We have a top class first 11. Add Tierney, Tomiyasu, Emile Smith Rowe and it’s a very good 14. We need to make that a top class 17 and then supplement that with the likes of Nketiah, Holding.

For me Cédric has to go. Nowhere near good enough. Nelson will maybe move on soon too. Marquinhos needs a loan.
Holding is ok for 4th choice CB but it’s a position to strengthen in the summer with another left sided CB
Elneny probably just needs to be a 3rd choice def mid
Lokonga and Vieira are the disappointments mostly as we’ve invested a lot of money and they’re the right age.

A central mid like Tielemans is a level above any CM outside the first 11
A winger eases the burden on Saka and Martinelli.

Then in the summer we can look at left sided CB and another top class striker.

Everton are also out of the League cup and one of our postponed games was against them. This makes it much easier to find a slot for that game potentially in early Jan or late Jan when the League cup QF or SF are played. Crucially (sadly) the Arsenal v Everton fans wasn’t originally selected by sky to be a live TV game which also makes this easier to schedule on a night when Sky would be showing cup knock out games

Hope some of these fringe players do a "Xhaka" next season. The transformation of Xhaka from a likely liability to the team each time he played, into a key contributor (and with goals at that), wasn't anticipated (me included). Hope some of the mentioned "disappointments" do a "Xhaka". Over to Arteta to make it happen.

Arteta out!
Oops, I meant get out there and do your magic!

https://tbrfootball.com/pundit-furious- ... cup-squad/

Best way for Martinelli is to prove Neto wrong in Qatar
Just hope he does not get discouraged by such strong negativity from Neto
By the way, who the hell is this Neto guy? Guess he is totally biased as he only covers the Brazilian League.

Kroenke out!

Whoever he is, he is very silly.

Agree with pretty much all of this. The only thing I’d add is that Vieira clearly was a long term project and I think they knew he might not have a big impact this season.

I also think Nketiah has a lot more to offer than what he’s showed so far. His starts have only been in our B side, and while there is an argument to be made that you need to make the most of your opportunities, some of our best players have started games in the Europa League without contributing much (Saka has 2 starts and 1 goal, Martinelli has three starts, Jesus has 2 starts and neither of them have scored or assisted). Our first eleven not only made up of better players, they also have a familiarity with each other that makes them greater than the sum of their parts. Nketiah showed at the end of last season that he can string a run of good performances together, and I think he can hit those levels again if he got a run of starts in the first team (which hopefully won’t be needed as that would probably mean an injury to Jesus).

Zaha is 30, Trossard is 27, Tielemans is 25. Do we want to take a chance on Zaha?

No, and definitely not on big wages. He could certainly add to our ability to compete on two fronts for the rest of the season but I don't see the long term value here, especially as his attitude has been questioned.

I'm very much against quick fixes.

The ‘ Undr the cosh’ series is mainly really good , there’s many of them about old pros at all levels. Good Arsenal ones are David Hillier and a 2 part kevin Campbell one,

And others from elsewhere worth listening to are , mark crossley ( great Brian clough stories ) and Martin Allen

I think winning 5 out of 6 meant we learned quite a bit in the early rounds of the EL. , CL different, but we’ll deal with that in due course

A bit disappointing to go out against a weakend Brighton side at home, but I can't really say I care all that much. I don't think the leage cup should've been played this year, at least not with PL teams considering the already crazy schedule because of the World Cup, but it is what it is.

Only caught the highlights, so can't analyze the game in detail, but it didn't look like a poor performance. In all honesty, we should've probably been up 3-1 by the time they scored their second, and we had another good chance or two after that. Our goal was a thing of beauty at least, great dribbling run by Nelson and a cracking finish from Nketiah. That is the sort of quality they need to show in the PL as well. They both have the physical tools to be useful members of the squad, it's just about putting it all together.

I know it is hit and giggle cricket, but that was some performance by England. I love you Buttler!

Ramsdale, White and Saka all in the england squad. Ramsdale and Saka were probably shoe ins before the season but I think Ben White has played himself in there with his fantastic form this season.

Hard to see too much with that england squad that Southgate could do much differently, people will complain but he’s probably got at least 22/23 players who would have been in most people’s selection

The only Neto that I found was a journalist who was gunned down in Brazil in 2013 by cops who were militia members. His name was Rodrigo Neto. Can't be him unless he's back from the dead. The other Brazilian Neto is GK for Bournemouth, who didn't get a WC call up to the Brazilian squad.
Any reports seen about Martinelli by this Neto journalist, only say Neto, no other name(s) with it. Even so, he's a real piece of work over his biased opinions over Martinelli's call up.

Quite a few reports saying we’ve made a £52m for Mudryk from Shaktar

Tomori must feel somewhat bitter. He won the league with Milan last season. Meanwhile, Maguire has been so bad that he's probably 4th choice at his club. Dier and Coady both ahead of him too.

I'd say Toney is disappointed too. He is more suitable as a direct replacement for Kane.

Am I right in saying the following are all off to Qatar

Ramsdale Turner
Tomiyasu White Saliba
Xhaka Partey
Martinelli Jesus Saka

From our first 13-14 no Gabriel Zinchenko Tierney Odegard ? Is that right?

Any I'm missing ?

Who of that first group are nailed on starters...? Xhaka Partey Tomiyasu....honestly I'd like as few as poss to avoid injuries....very selfish of me.

How is Maguire there a head of Tomori?

Honestly I think he’s the perfect type of player we need. Can add legs competition and excitement for the final games. Go for a midfielder in the summer

Bit weird but I do think we have missed Pépé this season for the 2nd tier games. Whilst it was hard to trust him in the league he could always provide moments of incision in the European and cup games.

TG you think there’s any way back for Pépé?

No the manager doesn’t trust him to track runners and work on the defensive part of the game. Going forward he’s fine and adds real value but honestly in games like the one on Sunday he’s a liability mostly. If you need to throw caution to the wind he’s a useful option but he’s not really a starter in the league

Gidday Old Man .... accepting a job with Rishi ..... ? I'm not interested in a fortnights work , the rate you blokes change PM's I'd say you'll have had Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage in and out before Xmas .

Not at all Decaf ....... I don't contest the little battles of no importance .

Women are a strange breed , in their eyes anything that has been thrown away is automatically rubbish . It doesn't enter into their tiny pea brains , that the person who chucked it in the first place might not have the skills to repair that particular item .

I hauled a 12 inch drop saw out of the bin , didn't work , pulled it apart all looked OK . switch didn't seem to be making and breaking , gave it a dose of CRC ...VOILA

On the Allen / Sansom swap I think we'd have better served to stick with Allen , our attack would have been awesome . Think Neill was prone to premature ejaculate I didn't rate him as a manager think it was three pre season friendlies and Allen was gone .

Remember newspaper headlines at the time stating we had the SAS .... Stapleton Allen Sunderland

I think the bit that will stick in the mouth for most of those is that when Southgate was asked about the omission of Tammy Abraham (someone who made a lot of squads for the qualifiers) Southgate said "he just lost form at the wrong time"......So why is Maguire in the squad?

The squad had no surprises for me, Southgate has his tried and trusted he wasn't going to shake things up at the last minute.

The sad part about someone like Tomori is we've been bemoaning English players not testing themselves abroad for years, now that some are it seems it freezes them out of the national squad

https://www.football365.com/news/arsena ... ft-in-2018

Good list ranking all of the post-wenger signings.

Quite a few loan and short term signings in there which shows that comparisons with the 'projects' being undertaken at other clubs (Man U) are way off in comparison.

Genuine question because I’ve not watched Palace enough to be sure about his all round game. Could one say the same about Zaha?

I think zaha is more of a worker than Pépé and definitely not as brittle to the demands of the premiership

That said I can’t see us signing him at all. Doesn’t really fit the profile of player Edu and Arteta seem to be keen to bring to the club

We paid a 2.2 million loan fee for Denis Suarez. Great business

My one question over him is that whilst he looks a world beater with space on the counter attack, what is he like in the tight spaces and 30 yards that most of our wide men have to operate in? Saka can beat a man in 5 yards of space, he can play quick 1 2's, he can shift it half a yard and shoot. Martinelli also has that ability to beat a man 1 v 1 in short distances and has great movement and positional sense to pop up in CF positions. Smith Rowe as well, has a brilliant first touch, plays on the half turn and can be elusive with his close control in the dribble.
I don't necessarily have concerns over his general positional play or defensive tracking as I think Arteta can coach that as long as the player is willing. It is more a question of technical ability in tight spaces, he may have it, I just haven't seen much evidence of it because his highlights reels are all running at pace and beating men with lots of space to work with - but he's very very good at that!

Spot on. A player can look great in another league and and lack one or more of these attributes that is needed for a prem challenging side. Pépé is a case in point.

Nevertheless, he is the sort of player we should be gambling on.

Yep, a few nasty ones in there.

But compared to Man U spending £85m on Maguire, or £75m on Sancho, or £45m on van der beek etc etc
Or Chelsea spending £90m on Lukaku only to send him back on loan after 1 year.

We're far from the worst offenders in frivolous and bad spending.

It is no coincidence that the teams who recruit well and sensibly progress much quicker. For all their money City rarely have the sort of transfer flop that Man U and Chelsea regularly have. Newcastle have spent a lot recently but it has been spent well. Liverpool for 5 years were top dogs for recruitment and it won them the lot. We've massively turned a corner in this regard so I'm willing to put faith in the talent spotting of Edu and Arteta

https://twitter.com/Jon_Mackenzie/statu ... b9e_Be6RMA

Nice tactical insight to Arsenal and the 'rest defence' structure that allows us to be so attacking

The only way that I could see him signing for us would be if he were desperate to play for Arsenal, moving as a free agent and taking a wage that fitted within those already in place.

I’d never before seen a photo like this of Wembley for the 1923 Cup Final. All those fields.

Runner up is a reasonable expectation I would think. A lot of football to be played but right now its reasonable.

Thanks AG. Like many on here I had already seen all of the sort of clips that you posted. It was the wide angle showing it set in rural countryside that was the surprise to me.

...I think Newcastle will no worse than 5th and if they buy in January and buy smart, as high as 3rd.