It was the best part of our gameplan yesterday for me. I didn't understand at first why Torreira was playing in such an advanced role, but it was obvious Emery wanted us to win the ball back high up the pitch and we were successful in doing that. Tottenham always looked threatening, but I can't remember many attacks from them that weren't quick counters.

If the press is what we're going by, they're saying we will be paying £20k a week out of his wages. Hardly the thing to make or break a transfer or loan signing.

It’s the last day of the window.

He’s clearly not the priority of Barca and Madrid

Nobody is saying every club wants him. But your argument right now seems to be that nobody wants to touch him at £200k because he's so bad, but at £180k it's fine and dandy?

Few clubs want him clearly.

As for your suggestion he was part of Emery’s thinking well... we are selling him without getting a replacement in first. Tells you all you need to know

My suggestion is that Emery saw him as a squad option who we could afford to lose if an offer came in but who we weren't desperate to get rid of. Emery clearly rates him higher than you, otherwise he wouldn't have used him. Could've thrown on Özil or Nelson yesterday, but chose Mkhitaryan. Or do you think he wants to get rid of Nelson too?

No I think using him as sub was for a farewell type goodbye performance and that he didn’t trust Özil.

In a north London derby, with Tottenham in the lead and us desperately chasing the game, you're suggesting Emery threw on a player he doesn't rate at all as a courtesy goodbye gesture? That would in all honesty be such appallingly bad management it's beyond words. Don't think even the harshest Emery critics would believe that.

15 minutes to go. What’s the guy gonna do, lob his own keeper from the left flank.

That would be some *%^@*** achievement. I think he just looked at Özil and thought “ noooo” then felt maybe Nelson was too attacking.

So instead he subs on a player he thinks is useless to try and help us win the game? We're quickly approaching flat earth territory here, so I'll just leave it at that.

No he feels mhikitaryan is slightly less attacking than Nelson and that’s more preferable at that point in the game. That’s all. It was a strange sub though as I would have chose Willock

The less attacking option is more preferable when you're down a goal with 15 minutes to go?

Yeah bit of balance. You’ve already Pépé and Aubameyang on the pitch

Mhikitaryan is a very good player. He's played at Dortmund, manure and now us. If he was that bad he would not have been at those clubs. He was brought on because he's a better and more experienced player than Nelson or Willock and in a NLD that is finely balanced he was the better option.

I hate saying this but that is the dumbest post I have seen for a while.

Anyway, it's a done deal according to Ornstein. Roma paying a loan fee and covering all of his wages. Think it's the right time to trim our squad a little with us being in the Europa League for another year. If we can find permanent solutions for some of these loaned out players next summer there will be plenty of room in the wage budget for additions.

Emery and Raul are cleaning away all the Wenger & Gazidis excrement left and it feels oh so sweet. Yes !

Had someone said to me before the start of the season "after the first 4 matches Arsenal would 2-1-1 and the loss would only be to LFC," I'd be happy as hell.

I think it would be over-realistic to expect any more. Maybe...maybe a win at home to Tottenham but given that they have been better than us for the past few years, even that would be asking a bit too much.

Again, coming back from 2 goals down and looking the better side by some distance in the 2nd half and keeping them scoreless, we ended the match well with more positives than negatives. Our defense is always going to be an issue. We look dangerous going forward and its still early days with unsettled players like Pépé and Dani. We still haven't seen Tierney, Özil, and Bellerin, 3 very good players. This is a side that is going to be on the up if we can play more team defense to make up the failings of a weak back line.

From the midfield forward we look good and will no doubtedly get better. Bellerin and Tierney back will leave only the central defense with questions.

Don't think winning against Tottenham at home is asking too much. Usually not much between the teams in those fixtures, with a slight advamtage to the home side. But yeah, overall not a bad haul initially. Still have all our rivals for third and fourth place behind us.

Wouldn't usually give Mourinho's thoughts much time but his comments on getting the balance of the front 3 right are worth reading
“I think Aubameyang probably he likes to play in the middle because he feels if he’s in the middle he can score more goals. But maybe he can score as many goals playing on the left.

“What happens at Liverpool is [Roberto] Firmino drops back, drops in between the lines, and then he gives more space for [Mohamed] Salah and [Sadio] Mané to attack these diagonals. I would see Aubameyang playing on that left side of Liverpool and scoring a lot of goals.

“At Arsenal, Lacazette doesn’t have that quality, but they have two options. One is to play, instead of like today with three midfield players almost in a straight line, to play how they played in the last 10 or 20 minutes with two [sitting midfielders] and one No.10 that can feed the three without bringing Lacazette in between the lines.

“Another situation that is very possible is to bring Pépé from the right and in many occasions bring him to the inside. Many teams nowadays defend with a back four but build with three in the back, and by doing that they can put for example a right-back completely wide almost as a winger and bring the winger to the inside.

“So if Pépé plays more on the inside, he can feed more that diagonal to Lacazette and do what Guendouzi did for the last goal [for Aubameyang], Pépé doing that from the right with his left foot finding Lacazette on the diagonal.

“So they have lots of options. These three players are very good. They had on the bench [Henrikh] Mkhitaryan, [Mesut] Özil, [Dani] Ceballos who are players also who can give things. I think from the middle to the attacking areas they have a lot of solutions to develop.”

Is it? Seems I ain’t alone


https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football ... its-xhaka/

By getting Roma to pay all of Mkhitaryan’s wages we saved £10m for the season.
I’d love to see what the wage bill was and is now compared to the end of last season. We’ve moved on a lot of very high earners and replaced with younger lower wage players. Conservative estimate must be something like £500k per week saving

That is not plausible. Emery clearly thinks he is decent option.

He’s In Rome right now waving a Roma scarf over his head

How attached to him think Emery was

To be fair, he did say it would be over-realistic to expect any more.

Are you holding to your silly view that Emery just threw him on for old times sake ... despite the game being in the balance?

Even that isn't as silly as your point about there only being 15 minutes left in the games ... as if nothing ever happens after the 75th minute.

Its good that you support Emery to the hilt. But sometimes it impairs your reason!

Ditto that feeling !

No doubt he was more "big-game ready" than the 2 youngsters. But, his commitment to the cause was not strong enough. Nelson or Willock would have busted their guts to win the balls. The energy of the team was very high, and Mkhitaryan reduced it when he came on.

I take it you haven't read any of his other posts then?

I'm joking TG.

I am a little surprised we are letting Mika go on loan after selling Iwobi. I would have understood an outright sale as there are probably a limited number of potential buyers out there give his age and salary and if someone came in with a half-decent offer it might just be too good an opportunity to turn down.

I can only assume Emery is quite happy with Nelson, Martinelli and Saka as back-ups because an injury to any of the front three and one of those three will likely be involved. That's quite a brave call given their age and limited experience.

Maybe he has a January signing lined up.

You listed 5 experienced international players and think we can be shot of them without affecting our squad depth? We have Carabao Cup, Europa on top of the usual and we will need experience.

*%^@ the Europa and carabao cup.

They diverted our attention and resources away from the league last year.

I'm inclined to agree. I wouldn’t have if that last season or the one beforehand as top four seemed a little beyond us so happy for us to take the gamble. But I think we have a good chance for third let alone fourth. League has to be priority 1 2 and 3.

Early days yes, but one point from a possible six against our fellow top fourers so far should perhaps cautions us about our league chances?

Never give up on the cups - since there have been 4 to play for (I don't count Charity/Community Shield or Super Cup) they make up 14 trophies against 6 league titles. We have been more of a cup team than anything else since the 1970s. Cups are fun.

I doubt anyone really expects us to win the domestic league. I suspect Ash, and Top Gun before him, were more likely to be wanting to write the cups off to save players for getting in to the Champions League via third or fourth place in the Premier League. I can understand their point, but I think third or fourth should be gettable while trying to win the cups.

Maybe not playing the established first choice team (not that there is one yet) in the earlier rounds against weaker teams. But by playing the likes of Chambers, Mustafi, Nelson, Willock, Saka and others who may hopefully comprise a team good enough to beat any weaker sides we play. Then in the latter stages of the cups, put stronger teams out when we play good sides.

Because I also see OMOH’s point that we shouldn’t forget or just give up on attempting to win cups.

Bernard I agree with you and OMOH about the value of cups. Would take the League Cup and top 4 finish as a very good season. On the other hand no cups and failure to qualify for CL and the season would be a disaster.

Domestically, we have been a cup team with the number of FA cups as evidence. We haven't won the league cup since I started watching so I'd like to have that experience but not at the risk of the FA, Europa or CL cups. I'd take the latter 3 every day of the week instead of a league cup trophy.

Amazing turnover of first team players this year. Arsenal have shipped out 11 players who were considered part of the first team squad last season. We've bought in 6 (7 with Saliba) and promoted Willock and Nelson.

For context Chelsea shipped out 5, Liverpool 2, City 3, Man U 5, Spurs 5

In the previous 2 windows we've moved on 14 first team players. So that is 25 players in 3 seasons. It is an entire first team squad.

Tells you exactly how much quality emery inherited after wengers legacy

Rapid change was required

The latest rumours are suggesting that we are cleaning the decks comprehensively to fund moves for Upmanecano and Everton in January or the summer.

Now that the window is closed, it's hard to say it was anything than a resounding success for Arsenal on paper.

On the plus side we've strengthened several problem areas in the team with what looks like quality players; new starting eleven left back, central midfielder and right winger. We've added a couple of interesting players for the future in Martinelli and Saliba, with the latter being an exciting option for our future defense. We've cleared out a lot of players who didn't have much of a future here, making sure there's plenty of space for future signings.

A big negative is that we didn't improve our central defense enough, with Luiz coming in and Saliba being one for the future. Had we gotten someone like Upamecano it would've been hard not to give the window a 10/10, now it's an 8 or 9 for me. However, with how poor we looked last season, and considering how much there was to do with the squad going into the summer, it wasn't reasonable to expect us to solve every issue in one transfer window. Hope we go back in for a centre back in January.

The most enjoyable thing in my opinion is that there's finally a sense of direction at the club. That's something we've been missing for a few years now.