It seems so far the transfer window and the overall plan has started pushing things in the right direction. This is the sort of transfer window we should have been planning from the moment wenger left but no one put the strategy and long term vision in place.
Drive the wage bill down, bring in younger players with good attitudes.

Ramsdale suddenly looks a great deal considering the English premium and the age GK can play until, potentially buying a player for 12 years there.
Tomiyasu looks suited to the league. Aerially good, fast, intelligent, committed
White, this is where we had to pay the English premium, but Michael Keane was £30m, Mings was £30m.
Tavares at £6-7m and having to replace Kolasinac was going to be hard to be a failure. Again, god athletic profile, tall, quick and strong
Lokonga at 21 and £17m will grow in to this side, really like what we’ve seen so far
Ødegaard, £30m 22 years old, clearly talented and dare I say it, the closest thing we’ve had to Cazorla when he shifted to the slighter deeper midfield role. Against teams where we dominate the ball having Ødegaard a bit deeper and dictating play rather than a traditional 10 could work well. A bit like De Bruyne’s position at Man City.

There are still big areas of improvement required. Central midfield could still do with another player, we need more goal threat from our wide forwards and 2 of our 4 strikers leave for free next year.

As I said th other day, TG, for us to have an outstanding season it feels like Emile Smith Rowe and Saka need to add more goals and assists to their game because we simply do not create enough chances or score enough goals.

Hi Rich,

Promising signings of the right age and profile.

Our back four and keeper passed the test against a physically intimidating side on Saturday, now they need to show they can pass the test against more technically adept and more pacy opponents.

It is still obvious we do not create enough chances or score enough goals given the possession we enjoy in most games. That is a problem because it means even poor and mediocre opponents are only ever a set-piece goal or mistake away from getting something out of a game against us.

We need more goals from somewhere because I feel Aubameyang may now be past his peak, or at least his game may no longer suit our style of play.

You can’t criticise because they are so young have done well but there’s not many goal scorers on the pitch. We will need to hope Ødegaard and Pépé can stay clear of injury this season. Ali’s unfortunately there’s no other options either lokonga and Martinelli equally isn’t experienced replacements.

Congrats to our sister team, the LA Rams for a 2-0 start to their campaign.

I like Lokonga. Is it an either/or with him and Partey? Both can't occupy the midfield at the same time or can they? And if so, who is out?

I like the Gabriel/White pairing so far. They have figure each other out. How is Gabriel's english by the way? Asking because center backs do a lot of talking to each other.

Anyway, we have fairly strong back 5 now and we have good defensive midfield coverage. We should get better defensively. The attack has to figure out a few things. I want to see more of Martinelli as well.

The Burnley game showed all of Arteta/Edu's signings for this year have fantastic potential. They also look like they will play well together, which isn't something we could always say about Arsenal's signings.

Aubameyang's drop in form is a real problem but if we can get through this season then a new striker next season might be the final stepin the rebuild.

I thought both Lokonga and AMN looked good when they came on. Lokonga looks like he could partner Thomas for the next few years. He already looks like an upgrade over Xhaka from a physical perspective.

It was all very underwhelming McQ. He really gave the ref a hard time….questioning his competency…Effing and blinding non stop.
I was on the right of a front three…. He played where he liked!! Don’t remember the score This has to be mid 70s I do remember it was a very sloping pitch at Underhill where the game was played.
Doesn’t diminish my admiration for his career at Spurs though.Like I say he was a fantastic goal taker in his pomp.
He played at the tail end of blokes my Dads age who would go to Tott one week and AFC the next Some of them had season tickets for both clubs. Late 60s and early 70s it all got parochial and the partisanship we know today was born
I think that’s partly the reason he was so respected plus his natural ability and his cheeky chappie outward appearance ( enhanced on Saint and Greavesie)
RIP Jim.

Only caught the last 20 mins of the Burnley game so can't comment too much on the performance. The part I did see was a bit frustrating, we had some really good chances to counter attack but wasted them with poor passing that looked sloppy more than anything. A 1-0 lead at this level is always volatile. Defensively we looked really solid though, and the highlights doesn't really show that many chances at all for Burnley.

Really liked the starting lineup. All our best attacking players at the same time, positive stuff from Arteta. The Spurs game is huge; they're there for the taking and a good performance and win could see our confidence go up big time. Still need to improve a lot going forward, only one goal from open play in five games isn't good enough.

Really liked seeing that. Ramsdale and Gabriel was there quickly, and even Lokonga got a little shove in as the player walked away. We need the team to build that camaraderie where they're willing to fight for each other, we've been way too soft for way too long.

Blind auction for English Premier League rights could reshape Aussie streaming landscape

https://www.smh.com.au/business/compani ... 58sx4.html

It's been with Optus since 2015 - Interesting to see which of the 4 bids the highest for it.

Sister team? Really?

You must be the only Arsenal supporter who cares even remotely.

Yes, when AG confessed to 'trolling' the forum by posting the LA Rams' logo, I had no idea what it was. And once I found out, I wasn't much the wiser as to why he posted it.

It might have been underwhelming for you, Andy, but still a pretty good story! My favourite tale about Greaves was him competing in the 1970 London-to-Mexico rally. I wonder what West Ham fans thought about their new star striker getting involved in a gruelling 16,000-mile professional car race in the close season. And Jimmy and his co-driver came sixth. Amazing.

I think the day the rally ended Bobby Moore got nicked in Bogota, Colombia. Fast forward and I ended up marrying a lady from Bogota, Colombia.

I thought my emoji would been a clue I was being sarcastic.I hate them and wish they'd crash and burn so Kroenke has to eat all that investment.

Someone told me his time at Barnet was during the worse part of his alcoholism and there wasn’t a game he didn’t turn up pissed to apparently and despite that he was easily their best player playing in midfield. Funny you mention refs because he got a 6 game ban for refusing to accept a red card there

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fUnRUAKIy ... e=youtu.be

Good interview with Per Mertesacker here.

Sister team? Gawd help us. The only "sisterly" thing about it s having same owner. No doubt AG watches all LA Rams games with sheer gusto as an avid fan.

The league cup game will likely see youngsters. We should win it but its a cup tie so who they hell knows. I'd like us to go for it in earnest. Its the easiest of the 3 competitions we are in. By easy I don't mean literally with regards to ease to win it but its the one that we have the best chance in advancing in and the one that the top 6 are going to field their weakest sides of the 3 domestic competitons. We may with some luck get to a semi or final. Arteta needs it.

That said, I hope we aren't looking ahead to the NLD. Not many players in the league cup will be playing in the NLD one would think.

https://twitter.com/prime_brodie/status ... 49475?s=21

2 more minutes of Patino highlights from the Chelsea game

Agree with those that say we need more goals from our attack minded midfielders, as much as they carried us at times last year that does mean Saka and Smith Rowe.
One thing I’ve noticed from the games so far is Smith Rowe is much more willing to shoot and is getting in those goal scoring positions. Right now the composure and conviction in the finish is missing. That goal he scored in extra time v Newcastle in the fa cup is a prime example of a classic finish. Compared to the shot too close to the gk v Norwich and the relatively tame prod v Burnley.
If he keeps getting in those areas the goals will come.
For a successful season we need maybe 8 league goals each from Saka, Pépé, Ødegaard and Smith Rowe. We’d also need a similar 30+ contribution from all our strikers combined. Then add in another 10-15 goals from central mid, defence and own goals and you’ve got the right number of goals to finish 5th

As far as poor refereeing goes, this is probably the worst decision I've seen in a long time. Yellow card.

My point was that none of us cares enough to hate them or to take any interest in them at all. Completely off the radar.

Did you not recognise the agressor?

If he’d been a Man U or Burnley player against us it would have just been a warning.

Maitland Nile’s agent getting pelters on Panorama for being dodgy. He asked for 125k agency fees for a player too young.

Wonder if this poses difficulties for Arsenal and explains their difficult attitude towards AMN. Might be something there

This was a theme throughout (underhit passes, passes behind the attacker, etc). At the moment I'll chalk it down to players getting to know each other but some crisper, more accurate attacking passes would have seen us 3 up.

I'm hoping that the young team will start to get the feel for when a break is on and transition to attack more quickly. At the moment some players take off but then others are still a second or 2 slower.

\

When you put it like that...

Always liked Per. Grounded guy

I understand from one of podcasts that the grass was cut extra long so to cause issues for us. Could explain some of the under hit passes. I think they are still trying to get to know each other as well.

It was a joke of sorts, which got lost in the post. I gave the impression that I followed them, judging from your reaction, and I wanted to clarify that, that's all. No worries. The only reason I even knew they were 2-0 is a friend back in LA went to the game and posted it. I defiintely don't expect anyone to follow or care for them, I don't either. It's more about a dig at Kroenke in backhanded way than anything.

Would love it if the LA project failed though.

I wonder what new faces we'll see in the league cup game. Is Martinelli fit? I never got a chance to see Wimbledon in the top flight. Heard stories though, and from what I gather, their strategy was long ball to the strikers hoping for it to fall kindly. Or do I have it wrong. I would hear the people say 'Wimbledon' when clubs did that. I don't think of tennis automacally as well.

Funnily enough I was wondering mid match whether they'd over or under watered the pitch before kick off to mess things up. Now I'm thinking it would mess teams up if the groundsman did long and short bands all over the place.

Do Burnley do that for other (or lots of) teams as well as Arsenal? After all, we’re hardly the only Premier League side to have more talented players than them. If not, perhaps it’s no more than a podcast clickbait?

Apparently Burnley do it for most of the games involving bigger teams.

Long grass and don’t water the pitch. I read arsenal were training last week on pitches that hadn’t been cut as much to prepare.

Look at the period of play when Pépé should have played in Aubameyang on the edge of the box. Normally he would play that pass 9 times out of 10 but it was under hit because of the pitch.

Lots of teams have these little things they do at their own ground to give them an advantage. I recall a story once about Torquay United (I think) painting the away dressing rooms mustard yellow and brown as they were uneasy colours to look at. Also wasn't there one with Stoke where they reduced the width of the pitch to make the long throws more potent, or the wing areas of their pitch were basically a mud-bath as Stoke had no interest in fancy wing play as they launched it straight down the middle.

I find if you criticise this there are too many people (particularly dim people on social media) who will say "do you expect Burnley/Stoke to just try to play tika taka and roll over and let you play your pretty football, they'd get beaten 10-0 every game" Of course no one is ever saying teams have to play this way. Mostly fans just want the game to be played within the rules, certainly with respect to fouls and overly aggressive pre-meditated tackling. The longer grass and non-watering is almost certainly in the rules as being fine but as a purist I find it a bit of a shame that that is the limit of Burnley's ambition, that they exist to be the anti-football team. They will point to teams who have come up and played expansively and gone down, and they'd be quite right - but having been established in the top flight for what must be 4-5 years now you'd think their ambitions may change. Brighton are a good example of this. They were pretty dogmatic and turgid when they first came up, now they play decent football and have bloodied the nose of many big teams.