It's games like this last one where your premium players are worth their fee. Yes, there is no guarantee Jesus would have scored or created a goal, but we stood a much greater chance if he was in the game. He's a major headache for any defense and a disrupter. Even when he isn't scoring he's causing problems with his movement and creativity. He forces defense to keep an eye for where he is which gives a little opening for Saka or Martinelli or Ødegaard.

I don't want to get too spoiled where I'm expecting us to win every game except for City. Perspective is in order.

Yes this is our problem

After the bodo game where we won 3 nil I posted whilst I was on the train back I thought it was a bad performance by us.

However walking away from the ground my gut feeling was that our back up is now very strong in some areas and weak in others. To maintain a title challenge I think we need a genuine alternative to Thomas Partey, a new winger and I’m sorry to say new striker

You have players on our bench who wouldn’t get in the 11 of championship sides. I bet not at any point yesterday was Arteta considering subbing a midfielder or striker.

Funnily enough I don’t think Nketiah did badly it’s just that he looks a bit lightweight. Think he might have a problem when balogun gets back next year however I would be tempted to sign a bonafide plan b. Maybe Calvert Lewin or someone to offer something totally different

If mudryk goes to Chelsea we should borrow some money from uncle Stan and pay the release clause of enzo Fernandez. Properly screw them over or actually maybe just do that anyway.

We have buggered around with signing a winger haven’t we? Went from Raphina, to Neto to mudryk and now will probably end up with nobody. Because we have to stretch a budget we are always permanently under prepared.

Btw we very briefly ran into Paul Whitehouse yesterday before the game by complete chance whilst getting parked. I’ve always thought he was brilliant despite being a spurs fan and it must be weird being a Tottenham supporter and living so local to Arsenal

A club like Arsenal without limitless funds needs to be smart and quick.

If we had identified Mudryk last summer as our main target we should have got it done. Hesitation coupled with some fine performances from him in the CL which has alerted others has left us faced with a much bigger fee.

I just hope we don't waste too much time if we are not going to pay the fee Shakhtar want.

Klopp has been red carded this season, as have Conte and Tuchel.

People are getting their knickers in a twist over Arteta being outside his technical area and gesticulating lots to his players. It is simply another thing to knock Arsenal with. If roles were reversed and it was Eddie Howe acting how Arteta did last night he would be widely lauded for the passion he's showing and installing in his team to guide such underdogs to their lofty position.

Arteta is making a lot of people in football look very very silly and they dont like it

Do we really think Mudryk would go to Chelsea, a proud Ukrainian man going to a club who equally proudly sang their support of their Russian Oligarch owner who has close ties to Putin.

Mudryk wants us no doubt, Chelsea will fire extra money as they tried to do to steal Jesus off us in the summer but I feel that the hard work we've done will pay off as long as we get the money accepted by Shaktar

Money talks unfortunately

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 55812.html

By the end of this month we'll have reached the half way point in the league with 19 games played, but because of some postponed fixtures we won't have played City or Everton but instead will have played Spurs and Man U twice. 2 of the big 6 done with half a season left.

Man U are full of confidence and have the counter attacking game to hurt us, but we need to go at them hard in the opening 15 minutes and get that early goal.

Right now the only way I can see spurs winning is a mistake or some dodgy penalty (as always). We're just a better footballing side and I hope we go there and produce the dominant performance similar to when we played away at Chelsea

If the fee is 88m for mudryk aren’t you just better off signing Joao felix outright for the same money. He can easily play either flank and as a false 9.

Not sure he’s that good, TG. From the little I’ve seen of him he seems massively overrated to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXj0Xufvs5Q
excuse the funny sound effects but this is the penalty De Bruyne 'won' in the 95th minute to give City a 2-1 win over Fulham earlier this season. Compare that to the non-penalty for the foul on Gabriel and there is a real potential for a 4 point swing between Arsenal and City right there.

The only 'soft' penalty like that I've seen us get in the last few seasons was the clip on Jesus in the Liverpool game where the contact was minimal on him. But as we saw with Saliba on Bowen these do get given - except they rarely do for a lot worse for us.

There have been 3 stand out ones already this season:
Mings on Saka where he grabs him, lifts him off his feet and throws him to the floor
Saints defender on Jesus, grabbing and pulling whilst nowhere near the ball
Burn almost pulling the shirt of Gabriel's back

watching those two penalty claims again you can put the test on them of how would we feel if they were given against us. The handball one I'd be miffed about, I've seen them given but the hand is close to the body, not above the shoulder and he's in relatively close proximity. However, if one of our players had pulled the shirt like Burn did and it had been given against us you'd be annoyed but there is no real argument you could make.

Id like Mudryk and if we can strike a reasonable loan deal for Felix then happy to have him as well - but Benfica want silly money for 5 months of him (mainly because they massively overpaid in the first place). Benfica want the sort of money for a 5 month loan that could buy you someone like Marcus Thuram (6 months left on his contract) outright now.

Mudryk we need to be prepared to walk away if the fee gets too ridiculous. Shaktar want 100m euros/£88m, I think we're bidding closer to £60m

Bissouma has already picked up a 5 yellow card suspension, he's only started 8 games for Spurs. Something hasn't worked for him yet there, I thought he was a talented player at brighton and also thought that was a decent deal for Spurs.

I met him once too at my cousin's film screening (my cousin knows him) but I only chatted with him for a second. All I could think to say was how much I loved Bob Mortimer to which he replied, obviously joking , "nahh, he aint all that". Such a waste that he's a tottingham fan.

The thing I dont really undertstand is how much power do players have in deciding where they want to go? If Chelsea outbid us but Mudryk wants to come to Arsenal, surely the only option Shaktar have if they cant convince him to go to Chelsea is to keep him?

It was a really natural conversation and we didn’t let on we knew he was famous or anything. I’ve met various famous people down the years and my standard operating mode is to never ask for photos or autographs which I find frankly embarrassing and don’t know why adults do it. (The only exception to this I should have made was when I met Michael Jackson decades ago, really should have got a picture I mean it’s the king of pop)

Truth be told though I’ve always thought whitehouse was brilliant on the comedy tv shows down the years as well as in the brilliant movie death of Stalin which if you haven’t seen I would urge you to.

Money usually talks in life. It rarely comes down to artistic integrity. I would imagine if Chelsea meet the price he would ultimately end up there

A belated HNY to all.

I have just got back from seeing family in Canada (minus 31 one night!) so have been absent for a while. While there as well as seeing loved ones I experienced the joy of Messi's achievements in Qatar; the fun of Arsenal continuing to impress and confound the experts, and the death of George Cohen and Pele. The latter will always be the best footballer of my time. George was a good one too.

On a New Years resolution note, I am clearing out the attic soon and have loads of Arsenal programmes, books and other bits and pieces from the first Wenger decade. If anybody wants to give them a home let me know by personal message - not wanting any money for them, but they will need to be collected from me in London.

Read some interesting thoughts on Man U's recent good run. Obviously they have played fairly limited opposition but also opposition that don't press high whatsoever. Man U sit deep, statistically they have the deepest average back line in the league (I was surprised to read that), they must do this because of a lack of pace at the back and the fact that de gea stays glued to his 6 yard box come what may and is pretty awful with his feet.
Their weakness is their technical unsureness when put under pressure. Their next run of games is:
Man City, Arsenal, Palace, Leeds, Leciester, brentford. All those teams bar Leicester have an effective high press. Lets see what happens to Man U in these games

I know we’re stretched for attackers on the bench with Jesus, Emile Smith Rowe and Nelson out but look at spurs bench tonight, 1 gk, 3CB, 3FB and 2Def Mid.

I fancy Palace to get something tonight.

We are playing well and still looking like a team that can challenge. Man Utd won't catch us but they can hurt us with a bad result.

We are basically in a title fight where we have to match City's result or better if they drop points and visa versa. If we are out of the title challenge its because of this. So far we have had the better result obviously. Can it continue? If City goes in a run, 7, 8, 9 games on the trot, then they will catch us. They are more than capable of it.

I'd be more than happy with runner up. I think the likely scenario in my mind is we will end up the last couple months behind them by a few points not being able to catch them and no one behind us capable of catching us. Sort of a runner up purgatory. And if that's the worst of it, fine. But I'd sure love a title fight into the last game or two.

Maybe but they have 42 million pound Davison Sanchez, 25 million Ryan sessegnon and 25 million dj spence and Kane and son rarely get injured

Where's the Palace who play against us like its a bloody cup final.
The atmosphere is usually red hot.
Zaha is like a man on a mission when we come to visit.
Spurs visit they are like pussycats
It's now 4 0

I'm not taking anything for granted.
Great to experience this brilliant unexpected start but we are not even halfway through the season yet.
Still tricky games to go.
Top.4 is no way guaranteed even now.
We have been brilliant though.
Infuriating about those penalty shouts last night.
We deserved the win

It’s interesting to me that the one game people can reference where we got the rub of the green with decisions is the home win v Liverpool. Our first win over them, a big team, for a while. Sometimes that is all it takes to win these games. Think back to City at home last year, spurs away last year, Man U away this year. A few big decisions, possibly 50/50 calls that haven’t gone our way.

Obviously it would be nice to ease past these big teams without the need for the ref to make a decision but that’s incredibly rare. Very often these games are decided by a ref call one way or the other.

100%. They nullified our best attacking options and I also expect every club to do the same thing from here on. Whether they can do it with the discipline and shape of Newcastle without leaving gaps in other areas is another story though.

Gary Neville kept saying that he thought Zinchenko should run and overlap Martinelli. But Zinchenko was covering the deeper left midfield role. So if he'd run overlaps as Neville was suggesting it would have meant most likely Zhaka dropping back and we've seen what happens when he is the last line of a left back defence. I think we can all see that at this stage there are more options required in attack and I'm pretty sure Edu, Arteta and Shaktar Donetsk know this too.

I think Mudryk will have a big influence on where he goes even if Chelsea offer more money. City managed to pick up Haaland for 51m so I think 88m for Mudryk is a bit ridiculous.

My biggest worry with Man U is that they've found a manager who is tactically smart enough to get the best out of the players he has rather than trying to force a style with the wrong players. Ten Hag seems to have managed this, weeded out the negative influence of Ronaldo and made it abundantly clear that he is in charge. The team look like there is a lot more synergy in what they're doing. I think they'll cruise past Palace, Leicester and probably Leeds.

I thought Bissouma would have worked out better for Sperz. A good buy at the time. He might come good (or better, hopefully not).

As for as the decision between us and Chelsea, money usually wins over the heart. If Chelsea wants him and do what Chelsea (City and Man Utd) usually do (over bid) he will go to Chelsea. The wages he'll get will soothe things over a bit.

Hoping Chelsea get a result tonight obviously. Capable of it but we'll have to wait and see.

Obviously one of the SG forumites.

Where in Canada were you? As for the Arsenal memorabilia, oh to be in London.

Well done you old cretin .... what is fifteen years on here and you've finally nailed one .

I was thinking EXACTLY the same yesterday ; was going to post it then opted to repair the leaky ball cock in the roof instead .

Don't think either Spurs , Man U , Man City will take that approach they'll feel they have enough firepower not to resort to those tactics they'll blow us away with their own game .
We weren't producing a lot , maybe we should have changed something .... swap Martinelli and Saka ? ..... put them both on the same side for ten minutes ?

Don't think Mikel does himself any favours frothing at the mouth ranting like a lunatic ón the touchline , some will say "Oh we want a passionate manager "
but to me it shows a lack of control . An opposing manager can get under his skin . Howe definetly won on the night .

Although Arteta’s jumping around like an out of control mad man has helped us and worked 14 times out of 17 this season.

Newcastle literally had one of their substitutes yellow carded for delaying an Arsenal restart and it is Arteta who needs to rein it in?

Pep kicked a water bottle that hit the staff in the opposition dug out the other day, he ran to apologise straight away but was he out of control and working against his players because City didn’t win that match?

I think people are making far too much of Arteta’s behaviour on the touchline, which is no worse than any number of successful managers past and present

I think there has been a decent amount written in praise of us this season but it still feels like there are almost pre written gleeful stories waiting for when we slip up. I saw it after Newcastle with huge headlines talking about how this shows our lack of fire power. Despite being the second highest scorers in the league, and we were playing the best defence. I don’t recall those headlines when City couldn’t break down Everton at home, or lost to Brentford at home.

Quite honestly it feels that we’ve taken more criticism this season, even for beating so called ‘easy teams’ than the likes of Chelsea in 10th or Liverpool in 7th have taken.

Eddie Howe has said Newcastle may not buy in January as they have to be aware of FFP….but yet Chelsea are ready to drop another £250m on top of the £250m they spent in the summer?

With Mudryk is worth considering that he’d likely be on a quite reasonable wage because his current wage is quite low and he’s young. Irrespective of the fee I don’t think he’d be getting Jesus type wages at £200k a week plus.
The difference between £60k a week vs £150k a week over a 5 year contract is almost £25m, so the club may think they can put more of the overall transfer cost in to the transfer fee because wages may be more reasonable

I'm struggling to see how the sub getting a yellow card and Arteta raving like a demented harpy are in the slightest way connected

Successful managers from the past carrying on that way .... Okay Dokey ... Nicholson , Revie , Shankley , Ferguson , Clough , Paisley , Wenger , Graham , Saunders did they jump up and down scream at the opposing manager

There is always a tendency to view OUR people differently ......if ten Haag , Moyes , Conte was carrying on like that we'd be saying what a f**&^&%% idiot .

Lose control you make irrational decisions is all I'm saying he'd be better if he calmed down .

Hey Kiwi, be careful with these home health remedies.

Have you tried incontinence pants?.

Hi Rich,

No idea how Chelsea are complying.

They've already bought Nkunku for £63m, Badiashile for £33m (both look really good players) and paid £10.6m for Datro Fofana and £18.6m for Andrey Santos.

Ok, so payments are not all upfront but even so.