If the rumours that Aubameyang has agreed a new deal with us are true then it’s great news. It also made me think back to how, certainly one my time supporting Arsenal, that we’ve had some unbelievable strikers/goal scorers pretty consistently for 30 years.
Wright (who was a God to a 10 year old me), Anelka, Henry, Van Persie, Adebayor, Aubameyang
Adebayor and Anelka weren’t as consistent or stay as long as some others but these were 25 a season strikers. When you look at what other top teams have had over that 30 year period we’ve been pretty lucky.

But the jobs don’t exist anymore that’s the entire point. If you come in to work and there’s no work to perform you’d expect to be out of work at some point

Surely it makes more sense to offer them a generous redundancy payment in a golden handshake then everyone moves on. A redundancy payment can be 5-9 months salary anyway. I bet that head scout is on a massive golden handshake.

Arsenal are one of the only clubs to have paid all their staff 100% of their salaries through out the whole crisis and not used any Government scheme or support to do so. Yet now they are getting battered by the fake twitter outrage mob

Kind of makes sense. But our scouting positions? Those jobs don’t exist any more?

Arsenal are one of the only clubs to have paid all their staff 100% of their salaries through out the whole crisis and not used any Government scheme or support to do so. Yet now they are getting battered by the fake twitter outrage mob

Kind of makes sense. But our scouting positions? Those jobs don’t exist any more?

...and so many other mysteries when it comes to Arsenal strikers where we don't know the real story of why they didn't make it. Joel Campbell, Park Chu Young, Carlos Vela, Ryo, Wellington, Asano.

A little known fact is that most of our academy coaches are employed as "casual staff" so only usually get paid when the actually coach; during the lock down the club paid them based on average hours they had worked during the current season;
a very generous gesture from the club.

Scouting at the senior level has change beyond recognition in the last couple of years.
Players are identified by local contacts and the recruitment can be done via statistical analysis and video scouting.

We have signed 3 players into the academy (18-23) during lockdown that can't have been watched in person.

I know Francis and have immense respect for him, but he had very little involvement in the Martinelli deal at all from my understanding; He was actually "given" to our scout in Brazil by Manures local contact after they didn't follow up on their interest; Edu was the one who got it over the line - mainly because he was still in Brazil when this was all unfolding.

Arsenal's shadow recruiter.

There’s no doubt his influence is etched all over Arsenal right now

All the players we are signing or being linked with are his clients. Even the Lisbon player Joelson we are supposed to be interested in is repped by him.

Just looked at his companies filing at companies house. His revenue was 14.5 million last year. Not bad for essentially doing *%^@ all.

That’s not fair, I’ve seen him working hard watching football games in all expenses paid executive boxes the length and breadth of Europe! Did you know he started life as a car salesman? Why am I not surprised

Not sure I’d sell Maitland Niles either. To sell him and keep Kolasinac seems a bit crazy.

That said we’re apparently trying to sell 6 players from our squad to balance the books. Has to come from somewhere and nobody will come in for some of our duff players

Not sure I’d sell Maitland Niles either. To sell him and keep Kolasinac seems a bit crazy.

That said we’re apparently trying to sell 6 players from our squad to balance the books. Has to come from somewhere and nobody will come in for some of our duff players

We haven’t missed Guendouzi one iota since he’s been taken out the fold. Not sure why would contemplate re signing him. Arteta sounds like he can’t wait to see the back of him.

If Guendouzi can sort his head out he could be a fantastic player. He will be a player for another thirteen or fourteen years. I very much doubt Arteta will be Arsenal’s manager for anything like that long.

At the very least we should have a clause to get a significant proportion of the transfer fee when his next club sells him, in case Arteta is still at Arsenal when that happens.

If Guendouzi can sort his head out he could be a fantastic player. He will be a player for another thirteen or fourteen years. I very much doubt Arteta will be Arsenal’s manager for anything like that long.

Would you agree we looked far better and more balanced after he was removed from the fold ?

Bernard: If you could keep Guendouzi OR Arteta who would you choose?

With Kroenke as the owner it probably doesn’t matter. To have a different owner I would give up both Arteta and Guendouzi.

I understand your point, however given Kroenke isn't going any where which you would prefer to keep, Arteta or Guendouzi? Personally I'd prefer to keep Arteta.

I think we would have been better with him in the team. There were a number of disappointing performances towards the end of the season, as well as some decent ones.

Who would you have dropped to accommodate him ? Xhaka ? Ceballos

Torreira against Villa. Xhaka in some games. I wish I hadn’t bothered answering you because you seem to be happy to waste time and effort debating meaningless nonsense about player x or player b. While Stan is the owner, I have difficulty in seeing it as anything other than pointless.

My own view, and that’s all it is - a view and my own - is that it’s largely insignificant while Kroenke is the owner. I’m determined to try and be more disciplined in future and, while KSE owns Arsenal, avoid claptrap about Guendouzi or anyone else. If you find it entertaining or that it passes your time, keep going.

You can blame Kroenke all you want and I don’t think he’s a great owner but he’s made 2 mistakes, arsenal Fans won’t admit it but far more damaging than any of his influence was that as fans we stood by and watched Wenger run the club adrift and we are still paying for those consequences. He couldn’t sack Wenger whilst 50 percent of our fans still worshipped him.

In October 2008 after that spurs debacle I knew Wenger was finished yet mention it on here and I’d get an earful. A decade later with no tactic changes, coaching changes or anything just anything people finally finally twigged. Years and years it took. It was too late, Now the 2 new managers since are screwed with no champions league football, no money, few sellable assets in their squads and a huge wage bill.

The persons responsible for our transfers the summer of 2016 when we sold rosicky and Jack Wilshere and spent 100 million on Perez, Xhaka and Mustafi did more damage than Kroenke ever could.

Btw wanting us to get relegated is totally nuts !, the next owner is liable to be an even bigger nutter in this day and age.

You can blame Kroenke all you want and I don’t think he’s a great owner but he’s made 2 mistakes, arsenal Fans won’t admit it but far more damaging than any of his influence was that as fans we stood by and watched Wenger run the club adrift and we are still paying for those consequences. He couldn’t sack Wenger whilst 50 percent of our fans still worshipped him.

In October 2008 after that spurs debacle I knew Wenger was finished yet mention it on here and I’d get an earful. A decade later with no tactic changes, coaching changes or anything just anything people finally finally twigged. Years and years it took. It was too late, Now the 2 new managers since are screwed with no champions league football, no money, few sellable assets in their squads and a huge wage bill.

The persons responsible for our transfers the summer of 2016 when we sold rosicky and Jack Wilshere and spent 100 million on Perez, Xhaka and Mustafi did more damage than Kroenke ever could.

Btw wanting us to get relegated is totally nuts !, the next owner is liable to be an even bigger nutter in this day and age.

The provisos about who the new owner would be and going straight back up was made, I thought. If it was the only way of getting him to sell, I’m not sure it is nuts. You say Kroenke has only made two mistakes. Not sacking Wenger earlier was one. What’s your other?

For me keeping Wenger in post so long was symptomatic of his ownership philosophy. A lack of ambition to win trophies. The club no longer has that ambition. Wenger matched it as the game had outgrown him, as it does with practically all managers. We’re seeing it with Mourinho too. I’m expecting it to with Klopp and Guardiola also, however long it takes. The game moves on from what once made managers great. Wenger was great in his day.

is.

Back in August 2011 this wasn't so pretty either.

For me the 2 Kroenke mistakes are not sacking Wenger quick enough although 50% of our fans still wanted him even at the end almost and an owner cant act under that circumstance. The second is appointing Emery who was the wrong guy. Even Emery though had to deal with Arsenes cloud looming over the club and wasn’t allowed to sign Zaha with the board preferring Pépé.