This summer I don't think we are going to be able to keep Aubameyang, Lacazette, Martinelli together. One of them will be sold and it won't be Martinelli. Aubameyang or Lacazette probably. Of the two it may be Aubameyang pushing for a change and/or he is in demand by a top club, probably in Spain.

I hope Liverpool win the title as soon as possible. Why? It would make the rest of the season fairly moot with only the unbeaten streak to go after and after getting the title a bit of the desire to win is gone. With them not even getting draws, they are even more tightly wound. I can see them safely having a draw and instead of playing the rest of the game out, push for a win and get countered later. Or I hope.

Also, if they are still in the FA Cup and CL, they will be trying to go for history. Especially sticking it to Man Utd, that will make them focus more on those competitions and in weeks where there is a PL match with a cup match, they may take their eye off the ball in the league with the league already sewn up.

With City out of the CL for a couple seasons, people are understandably sounding the death knell for them in terms of competing for other trophies.
Obviously they will likely be less likely to win the league or even FA Cup but I'm not as confident they won't win the title.
What remains to be seen is how this ban will affect their transfers in and out. Also, as we can see with City, its going to he hard for Liverpool to operate at this high rate next season. Mentally its asking for a whole lot. They will fall off at some point. A loss, a bad loss could trigger a few more bad results.
Another question, is if City gets worse as a result, what club(s) will emerge above them? There is still a visible gap between City and Man Utd, Tottenham, Chelsea and Leicester and obviously us. Of the aforementioned, I'd say Chelsea are the most well placed. They have a young, vibrant team. They are doing the youth movement that we were doing. I gotta admit Lampard is doing a better job than I thought he would. Also, they are going to be able to get into the transfer market. They still have money, lots of it. In theory, the 2nd most money in the league if you look at the owner.

I think we will be competitive. Everything depends on our transfers. We did well in January but we haven't benefited from it yet. When everyone is available and given time to gel under Arteta's system, we'll have a better idea of where we are.

Man Utd have decent players but OGS isn't getting the most out of them. My guess is if things don't improve in the course of next season he will be gone.

I am curious to see if Leicester can still maintain this level the rest of this season and next. Sheffield Utd is a revelation, punching above their weight. Happy for them. Hope it continues. Also, Everton is looking better under Ancelotti. The question is how much better can he get them to be?

I read an article about Martinelli and Aubameyang not fitting in the same team with the current set up. Both coming in from that left side to make the 2nd striker. I disagree and think they can both play, Martinelli left and Aubameyang central and it would be fine, but it highlights how the shape of the team is so much more clear now with Arteta. We have a manager who has assessed the squad and worked out a system to get the best from those players. It may not be the way he wants to play if he was given a fee transfer windows to shape the team but he’s improved the here and now.

Tactically we have a left side bias with Xhaka dropping deep, Saka pushing on and Aubameyang pushing inside to make a second striker. This works as it plays to all 3’s strengths and hides their weaknesses. Xhaka gets time on the ball, Saka gets to bomb on with security behind and Aubameyang gets to time runs or ghost in to central goal scoring areas.

As well as those tactical tweaks you only need to see the players who were out of favour or in favour and how that has changed.
Xhaka, mustafi, Özil, nketiah, Saka at left back, even Pépé all firmly in favour. Guendouzi, AMN dropping out of favour.
Recently we’ve seen a couple of great performances by Ceballos after he didn’t get a look in for Arteta’s first 7 or so games.

The plan is clear and importantly the players are responding and performing better. The results took a while to come and there will be more bumps in the road and sticky performances but I no longer dread a matchday. I think Brighton at home was the low point, not only that we lost at home but that we were thoroughly outplayed all game, couldn’t get out of our half and allowing Brighton to knock it around like 1970 Brazil. No chance that result happens today

Now there's this. Tickets start at £67.50, with VIP tickets going for £509.50.
Event benefits the Twinning Project Charity.

They are fantastic and will be worthy champions and likely with an unbeaten season and record points tally but that doesn't mean that I see them as the best prem side ever.
For example, In City's 17/18 title season they won 13 games by 3 clear goals. Liverpool only have 6 so far. Liverpool have 13 games won by only a single goal. City won 10 games by a single goal all season.
City scored 5 or more on 6 occasions, Liverpool only have once so far.
I just see that City team of 17/18 as more dominant in individual games than this Liverpool team.

Also I think the quality of the league is particularly low this season. Of the traditional big 6:
City having their worst season for 4 seasons
Chelsea having a poor season and had a transfer ban and rookie manager
Man U perhaps just steadying a long period of decline and an unproven manager
Spurs with their worst season for 4 years, sacked their manager
and we all know this is Arsenal's worst season for 30 odd years
Teams like Leicester, wolves, sheff utd all having good seasons but their points tallies wouldnt be much to shout about if the big 6 had pulled their finger out. 3 seasons ago we got 5th on 75 points, the season before we had 4 fewer points but finished 2nd. I see this season with a lot of similarities to that Leicester title winning season - a huge lack of quality in the rest of the league.

Things turned ugly for Chelsea very fast.

What's Dein up to these days? As you all know I blame him for our present state. He did a lot of good...and unfortunately some bad as well.

What they have achieved so far can't be put into words. They are on an early 90s Milan type of form. There are no words to describe winning 26 of 27 games None. If anyone said it was possible no one would imagine it happening. No matter what happens from here on out....this run of games is historic.

There is no rule to how you get to that type of record, even if all the wins were own goals. It doesn't matter one bit. The fact it happened is enough.

I hope and pray they lose a game though. I cherished our invincible. I was captivated that whole season and saw one of the matches at Highbury myself. Special season for me personally. I thought'd I'd get to enjoy that record longer than it seems to be ending.

Smith-Rowe impressing for Huddersfield again tonight. 2 assists from the No. 10 position. Set up a goal for Chris Willock who has found his way to Huddersfield after his move to Benfica from us

Blame is surely proportional. Dein lead Kroenke to buying a less than 10% holding in Arsenal. But it was definitely Fiszman who lead to Stan having his controlling interest. The main blame has to be levelled at Danny.

FFS - Wenger telling others about how they should run their games against Bayern.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/26/arsene-w ... wsnow-feed

If we had regularly beaten Bayern he can give advice.

The Huddersfield fans seem pleased. Here are a few comments from one of their forums:

'Chuffed to bits with the result but a bit sad that I'll only see Emile Smith Rowe pull a Town shirt on a maximum of 11 more times. What a player.'

'Emile Smith Rowe will play for England. Only Chilwell comes close in terms of young talents we've had on loan. The kid is absolute quality.'

'He's got the X factor. The way he glides with the ball and moves away from groups of players is staggering. More surprisingly, given his Arsenal roots, is the shift he puts in.'

Hi Gaz,

Incredible comments really considering the comprehensive beatings that Bayern have dished out to us.

We regularly lost the midfield battle against all manner of opposition let alone CL teams.

Hi mc.

Great to see him doing well on loan.

Hopefully, we will see him do a Saka next year and get some decent game time at Arsenal.

We definitely need a few more players who can beat a man or two and create space for others.

Watching the top german teams in action this last couple of weeks has been a real eye opener.

I don't think we have a single player who would get in the Bayern side. That shows how far standards have fallen or conversely how far standards of other teams has risen.

Serve Gnabry continues to remind us that he is one who got away. How we could use someone like him right now.

Morning Soc, I’m confused....I thought Gazidis promised that we’d be up there with Bayern.

In all seriousness though, Bayern look absolute top quality. It’s where I’d be putting my money to win the whole thing

I just shook my head. Talking about reinventing history.

I think most German teams are bang average. Bayern excepted I'd fancy us to beat any Budesliga team.

Had Wenger not loaned him out and let him play first team we might have been able to keep him. He got first team at Bremen and then Bayern.
Fabregas got to start as a teen, and Gnabry the few times I saw him, lacked very little, it was obvious he was quality.

Shades of Nketiah here. Gnabry was loaned to West Brom and not deemed good enough to get playing time. So just like Nketiah at Leeds Utd this season.

I think we’d lose a ding dong ‘we score, you score’ game against Dortmund. And RB Leipzig handled higher in the table than us Spurs pretty easily.

Cheeky shites!!

Gnabry always seemed to be running for bus he couldn't catch at Arsenal. He'd play a blinder and his potential was obvious but then he'd get injured and we were back to square one. I think he was destined to go back to Germany whatever happened. Good luck to him. Whatever mistakes (if any) were made with him let's hope the club ensure they don't repeat them with Saka. Get the lad signed up.

Seriously the more Wenger speaks, the less I listen. Garbage.

With respect Gunfire I'd say most teams in the Premier League are bang average too. Including us, at this point, although the signs of improvement under MA are there.

Just been reminding myself about the details of his leaving here:

https://www.skysports.com/share/11825357

Interesting read.

That's about it. Leipzig and Dortmund could beat us but any team lower we'd beat. The Bundesliga just isn't that good.

In theory with more money in the league top to bottom and bottom half of the table sides breaking club records for transfers, that the quality has gotten better. Far, far more foreign players than when I first started watching. Maybe the league is average, but logic dictates there is more skilled players in the league and the level of play is better. Last season, possibly for the first time ever, I don't know, just guessing, where both European competitions had an all EPL final. Hmm...who knows.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/report-ars ... 03138.html
Report: Arsenal to let Lacazette leave for a Champions League club

He looks ace.

Mustafi should go before Lacazette does. Not that both go, but I'm not confident in the current Mustafi form. I think all it should be seen as is to make it easier to sell him in the summer and not have to beg or give him away. I'm not buying he has some how been coached into a solid defender.

Lacazette and Aubameyang are good friends and Lacazette going will make Aubameyang more willing to leave. Still, I agree we can afford to get rid of Lacazette. That said, I wonder if things change if we get into the Cl next season?

My (realistic) wish list for the rest of the season.

1. Liverpool loses a league match.
2. We win the FA cup / Europa double.
3. If we get knocked out of the FA cup before the final, then Liverpool wins it on the way to a treble.
4 Sheffield United gets into either the CL or Europa. I like seeing things shaken up a bit.
5. Leicester finish 2nd.
6. We can some whow catch Tottenham or Man Utd....preferably the former.
7. We don't lose another league match this season .
8. Bernie Sanders wins the nomination.

I read stories that we have decided to activate our purchase option on Pablo Mari even though he is yet to start a game for us.

Seems a bit odd really, wouldn't you wait and see how he performs in matches before committing to buy him, however good he has looked in training?

I've managed to track down the hiding place of an old forumite.

Greetings John. It's good to see you back. I though you had been injured in a Hurling accident or something like that.

I think you have a good point about drop off in quality from Liverpool to City, and then from City to the rest, means it is easier to go unbeaten than it was in years when there was a strong top 4 or 6. On the other hand, there is a fair amount of depth and a relatively short tail in the league. Unbeaten is one thing, winning every game bar the one is astounding.

You deserve 5 Eboues* for sorting this out. Thanks mate!
(can't seem to find them )

One of my favourite forummers. His battles with chocolate were old kinds of everything.