Hi TG. Absolutely. I don’t think there’s value in those kinds of signings, I know it might sound daft, but if Haaland had actually gone on the open market it would have been north of 125m and every time his name appeared in print it would have had most expensive player in British history next to it and then what he’s achieved would be par for the course for the price. And he maybe feels the pressure a bit more.

We sign, say, Osimhen for 80-100 if we can rustle up the cash and he has to score 25+ goals and stay fit for the majority of the season or he’s bad value . I don’t think there is the profile of player on the market to go marquee on a striker.

Zirkzee, a 6’4” 22 year old doing well for £50m is probably as big as it’s going to get. And 50M isn’t chicken feed. There isn’t a no brainier like Haaland on the market (for us - we can’t sign Mbappe) so that’s absolutely the right thing to do. We need a midfielder.

No just time. The guest count has dropped back to normal today (and I don't know why yet). This forum software is also quite old now and is no longer updatable easily. It will eventually need to go to a newer version. Thankfully, the hosting people still accomodate the older software and can run old versions of their backend so our forum still runs ok.

This may have been some sort of AI scraper possibly. The web hosts may also have been running a process on it of some sort. Either way, it appears to be back to normal. I will monitor it and also look into trying to update this software seamlessly into a newer version. I tried it a few years back but the database didn't want to integrate into the latest version at the time.

In the meantime, I have optimized all the DB tables, cleared the cache and logs, and culled some very old data so it should be much more responsive now.

If and that's a big if, we win the remainder of the games (I still have serious doubts about Old Trafford), and City runs the table, the deciding game was losing to Villa at home. We could afford a draw but at this part of the season, its excusable to lose at home. Villa are a good team. A known entity to us. A draw at worse.

Anyway, I think City might drop points vs Spurs but I think we'll draw at Man Utd. I pray we don't but as I said before, even when they are bad we have a tough time winning there. Last time it was 2020. Before that I think 2015 FA cup and in the league you gotta go back to 2006.

To be fair they had the better side most of that time. We are visibly much better than them but even during the Moyes time we couldn't win there in the league. Same during the Mourinho years. But Wenger was manager then.

Its very different qualities now respectfully, but record remains. We'll see. Thankfully for us Ten Hag is his own worst enemy. I don't think he'll play as defensive as he did vs City. If they make it end it end it suits us but a lot of goals will be scored.

Leicester back up. Well done to them.

It will be a shambles if some Saudi team comes in with £100m+ for Salah. Liverpool have already had £65m from Saudi for Henderson and Fabinho, players who really should have had to leave for free or under £10m. Man U might be able to do the same with Varanale and Casemiro. It’s an FFP safety net for clubs with aging stars

It could be at least 5 of the 6 who came up and down last season exchanging places again which will give more weight to the argument of the growing gap between the prem and the rest.

I’ve never really understood the parachute payments clubs get when they get relegated from the prem. it’s like the authorities are saying don’t worry about you increasing all your costs on the assumption you’ll be staying in the prem for a long time here’s some extra money to help you get back there. Just manage your money better in the first place

I didn't understand very much of that, but it's clear we all owe you our ongoing gratitude.

Cheers Rog, you're a star.

Do any of the lower divisions like division 1 and 2 have any tv contract money or whatever as well?

It’s always funny reading Garth Crooks BBC team of the week when he has to through gritted teeth put an Arsenal player in. How is this pundit still drawing a wage to talk about football?

He's such a boring know it all type; best thing to do is ignore and not click on his 'contributions'.

That's also what everyone says about me on here though.

The web hosts have said that the forum is filled with bots (automated computer programs) that are living in here now.

"Looking into this I can see there is quite a large amount of traffic being received to 'stevegleiber.com' which appears are mostly bots. "

They have upped the memory limits and done some other things and they are going to deny access to these crawlers for a few days and monitor the place. I asked them which bots are doing it. Might be some sort of AI trainer maybe. We'll see.

Rog ...

He must have pictures of someone at the BBC or something. It’s always been an absolutely mystery to me why he was on the telly full stop. He has no charm, says nothing interesting and talks nonsense.

We're top scorers and we've scored 9 goals more than our xg in the league.

The fact that our xg is slightly less than that of Liverpool and City (and we have fewer shots and shots of target) despite have more touches in the opposition box is interesting. We are very disciplined about developing good chances rather than racking up the shot count like Liverpool. It can seem like farting around or trying to score the perfect goal, but the evidence is there that it is delivering goals.

How would adding a 'selfish' striker impact how we play? I'm inclined to make Havertz our first choice CF next season and get an 'emerging' prolife replacement for Eddie.

Finding a Partey replacement a much higher priority.

What's in it for the bots?

Bots are automated programs that are used to look at (crawl) web pages to index them so they can be used in searches (Google, Bing, etc) or they are for learning Artificial Intelligence.

I told the Web Host to turn off all the bots and monitor it. I turned off the main ones but I suspect there are other junk ones in here also. I asked them to kick them out permanently. They also increased some limits to help with memory management which should make the forum more responsive.

The bots have been reined in now and the good bots have been allowed back in. This has stopped the large amount of guests.
Unfortunately it is due to what I suspected - that being a security hole in this old software we are using. I tried updating the Php version to a newer one but the old software didn't work properly with it. When I tried updating the entire site, the database didn't import over properly.

Anyway, it's fixed for now. I'll continue monitoring the site in the meantime.
If anyone notices anything unusual like any errors or bugs or City drawing a game, let me know.

Thanks Rog.

https://x.com/blackscarfmarc/status/178 ... -j6VVZXEoA

There are a few videos going round of the spurs fans filming our goals and posting them on social media - not sure why - but obviously Arsenal fans keep sharing them because it’s funny to see the abuse they give our corner taker to then just go silent as the ball hits the net.

The best thing about this video is how effortless Rice makes that corner look, on the higher tv angle it looks whipped in flat with serious pace - and it was - but you’d expect Rice to be kicking it with more effort than he did. Elite technique on those corners just like Saka

These set pieces were so good at, for me it’s
50% delivery
20% movement
15% desire to want to get your head on it
15% the planning behind the scenes

Not to downplay any part but the pinpoint deliveries whipped in flat and at pace in the perfect area contribute most to these goals. The own goal by Hojberg is the perfect case in point - the delivery creates the panic and the mistake

Spurs fans are in a sticky spot. They want to beat City to try to get 4th but also know that could hand Arsenal the title. I’d wager a LOT of spurs fans want them to lose that game, and whilst I think the spurs players will still go for it as there are huge bonuses and CL football next year on the line for them I doubt they’ll be cheered on by their fans, urged to do that extra sprint, that extra 5% of effort.

Reality is every spurs fan should want to seal 4th irrespective of what it means for us. Yes they’ll have to listen to us brag about it but the best chance of their own team getting better and having a bigger budget and attracting better quality players is to get back in the CL. I doubt that man of them could put aside their hatred of us for the betterment of their own team.

I’ve been replaying bits of that Spurs match in my head all day and I realised I couldn’t remember if Maddison played, genuinely. Then I remember him diving to try to win a penalty and when he faked a head injury at a free kick after hosting with Tomiyasu and realised he was on the pitch after all.

That little 10 game turn of form he had at the start of the season seems a long long time ago.

They’ve got some decent players Spurs but they are all a step below the best in the league despite what many of their fans think.

We’re 20 points ahead of them! They’re closer to 14th than they are to us!

Gary Neville in pre season
“At this moment in time, the ones who’ve proved it over the last five, six years are Liverpool. I know Arsenal have run City close this year but the only team I can say that have demonstrated they can get close to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City is Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool

Gary Neville last week
‘they’re (Liverpool) not on Arsenal and Man City’s level, we knew that at the start of the season. Not a failure to finish behind them’

One thing this season has thrown up that hasn’t gone so well is some of the transfer business we did last summer may not have been as great as we thought.

Thinking mainly about the 2 players that came from city.

Zinchenko can’t be trusted in big games and is now only used in matches where we need to rest someone.

Gabby Jesus. 8 goals in 33 matches ? Just not good enough and the guys on 250 grand a week and one of our highest earners. That’s big money for his output. Next year is a make or break season for him and he didn’t even get off the bench yesterday

Both these players played in the games we lost against villa home and away. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think we will persist with Jesus but it wouldn’t shock me if we sold the Ukrainian this summer.

https://x.com/rjarsenalblog/status/1784 ... -j6VVZXEoA

2 seasons ago when we lost to Newcastle virtually ending our CL hopes. Why was this seen as totally catastrophic for the very future of Arsenal and there was no mitigation for a young team and seeing the process of how the team was evolving - Tim Cahill could see it the season before

We have to sign a CF. Haavertz has exceeded expectations but he is not a CF. A top quality CF makes the difference in tight games.

Arsenal are unbeaten against the big 6 this season.
We’ve scored 20 goals in those 9 games and Saka has 3 goals and 5 assists in those games. Season after season he delivers in the big games

Aren't Villa considered big 6 yet?

Bloody Man City looking at our tactics. It’s widely known that Arteta gets his ideas from this board,

Liked it that Rice gave them a polite smile before taking the corner. Then shouted in glee at them after the goal.

Gary Neville will be ................ Gary Neville

Looking on the bright side, losing to Villa rather than Spurs is a better outcome. The other way around would be double whammy.

Would be happy for Spurs to go on a run and win all their remaining matches this season.

We'd be playing Real Madrid tonight if we had beaten Bayern Munich and frankly, I don't think we'd have any gas in the tank left and risk a blow out. Looking back, we can't do late cup runs and title runs. We don't have the legs and bench for it.

If we beat Man Utd away it brings us to a new level. Similarly when we finally got a win over them in the late '90s and got wins at OT there after. Ferguson knew that. As Keane said 'Man Utd vs Arsenal was a proper rivalry, it had everything' We have put many demons to the sword this past 2 years. Not only not losing to Sperz but beating them regularly. After consistently losing to City, we have taken 2 of the last 3 in all competitions and they only scored one goal against in all 3. Now we must win at Old Trafford. I don't expect us to win at City...yet. But I do think for us to be truly the elite of the league the aforementioned has to be. Especially a Man Utd team this weak mentally. Man for man they are a good side. Not as good as us but good enough to beat anyone in the league at anytime. Moreso than other sides.

Bournemouth are going to be very difficult to beat. Since mid February they have only lost twice in the league. They are playing very good football at the moment and my fear is we go into the game expecting it to be easy after the last 10 days. A draw is not as crazy as one thinks. City only managed a 1-0 there in February

Anne Hathaway reacting to Arsenal scoring during a press interview

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente ... 36884.html

A pre-recorded video from Trossard then appeared on-screen. “Hey Anne, I really loved your celebration the other day for my goal,” he said. “Keep supporting us and hopefully see you soon at the Emirates.”

Timber in action