Don't know if anyone saw Wengers interview after yesterday's game but I thought unusually it was a very frank and honest assessment. I'm not a mind reader however I wonder if the more relaxed way he answered the questions indicates something. The frowns, raised voice and quarrelling were gone, wondering if it's an indication on Darren's theory that he will probably go at the end of the season because he knows it doesn't matter getting worked up anymore

https://youtu.be/j1MIpuvcn38

Also despite Aubameyang I still think we need an additional 4 players to compete properly.

Keeper
Centre half
A midfielder to replace can't move won't move
New wide player to cover mikhitarian

If we want Manolas and the rumoured £30m buy out clause is true then to me it seems pretty simple. You get some agent to tap up his agent, make our interest clear and find out for sure a) if he wants to come and b) how much he would want to be paid.

Apparently we bid £12m for Evans, West Brom knocked it back as ‘derisery’ and most media outlets are laughing at us for such a low bid. Now I know it is fashionable to laugh at arsenal for whatever we do, we are a total joke in most aspects but it is only a low offer when compared against the inflated price West Brom put on Evans head. Evans is over 30 and could very likely be available for £3m in 6 months.

Spurs 1-0 Man U....after 10 seconds.

Simple long punt and two busy players feeding in and around the lead striker who got the knock down. Certainly beats 40 sideways passes

The first 120 seconds of the spurs v Man U game has already seen more chances and good quality attacking moves than arsenal managed in the whole Swansea game. The gulf in quality from us to these two teams is huge.

Indeed. He can be superb as a DM because he has the athleticism, tackling ability and fantastic passing ability. I'd take him over Xhaka without a second thought.

Arsenal have made 11 individual errors leading to goals this season. Next worse is Southampton on 8 then palace on 6.

Čech has made the most by a player with 4.

Top clubs just don’t make this number of errors and I can guarantee that everyone of those 11 individual errors was not even discussed or worked on on the training pitch and was instead rewarded with another start

Walcott has scored for Everton. Haha

Theo scores first Everton goal.......

We beat Tottenham already this season.

Go, Theo.

Two goals now for Walcott. No point saying why wasn’t he used more because he was stuck in a rut at arsenal and was never going to get any sort of of form under wenger and the way the team plays.

Good luck to him. Hope he can play himself in to the World Cup squad. Our defence is going to have absolute kittens facing the counter attack from Everton next weekend

So you think we are a better team than Tottenham right now? And by that logic Huddersfield are better than Man U

Lovely finish, Jones.

Tucked away beautifully there by Phil Jones - top corner. Unfortunately for him it's past De Gea.

Sanchez very quiet so far.

No I don't think we are better than Tottenham but neither do I think there is a huge gulf in quality. We thoroughly outplayed them a few weeks ago. You are talking about us as if we are relegation fodder.

We're playing them in 10 days, we'll see what happens then.

Very telling I thought the other day , when Walcott didn't have much impact ..... Allardyce said "we didn't use him right '

Funny I was one of Walcott's biggest critics but now in a blue shirt I want him to score a hat trick in every game .

Think I said a couple of years back we have the fastest bloke in the league yet never ever spray a long ball over the top to utilise Theo's strengths

you obviously missed yesterday's match Dec ....?

André Ayew goes from West Ham back to Swansea for £18m. Same price as Giroud. Sigh

Yes. And they will probably beat us. They have a poor record away to the rest of the big 6. They are strong contenders for top 4 but far from certainties. Sounds very much like us in recent years.....except we have won a few trophies.

Well we are closer to the relegation clubs than City. The gap to spurs is getting wider and I’d bet it only gets bigger at the end of the season. Look beyond just points and look at what happens on the pitch. Every team above us has a clear plan and style of playing with a relatively settled side who generally do not gift bang average teams goals and throw away leads to relegation threatened teams.

We raised our game v spurs, yep, but any team in this league can raise their game. How many times in the last 5 years have we thoroughly outplayed a top team vs the times we’ve been thoroughly outplayed. I thinking of the regular maulings at Anfield, the usual 2-0 at Stamford bride, when was the last time we won at old Trafford?

In a one off game at our best we can certainly match these teams above us, but we do this on OMG a handful of occasions and those above us do it far more regularly. So yes I really do think there is a gulf in class at the moment.

You clearly had too much rum if you think it was worse than the 8-2 at Old Trafford. ....

We are an inconsistent team. Good at home and terrible away. We've been like this for ages. Liverpool lost to Swansea last week, while we beat Chelsea.. We could and should be far better but we are not and won't
be until Wenger goes.

Poch has a terrible record away to the rest of the Top 6. Liverpool can look brilliant against top sides yet drop points at home to weak sides. That's what makes those teams in the 4th, 5th, 6th category. The gulf in class is to City.

Offhand the only players who would get in the Tottenham first team are Özil and possibly Ramsey. Can’t say on Aubameyang yet.

Managers it’s a no-brainier.

Nobody seen the Chelsea score?

Ollie will be disappointed.............

Has anyone reported that Debuchy has officially left the club? Gone for free even though he had 6 months left on his deal.

Does that leave chambers and Nelson as back up right backs. I suppose AMN could play there

Have to disagree a bit here. The summer was a complete mess by us, and that directly contributed to losing Sanchez in January, but after that this month has been a breath of fresh air.

We've gotten rid of four first team players who really didn't have a place in the team anymore - that's a lot of wage coming off the books. We needed to get rid of players in order to add, not because of money for transfer fees but for clearing squad places and creating space in the wage budget. On top of that we added two starting quality players.

There's a lot less to do in the summer now. Still one or two players to get rid off, but for the most part we can focus on bringing players in. In terms of squad management we made a lot of good moves this month.

At least their owner will sack a failing manager.. unlike our useless parasite who rewards failure as long as profits are maintained.

Do we really want that anyway?!, Conte seems to be one of the few managers who hasn't worked Wenger out yet!!.

Spurs absolutely battering Utd at the moment. Alexis not getting a kick.

Monreal

I'm going to have an interesting curry tomorrow night with my Chelsea devotee mate.

Our players are worse than your players but never mind you got Giroud and we got PEA.

Could be fun...................

Alexi's getting well and truly battered...............

We've certainly trimmed the squad, and yes it is a good thing we're finally seeing some turnover of players but I don't think we are properly replacing them. Only 4 first team ready players have come in to the squad this year. Under prem rules we can only register 17 non home-grown players.

Čech, Ospina, Per, Kos, Mustafi, Monreal, Kolasinac, Xhaka, Elneny, Cazorla(!), Mkhitaryan, Özil, Aubamayang, Lacazette. That's 14 so there are 3 spaces left and I've included Per and Cazorla so really 5 spaces to fill.

The first team squad as listed on Arsenal.com has 23 players and that includes Mavropanos, Mertesacker and Cazorla. That is a very small first team squad.

It is a start but not enough. We still have lots to do in the summer. Both GK's need replacing, RB to challenge (not back up) to Bellerin, 2 new CBs, holding midfielder and at least 1 winger

Agree about that, but the transfer window was clearly not just about this season. I don't think our needs for the future has changed much (apart from us definitely being set on strikers) but several of the players we needed to shift in order to make room for newcomers are now gone so we don't have to worry about that this summer. We can now add 3-4 players without getting rid of anyone.

Add to that the addition of Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan and new contract for Özil and I'd argue that we're better prepared for the future than we were going into January.

Hi Haz, I agree this transfer window has prepared us better for the future but I suppose I'm just entrenched in glass half empty mode with Arsenal.

The last time we signed two top class players we systematically failed to surround them with any sort of quality, it is a minor miracle that we even have one of those class players still here.

We also face a summer where that 23 man squad has (I think) 3-4 players who will be in the last year of their contract including Ramsey and Welbeck as well as a few who will retire and a few who should be moved on. We are still looking at a summer where we will need 8 or so first team players. World cup in the summer and the transfer window shutting early, all alongside Arsenal notoriously taking ages to finalise a deal doesn't fill me with confidence that we will get anywhere near what we want.

My crumb of hope is that we have seemed more decisive this winter and wenger does seem to be having his power wrestled away from him.

Conte is a very good manager. It is pretty obvious that he has been undermined at Chelsea in terms of transfers. I really hope that Wenger leaves in the summer and we get Conte to replace hIm.

I think he will go back to Italy. He won the epl & has nothing more to prove.

7 points ahead of 7th, 6 points behind 5th. I don't expect us to move from 6th for the rest of the season.

It is highly unlikely we wont be in the europa league minimum next season so we should go all out and rest players for europa league games to give us the best chance of winning it an getting back in the champions league next season. Even if we crash out again the money and the attraction of being in it are big for us this summer