There are many things I don’t really get involved with but regarding the issues where I have the main responsibility, I explain my opinions to her.

I’ve never seen Saliba kick a ball so apart from what I’ve read I don’t have any real idea how good, bad or indifferent he really is. The club paid a lot of money for a kid of that age, so somebody at Arsenal clearly thought he was one hell of a prospect. Whether that someone was Sanllehi, Edu, Emery or whoever, I don’t know? But I can’t help having suspicions, considering how he’s apparently freezing Saliba out, that Arteta disagrees with the person that rated him as a prospect.

What concerns me just as much, or even more so considering that I haven’t seen Saliba play, is the way Arteta has decided to get rid of Guendouzi. I’ve seen enough of him to realise what a terrific prospect he is, however immaturely he may have behaved at Brighton last season. I simply don’t think the club can afford to lose a young player of that potential and nor do I believe he’s had a personality transplant at Berlin Hospital, the way people are speaking so highly of him at Hertha.

So in short socrates I’m yet to be convinced you’re wrong about Arteta. Sure, everyone makes mistakes but I feel he is making a big one over Guendouzi and might, or might not, be making another over Saliba.

If Wenger or George had felt that a 19 year old wasn’t ready for the Arsenal first team nobody would have batted an eyelid. Arteta said the player has come on leaps and bounds but had suffered some personal issues. Not sure why our fans feel the need to call out the new manager about every little thing as that seems a logical explanation.

An Arsenal mate of mine called me this week to chat and said he thought it was a foregone conclusion Arteta will get sacked. I agreed, you have this twitter generation type self created narratives people are now pushing no matter how silly paired with Arsenal’s organisational failure and massive rate of attrition at board level which makes his job impossible. There’s probably a manager in there but I doubt we will see it.

If Jay Bothroyd had thrown his shirt at Don Howe and Liam Brady and got kicked out the club in these times our fans would be calling for Wenger to be sacked. The state of people

I get what you’re saying TG, and clearly I’m for giving Arteta a least another 18 months minimum, but the questions over Saliba in particular are quite clear. It’s not even first team football, it’s any involvement with the team at all. I personally would love to see more of Nelson but he’s not getting the chances in the premiership. Saliba isn’t even in any squads. He was already playing first team football with glowing reports all over Europe. It does raise questions that necessitate fuller answers because the expectation was clearly that he’d be involved in at least some way.

If you read the quotes from Saliba they aren’t understanding of the situation they are despondent “I don’t feel like I’m part of Arsenal..” etc. it’s looking to be a massive waste of time, effort, talent and a lot of money is the issue. If there are good reasons for that, I’m not sure I know them.

I don’t think that’s true. It’s more like the Balogun situation, a player that looks better than Bothroyd - who had talent, and people are expressing some disappointment that he might leave not saying anything about Arteta.

So Arsenal need to start playing any 19 year old who thinks he’s ready for the first team ?

A logical explanation might be st Étienne polluted the guys thoughts during his loan about the cup final thing. It could be due to a personal issue. Somethings up with it I agree.

Regardless of somethings up and it’s probably nothing to do with the new manager who again like many things inherited whatever situation this is. We aren’t in the bottom half of the table because we aren’t starting Saliba

Might be
Could be
Probably
Whatever situation this is.

This is why people have questions. Journalists are now putting this directly at the feet of Arteta fairly or unfairly. And people are asking the question. I can’t see much wrong with that. I want to see Saliba play 5 minutes here and there at least. That should be the minimum expectation when you pay £30M for a player and when that doesn’t happen it’s not unreasonable to need a better explanation than the very little that’s come out.

I’m not expecting him to save the season and you can have discussions simultaneously. Are we not allowed to discuss anything that’s not directly the reason we’re 15th? Whilst wanting to see him given lots of time, I expect Arteta to make mistakes, he’s a rookie, not be an apologist for them.

That boy could have been a contender. He was a brilliant youth team player.

I’m not searching for apologies for his mistakes (if you consider this piddly shite mistakes) just pointing out the criteria for judging the arsenal manager has changed whereby previous managers would in no way have been criticised for deciding not to play an unproven 19 year old player like saliba or questioned for loaning out a player like Guendouzi who frustrated and pleased in equal measure.

Also I think it leads back to a point DHD made the other day that I thought was misconstrued on here when he said fans always think the player who isn’t playing changes everything. As much as I want to see AMN given a 10 game run I’m not foolish enough to believe it’s worth castigating Mikel on and would drastically alter our fortunes. I think this applies to Saliba and many other things but as you point out people are entitled to their opinions no matter how incorrect and stupid and can crack on

Indeed, and hopefully he can learn from mistakes as he develops. He appears to have the right character, and he is obviously an Arsenal man, so we want him to do well. Three points today will really help us all!

Nothing is inevitable in the twitter age, except the constant ventilation of people's insufficiently filtered, ill-considered and echo-chamber conditioned thoughts.

Mark my words: a couple of wins and the tune will change from 'the internationale' to 'land of hope and glory'.

Oh absolutely.

Aubameyang scores a couple and he’ll go back to being the saviour rather than being lazy since his contract waste of space people are accusing him of.

Southampton are going to give us a helluva game midweek. They are flying. Forget the team and the players we'll be playing a team 3rd in the league whilst we'll be down somewhere around 15th. It will be a very tough game.

Southampton have such a settled side. Of course the teams in Europe have to rotate but it is no surprise to me every season that the smaller teams who do well each season are those with the most settled side.

The salient points are
1) it the flack helpful? I am sure that Arteta is acutely aware of the problems he faces and the mistakes he has made. My sense is that he needs more space rather than more pressure.
2) We're 15th but if we win our game in hand we are only 6 points behind Chelsea. Put a run together and we'll fly up the table like a floater escaping from a submarine. Let see how it goes.

Yes but that's what everyone said about me.

Even a win today probably only moves us up 1 place in the table. The table is very congested but we're not in the congested part. A few good results in a row will pull us up no problem, but the longer we go on this bad run the further away the congested part of the table is. 6 points separate 3rd to 12th - but we're another 4 points behind 12th as it stands

Didn't realised we are so far back, 4 pts from 12th, wow!

We were well placed for a top 6 or even top 4, two matches ago. But we lost those 2 matches. We need wins. If we win, it won' move us up much but its not the intention. Movement up the table comes over time with a series of wins. We just need to start winning more than we lose or draw.

I envisioned a time we'd be at days like these. If you are a fan long enough you will go through barren years. Man Utd went through a long one and were the country's biggest club. It can be argued that Liverpool didn't go through a toto bad of a dry spell. In the 90s they won a league cup and FA cup. And other than the title won every other honor.

Sheff utd are a curious one this year. They have pretty much exactly the same team as last year except the GK and yet they have 11 defeats and 1 draw from 12 games this year but last year occupied the top 6 places for a long period. It is confidence. 11 lesser players full of confidence and knowing exactly what they should be doing on the pitch will beat a team of 11 more talented players low on confidence. Sadly I've always felt us more than any team seems to rely on confidence. It is rare that we dig out a win when not playing well any more.

If we are going to put a run of results together we couldn't have asked for a nicer set of fixtures to do so - it had to come after having already played 4 of the big 5 away from home.
Burnley (h), Saints (h), Everton (a), Chelsea (h) We need to be looking at 8 points from those. Even 3 home wins and a narrow defeat to Everton would be ok as far as I'm concerned, after that we have:
Brighton (a), West Brom (a), Newcastle (h), Palace (h) we need to be looking at 4 wins there if we have ambitions of top 4.
If we can come out of the next 8 with 6 wins and 2 draws it will do wonders for us. Nothing we've shown suggests we're capable of it though. On current form we could maybe squeak wins v Burnley and Newcastle at home, defeats to southampton, everton, chelsea and possibly draws in the other 3. 2 wins, 3 draws, 3 defeats will likely leave us exactly where we are currently in 8 games time.

C'mon Palace. Your good luck charm is cheering you on.
Always had a soft spot for them. Could have been my team at one time.

I don't see us beating Chelsea. A draw is what I envision. Winning today and against Soton is doable. I don't hold out much hope of Everton away. If we get 2 wins and 2 draws I'll be "happy". Not losing is important at this time. Losing becomes habit forming. The disgust with losses goes away after too many.

Not sure if anyone follows much of Scottish football but I've just read that Rangers right back James Tavernier has 37 goals and 42 assists under Gerrard. How is that even possible for a right-back?

Effen Kane.

"Hmmm...sounds suspicious" - Cafu

Again, the words lazy, money hungry or waste of space have escaped no-one's lips. He looks miserable devoid of confidence and is bang out of form. Why is it controversial to say this? Arseblog said basically Aubameyang was regularly digging us out of holes, and for now he seems to have lost his shovel. He was performing miracles and now he's not, and the team is playing terribly. Aubameyang is getting no OTT criticism as far as I can see.

But no Arsenal manager has had a William Saliba type situation, so I just don't agree. You spend the best part of £30M on a player, any player and then hear he's got no future under your manager before he's played 1 competitive minute? Please explain in what universe a manager isn't going to be asked to explain himself under those circumstances?

You must be joking, aubameyang, Pépé, Leno and arteta have every aspect of their contributions micro analysed

Particularly incredible for Aubameyang who saved our arses time and again last year

Yes, And he explained it logically and is still getting bashed over and over

For once you weren't Spurs' unwitting lucky charm. Well done!

Where did you hear that Saliba 'has no future' under Arteta?

I see he's been running his mouth on social media and Pépé called him out.

The two articles that people posted on here this weekend, it may or may not be true, but the lack of explanation leaves the vacuum to say it.

I don’t frequent twitter so haven’t seen any social medía developments

Florin Balogun is off to Liverpool apparently. Nevermind Arteta this club has problems all over the place. This is bigger than one man.

Sad if true.

I’m guessing that AFC vs Burnley on Sky is not one for the neutrals. On form guide it has boring 0-0 written all over it.

Please let it not be so.

So not true?

Remain Palace's talisman.
I find myself in the unenviable position of cheering for Liverpool at sperz expense.

As Soc said earlier when Arteta first joined us I loved him and his self assurance and his confidence at how he was going to turn us around
And I was excited at what lay ahead of us.
The f a cup win was incredible and I bought into him totally.
The non negotiable stance is great .....if applied to everyone equally. Guendouzi ok we dont know what he has been doing behind the scenes but all we can base it on is what happened against Brighton. Does that behaviour legislate for the kid being ostracized? Was there not another way??
Arm round the shoulder and a good talking too then move on.
Willian has been awful this season. He then goes to Dubai against orders and plays the next game.
He breaks the rules but still gets selected and selected where everyone can see he should be dropped.
I get that sometimes a manager doesn't fancy a player but a young defender we have invested 28m in is not getting a look in.
He was bossing it in france but is now not deemed to play against the likes of dundalk.
I find it frustrating that a player we beat spurs too a few summers ago is not being given a chance.
Yes we hear about the transition year he needs but how is playing in the under 23s going to help him in the long run.
Play him and see what he is capable of.
If the rumours are true and he goes and flourishes elsewhere then Arteta will look an absolute idiot.
I still back him but with every selection of xhaka and Willian and not freshening it up with others then my faith diminishes.
If we are serious about keeping Balogun then we have to give him a sniff of the league too.
Have him on the bench. Not sure a few Europa league cameos will be enough to persuade him a new contract.
Anyway let's see the team news....
I'll despair if I see xhaka and Willian selected again. Let's see what AMN can do in midfield.

Xhaka starts despite being an abomination in his last 2 performances

*%^@* sake Mikel