Özil, Lacazette, Aubameyang, Mhikitaryan, jack and Ramsey all worth keeping. The rest are past their best or not good enough to regularly play in a team that intends to compete for the title.

Hi AG,

I would have thought that the only thing that might worry Silent Stan is if the share price starts to fall which it shows no sign of doing.

Talk that Usmanov is set to launch another bid but I suspect it would have to be silly money to even begin to even begin to tempt Stanley and Usmanov doesn't seem the sort to just throw money at it.

Valencia to face no further charges for his facekick. It was seen by the officials.......................

The Spurs game was our last chance to move into contention for 3rd, 4th, 5th. We are doomed to the purgatory of 6th place for the rest of the season. Unless something is done, we are likely to repeat that next season. We are the best of the also-rans, and it is hard to see much movement in any direction.

Indeed. I doubt these chaps ever even glance in the direction of the trophy cabinet.

Soc,
The reason I doubt Wenger will be shown the door is related to what you said about the share price. Stan has had to put a lot of money into the rebranded Los Angeles Rams, formerly St. Louis Rams. He also faces a possible lawsuit in St. Louis, a breach of contract suit if I am not mistaken (and I often am )

So, for Stan, right now he's looking at the bottom line. I don't know if the lack of CL money has started to affect the bottom line as yet. Furthermore, Stan has always been a long term holder and sells when the market is drying up and no longer profitable (like many of his shopping malls).

He's older and the future of Arsenal rests in his son who will inherit us. If you want to know where the Arsenal will be in 15 or 20 years (assuming mortality rates for a man of Stan's age), its with his son. I'm curiou sto know what he thinks of us. Will he sell? Does he know the sport?

Anyway, Stan knows that pretty much any new manager we get will ask to spend money and spend lots of it. It will give Stan some pause if he isn't reasonably a assured that the spending will result in higher league positions and a title which to him means more money (CL, share prices, merchandising, global branding for tours, etc.)

We have to remember Stan is first and foremost a businessman.

Chatting with a spurs supporter this morning and while he thought aubameyang was a good buy he was a little mystified because Lacazette is so similar.

I wonder if Wenger might sell Lacazette. By the end of the season we might decide that neither of them is able to score enough goals. But I think the problem that needs to be sorted is midfield which produces very little in effective balls into the box. All the midfielders have good pass numbers but most of them are sideways and not the defence splitting passes for Aubameyang or Lacazette. Did your mate make any comment on our defence and midfield.

Hi Gaz,

To me the Aubameyang signing looked like one last desperate (and expensive) throw of the dice to try and land us a CL spot. It did not seem like a Wenger signing at all.

The fact that we were so comprehensively outplayed by the Spuds and now have little chance of a CL spot coupled with the fact that he can't play in the Europa League means that within two games he has become something of an irrelevance for this season.

I suspect that your friend is no more mystified than Wenger himself.

I wouldn't be surprised if both players are sold on.

Is Lacazette injured?

Just saw he's out for up to 6 weeks

Craig Pawson's reward for being a useless referee is to ref the League Cup Final.

The Fa really are a load of wankers.

Give Eddie Nketiah a start against the Swedes.

I was thinking more age-wise. He's 29 in June.

'on paper' being the key part there. I think our attack is very unbalanced. Wenger seems to have created an attack with good individuals but no idea how to form it in to a cohesive attacking unit and has an abundance of players with a very similar skill set.
I've long thought that Ramsey and Wilshere struggle to play in the same side. Lacazette and Aubamayang look similar, as do Özil and Mkhitaryan.
There is no natural width, no players who dribble and beat a man, giroud gone loses the target man in the squad
I'd be looking to definitely add a couple of young quick wide men in the summer. Pace, trickery, dribbling and an end product. Obviously everyone is looking for players like that. Ask defenders what they like to face and what they hate to. They are ok facing the attacking style Arsenal have because 95% of it is in front of them and little movement. In the small moments we get it spot on most defences can't cope so there is little to lose any sleep over for them. They hate facing pace and direct dribbling.

Juventus 2-0 spurs inside 8 minutes.

What can we do to tempt allegri to take over from wenger?!

Hi Rich, I know you're arguably part of the fan titillation culture with transfer gossip. But I'm sorry as I don't think it's too much to do with the players. You clearly think deeply about styles of play, tactics, and players who would fit them. But what's the point? If you named a world eleven you'd want as the team, with Wenger as manager we'd finish sixth. I strongly suspect you realise it as you've hinted you do. But I'm with kiwipete's reply to one of your posts last night. What's the point?

Players aren't the most important factor. The manager is. Let's start discussing players once Wenger has finally sodded off.

So who’s the best manager in the premier league?

Pep

Didn’t think Bernard rated Pep?

Hi Bernard, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I still enjoy talking about football and arsenal. I’m bored of constantly writing and talking about the same mistakes and having the same resigned nature with arsenal so occasionally I let my mind drift in to what it could be or what it would take to fix us.
Clearly nothing changes until wenger leaves and I would like to see a new manager with the same players but at the same time there are some things that happen on the pitch that can’t be wenger’s fault. I blame wenger for creating a culture with no consequences for mistakes but when Čech miss kicks straight to a Swansea player to score it is clear we need a new gk.

If we don’t talk about players because wenger is the problem then we are only left to talk about wenger and the board. That depresses me more than pouring over the mistakes of our players.

But for some talk about the board I think gazidis has taken a lot of flak and some of it very justified but I am of the opinion that he does want change. He has made some good behind the scenes appointments and I think he does want wenger gone. Put it this way, of all board members I feel gazidis is one of the few who do want us to push on and win things

So Pep could take our squad to a title but Wenger wouldn’t win it with city’s, I think I get it now.

Guardiola has done his stuff at huge or rich clubs. How can you not win the Bundesliga with Bayern (I'm being flippant as I know they don't win it every year. My point is the Champions League is the measure of a Bayern manager, not the poxy Bundesliga). He's a good coach and I'd now welcome him at Arsenal. But I'd rather have Pochettino.

2-1 now. Kane scores again.
To be fair since they went 2-0 down spurs has been the dominant team and have had enough chances to be level at least

Mystified he may be little Granty Boy .... but Arsene's vision was such that he knew Lacazette was going to need a knee operation that would keep him out for six weeks .

"Six weeks "......translated ....that means we will see Lacazette back playing sometime in November .

Diaby Mkhitaryan 2 [ Welbeck ] our only striker on the European front .

Aubameyang ineligible , Lacazette injured , Sanchez or Giroud sold ..." all our chickens have come home to roost " ... big time .

Spurs back to 2-2. They deserve it. They rode their luck certainly with Juve missing a huge penalty right on half time for 3-1, but hard to not be impressed with how spurs have taken the game to Juve after a nervous start. Can’t remeber the last time we did that to any semi decent team in Europe let alone one of the best.

I always thought spurs had a thin squad and huge luck with injuries but this season they have missed their two first choice full backs from last year, alderweireld has been out for a while and wanyama our for a long time. Their forward players are consistently fit and relentless in their press for 90 minutes. It’s clear to see every player knows exactly what he’s doing with and without the ball.

The other thing spurs do is the far k side of the game. Their players continually dive and always look for the quick tactical foul when they lose possession.

Reminds me of our performance in Milan 10:years ago ,

Obviously the ultimate currency will be what this team win and who they keep out of their stars , but any gooner who can’t see this is a club on the up is living on a river in Egypt

Found this funny today.
Wenger has ‘nearly signed’ so many players that he is going to nearly sign the son of a player he nearly signed.

It was in relation to Justin Kluivert who is doing good things at Ajax

Even if Wenger had an ounce of self awareness he would look at this in contrast to our first leg capitulations with embarrassment , whatever the final score in the tie this is how to play in Europe

Bit unfair that on people living on rivers in Egypt.

No need to be left wondering. one of either Eddie or Reiss should start every EPL game from now to the end of the season. Lets ask the questions now about their ability. They have dribbling and will move around the pitch. Keen as mustard. The EPL is gone but probably only Wenger believes we can make top 4.

Yep, all of spurs team are paid at least half what their talent deserves. I’m surprised more big teams hasn’t come in for their players but they will get picked off. Alderweireld is probably next. I’d be surprised if Real Madrid don’t make a huge bidfor Kane.
But spurs have lost some players, they have sold at the absolute peak price and crucially reinvested that money.
The key will be Kane and Pochettino. Real Madrid may be interested in both this summer.
Smaller teams generally get players picked off as soon as they win something.

Not the first time in his career he has looked for the kick start in January. Asharvin worked but this season and last there are too many problems across the squad. He has run out of tricks. As has been said Aubameyang is quite old. Remember that after 30 years of age Wenger used to ditch players.

Looking at all the problems across the club and squad, the only thing left to try is to get a new manager. All the tricks have been tried and failed. Over to you Arsene.

I assume you are shopping for a new manager. If so I think it depends on a number of factors. Pep has it going on with a very expensive squad and some simply great players. But over at Crystal Palace Roy H has done a great job as has the Huddersfield manager. There are a number of clubs where just staying up is a great effort. So much depends on the current squad of players at the relevant club as to how I judge the best manager.

Lets move to our particular club. The trouble I now have is that across the squad we don't have many great players. Pep may not succeed with our squad. GK and defense wise we need some real money injected. Unbalanced across midfield and only one style of attack. I don't know whether he could take our squad from pretenders to challengers. I believe many of our players are either not good enough or so damaged goods they could not change.

Therefore if we want a new manager I think it has to be a Spurs type manager who can take okay players to a new level. The Raineri effect at Leicester as an example. But I suspect that over the following 2 years from a new manager being appointed we would need to churn some 7-10 players from the current squad.

Basically we need a new "Wenger" because with the financial model that Kroenke has forced upon the club it will be impossible to buy our way back into the CL.

Worrying that it appears the English teams could be about to start dominating the CL, to some extent anyway, as that will just allow the likes of City to pull further away and Spurs to close the gap (financially) on us very quickly.

Ivan has a hell of a job on his hands to get us back as a regular CL club, let alone one that can win either the PL or CL.

The way I see it Kroenke is in a win win situation .... he doesn't have to invest big $$$$$ into the club , because no matter what results we churn out , type of football we play Arsenal Football Club will always be an attractive commodity .

Usmanov , some filthy rich Thai , Indian , Nigerian whoever would be busting a gut to grab the reins ... if he put the club up for sale tomorrow he'd be inundated with offers ... he'd double his investment .

Our value rises no matter what happens on the pitch . So he can sit smugly in the stands with his stupid hairpiece , wispy moustache and bide his time .

Just as Spurs were fortunate to get Pochettino we were just as misfortunate to inherit Kroenke .

Nina Smith and Fitzman have a lot to answer for .

We certainly look like we are being left behind. I don’t believe any decent manager will not want a large cash injection.

When you have got the biggest purse in England (arguably the world) to buy players it takes more than rolling the ball out on the practice pitch to win you know? There is the matter of which multi millionaire, top class player to put on the team sheet. hehe

The vacillating guy has lots of stories to tell