I rate him higher than Salah as a natural footballer. Salah’s stats will be more impressive but he’s so selfish and has the penalties. Mané is a much more intelligent player, so strong on the ball are rarely miss fired in front of goal. It was interesting when someone said he leads the press because I thought it was always Firminho who was the trigger.
7-2 was unbelievable, and it could easily have been 10.

Well some of the pundits are looking at the keeper and suggested he does not inspire confidence in the defence. I think it is a little bit of that and I would not discount that tiredness after 2 big seasons of shutting down other teams may not have caught up with them.

With the way we play I can’t see us sweeping too many teams off the park, but I also can’t see many thrashings. Arteta has us much more organised and harder to score goals against, the downside is it makes us pretty dreary going forward with a real lack of shots.
Playing Aubameyang centrally and having genuine wide players helped yesterday

Just to clarify for you. My use of the word feasible in the previous post you cited meant I did not say the opposite WOULD happen.

Deadline day, and no credible links to any midfield signing. I won't keep harping on about it, but what's so weird about all of this is that it's not a case where there's a debate about the quality of our players (like with the striker position). Even if you were to rate Xhaka, Ceballos and Elneny as top class, we're just short in numbers. I guess you could add Willock to that, but he's young and more of an attacking player. Our schedule for the next three months looks like it could be quite insane, so even if we're banking on making it to January it's an extremely high risk. Several of our rivals are looking vulnerable too.

Hi Rich,

I bit like the Torreira deal, it stinks. Not even a loan fee for Guendouzi. Unless of course we are making space for incoming upgrades which now seems highly unlikely given the few hours we have left in the window.

Torreira may not have been a automatic starter but he would have played lots of minutes, started lots of games and it would not be unthinkable that he could have ended up as a starter. He certainly has enough talent to be a starter given the midfield options we currently have.

Exactly Haz, why hinder yourself by loaning out players who might well have been needed given the schedule and the likelihood of injuries or illness along the way.

I mean, the only reasonable explanation is surely that we're confident we'll be bringing someone in?

I suppose all we can do is wait until 11.00 pm when the window closes and see if anyone does or doesn’t arrive. My own guess is that nobody will, but that is only a guess.

Has the Torreira loan been confirmed?

Not sure, Bernard. Last I saw Athetico were waiting for a sale to fo through before buying.

All very messy.

The Martial sending off is just ridiculous. Lamela does exactly the same thing to provoke the reaction, if not a little worse, which is clearly visible to VAR. Surely either both go or they both get a yellow.

In my view a sending off should be a last resort because it spoils so many games and ruins the spectacle for the watching public, unless you support the team the 10 men are playing against.

Martials arm was more handbags than violent conduct, ditto Lamela's initial provocation. A yellow each would have sufficed.

What's weird about the situation with Martial and Lamela is that Lamela got a yellow card, so it's not like the ref completely missed it. Just a terrible decision all around, but Martial will be suspended against us so I'm fine with it.

I always believed retaliation was punished more harshly than the original offence.

Apparently Arsenal have made Gunnersaurus redundant as part of their cost-cutting measures.

I get the bit where there are no fans in the stadium at the moment but I can't imagine he is especially highly paid and surely he has become part of the fabric of the club for junior supporters. Couldn't they have used him in promotional videos and that sort of thing.

Others may disagree but this club is fast losing its identity.

Gunnersaurus is gone. Obviously wage bills are too high and this will allow us to bid for Messi in the next transfer window.

Wonder how many Premier League clubs don’t have a mascot. Mind you, I always thought mascots should have some sort of link to the club’s history be it the crest, stadium, location, nickname or whatever. Like Stamford the Lion at Chelsea, Filbert Fox at Leicester, Monty Magpie at Newcastle, Gully (a seagull) at Brighton, Wolfie the Wolf at Wolverhampton and Chirpy the Cockerel (or Chicken) at Tottenham.

I never saw what a dinosaur had to do with Arsenal. Suppose we’ve had a few managers or directors who were dinosaurs.

Yes it was case of letter of the law rather than common sense prevailing. Lamela should be lambasted for his woeful overreaction to a feather tickle.

Don’t be ridiculous

It’s a cuddly dinosaur. I suppose there is going to be a player revolt now eh?

Surely it’s a 2 day a week job at its busiest ? I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest it might be a part time job rather than a 70 hour week

I understand there may not be a ton of transferable skills involved. His green cuddly suit might prevent him from getting work in the bar trade. He could try and do the knowledge I suppose but his huge green head would have to go out the drivers window.


This is some Owen Jones type stuff surely

I thought the biggest impact was having Willian play centrally. He managed to get between their defensive lines and took every opportunity to run into space or at the backtracking defense. Made all the difference to our attack.

But that's the whole point TG, its pin money to Kroenke. I would guess that the amount saved is so inconsequential that the negative publicity it generates far outweighs any financial gain.

It's madness, especially when fans are already up in arms at the lack of transfer activity.

Why do it?

I say it's about time Man Utd were on the receiving end of a *%^@ decision. Martial cheated to get a penalty so deserves to get something go the other way.

I really don't see why we can't play him there at least against midtable sides and lower, with Ceballos and Xhaka behind him, Pépé and Saka on the wings and Aubameyang as the central striker. We'd score five goals per game, in my mind at least.

Because the football club lost 100 million quid off its bottom line and the moment the stadium opens the guy has got his job back again anyway

The way its going Gunnersaurus and Arteta might as well get their boots on.

Charles Watts now saying we've made a move for Partey. Not the most reliable source, but not the worst either.

So they've created unneccessary negative publicity for the sake of saving a few months of Gunnersaurus's salary whilst Kroenke presides over a new billion pound stadium in the states.

I don't get it. Not the way I would run Arsenal that's for sure.

Interesting, but realistically can we get such an expensive deal done in a day, unless the groundwork has already been laid.

I would assume most of the groundwork has been done already and they're just waiting for us to trigger the release clause. Most sources have reported that personal terms isn't an issue.

Not sure what exact wages Gunnersauru's was one, but it seems we can now afford Partey. Just saying.

Yes good point, Willian with his quick acceleration and very good close control, skill and technique could thrive I nov that role for us. Decent workrate so won’t be a passenger without the ball.

Feels like a classic Arsenal window, scramble to get a deal over the line on the last day and the fans are so happy that we’ve done ANY deal at all we forget that there are still big gaps in the squad

Transfer was done in advance to let him play a final game.

Welcome Thomas Partey

Yes, it is an interesting turn of events. I suspect you are right, its no coincidence.

Do you think the dinosaur outfit will fit Thomas Partey though?

Yes, but to be fair I don't think anyone was expecting more than Parety and Aouar. So if (IF) we sign Partey it's still one out of our two main targets. No idea why we'd be leaving it this late if rumours are true. Then again, no idea about the way we do business at all most of the time.

Spanish journalist Antonio Ruiz of Cadena Cope (who to my knowledge is as good as Spanish sources come) saying Arsenal have communicated to La Liga the intention of paying Partey's release clause.

Decent drummer though and you can't always get what you want

Would it be cynical to suggest that we have left it just late enough that the paperwork and legalities cannot be sorted out in time and they can then say "we tried".

We've been waiting for the go-ahead from Kroenke who has spent the last two weeks looking for spare change behind his many couches.

Yes, Charlie Watts claims we've triggered the release but Mick Jagger says its not true.