I’m not expecting much from the transfer window. I think the idea Toney rocks up at our place just isn’t realistic

Are the club genuinely going to turn down 35 million from Crystal Palace for Eddie. That’s madness

I think it will be a defensive loan signing only unless we make a big sale.

I’d happily sell Nketiah for anything around £30m, I think that’s the limit for him. Not many midtable prem sides are going to go higher than that. I’d rather Emile Smith Rowe be given as many chances as Nketiah before we contemplate moving him on.
Vieira worries me as I can envisage any situation where he’s good enough to be our primary creator or physically robust enough to play in midfield in the prem, and he’s wasted out wide. We bought him hoping he’d be our Bernardo Silva

Jorginho might leave in the summer but I’d give him another year if he wants it. Elneny will be off and I suspect patience with Partey is done now. That leaves us needing 2 CM and they have to be elite.

Last season everyone said the 11 was good but we didn’t have the depth. That hasn’t really changed and injuries haven’t helped that because we bought someone like Timber to cover multiple positions.
From last year to this year we’ve gained Raya, Rice, Timber, Havertz and lost Turner, Tierney, Holding, Xhaka.
Partey being out has stretched the midfield, timber being out has stretched the defence, even Jesus has missed more games than he’s played.

It’s not feasible to have 22 top class players, but we need more than 11. For me that’s 1 more CB, 2 more CM a versatile winger and a striker. Add those 5 to our best 11 plus timber, Tomiyasu, Trossard, Emile Smith Rowe and it’s starting to feel like a squad that competes with the best without needing to rely on luck with injuries.

https://x.com/ebl2017/status/1742195910 ... -j6VVZXEoA

Interesting read on trying Ødegaard as the left 8 and Emile Smith Rowe as the right 8 to allow us to bring some dynamism from those central attacking midfield positions. Dribbles and runs in to the box

Has it been reported at all that media favourite Postecoglou received a yellow card and sparked a touchline bust up with the opposition bench in Spurs last game?? Of course not because that’s only saved for Arteta as he’s the only manager who behaves badly. Pep also got yellow carded this weekend.

How about getting a more traditional holding center mid and move Rice to Kavertz' position? Keep Ødegaard where he is.

Looking around Europe there are plenty of players in central positions. Loads of young talented CB, full backs, centre mids and wingers.
The two positions that are really tough to fill for an elite side are the No.9 and the lone defensive midfielder. Narrow it to just the Prem and it’s the same. What other options are there than Rice in the prem if we hadn’t got him? For strikers we’re talking about Toney and Solanke. But drop in to those other positions and there are plenty of good options playing for teams not in the big 6

Or play Jorginho there.

Lille 18 year old CB Leny Yoro is attracting huge interest. 6ft 3, good on the ball, has the best percentage of duels won and aerials won in the top 5 leagues in Europe so far this season

Meh - I saw it quite a few times. Google his name and it comes up quite a bit.
It'll get buried though probably just as fast mind you.

Frankly, I wouldn't 'trust' Jorginho there as a starter. Weaker sides, yes. He lacks pace for one and and although he's 'only' 32, he moves like he's older.

I would love a dynamic Kante type, even if we have spend over 70 million. I'd play Partey in that position before I would Jorginho, Partey's injury issues notwithstanding. Overall, I'd love to start fresh, with a great holding midfielder, where Ødegaard and Rice would have some freedom. I would love to see what kind of havoc they can do on the opposition.

Yes wide spread coverage of it and he was asked about it in his press conference. He told the media he was just wishing happy new year to the opposition. For Aussies & Kiwis: as old Joh Bjelke Peterson used to say : - just feeding the chooks.

Some good news: Wayne Rooney(a man who was always unstable in his feet near the pen area) has been sacked by Birmingham. I suppose he will become a pundit and tell other managers how best to do their job. Absolute maggot.

yes Partey there before Jorginho for sure. Jorginho played against Man City this season and played well. I do agree on adding some dynamism to the midfield. I also think it is worth trying Ødegaard in the left 8 position to provide better link up with Zinchenko and Martinelli - Ødegaard can play all the passes Xhaka played last year and I think it is a big reason for Martinelli not performing as well as he did last year. Havertz actually made his name at Leverkusen from the right attacking midfield side, but I also think Emile Smith Rowe would work well there with Saka as he would make more off the ball runs for Saka rather than Ødegaard who wants the ball to him all the time.

When listening to the first half of the Fulham game on the radio I heard the main commentator ask the question of Matthew Upson his co-comms whether Saka had now got a reputation for going down too easily! - this was before the game had even started.

I must say I find it staggering that this is the conclusion people are coming to on Saka. For sure there will have been times when he's gone down trying to win the free kick - but to think that aspect of his game is more worthy of discussion than the constant fouling he receives with very little protection is bizarre. When Saka became a mainstay in the England National team I thought we finally had a player refs and the media would favour unequivocally as they do with most of their England stars. To be fair the media up to recently has been pretty positive about Saka - but imagine he was at Man U or Liverpool as a player through their 'famed' academy from age 8.

That said, having seen some of the decisions in the league I do wonder whether our lot simply need to be better at exaggerating the contact to ensure they do win the free kick or penalty. Right now the onfield decision for fouls for penalties is about 99% of the decision making process. If you feel any contact in the box you might as well go down and make the ref make the decision. If he gives you it it won't be over turned as long as their is some contact. If he doesn't then just try again. I hate that the league has come to this but when var doesn't correct decisions where there is the merest brush on a player then you have to join them.

Note to ST holders.

The Arsenal 'Cup Scheme' is now open for those who didn't sign up at the beginning of the season. Like many, I missed it. FA Cup and the later CL matches are no longer part of the ST entitlement so if you want to retain your seats for future home fixtures in those competitions, you'll need to register a payment card by 11th Jan.

https://www.arsenal.com/cup-scheme

There is still a decent amount of deadwood or saleable assets in our squad - certainly more so than City or Liverpool.

Look at the 3 squads and look at who isn't at the level required setting aside genuine youngsters and sub gk's for now

City squad
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/manches ... verein/281
The only ones in there not good enough or contributing are Phillips and Sergio Gomez

Liverpool squad
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/liverpo ... on_id/2023
Thiago is constantly injured and 32, Matip very similar, also Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams but neither of these are being relied on for the first team

Arsenal squad
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-arse ... /verein/11
For us, Partey would fall in to the same category is Thiago/Matip above - but we rely on him in our first 11 more than Liverpool do for Thiago. Cédric, Elneny will move on, Jorginho possibly too, Nketiah, Nelsen, Vieira and Kiwior are nowhere near the level of their equivalent back ups at Liverpool or City. Emile Smith Rowe I'd like to be given more of a chance and Ramsdale is an asset that can't just sit on the bench

Both City and Liverpool squads are full.
An quick analsysis of 2nd 11's shows the gap we still need to bridge

City: Ortega, Lewis, Akanji, Gvardiol, Gomez, Phillips, Nunez, Kovacic, Grealish, Bobb, Alvarez
Liverpool: Kelleher, Gomes, Matip, Quansah, Tsmikas, Endo, Thiago, Jones, Elliot, Jota, Gakpo
Arsenal: Ramsdale, Cédric, Tomiyasu, Kiwior, Timber, Jorginho, Emile Smith Rowe, Vieira, Nelsen, Trossard, Nketiah

John Cross is saying we’re trying to get a left back in on loan during January.

Literally what I said would happen back in August all whilst we have 2 left backs on our books on loan at other clubs.

Sometimes it’s just so bloody predictable

Here is the league table with expected goals and expected goals conceded against what teams have actually scored and conceded. I like the xG stat as it does show the quality of chance you're creating rather than the quantity. ie: people often argue - 'we both had 10 shots on target, it was an even game' but if you hit 10 shots from 30 yards your xG will be in the gutter.

xG does of course have its flaws but it is a better stat for looking at patterns rather than 'just' the scores, shots, territory and possession stats. One flaw of xG is it is the average player, so players like Son regularly out perform their xG because they are elite finishers.

so it is interesting to look at xG against, because this is based on the full league of strikers everyone has to face, rather than xG being skewed by how good your own strikers are each game. xG against can then be (for me) slightly more open to how lucky you've been not to have conceded more goals - or conversely how unlucky you've been to have opponents score high difficulty chances against you. One further factor is your GK. If they are pulling off more saves than you would expect.

Interesting therefore to see Liverpool and Spurs as the two teams hugely out performing their xG against. Alison and Vicario have been the two standout GK in the league, so some of that makes sense. But the bigger picture shows these teams continue to give up more chances than their goals against and therefore points should be. Based on the quality of chances created Spurs should have a GD of +1, instead they are at +13. This does back up what I see with my eyes, most Spurs games are quite wide open, I saw both Everton and Bournemouth have plenty of chances against them in recent Spurs wins

So would I rather have a team who doesn't give up many chances, or a team who give up a lot and relies on a world class GK to bail them out? I know which one is more sustainable.

Note: right now we're the only team in the top 9 who is underperforming on box stats. So we're poor at finishing the chances we create and we're poor at keeping out low quality chances at the other end - or slightly unlucky with our opponents scoring low quality chances.

Tavares is clearly not good enough for us, it was right to get him a loan to try to sell him soon.
Tierney is more difficult. If Arteta see's him as potential 4th choice behind Zinchenko, Timber and Tomiyasu then I can't think of many games he'd have been played apart from v Fulham. I don't think it is feasible to keep a player in the squad who is on the balance of probability never going to play - defence rotates far less than forwards including in game subs. I think Arteta would have seen 3 left backs, plus Kiwior and even Cédric in an emergency - but not expecting that emergency to happen.

How many other top clubs are without the first 3 choice left backs? if Liverpool lost Gomes to injury who would they play at LB?

I would have liked us to go in to this season with 8 first team defenders rather than the 7 we have, but keeping Tierney as the 8th wasn't really a viable option. Timber's really unfortunate injury has had a huge impact because of his ability to cover every position in the backline. Timber could feasibly have played every game this season and our regular back 4 only needed to play 75% of the games as they rotate. This is pretty much what Pep does with his very versatile defence

Thanks for this DHD. I hadn't registered, it had slipped my mind, have done so now. Thanks for the heads up.

I hated Rooney as a rival player but at his best he was fantastic. I was scared each time we played them and he started.
As far as his managerial career well, the results are obvious. My advice to him is go the Arteta route. Work under a top manager or two then take another bite at the managerial apple.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67870899

Thing is we don’t have 3 left backs. Zinchenko is the only one who is left footed. Then we have Timber who is the best choice to fill in but seems predominantly brought in to challenge white and take minutes off Saliba. Prior to this season he had never even played in that position in his career. Tomiyasu who one game looks like he can fill in on the left next looks like he can’t and again another right footer. Kiwior ? Not good enough to play in any position as far as I can tell and if I’m honest I think even Tavares would do a better job of playing as an inverted fullback.

If Zinchenko is injured it always involves someone playing in a position far less natural to them and if you are asking them to invert then they will be a fish out of water. Seemed an odd way to go into a season especially as the window was still open when Timber got injured.

I woke up to videos by fairly good sites who aren't prone to rumor mongering say, Toney (no surprise if true) and Zubimendi (somewhat surprising although linked in the press) and Partey out (no surpries there if true).

If this comes to fruition, I would be happy overall. I love Partey but he's no longer healthy enough to be a consistent starter for us.

Who was better Fowler or Owen?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zE7Kg-3D5Z0

I know its the silly season I guess as I can't see this happening. But I've been seeing reports in the last 24 hours.

The issue of multi-club ownership will be the next big problem in football. Jim Radcliffe has bought in to Man U and he also owns Nice, there is a much coveted CB at Nice called Tobido - Chelsea and Spurs are both heavily linked. Do we think that Radcliffe as Nice owner and Man U (part) owner is going to sanction a sale to Man U's rivals? If Man U had any interest in Tobido then he'll end up there for a much better price than he would have normally been sold to Chelsea or Spurs.

City have clubs all over the world as part of the City group. It is a huge advantage, you can put your youngsters out on loan in a perfectly controlled environment ensuring they play the right amount of games. You can buy players for your feeder club with an eye to having them for your main club later, and potentially avoiding various employment and FFP rules along the way.

This isn't a new thing, as people will remember we've benefited in the past from our links with Beveren which helped African players get their work permits etc, and our owner also owns the Colorado Rapids - but what City are doing is on a different scale.

I don't think we could make any more signings as we'd reached the FFP limit - which was one of the big reasons Raya was signed on loan for £3m rather than outright for £27m.
I do take your point about natural left footers - but irrespective of that if Arteta saw Tierney as his 4th choice then it wasn't really feasible to keep him, especially as Tierney doesn't really play in other positions and so could be used as multiple cover.

if we had kept him yes he'd have had the odd game when we were really stretched but perhaps once the player knew he was 4th choice he pushed for the move as well.

So we are wearing the divvy all white strip for Sunday

Arsenal will wear our all white 'no more red' shirt for the FA Cup game v Liverpool. I assume this will mean Liverpool play in their normal red kit at the emirates, must be the first time Liverpool have worn red at our ground?

Arsenal have held discussions with the PGMOL over the treatment of Saka. Saka is the third most fouled player in the league (behind Ayew and Guimares). Arsenal believe players are allowed multiple rough fouls on Saka before any yellow is considered and a yellow should come out for the first rough foul.

I 100% agree with this, but it won't get us anywhere.

Ayew and Guimares both feature in the top 5 most fouls player as well, so basically most of their game is fouling or being fouled - which does put some more emphasis on the amount of fouls Saka receives as it would appear much more 1 sided than players who are constantly in a battle and giving as much as they get.

Saka has been fouled 43 times this season, compared to 24 for Jarrod Bowen, 22 for Son and 18 for Salah.

You could look at that 2 ways, 1. he IS being protected based on the number of free kicks he's given. 2. he IS being specifically targeted for rough treatment.

This is where you need someone with a lot of time and technology to compile clips of each of those fouls and show which one's received yellow cards.

My main issue with it is the sheer number of fouls on him in a game before a yellow card is entertained - particularly when our defenders often get yellow carded for the first foul. Also, fouls on Saka tend to be 2 types of foul, 1. coming through the back of him when he has his back to goal and 2. when he's rolled the defender and is driving infield he's held back, these types of professional and cynical fouls should be yellow cards most times.

I think this illustrates that the problems we are having are absolutely not to do with our midfield, as some have suggested.

The fact that we are underperforming our XGA slightly doesn't bother me too much either. A keeper like Raya will bring down the XGA (particularly by sweeping and hence cutting out chances before they materialise) whereas a shot stopper who is rooted to his like will look great on the XGA minus goals conceded metric. Also xG looks at the quality of chances, not the quality of strikes, so isn't a good metric for keepers except over a much larger sample. I think that the low xG chances we've conceded have mostly not been because of poor keeping.

The problems are mostly upfront. And I don't think it's because our front four are not good enough players. It's because we don't have the backup players (or Arteta does not trust them) so we are in trouble if one or more of those is injured, off form, or needs a rest, or when we need a 'plan B'.

If you want to compete with City year in year out then you have to be very smart in the transfer windows.

Liverpool were struggling to compete with City and they had that perfect storm of selling brilliantly (Coutinho for £142m), buying Allison and VVD with the proceeds and having a game changing homegrown RB come through the youth system.

It feels like our summer deals for Havertz and Raya, whilst well intentioned, have not really worked out thus far. I believe we are obliged to purchase Raya in the summer so we've splurged £100m on players who haven't been able to take us to the next level. At least not yet.

Raya is yet to prove himself a significant upgrade on Ramsdale and Havertz, whilst versatile does not really feel dynamic enough, particularly for the left 8 role.

That shows just how difficult it is to upgrade players when you are working at the very top end of the table.

Clearly Rice was a massive coup so it wasn't a bad summer, it has just not worked out quite how we had hoped.

Why?

Despite what TG thinks, the doubling up on Martinelli and Saka has been an issue, right back to early last year when teams started to use that tactic extensively in almost every game.

It is a compliment to the pair that teams feel the need to do this but when haven't worked out a way to exploit the spaces left in other areas because of it.

I think Arteta probably hoped that Martinelli and Saka would continue their upward trajectory this season but its been difficult for them. Saka's numbers are still good even though he's found things more difficult but Martinelli has really found it hard to contribute goals and assists. Not all his fault, by the way, as our lack of numbers in the box has hardly helped turn his crosses into goals.

Our forwards (Saka, Jesus, Martinelli) chance conversion rate is well below 20%. I think Martinellis something like 6%. Higher than 20% is considered the benchmark for topclass forwards.

So, it's clear, we are not clinical enough.

This is the way I see it. Rice was a massive coup and Timber makes sense but I don’t really see the sense in the other signings if I’m honest. Havertz has value but looks a massive throw of the dice when really we probably needed a no8 type who has a range of passing and scoring ability (someone like cazorla or gundogan would be perfect) Apparently the rumour is if we hadn’t got Havertz then Jacob Ramsey was next on the list which to me makes a lot lot more sense.

I’ve never understood the keeper thing. I just don’t get why that’s a priority, can’t tell the difference too much between the 2 apart from the defence seems to have less connection and trust in Raya for some reason.

Also the club seemed to have been reluctant to make difficult decisions in some areas. Persisting with Eddie, the sad fact that Emile Smith Rowe should be let go if you won’t play him etc

This will fix the problem I’m sure

The Tories making millions in police cuts obviously won’t be a factor after the bad guys see our white shirts

I think Arteta saw him as a kind of utility player who could give us options and probably felt he might be able to bring out the best of him. Not really worked so far. Too much money for what he currently brings.

Hi Soc, Yes agree with the gist of this. It is so difficult to be continuously good in the market when your room for error is significantly smaller than teams like City.
If we look at Liverpool who have been brilliant in the market for a while, they had some extraordinary events that will be near impossible to repeat. They got Salah for £30m and he's been consistently a 20+ a season goalscorer for them. He'll be 32 at the end of this season. Van Dijk is a similar age. You can't just go and spent even £50m on a striker and he produces what Salah has for them so reliably. How many clubs have been able to move from a high quality goal scorer to another to another. We went from Wright to Henry quite quickly, we had Van Persie at that level for a year or two, but no-one since.

The same will be felt lower down the league. Villa and West Ham have recruited really well in the £25-40m bracket, and have both sold a player at a high price in Grealish and Rice, to allow that level of spend. Maybe Villa and West Ham can use players like Watkins and Bowen to generate another £80m fee, but then they also have to find another pair of high quality £40m players like Diaby, Kudus, Pacqueta - and history tells us they are just as likely to end up with a dud as a star.