Watched the game earlier today and the three youngsters.....Willock, Nelson and Brammall......were quite impressive.

The opposition was really poor, though, and we've seen young kids impress during pre-season only to fall by the wayside so I won't hold my breath.

Dan Crowley is joining Willem in Holland. He was the hottest English youngster a fee years ago.

Personally I was very disappointed with both Welbeck and Walcott. Bielik and the new guy made a couple of mistakes, possibly just nerves. Overall a good performance.

Problems for Wenger. He has to trim the squad and must sort out a plan B against a packed defence. Nelson was excellent I'd like to see him getting some game time.

Wasn't he the one Hodd never used to speak highly of, unless I'm confusing Crowley with someone else.

Not sure what Hodd said about him and, in fairness, he rarely criticises any young player on here. Crowley was extremely highly rated but had serious attitude problems apparently.

You're right he doesn't. Maybe I'm wrong but I have a feeling Crowley was an exception.

takes some balls to make that observation when you Rooinecks and Rock Spiders wet your tweeds over the prospect of watching Morne Steyn kick twenty five penalty goals per game .

Soc, congratulations on putting the first wet blanket of the season on the Arsenal bed.

Barcelona are signing the benfica right back, wonder if this ends their pursuit of Bellerin.....this window

Whilst the 3-4-3 does tighten us up in defence we need to ensure the goals are coming from lots of sources.
Our wing backs need to chip in far more than would be expected from a full back. Ramsey looks like the only central mid option capable of getting over 5 league goals.
It puts a lot of pressure on the front 3 to get most of our goals.
Players like Özil, Ramsey, ox, wilshere, iwobi, Welbeck all need to start scoring more goals.
Walcott chips in even if his all round play can be off you'd usually back him in front of goal. Giroud does a handy job from the bench as well.
Asking Lacazette to get 30 goals in his first season is a big ask - good start today though

Warrior I saw your friend. He stood out.

As for Theo he delivered exactly what I expected. He missed chance after chance & wellbeck was terrible including missing a dodgy pen. Even AW said we lacked finishing. On the other hand Lacazette was pretty good & took up good positions. Sydney FC were terrible but also created some chances which was worrying as they were really poor.

If City sign Kyle Walker for £50m+, the most expensive back 4 in football history will be Walker, Stones, Luiz and Shaw.

Oh you littler kidder you ... this is along the lines of Steven Gerard is the best ever Premier League midfielder .

Either that or you are desperate need of stronger glasses ...Carl Zeiss 10 x 50's taped to your forehead might help .

There used to be an old East German club called Carl Zeiss Jena. Wonder if they're still going post-reunification? Might look them up tomorrow if I don't forget.

How on earth can anything about a game like this be worrying? It's the first game of pre season. Nothing about it is an indication about anything real.

Aleister .. certainly was .

Fuel for your riveting debate with Decaf ... there is also a bearded owl .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearded_screech_owl

Bit of skill shown by Per with the overhead kicked goal .

How long does your computer take to load


http://uk.soccerway.com/teams/germany/f ... a-ev/2372/

Arsene sent them a stern letter by all accounts. Well the one account I read. Like if your dad was in some intimidating profession and decided to get involved with some issue at school.

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football ... ews-Gossip

I felt the criticism of Giroud in not celebrating Lacazette's goal was over board on twitter. It was mentioned by some that Giroud did not congratulate him, but in fact he did.

I had completely gotten the day of the day wrong, I thought it was the weekend. Anyway, I caught the highlights. Good to see Lacazette score. Natural goal scorer. You can tell its not his first time around the 6 yard box.

Anyway, hope we keep Bellerin. Ox can fill in when he is out. We are building a really solid squad with quality all over the pitch (assuming we get Lemar and possibly keep Sanchez). Our new LB along with Bellerin makes us solid along the flanks. My concern is how we set up in the middle third of the pitch. What is our best combination?

I'm tired of Barca's constant meddling into our squad. They are disrespectful to some extent.

Not really. I've been more guilty than most of overhyping young players over the years. The likes of Ryo, Wellington, even Akpom, Reine-Adelaide and Zelalem all looked/look extremely promising but are yet to live up to that promise.

Make no mistake, the PL is a tough place for kids to break through in now. The stakes are high, it's a steep learning curve and mistakes takes can be costly thus managers are reluctant to take the risk.

Haven't you got some inexplicably stupid labour-saving device to be working on?

Leave the footie talk to the big boys.

Joel Campbell has been added to the Injury Room.

He has suffered a knee (non-specified) injury and he is estimated to spend around 24 weeks on the sidelines.

Lol. I thought I'd be the first by making a tongue in cheek comment that Arsenal always seem to be able to make normally average goalkeepers look world class.

24 weeks is practically six months, and by the time we see him play my guess it will be over six months. When I said 'play' I doubt we will for Arsenal again. The injury probably won't effect our squad strength as I reckon Wenger would have sold him anyway. Might have just cost the few million quid he could have been sold for.

Morning Soc. Whatever happens to him, Cohen Brammal's story is special. To go from The Pitmen to Arsenal is about as romantic a story as you are likely to find in the over-blown football of today. It would be fantastic if a £40,000 buy turned out to be a success. If he is anywhere near as good as that other former Hednesford Town defender, Ashley Williams, we will be laughing.

Hi dec, when you see City paying £50m for Kyle Walker (apparently the whole package inc wages will come to £100m) and looking pay the same for Mendy, it makes the signing of Kolasinac on a free look like good business. £100m just in fees for two full backs? Insane.

Good effort Granty, but you are up against some serious opposition when it comes to winning the Arsenal Half-Full Cup. You'll have to work harder in pre-season to better Soc and Gaz from Oz. Those boys love that trophy and will not surrender it easily.

If they keep pissing into it its going to look half-full soon.

Well actually now you mention it for the past week I've been making an engine stand , to hold the motors at a nice height to work on , rotates to all positions has a real natty arrangement so the engine can be lifted off the floor etc etc so ten out of ten for invention , just a bit p***sy with some of my workmanship and it should have ideally been a 100 mm wider
.... never mind there's always next week ... the scrapman has plenty of raw material .

From a little boys perspective on the football , I don't do the big clever clogs judgmental calls

I'd be thinking it is a pre season friendly everyone is enjoying the sunshine the kids looked very bright Nelson , Mallen was it..? Willock ... okay so Walcott and Welbeck fluffed their lines but who cares we cantered to a win , no need to bust a gut . Our new boy started with a goal , Per scored a beauty ....so tra la la everything is hunky dory .... nicht wahr .

Seems Gnabry is being loaned to Hoffenheim for next season.

Niall, John...any truth to this article? (I love the ban myself, for a few personal reasons).

https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2017/ ... sh-hate-u2

For less than £50m we not only got Kolasinac but Lacazette. Walker isn't all that anyway, City just spunking away the money.

I even know Tottenham fans who would agree with that. One said if it was the only way of guaranteeing getting rid of him, he'd have paid for a cab to take him to Manchester himself.

In fairness, that's a bit extreme. Walker is a good defender. Like almost all English internationals he is over-rated by the media but I doubt many Tottenham fans were pushing for him to leave last season. £50m is crazy money though.

Certainly is. For me it's mainly the tax thing but the preaching grates too, no matter how well intended. And their music certainly isn't all that, some of their early stuff was good I think but that's about that for me.

Yes it seemed a bit extreme. But to be fair, he sees every game Walker plays. I don't, and unless you watch every Tottenham match you won't either. So he's probably basing his judgment on a bit more than us.

John, I suspect the tax thing was the last straw from a general sentiment or is that inaccurate?

Hi John

I think that article is very inaccurate. U2 are not disliked to any great degree at all. Now Bono is an absolute bellend so most people don't like him, understandably. The others are generally well thought of. I don't listen to their stuff anymore. I find it stale and more or less everything they have released since Zooropa does nothing for me. They are still hugely popular but pretty irrelevant at the same time.

Are after both Mbappe and Lemar? Or only one of the two? Haven't been up to date on the transfer rumors, etc. Also, he is listed as a forward. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFd3ccVMLxs
So, he'll play there or move to the wing? Seeing that we already have Lacazette. I like his age and he's quick and explosive and I can only imagine how much physically he fills out.

http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/ar ... 02705.html

The Bramall story is a nice , feel good story. Non league to The Arsenal.
http://dailycannon.com/2017/07/bramall- ... nal-debut/