Interesting times at Swansea right now. Cracking sweeping move and goal for Swansea to put them 2 up against Man City.

20 mins gone and Man City losing 2-0 to Swansea in F Cup q/f.

Haha double snap ltg I blame you if they recover. You posted first so obviously you are the winner according to the resident Pedant

I couldn’t possibly think who you are referring to.

City win, predictably, 3-2. I see you both posted at 5.51 therefore it's clearly the fault of both of you.

Haha but even better and I very much doubt they can recover is Man U losing 2-0 to Wolves with 10-15 mins to go..

Over to you ltg.......................

and a red for Lindelof. VAR definitely not needed..............

How can the video ref change that to a yellow

If it's me you're referring to, what's wrong in trying to be accurate?

Hi all.

Another sad anniversary this week.

It was 14 years ago on March 16th that we lost Steve Gleiber.



Thanks to everyone for posting and keeping the place going all this time.

Still have so many original posters with us - and many new ones.

And also a special Thank You to our mods - Niall and LTG.

14 years now.

One of those life moments where I still remember exactly where I was when I heard he passed on. RIP. Rest in Power.

This is one deal I am not in favour of.

https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/17/arsenal- ... a-8915896/

He’s exactly the type of player we should be going for but I’m not sure it’s good to swap Maitland-Niles. Nelson maybe

I suppose one has to ask if Maitland-Niles or Nelson will ever be first choice regulars? Maybe Nelson is the most likely of the two? How about Smith Rowe going the other way instead?

Prsonally I'd rather not offer either and if they won't accept other younger players eg Chambers eg then let them have Bellerin who isn't having a good time atm and will be surplus if we get this youngster.

I think the idea is to sign a player to provide competition for Bellerin and cover whilst he’s injured rather than replace him.

Offering chambers would make more sense

I think maitland-Nile’s could be a good player for us. I think he needs a run as a central midfielder though alongside Torreira. He strikes me as a hard working midfield player.

Nelson made a good start to his loan then tailed off. Maybe offer palace some money and chambers and Nelson for Zaha and the full back.

I'd also be happy to see the back of Chambers. I've cousins who support Fulham and they tell me that although he's not been quite as bad in midfield, Chambers was as much to blame as anyone for their defensive woes this season.

I saw him play for us in midfield away at saints on New Year’s Day once and he was absolutely horrendous. Totally invisible, we may as well have been playing with ten men. Got thrashed

I hadn't realized that Liverpool have only lost one match all season. Fantastic achievement so far. Don't think they will win the league but Klopp has set them up nicely to win it at some point. If they can get Salah to produce in big games.

Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that Chelsea will win the Europa cup and Man Utd will beat us to 4th and we'll be left with egg on our faces come May.

Mané buys himself another penalty. Blatantly fooled the ref who believed the goalie had tugged his shirt and caused Mané to spin round. Somebody tell me how neith the ref nor the linesman missed seeing no movement on the shirt and how they justified giving it when the goalie had a glove on that stops him getting a grip.

Okay I can see why he was fooled but how does Mané get awy with that blatant exaggeration?

are you sure they won't both be draws?

Antony Taylor doing his best to help Chelsea lose. Soft pen but a pen none the less and Evertn lead them 2-0.

Oops we go there the 7th April with a must win game.

edit:
Woohoo game over and we lead them by 3 points game in hand too.

All over. The league table looks unbelievable given where we were a few months ago.

Weirdly it looks like this might be out best chance of getting into the Champions League now.

Nothing at all certain though, especially at the back end of the season.

We don’t have a game in hand

Aaaah I though not. That was their game in hand wasn't it. Soz folks the excitement is getting to me.

Sczcesny. Is he much better than we though? Got better? Or still the same quality who just got lucky with Juve?
Huge clubs in the top tier like Juve usually gave a keeper from one of the top national teams in the world.
Juve seems happy with him..

if City do not win the FA Cup, then 6th in the Prem will start in the second qualifying round of the Europa League... on July 25.

Wan-Bissaka is having a good season, but replacing Belelrin with him is crazy. Wan Bissaka has 1 season in the prem, in a team in the bottom half. Belle fin has multiple seasons for a top team and playing in Europe.

I like Wan-Bissaka but considering the money talked about is £40m I think our money is better spent elsewhere

I think it is too easy to get attached to the players coming through the youth team with the idea that we could have a top class player who cost nothing. The much more likely scenario is that these youth team players provide a good means of income for first team signings.

Having said that I think AMN whilst not necessarily showing he can be a first 11 regular, can be an important first team utility squad player. These sorts of players are invaluable to squads. Of all the other young players the two I like are Saka and Willock. Saka for the raw pace and trickery and Willock for the maturity he’s shown in the last year - really stepped up. Nelson and Smith-Rowe I’m not so sure yet.

European clubs are looking at England for the next talent now, the tables have turned and we need to make sure that our best young players are protected either because we want them to stay or we want to protect a value to sell them for a good price.

Mbappe really is the next superstar of world football. He’s the one player in the world I’d sign if we could. Messi is better but Mbappe is 10 years younger

Completely agree. Bellerin is a good player and the least of our worries. Left back, central defence amd central midfield are all in need of investment. If we want to push the boat out on a young player, I'd like to see us go for Declan Rice. He would cost a fortune but can play centre half and midfield. Has serious potential.

Messi scored another three goals tonight. He will have another 40+ goal season for the 10th year in a row. Mbappe is really exciting. He reminds me of Brazilian Ronaldo. It's way too much to compare him to Messi. He's definitely the real deal but let's see what he becomes.

Just watching the end of the Betis Barca game. Betis score to make it 3-1 and the comms start carrying on about a Betis comeback and to make it 3-3 they have plenty of time. Couple of minutes later Messi does an absolute sublime chip to score and complete his hattrick 1-4. Absolute top goal.

Manchester will likely be the first English side to win all domestic trophies. I'm surprised no one has done it yet frankly. Especially, Man Utd in the '90s or even Chelsea in their prime under Chelsea.

LOL...Szczesny is an effing legend!

https://www.joe.co.uk/sport/wojciech-sz ... ing-223735
Wojciech Szczesny: "Jack Wilshere got so drunk at my wedding we found him in a bush"
Of Nasri he said: "He always thought he's some kind of gangster. Everyone has this colleague at school, who had strong and big friends and it made him think he's cool. In Poland there is saying - to fart higher than your bottom"

And of Gervinho, simply: "Who thought he would be in the top 40 I played with?! Add one more 0."

He also criticised van Persie for his move to Manchester United, saying: "You have to admit, he left to Man U and next year won a title, but year after that he got benched, moved to Turkey and his big career ended. He could have made other decisions and achive lots more at Arsenal. He's extremely arrogant - sometimes."

The last nugget we'll leave you with concerns the one and only Nicklas Bendtner, who Szczesny sums up better than any amateur psychologist ever could.

"One of the most intelligent guys I played with. You see Nick, well-organized, neat, in-form, seems everything is going great for him, next day you open the newspaper and read 'Drunk Bendtner driving wrong way' and you are like what the *%^@!? I don't know, a guy with two personalities. The most confident guy I played with."

It would only make sense to get Bissaka for 40m if Bellerin is sold for the same or more amount. As for left back, I think Saka could do an AMN and become the covering player there.

It would be nice to get a replacement for Ramsey this summer. The past few games he has shown what we are going to miss when he's gone. Took Emery quite a bit of time to figure out how to use Ramsey properly.

High wages not withstanding, I was for keeping Ramsey. Juve are interested for a reason. He's dynamic.

I think this season has shown in defence you need 2 quality players for each major defensive position. If you get a long term injury in midfield it’s bad but if you get one in defence it’s a disaster. We’ve had 2 this season and I think if Bellerin and Holding hadn’t got injured top 4 would virtually be home and hosed for us which is incredible to think.

Just think back to the invincibles side where we had clichy as back up to cole and for Lauren if he got injured we moved an in form toure to right back. You need depth and quality in defence otherwise it costs you dearly.

The issue is that Bellerin has a major major injury and the type you can’t be rushed back from. He’s been blogging about it and it sounds a proper recovery is required.

I think the club may prioritise a right back and try and get by another season with Monreal and Kolasinac.

Summer outs to raise funds or on a free should be/are
Čech, Ramsey, Welbeck, Lichtsteiner - all £0. possibly add in Monreal maybe
Mustafi (£20m?), elneny (£10m?), Ospina(£4m)
Also Bennecar has either a recall clause or a % sell on that could net another £3m
If, a big if, we can raise nearly £50m in sales and get champions league there is no reason any new players can have a £100m+ budget

New GK (or make Martinez the No.2....if we go new then Pope is being mentioned for £10m and Martinez could be sold for £5m
New LB who can play LB in a back 4
Back up RB
AMN can also cover both positions as full back and wing back
New starting CB - big chunk of the budget here
New CM to replace Ramsey
New winger to replace Welbeck, ideally someone who is comfortable on the right and left
Possibly Nelsen coming back to play right wing
Back up striker
Probably need to spend at least £60m on the CB and CM which doesn’t leave huge amounts for GK, LB, RB, wing, striker