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.

Don't get the negativity about Leno. If his signing makes Čech pushes himself to improve, then Leno won't be a bad signing at all as he provides healthy competition and keep Cecb on his toes.

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

My sentiments as well. I'm confident Emery will do better than Wenger's 63 points in the league last season - improve our away results and that's half the job done. Apart from last season I can't remember the last time we finished with less than 70 points. If Emery can't get at least 70 points, he deserves the sack.

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

Without reading the article I wonder what our weakness was? Maybe he identified that we hadn’t spent over a billion on players over the last decade like they have

Basically Arteta and Pep did this Sunday....

How much of a turnaround in squad was realistically possible? We signed 5 players in the summer and got rid of Wilshere, Perez, cazorla, per and quite possible Ospina, Campbell and elneny soon. If we also sold mustafi, Xhaka and Welbeck each of those would need replacing - could we have signed 8 players this summer with potentially at least 5 of them forming starting 11 players?
I just don’t think that we can say that any poor performance by a wenger player is on Emery because he chose not to sell them. I don’t think that’s fair and it is certainly not that simple

Chelsea is a very different team to city. We’ve got a good recent record against Chelsea, not lost in 6 I think.
I think Torreira has to start, I also think Lacazette has to start. For me that means Mkhitaryan drops out, and one of guendouzi and Xhaka drops out. Tough to call

I think you may have read too much into what I was saying. I'm not saying the squad is full of world class players, nor that they will suddenly become world beaters. What I'm saying is that 3 months is enough time to make the team play better as a team. It doesn't have to be a massive improvement but it should be improvement. Regardless of the players you mentioned not doing it in the past, it shouldnt take long to drill them into doing more of what they should and less of what they shouldn't. Now if they cant or refuse to do it then that's another problem.

Hi, what evidence is there to write off Leno as not good enough? He has only played a small number of pre-season friendlies and I didn't notice anything that deserved being written off so soon.

Let me tell you why I have real doubts about Leno. James from Arseblog said in the latest podcast that he had a whisper from within the club that Leno was not impressive in training (some comments like that) and that is why Čech was selected ahead of him. Remember that Leno can play the role Emery wants him for of distribution from the back and passing etc. and should have been first choice. Leno was not even in the top 3 keepers for Germany and how far down the list he is no one knows.

But that is not all, last year he made a number of bad errors for his club and apparently he used to do this particularly when he was younger and yet it persists. Personally, I remember him from a confederations cup match for Germany against Australia 2017 when he was appalling and gifted us 2 goals. The types of goal that if Almunia had conceded he would be slaughtered on this forum. I have little confidence in him and why we paid that amount of money for him is a mystery to me. We seemed to pay a lot for a player who needed to improve and was not ready to go and despite getting him in quickly he apparently is not showing decent form. This was a gamble in a position where Ospina is soon off contract, Čech was not impressive last year and looks clumsy with the ball at his feet as is currently our plan. We needed a quality buy in an essential position.

Would keep Guendouzi in the team as a message to players that reputations are not sufficient to gain a place. Xhaka needs a message. Xhaka played poorly himself and certainly did nothing to try and help Guendouzi in a tough game. In fact he made few efforts to make himself available for passes from Guendouzi and I would take the risk. Also start Torriera and Lacazette and put Ramsay on the bench.

I am surprised to read the breadth of fans who are already complaining after one competitive match against the champions it must be said. A loaded team that could beat most national teams.

I was just happy Wenger wasn't on the touchline. That was enough for me for a start. lol. Specific critiques about certain player is normal and fine. Expecting to see a totally different Arsenal from the Wenger era in the first match is a bit much though. It's also not with keeping with Arsenal's (well deserved) reputation for giving new managers more time to succeed than most clubs.

A few elections going on in the states. I'm not optimistic. The country is in a moral morass. The so called mainstream media goes in on Trump but fails to blame the reason why Trump is there and why its not only possible but probable he will get re-elected. The hard truths is that Trump has unearthed long held, dark feelings of at least 40 percent or more of the country (a conservative number). To admit it is to admit that our so called 'exceptionalism' was a good self indulgent slogan. The hard, rarely discussed truths is that this 'land of immigrants' have never liked the newer ones. And we have always had a racial issue that has never been resolved. Those two things are fueling his popularity and a sharp rise in face to face incidents against the 'others'. Those same people came from stock that faced the same attacks. It seems that once you are 3, 4 or more generations removed from such things, it causes a cognitive dissonance in a large number of us.

I contend that for the first time since WW2 the American president is no longer the most powerful world leader. I would contend that designation goes to Xi of China. I had a discussion with other Americans about it and I've argued, how can you be the most powerful when you have alienated close friends and allies and embraced others who are regarded as rivals if not enemies.

Scholars and historians have studied empires. America is showing the same signs of being in the last throes of decline (debased currency, wars it can no longer win, unqualified, corrupted leaders, etc.).

Agree. Xhaka drops out and also think Sokratis should be left out for the other Greek boy, leave Lichsteiner at left back and in place of Mkhi ???

Leno Bellerin Mustafi Mavropanos Lichsteiner Guendouzi Torreira Özil Lacazette Aubameyang makes ten and Elneny to shore up the defence and midfield as he did the last time he played against Chelsea, or Nelson to add to the quick movement from defence to attack.

I don’t see why not, and why it wouldn’t be better than persisting with two players we do not want. Chances are we’re starting with Torreira and Guendouzi against Chelsea – that’s two new midfielders, so no reason why it couldn’t have been Torreira and another new guy who replaced Xhaka. We’ve had a whole pre-season to get a new central defense pairing settled. This season is pretty much a write-off in terms of titles anyway, there’s no need to make the rebuild process longer than it has to be.

I think the explanation is much simpler and more sensible. Emery sees potential in both of them and is willing to give them this season to prove they belong at the club.

Neither has performed up to expectation, generally the forum was pretty pleased when we signed both, I’d be happy to ship both out and replace them but it isn’t that easy. If you take a hit on both of their fees you have to find a starting CB and central mid for a combined £35-40m. For the standard of player we need that is incredibly difficult.

Sarri has come in to Chelsea and still has Barkley and drinkwater in the squad. Jose still has smalling and Jones. Most fans of those clubs would happily see the back of those players and it’s even easier for those two clubs to chuck out and replace.

I think Emery/the transfer team have a limited budget and looked at he most important areas of the team to fix, and then looked at problem players and decided as yousay that for the investment we’ve made in them it is worth seeing if we can get something different from them

Perhaps some of the former players overly critical of the team now are doing so out of some sense of loyalty to Wenger knowing that he was edged out of the club?

I am curious as to how much money Emery will be provided in January and more importantly, next summer? Will 50 million be the amount he is going to have to work with until we get back in the CL proper? And how do we get back into without spending?

Worrying update from arsenal.com which says that Carl Jenkinson is injured and will be out for six to eight weeks.

Seems Maitland-Niles broke his leg on Sunday - only a 'small' fracture but out for 8 weeks.

By all accounts he will have very little money to play with in January due to wage constraints imposed by our very large wages bill and its implications for FFP.

He will, apparently, need to offload some players to free up money.

Gaz, it will take a bit more than someone from Arseblog trying to spread rumours that may have no validity whatsoever to convince me he's no good. You say we paid a lot for him, but with the transfer market as it now is, did we? After all, this summer Liverpool paid £67m for a keeper and Chelsea paid £71m.

I've no idea how good or bad he really is because I've not seen enough of him. But from what I have seen of him in pre-season friendlies, I don't recall anything that concerned me. You also mention his standing in Germany. Didn't lomekian say he was the Bundesliga keeper of the season one year? Moreover, that's a league that Neuer plays in.