I think he will go back to Italy. He won the epl & has nothing more to prove. Besides he would want to buy some serious quality players & Stan will not spend that type of money

Well, can't really blame you for that! I do think the 8 players in sounds a bit much. We have 23 players now. Take away Mertesacker, Cazorla and one of the goalkeepers and replace them with four players of starting quality, and we have a squad of 24 players who can all contribute in some way. Much criticised players like Mustafi and Xhaka would fall down the pecking order to where we wouldn't have to rely on them so much.

A bit simplified, but you get my point. The most important thing we did in January was settle the squad a bit more. Sanchez and Özil situation resolved, a couple of surplus to requirement players sold, and a few quality additions. Main thing for me is being able to focus more on just adding to the existing squad rather than trying to get clubs to take on players we don't need anymore. Seems like we have a few targets in mind going by the late rumours!

And then of course there's question marks about our formation, lacklustre offense, inability to defend etc, but let's not get into that.

The disappointment is that we've made a £20m odd profit again in transfers. There really should be £100m waiting to be spent on players from our yearly budget. I can't believe the budget should be any less than that given the amount of money we get from tv, tickets, commercial and having seen our overall turnover.

Agreed. And with the size of the squad being trimmed down we can't say we need to sell players before buying. Where before we needed to improve in quality, we now need numbers as well, and we don't depend on anyone else to do anything first. No excuses at all this summer.

Alex Song training with arsenal to maintain his fitness after being released by his club......we all know what is happening next right?

Mathieu Debuchy departs

32-year old French defender Mathieu Debuchy has joined St Etienne on a free transfer.
He becomes player number 17 to leave the club this season, taking Arsenal's net spend to £17.3m so far.

Well that’s his wages off the books and at least that’s done and dusted transfer wise. No more sh*t stirring stories. My thoughts and hopes for the next 4 months til the end of the season.

1) I Hope we’re not going to miss a Giroud in the Europa. Welbeck and Lacazette have to step up. That’s what we’ve gambled on. Eek.

2)The Europa league provides some genuine interest now. Knock out all the way. I’m glad we’ve got that.

3) I want to see AMN and Nelson played in their best positions at least a couple of times before the end of the season.

4)AW to leave at the end of the season; on some sort of a high that’d be nice. But failing that just gone once we get though that last day. ON the last day preferably with the new guy sitting smiling at his desk on Arsenal.com.

5) We’ve got quite the squad rebuilding job. As Hazuki has said never in the last 5 years has the team been better set for someone to take over and out their stamp on. Its kind of exciting. Well different anyway.

Time for him to rekindle his partnership with Wilshere in our midfield. Speaking of, I hope Wilshere sign a new contract soon.

Goonie, I don't think Song will rejoin us, but I'll give you some advice. Please ease off on the optimism enhancer pills you must take. Is there anything regarding Arsenal that you wouldn't look on the bright side of? Relegation? Or would that be an opportunity to rebuild?

Changing subjects, I smiled when I saw Danny Murphy on MOTD last night talk of Arsenal's signing of Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang. He said words to the effect that it doesn't matter. Arsenal can't defend and whoever the club buys for the attacking side of the game, that isn't going to change.

Where can I buy optimism enhancer pills from? I could do with a few.

Rog, leaving this on to let you know that when I pressed submit on the first post, it came up with a message saying "you can't make another post so soon after the last one" (or similar words), and it was still on the submit message screen. So I pressed submit again.

Is it me, or a glitch?

So people think we should re sign Alex Song but say that Granit Xhaka is a "bloody great player"

I'm pretty sure if Rubin Kazan say he ain't good enough we should heed the advice

I do have huge concerns over the balance of our attack for the rest of the season. We have 4 big name players leading the attack but you could argue they only play in 2 positions. Central striker or No.10. 4 players for two positions – or 2 of them are going to be shoe horned in to wide positions and naturally will just drift centrally clogging up an already very clogged area.

We’ve sold Ox, Walcott, Sanchez and Giroud. That is our two wide right players, our wide left player and our aerial plan B threat. Where is the width in this squad?

Also where is the flexibility and adaptability to play in multiple positions at the top level in attack. As far as I can see Aubamayang and Lacazette are really out and out CF who both rely on service in to the box, they can fill a space out wide but it is not ideal. Similar to Özil and Mkhitaryan. Compare this to City who have Sane/Sterling who can operate on either wing or even false 9 in sterling’s case, Jesus who can play wide, Bernadro silva plays anywhere in the front 5.

Spurs have a similar narrow attack, Kane, Ali, Eriksen, Son all operate best in the width of the penalty area – but they use their very effective full backs for width and ensure both CM cover properly to not leave the CB exposed.

Our squad at the moment just feels like we’ve bought some good players but have no plan for how to make them in to a balanced 11

This mornings rumour is that Gazidis and Co are going to try and get rid of Wenger this summer with Joachim Low the first choice to replace him.

Bernard,

If seeing Danny Murphy on the telly makes you smile, you need to get some new pills yourself.

Would take Conte in a heartbeat. Get him in early in the summer and give him funds for 3-4 quality signings. That could be such a huge step forward.

Have you ever watched him on the touchline? He's even more embarrassing than AW?

He lost the dressing room some time back.

I say NO.

Don’t care one bit about that, to be honest. He’s a good manager who has done really well for Juventus, Italy and Chelsea (93 points last season). I think he’s being held back by the club as he’s clearly not been given enough support to make the needed investments, and hopefully it wouldn’t be the same at Arsenal.

Who has said we should sign Song and called Xhaka a "bloody great player".

On the manager stuff, I'd be delighted with both Low or Conte instead of Wenger.

Don't think either would do worse

Wenger would probably just carry on turning up anyway. The man is obviously in complete denial.

Anyway, for what it's worth AFC Camden on Twitter has posted this morning that he believes the club are working on an exit strategy for AW this summer and Joachim Low is coming in.

Uninspiring, but a change would be good.

People are speculating that Wenger was given a two year extension to avoid the uncertainty we had last season, and that he was never going to stay for two years unless results improved. Whether that's true is anyone's guess, but while I don't expect Wenger to be replaced in the summer, I no longer would be surprised if it happens.

The way we went about the January transfer window with Wenger clearly not running the show was a big sign we're heading in that direction.

I'm pretty sure he's going in the summer. Based on nothing but a hunch but a clear indication that the internal mechanism's within the club are changing.

I'm about 60-40 he's staying. In August I was probably 95-5. Something's happening behind the scenes.

Isn't Low some kind of weird felcher or something?

Strikes me as the kind of bloke who could get caught doing something he shouldn't be. Could be a disaster

What's a felcher? The only thing I recall was someone suggesting he sniffed his armpits, or is that what a felcher is? If he did, and I don't know if he did, perhaps he'd just changed his deodorant?

To be honest I just thought it was a name for someone who had some weird proclivities so googled it and actually it's something a bit worse than somebody having personal hygiene issues. You learn something every day you know.

Unimpressed with Low. What exactly has he done in league football? Does he have a record of success?

Great goals by Walcott. Very well taken. Two great assists.

Wenger will win a trophy and extend his contract. Gazidis will be tbe one leaving.

Points from last 25 Premier League away games:

Manchester City – 54
Chelsea – 53
Manchester United – 49
Liverpool – 45
Tottenham – 43
Arsenal – 29

F365 lays in to Xhaka and gets it spot on again
Granit Xhaka
He has all the positional discipline of a drunken antelope, even if that assessment will annoy the type of supporter that has a player name and photo as their social media profile. Xhaka is unfit for purpose, unless that purpose is passing the ball tidily from side to side while giving insufficient thought to every other aspect of the game.

Just had a look and the most I could find on Low were 'scratch and sniff' (or as you call it, personal hygiene) issues. Anyway, apparently Real Madrid want him to replace Zidane so I don't suppose we're favourites to get him.

We don't need Song anyway - he's not much of a defensive midfielder but has a good eye for the killer pass. Not sure what's happening with Xhaka - loss of confidence? Unwilling/unable to play as dcm? Wouldn't mind Herrera now that he's out of favour at MU.

He's *%^@ and the football association and UEFA need to investigate that transfer.

It's bizarre such a large amount of money was spent on a player so patently not good enough. The whole thing reeks of similar circumstances to the signings of Pal Lyderson and John Jenson who at the time were not good enough and Rune Hauge was giving major backhanders to the management to sign them which explained it. Wouldn't be far fetched to suggest the same happened as it seems illogical for anyone to spend that kind of money on such a *%^@ player unless there's an ulterior motive

He's not Wenger. Good enough for me.

Xhaka's positional sense was lauded last week when he arrived several times in or around Chelsea's box and scored a vital goal! Certainly his switching off against Swansea was not good defensive play, but truth is it was Özil's mistake that set up the equaliser. That was ironic as he had just made our goal with a beautiful pass. The subsequent errors by Mustafi/Čech and Monreal were so extraordinary you can't begin to describe them as typical poor defending by Arsenal.

This from 27, Dec, Bloomberg piece on St. Louis lawsuit still going forward against Stan's Rams.

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/arti ... ssion=true

Speaking of Song, Nasri is available again.