Hi Ash,

Yes, Lokonga's got that nice way of moving with the ball through the midfield and spraying passes. Early days but the signs are promising.

Hard to tell with the Partey injury, he played on for a while but then had to be subsituted. A shame because he was excellent in possession.

I thought we saw both sides of Xhaka, a couple of wonderful passes but caught in possession a couple of times too. He is much better suited to Spain or Italy.

Totally agree on Elneny needing to be as far away from the team as possible now. Lokonga must be ahead of him and I think Azeez should be as well.

Holding struggles with a high line and i don’t think he’s good enough to start for a team with top 4 ambitions

Also we’ve still got an absolutely massive squad that still needs quality additions and lots of players to leave. Currently I think we’re battling spurs for 6th

Oh bloody ‘ell. *%^@*** Chelsea. Tuchel jumped up with about 10 to go to do some pointing, then gave Danny Drinkwater some abuse for losing the ball then went and sat down again. seems suuuper intense.

If that's true central midfield becomes an even bigger priority. Think Lokonga needs to be eased in a bit, and we just can't go into the season with Elneny starting.

Hi Rich,

I think getting rid of surplus players is the big issue. They are frankly earning more money than they are worth and teams don't want to have to pay a fee and take on board their large salaries. The trouble is we can't just give them away any more than we can magic up interest in them at the fees we are asking.

Problem is that except for Xhaka these players are doing zero to persuade any other club to buy them.

Yep, we've been saying we need a massive clear-out for weeks but barely any movement so far because nobody wants to pay big fees for average players on inflated salaries.

If we are relying on sales to fund purchases from now until the end of the window then we might be in for a huge disappointment.

Xhaka was one of the stars of the euros (surprisingly) but the best offer we got was £12m + £3m add-ons.

Hey Hodd,

What do you know about this 18 year old kid Mika we've signed for Fulham. Potential wonderkid or just a hopeful gamble?

So....not looking good according to Arteta.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.u ... 21777/amp/

Missed the game but saw some of the mistakes on the internet including Bellerins.

These guys really aren’t helping themselves are they ?

Think you might see us accepting some of the unsatisfactory offers we’ve been getting for our players (apart from Xhaka) and an acceleration of activity.

If the club don’t make further changes you have another mid table finish occurring trust me. Too many average players still involved.

Partey possibly injured, Gabriel nursing an injury from the Olympics and Saka needing a decent rest from the Euros is not the best way for us to start the season.

It’s going to be very frustrating when Elneny starts the first few games of the season with Lokonga sat on the bench.

Playing a high line with chambers, holding and Mari who don’t have any pace between them seems a bit silly.

Can’t believe we will be starting the season with Elneny and Xhaka starting again. Feels like we are stuck in a purgatory that never ends with mediocre players we are unable to move on. We just don’t have the resources to fix the many things that are broken.

We spent 50m on Ben White, and everything we hear in terms of transfer rumours suggests there's more money to burn. If we don't sign another central midfielder it'll be because Arteta and Edu are satisfied with the options we have there, not because we can't get out of the last year of Elneny's 50k per week contract.

Aubameyang is a bit of a conundrum at the moment. Was quite poor for most of last season and has been missing quite a few chances in pre-season so far. But there was a couple of times today when he just breezed past Chelsea players with ease, so the pace is still there. You have to think he'll be able to find his groove again, when he hasn't declined physically. It would be another thing if his pace had gone, which could happen once a player reaches a certain age. But all the physical qualities look like they're still there.

We’ve spent 77 million. I’m not sure the money is there to sign the players we need, 100 million for another 2 midfielders ? Surely that requires players leaving.

We don't need two, but if money is the reason we can't get one more in we simply haven't prioritized correctly. As much as I'm excited about White signing and I do think he'll improve our starting eleven, midfield was more important going into the summer. In fact, I'd be okay with us only signing one more player this season if it's a central midfielder.

We do need 2 midfielders, a right back and competent back up keeper. Encouraged by the white signing but concerned generally more of the same is about to follow if we don’t see movement. If you disagree fair enough.

The fact that we've spend 77 million suggests to me that there is more to come, not that we are done. It's already more than I (and I imagine also you) expected!

It looks to me that Arteta is buying with a clear purpose in mind. He really does want to get the right profile of player in. Filling squad holes with journeymen does not seem to be the plan, and thank goodness for that. For what its worth I reckon we'll see one more very nice signing.

Central midfield is more important than right back, and a backup keeper doesn't have to cost much if anything at all. The point is we could've signed another central midfielder if we wanted to, it has nothing to do with being unable to ship out Xhaka or Elneny.

The suggestion being made is we only have another 40 million to spend want Maddison but can’t afford him without sales. Our budget isn’t infinite. If you think our inability to shift these mediocre players isn’t hurting us your kidding yourself.

Central midfield is a priority.

I hope your right but with 2 weeks till the season starts I can’t help but feel slightly (but not overly) concerned

Even if that figure is true 40m could get us an excellent central midfielder to compliment Partey, Xhaka and Lokonga. When Arteta and Edu arrived they had a mountain of work ahead of them to get the squad balance in order, but that excuse can't last forever. Going into the season with Elneny as one of our four options would be a choice, not something we're forced to do.

That's very justifiable. I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised, and am more hopeful than if we hadn't already splashed out. The fact that the purse doesn't seem to be welded shut is encouraging.

Apparently a Dr Rajpal Brar, who is called a ‘medical expert’, has said: “Found the specific mechanism of injury for Partey. This is typically indicative of a 'high ankle sprain' aka syndesmotic tear. These typically come with a 4-6 week return timeline if a grade 1 injury.”

I’ve never heard of Dr Rajpal Brar before, but assuming he is a medical expert and knows what he’s talking about, the best we can hope for is Partey being out for four weeks which is 29th August. If he’s out for six weeks, that takes us to 12th September.

One assumes a period of rehabilitation or getting back to full fitness will be required after the injury heals, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the earliest we can expect to see Partey back for is Burnley away on 18th September. If so, that would mean him missing the following games: Brentford away, Chelsea home, Manchester City away, Norwich home.

The unknown factor remains as to whether it is only a grade one injury.

That’s a good point. Although having said that, which way does the grading scale go? Is grade 1 the lightest or the worst form of the injury?

Having seen this on a local level only, we rate it 1-5. With 5 the worst. The same scales apply to other medical things in Australia as cancers are rated on a similar scale. I have assumed grade 1 is at the lower end because his recovery time is not that long.

Thanks, that’s helpful.

That is Elneny's sole role (capability) in the Arsenal team. Provide some resistance to the opposition. A very limited role and he should only be a squad player to come on when we are defending a lead.

And for my money should only have that place on the bench if we’re allowed 9 subs next year not the usual 7.

With Willock, Nketiah, Nelson and AMN, to me it seems pointless to keep Nketiah and Nelson as a starting point, I think both are in their last year so the club may decide to keep them if they don’t receive a good enough offer but I can’t see how either get any minutes if everyone else stays.
Willock and AMN have longer contracts so we don’t have to accept poor offers and in Willock’s case he could get some minutes with the squad as it currently stands

Finally got to see the extended highlights of yesterday’s game. It was more concerning than I had anticipated. The defence looked all over the place, verging on absent, in the bits that were shown. Is that a consequence of a high press? One shouldn’t read too much into pre-season games with lots of player rotation but the league starts in 11 days time and it would be nice to see us building some form.

That’s what I said about Nketiah and Nelson in post 533641. Even if they stay, how many minutes will they get? The best thing for them, career wise, is probably to move on. I wouldn’t have thought their wages were so high they couldn’t earn similar elsewhere. Mind you, after seeing details of Nelson’s house (or mansion) here a couple of weeks or so back, maybe I’m wrong?

With only a month left of the window it is hard to see how we are going to get all the players we want out of the door, bar virtually giving them away or sending them out on loan whilst paying a large chunk of their wages.

I don't blame Edu either, what's he supposed to do. Trying to get a decent fee for average players on very high wages in a depressed market. Not an easy thing to do.

Hi Bernard,

I've got mixed feelings about selling Willock and Nketiah, both are homegrown and seem to be making strides forward in their careers. Both looked far more lively than either Aubameyang or Lacazette yesterday. Nketiah, in particular, looked much better in terms of his all round game than he has done in the past. His touch and hold-up play was more assured. Willock is always on the move and always a goal threat.

Seems like we will have to sacrifice some of the kids because nobody wants our established donkeys.

Is that you trying to get around the time limit on replies by posting in the future?

After I saw that mistake by Bellerin and Parteys injury it filled me with dread yesterday.

If the manager keeps playing Elneny, Bellerin and Xhaka then he will be sacked by Christmas. However what’s the alternative. The club needs to find a way of financing new players without too many sales and just freeze them out by leaving them out of the side. I do wonder if you might see some loans coming in.

One player who seems to be off the radar is Balogun. I assume that since he didn’t feature in the giant squad of yesterday then he is nowhere near a start.

Of all the players the fans probably want to push out of the club Xhaka would be the one I'm most happy with staying, partly because at the moment there is a necessity to have the bodies in central midfield.

Of course if we can sell Xhaka and upgrade then that is the preference, but on the basis that it is going to be very difficult for us to do all the INs and OUTs we want this summer, selling Xhaka for £12m to Roma is not something we should be doing. 2 years left on his deal, he's easily worth £12m NEXT summer with only a year left. We can't buy a player for £12m who is better than Xhaka.

The difference with someone like Bellerin is we have 2 other RB (3 if you include AMN) and I don't see any drop off in quality of the squad if Bellerin leaves even if we don't sign anyone else.

Priorities with the squad as it stands for incomings in order are:
1: back up GK (one injury to Leno and we have Runnarson and Okonkwo in goal!)
2: creative central midfielder (one injury to Emile Smith Rowe and we lose that player in the 10 position who was so crucial to our turn around in form last year)
3. right back - if Xhaka stays then a top quality right back would do more good for us than another CM I think
4. central mid
5. striker