Chelsea did themselves no favours dismantling their title-winning squad with sales of Matic and Costa (plus John Terry finally leaving). Hope they lose Hazard soon.

Mertesacker was also a leader on and off the pitch... we have very good players but lacking strong personalities to drive the team towards challenging for honours.

I think they got ok money for Matic, I suppose they thought they were spending the money on a younger upgrade in Jorginho - which after seeing him at Napoli and seeing Matic struggle at Man U seemed the right move.
One of chelsea’s big mistakes this year has been playing their two best players, kante and hazard, in not their natural positions.
And they should have bitten Barca’s hand off when they were offering £50m plus Malcom for Willian!

I firmly agree with you here. Look, I'm not going to claim Mertesacker was as strong a leader as Adams or McLintock. But he was far more of a leader than any of our current players who have had the armband this season.

I think over the last few games Bernard our football hasn’t been as good. I would suggest prior to the injuries hitting and our change in formation our football was hugely improved from last season.

Attacking with pace, almost zero dithering on the ball. Pressing and working far harder. It was just much better and anyone suggesting it wasn’t isnt correct.

It’s just over the last few games with no Özil or Ramsey we don’t appear to be able to control a midfield anymore and look less assured in possession. I think the injuries have taken a toll, the formation changed hasn’t helped and energy levels are diminished as players take on more and more games.

RIP Gordon Banks

A cross between Grimandi and Ronaldo... can't wait!

I've been asked recently overseas, what made the country change (from the Obama days). I think the country got exposed.

Hoping but not expecting PSG to derail the Man Utd train. As I said before, interesting quandary the Man Utd management have in the summer perhaps. Do they continue with OGS if he maintains the current form (allowing for losses obviously for the pedants) or do they go for yet another big name manager such as Allegri (if they can pry him loose from The Old Lady) or Zindane or someone else?

Is that a compliment for Ramsey?

I think Suarez will do enough for Emery to make his move permanent and hopefully the club can sell Özil for a reasonable price since he's not in Emery's plans.

Exactly the same as Brexit.

Trump and Brexit voters enabled racism and you have weird militant alt right types everywhere now sharing misinformation, encouraging hatred and all sorts.

You have james Goddard and his militant yellow vest racists all round Westminster screaming at people at the moment if they don’t look “British” enough.

Shameful

I’ve never said he’s a bad player just very inconsistent. He’s scored decent goals but only reached double figures in a season twice. For me I think he goes down as a great signing, I’ll always be thankful but I’d always say he was way too inconsistent, unable to dominate big games and probably wouldn’t have got much game time if he was at another top 4 club

If you were to give me the option of signing in their prime one of Cesc, Ramsey, Nasri or Cazorla. Then Ramsey would be my last choice if I’m honest and judging it on footballing ability.

With managers generally staying at clubs for 3 years or less now it is vitally important that the guys who hire and fire the managers establish a club philosophy. Otherwise you end up with different managers signing different players and none of them fit with the new man. Man U lost it after Fergie by employing drastically different managers with different philosophies.
At arsenal my view is the philosophy should be:
Dedication to fast passed attacking football
Vested interest in scouting and purchasing the worlds most promising up and coming young players
Developing our own internal youth players with the realisation that most wont make it but can be given a fantastic football education and sold for a good profit
Transfer targets should have pace and power

In fairness, Rich, 99% of clubs want that. There's only a handful of clubs who can chase the superstars.

Bad news developing. Looks like Man U are going to have no European distractions in their bid to finish above us.

I'm enjoying it. I can hear the sound of a bubble bursting.

And this without Neymar and Cavani.

It is fun to watch. That’s for sure. May well end the hopes of OGS longer term.

But I would like them to have a congested calendar.

Oddly they seemed to fall apart as soon as Sanchez came on, but that’s probably just coincidence.

Bye bye Pogba.

PSG were better throughout but really lifted it for about 15 mins in the 2nd half and looked miles ahead of Man U. Sanchez is a shadow of the player that lit up our side 2 years ago.

My point is that we don’t seem to have that identity at the moment. If we ignore the super rich who can make moves for ready made stars then there are plenty of clubs with a clear identity, maybe we’re just struggling with the transition but I don’t see any of this in place yet.

All the more frustrating that we should have taken £60m for him when we had the chance. It would have been the deal of the year considering his form, and a deal that was pretty damn good considering the corner we backed ourself in to

I agree Per was a better Captain than any others we currently have.

They were always going to be a bit too many for United, even if they had to scrape the barrel and use the likes of Draxler and di Maria ...

I agree with LTG that they will probably take this one on the chin and it'll improve their chances of getting 4th.

But it is highly enjoyable none the less. It would be lovely to see a full strength PSG absolutely massacre them in the return leg, mind you. Mbappe is a bit special.

Apparently Arsenal are commissioning another statue and are letting the fans choose from a shortlist - sounds good so far. The shortlist is
1. Ramsey's celebration to beat Hull in the FA cup final
2. Giroud's scorpion kick
3. Walcott and Mertesacker's 'bump' celebration

That is a bit of a sad choice of 3. Considering we have statues of Henry, Bergkamp, Adams and Chapman. I realise some are in action from great moments but not trophy winning moments but they are all in the top 5 or so Arsenal players of all time.

If that is the choice of 3 I'd rather we didn't do one. Or if it is just about great moments rather than great players do one of Thomas flicking the ball past Grobbelar

Imagine what could have been if Wenger had managed to persuade Mbappe to sign for us for £100k before he signed his pro contract with Monaco........he probably wouldn't still be with us but we'd be £150m richer

It’s a wind up Rich. I know the bloke who put out the original tweet. He’s winding everyone up.

maybe a statue of Silent Stan rubbing his hands together with a big grin on his face

Or more likely we would have let him run down his contract and watch him leave for free

Phew

That would certainly be more in line with our 'values' as a club, sorry corporation.

Goonermen, lend me your ears!

Thursday night football
No leader on the pitch
Özil and Ramsey disrupting
Champions League qualification vital
4th place more likely than EL win
Happy Valentine's Day



Thank you for taking the time
Greeny

I actually think winning the Europa League is more likely than a top four place. Why don't you?

Have to admire Özil - not often I'd say this but he's played a blinder. Stared them out over his contract and Arse blinked first. They should've known. All those 'backaches' and 'sicknesses', not to mention the phoned-in performances.

He's lost interest in football. Just in it for the money now and doesn't seem to care whether he plays or not. Best of luck moving on that sort of player.

The only man to date to have made more money out of Arsenal than Silent Stan. Chinese football awaits surely.

I’m not sure about that unless you have heard otherwise ?

I heard he has been discarded because he walked out of a home appearance when he arrived at the ground to find out he was on the bench so left. That’s unacceptable behaviour and by all means fine him but at the end of the day even with his lethargic demeanour he’s still one of best first 11 players. I don’t believe it his choice to be dropped from all these games.

On the contract yes it was daft. It runs until 2021 and even if we sell him we will probably end up paying half his wages until then. What I don’t get is how these clubs don’t have gross misconduct clauses in these contracts to null them if the players start acting up.

I don’t know TG, but I think Özil has quite cynically made himself un-selectable. What Manager is going to pick a player who refuses even to turn up if he isn’t in the starting eleven? To select a player who’s prepared to issue that sort of ultimatum would be suicide for any Coach.

I don’t know, but I strongly suspect that Özil is quite satisfied with the current impasse – it’s largely of his own making, remember. I think he’s disenchanted with football generally, as evidenced by his self-proclaimed melt-down into martyrdom at the hands of the German FA, which he seemed to carry into his season with us. And there’s a fair parallel between the quality of his performances for Germany and for us. He didn’t like it when the Bernards called him out for lack of effort and he didn’t like it when the same thing happened over here. There was that time he was subbed – can’t recall against whom but as usual, it was because he was playing like a turd – and he took fully 2 minutes to trudge off. Face like a smacked arse. ‘Everyone’s against me’ – well, yes mate, they will be when you can’t be arsed to make any sort of effort to influence the game.

Özil is going to make £40m before his contract with us expires. Just think of that for a moment. Forty MILLION quid. For going through the motions at training and tweeting how happy he is to be a gooner. Never mind un-selectable, he's also made himself un-sellable; who the hell will buy him? And that's arguably a similarly cynical though far more lucrative achievement.

I think he’s angling for a juicy cash offer so that his contract can be cancelled - worked a treat for Jose Mourinho. Turkey beckons for 'em both.

It’s just staggering DHD

What I would say is that after last summer when he was attacked by the German media and footballing community and promptly retired with that ridiculous sob story (the most Özil thing of all time) he clearly had something to prove and an opportuntiy to prove doubters wrong, isn’t it just it soo “Özil” to follow it up with what’s gone on this season.

The bonkers thing was we passed up the opportunity to resign Cesc because we had him and if we had he would never have been offered that ridiculous contract because as far as I’m concerned Fabregas is twice the player he was

Agree wholeheartedly TG

My top ten arsenal midfielders of all time. (Doesn’t include players that could be considered wingers e.g merse or overmars)

In order

1) Patrick Vieira (the king)
2) Liam Brady
3) Cesc Fabregas (will anger some but it’s my list)
4) Emmanuel Petitt
5) David Rocastle
6) Steve Williams (why did George sell him, he seemed a very George player)
7) Paul Davis (criminally under rated I thought)
8) Mickey Thomas (I’m so tempted to put him higher but he could be such a lazy git sometimes but that was the conundrum about him as a player )
9) The invisible wall
10) Kevin Richardson (that was another odd transfer, wins a title and puff he’s gone to Spain,)

There will be plenty on honourable mentions potentially for Alan Ball (a favourite of my dads ) and others but this was aimed at players in my arsenal supporting era

Oh you just knew it!

It’s that *%^@*** stupid team with the 2 left backs and Mustafi in it,

Well do them anyway but ffs