I am sorry, I forget that no one else on the forum is allowed to have an opinion that differs from yours.

He's invested so much time in Nketiah already this season, including starts in the PL, and suddenly he's not ready for an FA Cup game? Yet, he continues to start Willian who has been awful so far.

AMN is a young, versatile england international who could have played in either fullback position, or even in Willian's position, yesterday but he prefers to play Soares and run Tierney into the ground. AMN is possibly one of a group of players who is the future of the club but what must he be thinking if he isn't selected for a game in the FA Cup.

It just feels these decisions are not part of any coherent plan.

Hey I embrace other opinions but you dig the manager out about anything under the sun. If he plays Nketiah and we lose you’ll give him pelters for his “in game management” if he doesn’t play him and we win he gets pelters anyway.

The AMN thing is the only area where I think he’s making a mistake overlooking him.

ANM is the one big puzzle. Surely he at least needs to be coming of the bench regularly. I can even understand him continuing to give Willian chances, given the rather sporadic form of the likes of Pépé, and the dangers of being over-reliant on Saka, Smith-Rowe, and Martinelli.

The contrasting fortunes of Willian and Mkhitaryan ... food for thought?

But that's the way we sign most of our players !

We have to be a bit careful in any squad re-build that we have one eye on the homegrown player quota. I'm not saying keep home grown players for the sake of that if they aren't good enough but we do need to fill the squad out with the best ones. Saka and Smith-Rowe are clearly shining, for me AMN is next and even from what little we've seen of him Balogun just seems more suited to the role he plays than Nketiah or Willock.
If I was running the show I'd be looking for permanent moves away for Willock and Nketiah this summer - maybe with a 6 month loan right now to put them in the shop window. I'd also try to get Nelson out on loan.
Holding seems to be winning the battle between him and Chambers to stay - I don't think we should be keeping both.
We do need to keep an eye out for the best home grown players who can take places in our squad. Raya as aback up GK has home grown status. Lamptey at Brighton looks a prospect.

You could easily make a case for 15-16 of the squad to be moved on and there is a long list of players I'd move on before AMN, seems strange that he isn't getting a look in.

The AMN thing is just that he’s typecast now as a full back I think. It’s the same problem with any player who can play in multiple positions well and the thing we need to avoid with Saka.

I just believe Arteta is not a Forgiver. The likes of Saliba, AMN and Balogun must have done or said something which is not to his liking.

As someone who watched Don Revie’s anti-football Leeds team I am quite enjoying watching today’s cup tie. League 2 Crawley have just taken a 3-0 lead against Leeds with just 20 minutes left.

I usually live about 10 minutes away from Marine FC’s ground - how I wish I was there right now so I could go and flick a few v’s (and other things) at the Totteringham Spuds as they make their way to the ground.

Oh well, next time maybe.

So you've never forgiven Leeds have you?

I read somewhere that the Bank of England loan means Arsenal cannot buy new players until the loan is paid off, as it did with Tottenham. The Bank of England do not lend money to football clubs to buy players. If that’s right, the only signings we will make this window are loan deals.

I’ve been told that even a net zero spend (selling players to the same value as new signings) wouldn’t be accepted. I’ve heard the Bank of England do not gives loans out for clubs to buy players.

No. Never have. Probably never will.

The only other possibility I guess is a swap deal.

Embarrassing that spurs only field 1 academy player against a team 160 odd places below them in the league.

Spurs haven't repaid their loan yet bought players in September, which suggests that isn't true

Just looked this up. Hopefully you’re right.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegr ... spite/amp/

After 7-8 years at Chelsea, Willian sure picked a great club to retire in. All the creature comforts.

And furthermore....from Charles Watts.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.goal.c ... 5thhevelic

It just dawned me on that all of Kroenke's teams are suffering financially making it less likely that we will get any kind of relief from him. The LA Rams is his first priority. No question whatsoever. We are 2nd. His Denver teams aren't near our size. The NBA team Denver Nuggets has to be less than 1.5 billion dollars in value and don't even have a national following (like the Lakers or Warriors) much less an international one like we do. I could be wrong but 'technically' his wife owns the Nuggets I believe. But that's just on paper I think. He runs everything.

Lots of reports from reputable sources that Holding has agreed a contract extension. I think is current deal had another 2.5 years left. I think that is a sensible move. He's not a big earner, he's home grown, it protects his value and we're losing 3 CB this summer. Also, he's started a lot of games for us this season so is part of Arteta's plans. I'm still not convinced he is good enough to be our first choice CB for an entire season if we want to get back in the top 4 but as part of a group of CB he is useful.

I've always liked Holding since he played a superb FA Cup final against Chelsea a few years ago. He was early in his early 20s, thrown into deep end and did great. Since then he's had mixed performances, more bad than good ones probably but lately he's shown that same early promise.

He's not going to big Tone or Mustafi but he'll be a solid alternative when we get a proper, top quality partner for Gabriel. (I'm not name Saliba as that person yet).

I think City will end up vying for the title challenge with Liverpool. They are 4 points behind with 2 games in hand. I'd take Leicester over Man Utd for perceived consistency the rest of the season. So, my guess as to the finish will be either City or LFC, take your pick. Leicester and either Tottenham or Man Utd 4th and I'll give the nod to Mourinho.

I keep seeing people saying he’s not good enough to be first choice however I can’t recall many occasions this season when he’s let us down. That statement seems to follow him everywhere.

He rarely goes to ground or dives in which i always see as a key quality for a good centre half. His passing isn’t as expressive as David Luiz or Mustafi however he doesn’t make major cock ups unlike those guys either.

I’m not saying he’s world class But For me he falls into the same category as Leno, if they play well it gets overlooked and any aspect of any performance that doesn’t go to plan seems to land at their feet. He won’t be far off an England call up either if he keeps playing like he is

Interesting to read in Arsene's autobiography that a stipulation of the bank loans taken out on the new stadium was that not more than 50% of club expenditure could be on salaries. That was a major factor in being less competitive against the privately funded mega spenders.

Holding has been a very good acquisition. Coming back from injury as he did shows he is made of the right stuff, and at £2m something of a snip, especially compared to Mustafi signed the same summer at £35m, or Bailly (£30m) and Stones (47m).

My point with Holding is he has been a mainstay in the centre of our defence this season and we're 11th. I think he is a capable CB and one who can improve and one who can stay in the team as the rest of the team improves. If people think he's good enough to play 38 games a season and get us in the top 4 then they must also think we don't need any better quality in our central defence currently? I think he's good enough to be part of the squad but if we have desires to get back in top 4 and eventually challenge for the title I think we will need someone better. That isn't a massive slight on Holding as you could say the same for most positions in our squad.

Some word this morning that we are looking at a No.2 GK this window and to loan out Runarsson - with some interest in him apparently. Hopefully they didn't watch the Man City game

It is always the case that whilst any team is winning any new recruits are given somewhat of a bye. Liverpool have clearly been the best club in the transfer market over the last 4 years, but they are in need of integrating new players as the try to keep the motivation up of the players who won the league, start to replace some of the ageing players and have an eye on some other clubs wanting their players. Some recent purchases haven't gone as smoothly as before when everything they signed seemed to turn to gold. Keita (£50m), Ox (£35m) and Minimino (£7m) haven't really done anything for Liverpool yet. Winaldum looks like he might leave for free, the deadly front 3 are all pushing on to 30, Captain Henderson is 30+, Milner is really getting on and they have injuries at CB.

As a club you really need to be thinking all the time about the next player, if you rest on your laurels for even a single season you can take backwards steps.

To put that in Arsenal context we all know that we want to resolve our big problems in central midfield both defensively and creatively but before you know it our 2 main strikers will be either out of contract or getting well in to their 30's, there is always something that needs to be fixed or tweaked and we have to be ahead of the game with a plan for the next 5-6 years as well as considering the immediate problems.

You missed the letter ‘i’ out of the second word.

Yes it would be good to strengthen the defence with top quality if we can, but actually this season in the league we haven't been too bad - our goals against record is equal sixth best. Unusually our attack has let us down - thirteen other teams have scored more, and over a third of our league goals have been scored in the two matches against Chelsea and The Baggies. Good thing is we look to be going in the right direction and Holding is doing his bit.

Arteta spoke about the GK situation and it seems to me the gist was that because the martinez deal happened quite late we didn't have time to bring in a No.2 gk and so runarsson got promoted to No.2 when he was always a No.3.

Even as a 3 it doesnt make sense because he takes up a non home grown spot.

Fabrizio Romano (very good on transfers) say Lille want 35m euros for Boubakary Soumaré. He's very raw but has a lot of the athletic attributes in CM that fit right in this league

Away to Southampton or Shrewsbury

If we get past Southampton or Shrewsbury, we’re away to Chorley or Wolves.

Horrible draw.
We will do well to get past Southampton and Wolves away

The weekend before our Prem game with them also at Saints ground.

Winnable surely. I wouldn’t be too despondent

Not to kibosh us but we have yet to lose to Soton in the FA Cup - four wins and draw, and against Wolves we have lost just twice in thirteen matches. Shrewsbury three wins and a draw.

Özil was asked on his Twitter to name his best arsenal 11 from his time at the club
Ospina, sagna, Kos, mertesacker, Kolasinac, Cazorla, ramsey, gnabry, sanchez, Özil, Aubameyang.

Obviously Kolasinac is his best mate....and Gnabry is a fellow German.....but Ospina!

I read we’ve played Southampton 3 times in the fa cup, and each time we beat them and went on to win the cup