Yeah, I think the plan for the rest of the season is White, Gabriel, Holding and Tomiyasu at cb, Tomiyasu, Cédric and Tavares at rb and Tierney and Tavares at lb. Might work, but it's a little risky.

I wonder if we might go for the Forest RB

There are 19 arsenal players who have made an appearance under Arteta who he has since sold, contract expired or are currently out on loan

Reports suggest we did pay up Kolasnic’s contract. Mari was on £85k per week, AMN was on £52k per week, Chambers was on £50k per week, and Balogun was on £32k per week. That’s £219k a week.

£219k a week is a very high wage for a single player, a pretty high wage across two players, and a relatively average wage for three first team players. But the important point is that the squad, as it currently stands, is materially weaker than it was at the beginning of January. With us chasing fourth place, unless we are going to sign a couple of players before the window expires, I’ll be one of the fans going spare.

Cor. Wow.

At the end of the day we only have another 13 games to contest. 3 centre backs plus Tommy might be enough. Saliba comes in next year

Shame Callum left. Good player I thought and always gave his best. Shame really

Isn't it 17 games? Not that thats a massive amount more.

Might have got the number wrong

At least the women’s team won 2-1 at home to Brighton after being 0-1 down at half time.

Only just over half way through our season.

The goings on at the club seem very strange but in truth it’s just a continuation of shipping out the dead wood. It’s an ongoing process. I think we’re bringing one or two in personally. Nothing more than a hunch rather than any knowledge.

If he’ll replace an outgoing Leno, I’ll be surprised if it’s not another weakening of the squad.

Probably but can a club like Arsenal pay a reserve keeper 100 grand a week.

Would make sense to run a tighter ship till we are back in Europe

Matt Turner signed. Posted that Weds. Joked about it, yet simplest, quickest and least expensive so far. Summer start for a GK with a decent record.

I'm pretty sure Leno isn't happy to just sit in the reserves as he could easily get a #1 spot with another club. So wouldn't discount him pushing for a transfer and out best option is to maximise the sale value.

On a side note we seem to have had plenty of reasonable keepers go through the club and onto greener pastures. Fabianski, Szczensy, Martinez all still #1's at their respective clubs after being 2nd string at Arsenal.

Cutting it close again in the transfer market. We desperately need an established Striker and another box to box Midfielder.

Agree with the midfielder G7 and also any chance of Top 4 would seem to ride on another striker. Then again, is it more the midfield issues disrupting things more than having another striker? We seemed to be doing ok when Aubameyang first got dropped and were scoring goals too. Injuries to Tomayasu didn't help as well as Tierney who doesn't seem to be the same since his return from injury.

Did you see the arsenal women’s team also got one of those FA charges for the players failing to conduct themselves in an appropriate manner (or whatever the official wording is)? In the 1-1 draw for other City a City cross field pass hit the referee and diverted the ball nicely in to the path of the onrushing winger and City scored in the next 2-3 touches. Arsenal women were furious because the rules say the game should be stopped if the ball hits the ref. 3 arsenal players complained seemingly respectfully and none of them were booked for dissent.
It does seem, like the men’s incident, that the FA try to make it all about indisciplined players rather than incompetent referee. But that’s a pretty low precedent bar to set for any future potential charges.

Looks like Traore will move to Barca after turning down Spurs’s £15m bid. And Luis Diaz could go to Liverpool for £52m after Spurs bid £35m for him.
Not to pick on spurs but both players making understandable choices there.
Spurs struggling to move on their deadwood

Guimares to Newcastle is almost done, it is 42m euros plus a further 8m euros if Newcastle avoid relegation. So a £42m deal. When you have unlimited money and are in Newcastle's position getting a player like this in isn’t a huge deal for them. Almost feels like when City got Robinho. As long as they stay up it doesn't matter if he is a success or not because it does more in terms of legitimises their ambitions and will attract others.

Newcastle will go crazy in the summer if they stay up. It is another 'sigh' moment for football though, how long before Newcastle are permanently in the Champions League places or winning titles? The wealth is like nothing we've seen before, it could be under 5 years

They used to say the same sort of thing about Arsenal back in our glory days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_England_club

If Liverpool get Diaz it would be sensible planning. I've long thought Liverpool had an issue coming up in that a lot of their best players including their famous front 3 are all near or over 30 and to let that drift and have to replace them all in a short period of time would be impossible.

But they bought in Jota, 25 who looks easily good enough to eventually replace one of the front 3 and keep Liverpool at title challenging level, and now potentially Dias also 25.

Their next challenge is replacing henderson and milner from their midfield, and I do think they made a mistake not replacing Wijnaldum.

It still won't be easy because if you're not sugar daddy funded you have to have a high hit rate with your transfers, which is exactly what Liverpool have had in the past 4 years or so. Hopefully we can build something similar, we seem to have had a good hit rate this summer and have built around a couple of academy players as well. We're maybe 3 years behind Liverpool when they started on their current path.

Some reports we might have made a £25m bid for Neves. Highly doubtful, but I suspect Wolves would want at least double that and would be very reluctant to sell mid season when they could probably get exactly the same price at the end of the season

They signed the guy from Burnley purely to disrupt their competition for relegation. Mental. Money without conscience

What’s their odds on a title in the next 5 years ? 8 to 1 Hmmn that might be worth a flutter

Saw this table in twitter.

There are some obvious mitigating circumstances in there. Also shows the best sales have come from academy players.
T\he glaring ones are probably getting no fee for Ramsey, Wilshere and Welbeck. And then also almost being forced to release certain players for free because of their age and size of wage/contract.

Özil obviously stands out as well

For me there has always been a list of players we should have taken back and I think we didn't because we were petty about how they left. Starting with Anelka....Fabregas...and as painful as it is and I hate him for how and where he left, I'd have taken RvP back after he left Man Utd if he was willing to come off the bench.

We didn't leave on too bad terms with Ramsey. I'd welcome him back. He is dynamic.

Our relationship with Aubameyang is gone. We need to get another great striker. At his best, Aubameyang could have fit in all or at worst, almost any side in the league.

We need antother. I think in time Martinelli can be like that. But until then we need a great striker. Since Henry, we have had Rvp for a season despite coming in, in 2004 (stayed injured), Adebayor (and Nasri scored like a striker out of the midfield), Sanchez, am I missing anyone? And then Aubameyang is the best out right striker we have had for some time.

We need another top striker again. In this day and age we need to spend big money. We rolled the dice on Pépé for 70 mil. It didn't work out but I am not upset. We needed to show ambition with our wallet. I didn't think we would spend that kind of money.

It's time to spend big again. Someone who will have immediate impact.

So with the American GK not coming in until the summer I presume that means Leno stays until then also. Then he'll have 1 year left on his deal so we'd probably be lucky to generate much more than £10m for him. At 29 he's still quite young for a GK.

Barcelona and Juve have made official approaches to take Aubameyang on loan until the summer.

If we can't get a striker in you'd have to turn it down.

However, if we can and if we want to be rid of Aubameyang permanently in the summer (still 1 year left on his deal at that point) then sending him on loan to a huge european club in the hope he gets some form and entices them to move permanently wouldn't be the worst strategic move

He can't come till me (and USA Martin...remember him? ) have vetted him.

Unless they can send someone of quality the other way, its a no. And if its a no, we should use him. Okay, he's out of favor. Lets use him to get 4th. If we aren't brining someone in and we aren't going to sell him, then why risk not getting 4th by not using him?

Slightly misleading. Mkhitaryan wasn’t really free. We swapped him in for a player who cost £31.7m. So I would put that down as another loss.

Saliba was named in the French league team of the week for the 8th time this season. If we hadn't already signed him we and many others would be all over him. We need to make sure this goes right when he comes back in the summer.
Every top club in the world is looking for CB who are: Tall, quick, strong, technically excellent, good passers, front foot defenders rather than sliding tackle types and young........ Van Dijk kind of raised the bar here and that is what everyone is now looking for.

Can he play up front?

'66 Cup final. Everton vs Wednesday. I loved this video for a few reasons. First, its in color. Second, they showed the locker room prior and you can see and feel the nervousness of both sides. The third, is camera angles I haven't seen in prior '60s videos.

I didn't look up the score beforehand. I prefer it that way. It was an exciting game.

I never knew just how good Everton was in the '80s. Liverpool and them both very good at the same time must have had that city rocking. I can only imagine. I can also only imagine just how much intracity violence, hooliganism, that probably went on there. I'm guessing at that.

Nketiah to Newcastle it seems. We are definitely bringing in a striker.

And just as Everton qualified for the European Cup they found themselves banned as a consequence of the Juventus vs Liverpool disaster.

This later affected Arsenal too of course.

You’re ahead of the game with that news about Nketiah. Hope that you’re right about incoming but I’m not that optimistic.