as soon as someone leaves he suddenly becomes indispensible to our cause ...are you kidding .

For getting rid of that pile of sh**t he should be praised , only one of that lot I'd like back would be Iwobi .

I’m agreeing with you again. Apart from the bit where you’d take back Iwobi. Not a bad player at all but considering the price we got for him, in my view the right decision to sell. I thought Čech retired from playing to take his new job at Chelsea.

Koscielny was awful as well as being injury prone towards the end. I still remember him making Giroud look like Ronaldo at his peak in the Europa League final against Chelsea. The same Giroud who may well have played less minutes at Stamford Bridge this season than David Luiz. Mkhitaryan? I can remember everyone moaning about him. And Juventus presumably want to see the back of Ramsey because he hardly ever plays and when he does is apparently garbage.

I really liked the unmentioned Welbeck but seeing how much he plays at Watford he’s another who had to go. I think you’re right that as soon as players go it’s easy to start overstating how much we’re missing them. It’s similar to what DHD said about Holding, who of course is still here. When he was injured people used to make out he was better than he is.

Sad to hear that about BMurph.

I'm just saying that many first squad players leaving could hv destabilised the club. Too many changes never a good thing. Morale must hv been affected somewhat. If not we won't be doing worse than last season.

I think the decision to move Iwobi on was correct and a friend who follows Everton says he only impresses in dribs and drabs for them however I think if we had hung on to him this season he would have played an awful lot of games so far.

You have Özil producing one assist all year and Iwobi always looked more comfortable centrally than wide. I think our lack of options would have meant he featured heavily

You can forget about Werner. He's going to Liverpool.

Ramsey is the player we miss the most. Our poor form end of last season coincided with him getting injured. I don't want him back because he's injury-prone, but we certainly can do with a midfielder like him.

and I in turn agree with what you are saying Bernard

... I did micro analyse each player pretty much the same way you did , came to the same conclusions ; then chopped it back .

I only mentioned Iwobi in the sense ..... that of that pile of rubble he would be the one I'd have least problem with returning . .

Think you've got that one wrong Goonie

I wouldn't want to upset John 1 who has a life sized statue of Aaron in his lounge but I think there is a tendency on your part and others to remember Ramsay
for his bursting runs , goals and work ethic from way back . He was a very good player ONCE .

but he could frequently produce passes straight to the opposition that Xhaka and Mustafi would drool over , was AWOL in a lot of matches he played , and was as injury prone as Diaby .

Hanging on to him far too long letting his contract ran down thus not getting a fee was the only loss for the Club I can see

I was talking about players that left last summer. The reliable Monreal is another one.

I've often thought Ramsey would thrive in Arteta's system. Hate to think of the 'what ifs' had he stayed with us. But oh well.

I do too ..... hand forced he would be the one I'd have back

I will always the hold the opinion until I'm six feet under .... modern footballers earn far too much money for what they produce . As a consequence people like

Walcott and Oxlade are propelled forward before they have learnt the basics , crossing , shooting , ball control .

People like Özil can fluff around contributing next to nothing and earn in a week five times what some ordinary Joe Bloggs earns in a year .

Someone said to me today Lewis Hamilton has the snots with Mercedes , he is on 65 million a year and they have now offered him 90 million to stay .

How gross , people struggling to find food and clean water and some prat is offered 90 million to drive a poxy Formula One race car for a year.

Anyone been to Florence in the last twelve months? If so recommendations of restaurants at the medium price to low level range if you have any. One of our stops in April when we head off over that way.

On the whole we've been much better at selling and moving players on recently. One of Wenger's best attributes but also one of his weakest was his loyalty to players. We've had so many injury prone players who kept getting new deals.
If you look at all those injury prone players, Wilshere, Ramsey, Welbeck, Ox - every single one of them has had injury problems since leaving us. Whilst it may be true that we'd be a better team with them in the squad that is wholly reliant on them actually being fit. Of that group it'll probably be Ox who we regret the most but he's only played about 1/3 of the games for Liverpool than he could of if fully fit and at least we got a decent fee for him. Welbeck, Ramsey, Wilshere if sold at the right times could have earned us £60-70m

Iwobi we sold for £30m odd, if he hadn't played for us before would anyone be looking at what he's done for Everton this season and think that we should be signing Iwobi for £30m? or even £15m? Again we would probably be a better squad with him but that isn't the point, we weren't likely to get where we want to be with Iwobi so it is better to sell him and invest in players who can take us where we want to be ie: Martinelli.

Last summer we sold or released 11 players who were part of the first team squad, that is a huge turnover in players and it was much needed. I think we need to do something similarly as drastic this summer. Start with players on loan such as Elneny and Mkhitaryan and then go down through the first team squad with ruthlessness and you'd pick off a fair few, maybe not as many as 11 but easily 6-7 should go out the door and replaced.

Gossip columns saying Man U sniffing around Saka. I’d quote them £80M since they paid £50M for Wan-Bissaka.

Wonder how long a contract he’s on?

EDIT: Just checked. Apparently it expires in the summer of next year, so June 2021.

Blimey that’s interesting, that could be a pretty big call this summer for the club.

Considering the club’s intention to stop losing players for nothing, you may well be right.

Seems like a no brainer, sign him up on a long term deal. I can’t think why he’d want to leave. He’s only just broken through.
I think if Arsenal somehow let Saka slip through our fingers to a rival club it would say more about the state of the club than any of ramsey, sanchez etc

Signing Saka on a long-term deal is the ideal scenario. However, whilst he has only just broken through, I think it’s more than feasible that he would find Liverpool or Manchester United very tempting. Myself, if we do lose Saka I feel it would indicate how far we’ve fallen under Kroenke’s ownership. And dare I suggest largely because of Kroenke’s ownership.

This guy is the agent of Saka by the way

https://www.allnigeriasoccer.com/read_n ... ?nid=31152

After the Moyes , Giggs , Mourihno , van Gaal , Ole Gunnar fiascos I'd think the appeal of signing for Man U has long gone down the tubes ... they are in the same gigantic cesspit we are . Klopp is a totally different matter anybody in their right mind would want to head there ... replacement for Milner ?

Here's the outfit representing Saka ....Cantwell would be good buy from Norwich at 14 million

.https://www.transfermarkt.com/elite-pro ... rater/5620

I just think the status of Manchester United is still miles above that of Arsenal. I agree that Liverpool look the ideal club to join these days. But I really don’t think the appeal of Manchester United has yet fallen too far. They are still probably the biggest club in England, even if they’re not currently the best team. I honestly feel Saka would be tempted by both of them.

More likely Cantwell's transfer fee would be at least double than 14m. Could still be a good buy at 30m. Everton have some interesting young players as well - Holgate, Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison.

Good article in the Grauniad on Reiss Nelson:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/13/reiss-nelson-arsenal-jadon-sancho-whos-better-mikel-arteta

That is good, DHD. Thanks for that. Nice to see the kids emerging and it's good to hear how highly they all rate Arteta as a coach and as a man. I like that.

Breaking recent habits, I’m actually there on Sunday, Darren.

Might see you there?

Edit

.....and I’m really looking forward to it. Notwithstanding our lack of craft and passing in mf, we have some exciting players. I really like our current bunch of youngsters and I think that under Arteta, they all now have a game plan. Confidence is high.

City banned from uefa comps for 2 years. On the face of it that means 5th place will get champions league next season.

Huge news. Bound to appeal it

What a joke that VAR is ..Wolves have just had a goal disallowed for a bloke's foot being about 5mm offside .

No Pete. I don’t have a life sized statue of Aaron in my lounge.

Think Colossus of Rhodes in my front garden and you’d be nearer the mark.

Btw it’s Ramsey.

Nice article. Keep going Reiss!
Good to know how engaged Arteta is with the team.

I have not yet bought into the Arteta hype. I think I have seen us play well for 2 half games Man U and Chelsea.

The games coming up for us:
Newcastle h, Olympicios X 2, Everton h,Westham h,Portsmouth, Brighton, Brighton, Southampton, Norwich h, Wolves.

IMO he no longer has the excuse that he hasn't had time to work with his squad. Arteta has had time to access the squad, work on his game plan and make decisions about players etc - what is reasonable to expect from these games. I don't think it is too much to ask for solid wins until Wolves.

I will be interested to see if he really does chose players who are performing or if he goes for safety first policy and sticks with the old guard.

I would add in Bournemouth in the cup where we were excellent in the first half.
I agree with you that he needs to start getting wins now. A very inviting run of fixtures to do so

Man City have an amazing youth team, regularly winning the youth cup etc but hardly any of them make it anywhere near the first team. Even Foden, who is so talented struggled for minutes. I wonder if Arteta might go back and try to persuade some of those young players to move to Arsenal with the greater promise of first team football?

I suspect Man City will appeal this ban and that any ban will not come into force until the outcome of any appeal, which with the lawyers they have will probably see the ban lifted or significantly reduced. I doubt that any appeal and subsequent court hearings etc will be concluded by the start of next season anyway so it may well be that 5th place this season does not give CL qualification next season because City cannot be kicked out until any appeal is concluded. Having said that I think Chelsea's transfer ban remained in place despite an ongoing appeal. I'm not sure what the PL will do in this situation.

If the appeal is lost and a substantial breach of Financial Fair Play Rules is proven then does that mean that City's PL titles and cup wins etc are taken away? If not then why not.......they will have cheated to win them after all?

You expect this Arsenal team to win nine matches in a row?!

It is far too early to judge Arteta. He is quite clearly changing things and so far he has improved us in some areas. He has a long way to go though and we shouldn't forget the state of the team when he took over.

Morning Soc,

City have already announced that they are appealing it. They effectively said they were expecting it. I've no idea how long the appeal will take and I think you make a good point in terms of the uncertainty of what will happen if it is not concluded by season's end.

If UEFA upheld it and then City won the appeal but had missed out on qualification you could see an absolutely huge compensation heading their way. And would they then have to deal with the ramifications of a replacement team participating in a competition they should not have qualified for.

I don't believe it is right for the 5th place team to qualify and I'm not sure UEFA will do that.

Hi Dec,

I've read two contrasting articles about the City ban today, one saying they cheated and deserve everything they get and another saying that FFP is just a mechanism dreamt up by the elite clubs to maintain their elite status.

I can kind of see both sides.

If City attempted to circumnavigate the rules then of course they deserve to be banned, on the other hand is FFP really a mechanism to level the playing field or just to stop smaller clubs being able to compete with the top clubs financially?.

If Norwich, for example, were taken over by a megarich consortium who wanted to take them to the top, should they really be stifled by spending rules providing the money does not come from dubious sources and they do not incur any debt?

I think it's an interesting dilemma.

Morning Soc.

The main protagonists in bringing this complaint were Barca and Madrid. They just want their power to remain unabated. Hypocritical IMO seeing as Madrid were essentially bailed out of financial trouble by the Spanish Government not so long ago.

I'm all for the upholding of the FFP principal as long as it's consistant and applied evenly across all teams. It would appear it's not yet.

As we all know, everything changed with Abramovic. I would have been completely behind FFP for a long time but at this stage I don't really care anymore.

FFP is not about fairness. Its stated purpose is to prevent clubs from putting themselves in a perilous financial position as Leeds once did. Man City don't fall into that category.

It isn't about the integrity of the sport and realistically there is very little integrity left in football anyway.
It's just all about money.