Glad we won, although I worry for The Toon, one of my favourite clubs. But nothing today can match India's remarkable defeat of Kangarooshire. To go from 36 all out in one Test to overcoming the home side's fast bowlers, without several of their best players, puts India's achievement at the highest sporting level. "Can't wait to get you at the Gabba" said Paine!

6 months too late. Man City were ready with a £50-60m bid the summer when he had a year left on his deal. We refused, and then Sanchez went to Man U in a swap with Mkhitaryan in January - so depending how much value you put on Mkhitaryan we lost over half the value in turning down City - and eventually lost all of it because we moved Mkhi on for free.

This one piece of non-business set us back a long way. Add in not getting a proper fee for Ramsey and we've given up £100m. Inject £100m in new players in to this team now and you could see us being top 4 challengers.

However it goes for him in the future, he has well and truly justified the ridiculously small transfer fee of a couple of million. Summer 2016 - Mustafi £35m, Stones £47m, Bailly £30m and Holding £2m!

We don't get to see much of the players once the go to Colney, but for me Patino and Flores were the standouts at U16 level and reports have been good since they moved there from Hale End

Truly wonderful. You must be so proud. Just what the fans crave.

In the current situation the future of our club must rest with bringing players through, and in giving them the opportunities. Easier said than done of course.

Nothing? As we all know an academy is a major investment.

Unlike you I have zero affinity with them, but as I implied last night after starting the season quite well Newcastle are looking in big danger to me. It’ll be interesting to see which three go down. It’ll take something remarkable for one of them not to be Sheffield United, despite getting their first win in their last game but one. The other two?

I reckon the ones in most danger are West Brom, Fulham, Burnley, Brighton and Newcastle. Each has a chance of survival, WBA because keeping poor teams up is part of Mr Allardyce’s DNA. With their set of players they should go, but Mr Allardyce could probably keep a squad of new born babies wearing West Brom nappies up. So anything’s possible with WBA.

I hope Fulham stay up and the way they’ve improved gives me hope they will. But I’m not too confident about their chances. Burnley look as though they could be in trouble with an unexciting bunch of players. Yet I see Dyche as a watered down version of Mr Allardyce so I’m not going to write them off.

Brighton also look in trouble. Potter strikes me as a decent manager and a nice man. They also have some decent players. I’m 50/50 about their chances. Which takes me back to Newcastle. Arguably better players than the others, and I’ve never minded Steve Bruce. It’s just the way they’re dropping now, as I say after a decent start, suggests they might go.

A surprising outside bet for me are Leeds. I think they will stay up. However, when they were scoring for fun I was never convinced they were quite as good as some (like Ian Wright on MOTD) seemed to believe. Now they’re also conceding for fun. As I said, I think they will survive. Yet I see an outside bet on them going, if the odds are generous, as not a total waste of money.

I think you have to consider the financial value of selling a player but also need to consider the overall impact to the team.

For me Sanchez was the most impactful player we have had in the Emirates years. Our attack hasn’t looked the same since he left and his movement and pace has been missed.

For me there’s some players who regardless of their form, age or potential decline simply shouldn’t be sold if at all possible. I never went along with the nonsense said about Wenger selling Vieira that it was shrewd. His footballing impact to the team was still good but the subliminal impact of selling the teams obvious leader was not considered. I think Sanchez and even Fabregas fall into this category, if you don’t optimise the money you recoup fine you just need it to run its course if you can.

As a North London-born Australian, I'm slightly ambivalent when it comes to cricket, and I watched India's win with a wee smile on my face. Still, the idea of India (minus some of their best players: population 1.366 billion) defeating Australia (squad intact: population 25 million) isn't exactly 'Dad's Army's' Colchester v Leeds.

For years I fretted about the suggestions that Tony Adams would leave. He epitomised Arsenal. He was one of ours. Even worse when he was linked with Man U. It just seemed wrong (and fortunately so it proved to be).

Worth watching that first Arsenal goal again. It has so much of what we've struggled to do.

Picked up a second ball
Deep midfielder (Partey) in a tight situation doesn't hoof it or go backwards, he trusts his ability to be positive - sidesteps his man and crucially releases the ball quickly to the man in space. 4 touches is all he needed to control, beat the man, get it out of his feet and launch the 50 yards pass
Wide player drives at a panicking defender
3 other Arsenal players sprinting to get up in support which made it a 4 v 4 on the break
clinical finish

Lovely to watch

No player will be around for ever. Even the very few (these days) one club men retire. With those want or are open to leave, the right time has to be chosen to sell. Sanchez was desperate to leave so I think Rich was right, he was sold six months too late.

No player should ever be seen as totally indispensable in my view. Keeping anyone at all costs is not a sensible option.

But we knew he wasn't going to sign a new deal. It wasn't like he was 33 and had little sale value where I can understand keeping the player rather than selling them. Our choices were take £60m and immediately damage the team because we lost a huge player for us - but have £60m to rebuild the team, OR keep the player for another year as he winds down his contract and leaves for free, leaving you in exactly the same situation just a year later and £60m poorer.

Arsenal sold their best players for years, then went through a period of stubbornly refusing to sell any of our best players, the latter was just as harmful. If we have players who don't want to be here, who are actively seeking to move away and will run down their contract if they're not allowed to leave then we must extract the best value from them and reinvest to make the team stronger.

I’m not saying players should be kept at all costs and it’s highly likely we could do nothing to stop him leaving but simply saying we were right to sell a major component of our recent success seems one dimensional.

People were saying we were right to sell Patrick Vieira, nobody was bigger than the club blah blah blah etc yet we were 24 hours away from signing Michael Carrick as his replacement and we haven’t won a title since.

I just think like LTG some players can’t be sold if possible and it should be left to run it’s course. If your selling Tony Adams you may as well give the whole thing up.

A generational thing probably - when I was a kid The Toon were a great FA Cup team and there had been some big games between them and us in the 50s and 60s. Plus the Eastham connection. Always loved their shirt too. Hope they stay up - same thought for The Baggies.

Interesting read on Özil

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/mo ... d=msedgntp

Surprising read on AMN

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/premier ... d=msedgntp

I agree - Sanchez was our main weapon and thankfully transfer money was a secondary consideration. Unfortunately it was a prime consideration when we let Paddy go - he wanted more than the club was willing to pay him. On reflection we should have given him what he wanted as he was a foundation stone, never properly replaced.

Yes, I bet you were ambivalent when Steve Smith and the fast bowlers smashed England all over the place! I think we should give India their due - hardly anybody expected them to draw this match, let alone win it and the series.

omoh, I still haven't forgiven the Toon for beating us in the '32 cup final.

We'll have to wait to see who wins out of Southampton and Shrewsbury before Arteta thinks about his starting 11. It will be interesting to see what he does on the assumption it is Southampton as we'd play them twice in 3 days.
We don't have many players or positions that we can rotate at the moment without a big drop off.
Cédric played well last night so can be rotated with Bellerin
Tierney doesn't have anyone at his level
The CB can be rotated to some degree as Holding, Luiz, Gabriel and Mari have or are all playing well
Martinelli can come in to the front 3 I think
but the rest of the positions is quite a drop off in comparing the form of the players coming in

But to bring it back to Sanchez the club made totally the wrong decision to turn down City's £60m bid when he only had a year left on his deal and wasn't going to sign a new one. It should have been obvious back then the right choice not just with hindsight of what has happened to Sanchez since. Even if Sanchez had gone on to win the Balon'Dor with City scoring 50 goals that season the right decision would have been to have sold him for £60m.
We put ourselves in a bit of a no win position by letting the contract run down and had to find a way to cut our losses and move forward.

If the player is indispensable you can’t let his contract to get under 24 months. It’s done at that point. Allowing a player to reach that point who on a footballing level is absolutely lethal is madness. So regardless of value the wider damage to the team needs to be considered

I'm curious to see a formation that accommodates Tierney, Gabriel, Holding and Bellerin, Partey, Smith-Rowe, Saka, Martinelli, Aubameyang, then throw in perhaps Willian or Pépé, but Im inclined toward Willian.

https://www.gunnerstown.com/arsenal/202 ... m-gunners/

Nice read

Strange how it turned out for Sanchez at Manchester United. Useless waste of space.

Aubameyang had to be substituted last night to attend to an urgent ‘call of nature’.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailym ... ature.html

That’s the second time I remember him having to rush off the pitch for a crap. Wonder what he has for his pre-match snack? A double portion of Meat Phal (the curry that’s hotter than Vindaloo) from the cheap Indian takeaway in Holloway Road?

I would have thought that top athletes from many sports including football these days make every effort to avoid such a situation? Like a mild laxative earlier in the day so they are clear of the possibility during game time?

(Sorry to anyone eating their tea.)

Well much to others chagrin possibly, Sokatris has also commemorated his friendship with Özil on social media. Doesn't matter he's another one who's out of the club as well.

United had so much success since the formation of the Premiership that their frequent big money failings in the transfer market tend to be overlooked or forgiven. All of these big buys - some were monster buys - could not be regarded as great successes: Barthez, Veron, Forlan, Saha, Kleberson, Heinze, Alan Smith, Park, Anderson, Nani, Hargreaves, Tosic, Bebe, Berbatov, Phil Jones, Kagawa, Zaha, Mata, Fellaini, Di Maria, Shaw, Rojo, Blind, Falcao, Schneiderlin, Depay, Darmian, Pogba, Mikh, Bailly, Lukaku, Matic, Lindelof, Sanchez, Fred and Dalot. They cost hell of a lot of money

Of course there were phenomenal buys - Schmeichel, Kanchelskis, Keane, Cole, Ole, Sheringham, Carrick, Yorke, Stam, Rio, Ronaldo, Rooney, Van Nistlerooy, Vidic and Evra - which added so much to that talented homegrown generation.

That's some list. Although I'd say Saha, Heinze, Park, Nani, Berbatov would probably be considered successes - Nani and Park won 4 titles and the champions league

When Sanchez left, that was the departure of the last player who had the ability to work well with Özil. Santi and Sanchez worked well in a team with Alexi.

Anyway we may have a host of new stars coming thru. Time will tell but at least now I have hope.

Southampton won their third round FA Cup tie against Shrewsbury tonight, meaning we’ve got them away in the fourth round this Saturday (23rd January). Indeed, we’ll be playing Southampton away twice in four days as the following Tuesday (26th January) we have them away in the Premier League as well.

Should be fun. Get to see Walcott again.

https://metro.co.uk/2021/01/19/arsenal- ... wsnow-feed

Please get this done ASAP. Emile Smith Rowe has proven himself within a very short time, and has not shown any attitude about it.

Most importantly, stop messing around with the procrastination on giving out longer, and better, contracts to the deserving ones. We cannot afford to have so many run down when at the 1-year mark. And we start to lose initiative on the matter.

For me, Willian and Pépé can go sit and sulk on the substitutes bench. They have not shown enough drive and energy on the pitch.

Going to the south coast to play Soton is rarely easy. My concerns are a loss will derail us a bit. I'm hoping we have more confidence than that.

Who should Arteta play? You want to respect the competition and the opposition. But we have Man Utd a week later and don't want to risk key players getting hurt.

I'm thinking defensive set up and try for a counter to grab a win assuming we don't get scored on first.

This may sound like a silly question and perhaps it is but is Leicester City a 'legit' big club now? Or just going through a golden period?

I’m not sure why I’m bothering to answer as he won’t read it, but it partly depends how ‘big’ is defined. I would group the size of clubs in England into groups. For me the size of a club will be influenced by a number of factors.

1) Fan base size (both national and international).
2) Trophies won, both in number and what was won (a Champions League win counts for more than a League Cup). More recent trophies will tend to count for more than something won in the year dot.
3) The status, newsworthiness or fame (factors that have to be intrinsically linked) of a club which will be influenced by not only it’s honours list and size of support but things like the newsworthiness of present and past players. An obvious example is the impact of Best and Beckham in growing Manchester United’s fan base and fame. I’d also say Kane has grown Tottenham’s fan base, as Son must have done in South Korea, but I suggest to a far smaller level than Best and Beckham did for Manchester United.
4) I will add the stadium (linked to things like size, fame and status) as impacting on the size of a club.
5) I also firmly believe the wealth of a club comes into its rating for size. That will affect it’s appeal to new signings, although won’t be the only things affecting its appeal to players or coaches.
6) From that previous point, as its own factor I will add the eagerness of players and managers at other clubs to consider joining them.

For me the biggest English clubs (as a group) are Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham. City and Chelsea get into the list because of their owner’s money (number 5), which has obviously had a knock on effect on things like trophies won (number 2), fan base size (number 1), and appeal to players (number 6). This shows the six factors overlap to an extent. Let me say not all clubs in each group will be as big as each other. For example, Manchester United are comfortably England’s biggest, even though City may currently have more spending power. Hence the six points have differing levels of importance.

The next level down, I see as clubs like Aston Villa, Everton, Newcastle, Leeds and West Ham.

Down from that are the likes of Leicester, Nottingham Forest, Derby, Sheffield Wednesday, Sunderland, Southampton and Wolverhampton. Leicester have a way better team than Sheffield Wednesday but I put them in the same group as Wednesday are a big club, despite their poor team. Also I don’t see Leicester as big as any of Aston Villa, Everton, Newcastle, Leeds and West Ham.

Then come clubs such as Birmingham, Stoke, Brighton, Sheffield United, Fulham, Norwich, Ipswich, Crystal Palace, Portsmouth, West Bromwich, Middlesbrough and so on.

Below that are scores of clubs who will fall into various lesser categories. For example, Charlton and Millwall will be in a higher grouping than Scunthorpe or Doncaster.

I’ve no doubt forgotten many clubs who would get into any group except the first, and my groupings are my own personal opinion.

In my time as a fan, I'll say Chelsea has become a 'big' club in what I deem big club as which others may disagree with and that's fair. Some of it is quantifiable and some of it isn't I think. Just like in the states.

It could be argued Tottenham is a big club for sure now. Domestically for sure. International, global recognition and stature is another matter.

Our stature has dropped. I'd have to think that any fan under 25 or possibly 30 would see us differently than another fan over 45 or 50.

I agree 100%. Have seen Leeds a few times and there is a little bit of the Emperor's new clothes about Bielsa. He has a mystique about him that seems to have hypnotised pundits and commentators alike. Leeds defence is very poor and when I see them play they always look like they could concede 3 or 4. They probably won't go down but it is not impossible.