I think an advantage that Ronaldo had was his height and once he filled out his tall frame he was always going to be a handful for defenders both technically and physically.

He was also mentally tough with, by all accounts, an incredible work ethic and desire to improve. Reyes seemed much more introverted and found it difficult to settle outside of Spain.

Funny enough I had a call from Arsene once. He said he'd been reading my thoughts on Mertesacker on the Steve Gleiber Forum and said I was spot-on, he is a big useless lump and anyone who disagrees clearly know nothing about defenders.

Not to mention they were 5-10 minutes from being eliminated on matchday 4, 5 and 6 of the group stage. The quirk of the fixture list helped them massively in that they got to play a Barca B who had already qualified and snatched a late draw from them.
They comfortably beat Dortmund in terms of the score but anyone who watched the first half in Germany can tell you they were also very lucky not to be 4-0 down at that point.
Spurs would have been a very weak European Champions, and Liverpool are nowhere near the great European Champion sides we've had recently. Peak Barca, Madrid and Man U would have beaten them.

Well sugar ... aren't we all just little name droppers ...

I wrote to Bertie Mee said I was from NZ ..... asking if I could look around the ground .

He wrote back lovely letter said they were fully booked from Sept through to Xmas but " if suitable to my good self " I could join an existing tour party . Oct 1 1975 10.30 am .

"Perhaps I would be kind enough to let him have my views on this suggestion ".

B**&%%##d oil rig called me back two days before I could take up his offer .

Wrote back apologising ; enclosed a hankerchief / tie set for his trouble

Also wrote to Brian Moore got a lovely letter from him as well .

Don’t expect many posts in here over the next few days as ever Brit tips their hat and takes in the sage advice from Donald Trump. Perhaps he can sort out the state of our club on this visit. Such a helpful man who is not guided by self interest.

I was a big fan of Reyes. He had a powerful kick with hardly any back kick to it.
The elephant in the room is if Henry..possibly out of jealousy about his reception by fans, made him feel unwelcome. Only they know.

He was also a decent passer as well. I am still angry about the kicking he got from Man Utd mainly out fear he would do them what he did to Chelsea and the referee not protecting him. Sad news about his passing on.

I dont know. 97 points in the PL? Was it only one loss? This is a very good side. Porto's run to the CL was much easier. But people still talk about how 'special' Mourinho was.

Season tickets duly renewed.

I have every right to moan as much as I like now.

You do.

More so than the majority of the rest of us.

Keep the faith.

COYG

Great stuff, DHD. You're the voice, try and understand it.

Looking at our transfer history and I think it is easy to see the point at which it all went wrong.

Season 14/15 seemed promising - we built on the Özil signing (which was still a poor summer) with Sanchez, Chambers, Welbeck, Gabriel, Ospina and Debuchy - at the time a solid summer. A world class star, some top experience, no nonsense defender and some english talent and youth. Come this summer quite possibly none of them will be with us but that wasn't to say it wasn't a bad summer, the problem was the 2 summers after with, only Čech arriving the next season and the Xhaka, Mustafi, Perez for £100m the season after. Not strengthening properly and then wasting money.

Then we had a crazy season where we dropped £100m on 2 strikers but the rest of the team went to rot as we also sold £120m worth of players. There was just no plan - there hasn't been a plan for year.

https://www.transferleague.co.uk/arsena ... -transfers
Take a look at this for all the hard evidence. It is no surpise that the 3 teams who have been best in the market are the ones at the top. Also these are 3 teams who spend a LOT (city), who spend a lot but recoup a lot (Liverpool) and who barely sign anyone at all (Spurs). Proving there is far more than 1 way to approach it.

We're absolutely desperate for an overhaul and some miracle cheap signings.

Completely selfless individual.

Always humble and displaying humility. A champion for the working classes if ever there was one ! I’m pretty sure he won’t say anything inappropriate whilst over here

If you look at our outgoing transfers in 17/18 they are disasterous

We sold all our pace and mobility by letting ox, Theo and Sanchez all go at once. Any of those players would be getting a lot of game time if we still had them.

Sanchez in particular was the only player you could really rely on away from home. We just never replaced him.

Hi B - no, I'd missed that sad news. Yes I did see him play towards the end of his time with us. By then (1965/6) he was an inconsistent winger, who could be great or poor. His enjoyed life so sometimes his fitness was an issue. I recall him scoring some excellent goals. I recently wrote this of him:
"Signed as a twenty year-old by Swindin in January 1959 from Bath City for £5,000, a then record fee for a non-League transfer, he was struck down by pleurisy and pneumonia and was out of action for eighteen months. It was suggested his playing days were over almost before they had begun, so to debut against the champions (Burnley) must have been sweet. Over the next six years Skirton went from a powerful young man alive to a performer who sometimes went on the field without battle in his blood. He was highly popular with his colleagues. They nicknamed him ‘The Fish’ because he understood beer. The fans came to enjoy him too. He was so obviously not a desk and blackboard man, and sometimes his figure was less than Greek, but on his revelous days they loved his charges down the wing."

I seem to recall quite a lot of our fans wanting Theo and Ox to move on? As for Sanchez, yes it would have been better if he stayed, but at £500k a week that was never on? We had the best of two of the three you mention. It will be interesting to see what Ox does at Liverpool.

I’m really not sure many of our fans wanted Ox or Sanchez to go. Theo divided opinion but I reckon they would be getting games ahead of Özil and Mhikitaryan if they were still here,

I also saw Alan Skirton play. I was too young to form any real opinion on him as a player, but I certainly knew from the reaction of the crowd that he was less than popular with supporters. From my recollection, he wasn't often referred to as Alan Skirton - it was usually *%^@*** Skirton!

There's another little memory in your piece Old Man; a bit of a curiosity. My old man would take me every week - First Team one week and Reserves the next. On one occasion, there must've been some sort of injury crisis because George Swindin was in goal for the Stiffs. That would probably have been 1962, so the Boss must've been pushing 50. I remember thinking it weird that he was older than my old man, who'd also been a GK but had long since packed it in.

Lichtsteiner has tweeted a goodbye. That really didn’t work out well, happy to never see him in an Arsenal shirt again.

Almost as interesting as the cricket ... which might turn out better for England. What a team they have.

Keeping Sanchez would have been great as long as he kept up his Arsenal form. Given what he’s been like at Man U, his huge contract is a bullet dodged for us. Still utterly ridiculous that we didn’t just sell him to City for £60m in the summer when he only had 12 months left.
Ox I liked as a player but he was so inconsistent and injury prone, he’s proven he’s still exactly that at Liverpool. On the basis of his two years at Liverpool we’ve easily got the better side of a £35m deal. Time will tell with Ox though.
Theo, he was drifting, not impacting games - we did well to get £20m for him, he’s hardly done much to justify that fee at Everton.

The fact that all 3 would be getting lots of minutes with us now says more about our attempts to replace them rather than any of their current playing ability

Lovely story - thanks for that. On Skirton I read that Frank McClintock saw him as the epitome of what was wrong with Arsenal in the early to mid 60s - a lot of talent but dubious application or professionalism.

Just read that Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople is 80 today.

Definitely not a young dude then.

I am sure trump will advise in the next few days how to change the game by making it look a lot like an old English game of rounders which apparently America invented under another name.

Trump in England..lol..this ought to be interesting.

He wrote a brilliant book many years ago - 'Diary of a Rock 'n Roll Star'. Highly recommended - well, by me anyway.

Some Chinese teams are eyeing up Aubamayang. The idea of selling our main striker and 50% of our goals sounds utterly stupid. But if a huge offer came in from China, for a 30 year old striker on big wages we would have to consider it given the rebuild we need. And by huge offer I mean enough so we could replace Aubamayang with another top striker and have maybe £50m change

Donald Trump wrote a book also - The Art of the Deal.

It had 6 Chapter 11's in it though.

Trump just said he wants the NHS

I’d like to congratulate the gurning thicko Brexit types and like to ask how your going to negotiate that one lads.

Biggest con ever pulled on the electorate. This was ALWAYS about the real elite getting their hands on protected assets to make money. Murdoch and his ilk can't die soon enough. Evil *%^@ers.

So today Trump gives interviews to The Sun and Times. Theresa May calls questions only from Sky and the Times. Who is running the show in this country. It’s obvious now.

Can somebody explain how we are going to negotiate any trade deal more preferably now that we are negotiating for tiny fraction of what existed before. Simple answer is we can’t, we get taken to the cleaners on any new deal we do. The chlorinated chicken, NHS stuff are just small examples of what will happen

And despite everything, when everything is stripped and sold off, everything is worse, when our currency has dropped another 12% off it’s value like it has already .... you will still get the dribbling crayon eating helmets saying we won our freedom back blah blah blah.

I wonder if any of the major European drug companies and hospital suppliers are making much money out of the massive NHS procurement programme? Answer on an NHS prescription please.

Absolutely that’s the next thing, Trump has already said the drugs need to be more expensive for the NHS as due to buying in bulk we get better net prices though a socialised system and it’s unfair.

Hiding to nothing

So Nigel Farage who led the Brexit campaign largely on a slogan that the NHS would gain an extra £350M per week, is saying how much Trump loves Brexit. This after Trump announced any US trade talks must involve the NHS.....

Are you shocked ?

This is the same Farage who said we needed an insurance based healthcare system and that our handgun laws need to be relaxed !

Seems some rumours are going around the Swiss camp that Xhaka is being sold to inter Milan.

I can pay my own way over to help him pack. Then nip around to Mustafis and give him similar assistance. The only problem I have is who we get to replace Xhaka. I know what I want - someone who is good defensively, reasonably consistent and has a bit of pace. So maybe we are stuck with him.

Some of our players who lack pace would do okay in Italy where the game is slower.

If anyone thinks the Americans will make your medication cheaper you have to be delusional. It is interesting that the US values the UK and Aus relationships and how we run off to support them in 'the war against terror and weapons of mass destruction' but do we get discounts on military hardware etc - no. We never get any preferential treatment. The whole thing is all about making Americans richer at the expense of our own taxpayers.