Steve did everything he could to not only beat them but not let them score. The other Southampton players were comfortable with letting the school kids keep the ball a bit and score.

I thought it showed Steve had a winning attitude. I'm also glad Don Howe clearly thought differently to Terry.

You are right but its probably because they are so laughably unsuccesful for a so called big club, that there improvement as a team seems like a giant leap forward, even though they havent won anything of significance for 50+ years (not withstanding the Sun International Challenge Trophy (Swaziland) Winners 1983. which incredibly they have listed on their official site as honours they have won!).

Bizarre performance. Peach of a finish on his weak foot. Every other touch he had in the game was truly awful.

Totally agree. Only 35 and with 3 kids left behind.

Spot on on Steve Williams.

Like WG I wrote to GG as well and got a reply from "him" thanking my views. Sadly lost the letter. Asked him to buy likes of Stuart Ripley, Geoff Thomas and Tim Sherwood.

I agree. I'm at the stage with this squad where if we aren't going to compete, we may as well George Graham it and force out the high earners and try to build a core from the youth team. At worst they'll not be up to it and raise us a few quid in sales while the money saved in wages helps out transfer budget going forwards. Personally I'd spend all the summer dosh on defensive upgrades, maybe try to pick up a bosman signing or two, and have all our kids as regular bench options.

For me Nelson, Guendouzi, AMN, Holding, Bellerin and Torreira all have a good chance at this level. Nketiah & Willock have shown enough to get more exposure, and we need to give John-Jules, Amaeichi and Saka a pathway to prevent them leaving for Germany. Plus even below them we have some kids excelling at youth level, not to mention Bielik, Chambers, Medley and one or two others who should get a look in during cups and the EL group stage.

I'd like to see the young players given more opportunities as well. But I think Emery has to think short term to save his job - if he thinks buying solid, established Sokratis-type signings would help his cause, then so be it. Fans' frustrations will increase unless we see significant improvements. Securing top four and/or winning the EL would have earned him plenty of goodwill and more time to implement his ideas. As it is, a shaky start to next season will have some fans asking for him to be sacked.

6 european cups for Liverpool. Amazing. I didnt think it was handball but whatever.

Our match went as I expected hence my negativity prior. I had hoped I was wrong but it was plainly obvious during the last month or so of the season we can't win when needed.

I dont expect things to get better.

I saw Morinho and Wenger as pund8ts together and it was a bit surreal. Both men humbled so not as caustic.

Fabregas and Giroud both respectful to Arsenal. I thought Giroud was great off the bench for us prior to him being sent to Chensea. We could have used him in the run for 4th. The only reason why Fabregas wasn't brought back was the same reason Anelka could never come back. Wenger put his petti ess and hurt feelings over what the club needed. Jis so called rule over sold olayers not coming back miraculously forgottet n for Henry because Wenger decided when Henry left.

Emery has his job cut out for him. As far as the final Stan felt his son represented the family. Whatever his real reasons are for not attending his son made it. It would be a bad look if no one made it. My guess it was too long and difficult to get to the final. Unlike just one long trip to London or any European major city.

For the first time I dont think I will be excited about the upcoming season.

My fear is we become a club like Palace or West Ham wtc where we are constantly changing managers.

Arsenal fans are unrealistic. The expectations of Emery considering everything was unrealistic and we will quickly lose any repuation of being urbane, intelligent fans.

I see a dark period. Hopefully, I'm wrong. A lot of fans think our place in the football workd is bigger than it really is.

Your second paragraph missed the point. Of course the consumer ultimately potentially has all the power. If we all went on a general strike tomorrow we could resolve all the world's ills. However, we never have and never will.

I agree, Lom. It may be a case of use them or lose them with some of the outstanding youth prospects who are being courted by clubs in Germany.

Bielik did well at Charlton and is technically excellent and a big lump as well. Whether he has the mobility and sharpness required of a PL player is hard to tell.

There are reports that we are targeting some young south americans and I can completely see the logic in that. Whether we can beat others to their signatures given our budget and other considerations is another matter.

I think an advantage that Ronaldo had was his height and once he filled out his tall frame he was always going to be a handful for defenders both technically and physically.

He was also mentally tough with, by all accounts, an incredible work ethic and desire to improve. Reyes seemed much more introverted and found it difficult to settle outside of Spain.

Funny enough I had a call from Arsene once. He said he'd been reading my thoughts on Mertesacker on the Steve Gleiber Forum and said I was spot-on, he is a big useless lump and anyone who disagrees clearly know nothing about defenders.

Not to mention they were 5-10 minutes from being eliminated on matchday 4, 5 and 6 of the group stage. The quirk of the fixture list helped them massively in that they got to play a Barca B who had already qualified and snatched a late draw from them.
They comfortably beat Dortmund in terms of the score but anyone who watched the first half in Germany can tell you they were also very lucky not to be 4-0 down at that point.
Spurs would have been a very weak European Champions, and Liverpool are nowhere near the great European Champion sides we've had recently. Peak Barca, Madrid and Man U would have beaten them.

Well sugar ... aren't we all just little name droppers ...

I wrote to Bertie Mee said I was from NZ ..... asking if I could look around the ground .

He wrote back lovely letter said they were fully booked from Sept through to Xmas but " if suitable to my good self " I could join an existing tour party . Oct 1 1975 10.30 am .

"Perhaps I would be kind enough to let him have my views on this suggestion ".

B**&%%##d oil rig called me back two days before I could take up his offer .

Wrote back apologising ; enclosed a hankerchief / tie set for his trouble

Also wrote to Brian Moore got a lovely letter from him as well .

Don’t expect many posts in here over the next few days as ever Brit tips their hat and takes in the sage advice from Donald Trump. Perhaps he can sort out the state of our club on this visit. Such a helpful man who is not guided by self interest.

I was a big fan of Reyes. He had a powerful kick with hardly any back kick to it.
The elephant in the room is if Henry..possibly out of jealousy about his reception by fans, made him feel unwelcome. Only they know.

He was also a decent passer as well. I am still angry about the kicking he got from Man Utd mainly out fear he would do them what he did to Chelsea and the referee not protecting him. Sad news about his passing on.

I dont know. 97 points in the PL? Was it only one loss? This is a very good side. Porto's run to the CL was much easier. But people still talk about how 'special' Mourinho was.

Season tickets duly renewed.

I have every right to moan as much as I like now.

You do.

More so than the majority of the rest of us.

Keep the faith.

COYG

Great stuff, DHD. You're the voice, try and understand it.

Looking at our transfer history and I think it is easy to see the point at which it all went wrong.

Season 14/15 seemed promising - we built on the Özil signing (which was still a poor summer) with Sanchez, Chambers, Welbeck, Gabriel, Ospina and Debuchy - at the time a solid summer. A world class star, some top experience, no nonsense defender and some english talent and youth. Come this summer quite possibly none of them will be with us but that wasn't to say it wasn't a bad summer, the problem was the 2 summers after with, only Čech arriving the next season and the Xhaka, Mustafi, Perez for £100m the season after. Not strengthening properly and then wasting money.

Then we had a crazy season where we dropped £100m on 2 strikers but the rest of the team went to rot as we also sold £120m worth of players. There was just no plan - there hasn't been a plan for year.

https://www.transferleague.co.uk/arsena ... -transfers
Take a look at this for all the hard evidence. It is no surpise that the 3 teams who have been best in the market are the ones at the top. Also these are 3 teams who spend a LOT (city), who spend a lot but recoup a lot (Liverpool) and who barely sign anyone at all (Spurs). Proving there is far more than 1 way to approach it.

We're absolutely desperate for an overhaul and some miracle cheap signings.

Completely selfless individual.

Always humble and displaying humility. A champion for the working classes if ever there was one ! I’m pretty sure he won’t say anything inappropriate whilst over here

If you look at our outgoing transfers in 17/18 they are disasterous

We sold all our pace and mobility by letting ox, Theo and Sanchez all go at once. Any of those players would be getting a lot of game time if we still had them.

Sanchez in particular was the only player you could really rely on away from home. We just never replaced him.

Hi B - no, I'd missed that sad news. Yes I did see him play towards the end of his time with us. By then (1965/6) he was an inconsistent winger, who could be great or poor. His enjoyed life so sometimes his fitness was an issue. I recall him scoring some excellent goals. I recently wrote this of him:
"Signed as a twenty year-old by Swindin in January 1959 from Bath City for £5,000, a then record fee for a non-League transfer, he was struck down by pleurisy and pneumonia and was out of action for eighteen months. It was suggested his playing days were over almost before they had begun, so to debut against the champions (Burnley) must have been sweet. Over the next six years Skirton went from a powerful young man alive to a performer who sometimes went on the field without battle in his blood. He was highly popular with his colleagues. They nicknamed him ‘The Fish’ because he understood beer. The fans came to enjoy him too. He was so obviously not a desk and blackboard man, and sometimes his figure was less than Greek, but on his revelous days they loved his charges down the wing."

I seem to recall quite a lot of our fans wanting Theo and Ox to move on? As for Sanchez, yes it would have been better if he stayed, but at £500k a week that was never on? We had the best of two of the three you mention. It will be interesting to see what Ox does at Liverpool.

I’m really not sure many of our fans wanted Ox or Sanchez to go. Theo divided opinion but I reckon they would be getting games ahead of Özil and Mhikitaryan if they were still here,

I also saw Alan Skirton play. I was too young to form any real opinion on him as a player, but I certainly knew from the reaction of the crowd that he was less than popular with supporters. From my recollection, he wasn't often referred to as Alan Skirton - it was usually *%^@*** Skirton!

There's another little memory in your piece Old Man; a bit of a curiosity. My old man would take me every week - First Team one week and Reserves the next. On one occasion, there must've been some sort of injury crisis because George Swindin was in goal for the Stiffs. That would probably have been 1962, so the Boss must've been pushing 50. I remember thinking it weird that he was older than my old man, who'd also been a GK but had long since packed it in.

Lichtsteiner has tweeted a goodbye. That really didn’t work out well, happy to never see him in an Arsenal shirt again.

Almost as interesting as the cricket ... which might turn out better for England. What a team they have.

Keeping Sanchez would have been great as long as he kept up his Arsenal form. Given what he’s been like at Man U, his huge contract is a bullet dodged for us. Still utterly ridiculous that we didn’t just sell him to City for £60m in the summer when he only had 12 months left.
Ox I liked as a player but he was so inconsistent and injury prone, he’s proven he’s still exactly that at Liverpool. On the basis of his two years at Liverpool we’ve easily got the better side of a £35m deal. Time will tell with Ox though.
Theo, he was drifting, not impacting games - we did well to get £20m for him, he’s hardly done much to justify that fee at Everton.

The fact that all 3 would be getting lots of minutes with us now says more about our attempts to replace them rather than any of their current playing ability

Lovely story - thanks for that. On Skirton I read that Frank McClintock saw him as the epitome of what was wrong with Arsenal in the early to mid 60s - a lot of talent but dubious application or professionalism.

Just read that Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople is 80 today.

Definitely not a young dude then.

I am sure trump will advise in the next few days how to change the game by making it look a lot like an old English game of rounders which apparently America invented under another name.

Trump in England..lol..this ought to be interesting.

He wrote a brilliant book many years ago - 'Diary of a Rock 'n Roll Star'. Highly recommended - well, by me anyway.

Some Chinese teams are eyeing up Aubamayang. The idea of selling our main striker and 50% of our goals sounds utterly stupid. But if a huge offer came in from China, for a 30 year old striker on big wages we would have to consider it given the rebuild we need. And by huge offer I mean enough so we could replace Aubamayang with another top striker and have maybe £50m change