If he had any respect for the club he'd leave the country. Spain, PSG, Bayern, Juve, he couild be at a big club overseas and win things. Henry and Fabregas at least had enough respect not to go to a direct rival after they left. Fabregas at least tried to come back as well.

My guess is Mkhitaryan is going to play well so he can go somewhere else soon thereafter. Arsenal is now a stepping stone club , not a final destination for great players.

Yes, Fabregas forcing a move and refusing to play while under contract really showed how much he respects the club.

Not especially and there was little by way of glory in the 70s and 80s.

Yes they made some big signings but the key to their most sustained period of success was a manager who knew how to develop and nurture youth, pick up excellent bargains, and build and motivate teams with a combination of flair and utility. One of the most interesting things about Ferguson as a manager was his understanding of the importance of unglamorous players like the Nevilles in teams that contained players like Giggs and Cantona.

Compare and contrast to our own manager (I know I know, it is SO unfair to pick over and "deconstruct" what he says to the newspapers but a cat can look at a king sometimes) and the analytical brilliance of: "I just play the good players they can always play together".

From now on, whenever someone says the world’s smallest violin is playing they will be wrong, because the smallest violin in the world by far will forever be playing for the guy who just signed a £100m contract, after his terrible ordeal at Arsenal where he was paid close to £200k a week to kick a football around.

So you think anyone who hates Wenger hates Arsenal. You must feel loads of Arsenal fans hate the club they support then. Because hearing what many of our fans say and what many write about Wenger, I'd suggest a large number could reasonably be defined as hating Wenger.

Also, if you didn't block so many people you might have spotted a post detailing what Allardyce said of his relationship with Wenger. It didn't sound like hatred at all to me.

Actually in relation to Mkhitaryan an article I read recently said that Klopp could not get anything out of him but it was the next manager who got him playing well and his figures bear that out.

As for Wellbeck - joined us on 1/9/14 and managed only 68 league appearances for 13 goals. Spends a lot of time injured. This season he started in the losses to Liverpool, Stoke, Watford, Bournemouth, Notts Forest, Cologne. He came on as sub in the loss to Man U. Scores overall at .21 goals per game in his EPL career. Remember he has played at CF for us on some occasions. I have heard people say he is good for the team. 18 assists in his whole EPL career.

Overall EPL stats
Premier League Record

Appearances 186
Goals 39
Assists 18

That'll help kiwi a lot Rog; he can't even spell 'Ramsay' properly.

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/sanchez- ... a8f42cw5ov

What an *rse!

Enjoying the longcut that replaces "evidence-ignoring, semi-whimsical apologia for gibberish-spouting manager trading on past glories - based largely on selective evidence, special pleading, faux-nostalgia and rank conjecture" with the letter Z

The truth hurts. Most of what he said is the truth.

His first season in Bundesliga he had 9 goals and 10 assists as an attacking midfielder. Would not describe that as not getting anything out of him. It was an excellent debut season. Second season he struggled (as did Sanchez for Arsenal, by the way), and had a couple of injuries. Third season he was widely recognized as one of the best players in the league. Overall his spell att Dortmund was seen as a big success.

I have my reservations about how successful he'll be at Arsenal, but let's not pretend there's not a fantastic basic talent there.

As for Welbeck, no need to cite his scoring record – never called him a goalscorer because he’s not. I called him a good squad player. Works hard, creates space for teammates and can chip with the odd goal here and there. He’s also versatile and can play in a couple of different positions. You don’t need to look further than the FA Cup final that saw us dominate Chelsea to see what he brings to the table. He didn’t score in that match, but was one of our best players anyway.

Shush ...... we are but a minority view on this, don't attract attention

In your opinion - but whatever the 'truth', it still makes him an *rse.

He's a grown man, earning a massive fortune, supposedly used to dealing with pressure. And how does he know he's going to be 'loved' at that place?

I see the point your Making about Aubameyang however if reports are led to be believed his mooted wages are between 170k to 200. Sanchez is on 500k a week, plus they paid 10 million to his agent. It's considerably more risk.

I agree with you on our signings from united, they would never allow a player to join us from them that would provide a massive improvement to our team like we have. There was a reason Alex Ferguson helped broker the Welbeck move, they had a look at him and didn't see him as a valued addition to their squad and wanted to move forward. Mhiki is slightly different as we dangled a carrot and clearly he's a decent player but they weren't about to let us have Martial or anyone else they saw with a decent future.

AW never dropped him, did he? The first time Mourinho does the sulk will return.

I'm hoping Mkhitaryan will replace Cazorla and that Xhaka will become the squad player that he is.

If Aubameyang come Welbeck will find it harder to get a game. Ramsey will have to learn to adapt to playing on the right so our only erious problem hereon in is going to be our defence.

Hopefully the bubble will fit in and Kola will learn to defend so our only real problem will be replacing Kos eventually.

Forgot the goalie, well enough said.

Plus on Welbeck he's now 27 years old.

I'm not againest him and think he's a decent addition to the squad and can on occasion make a positive contribution but he's 27 years old now and has at no point set the world alight in his career. His contract apparently is over 100k a week with a renewal discussion due this summer as he will be in the Sanchez situation this summer with 1 year to run. The club are at a fork in the road with the player and I bet they must be considering cutting their losses.

Top Gun, Manchester United's coach said Ferguson would never have sold Welbeck to Arsenal if he'd still been manager. Also, well AFTER the transfer Ferguson said Wenger would have been mad not to sign Welbeck. That doesn't sound like brokering the deal to me.

Alex Ferguson said that ? Wow I'm convinced, he'd never want to do one on Wenger would he. He's clearly got our best interests at heart.

I suppose you would let Barnier sort out Brexit on his own as we can trust him would you.

If he was that good United would never have let him go. Get real

Read my post. Ferguson said it well AFTER the transfer. Also the coach at the time said Ferguson would never have sold him to Arsenal. You're making this brokering the deal stuff up.

Van Gaal and his spotless transfer record strikes again. That same summer he spent roughly £150m on Herrera, Rojo, Shaw, Di Maria, Blind and Falcao, so clearly he could not have made an error in judgment with regards to Welbeck.

Or maybe Ferguson said he wouldn't have sold Welbeck because, as Daz said earlier, Ferguson understood you needed solid squad players to win.

yeah you've only just staggered back into the ring because the Latvian has waved a bottle of battery acid under your nose and said "Go get him Tiger "

For goodness sake mate, he was their academy player. They had to say positive things about him as they saw him grow up from a boy to a man. He was one of their own but it sadly hadn't worked out as he hadn't made the grade so they let him go with good grace and a host of positive comments.

Also another important factor is being missed. Arsene didn't want him either ! We were completely screwed as Giroud had got injured and arsene wanted a short term loan if you remember but united refused and a last minute transfer was scrambled through. I guarantee you Bernard if united had loaned him to us rather than sold him permanently he wouldn't still be an arsenal player today as Wenger wouldn't have made it permanent.

This isn't answering Bernard's point though.

Battery acid? meh. It was the 'Tiger' that did it for me - I felt the love and I needed to be loved.

I'm not a huge fan of Welbeck by the way and don't think he's much of a squad player certainly not compared to Giroud who is almost the embodiment of that role.

not only can I not spell Ramsey Ramsay Romney Marsh ... I can't understand this one either [ neither if you're Welsh ]

Isn't this supposed to be aimed at Hoy

It's interesting about Sanchez because I feel no anger towards him and I'm not remotely bothered if financial issues affected his new contract talks when he had seen out the old one.

He isn't a very loveable player though - only an idiot would deny his match-winning quality but there's just something about him that is a little off-putting (apart from his face). Although his face is a guide because actually he can look quite endearing sometimes but there is a quality that just makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. about it as if it hasn't quite been put together correctly. I will be very interested to see how he fares under Mourinho at United. Haven't got a clue just as nobody has a clue how Mkhitaryan will do under Wenger.

The difference to me is Welbecks versatility and our formation. If we started playing with two strikers I'd keep Giroud over Welbeck in a heartbeat.

I think his finishing is a serious problem for him. He can do some fancy stuff on the wing and alarm defences but I just don't think that's really enough.

Yes. He's ignoring me though. Zzzz.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzFXEIAlVEw[/youtube]

RIP

Well for completeness then Wenger said afterwards Ferguson had acted as a pivotal intermediary in the transfer as they were both attending a managers event together overseas whilst it was being scrambled through.

In terms of the lavish praise given to Welbeck it's part of wishing someone well on their way as 39 career goals (Kosielny has 20 for us) for a striker points to united doing a job on us rather than vice versa.

Also, I think Giroud deserves to go somewhere where he would start. He has served the club well and received a lot of stick for basically not being as good as Henry or van Persie.

I'm not bothered about him either, which is kind of what I meant by him not being 'Arsenal'. van Persie I considered 'Arsenal', so I was well dischuffed with him; likewise Fabregas.

I am however annoyed that Sanchez trots out the 'I need to be loved' line. Perhaps if he stopped winding down his contracts and moving club every 3 years he might find what he's looking for. Or he could just be honest and change the line to 'I need to be paid astronomical amounts of money for kicking a ball around, and my agent wants to take advantage of my abilities to make himself rich', and then I'd at least respect that honesty.

Just watched some vids of Mkhi and lost count of the times he and Aubi linked up to score, Aubi is a must to join us , can't believe we're haggling over a few million , after the money recouped after our sales, and that we were willing to spend 90 mill on Lemar.

Isn't haggling over a few million our standard m.o. though? And partly why we're in the position we are?

Agree. He can be annoying but he's undoubtedly been a very good player for us.

Get what you mean. As much as Sanches is a world class player, it would feel much worse if we lost Wilshere or Ramsey.