Chelsea have been handed a 2 window transfer ban for illegal signing of young players. Real Madrid, Barca and Athelico all received bans for the same thing recently I think.

I'm sure Chelsea will appeal and either weasel their way out of it or have the ban delayed allowing them to stock up on players in the next window - just as Barca did

Lacazette banned for a further 2 games in Europa League. That seems ridiculously harsh. I get the red card, he’s being continuously fouled and pushes a hand/arm out in to a guys face who is behind him. But he’s been given the same ban as if he’d deliberately 2 footed and broken the leg of an opponent

Özil was good but I think describing him as "a couple of heads and shoulders above anybody else on the pitch" is a little over the top. For once I felt today's Sun's marks out of 10 to players was reasonably fair. The highest scores were the 8s received by all of Xhaka (who they made man of the match despite him getting the same points as two others), Lichtsteiner and Mustafi. Other scores I recall were the 7 for Guendouzi and Özil's 6. Accepting that getting the same points does not necessarily mean players were exactly at the same level, I reckon they got the order of those five right. Having said that, personalIy I'd have given Özil 7, not 6, even though I felt Guendouzi was a bit better.

Hopefully we shouldn't need Lacazette to beat Rennes. If we do, the ban shouldnt matter.

I thought whilst his performance was unspectacular he improved the structure of the team a lot. When we broke we had a player as an outlet to receive a ball from Iwobi and Henrik and before we didn’t.

I think And hope Emery might have seen a lightbulb last night. 4-2-3-1 or failure

I agree. As I implied last night, I think Özil did enough to keep his place. I just thought OMOH's comment that he was a couple of heads and shoulders above any other Arsenal player on the pitch last night was way over the top. Moreover, grossly unfair because in my view he wasn't even our best player, let alone twice as good as everyone else.

He played well though and I agree he improves our structure. We need creativity whether we're playing Man City or Huddersfield, and he provides exactly that.

More strong links today that Monchi will become our director of football in the summer. He’s at Roma but previously worked wonders in the transfer market at Seville with Emery.

If anyone is bored, tune into the Proteas-Sri Lanka test. Sri Lanka need 120 more to win with 8 wicket in hand: a tough ask with swing on offer and Rabada bowling at 150 km/h, and Steyn and the giant Olivier just as ferocious.

Won that at a canter. Nobody saw a series win coming.

Not sure where that leaves your guys Decaf. Off to India next. Best of luck with that

Come on Burnley, win it!

And Kane gets their equaliser

And then they concede a goal like that. A throw-in puts Kane straight through on goal. You'd be shaking your head if you saw it in an under 12s match

And Burnley leads again !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hang on now, win it!

4 minutes of added time to play. Come on Burnley!

Final minute!

Oh yeah! Spurs lose!

Roma are currently 5th.

We are not Sevilla.

KSE OUT.

Why would anyone from the Directors down to the players want to join us when they know there is no money to buy players?

What's the point of them trying to change anything. We have to hope that Emery can do something with the youngsters and we could have a good finish............

We do have money and we have spent a lot in the last 2 seasons. I wouldn't be holding my breath for Emery to use the kids.

Poch is sure to get a ban for his post game reaction confronting Mike Dean.
Could spurs get dragged back in to the race for 3rd/4th. 10 points ahead of us, we could cut that to 7 tomorrow. Spurs also have to go to Liverpool and city.....we must get at least a draw v spurs say next week - i can see spurs dropping more points but sadly I can’t see us being able to take advantage.

We have a tough run in of away games v ‘the best of the rest’ in the league, wolves, Watford, Everton, Leicester, Burnley all to play away from home

Funny how Poch confronting Mike Dean is being reported. I’ve seen quite a few reports almost given Poch mitigation because Mike Dean might have said something that angered him.

If football is ever going to deliver respect for referees at all levels of the game acts like Poch’s have to result in a sever ban

Messi scored his 50th hatrick today. A belter of a volley at 1-0 down, a curler with his weaker foot at 2-1 down and a lovely dinked finish to win the game. He is carrying Barca to a ridiculous degree this season. They will have to invest hugely to fill the void when he retires.

Fair to say he's not a bad player at all.

Messi is 32 this summer. The sooner he retires, the better as far as I'm concerned.

Big gooner Chunky Degale up soon against Eubank jr.
Hope he gives him a pasting!

All the managers do it. One of the many irritants in modern football. Fergie started all of it. Watch games from the 1980s and the managers don't go on with any of those histrionics.

Two rugby matches today, the second an absolute cracker. Not a word against either ref.

Why?

I don't like him. Thought I made that obvious during the World Cup. He's a wonderful player but as I don't like the club he plays for and as you imply, his retirement is likely to have a very negative effect on them, that's fine by me. So roll on his retirement.

That’s Barca, what about Messi? Do you not like the man, his personality? I find it hard to imagine anyone disliking Messi the man in the same way as players like Ronaldo and Suarez and Neymar. I CAN imagine plenty of fans disliking those 3 for their antics

Linked with Wan-Bissaka this morning. Really like him but I can’t see us getting him, price for a young English player will be very high and all of England’s top clubs will want him - plus some abroad as England’s youth team players now have credibility

On today’s Arseblog, there’s an advert for sperz tickets st the bottom of the web page. How odd

Great player and far more likeable than Ronaldo and Neymar but personally I fine him a bit weird and freakish. I mean he’s scored over 400 goals for Barcelona and is an incredible player but his technique never lets him down to the point it seems inhuman. He never gets a bobble, bad touch nothing. It wouldn’t surprise me if in a decades time it’s revealed he was some kind of test tube baby, robot or was using some kind of new performance enhancing drugs that nobody else was aware of.

There wont be no money, but there will be a very limited budget, just like there was/is at Sevilla/Roma, both of these clubs are globally very small compared to Arsenal but I suspect with Stan taking his pound of flesh every year we'll be operating on a similar budget to these clubs anyway, which means we'll likely achieve similar results to these clubs - Roma are currently 5th and haven't won a trophy since 2007/8, Sevilla have won a few Europa leagues and just try to sneak 4th place now and again.

If you want to know Stan's 'ambition' for the club there it is, don't listen to what he says (not a lot!), actions speak louder than words.

KSE OUT

Didn't Messi have some sort of growth stimulant drugs in his youth? Not that that's the reason I can't stand him, and I can't imagine it made him as talented as he is. I think the continual fawning over him is utterly creepy. Stomach churning. Give me Maradona any day of the week.

Bernard likes Germans, Clichy, Michael Caine, and Maradona.

He dislikes Freddie, pie, the correct formulation of supply/demand theory, cake, Gilberto ('the fish') and Messi.

That's just the way it is
Some things will never change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlRQjzltaMQ

I know what you mean. I wonder if the reason why he always looks a bit off colour when playing for Argentina is that they don't put the correct batteries in him.

Decaf, what's your area of academic expertise?

Aubameyang and Guendouzi and Özil on the bench. Sokratis, Ramsey and torreira start as does Lacazette

Lacazette !

Lacazette 1-0. Should have been a pen seconds before