I'd like Arsenal to win a particular trophy this season. Obviously I value it either more or less than the other trophies on offer, in the order favoured by every other fan of Arsenal.

A person I know who is based in my country and who supports a club other than Arsenal thinks his club will be more successful than Arsenal during a period of time that I hereby mention. He believes his club will win a specified number of trophies during that period. He additionally thinks that Arsenal will be less successful during said period. Both Manchester United and Liverpool have on occasion endured trophy droughts, a fact he mentions vis-a-vis Arsenal and said want of silverware. He's a real fan, though, not like many in the country to which I refer.

Well, we are sunk. Seems Darren has talked to his dad who has given him the secret to unlocking The Arsenal. Oh well.

Disagree here, John, as Mayo would have had a free and could have gone two clear. A lot I feel would have depended on Cluxton's kickouts but he definitely appeared to be finding his feet after a wobbly start.

Mind you, John, that Vaughan fella only had himself to blame. Be a while before he takes a puckout in the aul' hurleyball so.

Right now £35-40m looks like the sale of the summer[/quote]
More like the steal (swindle), of the summer.

13Ospina
16Holding
4Mertesacker
21Chambers
30Maitland-Niles
35Elneny
10Wilshere
61Nelson
14Walcott
7Sánchez
12Giroud
Substitutes
17Iwobi
18Monreal
32Akpom
43Da Silva
54Macey
62Nketiah
69Willock

Wilshere Elneny midfield?

Excellent second team if they can gel and avoid the faux pas.

Only just realise we play again on Monday and Thursday. Don't recall that happening in the Europa League before?

Stonewall penalty for Giroud not given. Double arm wrestled to the floor

Oh my! Giroud hits the bar with an incredible acrobatic scissor kick. Would have been his best goal for us

Walcott 1-0. Assist from a lovely delighted ball from Sanchez.

Walcott can frustrate with his general contribution but he certainly doesn't panic in front of goal. One of the members of the squad I'd be most confident in running through on goal

Just a tad one sided. Shame we could only score one goal.

Hopefully better in the second half.

Really sloppy second half from us. Too many stupid flicks and back heels. Trying that one in a thousand give and go right through the heart of the defence. The second part of the 1-2 nearly always just goes straight to the defender.

The first half we used he width of the wing backs so much better. This is back to the worst of arsenal trying to score the perfect goal through miracle one touch football and through 7 defenders

Doncaster have been the better side second half. Arsenal woeful

One of the worst ref decisions you'll see, clean Doncaster header from a corner, loops up and flicks the bar and goes over, ospina a good foot at least away from it and the ref gives a corner. Just bizarre

I'm only following this on Sky updates but it sounds as if we are at our arrogant worst.

Really? We basically stopped trying to win and gave them far far to much encouragement in the words of the commentator, but they were like a pub team. An actual pub team. Shows how badly we performed. Bit of a circumspect performance from Nelson. Maybe just getting minutes under his belt and finding his feet. Hope so. Encouraging 90 minutes from Wilshere and interesting to see him the only player really on Sanchez's wavelength before the Chilean disappeared up his own arse. And how bad was the final ball from Iwobi! Head in hands stuff.

I haven't been able to watch the Gaelic football since the outrageous award of the final to Dublin in 1894. Knew it was fixed then.
Six final defeats in 13 years for Mayo and the last two by a point. So unlucky.

Album out this Friday. Liked "Skying" so hopefully there'll be a few good tunes on this one too...

He did look just like Freddie....without the goals though.

Someone needs to have a word about pulling those shorts up. Embarrassing. Especially when you then hit row z with the free kick.

Better than the scorpion kick???

Norwich at home next round.

I think it would have been because the scorpion kick relies on a huge slice of luck.

Are we swooning at his legs, is that it? Or maybe he thinks it makes him look taller? Or just a trademark, like a latter day cantona upturned collar? And he's gone in 10 months. So odd.

Too many square pegs in round holes. The lack of decent cover in the wing back positions is worrying should anything happen to Bellerin or Kolasinac.
Thought Wilshere was our best player.
If the second 11 don't have the personnel to play 3 at the back why force it?

Real Betis beat Real Madrid with a goal late in injury time at the Bernabeau. Lovely goal to finish an excellent passing move. No parking the bus and hacking it clear nonsense.

Also, it's the first time in 73 games that Madrid have failed to score. That is some run.

Napoli playing really well in Italy. I think they might be the next team who put a good squad together that ends up getting decimated by the wealthier clubs. Quite a few very good players at Napoli

A win is a win. I thought the scoreline would be a bigger margin but in fairness, its hard to get motivated for a midweek league cup match against Doncaster.

Well given the money some of these players earn they should be f...en motivated whether they are playing Real Madrid or Doncaster. I note from a number of podcasts that our 0-0 draw has signaled the resurrection of the club. Will people never learn. If any of them had watched Chelsea recently they would have realised they have not been playing well. A number of posters on here mentioned this last week. I was happy with the draw but let us wait a while before buying our EPL champions t-shirts.

Echo that last point - we're not Tottenham

Apparently the official attendance for last night's game was 44,064 based, as always, on tickets sold or issued rather than people inside the ground. It's the lowest gate so far for a competitive Arsenal game at the Emirates. At least it's over twenty thousand (20,138) more than the 23,926 Tottenham got for their game against Barnsley.

I hope not! Yes Monreal is a fine left wing back but then we're in to that age-old wenger problem of false squad strength because you are counting Monreal twice. Kolasinac gets injured so Monreal steps in and there is no loss of quality at LWB, but now the centre of defence is creaking.

Just looking at numbers of players this squad is missing a RB/RWB and a CB. (that's assuming Debuchy is a complete write off) In terms of balance the squad is also missing a dynamic, powerful central midfielder.

For me the first choice central defence in a three at the back formation should currently be Koscielny, Mertesacker and Mustafi. I think Monreal and Bellerin could be the wing backs in that formation, with Kolasinac adding some of the power we're missing further forward.

I felt Nelson, at only 17 so unsurprisingly, showed he's not yet ready for regular first team action in the league. Maitland-Niles again showed he's pretty decent, maybe even a bit better on a good day. But without writing him off I will be surprised if he'll ever be an automatic first team regular, unless we decline still further (which with two more years of Wenger isn't impossible).

The latest rumours suggest Mourinho intends getting Sanchez at Manchester United. I still think we should have sold him to City for the £60m, despite not getting Lemar. Going forward, City barely need him anyway but I think he'd be a far better or more important signing for United. If he does go there on a free transfer, I think it'll be worse than losing van Persie to them. At least we got what at the time was a decent transfer fee for him. Wherever Sanchez goes next summer (unless we can flog him for a few bob in January), we'll lose him for nothing.

Well, every single person on this forum agrees that Ljungberg was an Arsenal legend so if Wilshere is trying to emulate him its no bad thing.

Although remember, being a legend may not necessarily say anything positive about how good a player someone was. After all, some consider Gus Caesar an Arsenal legend.

No real Arsenal fan wouldn't see Freddie as a legend.

If that was a dig at me, I've said in the past that I see Ljungberg as a legend even though I consider him somewhat over-rated as a player by some Arsenal fans.

You really are a bit of a prat, aren't you.

He seems to be implying he's somehow more of a 'real Arsenal fan' than you Bernard. Since you've been going for donkeys years and he stuck a pin in a sheet a few years ago that analysis is laughable at best. What a prat indeed.

Actually his nonsensical question with it's double negatives is spot on.

Basically what he's saying is that a Spurs, Chelsea, Hammers fan would not see Freddie as a legend. The prick was stating the obvious, but we all knew what he meant

The numbers are in and the number of people watching NFL games have been declining significantly the last few years. The opening games this season drew the lowest numbers for several years.
What does this have to do with The Arsenal? My fear is that the Kroenke owned Rams may not make as much money in the next few years and he may look at us a bit more closely for revenue.

The Los Angeles Rams project is huge. Its a huge financial bet. Los Angelenos are known to be fickle (Hollywood, go figure?..lol).

Anyway, could have no effect on us as well. I'd love for Kroenke to consider selling but he's known for holding assets.

Well Rams have been losing many of their games recently. Only exception was the Colts, which was pre-season, I think. Doesn't matter, they still lost. They play San Francisco 49ers tonight. Hilarious if they lose that as well. Trying to see a parallel here between Rams and Arsenal. Especially games lost as opposed to those won. Looking for a similar pattern as it were. Not sure who the big rivals are for Rams, but it could be similar to them losing to big teams as opposed to beating lesser sides, if only periodically. If Arsenal show similar results repeatedly or repetitively, it won't be pleasant.