Mesut Özil leaves UK amid standoff with Arsenal boss Unai Emery to take fiance to Turkey

https://www.foxsports.com.au/football/p ... b568e5094a

Agreed, Europa win seems a more likely route to the CL. We have shown with games v Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea that we can pull it together. If we play 2 legs like we did v Chelsea for example I think there isn't a team left who would beat us.
I make Chelsea, Napoli and ourselves the best 3 left in the competition. I think we can beat any of them at home - the away leg is more tricky and our usual European undoing. Hopefully they can draw each other and we play 1 in the final. What odds Chelsea and Arsenal finishing 5th and 6th and meeting in the Europa final for a Champions League place as well as the trophy? It could really make or break each team in the short and long term

Surely 'goonerpeople' would be more apt in these days of equal opportunities Bernard. And Greeny, if you're reading, no offence mate but no you can't borrow my ears - they're all I've got.

Yeah it basically means a City and United duopoly, Chelsea will probably be sold in the next few years so they may or may not drop out depending on who they get, Liverpool have done well this season but long term will struggle to compete with the wealth of the two Manchester clubs, no point even talking about Arsenal really, we don't even bother to try and compete, Spurs might attract the vultures once they pay off some of their stadium debt, hopefully they get their own Kroenke.

Chelsea’s biggest problem is similar to Arsenal’s. A real lack of attacking threat and creativity. Chelsea have full backs that don’t offer a huge amount going forward, 3 central mids who would barely get double figures for goals and assists a season....combined. Then it is one of Pedro/Willian who are very inconsistent which only leaves hazard and higuain as the only real goal and creative threat.

It would be the final nail in the coffin for football but its always been on the cards. I mean what money-no-object potential buyer would not want to own United given the status and potential of the club.

They could dominate world football because lets face it they could afford to buy virtually any player at any price and few players would turn down a resurgent United even for Real or Barca. We've seen PSG outmuscle Barca so why couldn't United backed by the Saudi Royal Family.

The reality is that we are also-rans and have been for some time now. Our quickest way back to the top would realistically be a a new owner. Otherwise we could be on the outside looking in like Liverpool have been for the best part of 30 years.

It will get worse in the prem if the big teams negotiate their own tv deal. The big 6 are putting together the argument that people pay to watch them not the rest of the league so they should get a bigger piece of the pie. What that fails to realise is one of the reasons the premier league is the best tv export is the relative competitiveness in a one of game from any team in the league. The fast pace and bad defending help as well

Solskjaer has done a great job at Man U but things are a lot easier for a manger in his position whereby he can choose to leave out a £75m striker because he has a £65m one who suits his tactics better. Or he can afford to have the new £50m holding mid not even make any squads because they have a £30m guy the last manager didn’t play. Same with leaving out a £30m centre back and a guy you pay £400k a week to with no loss of quality in the replacements. And the last manager didn’t play his £90m mid in his best position and eventually dropped him - new guy plays world class player in best position coming in off a notional left centre mid position with licence to join the attack.

What would have been more impressive is if Solskjaer had got Sanchez, Lukaku, fellaini, Fred, Valencia all firing when Jose couldn’t. Something a bit more like what Emery is trying to deal with - (Emery has made mistakes as well for sure)

Sarri is on the chopping block at Chelsea and he is on the same points and goal differential as us. Interesting.

I thought this was an interesting Twitter thread.

I agree 200% with what he’s saying.

You have 2 good defenders in Sokratis and Bellerin and 1 decent prospect in Holding.

The other players are nowhere good enough to be playing this level anymore and screaming at Emery to organise them better is totally missing the point. You simply can’t do anything with our personnel in defence and the problem is Emery is desperately trying to shuffle his pack to find a miracle cure that simply doesn’t exist. He needs to abandon it revert to 4 at the back and simply try and outscore the other team. Mustafi is simply beyond coaching.

I don’t believe a previous arsenal team or many other sides would be giving lichsteiner, monreal or Kosielny anywhere near the amount of games they are getting. They are players in the twilight of their careers and should be getting no more than about 5-7 games a season. Personally I’d sell the 3 of them and try and blood youth if we can’t afford transfers.

Personally I think Emery is making mistakes but he’s barely got any options and I’d suggest selling players right now is even more important than buying as we need to shed some serious wood.

Not this season but City will likely win a CL at some point with the money they have and sadly, at the present rate, I can see Tottenham winning before we get another sniff. That happens....no, shudder the thought. I don't want to even consider that happening.

Petr Čech takes Arsenal Women for dinner to congratulate achievement

https://www.skysports.com/football/news ... chievement

I predict the lowest ever attandence at a first team fixture tomorrow night - maybe as low as the 4544 at Highbury in 1966 vs Leeds. I was just out of this picture on the right.

Hey Rog - how the hell are you?

Quite often recently, it's been quite difficult to get on here. I get this message:

Yeah - I saw that one too. I will look into it again over the weekend.
I have a funeral to go to now. A very close musician friend of 30 years passed away at only 62. ;-(

No chance DHD. I can see there being around ten times that as there's so much to play for.

You have to feel a bit sorry for Roy Pack, DHD. As a young local lad joining Arsenal in the early '60s, he must have dreamed of donning the shirt at Highbury for a couple of decades to come, before fifty or sixty thousand excited fans week in, week out. Instead, his one and only appearance for the club in 1966 was in front of a crowd that Enfield FC wouldn't have been thrilled about. And that was it. Weeks later, he was transferred to Portsmouth. A cruel sport.

Interesting picture.

You might find this interesting. I'm inclined to say that Gatting's innings shades it ... the SA attack at Kingmead was formidable but not nearly as fearsome at THAT Windies attack. I'd also put a couple of Lara innings above it. But its up there ...

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/ ... nings-ever

We'll never know what tonight's crowd is. The attendance that's announced will include 40,000 season tickets but I'd guess that only 10% will actually be there.

Certainly was a stunning knock, not least for the way he farmed the bowling. I thought your guys missed a trick or two but that takes very little away from Perera.

Blimey - that's some shout, McQ. I don't recall Roy Pack at all. Stoke Newington boy as well. I must've seen him in the stiffs - I went to all those as well.

I have the Leeds programme somewhere - but I've no idea where.

And whatever happens in the rest of his career, Perera was a god-like for a couple of hours that day.

The number 11, Vishwa Fernando, who supported him so courageously, has picked up where he left off. He's bowling beautifully this morning and has already clean bowled Elgar and Amla. SA 33 for 3.

He was my fave player after Cesc, too bad he turned out to be a Judas. Oh what might have been had he stayed healthy...and if Wenger had made the team more competitive...

I'd never heard of Roy Pack either, DHD, but your post got me into research mode! Players who only started one league game for Arsenal - now there's an elite group.

I think in 2014 Roy won an Arsenal in the Community award for his voluntary work on the Imagine Your Goals programme.

We won't know for sure how many are in the ground but I think it'll be fairly obvious if there's around 55k empty seats. There would have been many fewer, I reckon, had we comfortably won the first leg to make tonights game academic. But I think there's now too much resting on it for somewhere around 9 out of every 10 seats to be empty..

I'm not sure many give a rat's arse about tonight's game, delicately poised though it may be. And a bloody 17:55 kick-off time? I count myself fortunate that I finally managed to give my tickets away - took a bit of trying, believe me.

I was in NYC at one of the early "soccer bars" in Manhattan during this game. Left a business meeting, risking trouble from my boss but I had to see it.

I never realized till looking at it now, how much Henry did for this goal. In the same category to the meandering runs he had vs, Liverpool in 2004 and vs Tottenham.

Thanks, Hoy, that's great. I love the idea of a one-game player from 1966 still being close to the club.

A few edits and that could be re-titled "Arsenal poor finishing 2010-11". Vela contriving to miss a sitter then tripping over his own feet is classic

After a little research myself I was surprised to discover that Andy Cole only made two substitute appearances for us. I was sure he'd made some starts!

My condolences, Rog.

I checked Andy Cole as well, brom! I was at the Charity Shield match against Tottenham in 1991, when he came on as a late sub. He hit a shot into the side netting, and among a few thousand others I thought it had gone in and briefly went mental. Of course, the game ended 0-0. Over the years I've occasionally wondered whether his career at Highbury might have gone a bit differently with a Wembley winner against Spurs on his CV.

I remember that moment too, now you've reminded me McQ. He's definitely one that got away.

No it wouldn’t have made the blindest bit of difference.

He was caught going through the players suit pockets at half time taking stuff during a league match shortly after this and folklore has it the club put it to a vote amongst the players wether he should be sacked or kept on and the players voted to get rid of him which seems a little harsh but understandable. He was then sold. Pretty much all arsenal fans know this story well and next Kevin Campbell came through and that was that.

I remember that night well, but wasn’t there.

Amazing to see the crowd scene. It looks like 100 years ago. Not many replica shirts there.

Seems an unusually early start tonight. Maybe I just didn't notice but usually these matches seem to start around quarter to 8 or so local time.

Clashed with Chelsea’s game. Hence the move. Apparently UEFA wanted us to start at 17:00 !

I think it's because UEFA rules preclude the possibility of two games kicking off at the same time in the same city. Tossers. Clearly never heard of (or don't care about) a normal Saturday's fixture list. I think that because Chelsea have more brownie points than us in UEFA's wanky order of merit, they get to choose the normal English evening kick-off time while we start at a time most people will still be at work. Noswocs.