Wenger said he doesn't think Malcom will happen in January, which is hardly the same as saying we won't sign him at all.

I actually admire your stand Old Man .... like a lone decrepit Maunsell Fort standing bravely against the relentless anti Wenger waves

but let's face it in basic terms; be he .....postman , mechanic , airline pilot ......
turnip farmer [ Johnny Boy ] bu*lshit artist [ Oz Gaz ] misguided hardarse [ Top Gun ] referee overseer [ Richie , Lom ] hair splitter [ Bernard ]
historian [ Exiled ] mole digger [ Hoxton ] wine waiters at Raffles Goonie & G7 ,

Reindeer herder [ Hazuki ] Computer whizz kids [ Warrior & Granty Boy ] Wiltord watcher [ Niall ]

Wishes he was a Kiwi [ John 1 ] wishes he knew something about football [ Socrates ] some half arsed consultant DHD , eater of king Cobras [ Decaf ]

general dogbodies Bored , Brom , Zed , Master of the Short Word [ Abu ] my old sparring partner [ Harlow ] ... worse than Socrates [ Bubblechris ]
Still plays with a personally signed wooden Pancho Gonzales racquet [ Long Time ] wanna be John Grisham [ McQ ]
scriptwriter and general fairy floss [ Daz ] Irish nice guy Dec , Frank's son in law Darren ; dearly departed Mee, Fishbar

plus TomC .. worker from hell Kurty Burt ... would all agree no -one should hold a job position on past glories ..... if you can't hack it at the present time ...... you should go .

Let's face it if you as Bingo caller down the church hall , keep f***up the calls ... you should be replaced .... ?

We are in the main playing laboured unattractive football , it's time for change , and if you can't see that .......well have this in your dotage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA_0v78e_fw ...greatest musician of all time

As usual you have missed the point Rich was trying to make. The investment in the team for this season just isn't there. There's always tomorrow with us isn't there but it's more likely Malcolm will end up smashing a load of goals for the remainder of the year prior to a 60 million pound summer move to Bayern Munich.

That's a strange conclusion considering I didn't comment on the point Rich was trying to make.

According to Wikipedia these are the appearances and goal figures for Mkhitaryan.

2006–2009 Pyunik 70 (30)
2009–2010 Metalurh Donetsk 37 (12)
2010–2013 Shakhtar Donetsk 72 (38)
2013–2016 Borussia Dortmund 90 (23)
2016– Manchester United 39 (5)

In his last year for Dortmund he got 11 goals in 31 games his best season with them. These are all league figures - they do not include the cup games.

He might be Theo's replacement but I have serious doubts.

You did it in a separate post and are now backtracking to try and make it look like your not the fool that you are

People seem to have missed the fact when the last transfer window closed all the stories were that we would be back for Lemar in January. What happened?

So, to make this clear:

Wenger says he doesn't think we'll sign Malcom in January.

You claim Wenger has said we won't be signing Malcom.

I point out the discrepancy between the two statements.

You take this as me defending the problems with Arsenals entire transfer strategy as described in a completely separate post from another poster.

And now I'm the fool? Yeah, nice try.

It was a commentary you made on the previous 2 comments that were aimed at squad investment mainly. Ouch you missed the point and are looking silly by continuing it, I'd suggest stopping.

Thanks for trying to tell me what I was commenting on, but you're wrong. I think Rich was right from start to finish in his post, so I didn't need to comment on that.

I was just pointing out your misrepresentation of Wenger, as misrepresenting the words of others is such a pattern of yours. You're probably aware of this and embarassed of being caught out again so you're throwing a hissy fit. The press conference with Wenger is available for free on arsenal.com for anyone to listen to so you don't have to admit you're full of it.

Hey Kiwi, you appear to have made a typo regarding me....... what you obviously meant to write was "incredibly handsome, intelligent and knowledgeable (Socrates)".

This rule about being able to pay 7% extra on wages year on year seems to be a load of bollox where Man U are concerned.
Looking at all the high profile players that Jose has brought in who would be paid more than players who are there and now he is bringing in Sanchez at gawd knows how much a week.
Yes I know he offloaded Rooney but I wouldn't mind betting they had to pay a big chunk of his wages for him to go to Everton.

Funny how we include all staff wages yet most other PL clubs only the players?, a cynic might conclude this is a convenient way of Arsenal not spending too much on wages and thereby allowing Kroenke to attain more profit whilst pointing to it just being a case of "adhering to the rules", surely not..

Speaking of Leicester, Mahrez isn't our target any more?

With 19 goals last season I thought he would get more starts in the league this season. Guess Lacazette's signing was the end of the road for him. Still think Walcott would have benefitted more if we play two upfront. Strange that two upfront is so out of fashion.

If he is to be successful he will need good people around him - he doesn't have any knowledge about how academies work - or should I say how they have to work in this country.
There are many facets to having a successful academy and having an Ex-Pro running it isn't high on the list of qualifications.
He may be excellent, but is a huge gamble.
I'm not getting at anyone, but it does "amuse" me that people make the assumption that because someone has had a good playing career that they will automatically be a good coach, academy manager or some other non-playing role.
Liam Brady was my idol, and someone I have utmost respect for in terms of our academy, but, in my opinion put on some really poor coaching sessions.

Arrogant (his post match press conference at WBA last season after an abject display was a triumph in that respect), egotistical, greedy, selfish (to the point where he refuses to accept what the world and his wife knows, to the detriment of the club he professes to love so much). Not qualities that I find particularly likeable in a person but as Daz says, each to their own. And I'll save you the bother....ZZZZ

I think the clue here is the highlighted word.
The press really know zero about transfers when it comes to Arsenal.

The biggest difference is we include all payments to staff, which others don't - e.g. image rights

So it's a level playing field at least.

Its OK to like Arsene Wenger and Sibelius. 'Love and only love will endure. Hate is everything you think it is.' Hate on, losers.

We only include staff wages in our accounts and reports, not for the basis of this rule.

For sure, if Mertesacker is not supported sufficiently, and tries to change too much too quickly it could be a disaster. Hopefully his role will be more of a figurehead one, making more macro than micro decisions, at least until he has been in the role for a while. He's obviously been hired for his character, work ethic and demonstrated desire to embed himself in the fabric of the club rather more fully than most. I guess it will be inspiring for kids to get advice from someone who can say that they went from being a limited amateur at school to world cup winner due to intelligence, dedication and self awareness. Not as cool as having Thierry about but possibly more useful, because Mertesacker exceeded the ceiling his physical and technical gifts should have imposed.

Yeah...the only one who is reliable is Ornstein because he is happy to break a story later to be more accurate.

It is although your level of denial of the problems afflicting our club is kind of the other extreme really.

Neil Young's done some ropey old *%^@ in his time as well.

I hasten to add that I don't HATE Wenger. It's only football. I just think he's overrated in some quarters, stinking the fridge out like five day fish, and a bit of a plank.

He said another thing today that makes no *%^@*** sense at all and yet delivers it with the kind of solemnity that makes suckers like you (hey if you can go around zzzzing everybody and calling them losers then have some sauce you old gander) lap it up and consider him a Solomon.

When asked whether Aubameyang would fit in, he replied: "Yes because a character can be of a very positive note and can be a very negative note.

"I believe that overall you look at the achievement of a player during his career and usually when a career has been very positive, the character has been used in a positive way."

Wenger specialises in this kind of barely coherent guff.

So if we do sign Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan how do we set up with those two AND Özil and Lacazette? Because surely the later two can’t be dropped?
That is 4 players who thrive centrally. Can anyone recall where Mkhitaryan played and in what formation when he was at Dortmund?

Is this the culmination of wenger’s obsession with central players and he’ll play 4-2-2-2 with zero width at all?

It's just spin, Daz. Asked an awkward question about a potential signings character, he turned it into a positive which the player will undoubtedly like.

I thought Mkhitaryan was a right sided midfielder when he played for Dortmund but am happy to be corrected.

Didn't he miss a couple of great chances against us in one of the fixtures in Germany?

Yeah, think he's been primarily used on the right side and as a no 10 throughout his career. Whenever I've seen him he's always looked quite ambidextrous, so he can probably play all across the front line.

Plenty of reports from Germany that Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan are as good as done deals. Hope we at stil give Malcom a real try, loan him back for the rest of the season if it's the only way. We need to build for the future, not just sign stop gaps, however good they are.

I wonder if our new chief scout can tempt some more Dortmund players over. Reus has been admired by Wenger for years - he's got a classic Arsenal injury record as well.

I'd be more interested in Pulisic and Weigl. Two very good young midfielders.

It's gibberish.

He's meant to be smart according to his hagiographers.

Hmmm...

You're not wrong, but at this point it kind of feels like I'm fluent in Wenger gibberish. I think the point Wenger was trying to make was that Aubameyang has been accused of being selfish and having a bad attitude (which was what the question was about) but seeing as he's had a very successful career he's managed to turn his attitude into something positive.

Although if I wanted to make that point I would probably not use the sentence "I believe that overall you look at the achievement of a player during his career and usually when a career has been very positive, the character has been used in a positive way."

Since we don't get those down here, and I presume they haven't featured in any Indian cuisine I have enjoyed, I take it you mean that as a metaphorical reference to my potency and prowess in battle?

American may have a point. Did Theo ever have a 'right position' to be out of?

I think Wenger can be compared to a modernist artist. One person looks at his work & interprets it as the artist was trying to get X message across. Then along comes someone else who says he was expressing anger at the modern society.

Then along comes a number of people who ask ‘ what the f is that supposed to be.’ Well my interpretation of the latest press conference is in line with the last group.

Perhaps you should be our next back-room appointment. As a translator.

I've been thinking for some time that this might be the root cause of many of our on-field problems. While it's easy to blame them on a lack of coaching, Wenger being unable to motivate the players, Bellerin's pusillanimous hairdo, etc, could it be that the players simply have no idea what on earth the manager is going on about?

It's noticeable that the coherence of his spoken English has declined markedly in the last few years. Of course 21 years in the English game will do that to anyone, but he's no Trevor Brooking, that's for sure.

Exactly my point. Substitute "press conference" for "team talk" and look what you get.

At this point I'm not even confident of 6th place, though still hoping to be spectacularly wrong.

You're obsessed with Arsene Wenger. Is that good for you?