Mkhitaryan is gone, we’ve released him. I forgot Elneny even existed, I can’t see it, but quite a few players have returned Lazarus like under Arteta so never say never. Why might Torreria be gone next season? I also don’t think we’ll miss Özil seeing as he never plays. If we sell Guendouzi for a decent fee I think it’s a given we’ll sign someone in midfield to replace him.

Wonderful news

Another 3 points away from relegation. Looking good.

We have a promising group of young players to develop into a well oiled team. Come on Arteta, do your stuff during the shortened off-season.

I respect Arteta for not elaborating details. He is also not using his power to talk up the matter, to.make Guendozi look bad. Respect.

Have an issue, try to resolve, cannot resolve, move on. That's the way to go.

Agree with you. Guendozi is a good squad player. Not in the same level as Vieira or Fabregas. Can he develop into that level? Yes, only if he focus fully on it and not let his emotions or ego get the better of him.

I think Leicester have won 2 in their last 10 since start of the year so their decline started earlier. Agree on Man U fortune in having players return from injury. Meanwhile, in true Arsenal fashion, we start after the shutdown when everyone should be nice and fresh and get a swag of injuries. :)

Can he develop to the level of the two best midfielders we’ve ever had? Safe to say no on that one.

Fabregas one “of the two best midfielders we’ve ever had”. Good god, he wouldn’t even get on the bench of my best ever Arsenal team, let alone the starting eleven. Brady was comfortably better. I’d put Pires above Fabregas too: he was much quicker for a start. But maybe pace no longer bothers you if you think Fabregas is one of our two best midfielders ever?

Different type of player but I’d have Petit in my team before Fabregas as well.

But he was faster than Guendouzi though wasn’t he, and was also comfortably better in every regard at 17, making up for the pace with other attributes, see, that was my point. Guendouzi is slow and not good enough at other things to make up for it. And thankfully looks like he’s being moved on.

Price dependent of course - I’m hoping that Ceballos stays. He’s becoming a far more influential player for us and putting in far more complete performances.

Also it seems to me that Xhaka is doing far less of the stupid stuff like diving in which is a big positive.

The hand of Arteta perhaps?

By having average pace Guendouzi is quicker than Fabregas, who was slow. When Guendouzi first broke into the team he struck me as the best youngster since Fabregas.

I’m still hoping your wish to see him moved won’t be satisfied. Heard a little of a radio interview yesterday (I was in my wife’s car who changes the station that’s on way too much to keep track or even bother asking what’s on).

Anyway, there was some bloke with some sort of Arsenal background being interviewed. An ex-player I presume, but it could be another type of job or even a guy from a fan group for all I know. He said he doesn’t see Guendouzi being sold as he is rated within the club. Perhaps they’re trying to hasten his maturity? Who knows but it gave me a little ray of comfort as I genuinely think he’s a top player in the making. There was also a little hope offered by some more formal report earlier in the week that Guendouzi has been told he won’t be sold.

Going back to your initial post on this sort of thread naming players you want sold, why was there no mention of Aubameyang? If he refuses to renew his contact, do you see keeping him next season but then losing him for nothing as better than selling him now for what hopefully would be for a decent transfer fee to enable some sort of replacement to be signed, or a player in another position?

Central midfield really is a priority in the summer. Özil is no great loss, nor Mkhi and Elneny. Ceballos will return to Madrid, Torreira could go back to Italy and Guendouzi could be used to raise funds. That is 3 players who have had a fair emount of minutes this season. If those 3 go we definitely need 2 central midfielders and I think we also need another attacking creative central mid.
If Arteta uses the 3-4-3 as the last few games then it is Xhaka + 1 in the middle. But if he goes down the City route of 4-1-2-3 then it is Xhaka at the base plus 2 x No.8's (de bruyne + silva in the city team). Saka starts coming in to the equation for that role and it potentially suits Willock and ASR but both are still very young and asking them to control a game and be responsible for our creative output is too much. None of the other midfielders suit this.

To get a team to suit Arteta's management style we've seen so far I think as a minimum you need a couple more central mids, 1 who can play deep or box-to-box and another who can play box-to-box or attacking, swap out lacazette for a more mobile striker. Plenty more work to do in the squad, particularly in improving quality in defence but the 3 areas mentioned above are not necessarily about quality it is about the make-up of the player to suit the managers way of playing

Hasn’t the extension of Ceballos’ loan deal been confirmed? I’m sure I saw headlines saying it had. But having said that, I don’t recall reading any of the reports so perhaps I simply misunderstood the headline.

Not really. This is from the AFC site from a few days ago:

We are delighted to confirm that defenders David Luiz, Pablo Mari and Cédric Soares have agreed contracts to stay with us beyond the end of this season.
In addition midfielder Dani Ceballos has extended his loan from Real Madrid until the end of the current 2019/20 season.

Ah thanks. That makes it much clearer. Shows the danger of just going by headlines without reading what follows.

Fabregas wasn’t quick but to call back to a previous line of argument, in a race between him Xhaka and Guendouzi I honestly don’t know who’d be slowest. That means they’re probably all slow. Although Febregas never placed behind a famously slow player in a speed test as far as I know. And to the point about midfielders lack of pace being no problem, during Fabregas’ tenure and beyond recovery pace of midfielders was a huge issue as we’d camp outside the opposition’s box and then be hit on the break and concede with the first shot in target. Recovery runs from midfielders are very important, and I’m sure players like Cazorla, Zidane et al weren’t very fast but frankly they mitigate that by being genius playmakers no??

As to the point about Brady I never saw him play being the young whippersnapper that I am, but I’ll bow to your opinion on that as I can’t make the comparison directly myself.

Why lacazette and not Aubameyang? Because Aubameyang is firing and Lacazette isn’t. Next season if we sell Aubameyang there are no guaranteed goals, even if we sign someone they’d likely be unproven, and Aubameyang is as close to a guarantee of forward goals you’re going to get. It would be too much, I think, to rely on Eddie and Martinelli and A.N other forward signing to lead the charge, and personally, others might think differently, I’d rather have Aubameyang for the last year of his contract because we won’t be able to replace those goals I don’t think.

Hi Ash, Doesn't this just push the problem 1 season on and leave us in a worse position then than we could be in next season.
If Aubamayang makes it clear he won't sign a new deal you have:
Option 1: Sell him to the highest bidder and have £Xm to try to replace him
Option 2: Keep him for another year, probably get a decent goal output because as you say he's as close as you can get to guaranteed goals, but then lose him for free in summer 2021 so we're faced with replacing Aubamayang with £0 money

Obviously if the only price anyone was willing to bid for him was £10m then I'd keep him for his final year, but I'd think that there are enough wealthy teams out there who want guaranteed goals that he'd raise at least £30m+. The point is not whether we can replace Aubamayang with what we are forced to sell him for - we almost certainly can't - the point is it is a lot easier to try to improve the team with some money from his sale than nothing and doing the later just delays things by a year and puts us in a worse position

I don't keep up with a lot of our players who were sold or on loan but I had no idea he caught the eye of Juve?!

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/53264099
Stephy Mavididi: English striker joins Montpellier from Juventus

Don’t be shocked if Aubameyang renews his contract with us. I think it’s not definite and it’s going to be a really close call but his value to us will be greater than other teams I think. Also I don’t think Arsenal can replace him wasn’t Danny Ings being suggested as a potential replacement. Get Özil off the books and offer whatever we save on Özil to Aubameyang for a few years. I really can’t see other teams being willing to stretch that far.

Say that five times fast.

I don't know his true value but 45 million seems awfully low for Sane from City to BM, especially for a 24 y.o. of his caliber.

I did and I ended up saying 'Mustafi out'

All this baiting of Bernard re Mustafi just goes to show that your blocking of members is nonsense. You still read the posts don’t you? Stop pretending otherwise.

The turnaround in Xhaka since Arteta has come in has been remarkable. Arteta has sung his praises specifically more than once. Xhaka was even given the captains armband when subs were made in the last two games.

It seems like Arteta has found a better way to emphasise his strengths and disguise his weaknesses. Playing Arteta in that deeper left side position gives him the time on the ball he craves and the overloading the left side with Tierney/Saka a left CB (Kolasinac) and Aubamayang coming from that side means the opposition right wing or right mid doesn't know whether to close Xhaka and leave the full back and Aubamayang 2 v 1 with his own full back, or stand off to ensure a man to man marking but leave Xhaka with time to pick his passes and dictate the game.

In a three man race between Fabregas, Guendouzi and Xhaka, I would be surprised if Guendouzi didn’t get the gold medal. Silver and bronze? Think my money would be on Fabregas for the silver and Xhaka for the bronze.

I’m not saying we’d be able to replace Aubameyang with somebody as good this summer. However, with the fee we’d get for him I suggest it’s a reasonable expectation that we’d have more chance of getting someone comparable than we would in 2021 with no transfer fee for him. It’s necessary to think ahead. Even talented young players cost money, so it surely has to be sensible to sell Aubameyang now than see him leave in 2021 for a big fat zero. He’d still have to be replaced.

Interesting you call it baiting Daf, another word might be 'trolling' which is pretty sad given the amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth American has bored us all with about how others such as myself have been trolling him.

Once slowly defeated me ...

Not Özil???

I mean the “to make funds available“ part excludes Özil doesn’t it? The only money connected to Özil is the millions he’ll be expecting from the club unless we loan him out and part pay his wages still.

Hi Rich,

Yes you could be right. It depends on how the club want to play it with options available to them. As Top Gun said one of those options just might be Aubameyang signing a contact.

From the view of developing of Eddie it works, I don’t know if he’s going to be a 20 goal a season striker or if Martinelli and Saka start to tear it up, but they’ve got more chance of that in 21/22 than next season, so Aubameyang staying for only a year could plug that gap.

That does seem a bit of a gamble and as I say it really depends on how Arteta and the club play the options, but really I was only saying my preference was to sell lacazette if we can get a decent fee for him, I’m not averse to selling Aubameyang too if we can bring in the right replacements.

Except that in the only thing resembling a race between any of those three, the club speed test, Guendouzi finished behind Xhaka, so that’s just wishful thinking on your part isn’t it.

You are spot on saying that. His record with us is great, and we should be doing all we can to keep him. He is one of our very few world-class players. He would be snapped up quickly by any number of big clubs.

I think I recall reading Aubameyang is the quickest to 50 goals. Amazing given the great scorers we have had.

Also, if I have read it right, a transfer at that fee means Liverpool will have made about £8m out of his time with them. That doesn't seem a lot. If Arsenal did that we'd never hear the end of it!

Center midfield and central defense both need overhauling. You can find a scientist to clone Vieira and Petit and if the central defense is not good, a team could nullify that playing long ball to a weak defense.

Completely agree on the central midfield though. Partey would be a great step in that direction. We are strongly linked but who knows.

Xhaka was making runs into the box which we haven't seen much of at all and one of those booming shots from distance got blocked. I have to think that's Arteta behind his recent forays into scoring positions.
His shot is one way he can make up for his other deficiencies but he's not taken full advantage of that, until recently.

Sheffield United 1-0 at 30 minutes but who pops up and equalises seconds later.Harry Kane the man himself.

My favourite ref on VAR disallows the goal foir an accidental handball during the build up. I'm sure Dean and Atkinson woiuld have given it.

Sheff Utd lead 1-0

Totts losing at Sheff Utd.

Comical episode when straight the re-start, Moura was bearing down on goal but was fouled. Ref played on as the ball fell to Kane who duly ‘scored’. On checking, VAR spotted that in the act of being fouled, the ball touched Moura’s arm as he fell. Chalked off.

How sad.

Is the club speed test the graphic you said showed Aubameyang was slower than Xhaka? You didn’t mention Guendouzi as part of the graphic.

But are you seriously telling me you think Xhaka is quicker than Aubameyang? If so, do you trust the graphic that much? Because, I’m sorry, I can’t trust any speed test that makes Xhaka quicker than Aubameyang, unless the latter had his ankles tied together or something similar.

So I’m perfectly comfortable in saying Guendouzi is quicker than Xhaka. Because I simply don’t think Xhaka is quicker than Aubameyang, assuming that is the speed test you talk of.

Liverpool? Do you mean city? Or are you thinking of Mané at Pool? I was racking my brain to think had I missed some complicated clause or a secret youth by Sane spent with Liverpool?? I have concluded it’s not me it’s you