We are a club in transition ........................... again!
For how long have we been in transition? I think it started when Stan bought the club. Holding up hopes that Arteta gets us out of the transition loop next season. Then again, the same was said when Emery was appointed. I am hoping Arteta has the guile and guts to make the right but difficult decisions for his squad.

I was thinking that our handling of the Saliba situation might come back to haunt us sometime in the future. We failed to do whatever we can to let him play in the Final. We should have empathised with his thinking. When would he ever get into another French Cup Final again? It was his first chance of a major silverware, and we did not do our best to give him that chance. And if we continue on our ambition-less ways, he will soon look elsewhere, or his head will be turned whoever is calling. I expect him to impress in the Arsenal team (difficult not to, given who we have), and make MOM in many games. He will surely attract interest.

Arsenal star David Luiz caps off horror season with unwanted Premier League record

https://www.foxsports.com.au/football/p ... 1695c708a8

Luiz has now given away a whopping FIVE penalties this season - the most a single player has given away in one season.

Congratulations to David. it is not easy to achieve at such a high level. What is remarkable is the fact that Arteta decided to have another year of him. What a salesman he is.

"...and Mustafi said 'Had I been healthy the record would have been mine. Let's see about it next season.[ "

Is he still knocking off your girlfriend then?

On the discussion about selling players, we need to be smart about it this summer. Looks like our budget won't be that big this summer so offloading the right players might be essential.

For example, we have too many central defenders. With Luiz extending, Mari being signed permanently and Saliba coming over you have to figure those three are penciled in to feature a lot. We probably need two more in the squad, so that leaves two spots for Sokratis, Mustafi, Holding and Chambers. I would be looking to sell Holding and Chambers. I like them both but it's clear they're not going to be the top players we hoped for. With them being 25 and homegrown they're worth money, I'd say about 20m each under normal circumstances, and it makes no sense to have valuable assets like that in backup roles when we need to strengthen.

Other players who we might get good money for that seem expendable are Torreira, Lacazette and Martinez. Arteta is looking like a really good manager prospect, so it's really important to get this summer right and give him a squad to work with.

I do wonder if selling some of the young players might be an option.

People tend to over rate the young players. I don’t see much in willock that suggests he will make it at the highest level. Nelson looks quite good and has pace but seems to constantly run down blind alleys or just recycles possession. We dont seem to be harnessing his potential. Nketiah ? I’m sorry but if Lacazette was turning in those performances he would be getting ripped.

If you sold Nketiah, Maitland Niles and willock you might be able to get 10 million each from a championship club.

Maybe it’s me but I don’t see the blinding potential others seem to and actually they all look a bit lightweight in my eyes.

Saw a funny headline today. "Chelsea willing to listen to offers of over £50m for Kepa" He's been awful. That price tag is solely set based on how much they paid for him rather than his ability.
That would be the 3rd highest transfer fee for a GK of all time, Kepa is barely worth £15m based on his performances this year.

This is the difference between the uber rich and the rest. Chelsea can loan him out, or take a big hit on his transfer fee and are uneffected by the loss. If everyone else makes these sorts of mistakes they have to either live with the poor player or any loss made in selling them seriously dents their ability to strengthen the squad.

I thought I would have seen all of them but I haven't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGloYtTZvTk&list=WL

https://www.football365.com/news/premie ... -liverpool
A relegated 11

Interesting to note Liverpool have signed a player from a relegated club in each of the last 5 seasons.

Ake looks the best buy here but I think he's Man City bound

If I'm found bound and gagged, there is one prime suspect...and he will have accomplices.

Doucoure would be a cheaper (can't imagine he'd cost £45m) alternative to Partey, knows the PL and is literally right on our doorstep. Or over the hedge, if you prefer (training ground observation there). His performances may have dropped off a bit at the end of the season but he is very talented player, and at 27 should be approaching his peak.

Rich....who are the 5 ? ...Robertson the left back...I'm guessing.....Gomez,Shaquiri,?

Have not seen enough of Mari to know if he'll be good enough. I'm excited about Partey. The fact we bought a person of his calibre for that position gives me hope. Saliba? Well he comes with a good reputation, but he's young and who knows how he will pan out. I am optimistic.

Eh? Is that a fact now?

Can’t find any corroborating info.

Is that the tune Mustafi thinks of when you’re online then?

Robertson, Shaquiri, Winaldum, Ings......and they bought that young lad Harvey Elliot from Fulham when Fulham were relegated.

A player not mentioned in the list who I like is Delafauo from Watford, out with a long injury at the moment. Very much a 5/10 one week and 9/10 next week player so I'm not advocating his signing, but a tricky winger who can frighten the life out of teams. Similar to Sarr on the other flank at Watford, destroyed Liverpool but then you don't hear about him for 4 games.

I wonder if anyone will look at Buendia from Norwich. I think only De Bruyne created more chances than him this season. A good creator in a poor team with poor finishers can be overlooked. We certainly need some creativity.

My money will be on you having to be satisfied with a longer deal for Ceballos.

Surprise surprise the red card given to a Brentford player, Ricoh Henry, for one of the worst sliding tackles you'll ever see, against Swansea has been rescinded........................

Hi Gooner7
In transition...more like in stagnation.

You’ve earned yourself laughing emoji Zed.

Oh it can happen if, big if, Arsenal pay the £45.6m release clause prior to Atletico (Riojiblancos) doing any business with them. The £22.5M bid remains rejected by AM.

Right ltg, its not a done deal. I misspoke (or wrote). Still in negotiations. Knowing us, we won't end up getting him and he'll be in a sperz shirt with our luck.

I'm not looking forward to the cup final be honest. I just can' bear to watch Chelsea beat us. Yes, I'm pessimistic. I'll watch but if it looks bad early, I'll go over to HGTV and see what patterns the host picks for her renovations. That would be more interesting than seeing Chelsea lift the cup.

It would be almost as painful if we lose on PKs as well. I hope and pray we win and there are at least a couple cup finals I can recall us winning when it looked like we were outclassed but I'm not optimistic.

I'm sure that is on the cards.
I'm also expecting us to thrash out generous terms on a loan deal for Coutinho and a free transfer for Willian. And any other client of Joorabchian.

Willian has said "if chelsea offer a 3 year deal give me the pen and i'll sign the deal' They've only offered 2 years. His sole motivation is getting that 3rd year on a hefty contract - by which time he'll be 35. Is that really the route we want to take?

Saw some excited Arsenal fans on twitter because Arsenal were filming some kind of promotional video by the Henry statue, lots of stage smoke etc. Excitable fans piecing together than Henry was No. 14 and Aubameyang is No.14 so this is the clubs way of announcing his new contract!

Stranger things have happened, Arteta has certainly been making positive noises and you'd think he'd just stay on the fence on the matter if negotiations weren't going well. Arsenal have a habit of suprising us, good and bad, recently.

I'm not convinced, but I decide to post this to cover both bases and refer back to this post if it is true!

If it is true that Arsenal have offered Guendouzi + £22.5m for Partey instead of paying the £45m release clause then Arsenal must value Guendouzi at 'only' £22.5m. He has his limitations but given his age and his skillset (which is actually quite a rare set of skills for young central midfield players) I would expect us to be valuing him more than £22.5m.

Sell him for £30m plus and put that cash towards the Partey deal if Atletico want straight cash

Ah. I just got excited for a moment. Thought it was a done deal.

No idea if he’d improve us though. After all I got excited about Pépé coming.

Hi Rich,

I don't think anyone is quite sure how to value players post Covid but £22.5m seems utterly ridiculous for a player of his age and talent.

Our transfer policy these days seems to be selling players for as little as possible whilst silmultaneously signing any clients of the superagents on fat contracts no matter how old or useless they might be.

We’ve all been waiting to see the back of Özil, even if it won’t happen until the end of his contract on 30th June 2021. All that signing Coutinho would do is give us two Özil’s next season. Another talented, bone idle player who stinks the place out. He was terrible at Bayern this season and was terrible at Barcelona before that.

If we do sign Willian on a three year deal and Coutinho, then in my view Sanllehi deserves to be looked at very seriously for his relationship with their agent Kia Joorabchian. He’s got to be on back handers from Joorabchian, surely?

I don’t think you can describe Coutinhos loan at Bayern terrible!

8 goals and 6 assists from a midfield player in a new league isn’t a bad return, better than our entire midfield put together. I think it’s fair to say he hasn’t reached the expected heights however he’s got more talent than our entire midfield put together right now.

https://youtu.be/RiKf1E6YNXU

Willian is another matter completely. Wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole I actually think Pépé is a better player anyway

Terms like ‘terrible’ are subjective for footballers. I’ve said I don’t watch Bayern as much as I used to, but do follow chat rooms for their fans that are translatable to English (I don’t speak German).

I’ve seen enough from Bayern fans who do watch them, and whose opinions I have grown to respect, that makes me comfortable with using terrible as a subjective description of his time there. Also, the club had the option to sign him permanently and firmly decided against it.

All I can say is that I wouldn’t go near Coutinho with a barge pole. I think the chances are we’d be doubling up our problems with Özil next season by having two highly talented players with little or no motivation. My vote is for staying well clear of him.

I think some well structured loan deals can be helpful to us next year. Ceballos has played well recently but wasn't much cop at the start of the season, but without him we'd have been worse off. We certainly can't afford to sign a player of his calibre AND sort out the other areas of the team. So if that means taking a couple of carefully thought through loans, with loan fees and wages then I think it is the way we have to play the current market.
Rumours are we're looking to secure another year loan for Ceballos which is good. If Coutinho came on loan - assuming the ridiculous paper talk of £30m loan fee is absolute rubbish I'd be ok with that as well.

The tactics for the cup final have to be pretty similar to the semi final.

One key area will be using Lacazette to man mark or cut off the passing channels in to Jorginho, as he did to City's deep midfielder. Joringho didn't start the game at the Emirates when we dominated for 30 mins then Jorginho came on we sat off him, didn't have the stamina to press and chelsea came back and won it late on.

If Arteta can get the high but controlled press working alongside the deep defensive block then we have a chance.

Chelsea's main difference to City is they have a target man in Giroud that they can go longer to and then tricky players like Mount, Willian, Pulisic who can pick up the pieces around him. If they do that and those 3 get behind our midfield pair then it's curtains for us.

Klopp may eclipse Man Utd for most titles before he leaves. I keep hearing he won't renew a contract but who knows. If it can't be us and I have to choose between Man Utd and Liverpool for most titles, then I'll go with Liverpool. Had I grown up in England when Liverpool were all conquering I might change that.

Looking at the all time list, I was surprised to see that Villa has a fair amount of titles (7) but what struck me was that they were runners up 10 times. The meat of their titles came about when Victoria was queen but impressive nonetheless. More than City and Chelsea can claim.

I want us to put a bit more daylight between us and Man Utd for most FA cups. Looking it up online, Tottenham has a phenomenal finals record, 8 out of 9 wins. Wow! I didn't realize they had so many wins.

I'd also love to spend some weeks visiting various grounds, not just PL but others. I can only claim to have seen 3 grounds, all in London. Years ago as a uni student I visited Gateshead (long story), and a few other cities but that was years ago.
Strange as it may sound, I'm not particularly interested in seeing Old Trafford. Anfield, yes. Must sees: Brentford, Millwall, Tottenham so I can spit on it. Outside London...hmmm...the northeast, Newcastle and Sunderland, Cardiff, Celtic and Rangers, Leeds, but also Preston NE, Portsmouth, Forest, Cambridge, and a few others.

I would be saying no to Coutinho and Willian.
They could both transform the creativity in our team but long term they are the wrong type of signings for the stage we currently are as a club.
We should be using the scouting route of identifying players and not this lazy arse way of feeding off these so called super agents.
I was really excited with the appointment of edu as was hoping for more vibrant young signings like martinelli.
I know there is talk of this Portuguese talent at sporting Lisbon called Fernandez but I find possible signings of Willian despite the good player he is lazy and underwhelming.
We are a massive club but we have to be boxing clever like the likes of Dortmund and Leipzig and finding more young talents before they make it big.
Given a 3 year deal to Willian at 250 a week means we are going down the same stupid Özil route.