I am sure others have a different name for it but I think it is all part of mental strength, resilience and pride in what you are doing. The problem is a number of the there were problems with Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang who should not be affected as they are newer arrivals. Xhaka, Ramsay and Özil are done deals and nothing can change them. This club is a mess and Emery will need to be a miracle worker to get anything out of them.

As someone else posted the money for Mkhitaryan was a waste and was for Wenger to save face. At the time I said we have never got a decent player out of Man U as they sell us dregs. Silvestre, Wellbeck and Mkhitaryan are great examples. Wenger purchased for large amounts of money really ordinary players like Xhaka, Mustafi. Panic buys. And his bargains were never that SK as an example.

The problem I have is that I don't think we recruited very well in the off season. I think Leno was a poor buy and we needed to recruit a better keeper. We should have got rid of Ramsay and Wellbeck to raise some money. We have a lot of players who benefited from the Wenger socialist wage program and why would they leave when they will never earn these type of wages at other clubs. Think of Jenkinson, Campbell and a number of others . I hope we are a lot more sensible in the future.

100% correct. Also it doesn’t cover the whole squad and that Sokratis is a likely sub and squaddie when Kosielny comes back.

The fact we signed this inexperienced 19 year old midfielder and he was chucked straight into the first team at the expense of several existing players already at the club speaks volumes about what Emery thought about Wengers squad. Then it doesn’t cover what isn’t there either ie no wingers or width (mark my words you’ll see a winger join in January or a switch to 3 at the back instead) we have obvious gaps in our squad.

Stand by my original point 66 million isn’t enough to rebuild this squad sufficiently in the short term. This will take several windows to fix and probably it will require major decisions to be made on our supposed key protagonists who just don’t seem to be delivering in Özil, Xhaka & Ramsey. These problems are pure Wenger and nothing to do with Emery.

Spurs took up the option they had to play there games in 2018 at Wembley. It cost them. Why do you care. They've been embrassed yes but would you ratherthey opened the ground despite of the questionable security features?

Hi Lom,

The thing is that we have missed many golden opportunities to really strengthen our squad since the purse strings have been relaxed (I'm thinking one summer when we failed to buy a single outfield player in particular) and the ones we have bought have been a mixed bunch really. It's left us playing catch-up big time just when transfer fees and wages are spiralling even more out of control than they already were. Very good players who were £20m a few seasons ago are now £40m players whilst elite players are £70m+. Not to mention the fact that we can't attract elite players anyway.

We've just spent £20m on a keeper who by all accounts is not any better than Čech whilst Liverpool and Chelsea have paid £80m for their keepers. That shows where we are right now in terms of competing for the very best players.

I agree, TG, I think Emery will require balls of steel because some ruthless decisions on big name players need to be made. As I said the other day, I think its maybe time to ship out Özil and move in a different direction. Rambo should have been sold if he's not going to sign a new deal and Xhaka is not the answer if we want a midfield to compete with the very best.

Erm, we've played one game under Emery against the best champions since the invincibles.

Elneny linked to Marseilles acc. to Arseblog.

Sadly one of the greats is fading. Brilliance.

Very true point, I think we’ve all been guilty of reading a bit too much into this single performance. I’d be very surprised if Man City doesn’t win the league rather comfortably yet again, if Liverpool are going to challenge they need to raise their game considerably. The Chelsea game should give us a better idea of what we can expect from this team in the early stages of the season.

Had a quick look and if I have read correctly Dick is not alone amongst Arsenal managers and caretakers in losing his first competitive match in charge. Same thing happened to Kelso, Knighton, Chapman, Crayston, Swindin, Neill and Burtenshaw. Between 1897 and 1962 only Elcoat and Wright took all the points in their first match. Things got better after that,with perhaps George's victory over United being the highlight and Arsene's away win at Blackburn a close second. Vieira's pass supreme!
https://youtu.be/XrqVCuB0L2w

Very sad, one of the greats.

Tony Adams sticking his oar in I see. Coating off Emery after one game. He was the best CB I saw play for us but *%^@*** hell the bloke is a mentalist. Every time he opens his mouth I find myself wanting to hide behind the sofa with embarrassment.

https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-re ... contracts/

Not just Arsenal who have players in the last year of contracts. Look at the list of other top clubs, Man U and spurs in particular. Maybe it is selective reading but I haven't read that much about some of those high profile players

I think Big Tone wanted to be seriously considered for the job. Totally understandable but appears a little bitter perhaps. At one time I thought he could possibly make a decent manager for us but he doesn't have the temperament. Possibly the skills as well, but we wouldn't know unless he actually was given the job.

Anyway, it's way too early for any definitive verdict on the Emery era. I thought everyone would give him time. Giving managers time is in line with how Arsenal are as a club.

Besides, it wasn't like we lost to West Brom at home.

It’s clear that we can’t do what city, Chelsea or Man U did when their squads got stale and they needed a dramatic turnover in playing staff. We have to be looking at what Liverpool have done, there is absolutely no reason we can’t match Liverpool’s spending - net spending.

The two biggest reasons Liverpool have been able to recruit so expensively in the past few years is the big sales of Suarez and coutinho £230m for that pair - that bought them Alison, Keita,Fabinho, Shaqiri, and van dijk
Also they have had very few duds from the players they have signed, along with bringing in good first team players who cost peanuts, Robertson £7m, Arnold £0, Milner £0, matip £0

When the big 3 buy a dud they put him on the bench, sell him for a loss or send him on loan - £40m bakayoko straight out on loan after 1 poor season for Chelsea.

We don’t have a coutinho/Suarez to sell. Our best players are late 20’s so wouldn’t command huge fees.

We’re going to pay the price for poor recruitment, poor contract management and over paying average players. I would welcome a proper clearing of the decks of anyone deemed not good enough, give Emery time to assess them but then get rid and move forward.

So spurs have officially moved the games v Liverpool and Cardiff to Wembley, they have also had to move an NFL game. More interestingly though there is a game scheduled at home to City on Oct 24 with an NFL game already scheduled for Wembley on the same day so spurs have to either have the new stadium ready, find a home for that game that isn’t Wembley or turf out the NFL boys to a new home.

All in all it is a huge mess for them, the stadium is massively over budget, reports saying £1 billion by the time it’s finished, and it’s massively over programme.

Makes you realise what a great job we did getting the emirates built on time.

This may be totally bitter but I really hope spurs feel the pinch twice as hard as we did with the new stadium. If this is the millstone around their neck that forces them down their own fire sale of superstars and ‘project youth’ then bring it on. I can’t see Pochettino for one staying around if that is the case

Another example here Lom


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... reed-next/


In 2015 Wenger gave Carl Jenkinson a 5 year contract worth 45 grand a week. This is probably more than double of what he would have got at another club for a player who at no time in his career has looked capable enough of playing in the premiership. As a consequence we can’t sell Jenkinson and get him off the wage bill as Fat sam pointed out the player refuses to take a pay cut to get first team football and prefers to see his contract out. Even if we try giving him a free many clubs would be reluctant. This is another Wenger legacy decision Emery will probably have to pay off or wait till 2020 to rid himself of.

Really hope our fans are patient with Emery he will be having to manage the problems of the previous regime for some time. It’s a Teresa May Brexit scenario.

Half the back 4 are Emery recruits. I presume Leno will start soon. Of course, he couldn't replace half the squad in one window but he could certainly make changes, which he has done. Most of us expect a change in the defensive side of the game and Emery has made signings to address it. I share Top Gun's views on Mustafi and Xhaka. But they are still here. There's no doubt Emery has work to do but it's his team now.

Lots of talk about us needing to cut our wage bill, I sort of get it in that we have some very high earners like Özil and Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan....and we also have a lot of wasted wages on below average players - BUT are we really spending so much more than the clubs above us (spurs discounted)?
I know there are ‘extra’ finances at Chelsea and city, but what is Liverpool’s wage bill? And how does our income compare to those clubs.

I’m all for getting rid of any player not good enough and who is a drain on our resources, I’d rather put the faith in some of the youth players and take the consequences of a transitional period.

If players like Welbeck and Ramsey are stalling on their contracts we have to sell them. It is ridiculous the amount of players we’ve lost on the cheap or for free due to letting contracts run down. All players need to have the 1 year extension clause in their contracts that the club can exercise to buy more time to sell them.

The ins are done, before the end of August I think it is massively important for us to sell Ospina, Campbell, jenkinson....and now it seems like elneny is off as well. Elneny was bought for £5m, he’s ok but we’ve raised his profile massively, if we don’t double our money on him we need shooting

Sokratis I’ll give you, but Lichtsteiner was bought as a squad player to cover an area in the squad we had zero cover. He looks like a fine signing but I doubt he’d have been emery’s First choice full back to build his future squad.
With £60-70m and the state of the squad as it was it is far to early to point the finger at Emery for the state of the squad or mistakes from players he didn’t buy.
I’m firmly of the belief that a group of average players can be coached in to an organised defence. I just want to see an improvement to our general organisation in defence, individual errors will still happen.
Emery needs 4 transfer windows AND to be properly backed in the transfer market.

I think the truth is somewhere in between here – no doubt this is a squad comprised of mostly Wenger players. But Emery (or Emery and the transfer team) had the whole summer to get rid of players they didn’t rate. They could’ve sold players like Xhaka and Mustafi who were heavily criticized under Wenger, but chose to work with them instead. If these players don’t perform under Emery it’s not all on Wenger, as it will show we should’ve gotten rid of them. That would in turn have given us more funds to make other signings.

You heard it here first - 10th July to be precise.

I disagree. Emery has/ had to give some of these a chance to improve. That means giving them games with the new managers philosophy on how he wants the team to play. If after a couple of months they have not changed then the die is cast. They must go. But what I personally found disapppointing was that some of these players did not even try in the first game.

Some of these players because of the ridiculous wages they were granted under Wenger will not want to move. It’s easy to say sell them but as jenkinson & others prove otherwise. I am not sure if you can loan players to other clubs without their approval, but if you can then some of these players would be going to places they did not even know existed if I had my way. A bit of time seeing the nightclubs near Scunthorpe or a happy club like Sunderland might alter their views on accepting transfers.

But I’m not saying he shouldn’t give them a chance. What I’m saying is that if it doesn’t work out it can’t all be blamed on Wenger. Wenger is fully responsible for bringing these players to the club to begin with and in that sense it was largely his team against City. But Emery and the new regime are responsible for these players still being here for the 18/19 season. They could’ve easily gotten rid of Mustafi, Xhaka, Welbeck etc if they chose to.

I think this wasn’t a choice and that if we had an offer for Mustafi which gave us back a decent chunk of his original fee we would have took it in a shot.

Xhaka is slightly different as opinion on him differs and Emery may need 6 to 12 months to realise he’s absolute dross and a total nothing of a player. Hits a deflected shot in every 12 games or so and our fans go all dizzy and forget he is an outright liability

I agree with that, Haz. I'm not having a go at Emery just saying that we can't keep blaming Wenger now. He's gone and it's time for Emery to make his mark. I don't buy into the theory that he needs 4 transfer windows at all. 2 years to sort out a football team? No way.

That doesn’t make any sense. They know Koscielny is out for a long time and they loaned out Chambers so they’re obviously expecting Mustafi to play a big part this season. If they don’t rate him at all the original fee shouldn’t matter, it’s not like the financial loss is worse than starting a central defender they don’t think is up for it. Clearly they feel like Mustafi can get the job done with proper coaching. That’s a decision they have every right to make, but it’s their decision. Not Wenger’s.

And no matter how Arsenal fans feel about Xhaka, he’s very highly rated in Germany and a key player for a good international side. If we wanted to sell him there would be loads of interested clubs.

He could certainly have sold Mustafi. Don't forget we blocked his move to Italy last summer.

Emery is a professional football manager. He hasn't had the chance to work with Xhaka on a daily basis but he must have an idea of how good he is. Like you, I think he's nowhere near good enough for a team with top 4 ambitions and he has a shite attitude to boot.

I think the last few years under Wenger have been pretty awful, albeit we had a glorious cup win over Chelsea. We made the change to get better and for me, that means Emery has to improve us this season.

Liverpool took off during Klopps third season in charge, so two years might not be that unrealistic. I think Emery inherited a way better squad than Klopp did though.

All I’ll say on this is that if you think clubs are queuing up to secure the services of Granit Xhaka and Mustafi you are mistaken and the moment we get a decent offer for Mustafi in particular we will bite the recipients hand off. This isn’t a conscious choice but one forced on Emery.

Largely thanks to Salah, a player he didn't want to sign.. Wenger transformed us in no time. Pochettino improved Tottenham very quickly. If we are still plodding along in 6th in two years time, I will be very disappointed.

Apart from this being obvious nonsense (players that fans don't rate get sold every transfer window, sometimes for a lot of money), it wouldn't even excuse Emery and the current regime. If they truly don't rate these players, then giving them away for free would be better than keeping them just because the offers aren't high enough.

Keeping them is clearly a judgment call, and one I don't even think is that bad. They have both performed really well for good clubs before Arsenal, so there's clearly talent there. Let's see if they improve, but if they don't that's hardly Wengers fault.

Come on don’t be silly.

You can’t give away a player you signed for 35 million 24 months ago. In fact that’s probably the issue with Mustafi where the club desperately need to recoup the 35m cash to reinvest.

Just daft.

Better than playing him even if you don't think he's good enough - that would be a stunning case of mismanagement that can't be pinned on Wenger. If that's where their priorities lie we are in big trouble.

Luckily that view doesn't stand up even to mild scrutiny and what's really happening is probably as simple as Emery trying to get a feel for the squad in his first season.

I can appreciate the view that Emery has inherited the flawed team of Wenger.

What I find a little irritating is that he should require a massive overhaul to make things better. Other managers have made improvements on the basics with a lot less and I think there are no reasons other than time that should prevent Emery from getting some defensive structure in the team.

Im all for giving Emery that time to make improvements but if they're not visible in the next 3 months then we need to be seriously thinking what he was hired for.

I'm hoping you're right Haz. Give them a couple of games by all means to find a rhythm but at the same time implement a meritocracy to shake the status quo.

I'm hoping /assuming that Unais pre-employment analysis of every player has given him an idea on how they can be improved and work together.

So.............does Guendouzi start against Chelsea?

It's a big ask, away from home, but Xhaka is not exactly pulling up any trees either.

I know Haz thinks we have to protect Guendouzi and I understand that viewpoint. On the other hand, a bit like with Fabregas, if he actually makes the team better then you have to think hard about playing him. The question is, in a game of this magnitude, does his more dynamic and athletic game compensate for the inevitable errors he makes.

It's a difficult one.

3 months ? Mate he needs a full season without any judgement given the mess he inherited.

I’ll give you an example. Let’s look at 4 players Ramsey, Xhaka, Mustafi and Özil. Whilst there is talent in those 4 I don’t think it’s arguable that they are the core of our team and extremely inconsistent. Ramsey and Özil put in preferable performances 50% of the time and Mustafi and Xhaka way less.

Mustafi, Ramsey and Xhaka make around 100k a week and Özil gets 350k a week which fag packet maths equates to around 34 million of our 200 per annum budget. That’s a lot right? Especially for 4 such inconsistent performers.

I’m a fan of Özil but I don’t see him comfortably playing wide and how he will fit in this new pressing strategy and Ramsey whilst putting in decent performances at the end of last year when all was lost never has really long term looked comfortable in playing part of a midfield 2 that needs to track back or good enough to play as a no10 type. Basically there’s question marks over 4 first team players occupying a huge chunk of our wage bill and how long will it take to move these players on or resolve their situations. Even accounting for Emery improving these players I don’t think you can suggest that expecting an overnight transformation in 3 months will occur to a bunch of players past 25 years old.

I think our squad isn’t as good as some think and it’s very hard to judge Emery until half the first team and about half our subs bench are his players.

Patience is required and after the reaction to the first games defeat I’m concerned it won’t be provided. Suggesting Emery should be questioned after 3 months if there’s no massive improvement when we gave Wenger 10 years to screw up as much as he wanted seems frankly ridiculous

Also it is worth saying that while we may want better performances from Xhaka and Mustafi they are not the disaster some are suggesting. Both are international players worthy of more time under the new manager. If they are not up to it by May 2019, then hit 'em up and roll 'em out. We were told by Gazidis that one of the main reasons Emery was appointed was his very detailed knowledge of Arsenal's players. He certainly knew what he was coming into and it is now his job to make it work. If he finishes top six and has good runs in the cups he will have started well enough. By May 2020 either a trophy or top four should be his benchmark - anything less, then move him on.

Of the two, Mustafi is the most error prone of the two. He's got to go, Hoy. I'll fly to England and drive him to the airport personally.

Revealed: Arteta's tactical tweak that helped Man City kill off Arsenal

http://www.goal.com/en-au/news/revealed-artetas-tactical-tweak-that-helped-man-city-kill/ws0dwhatz3c91k4emteorzfip