There is another view of Özil's contract. When he signed he brought with him big investment from Adidas and a massive social media presence which was no doubt to Arsenal's financial benefit. He was a World Cup winner, highly respected as a midfielder, and truth is we had nobody else of his commercial worth.

Clear illustration of the lop sided tactics with Tierney’s and Tomiyasu’s touch maps from the Norwich game.

I don’t mind these complex tactics but my biggest concern with them is the effect on the right winger, who either doesn’t get enough help or who has to stay wide because no one else provides the width. It must be a lot more fun being the left winger, Tierney always next to you, you can drift inside and affect the game more.

Most unfortunate we did not have the financial power to keep both of them. They would have helped propel the club together.

I don't think Alexis wanted to stay. He tends to move on near the end of contracts. I don't think he could see the club making the necessary investments to compete. Plus, I think the players around him were going thru the motions. I rate him as the last top quality player at the club. A few of the young ones may make it but that is a little way down the track.

Hi Rich,

I think Arteta tries to overcomplicate a game that is essentially very simple. Guardiola is the same but the difference is that he has elite players in every position and I sometimes feel City win games inspite of his tactics and not because of them.

Let's face it, having players like De Bruyne, Kompany, Aguero, David Silva, Yaya Toure (to name but a few) over the years has hardly required him to be a tactical genius to get results.

What Guardiola has done very well is to get elite players to work incredibly hard out of possession and implement the pressing game. Not always easy when you are dealing with big egos.

I read this on Le Grove

https://le-grove.co.uk/2021/09/16/what- ... long-read/

Seems incredibly complicated.

Morning socrates. Conceptually I wonder if what you say is similar to Wenger’s biggest single error, in my view anyway. Namely turning his back on what made his Highbury years so successful with power and physical presence in midfield and moving to a tiki taka system with the midfield jam packed with skilful midgets (I’m not being too literal when I use the word ‘midget, which I hope everyone realises).

I still see Arsenal’s best (let alone Wenger’s) central midfield as Vieira and Petit. Even after Petit we had Gilberto who was a player with physical presence.

I’ve always suspected Wenger fell in love with the way Barcelona played the game and decided to copy it. The trouble is, they used it with players of the quality of Messi, Iniesta and Xavi and in Spain where football is less physical. We didn’t have that level of player.

Even Fabregas, our best skilful midget at the time who obviously went to Barcelona and played many games for them, never became an automatic first team choice ahead of Iniesta and Xavi.

Martin Keown said the same a few (perhaps more than ‘a few’ now) years ago. These days I think Keown can be a right plonker. But I reckon that’s something he got right. Wenger tried to copy Barcelona with inferior players. As you imply, is Arteta doing the same with Guardiola’s Manchester City?

These days, fairly accurate.

So much for my simple mind.

Then again when I first played football it was 2-3-5.

Not much margin for error for Arteta. The only upcoming game he can drop points in is the NLD. And even that should be a draw. He has to beat Burnley and Wimbledon. Brighton is playing well but the last few weeks but even so, he has to start beating clubs outside the top 5 or 6.

Especially now that we are getting back starters and he has better personnel to work with.

Awards of all types are pretty much rigged. This Ribery article iillustrates it. Sports, entertainment awards, all types are largely rigged.

The Oscars and Grammy's are rigged for sure. At the risk of sounding homophobic and I'll qualify what I about to say that I lived in LA for years. By default you live there long enough to become very close friends with someone who is LBGTQ. I've been to a few weddings, etc. That said, Lil Nas X, the gay rapper (used to be a rapper who just happens to be gay, which is what any thing other than human should be: race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, etc)
Anyway, at least to me, the music industry is using him to beat us over the head with his sexuality. Having him do all kinds of PR stunts. Latest being a magazine cover where he's photoshopped pregnant. He has won best video for something or another. His youtube comments are millions of 'bot' based comments.

Player of the Year awards in American sports also seem compromised. Some seem like poitical statements if the player has some sort of stance that the league or public wants pushed.


I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Ballon D'or is rigged.

https://www.givemesport.com/1453609-franck-ribery-has-spoken-honestly-about-not-winning-the-2013-ballon-dor

I never really went along with this...

Wenger was never really a master tactician at all, I don’t see him telling his players to play differently. His team got the ball down and played and his success was more about enabling individuals to be the best they could be rather than how they were set up. It was his weakness. Didn’t TA call him tactically naive about defending. I couldn’t disagree.

I think the change in style lent more to the fact we didn’t have the finances to sign the top players of height, power and pace anymore. I’m sure wenger would have lapped up drogba, Essien, Yaya Toure if he had the finances.

Myself, I think it’s too simplistic to say we couldn’t afford players with physical presence. Are small players always less expensive anyway? He bought Arshavin for a lot of money. From memory Nasri, Ramsey and Rosicky weren’t exactly cheap either.

I do think Wenger decided to change the style and I think it’s over simplistic to we simply couldn’t have afforded to sign players with more physical presence than those we did. I accept the stadium move meant we had limited funds. But surely we could have looked for different types of players to those we did sign?

You disagree. Fair enough. But it all seemed too much of a coincidence to me.

I think we all look back on the post-invincibles era far too harshly, purely because we didn't win any pots. This video shows just how dynamite we were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkXZRHG5RxQ&t=198s

Pep would die for his current City to play with this much verve and pace. It's absolutely electrifying, whatever the size of the players... and there are Bendtners and Eboues out there too. Doesn't look like tika-taka to me. Looks like lightning in a bottle.

That season more than other is tragic on so many levels. We were magnificent, we won nothing, and you can see from moments in this video that other teams saw only one way to stop us, and that was to clatter us around. And on top of that, the media also decided to legitimise the "stop Arsenal by any means necessary" approach and we all know how that ended up... with players in hospital beds having their legs pinned back together.

A heck of a watch. Such memories reignited.

Watching this clip I can't help but feel we never got the best of Hleb. He had amazing feet.

Another in a stream of encouraging articles about Patino.

https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/15/arsenal- ... IxGyTYGY3k

Hopefully he will come on as predicted. For some reason the name Henri Lansbury came to mind as I read this one. It’s such a tough road to get to the top.

Yes that is right - he loved powerful players and pre oligarchs those guys could well have been at Arsenal rather than elsewhere. Song, Bendtner, Baptista, Chamakh and Adebayor were strong guys who might have done a better job for Arsene - especially Ade who ended up with a mixed career, rather than the stellar one his talent promised.

At Highbury v United I was sat next to a Man U supporter who was gobsmacked by Hleb's skill. "Where did you find him?" This was praise from an unexpected source.

Absolutely the “he tried to make us Barcelona” myth is also crushed by Michael Carrick saying he was literally supposed to be signing for us on the Monday had cesc not turned in that shock performance in the charity shield that changed wengers mind

Decent player but the bloke couldn’t score in an Amsterdam knocking shop. Didn’t score in 19 appearances for Barcelona and only scored 30 odd goals in his whole career. Probably overachieved rather than under if anything

To be fair that was actually in 2004, when we still had Vieira and Gilberto. So I don’t see how Carrick crushes any idea about Wenger later turning his back on power and physical presence in midfield.

Interestingly Wenger always fancied Carrick as a player. He used to give talks at AGMs and the only time I ever recall him speaking of a player at another club was when he once spoke glowingly of some kid at West Ham called Michael Carrick. My guess would be it was probably either the 1999, 2000 or 2001 AGM.

I would say he underachieved considerably given his level of talent. His first touch was sublime. A brilliant dribbler but he had a bizarre mental block when it came to shooting. He just wouldn't shoot. Totally weird.

Per what AG posted about Franck Ribery not getting the Ballon d'Or. He's Muslim. Converted from Christianity to Islam in 2002, as his wife is of Algerian descent.
Not that there haven't been any Muslim players in the running for this award, Yaya Toure, Karim Benzema, example. Yet don't recall any actually receiving it. So based on that premise, most receiving this award were of the Christian faith. If any Jewish players were ever nominated or won the Ballon d'Or, not aware of it. Really shouldn't matter what religion a player is. If they're exceptional, they deserve it.

It was before Vieira famously did his about turn ..

I was moving from the First Division to a team in the Champions League. I’d heard [Patrick] Vieira was leaving Arsenal and that opened up a space in midfield, so it seemed nailed on that Monday morning I’d be an Arsenal player.

Then, however, came the emergence of youngster Cesc Fabregas against Manchester United in the Community Shield. "I saw that a kid, Cesc Fabregas, only 17, started in Vieira’s place. Fabregas played a blinder but I didn’t think too much about the significance. I sat at home on Sunday night waiting for the call to arrange details of the next day. Arsenal! I couldn’t wait.

Your not trying to replicate Barcelona if your signing Michael Carrick really lets be honest.

Hang on. Zidane is a practicing Muslim and he won it (such a class player) Also George Weah too.

Messi could be a Scientologist and would have won it several times. It’s a stretch at best to suggest there’s religious bias involved.

I’ve never said he was trying to replicate Barcelona in 2004. It’s difficult to put a precise date on it because there probably isn’t one. Logic suggests it’s not something that would happen overnight.

Did Wenger go to bed one night thinking I’m going to continue having physical presence in midfield and wake up the following morning thinking sod that, I’m going to build a midfield with more skilful midgets? No, I’m certain it would have been more gradual.

But trying to sign Carrick in 2004 surely shouldn’t be taken as showing he didn’t want to change our style of play at a later date?

Song was the only midfielder in that lot and he made his debut in 2005. Was Baptista, who arrived in 2006, a midfielder or forward? Difficult to say really. Apart from a League Cup game at Anfield, his most suitable role was arguably the Emirates’ car park attendant.

Ribery never won it because he was never close to being the world's best player.

Diaby 2006 also. Certainly not a Barca tika taka type

True, but January 2006 still doesn’t mean Wenger didn’t move towards giving less of a priority to physical presence in midfield. We were actually still playing at Highbury in January 2006.

Let me clarify I’m not saying the stadium move was the date it happened. I’m convinced it must have been a gradual decision rather than an overnight one. But I suspect the process was mostly in the Emirates era.

Exactly why I said it shouldn't matter what religion a player is, if they deserve the award,, they should have it. Only recalled Zidane getting it after I posted. George Weah is now the 25th president of Liberia. No doubt his footballing days are behind him. He and AW go way back.

Yeah race may not be determinative but who you play for bloody is. Henry should have had it as best player in the world at least once.

Such panache, such confidence!

Especially given who our current right winger is. Pépé needs to be receiving the ball nearer goal.

Looking at the Ballon d'Or. The year Henry was runner up, Nedvěd won. You can't really claim that was unfair. Nedvěd was brilliant for a while.

Sure, it is a subjective decision, and the judges are not immune to the massive amounts of hype that surround these things. The same with other awards. And of course, there may be corruption sometimes. But the kind of 'everything is rigged' thinking that American Gooner is indulging in is a slippery slope. It panders to people with weak intellects and grievances, who don't like reality.

Look where the idea that 'everything is rigged' has got the Americans now with Trump.

Can we win on the road? We'll find out. Is the last win a change in fortunes or a one off?
Right now, 7th or 8th would be a godsend to some fans. How low the mighty have fallen.

Man Utd are quietly doing better in the league. Runner up last year, tied at the top of the table point wise. Yes, its early days, and who knows what will happen. But they are getting back quietly and with a manager many of their fans want out. Legend or not.

Anyway, with a somewhat settled XI, Arteta will have to produce. We are also looking for a recognizable tactic.

Hi OMOD, Gunny,

Hleb was one of the best dribblers I've ever seen, at Arsenal or anywhere else. Sadly, he could never produce the numbers of goals and assists that his mesmeric dribbling ability deserved. He seemed to get a mental block when faced with a goalscoring opportunity.

Looking forward to today's game, albeit with a little bit of unease. It should be a real physical test for our new look defence. It will be interesting to see how Ramsdale and Tomiyasu in particular cope with somewhat intimidating tactics and a hostile atmosphere.

If Lokonga plays he will face a robust physical test as well.

It feels very much like the Bolton and Stoke awaydays of years gone by. A proper mental and physical test, on the edge and sometimes beyond the letter of the law.

I think it will also be interesting to see how we deal with Burnley’s aerial attacks, assuming that’s what they’ll be doing. My guess is that Gabriel will have the primary responsibility for Burnley’s tall forward, whose name I’ve forgotten.* But when they get corners and free kicks with the opportunity to pump the ball at height into the box, I presume there will be others to deal with as well as Gabriel’s man.

You’ve said yourself socrates that White is not primarily known for his strength in the air, a reputation that was reinforced when I read of his play with Brighton. Indeed, White’s performance at Brentford did nothing to suggest that argument was wrong. Nor the game against Norwich who didn’t seem to attack much in the air. So it should be fascinating to see what happens today.

* Seems his name is Chris Wood.