Totally agree. Why I always thought he had a chance. He's hungry, always moving and willing to work for teammates. Don't know if he'll be Arsenal standard, but barring injury, he'll have a good career. I want him doing 1 on 1 sessions with Wrighty every so often. Their style and physicality is very similar.

We were a bit unlucky with Gnabry. Got a bad injury just as he was breaking into the side and then Pulis took him on loan for a year and give him 1 sub appearance all season, the penis-capped throwback moron. Any intelligent manager in the same situation would have leant heavily on Gnabry as he was more talented than anyone else in the WBA squad. Then he came back, got fit, was all due to sign a new contract, but after the summer tournament, Bayern cooked up a deal with Bremen and Gnabry (perhaps sensibly for him) reneged. A real shame as Wenger loved the player and intended to bring him into the squad properly that year.

Indeed. I personally agree with some of the cause, but think the timing was a massive error, as the Kroenke's can just point to the changed structure and ignore the rest. Also, why are so many people referred to as 'influencers' so utterly vacuous?

Yes, he started well and then got injured. Not sure his injury was pre or post dip in form. I would think he would have done enough to warrant a look-in. He was playing in the top league of Germany, and not a lesser league. To be able to impress at all, should be noted. That's only an opinion I hold.

Long gone are the days of us squirreled away in Austria under Wenger. The summer tours have gotten more expansive and the opposition more significant, Emirates Cup aside from several years ago.

The "good" thing about the anger of some if not most fans is that the Kroenke's are at least aware of it and I would guess are wary of it getting bigger. Do they care? Yes, but not as much as we think they should or do is my guess. The Los Angeles Rams are their primary concern. That won't change. I also think Josh cares about the rumblings far more than his father.

Worst decision to hand the keys over to him. The board were caught between a 'Scylla and Charabdis' between Usmanov and Kroenke.

Hmmm.....wonder how either of them got interested in buying The Arsenal?

Thanks David Dein.

Agreed nothing compares to the '80s youth that came through. Can't get much better than winning 2 titles ('89 and '91). However, I we have done great in the youth tournaments under Wenger and there were a couple League Cup sides that was mostly young players that got us to semi finals or finals. And they were routinely sought after for loan deals.

City and Chelsea (locally) have hoarded the best area talent with money. Changed the landscape I think. Soton has produced a lot but that may be attributed to the fall of Pompey and their being pretty much the biggest club on the southern coast and have had good management teams in.

If it’s going to take Nelson going on loan to Palace to get Zaha, which I thought was the idea gooner7 objected to, doesn’t it come down to the impact you’d expect both Nelson and Zaha to have with Arsenal next season? If you’d expect Nelson to be an impact sub and that is the realistic expectation, the rationale for Arsenal is surely to expect a lot more than that from Zaha?

I suppose whether we would actually get enough from Zaha to make it worth losing someone who you anticipate being an impact sub next season is up for debate. But someone at Arsenal will have to make that judgement this summer.

As I said he other day, I have mixed feelings over the Ceballos if there is no option to buy, although it seems the Real President has promised to discuss selling him to us next June.

He's technically brilliant and had an outstanding Euro u21s tournament with Spain. Whether he can cope with the pace and physicality of the PL is the big unknown.

Let's be honest, if we want to get back in the CL asap then turning down the loan of a potentially topclass player (with a reasonable salary) just because there is no option to buy is a bit churlish given our alleged financial situation. If it allows us to spend on other areas of the team it may be a sensible move.

Unfortunately, though, the better season he has the less our chances of signing him unless he falls in love with Arsenal and england.

Hi Bernard,

I'd have thought a loan move to Palace would be ideal for Nelson at this stage of his career. A decent team with an intelligent manager, in London as well.

Morning Socrates. That’s the way I’d see such a deal as well. I was slightly puzzled by gooner7’s opposition to the idea and I doubt Nelson would be unhappy with it.

If he helps to get back to CL status then it will be a win. Whether he stays or not will be up to Real and if they want him back I doubt that the appeal of England is going to keep him.

I really hope we have other options because Zaha isn't worth $65m and there must be better options for the same money.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/nfl-s- ... -1.3963947

We're 42nd.

I’m expecting another Baptista type loan from Ceballos. Without an option to buy it’s just arsenal developing a player for another club. If he scores 10 goals and provides 5 assists his price will be huge, if he doesn’t then wasted a year.

The Suarez loan was probably the worst loan deal of all time. He looked an absolute nothing player

So what would you rather have Ceballos and a top four finish or no Ceballos and no CL.

I think we are having to take a pragmatic approach. We felt unable to let the chance to sign Saliba pass even with a year's loan so we are having to cut our coat according to our cloth. I am hoping that signing Ceballos allows us to buy another CB and someone like Saha or Everton Soares.

I was expecting Suarez to show ability on the ball, even if he hadn’t fitted in. But he didn’t. Average ability mixed with not an awful lot else.

Has Saliba been confirmed yet?

So we have a prime minister now who can’t even honestly say how many children he has.

Apparently we are doing exactly the same with defenders. Ie trying to get a loan centre half in.

So we’re looking at an unwanted, perhaps youngish, CB from a top side? Someone like, although probably not, Bailly from Utd. Or Bielik perhaps... No one in England will want to strengthen us, so we’re looking at someone from maybe Bayern Juve Real or Barca. As an aside did you know Zech Medley is 6’5”!

The only way those players get valued at that sort of price is to get exposure in the prem. I'm relatively comfortable with our offensive positions with or without Zaha/Everton. I'm hugely concerned with our defensive positions where we are already a lot weaker than last year when we shipped 51 goals

Jerome Boateng Maybe, however he’s never really impressed me

Whilst the Ceballos deal is not ideal I can understand the logic if it enables us to strengthen significantly in other areas. However, more than one loan deal (especially if there is again no purchase option) just seems like the actions of a mid to lower table club.

How many big clubs in world football sign players on loan with no option to buy, except in an emergency situation where say a player suddenly picks up a long term injury?

If we are going down that route I'd rather just give the kids a go.

We get everywhere. Watching the Tour De France which is now near Nimes. At a rider crash scene there’s a guy in an Arsenal shirt taking photos from the roadside.

Probably caused the crash knowing our lot

Did his shirt have Mustafi on the back?

How about compared to Mustafi?
That’s actually a really good shout. Not a player I’d like us to invest in significantly, but on a loan that makes a fair bit of sense as Bayern we’re trying to flog him round Europe last summer.

If you look carefully you can see a Wenger Out sign in the corner.

Ha ha. Nice one.

I’m not sure I understand the pros for the selling club in sending a player on loan with an option to buy at a fixed price?
If the player does well or bad the buying club still has the option to buy or not.
I assume the price would be closer to what the selling club want to sell him for and realistically the only way it will get triggered is if he has done well for the buying club and therefore the buying club are more likely to agree to the price.

I’m fine with us not having an option to buy cellabos, we’ve got bigger problems. I don’t recall us allowing any of our players to go on loan with an option to buy.

I see what you mean but I kinda get it. It’s just a try before you buy isn’t it with the negotiations pre-done. I think the pro for the selling club is the deal is more likely to get done. If we had an option to buy on Cabellos I’m sure we’d be much more keen and pay a bigger loan fee perhaps?

Hi Rich,

To be fair, how many players have we loaned to bigger clubs than us without a buy option?

That said, we don't have enough money to address all the issues in the team (and let's face it there are plenty of them) so loans are really a pragmatic approach to try to get us to where we want to be (CL) as quickly as possible with the budget we have. I am not a gig fan of loans without an option to buy but needs must I suppose.

Talking transfers, surely a quality CB is an absolute priority for next season, especially if Kos leaves.

Cb, Lb, Cb Lb. Please.

Thing is We have

kosielny
Mavropanos
Chambers
Mustafi
Sokratis
Holding

Plus saliba now.

I can see the logic in signing another CB but at the expense of a left back or pacy wide player? I mean we don’t have any competent left back at the club. Surely it makes more sense to hold off and prioritise other areas until we can sell 1 or 2 of the guys we already have.

Unfortunately they are all journeyman CBs. Kos was a top CB once but is clearly now past his imperious best. The rest are a pretty average bunch.

Most of them are available at the right price but we've had no takers which tells you everything about their quality, or lack of.

To be honest, although I'd love to see a top quality pacy wideman arrive I think our defensive issues are a more pressing concern. Until we sort the defence we will struggle for top four.

3 out of 3 for the ICC. Not bad for morale. And have to be taken into context too, in that these are all pre-season friendlies. Still augurs well for the younger players, who played a big part in it. Time for the announcements ....... drum roll ................

Going to pens now ..

Spurs have managed to flog Vincent Janssen for £10m. Considering he has been absolutely beyond awful and has barely made a match day squad for a year that is a great price. Why can’t we sell our deadwood!? This really is as important as getting new signings in.

My fear is our glacial approach to a squad overhaul is going to take too many windows to get a competent team and in 3-4 windows time we will have a whole new bunch of players who need replacing either through age or getting annoyed at constantly being part of a team in transition.

Other teams manage to complete squad overhauls with less money than we have. 2 weeks left of the window. If we go in to the new season without any defensive signings then we can write off the season

Two players sent off in a pre season friendly! What was the ref doing. You only usually see red cards for serious foul play in friendlies.

I do fear for Sokratis and VAR this year. I reckon he’ll miss at least 5 league games with suspension. Making the need for a CB even greater

So we haven’t been able to shift a single deadwood player so far ?

Not one,

The club have no money so are having to get a defender and midfielder on loan.

A damning indictment of how things were so badly managed before Emery.