Thanks. That explains it. Although I don’t know why the club can’t just say on Arsenal.com that’s he’s left through mutual consent.

I really don't think that is what we need at all. Falling out with your players is daft. I would have serious doubts about his people management abilities. It's not as if Aubameyang is a one-off. Players are dropped and get very limited opportunities to get back in. We are sending players out on loan or letting them go for free without replacing them. Our squad is so small that we got a game cancelled with one Covid case. What happens if Lacazette goes over on his ankle next week? We have three centrebacks in the squad. One injury and one suspension and we could have to switch one of our fullbacks in there, one of whom is coming back from injury and the other injury-prone. It's not impressive squad management.

You must be joking. It’s par for the course with great managers.

How many players did Ferguson fall out with. Clough, *%^@*** hell George think Rocky and limpar. Marwood.

If you turn up late and miss the coach for a north London derby you are dropped it’s as simple as that. Keep doing it whilst displaying shocking form and everyone knows what’s on the cards.

It’s an economic decision not a footballing one anyway. Saw earlier aubameyangs last contract essentially paid him 1.2 million for every goal he scored during it !

His sale saves Arsenal about 25 million over the next 18 months. To put that in perspective that would have roughly paid the first year of vlahovics wages plus contributed another 18 million towards any transfer fee.

There’s no way we should have not done this. That said the whining and moaning that will occur when he scores his first goal will be reminiscent of our fans moaning every time martinez made a save for villa.

Arsenal.com update about Aubameyang exit. Very brief and I’ve seen more written about a reserve leaving. It does mention mutual consent though. Lol

https://www.arsenal.com/news/pierre-eme ... es-arsenal

Thanks. I have trouble with open some links here and yours was one of them. But I had a look at the Arsenal.com report independently and didn’t know he’d scored 92 goals for us. Means he was only 8 short of membership of what Arsenal calls its 100 club. Wish he’d got another 8 before leaving.

When Paul Merson left he had 99 goals.

Incredible to think that Giroud and Theo are in the 100 club yet Merse and Aubameyang aren’t.

It's 2022, not 1987. Clough and Graham's style of management just would not work today. But mentioning Rocky, that was one of the worst decisions George made.

As for Ferguson, he may have been famous for the hairdryer but the ex-players would say that it was all forgotten about shortly afterwards. He never sidelined players for months. He indulged Rooney to a great extent, for example.

See Ramsey was voted Serie A’s biggest flop. Hope he’s better at Rangers.

Arthur Melo was voted the third biggest flop, who Arsenal were linked with heavily in January.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mirror ... 103376.amp

Tons of players have been dropped for disciplinary reasons and being late. Mané, sancho and even mbappe a few years back. Guardiola even hammered 2 of his players in public as did Tuchel with Kovacic. No manager is tolerating their captain missing a derby without consequences. Sorry it’s just nonsense and the idea we should lower our standards than others is farcical.

It is sad to have to say "Good riddance Aubameyang!"
Aubameyang did it to himself. I suspect he might also have been a big negative influence on a few of those whom Arteta did not take to nicely. Perhaps pulled them too far into party-mood. It will be interesting to see if his best-mate Lacazette gives his all for Arteta. I fear we will see a much muted Lacazette from here on. Best mate gone, and contract running down. What is there to play for?

The club needs to learn quickly about giving out huge wages to players.
First it was Özil, also a Captain
Now Aubameyang

Part of the reason I think we got rid of players like Chambers, SK and others as well. Chambers - A bit part player on over 50k per week according to reports, SK probably close to 100k and I think given Wengers socialist view to wages anyone who was with him was on way too much for a team that now aren't anywhere near CL.

I think the Aubameyang situation is very different from the Özil one. Özil was signed by a very desperate Wenger. Aubameyang was red-hot in the lead up to signing the contract and at the time, literally everyone was saying "Arsenal would be absolutely mental not to sign him to a new contract". He literally carried the entire team for goals in that season, won us the FA Cup and was performing at a world class level.

What happened after that is anybody's guess as he had a sick mum, malaria, etc and who knows what conversations, promises or otherwise were being made behind closed doors. The last straw obviously being that it seems he was given some flexibility to fly off again and then deliberately chose not to come back at the agreed time. He didn't miss a plane or some other accident. If he's allowed an exception and takes the piss then what happens when some other team mate wants the same? My view is that the team would end up with the laissez faire attitude of the Wenger years where the favourites got picked regardless of *%^@ performance. It may seem a bit draconian but Arteta is creating an environment where if you don't perform or don't have the right attitude then you don't play, regardless of who you are. This isn't a typical office environment but a high performance game. Özil was the first to go, Guendouzi and now Aubameyang. There is also a tonne of space in the squad now to bring in players who know that if they have the right attitude and perform, they have a realistic chance of being part of the first 11.

In hindsight it all seems obvious but at the time of signing Aubameyang, I think most were seeing him play out his days with us.

I remember Berbatov seemed to struggle with Ferguson. I recall one match where he scored 5 and was dropped in the next match.

"the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry"

Football never, ever goes according to plan. You have to adjust. If we found ourselves still last place, you can be sure, we'd be making panic buys. Anyone think the club wouldn't? The club would say 'No, we have a plan, the possibililty of relegation won't change that'.

Fact is we never envisioned competing for 4th place prior to the season and we have that opportunity now. This is one of those opportunities worth the risk of deviating from the plans for a myriad of reasons that should be obvious. We get more money so in theory it pays for the expenditure. We are able to offer CL football to people who would have turned us down for not being in it.

If we don't get 4th, there are some fans that I think have a right to moan about loss opportunities. If we end up top 6, Europa football, it was our goal pre-season. Backing into top 6 is a little tough to take though.

You edited out my last sentence, which distorted the point of my post.

My point was that each of the outs, looked at individually, was good management. Do you deny that Aubameyang needed to be moved on? Not replacing them is a huge risk. But I can understand why we didn't just sign who was available. We have surely learned our lessons about that.

Management style is a different issue. No doubt Arteta expects high standards of discipline. However, I do believe that if Aubameyang had been scoring goals, his rather minor disciplinary breach would have been brushed over (I don't think Aubameyang was a bad influence at all in the squad. By all accounts he is friendly and cheerful and supportive of the younger players.) The same applies to other players supposedly frozen out.

Completely agree. Guardiola's PR is superb. But there is no doubt that there is a iron fist in the velvet glove. The idea that all modern footballers are playboys and spoiled brats who need to be pampered, and are not capable of respecting a tough but fair manager, is nonsense. The majority have been through the school of hard knock and have their head screwed on too well to allow the big money and bright lights to distract them. I also think player power is over-rated. There is massive competition at elite level and very few players are indispensable.

If his contract is cancelled he can go anywhere he wants?

I agree, although it takes more balls for Arteta to drop his captain and main striker than it does for Pep to do something similar in his squad because Pep can just bring in another £100m player in their place.

Below is the full list, at least as it currently stands, of Arsenal’s 100 club. A list of the 19 players who scored at least a 100 first team goals in competitive games for the club. I’ve put them in order going downwards from highest to lowest for goals scored.

When two players scored the same number (Jimmy Brain and Ted Drake both scored 139, while Frank Stapleton and Theo Walcott both scored 108), I’ve put them in surname alphabetical order.

The * against some of them is my own record of whether I saw them play for the club. Those without a * I saw play, while those with a * were before my time. Although Joe Baker did play for Nottingham Forest in my first ever game, he gets a * as I never saw him play for Arsenal.

Thierry Henry 228
Ian Wright 185
Cliff Bastin 178*
John Radford 149
Jimmy Brain 139*
Ted Drake 139*
Doug Lishman 137*
Robin van Persie 132
Joe Hulme 125*
David Jack 124*
Dennis Bergkamp 120
Reg Lewis 118*
Alan Smith 115
Jack Lambert 109*
Frank Stapleton 108
Theo Walcott 108
David Herd 107*
Olivier Giroud 105
Joe Baker 100*

I don’t expect anyone to count those with and without a *, but I saw 9 of them play for Arsenal and 10 who I didn’t.

I’ve not researched those who fell just short, but I do know Paul Merson scored 99 and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang got 92.

Yeah, thanks. I didn’t realise at the time his contract had been terminated via mutual consent.

Some class players in that list eh?

Winced when I read van persie and never realised had he stayed he would have got really close to cliff bastins record. Ridiculous way to end it.

Also the list confirms that Thierry must have been from another planet or something. That is not human.

For it will always be Limpar with George. I’ve said many times about the game at the dell where he single handhedly set up a hat Rick for wrighty and turned in a real class performance. Next game….. dropped.

And a couple of days after that, joined Everton. A busy week.

Didn't pep drop a whole lot of 'stars' when he took over at Barca? Nevertheless, you are right. Arteta certainly does seem to have a steely pair of cojones.

I’m sure everyone here and the huge majority of Arsenal fans across the world who don’t use the forum must be aware Henry is the club’s record goal scorer. But what I imagine is less well known is that Henry actually provided more assists than Bergkamp.

I’ve stated my opposition to terms like ‘best ever player’ and ‘GOAT (greatest of all time)’. But if anyone is going to make me break my own rule, it’s Henry. He was so good he was practically a freak of nature.

Also looking at the list made me review Girouds scoring record which is not one in two but not that far off it. Lacazette is not near that, really unfortunately Lacazette has been a disappointment given his transfer fee and wages probably

You're right he did, I think it was the 'old guard' the likes of Ronaldinho, Zambrotta, Deco and Edmilson - I'm sure he wouldn't have liked Ronaldinho's partying tendencies. I just looked at who he signed that season, Dani Alves, Pique, Busquets promoted from youth, Keita.......and Hleb. And he gave a certain Leo Messi a much more prominent role. He still had to make those calls but he had a hell of a good team to push through in their places

Heya Bernard. What happens when you click on a link that doesn't open ?
Is there a message at all ?

I'm one of his biggest fans and still think he can do a very decent job as a back up, but I have to agree with you. Does Arteta imagine that Lacazette can carry our challenge for 4th? If not, what is the plan then?

No, nothing happens at all.

Are you able to right click on it at all ?
*Or was this on your phone ?

Afraid it’s on my phone.

Completely agree. Henry is the greatest premier league player by a mile. Allowing for the fact that peak Ronaldo was outside of the prem.

I think back to so many of those Henry assists where he was 1v1 with the GK and passed it square for the tap in. If he was truly selfish he'd have scored even more.

If you 'hold' your finger down on it ?

Should popup and say 'Open link' or similar ?

The culling of the squad will continue heavily this summer. It seems quite clear who the manager wants and who he doesn't. This summer it really shouldn't take too much effort to generate £60-70m from sales
Lacazette, Elneny and Nketiah all leave for free (although we may be due compensation for Nketiah as we trained him from youth level)
Guendouzi is on a £12m obligation to buy
Mavropanos is on a £3m obligation to buy - unless Stuttgart get relegated then he's back with us to sell on the open market if we wish
Torreira has a £12m option to buy - he's done well for Fiorentina so far
Mari and Nelson could be sold for £3-5m each
AMN, Leno and Bellerin could go for a combined £30m

£60-70m right there

Of course we'll be looking to maybe spend all of that on a single striker so there will need to be some heavy spending as well. Beyond those listed above you could look at Xhaka and Pépé possibly leaving but they would generate decent enough fees.

It is going to be/should be another busy summer for us I think

A few very close friends in LA who are Rams fans are also aware Kroenke owns Arsenal and were surprised I said I wasn't cheering for the Rams in the Super Bowl. Kroenke has been good for LA so far. He's delivered a great new stadium and a winning team.

I can't. Perhaps I am unfair. I don't really care. I'll always maintain we were better off without him. My one rule for owning Arsenal is love the club. I can forgive a lot of things in an owner if he makes mistakes based on love for the club.

And I'll always believe any thing we accomplish is in spite of Kroenke and not because of him.