Van Persie played as a left winger in his formative years AG

From pictures, Isak always looks skinny to me. As thin as a rake. At least, again from photos, Vlahovic appears a good physical specimen.

Obviously photos don’t tell you everything. But I always think it’s useful for forwards in England to not look as though a gentle breeze would blow them over, let alone a strong wind.

Very happy for Giroud in the Milan derby. Always been a fan. Still think the fans didn't appreciate him enough and we should have kept him.

So at 0-0 in the Liverpool v Cardiff game the Liverpool gk comes charging out of his area and fouls the striker, there was a single defender back following the run of the striker and the Liverpool GK was only given a yellow card. The stupid part of that for me is if the defender had fouled the striker who would have then been 1v1 with the gk the defender would have got a red card. So why when it’s the gk fouling him and all the striker had to do was beat a defender to score in an unguarded net would that not be a red?

Spence the right back who played well against us is having another good game today and has just scored.
Would be a good buy and back up for Tomiyasu.
Strong technical and fast.
Definitely worth a punt.

Food for thought. Surely not?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... j_WdGyaCGw

Senegal beat Egypt 4-2 on penalties. One thing I see too often and never understand it is Egypt’s best penalty taker, Salah was down to take the 5th penalty and didn’t even get the chance to take one. I get the idea that the longer the shootout goes on the more pressure there is on the taker so having Salah on the 5th when it’s quite likely to be a kick to win or kick to stay in makes sense but not if you never get to him!

I recall Ronaldo doing something similar and when he did it I thought it was an ego thing so he could score the winning pen. It just seems far more sensible to put your best takers first and build the pressure on your opponent.

Marc Overmars out at Ajax.

Agreed DD. He played very well. No doubt though his transfer value has soared on the strength of his two appearances against us and Leicester. Might be better to check out who’s Boro’s current right back….they must’ve been relaxed sending Spence out on loan if they thought they had a better rb in place

Not exactly a brilliant thing to do....

An ‘ashamed’ Marc Overmars has apologised and confirmed he will leave his role at Ajax after a series of ‘inappropriate messages’ he sent to female colleagues came to light.

I bet that his wife is impressed.

Not condoning the behaviour which was unacceptable and I don’t know what was said but when I was reading about this I couldn't help think it’s a shame this cloud will probably sit over his fine career.

I don’t think sending female colleagues saucy texts is in any way appropriate these days and he probably rightly got fired but calling them victims seems a bit far and he seemed to take ownership of his mistake by admitting the mistake.

Aubameyang played for Barca yesterday. He must have been trying very hard to get in the goals to show Arteta what is missed.

I watched the end of the West Ham game at the weekend and thought Declan Rice has taken his game to higher levels recently. He's no longer just a defensive midfielder and he is a player who is grabbing games by the scruff of the neck and winning them by himself. Until recently I saw Jude Bellingham has a much better player than Rice and the one I would rather sign, but I must admit Rice has really impressed me this season and I'd happily take either player for us - sadly I think Rice will end up at Chelsea (with his best mat Mount) and Bellingham might be back in this country within a couple of seasons and almost certainly not with us.

Rice and Bellingham is a fantastic midfield pairing for England going forward.

Lots of paper talk about Gnabry entering the final 18 months of his deal and struggling to reach an agreement with Bayern on an extension. If I had to put money on it I'd say he eventually extends with Bayern. Would love to have him back with us if we could.

Rice was always a better and more complete player than Bellingham shows the potential to be. It’s just you grossly underrated Rice. I still remember you questioning Manchester United’s interest in him. Rice would be the perfect signing for them (as he would be for Arsenal’s midfield as he’s comfortably better than both Partey and Xhaka).

I’m sorry but that was the case ages before his recent form changed your opinion of him.

The theory is perfectly simple Rich. It’s the idea of having the best penalty taker taking the one that is most likely to be a decider. Sure, it will be easy to find instances when it doesn’t work but I’m equally sure it will be easy to find instances when it does. You could say it worked for Senegal last night, even if it didn’t for Egypt.

What Overmars apparently did is wholly inappropriate as you say. But Ray Kennedy’s reputation survived something that is surely much worse than sending saucy texts - wife beating.

I read that 70% of penalty shoot outs are settled on or before the 4th penalty kick - so whatever theory people have on a good taker on the 5th penalty it doesn't seem like a good strategy.
If Salah had taken Egypt's penalty 1 to 4 then yes there would have been pressure on Egypt's 5th taker but at least they would have still been in the shootout with a chance to take one

In your opinion Rice has always been better. From what I saw and given the 5 year age gap I would have rather have had Bellingham when I compared the two around the time of the Euros. I questioned Man U's interest only on the basis I thought Bellingham was the better player not that Rice wouldn't hugely improve Man U's substandard midfield.
Football is all about opinions though so you are more than welcome to disagree with mine.

Interestingly Transfermarkt values the two at exactly the same price £67.5m

This season both have played 29 games, both have scored 4 goals, Rice has 4 assists and Bellingham has 10 assists. goals and assists aren't everything but Bellingham is a long way ahead in assists this year.
Gary Neville was asked on twitter who he would rather sign for Man U and he chose Bellingham.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/footb ... e-25083886
Neville has forgotten more about football than I'll ever know and I'm sure there are examples of other knowledgeable people in football who prefer Rice - but saying I 'grossly underrated' Rice's ability just because I preferred one over the other is a bit extreme

Both are good players, at the time of the Euros I preferred Bellingham as I thought he had a much better all round game giving much more to the attacking side, it is only this season that I have seen Rice be any kind of goal/assist threat and Bellingham still out does him on those stats. Now that Rice has added more goals/assists and attacking drive to his game I think choosing between the two is a lot closer.

Wasn’t this highlighted once by Ronaldo insisting he take portugals 5th pen (it’s got to be all about him) then Spain beating Portugal in the previous 4 kicks so he didn’t even get to take one. Crazy

Rich, I fully accept views are subjective. But regarding your stat that Bellingham has more assists, Rice not only plays in a stronger league than Bellingham, but Bellingham also plays for the second best side in the Bundesliga. No way are West Ham the second best side in the Premier League, and are even further from being the second biggest club in England as Dortmund are in Germany. That suggests the assists stats has important provisos that should be considered.

You obviously have more respect for Neville’s views than me. I think he’s a quite entertaining pundit, but so are the likes of Shearer and Richards. Doesn’t mean I trust their views.

Whether that’s the case or not, for the percentage decided before penalty four will inevitably be even smaller than 70% being decided before the fifth penalty.

When Arsenal are in a penalty shoot out, I would feel more confident about our chances if it’s our best penalty taker running up to the ball for the fifth penalty than I would if it was our fifth, fourth, third or second best penalty taker.

Definitely this fellow is ecstatic with Senegal AFCON final win.

Of course you're last statement is true but it is also true of every penalty in the shootout, you'd always feel more confident when you're best taker is taking it.

If Arsenal were in a shootout and I could choose the order of our best 5 penalty takers and the opponents best 5 penalty takers I'd have ours go from best to worst and theirs go from worst to best. For a 70% chance that their best penalty taker doesn't even get to influence the penalty shoot out it has to be the best way.

In any shootout you can only guarantee that you'll get 3 kicks minimum, why run the risk of your best player not being able to take one.

If the best taker goes first, if worse penalty takers after him miss then it may still not go to the last kick. I think differently to you and approve of the best being left to the fifth. If others miss before him, then there’s not much that would change.

Indeed, in saying this I’m fast reaching the conclusion that in many shoot outs it may not make any difference regardless whether the best goes first or fifth. The example that started the debate off, Egypt losing yesterday leaving Salah until last, can be balanced by the point that the same principle worked for Senegal with Mané being left until last.

As I say, I’m coming round to thinking it may often not make much, if any, relevance to the outcome.

The Saka leaving rumours show no sign of stopping. Outstanding young players may usually want to play at the highest level and win trophies. Regarding the play at the highest level factor, I think it could be critical to finish in the top four to get into the Champions League. Hopefully that will make him extending his contract more likely.

https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/ ... dium=email

Apparently since 2012, Arsenal have the third highest next transfer spend in England, after the two Manchester clubs.

http://e.football.london/_act/link.php? ... Id=8697098

He’s under contract for 2 more years. They’ll have to cough up a grealish type fee if they wanted him in the summer. If he wanted to leave at this stage I’d have to say Id find it quite impatient on his part as he’s only 20.

If he leaves I’m not sure we would go from there frankly. I’m not sure we would be able to complete a turning cycle in evolving our side without our best players leaving. It would start feeling really futile. We would need some miracles in the transfer market

A thing in our favour is the clubs shopping for him are limited. Assume I was his manager, I would not be interested in a move to Liverpool because if you look at their squad are growing old very quickly and could be on the slide. And assuming he will not go to another London club like Chelsea so that leaves Manchester clubs : United are a basket case, so that leaves City. They could be our problem. Maybe he could consider overseas clubs but they are all in financial trouble.

I agree that there are some challenges ahead for the club. I feel he loves the club, but like many that have gone before him (Ces, Van Persie to name just 2), he may not see the club as being able to what he wants to achieve. I would think every time he turns up at England training his head will be filled with players talking about CL games (including finals), being champions of England and he will be sitting in the corner thinking about how great we played the day we lost 2-1 to Man City.

If I was managing him I would extend his contract at Arsenal, but have a clause put in that failure to make CL qualification in any given year would result in him be free to leave, with maybe a realistic release clause price (60mill) which would obviously be lower than Arsenal would want. Otherwise just see out his current contract and leave for free. The club would be backed into a position of either signing the contract or selling in the next eighteen months.

It will all give the media lots of headlines from here forward.

It’s an interesting debate (with the lack of much arsenal football on at the moment). I did read a study that was done where they looked at the success rate of penalty takers in shootouts where the kick was to win the shootout vs to ‘not lose’ the shootout and unsurprisingly those players taking penalties to win had a huge % success rate in comparison to those taking a penalty to just stay in the shootout. This study was done across years and years of shootouts so had no need to account for ability of the taker. That study would certainly support the theory to always chose to go first if you win the toss but it would also (I think) support the theory to have your better players take the earlier penalties so that you are more likely to be ahead in the shootout by the time crucial kicks come this taking more pressure off your taker as they’d be more likely to be in a position to shooting to win.

I just googled it a bit and there is also a theory that the two most important penalties in a shootout are the 1st and 4th….

Not sure why you think he wouldn’t go to Chelsea. Cole did and he was an Arsenal fan. Saka wasn’t. Indeed he’s from Ealing which is predominantly a Chelsea area, although I believe he actually supported Newcastle.

I am not sure he would want the grief that follows from moving to another London club. But it is not impossible I admit.

I honestly don’t think it’s that big an issue. Players have played for not only Arsenal and Chelsea, but Arsenal and Tottenham, as well as Chelsea and Tottenham. Just like players have played for both Manchester clubs, both of Liverpool and Everton, and even both of Rangers and Celtic.

Overmars sent dick pics en was 'overzealous' in his approach to women. Had been going on for years and apparently the club knew.

Would be nice but don't think it will happen. He's 27 this year and would likely command huge wages so think if anything he'll be off to Real, Barca or maybe Newcastle / Man City / Chelsea who could afford his wage demands.

Dick pics AND overzealous.

But isn't that a bit of a self fulfilling prophesy because the last player to miss is always the one kicking to 'not lose'?

Also if the better goal kickers go first then the weaker ones coming later would surely feel more pressure knowing that one miss could be the end of it, whereas if you put a weaker kicker first then they may feel marginally less pressure knowing that there is still time to rescue the shootout if they miss?

In terms of it being self fulfilling there are players who take ‘not to lose’ penalties who manage to score them so their numbers go in to the success stat for that kind of penalty.
I suppose in terms of your second paragraph you can sway the argument which way you want. I’d say the weaker penalty takers are more likely to be taking a ‘kick to win’ if they go later, therefore feel less pressure.

I’d still come back to the point that 7 out of 10 penalty shoot outs don’t make it to the 5th taker so if you do want your best penalty taker on a pressure penalty at least put them 4th rather than 5th

So that’s where Succession got its Roman Roy storyline from in the latest series.