This is actually a very, very strong team. Compare that to Chelsea and United, who should be seen as our main rivals for top 4 at this stage. Not sure exactly what their respective second elevens would look like, but something like this:

Caballero
Zappacosta – Rudiger – Tomori – Alonso
Kanté – Bakayoko
Hudson-Odoi – Loftus-Cheek – Willian
Giroud

Pereira
Dalot – Smalling – Jones – Rojo
Matic – Fred
James – Mata – Young
Sanchez

How many of these players could be expected to add real quality to a side chasing top 4? Kanté is a given. Sanchez if he's fit and in form, but it's been a long time since that happened. Willian is good on his day. Not much else there.

Not going to do a second eleven for Man City, because it's too depressing.

I don't know if others have watched the VAR decision in Wolves game which disallowed a goal.

This is where the whole thing will get really messy. It looked to me as if they wanted to disallow it. IMO they got an advantage but the ball fit the arm and was unavoidable and they overruled the refs decision.

Therefore they have set the rules for the future - if a ball hits a defenders arm even unintentionally and they gain any advantage - in fact in every case you must gain an advantage - then it must be a penalty. If you are the attackers it must be disallowed. No if or buts.

If not then the whole system is a total joke.

I said that yesterday. I think he'd be good in front of the back 4. That's the traditional Brazilian set up. 2 CBs a DM in front them. SIlva, Dunga etc and the 2 FBs bombing forward. Most teams will park the bus at the Emirates so we needn't worry too much about defence.

You can’t have Luiz in midfield alongside Torreira, they would effectively want to do the same thing and would hamper us going forward. The Xhaka and guendouzi pivot yesterday was too defensive nevermind introducing a centre half to the fray.

Luiz has been signed as a centre back, unless there’s an injury crisis I can’t see him being deployed in midfield

Onwards to Burnley game. A 3 goal victory?

Any victory will do as we need to increase momentum. I thought yesterday we looked lethargic, off the pace and very indirect which meant we were unable to create much. Basically Maitland niles and Aubameyang got us out of jail otherwise people would be on here asking for Emery to be sacked today

Let’s hope so g7, but Burnley picked up a 3-0 win themselves and can be very stubborn opponents. Not to be taken for granted.

Hi all.

Is anyone having problems accessing the forum the past few days by chance ?

No problems for me Warrior

The Özil & Kolasinac thing is plain weird. There’s definitely more than meets the eye to it from reading about the latest reports today.

The media are suggesting they are caught up in a argument between 2 criminal gangs, one of which wants to protect the players. You would have to suggest that there is a connection between the 2 players and a criminal gang then surely ? Paying protection, friendships or something. The players are denying that currently.

They are also reporting Kolasinac wife has gone back to Germany and won’t return. Surely that’s going to mean him departing at some point.

Didn't realise that our first season back in the top flight we lost 0-1 to Newcastle at Highbury. As we begin of 2nd century we get revenge.

So at least one good thing will come from all of this.

Just need Mustafi, mhikitaryan and el Nenny pulled into this crimewave and we should be ok.

Surely only a matter of time before somebody blames Emery for the car jacking attempt

No problems for me either Rog.

One big thing we need to change this season is the attempts on goal.
Last season we were only ranked 11th for shots on goal. This weekend only Leicester had fewer shots on target that us.

Pépé should be a big help to this but we need more from some of our shot shy players.

Nor me.

They’ve changed the rules for this season so that if there’s a hand ball by an attacking player in the immediate build up to a goal it's disallowed. So like Iwobi’s goal against... i forget last season.

Makes sense to me, it hit the guy’s hand and fell right to the goal scorer.

I want consistency. So with VAR in the women’s World Cup most hand balls by defenders resulted in VAR being consulted no matter how far they were from the player kicking the ball. Will that be what the EPL applies or are they sticking with the natural position of the hand even although that seems to vary with who is interpreting it.

ok at my end

I prefer watercolours but having said that you have a fair amount of talent Gaz .... they are very good .

This is crucial. I’ve seen a lot of pundits who just look at our goal totals from last season and say our attack is fine and we just need to improve defensively (I even saw Ian Hollow on deadline day make a really weird point about how we would’ve been better of signing Gary Cahill than Pépé). To me that’s madness, I don’t think anyone who watched us regularly last season can say we looked impressive offensively for any stretch of the season. We just didn’t create enough chances and that is one of the biggest areas we need to improve.

with exception of being Welsh ...............................

Swiss Ramble doing a good explanation on Twitter of our finances and how we could afford to splash out £130m odd this summer.

Interestingly it shows wages off the books at £725k per week, and players bought in at only £495k per week. So £230k saving on wages per week. £12m per year

The excellent Swiss ramble explaining our summers transfer business financially

https://twitter.com/swissramble/status/ ... 27169?s=21

What can I say Pete; you're quite right.

The responsibility of being Welsh is massive, particularly because of the following:

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have the greatness of being Welsh thrust upon them." (The original William Shakespeare quote.)

Swiss Ramble is of course correct in that there are many different ways to look at transfer spending.

What bothers me is the way the media has been reporting our £45m budget; if we look at what was being said before the summer, not one of them was saying £45m is what we can spend in total on first year installments. In fact I’ve never seen any reporter ever talk about a transfer budget in those terms. Then, when Arsenal goes out and overspends the reported £45m by a lot, they all start talking about installments. They’re mixing up financial terms willy nilly to justify their earlier reporting which was simply based on information that wasn’t correct.

Heard an interview with a guy who was a convict in the same prison as Jeffrey Epstein and said it was virtually impossible to commit suicide if you are on suicide watch. He mentioned how they take every precaution and that the prison has pretty much seen every conceivable means people have used in the pass and you'd have to be a genius and desperate and very quick about your own demise to even have a chance to do it.

Hmmm

There is a good video doing the rounds of Emery's reaction when Willock was shrugged off the ball and then chased back 20 yards to make a recover tackle. Emery celebrated it like a goal

People need to stop complaining, over analysing stuff and get behind the guy for once.

You can see he cares. He never blames the officials, never blames his players or chucks them under a bus even if they are out of order, often makes difficult changes, always speaks with dignity and never complains about the absolute pup he was sold when he joined.

Yesterday that prat who runs Le Grove was getting excited about Emery leaving and Mourinho joining as we now have relations with his agent Mendez. Let me assure you Jose Mourinho would be a disaster for Arsenal, he would waste all our money and leave us 2 years later in a worse state than Wenger.

For the first time in *%^@*** years this season there seems to be a positive feeling at the club. Just enjoy it and if we lose to Liverpool don’t chuck your toys out the pram because we lost a game.

He wasn't on suicide watch boner.

Anyone else marginally interested in the Super Cup as I am? I may watch it if I can't find anything of interest on TV like 'The Joys of Watching Paint Dry'.

Debut goal for Nketiah for Leeds in the cup tonight

Not watching the game (until I saw your post I had no idea it was even being played). How has he played?

I didn’t watch I’m afraid. Reports said it was a classic right place right time tap in finish. Exactly what Eddie does well.

With ties to Trump, Clinton and a royal as well as many of the 1% and the fact it was said he kept meticulous notes on his comings (no pun intended) and going. Something is amiss and we may never know what really happened because it reaches too high. Just like how the 9/11 commission couldn't find the person who vetoed watching the terrorists who were taking flying lessons in America.

If the same exact scenario happened in Russia or China, it would automatically be assumed and fairly accepted as fact the government engineered it all. But America gets a pass from logic and reason.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/latest-frenc ... 46357.html
The Latest: 1 of Epstein's guards not a corrections officer

I think fans are going to be a bit over optimistic and I understand why. We had a decent summer bringing in new blood. Nothing less than 3 points will be tolerated by most gooners come the weekend.
This squad is still a work in progress and all the new 'moving parts' have to be blended into a smooth running machine.

I am not going to expect a lot right now. I just want us to be competitive. It will take a bit for Emery to get the right XI and an effective system with that XI.

Watching City and Liverpool battle it out may be interesting. City have only failed to to be out of the top 3 once since 2011. Its the kind of season by season form Man Utd used to have in the 90s and first few years of the 00s.
If City do win it this season and next, the EPL will start to look like a joke corrupted by money. My other fear is our unbeaten record which is very hard to do with the league as it is, but not impossible with what City have.
Liverpool have one of their best sides since some time but when you can't win the PL with 97 points, while losing only once and your contender has all the money in the world, you can only stay competitive to challenge for the title for so long.

We may start seeing Tottenham fall off as well (a welcomed thing). They have the addition of the stadium to contend with, their biggest stars looking at possibly leaving.

Spurs have Vertonghen, alderweireld and Eriksen in the last 12 months of their deals.
Alderweireld was available for £25m this summer, teams obviously didn’t go for it because he’s free in 12 months, or foreign clubs can agree that deal in 6 months.
Those 3 have been mainstays and a huge part of Spurs’ recent rise.
Rose also wants out. Poch is a great manager but as we found there’s only so long you can pull bargain quality players out of the hat.
Spurs wage bill is about half of the other top 6, when they make £50-60m signings those players don’t sign based on Spurs normal wages. They will be some of the top earners which sets the benchmark for any new signing and any contract renewals. We’ve actually reduced our wage bill this year, I think Spurs will see theirs rise at a quicker rate than any of the top 6 mainly because they were so far behind in the first place

Reine-Adelaide is close to signing for Lyon for up to 30m euros. It seems we have a 10% sell on which is handy but disappointing not to get a bigger piece of that considering we sold him for £1-2m last year.

These young players only ever really get their value if they are playing full time football - Bielik being a good case. So for Arsenal to get the big value when selling these players they need to expose them to first team football. If that is with us then we run the risk of an inexperienced player costing us points. We need to manage the loan system better, and ensure that players going on loan aren't just running down their contract. We had that problem with Szcesny who spent 2 years on loan but his contract was running down all the time. I expect Nketiah has already added a few million to his price by scoring for Leeds last night on loan - it just gets him noticed and shows that he can do it at a big club (Leeds are still the biggest club outside the prem I think)