I was a bit melancholy after the invincible season. I became an Arsenal fan by chance in the late 90s. Not knowing anything about us (or the sport and some would argue I still don't ) at the time but a 'cool sounding' name and a chance viewing of us losing 1-0 and big Tone pushing the squad. Didn't realize we were that big of a club (and a bit disappointed. I hate glory hunting).

We did play David to Man Utd's Goliath and that was exciting. I knew it was never going to get better than this (2004) and was proven correct. Although a CL final was a nice surprise later.

Wonderful memories at a time when life was a complete bore. In a way, Arsenal 'saved me' from a low point. We were the envy of the football world, weren't we?

If reports were true that Özil wouldn't (and I don't accept couldn't) do what Arteta wanted then I would go with neither brave or stupid but wise.

Allowing a player to play his way while the rest of the squad followed Arteta's direction is a bad precedent and a disaster waiting to happen.

Rich, the Mirror are suggesting Leipzig are the favourites to sign Szobozlai as they and Salzburg are both Red Bull clubs.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... dium=email

Enjoy Kevin Witcher’s new blog

This bit probably summarises best

“It's the result of years and years of incremental decline. Started in 2008, and has been very gradual. Too many poor decisions on players coming in and the handling of contracts. Arteta needs another transfer window, but as said, these players should be better than 14th place.”

Three of our recent managers thought Özil good enough at the very least for a squad place. Arteta seems to be certain he is not. We struggle creatively but have limited our options. I can't see any other Premiership manager closing the door in that way. All very strange to me.

We were, and it was because the club sort of reinvented itself under Arsene Wenger. People can criticise him as much as they like, but the fact is the style of football he encouraged took Arsenal's reputation to a new level around the world.

Just asked Mourinho about Kane, Reguilon, Lamela and Vinicius missing training. He confirmed they are all injured: "Erik Lamela I don't believe has a chance for the weekend. Harry, Vinicius and Sergio I believe there is a chance for the weekend [to face Arsenal]."

Of course we know they'll all be fit, especially Kane. The guy is always a doubt but plays or comes back early just for the Arsenal game.

Hi Bernard, Yes unfortunately it was always a likely destination. I think I read 18 players have made exactly the same move in the last 3-4 years.
Perhaps he can be lured by more money at Arsenal and the chance to play with.....um....

I read something pitting Szobozlai against Eriksen as two possible Arsenal January transfer targets and the writer saying it will be a good test to see if Arsenal have learnt anything from the last 2 years

I find these quotes from Arteta a bit awkward
He added: “I think it’s first time in the Premier League that we put 33 crosses.
“I’m telling you that if we do that more consistently we are going to score more goals.
“If we put the bodies we had in certain moments in the box, it’s maths, pure maths & it will happen.”

It will happen if we have a striker who thrives on crosses or start getting multiple players in the box. There are plenty of average strikers, or average height strikers who score lots of goals from crosses because they are a) determined to get on the end of it and b) have good movement to gamble on being in space. If you're not in space - and it only has to be a yard or so in the box, you won't score from crosses, then you need to get numbers in there, it is pointless crossing to 1 striker, you need 4-5 people rushing in to the box, 1 of them at least will always end up unmarked, numbers and movement and early accurate balls in. With Tierney and Saka and Willian and Pépé we have good crossers. Our best forward for this is probably Nketiah because even though he's the smallest he has more desire and natural striker instinct to suddenly come alive inside the 6 yard box. He's clearly not perfect but there is a reason his 10 goals from us have come at an average of 5 yards from goal

Without a doubt Goonie.

Another question, is would we be markedly better if Özil was playing? It seems a foregone conclusion we would improve but would we? And assuming we did improve, how much better would we be?

Yes, both the numerator and denominator leave a lot to be desired.

And is longevity a bad thing? If not don't we multiply rather than divide? Number of trophies won x years served.

Still comes to zero for most Spurs managers?

And, in the greater scheme of things, does it really matter whether we come 8th or 17th? I just don't see Özil as being a catalyst to getting into the top 4.

I guess you are not being literal here, but it does matter because 8th and some decent cup performances would not be a disaster. We have been a pretty good cup team for long time now so a reasonable league finish and say a final would be acceptable. Any league place below halfway would worry me. As for Özil, what is there to lose in bringing him back? Not saying at all that he could get us in the top four - we need a miracle worker to do that.

I quite like these geeky stats based graphs. This one shows pressures (or pressing) per game on the x axis and the amount of times the pressing regains possession on the y axis. The the best pressing forwards are in the top right...where you see Martinelli absolutely miles ahead of anyone. This is an under 21 player graph only.

Arteta was talking about Martinelli and his pressing ability. It makes sense because without putting too much pressure on him Martinelli is the closest thing we have to this modern forward, think like a salah, Mané, son type. Flexible, pacey, skilful, athletic, mobile. All the natural attributes are there for Martinelli. He’s meant to be scheduled in for an U23 game before Xmas

Ref inconsistency again. Fred does no worse or no better than what Pépé did to the Leeds player. It is a headbutt or a clear thrust of the head at an opponents head - in my view Fred's has more force than Pépé's. Var alerts the ref to it, it is clear as day on the pitch side monitor and the ref decides it is only a yellow card. Putting aside that he didn't evn consider it a red I'm not sure I've ever seen a ref review a possible red card incident and give anything other than the red or nothing - are they allowed to give a yellow?

If Man U and PSG draw - or if Man U win, it's becoming more and more possible that PSG might finish 3rd and drop in to the Europa League. Real Madrid are also in 3rd in their group. I was thinking it could be bad news for us to have these heavyweights in Europa with us, but the reality of it at the moment is that rather than affect us it probably helps dent Spurs chances of winning it, because there are plenty of teams currently in Europa who could knock us out before we get to the likes of PSG and Madrid

That Giroud bloke looks quite handy.

Our fans never thought so.

Funny how players we get from Chelsea are in pre-retirement mode and the ones we sell to them appear to have purpose and get better with age.

All our fans? Every one?

Wasn’t it you who implied strongly that Wenger had stayed too long? I can’t recall the exact words you used but I’m certain you did, because it was you who OMOH replied to with his post mentioning Wenger’s ten trophies.

So let’s use your new system for measuring a manager’s performance. A manager who stayed at a club for fifteen years and won one trophy in that time would get 15 points (15 x 1). Then a new manager takes over and wins a single trophy in each of his first two years, then wins a double in his third season before being poached by a bigger club after three years. So he’d only get 12 points (3 x 4). So you’d consider the bloke with one trophy in fifteen years better than the guy who won four trophies in three years simply because of his longevity in the job?

Interesting way of calculating managerial performance, although I personally think it’s flawed. Of course, the trophy count alone is not the only thing that dictates how well a manager has performed and nor is it when linked to the time in post. As I’ve said.

But I do believe the time in the job offers something that should be considered in any assessment, but not in the way you do in your formula above. Myself, from the fictitious example I gave above, if I had the choice between a manager winning one trophy in fifteen years or a manager who wins four trophies in three years, my starting point would be to prefer the latter.

We need that creative midfielder in the Jan window. Will even be a struggle to survive EPL if this lot keeps under performing.

May I suggest....

No. Some saw his purpose. But then there are the revisionists - they wanted him out and now can’t understand why we sold him.

Indeed. I don't recall much if any wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth on here when he was let go. Fact is Giroud gave us an option we didn't have. A big, capable forward in the box who can get on the end of crosses and scrappy goals and couldn't be easily muscled.

It must be said, next to Bergkamp's ("almost" entirely applauded, a sole holdout remains ) goal against the toon, Giroud's scorpion goal is arguably the next one down on lists of Arsenal wonder goals.
Obviously, if it was attempted 100 times it might be duplicated.

The really good point about the NLD is that the game should suit us. We can park the bus and hope for a chance on the break.

If we had gotten Pep or Klopp does anyone think we would definitely turn it around? Really? Given the same resources Emery and Arteta got, would we be a lot further up the table?

This is going to sound like an excuse but it starts from the top. Are the Glazers hated anymore? I know a few Man Utd fans and you never hear the Glazers name mentioned. All the Glazers do is just write checks and shut up from what I understand. i can't believe that any one in the club likes or respects Kroenke.

There’s always mixed opinion amongst fans about anything.

Having said that I can’t recall much feeling on here for getting rid of him.

Just seen the Man U game this morning.

You’re dead right. The Fred headbutt is far stronger than Pépé’s. Definitely should have been a red card. Such inconsistency.

Then the irony is that he subsequently sent off for a second yellow when it didn’t even look like a foul.

The poster I associate most with regular criticism of Giroud was Top Gun. It was nothing remotely like his stuff on Xhaka which I see as taking moaning about players here to almost a new level. But I remember him as fairly regular critic of Giroud.

Partially true I liked Giroud but your not going to get anywhere with him and no adequate back up. At his most prolific he scored 16 goals in the league at a time when we had very good wingers and midfield players. He was kind of holding us back and the fact that we have great strikers now and the rest of the side is poor doesn’t all of a sudden make him a world beater.

Xhaka as you point out is a complete waste of space and the worst quality midfielder we’ve had since the 80s and early90s. My affection towards him didn’t increased when he was hugging the guy who got Pépé sent off the other week.

This is my take on Giroud as well. Start him as your main striker in all 38 league games, even in a team like Chelsea's and he's not good enough to win you the league. As an option off the bench or to come in and give your main striker a rest there is few better, but that wasn't the option we had with him.
Giroud missed a very good chance late on for Chelsea which would have got them a 1-0 win over Spurs, yes he then scored 4 very nice goals against Sevilla but the Spurs chance is the one that separates the best from the very good.
Of course Giroud would be very useful for us right now, I advocated trying to get him in on a 6 month loan but he's not going to spearhead a team to the title, chelsea don't need him to do that, they just need him to come in and do a job or the plan b when required. With the way the deal for Aubameyang came about there was no way we could have kept Giroud for that reason.
Perhaps Giroud is more content being a plan B for a team looking to challenge for major honours each season than being a plan B for a mid table club

Giroud had the gall to be bought after RvP left after he had a great season. He was chided for not being as good. Guilty. And he was never going to be. Giroud is not a player you win the league with as your primary striker. Neither was Wiltord or Kanu and I seem to recall both did okay.

Giroud is simply another option. He was relegated to the bench, both with us and Chelsea and scored enough goals when we needed them to warrant keeping I thought. I am not sure why Giroud has to be discussed as a sole lead striker who can win you the league. You need all kinds of attacking players. Again, we have no one who can score the goals in certain situations as he can and we seem to have a few of those types of situations.

Citizen Kane it aint...

The really bad point about the NLD is that they are about ten times better than us at the moment.

I've made the requisite sacrifices to the gods. I've burned incense and consulted the oracles. No need to worry lads. They have concluded that " when Arteta goes to war, he will destroy a great empire" in the NLD.

I was just joking. The point is that I agree with Top Gun that Wenger's first period was rather special, and that it is hard
a) to reduce that to statistics, or
b) to agree that what happened in the last few years diminishes that in any way.

We've been watching a Korean drama called 'Stranger'. It is a bit difficult to sort out who everyone is (half of them are called Kim) but its worth the effort. Gosh!

Yes?