Yeah, I've felt this for a while but as I get older I don't feel the same level of angst or concern about Arsenal as I did. I do it almost out of a sense of duty. Defeats are annoying but don't hurt me much, I get over it pretty quickly. It's just something to do a few times a month for me now. I renewed my ST's but honestly got more excitement renewing my Tate membership.

Until we have a winning mentality from the boardroom, I think more people will feel as I do. It's boring, it's stale, it's dull. However, I'll still be there next season, foolishly thinking something different will occur until we all realise about 10 games in that nothing has changed. Again.

What is an elite manager ? Mourinho, Guardiola, klopp?

Just like Emery any of those guys would have struggled to turn mustafi, Xhaka and Kolasinac into world beaters.

Is Allegri an elite manager ? Well the rumour was we spoke to him he was offered the job and he said it would need an investment of 150 million to get us competing again which we obviously can’t oblige.

Were Wenger and Graham elite managers when they joined?

At the end of the day Its a squad with 4 good players and 2 reasonable squaddies in it. 6 players.....6..... that’s all.

I wrote at the start of the season Emery was on a hiding to nothing, I hope Emery chucks some of these chancers under the bus and like you looks to youth.

The reality is he is done for anyway. Our impatient fans will need to see a “name” come in or an ex player to allow them the time to complete what is necessary. The Only hope is that Emery can improve the squad enough so when the new guy comes in he takes over a squad better than Wenger left, which shouldn’t be hard

Yes absolutely this is the problem.

Made me laugh earlier in the season when after only a few months Emery was speaking reasonable English but obviously not perfect and our fans were praising him. Cue a few bad results and ............................” that Emery can’t even talk proper!!!!”

Jesus Christ just imagine it, we’d be giving away possession literally every time we got the ball.

Let’s try Lacazette as a sweeper,

With our current side, we need someone more along the lines of Blackstone, Houdini or Copperfield.

Deja vu.

England score another late ‘winner’ only for it to be overturned after a couple of minutes by VAR.

I bet they won’t use VAR to check for defenders tugging shirts in the area. There would be about 10 penalties a match.

Harold Shipman would be a good start then we can build from there

I think I will hold my hand up to being one of them. I am happy for us to try youth but I expect a couple of mistakes in a season but not all the time. Compared to wages at places like Everton and Spurs these players often earn pretty good money so I have expectations they will perform at a reasonable level.

Iwobi is not a young player but he fails to deliver and makes a lot of mistakes. How many mistakes and really poor performances should we tolerate?
N-M is a young player who I have cut a lot of slack to but his error rate is starting to be alarming. The real test for any young player is after 20 games in the EPL, when opposition coaches have all the DVD footage and can dissect their players. When Chambers came into the team people were talking of him as the greatest thing since sliced bread but when his weaknesses were exposed he doesn’t even rate in the position we purchased him to play in.

I am just not convinced that our youth scheme is producing the quality of players required. There is no Fabergas or Bellerin I have seen . Both of them only came to our youth set up very late. Who was the last player who started with us as say an 11yo and actually became a great player. Maybe the whole system needs an overhaul.

Nelson, Saka, Nketiah & Willow show promise. Bring them in next season. If not, when will we ever know if they can make the step up?

I see this being City's year again. My hope is they don't go the season unbeaten. I think the Invincibles record is in jeapordy as long as City is in this state. Yeah, yeah, I know how difficult it is because the league is much tougher than ever top to bottom but City has the resources and the talent to do it. If the don't get the record, it will be discussed as a possibility in each of the next few seasons if/when they get into December without a defeat.

Its crazy but Liverpool could have done it last year and still not win the title. Its a crazy league we are in right now.

As far as the league, it will be Liverpool pushing City once again. Tottenham has 3rd on lock for the most part unless Chelsea or Man Utd have a resurgence. I see Man Utd of the two making a come back first. Hazard leaving is a huge blow. Pogba leaving isn't as big. Plus Man Utd will spend. Chelsea haven't been nearly as much as they did back in 2004 in those years.

Man Utd's American owner has learned that spending money will pay off for branding, unlike ours.

I'd echo those who would rather we go with youth than middle of the road type signings. I can't think of too many players at 25-26 who weren't already at a top club who went on to suddenly become world class when signing for a top club.

We should be in the U23 market, identifying the top talent and potential and realising we can't swoop up these players for sub £10m

City won the league by one point ahead of Liverpool. I think you’ll find the game Liverpool lost was against City. Had Liverpool avoided defeat in that game and drawn, Liverpool would have gained one point more than they finished with and City would have had two points less. So assuming all other results would have stayed the same, had Liverpool avoided defeat in the game they lost, they would have won the league.

My old man:

My grandfather .... was travelling to NZ but stopped over in Australia and enlisted with the Ausies when the WW1 commenced . Sent to France .

Looked up his record

On arrival in England first day .... up on charges AWOL , trespassing ... ...and drunk and disorderly ...... fined 10 / 6

said to Mrs Kiwi ... "See ... the drinking .... it's not my fault it's a genetic thing ".

Touch of colour for you ..

Rog ...

thanks Rog

Thank you Warrior - much appreciated.

That would be a good question to put to every English professional football club, not just Arsenal. Buying rather than growing is so much easier with all the obscene money in the game.

Mannone talking about Lehmann and Almunia
“I was the youngster and those two were always fighting so it was a nervous situation for me to try and deal with. Every training session was like a Champions League final. You couldn’t miss a ball or do anything wrong."

More of that sort of standard setting required!

I would be forgiving if we played very talented youth players. What I wouldn't want to see is the likes of the youth players we had after the stadium was completed and others who were around much too long. We kept on some very mediocre young players.

Okay, so England lost a semi final to Holland. Holland! It's not like the country lost to Faroe Islands. The FA always saw Southgate as a stop gap until he won and wouldn't provide them a good reason. Just one 'outsiders' view.

Can't say I care one way or the other tbh but there is an underlying message here.

The UEFA Nations League Finals may be a bit of a mickey mouse tournament (wouldn’t have been if we’d won it) but they were de facto the best 4 teams in Europe. 100+ players in the four squads, yet only one Arsenal player was involved - Xhaka. If they’d doubled the size of each squad, we wouldn’t have been better represented.

You can say that France, Germany and Spain weren’t involved, but we probably wouldn’t have increased our presence if they had been.

It’s a reasonable measure of how far the quality of our squad has dropped.

There is a lot of talk on podcasts about Emery and his abilities as a manager. A number of people have questioned his credentials.

Given that Sarri, at Chelsea, has never won anything, it is not clear to me what people want in a managers history that would make them acceptable.

At Arsenal, I can't understand the management structure at all. Perhaps some on here can assist. Does Emery merely indicate to someone I need a good CB, I need a speedy winger etc. I have no place for Özil, Elenny etc. Then does some other person look at what is available and purchase if possible and try and sell.

Or does Emery say I want player X from Sampdoria to fill a position.

If someone else is picking the players and negotiating -who is this mystery person (well mystery to me)?

How are things over your way. All good in North Queensland.
Looking at the squad we have a lot of squaddies and not many players good enough to be first choice. With Iwobi, he lacks ability to score, often panics and loses the ball too often plus he very rarely makes assists (a problem across the whole squad). He needs to really step up in the first few months if he is to be a regular. At 23yo, in this team, he needs to perform or go IMO.

I fear we (Arsenal fans) have an elevated view of where we really are in the football universe. We are looking at our present state with Invincible era and prior lens. We are firmly a 2nd tier club below the league's elite.

We are not on a road map to get back. If anything, we are on a downward spiral. Its fairly slow (or a little fast for some of us) downward process, akin to Chinese water torture. We will put on a good display against a Tottenham, Chelsea, Man Utd or even Liverpool or City ever so often, but so do Wolves, Burnley and Everton.

We can't (or won't) compete financially and for the most part with very few exceptions (Tottenham) that's how you get in the top 3 or 4. Klopp has done a fantastic job but he's also spent a pretty penny. Even without Roman, Chelsea will spend. Man Utd obviously has no issue opening up the purse, albeit, it's not been successful lately but if I've not known too many clubs who spend like they do who have not eventually bought themselves back into contention for honors.

The big difference between our American owner and theirs is, at least theirs understands enough about football that he needs to keep them competitive and vying for trophies. If we had the money, I'm not so sure Pogba would come to us. Man Utd, as lowly as they are now table wise can still attract top players. It's not just their pedigree, we all (top clubs) have a history. Top players know they have ambition and are willing to spend as evidence of it.

We are at a precipice right now. If we don't get it right, we will slip farther down. If we slip but its part of a larger, longer term plan (youth policy) that's one thing. But if its the path we are presently on, its going to be a dark period.

Read we are linked to Celtic FB Kieran Tierney

I've traveling and catching up on the transfer rumors. So we are close to getting Carrasco?

Carrasco looks like he'd be a quality signing, I'd be very happy with that one. Tierney highly regarded as well as is Andersen I believe from Sampdoria. Some of the links are quite exciting at the minute, hopefully we'll see some action soon.

Agree on those 3.
Carrasco is 25, has spent 18 months in China because Athletico needed some easy cash. If we were signing him direct from Athletico for £25m we'd be very excited. From what I can see he's versatile, tricky, pacey, experienced, provides goals and assists and is two footed. Could probably play right, left or central. £25m, full international and 25 years old- you would struggle to find much better anywhere.
Tierney is exactly the sort of signing we should be making, young, home grown, very experienced for his age, quick and room for improvement - hopefully he could be our Robertson
Anderson I know less about. My only concern is his rumoured last of pace, the italian league isn't known for needing a lot of pace in defence, england is. He's a big lad at 6ft 4 and has excellent passing ability. For £20-25m we would probably struggle to do better

My guess (and hope) is that Emery is trying to build Sevilla II at Arsenal. Young, dynamic squad that comes to play each match, tough to get a result from.

Interesting to hearWilshere say how his injury in 2015 took him a lot longer to come back from because he neglected his rehab because his son was quite ill and having seizures, meaning Wilshere and his wife understandably stayed up at night to watch him and spent a lot of time in hospital.
Often easy to forget players have lots of other things going on in their life that can affect performances on the pitch

Just seen that Lemar at Athletico scored just 2 league goals for them last year after a €60m move, after Monaco turned down €90m bid from us! Can you imagine if we’d made that signing

Yes, he will score tons for us. Then get sold for 200m the following season.

I hope so. We need more energy in our play. Getting really bored with the over passing game. Cut Özil out, with him, it is always going to be the passing game. He will hold on to the ball, or do useless triangles until he finds that opening for a beautiful sliderule pass. Either Lacazette and Aubameyang are not in-sync with him, or he is now slower to spot their runs. It is not working for him anymore.

Özil adjusted as best he could to the league. And us. He improved a lot. I will give him credit for that. He became much tougher. Not sitting and crying for 5 minutes after a hard foul. He scored more than he usually did or so it seems. I was always critical on why we bought him when we did (we bought him in my opinion because we didn't buy a RvP replacement at the time).

But we got the best he could offer. Mentally, he wasn't a leader, wasn't tough enough in that respect but that was never in his locker. We were asking for what he wasn't and that is the club's fault.

So, we should part ways so we can free up that money for someone who can. Carzola and Fabregas were the last two in that playmaker position that worked.

So far, I like the type of player we are linked to far. I'll be more secure once we start signing more but its still fairly early.

We have/will clear a lot of money off the books. So, its official then? Our first two signings? Praet and Andersen?

https://talksport.com/football/555417/a ... 1560002972

So after benching Ospina when he reached 24 games, 1 short of the compulsory purchase clause, Napoli are now arguing over the £3.5m fee. Just put Ospina up for general sale to all clubs, he’s only 30, young for a GK, international Gak, vast experience, surely we can get more than £3.5m for him

Agreed. Let's see what the market will pay. We should have been on top of that once we saw he was stopped at 24 games and ask Napoli what are their intentions. We could have lined up buyers. Maybe we have but this is Arsenal. I don't put anything past us in terms of competence n transfer matters.