More Nkuku rumours today. Seems the most credible of all the rumours out there. Emery has worked with him before and he’s not getting as much game time as he wants. Think Emery sees him as a Ramsey replacement.

I would certainly not be against signing players from prem clubs lower than us. Fraser has had a brilliant season wide on the left, goals and assists and bags of pace.

PSG lost the French cup final on pens to Rennes after a 2-2 draw in which PSG were 2-0 up

Consoled myself Gaz by going out and buying two 350 Chev's with Vortec heads for a bargain price so the hoarding gerne survived the carnage . Hope you over the fever .

Understand your thoughts on the doctors , the third [ a woman ] said it was all in my imagination , deep breathing would cure all and "what does it matter you haven't slept at all for four days you will eventually " when I requested some sleeping tablets ....but in their defence they can't test for every available illness known the man.

Brom .. All my ills seemed to start with a guts full rum and one of the home remedies may have triggered the e coli infection . Many thanks for your kind wishes Bern , Goonie , G7 , Johnnie Boy , Decaf ,

Old Man .. have a bit of ancient Oz Kiwi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ4EWEBibyQ

We surely can't lose to Leicester ...... I wouldn't mind if we did because it might drive home the fact we do need a major clean out .

Same. I think this is an encouraging sound bite as to what he can clearly see as a weakness in our make up. Be interesting to see what kind of player he goes for in the summer.

thanks Big Guy ...watched quite a bit of the Lions versus the Chiefs a week or so back ... pretty impressed with their expansive play , sort of South African rugby from a bygone era shades of Dannie Gerber , Jannie Englebrecht , Tom van Vollenhoven .

More talk this morning of arsenal handing Welbeck a new contract. As long as he’s fully recovered from hi injury I can see sense in that. It would cost £15-20m to replace him in the squad and that is money that could be used elsewhere if he resigns. He’s versatile, gives 100% and offers a bit of a plan b both up front and on the wing. I don’t sign up for giving players sympathy contracts or because they are a fan favourite - this just makes sense. Ideally we get a player better than Welbeck but we need to cut our cloth accordingly. If we can push another £15m towards a centre back and left back because Welbeck is signed on for 2-3 more years then I say do it. There is talk of a lower basic wage with performance related bonuses

Couldn't agree more. Welbeck's never going to get in anybody's best ever Arsenal team, unless his mother is picking it. But as an all round player he's more than useful. Good pace, decent skill, okay in his passing, absolutely fine in the air without being another John Radford, and one of the hardest working players I've ever seen at Arsenal.

The main moan about him concerns his goal scoring, which doesn't set the house on fire when dividing appearances by goals scored. But as I mentioned here whenever it was, I saw a calculation of his goal scoring rate using actual minutes on the pitch instead of simple appearances (coming on as a sub in injury time counts as an appearance). By using goals scored per minutes on the pitch, Welbeck's goal scoring at Arsenal actually translates into a ratio of one goal every two games. That isn't bad.

Leno, AMN, Sokratis, Mustafi, Kola, Xhaka, torreira, Iwobi, Mkhitaryan, Aubameyang, Lacazette

No Özil in the matchday squad at all

Actually that’s very good for a non regular. Wiltord was one in 3 for us

I’d offer Welbeck a contract. Good guy with a great attitude

Actually your probably right.

The club are paying Özil and Mkhitaryan 500 grand a week, must be a real bone of contention that they only deliver in spurts

Got a feeling top 4 ends today. Hope I’m wrong

We are so unpredictable absolutely nothing would surprise me today. Good or bad.

Great save Leno

Otherwise utterly abysmal so far. Just offered nothing what so ever

We are so predictable. Our creative players just don’t seem able to impose themselves on any game. Everything seems so telegraphed

I’m surprised Emery hasn’t called up Saka into the main squad. If nothing else to offer something different.

Niles off

Goodbye top 4

Down to 10 men - sounds familiar ....

Ffs AMN off.

And how predictable was that. Brainless.

Irrelevant given that he's never on the pitch

Soft second booking, but shouldn't dive in when booked.

Tactically Emery has got it wrong a lot recently and again today, but he's not helped by having so many players injured and so many who just aren't and never will be good enough. The recruitment in recent years (not to mention the sales) has been poor, and we don't have the money to make mistakes like the other big clubs.

Very harsh that from Oliver, usually a good ref.

Why the *%^@ is Mikitaryan even on the pitch. Might as well be playing a man down before Maitland got sent off.

Utterly woeful. I've said it before but if Emery hasn't made major improvements by December then he's not the guy for the job

Mkhi at right back.

Lacazette gets fouled so often without getting anything - every week he gets clattered

Seen the two bookings again - I rate Oliver as a ref, but that is a joke.

We are really under the cosh now. Not looking good.

He’s my latest pet hate. 170 k a week and the third highest paid player at the club and his touch and distribution let him down so much.

Sometimes he can do some decent things but nowhere near often enough

First booking was a complete joke.

2nd probably right.

two absolutely stupid fouls. It is not as if they were bearing down on goal. So many players lack even any basic football nous. I am pretty sure that Mustafi and a few others on the field are not the ones to impart it. For instance Iwobi continues to run down blind alleys, stupid fouls, failure to stay on your feet it just goes on and on. Mental strength of a soft marshmallow. Otherwise all is going okay.

2nd is the kind of challenge that rarely gets booked to be honest. Either way, we're not good enough as a team to keep getting screwed by refs as often as we are. I don't think its a grand conspiracy, but you look at the way the other 'big' teams get treated by refs and the way we do, and there is a clear discrepancy. Lacazette got a penalty which was a part-foul/part-dive a few weeks back, but the guy has been fouled in the area so many times this season and hasn't been given a damn thing.

That said, we've been pony today, red card or no. The red just reduces our ability to fix it.

Well, it could be because Ramsay is always injured, Wellbeck is always injured - so I suppose he earns his money because he is on the pitch instead of the injury room. I don't think anyone has ever scored from the injury room although I think Messi may be able to do so.

Mkhitaryan is just so useless and doesn't bust a gut for the team. Shys away from tackles.

The first one was a good foul it stopped a dangerous counter attack. Don't often see a yellow brandished after 7 minutes but can5 complain about it really.

Second one of course a foul but player was just a little late after a miscontrol. Leicester still had the ball in a dangerous enough position. Not every foul is a yellow. I think that should have been a warning, not as if Niles had been making fouls all half. Harsh decision imo.

The BBC seem to agree both yellows were a joke. Particularly as Ndidi only got a yellow for studs half way up Xhaka's leg - not saying that's a red but far far worse than either of AMN's

Even before the booking I thought we were outclassed in every area of the pitch. Leicester were quicker, stronger, more aggressive and even played more incisive football.

Mika and Iwobi are just lightweights, Torreira and Xhaka are unable to control the midfield even against moderate opposition and our defence is just hopeless. How many free headers did Leicester get?

The sending off has just been the icing on a pretty stale cake.

I thought both yellows were probably yellows in the context of what you get yellows for these days.

Agree, Sky saying harsh as well.

Somehow still at 0-0 but don't fancy us holding out long into second half. Our passing and movement is woeful. Still had a great chance via Iwobis effort but it was tame again.

I know what you mean. But when you watch City you will see how many times their players do not foul but just try and shut down the play. A lot of our fouls are lazy players just not wanting to keep tracking the player, panic from having lost the ball or a foul demonstrates their slow reactions. Maybe it is because they lack the skills. If so then we need to get rid of them.

I know what you mean. But when you watch City you will see how many times their players do not foul but just try and shut down the play. A lot of our fouls are lazy players just not wanting to keep tracking the player, panic from having lost the ball or a foul demonstrates their slow reactions. Maybe it is because they lack the skills. If so then we need to get rid of them.

At least Leno looked okay today. Can't disagree with much of all the other things you say.