Oh well, another disappointing game.

I am not saying that we could have afforded him. In fact Mourinho who wanted to piss off Man City by buying Sanchez made a big error. I hope Alexi stays with them until the very last day of his contract just to really annoy all the Man U supporters.

But my point, which may not have been obvious, was that he bought to the team some attributes that were not obvious at the time or were called by many disruptive. Those are the qualities that we are totally lacking and need to get a player of that quality, with a will to win, into the club.

What would you say if this offer was made to Man U regarding Alexis. We take him on loan for a year and pay him 50K per week (they have to pick up the rest). They may tell us to get nicked but if you don't ask you will never know. It would be a gamble but may very well cover the Wellbeck departure if they went for it. I want to see some strategic thinking about transfers. Some to get us over a hump and not have to panic long term buy.

Similar idea as I had the other day to get Fabergas back for a while. We have some youngsters who may or may not make it but having around some class to try and get them there could not hurt.

Of course the will to win cannot make up for the lack of defensive nous in our team, which IMO should be our main objective in the summer transfer. Since Mislinat left can anyone tell me who is doing this at the club.

Story about the only players to acknowledge the away support were Sokratis, Leno, Özil and Lacazette. And they want us to all get together as a club. Yeah right. The fact some of our young players did not acknowledge the fans is more than a little disappointing. Good on Leno for facing up. That is the attitude I want to see in a player.

https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/25/unai-eme ... t-9315323/

I don't think Emery addressed this appropriately when asked.

You look at the last 6 goals we’ve conceded:
Set piece no marking free header
Long ball, don’t win the header, gift a free run to the attacker
Set piece no marking free header
Direct set piece
Set piece no marking free header awful gk
No challenge run clean through the defence awful gk

Every single one with aN individual mistake. How many free headers do Liverpool, spurs, city give away in their box? They may lose a header but they are marking and challenging. Our boys don’t want to get engaged in that physical battle

Saw this stat on Twitter
Arsenal’s record in the away league table

10/11 1st
11/12 3rd
12/13 2nd
13/14 2nd
14/15 3rd
15/16 3rd
16/17 6th
17/18 10th
18/19 10th (2 games to play)

This is a new problem.

To be a threat away from home you need to be able to counter attack at pace. How often to we bemoan teams who come to the emirates and sit deep with 10 men? Well away from home they don’t do that but we have no pace to expose the weaker defenders who are left with less protection.
In the last 2-3 years we lost a huge amount of pace and width from the team. Until we get both back we’ll never be better than 6th

Just look at the players and search your heart.

If you need to go away from home and desperately get a win players like Xhaka, Iwobi and Mhikitaryan aren’t your men. Let’s be honest now no mucking about. There’s just too much mediocrity there and Özil and the 2 strikers can only get you out of trouble so many times. There’s just not enough match winners in that team.

There’s not enough talent in the squad of the right quality to do well (Bellerin,sokratis,Torreira, Aubameyang, Lacazette, Guendozi, only) in the champions league anyway. Like somebody said it would only be preferential for financial reasons.

It’s like a flat circle with arsenal and we are almost back at where we were a month into the season where we realised we were reliant on a handful of players.

Wide players are critical for any team that aspires to be successful. Every title winning side has them in abundance. Look how many city have, foden sterling, bernardo etc

It was a massive mistake going into the season without one and in my opinion we need 2 to get to rotate.

I agree with that, TG. I would probably add AMN to the bunch, I think he has potential although probably not as a RB.

However, this club does not have the balls to undertake the kind of mass clear-out needed. Too much mediocrity on too high wages makes it incredibly difficult to offload them but it can be done if you have the right people doing it.

If we don't get CL and have a very limited budget it will be difficult to attract the calibre of player we require as well.

It's a bit of a mess really.

We seem to be stuck between two stools when playing away. At home we generally go very attacking, in some off the best games this has been all out attack, high tempo, high press from kick off and by and large it has been successful.
Away from home the instincts are we can’t be as attacking, but we also don’t want to sit back. So we try to control the play with slow possession and fall in to counter attacking traps.
I’d rather we did one extreme or the other away from home. If we’re facing a bottom half team, front foot attack and pick a team to do so. If we’re facing a strong side then sit back and pick a team to counter attack, invite them on and break - just like the spurs game which on the balance of the game we were actually quite comfortable defending so deep - much like wolves were v us last night.

Those performances aren’t the norm as sadly I don’t think Emery has the players to go all out attack or deep defence/counter when we play away from home.

And all totally avoidable. Even ignoring the poor quality of players we’ve signed all we had to do was be more sensible and swallow our pride with the players we sell.
Missing out on huge sums for the likes of Sanchez and Ramsey is awful. Not getting proper fees for so many other players adds to it. We’ve lost maybe £250m from poor management of player contracts and sales I reckon.

Disagree. We are one point behind Chelsea and two ahead of United and they still have to play each other. If we throw in the towel now and simple concede the superiority of Leicester and Burnley, I simply don't know what to think. We need to turn it around BEFORE the semifinal or we are likely to cave in there too.

We blew it after the palace game and I wrote it off in my mind. I don’t expect us to get 3 points at Leicester at all and even if we did it’s well within us to blow it v Brighton.

Therefore it’s Europe and hopefully a final againest Chelsea where anything could happen.

In Arsene and Gazidis last 2 seasons they failed to sort out the contracts for Ramsey and Sanchez and then failed to sell them whilst spending best part of 100 million on perez, el Nenny, Xhaka and Mustafi.

There’s your 200 million mate.

Frankly disasterous business decisions. Proper brexity and something we will be paying for some time.

Another issue is we don’t have the understanding and business savvy at the club to undertake a massive clear out and attain the players we need. No Mislintat now just Sanelhi and some chartered accountant.

I don’t expect the Miracle change to occur this summer soc. It would require some extreme business management and massive BALLS to tell certain players who aren’t delivering and on massive money they HAVE to be moved on or will simply languish on the bench.

Kroenke needs to do something like re prioritise budget and cash to give Emery an injection of funds to rebuild or Emery’s tenure will be pointless. I don’t expect this to happen and think we will be getting a combination of Kroenke out protests and people giving Emery grief next season. Simply left it too late to get rid of Wenger and so much damage was done.

I also think it's not unreasonable to have expected a little more from Emery. We're actually less effective offensively this year and still pretty *%^@ defensively. Not seeing any sign of a so-called tactical masterplan.

We're Europa League level, CL would flatter to deceive on the pitch despite it providing the financial boost we so desperately need. I don't expect us to finish top 4. If we do it'll be a lovely if slightly flattering bonus to an absolute curate's egg of a season.

Things are so unpredictable and with our chief rivals playing each other we might well be in pole position again by the end of the weekend. If united beat chelsea even a draw puts us in 4th.

Its quite possible that the team that eventually stumbles to fourth will have a points tally that is well below what people thought would be necessary.

I do understanding that a tough choice will be have to made in the Leicester game.
However, I would still think that we should just take each game as it comes. A bit of momentum is worth any number of birds in the bush ...

What was the point of Saurez? Imagine we had actually got or promoted a decent winger in January...

I don’t think you can have a masterplan with this squad. You can shuffle your pack and try different combinations but if the winners aren’t there you won’t succeed. The quality just isn’t there.

The defence was always going to be shocking again. Our best defence has 3 over 30s in it and xhaka sitting in front of it usually. Most of the players to come out of this season with credit are the new signings plus the 2 strikers.

Average squad, if you put Klopp in charge of this lot we are still finishing 5th or 6th.

Alexis Sanchez scored the most and assisted the most away goals in the Premier League from 14/15 - 17/18.

Since he left, Arsenal have won 6 out of 25 away games.


Scream at Emery all you want. This stuff matters

I think Emery probably had memories of a player who could beat players and give us width. Unfortunately he was a broken player and it was just a waste of money. i would take a Limpar type player anytime now.

I agree, I don't think it was unreasonable to expect some kind of defensive improvement, given Emery's reputation for thoroughness, irrespective of the personnel.

Instead we are a shambles both individually and collectively. Our defensive organisation appears non-existent, our players seem clueless about how to defend in a professional manner and the amount of comedy goals we concede is actually amazing for a team with top four ambitions.

I genuinely do not know if Emery is any good or not, he likes to make a lot of changes but quite often it seems to be because he got the starting line-up wrong in the first place, which is really not a good sign. The jury is very much still out on him for me.

I think a reasonable assessment of where this team stands is to ask how many of our players would get in City or Liverpool's team.

Aubameyang might be on the fringes but I don't think anyone else comes close.

Socrates, are you prepared to admit that defensively things have got worse without Mertesacker, despite the arrival of Torreira in midfield?

I've advocated playing the younger players since a while back. I am surprised that Emery is so risk averse. And his tactics is sadly too much like his predecessor. I thought we would be spared that droll, but his team is playing it again. Very sad and disappointed.

Alexis had been our most driven player, but sadly, Wenger preferred a "yes" man.

I think anyone who expected any manager to improve on last season and get top 4 was wildly optimistic. Especially given a manager who does not have a strong command of English, new to the club, country and culture. Also no money (not literally but comparatively) when you look at the other 5 clubs with a realistic chances at either the title or top 4 (yes, Tottenham didn't spend but they started with a much better squad). It's a HUGE ask. And I think Arsenal fans who thought that are simply not living in reality and have proven some pundits assessment of the fanbase to be true.

We are in a top 4 fight. Whether we get there or not, just being in competition for it is a HUGE accomplishment. We haven't been close in a while. We are in the semis of the Europa cup in Emery's first season. It's massive given the aforementioned barriers.

Of course I"m disappointed. As a fan you go into every match wanting to win it whether its a long shot or not. We may still end up in top 4. Until we are mathematically unable to we can't assume anything. I will say this. If we do end up back in the CL I don't expect us to stay there. Unless we make substantial changes in a few areas, one of them being the intangible "team belief", we will be back in Europa in a season. It's a catch 22, we need CL money but won't spend to give ourselves a chance to get back in.

The potential is there. Our recent record and effort against the other top 6 sides shows that. At the end of the day our biggest problem is ownership. Just like with being overly critical of Wenger, he had a boss and that boss sucks. Gazidis wasn't the problem as we see some of the board related issues (money, etc.) is still there. The constant and consistent factor has been the owner. He simply doesn't care. That's long and short of it. No owner who cares would have us in this situation adrift without a lifeline. He cares about the Los Angeles Rams. I was in L.A. the last month and a half and you should see the construction going on around the stadium. Its a sports, entertainment, shopping complex on a huge scale. I was more angry than impressed going past it because I know its at our expense. I lived in that area (Inglewood) for a year when I first moved there. Know it well.

It's going to seem like deja vu next season around this time because we are leaderless from the top.

Yes, a big mistake. Prior to Palace we had won three games on the bounce and were looking settled. Should have kept momentum going. especially as you suggest the Wolves game away was always going to be a hard one. We now need a show of character.

I found the first half (or thereabouts) of his last post less convincing, but there was much in the latter bit of American's most recent post that I actually agree with.

Man Utd are going to have a tough time selling Pogba. What club is going to spend that type of money on transfer fees and wages and justify it over someone else in that position? PSG maybe. Would Bayern take the chance? They aren't really known for that type of fee. Would either of the two la liga giants think its worth it?
Domestically City doesn't need him and would Chelsea take a punt?

Kroenke is personally putting 1.6 billion dollars of equity into the LA stadium project for the Rams.

He so far has put zero dollars into arsenal and borrowed all the money to attain it from deutschebank and took 4 million in consultancy fees out of the club. He’s a completely wretched owner I don’t think he even takes any enjoyment from his investment in us

I saw the PFA team of the year that was leaked and then distributed today. Obviously no arsenal players in it and rightly so.

I thought actually if you had to pick a 2nd 11 would there be an arsenal player in it then ? and my conclusion was probably not. Then I thought literally how many iterations of this team before we got a player in it?

We just don’t have the players anymore

Yeah, what the hell, I'd take him if he was willing to come. Won't happen but I would be for it.

http://www.sportbible.com/football/news ... sSEqHje3iY
Real Madrid Are Willing To Loan Out Gareth Bale Like They Did With James Rodríguez

I make you right on this Top Gun. I agree, Kroenke is 'a completely wretched owner'.

If what I read online about the PFA team of year is correct, Pogba is the only non City or Liverpool player on the team. This reflects the huge financial difference between City and everyone else. They can afford arguably the world's best manager and I'm guessing the most expensive side in the world if not, its damn close. Credit to Klopp and Liverpool. There were initial adjustment issues with Klopp and posts on here about his being overhyped but he's proven himself. Yes, they have spent money but City, Chelsea and Man Utd are richer. We see what happens when Klopp gets 'his team'. Just like in Germany, he is competitive against a giant. The EPL runs the risk of looking like the bundesliga. This may seem over the top with the money Man Utd and Chelsea have (despite Roman's personal issues) but City's money is bottomless and they can withstand any huge flop. Man Utd couldn't just write off Pogba and keep buying but if it happened to City they could. Roman has stopped investing like he did in '04. The FFF is a joke. That won't stop City and hasn't.

Liverpool seems they will always be competitive but they will have bad seasons. City looks like they can get 90 plus points every season. There isn't a club in the league that can get 90 or more points season in, season out. Any club that unseats City will have to have mid 90s points season. Liverpool can't sustain that. You may have Man Utd or Chelsea get there once in a while. It seems like its going to various clubs having a great season (90 plus points) once in a while to challenge.

Furthermore, Liverpool and Chelsea and Man Utd are not so big that they can't lose their best players to either Real Madrid or Barca or to a lesser extent PSG or Bayern. I can't recall City's best players being able to be pried away to either la Liga giants. Maybe there has been but I'm searching my memory as I write and no one comes to mind. I'm sure someone will remind me if there is. City has now transformed itself into the club right below the la Liga giants that players will come to in their prime and not leave until their careers are essentially over. If they win the CL and become as competitive in the CL as the la Liga giants (semis or finals on a consistent level) they will rule the league because the PL is already the world's most popular and their players are becoming iconic.

It was what I (and others) feared the league would devolve into with the Emirates money buying them. As for The Arsenal, the most we can wish for is to be competitive in the league (challenging the leaders within 5 or less points) until spring. We don't have the infrastructure for anything higher than that.

Not only that Top Gun but pick your fantasy league team and how many Arsenal players get in it these days? You are not going to pick a defender as we keep no clean sheets. And unlike the old days where you'd have Henry, Pires and Ljungberg to get you goals, now we only have Aubameyang and he rarely scores away from home.

Just an average side all round but hopefully better than Valencia.

I used to slag off Wiltord but arguably he is a better player than Lacazette who is very overrated.

If we need .money through selling players, I already mentioned him and Bellerin are saleable assets we can improve upon and raise decent cash.

All in all last night was the first time I turned off the Gunners in over 20 years. Absolute disgrace that was.

Aside from Guendozi,Leno and Aubameyang there’s not one player I’d be completely adverse to selling if the right offer came in.

I think Lacazette is a good player but he seems to be missing some pretty big chances in big games at the moment. If someone made us a decent offer that would allow us to get a wide player it should be contemplated.

I saw American asking where Pogba could go. Let me tell you something I bet you he ends up at a big club if he leaves. Why ? Because despite being inconsistent he still turns up 1 out of 2 games and can change a match. I’d take that ! Most of ours turn up even less !

Xhaka 1 in 4 (and when that fourth game comes people lavish praise on him so much they completley forgetting the previous 3)

Özil 1 in 3 (but when It does arrive it looks spectacular)

Iwobi 1 in 5

Mhikitaryan 1 in 4


Etc etc

yes sir I’d take Pogba at arsenal all day.

Sorry Niall, respectfully disagree. I'll give the edge to Lacazette over Wiltord. I think Lacazette would thrive given the same players (Henry, Bergkamp, Pires, Freddie) around him. But it's close, a case can be argued either way. Different players in terms of skillset.

And with the huge money in the prem it has meant that teams lower down the league are far more competitive than they ever have been in my opinion. Just look at some of the sums of money being spent by teams below us in the table:
Everton £40m on richarlison and Sigurdsson and £30m on Pickford
Leicester £25m on Maddison, £30m on a failed Slimani
Wolves £35m on jiminez
West Ham £40m on Anderso
Palace £30m on Sakho and benteke
Bournemouth spent £20m for Ake
I know they were rubbish but even Fulham dropped £100m on players

You may argue that not all of these players would get in our side but it is making those teams more competitive. We lost to 4 of them

At Christmas there were silly season rumours about PSG wanting Guendouzi. Many have said on here that he’s one of the last players we should sell. But I don’t think so, if PSG came in with a silly offer of £50m+ I’d bite their hand off. I like Guendouzi, very talented with a skill set not found in many 19 year old CMs but there is no guarantee of his successor improvement. I’m also slightly worried about his lack of pace and power for the prem.
It may be that we sold him and in 4 years he’s worth double what we let him go for, but the bigger picture is we need more investment now and he is an asset that could generate a huge fee. If we were city or Liverpool then I’d say different, but I see it as with that money we could buy 4 more Guendouzi’s and eventually sell them for a profit.

Our model we currently run is unsustainable to get us where we want to go. We went through years of selling (being forced to sell) our best players, and as soon as we got a bit of money we arrogantly and stubbornly refused to entertain the idea because we felt we’d gone through that phase and were now buying the likes of Sanchez and Özil and bidding on Suarez etc. But if a player wants to leave and his contract is running down then we must sell and reinvest. None of the top teams are immune to that. You only have to look at Liverpool’s good selling to see how it can work. Even Barca had to sell one of their jewels

Here’s a thing that frustrates me. Pogba signed for Man U for £90m. It was an inflated fee but not totally out of reality considering what he was doing for Juve. Pogba seems likely to leave this summer and Man U will set the price at a minimum of £90m I’m sure. Pogba has done nothing in his time with Man U to suggest he’s anything more than a £30-40m player even taking in to account that he might pick up his form. I don’t doubt that Man U will get the fee they want.

There are countless examples of this and it isn’t just down to the general market inflation. None of these examples involve arsenal