I thought Holding, Mari and Xhaka were excellent under the late onslaught from Brighton. There weren’t any real chances for them late on but there were a lot of balls in the box and those 3 won everything and picked up some useful free kicks as well. Leno as well looked very assured on crosses. So important when you’re under pressure.

Send your report to Arteta or Edu

Saka did what we needed to do against that back 3. Dunk, Webster, Burn are huge but slow. You won’t beat them in on crosses, you won’t out muscle them but you can put pace them and dribble at them. Burn looked like he was inning in treacle chasing Saka back for the goal. The rest of the Brighton defence were terrified and backed off right in to their 6 yard box which gave Lacazette the space to hold his run and pick his spot

A huge 3 points ... build on it !!!!

Time to get back to bed ..... ZZZZ

Much less playing out from the back through Leno today. A change of style to reduce our weaknesses perhaps?

Someone in the Arsenal coaching staff must have seen this pattern, and asked Lacazette to hang back

I agree, I thought Bissouma was head and shoulders above our fairly passive centre midfield two.

Buy him and Lamptey and weaken our relegation rivals at the same time.

But he kicked the ball straight out of the field thrice. Reminded me of my golfing hooked shots.

I find it frustrating watching Martinelli because he plays that selfless inside forward role which makes space for Tierney but it limits the amount of touches he gets and he's got too much quality not to be involved in the game more.

I'm just glad to have him back. Hope Arteta uses him wisely and avoids any more injury problems. He already looks better than Pépé.

Burnley with another injury, Dyche complaining that they are stretched but he’s one of those voting against 5 subs. Of course he thinks it benefits bigger teams with deeper squads but it does anyway when everyone gets lots of injuries and fatigue.
I would say it’s more important for a team like Burnley to keep as many of their first 11 for than teams at the top because the drop off in quality to the reserves is so much greater.
5 subs needs to come in

A good Australian wine in the high humidity is the go here. I repeat, I would play Aubameyang but if he fails to lift we simply can’t guarantee any player a start. That’s how we got into the slide down the table and there is a long way to go in this season. Form players are required. I don’t need to see him score, I need him to be energised and make runs like Martenelli does.

Man U with a very lucky last minute win v wolves. They were awful, so were wolves and rashford speculatively hits one that takes a huge deflection and goes in in the 93rd minute. I can’t recall much bad luck Man U have had this year but my word theyve had some good luck. Their game v Brighton was one example, the penalties the clear penalty not given for Maguire’s foul v Chelsea, both West Ham and Southampton should have had them buried at half time in their games.
Got to be one of the worst 2nd place teams at this point of the season. Shows the lack of quality in the league of this Man U team are the best challengers to Liverpool the league can muster

I’ve seen some names we’ve been linked with, Diego Costa, eriksen, Isco- just no to all of them.
Go with players who are desperate and privileged to play for arsenal - none of those 3 are.

I also read someone saying we need to somehow get rid of the players who aren’t going forward with the club even if it means on loan with us paying all the wages. Why even have those players in training? Get training to be the players who we value and want to create the net airy and togetherness. I’m specifically talking about Özil and Sokratis

Agree on your points. As I used to tell young up and comers who arrived to work under me. Make yourself indispensable, give 100% effort, try to be helpful and even if at the end of your contract we don’t have the funds to keep you on you will have some experience, a good reference and other employers will have noticed you and want you. Simple really. There is no such message to a player thinking of retirement and just wants the easy options.

As for your point about Özil and others I think it is a good idea to invite them to train separately, but I would ask if they want to help train the 18’s and work on mentoring some of them. They can only say no which is okay. There is risk with this but if say Sokratis wants to be a coach in the future he will jump at it.

Sokratis is a hardworking player on the pitch. I am surprised he has fallen out with Arteta. Or has he?

He probably just wasn’t considered as good as all the other central defenders who did make it into the squad. To be fair to Arteta, it’s a decision I can understand.

Hi Rich,

I agree, not the sort of young and hungry signings with big upside potential that fans crave. Surely there must be some youngish south americans that Edu's contacts have spotted. If not for those kinds of players, what exactly is Edu doing here?

Definitely, in an ideal transfer window Sokratis would have left, it was made clear to him he wasn’t going to feature so it is up to the player and agent to find the best move for him. If there is nothing worth it for him then by all means he has the right to sit and see out his contract but I can’t think the squad would be better to just remove these players from training altogether

January is a hard window to buy in, but we need to be active.
Beundia from Norwich has been talked about but Norwich are top of the league and promotion to the prem is worth more to them than any value we can pay for their best player.
6 month loans are an option but then you’re talking about a player with a superb attitude and who is flexible and good enough to come in and make a difference straight away. I suppose that’s where Arsenal might think Isco or Eriksen fit the bill, if you had to take 1 you’d take Eriksen over Isco for sure but it just doesn’t seem like a wise move.
The profile for any new player is really simple for me, under 25, pace, power, natural athleticism, mobility....and an attitude with a desire for hard work and 100% effort every game. There are some great players in less fashionable premier league teams who would love to play for Arsenal.
Paul Scholes was asked before our win v Chelsea if he was a player still would he prefer to sign for Arsenal or Leicester right now. He didn’t hesitate to answer Arsenal because they are the bigger club.

Great news on the Oxford vaccine.

What's your take on the Saliba situation, Rich?

I am baffled by it.

Fofana seems to have taken to the PL like a duck to water.

I understand that Saliba has had personal issues to deal with and any family bereavement at his age is enormously difficult to handle but we appear to have dealt with the whole situation like a bunch of amateurs and probably alienated Saliba in the process.

I see Fat Sam has called out his players after losing 5-0 to Leeds, days after claiming himself the genius after the 1-1 draw with Liverpool. Fat Sam said ‘tonight put doubt in my mind about their dedication’ days after saying ‘I could do what Klopp has done if I had the same players, but he couldn’t do what I have done today (the 1-1 draw)’

What an odious man he is. So self centred and probably one of those people who only enjoys their life by making other people unhappy’

I hope we smash him in our next game. Another 5-0 would be lovely, but part of me would love a jammy 1-0 so it sticks in the back of his throat!

I baffles me.
On the one hand I’ve seen reports from U23 games that say he is still raw and makes mistakes so they can understand why he’s not considered ready, and he also had a lot of injuries last year, and every player adapts differently. But on the other hand we decided to give him the No.4 shirt, he showed himself good enough for one of the better defences in the French league, and if Arsenal are using this as a transitional season id much rather have Saliba in the team making mistakes and learning than the likes of Mustafi making the same mistakes. I pick Mustafi because he’s leaving us for free in the summer.

Leaving Saliba out of the Europa league squad seems particularly short sighted, we walked that group with our eyes closed, there was 6 games there he should have been playing no doubt in my mind. I think we have to find him a 6 month loan for the rest of the season then bring him back in the summer with a huge turnover of players and hopefully a covid free season and put it to him that this is the real start for him

Obviously there are some players leaving next summer including Özil, Mustafi, Sokratis and sadly Guendouzi. But I’m just not sure we’ll see what I would call a huge turnover. It isn’t the way Stan does things with his transfer budgets. There will be promotions for young players. Maybe even Saliba replacing Mustafi (I won’t count Sokratis as he hasn’t been in the squad). But if you see lots of players leaving and being replaced by cheap youngsters from elsewhere I think you’re living in cloud cuckoo land, to be frank.

Arsenal winning trophies is not a priority for Kroenke.

I'm optimising the forums speed right now so it may become unavailable for short periods whilst the tables are done.

Test
Edit - Fast again now.

That would be a terrible thing for a club of Arsenal's stature and traditions to do to a footballer. If the player was being highly disruptive or not wanting to train at all, maybe, but otherwise definitely not. Training is a major part of a player's life, as is the daily camaraderie with his team mates, and that must be recognised by a coach and club. As obviously important as they are, it is easy to forget that competitive matches constitute a small part of a player's week, the bulk of which is training and keeping fit. Guys who may no longer be part of the main squad are still Arsenal players, and until they leave, should be fully respected.

Great - I look forward to my walk around the park taking less time than usual. Can you do anything about hair loss?

And memory loss?

Oh, and memory loss?

Bernards department I'm thinking ...

Hi, I wasn’t necessarily thinking of banning them from the training ground. We can’t do that. It was more getting them anywhere else, getting a club to take them on loan with us covering all their wages.
By all accounts there is a split in the dressing room and I’d rather we just cut ties ASAP with anyone who is out of contract this summer

I do think there will be a big turnover, not necessarily every player leaving being replaced because the squad is hugely bloated as it is. But mustafi, Özil, luiz, sokratis, ceballos and macey are all out of contract this summer. As a minimum I’d suggest that requires a CB, a CM and a GK to be signed.
On top of that you’d have Lacazette, nketiah, Kolasinac, chambers and Elneny all with only 12 months left on their deals, decisions have to be made on all of them. It isn’t inconceivable that all 5 leave the clu bnb this summer as well. You could argue chambers and Kolasinac don’t need to be replaced but I think you’d need another CM and striker

Fat Sam sounds just like Trump, that idiotic American!

Without doubt for a variety of reasons that have been mentioned on here at one time or another. We have some dead weight.

The one position I can see us going for first in the transfer window is dynamic, playmaking center mid. One question for me is does Arteta go for a CB who can start right away or stick with what we have and hope Saliba comes good. If its the latter, Holding is making a name for himself. I doubt he will ever develop into Tony Adams and a starter for us but certainly he has the potential to be on the subs bench.

Do we need any other position? Back up GK possibly.

too fast now

We’ll see. I think you’re falling into the normal fans’ trap of getting excited about loads of forthcoming ins and outs. Myself, I suspect you’ll end up being disappointed with the number of ins.

7 players came in last summer when I don’t think we thought there would be that much change, including some high profile loans out and a clear desire to move on more and sign more. Gabriel, Partey, Willian, Ceballos, Mari, Cédric and Runnarson. Obviously 2 of those were loan deals made permanent and Ceballos was another loan but it is still 6 players who weren’t part of the summer 2019 squad on the first day.
The squad is too big so there will and should be more ins than outs. But I can envisage at least 4 new players in the summer.
I don’t think we’re going to spend huge amounts of money but I do think they will be looking at generating any money from sales and possibly have a net spend budget of around £30m.
I really don’t think we’re in a wenger like situation where we’re all desperate for additions but Wenger decides none are needed. The club clearly knows the squad isn’t good enough and a big churn is required.

Sky are reporting a deal with Shalke for Kolasinac is close. You’d hope with 18 months left on his deal we’d manage to get some sort of nominal fee. If we let him go for free it just shows what crazy wages he’s on for his ability