Would be a good move for Holdiing as with Saliba, Gabriel and White ahead of him in the pecking order, he’s not going to play very often at Arsenal. But as you imply we’ll need another central defender in addition to those three.

I’m not sure about Hudson-Odoi. He’s extremely talented but rarely produces what he’s capable of. Considering what he’d cost I’d be very surprised if Arsenal bought him.

Yes a good player and a man of character who fitted the Arsenal shirt well.

Excellent player, very consistent and I felt he was always underrated during his time here. Great pro as well, and clearly loved playing for Arsenal as evidenced by his goodbye message for the fans when he left.

And now Elon Musk says he's gonna buy Man United.

Haven't they suffered enough !

https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-li ... ff8327f681

**And yes I know he has already walked back the statement.

I wouldn’t do it, model pro who always does his best. He was never really the same after a bad injury affected his mobility but he is useful to have in the squad.

Certainly no less than 25 million. It wouldn’t make sense and even then it only really is logical if we can find a homegrown LCB close to the price who could grow into the role and those don’t grow on trees. No for me

Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a comment about buying Manchester United. He later said he was joking.

Completely disagree on DeBruyne, Gerrard over Keane? Hmm....
I'll concede Shearer over Bergkamp, but if Bergkamp had spent his years in Italy in the EPL, no contest. Hate to see big Tony and Safe Hands not on there but can't disagree with the choices.

Agree. Decent pro. Limited but certainly better than some we've had over the recent past. Honest, committed and you're not really going to get a much better 4th CB. I think he's also considered one of the leaders in the dressing room. What he did against Leeds last year in going up to the fourth official calling out the racist abuse towards some of our players was the mark of a good pro. A false economy unless the offer is genuinely too good to turn down.

It has been nice to see the club develop a proper transfer strategy in recent years, where we clearly put a lot of effort in identifying players with the right age, profile and character who can be part of the club achieving success in the long term rather than just being good for now.

Compare that to the absolute scattergun approach of Man Utd, who just want to sign someone as long as they cost a lot of money. There's talk now that Rabiot has turned them down so they're going for Casemiro instead - that's like us missing out on Yeremi Pino so we place a bid for Salah! Absolutely no clear thinking behind their targets, no proper strategy at all.

New all or nothing trailer is hysterical.

Mikel utterly bollocking the players after the Newcastle game. Screaming at them like kids

I've been a fan of his for his work ethic and professionalism and the times he played better than expected. That said, if its his one chance to be a starter and get the pro career he wants, I think he's earned a bit of a discount on his price.

I'm assuming he knows he won't be even 3rd choice any more and his minutes will be limited to cup ties against non EPL sides, injuries to first team players.

I have juxtapose that with the needs of the club as well.

They are winning 2-1. Swansea went 1-0 up and now are down to 10 men.
Emile Smith Rowe and Vieira and Cédric all playing. Cédric curled a free kick in to the top corner

I see a few of these with current Liverpool players in, yes they are special but at their peak they’ve been bested 4-1 in titles by Man City. For my money you can’t have Van Dijk in there ahead of kompany let alone some of the top CB of the 90’s and early 2000’s who won multiple titles.

See a few people who were at the game say Vieira whilst looking a bit off the pace and rusty (understandable as first game back from injury), you could see the classy touches.

Looking forward to seeing him play in the first team. As his signing came out of the blue and we haven’t seen him yet, and the first team has a clean bill of health so we haven’t needed him he feels very much like a bonus signing.

I’m convinced there’s at least one more player to come in towards the end of the window

I suppose not everybody was aware that the Arse v Swansea U21 match was free to watch on the Arsenal.com website or Arsenal app.

I couldn’t see us loaning Pépé out (which seems to be the suggestion) if we didn’t have a wide player coming in.

Holding is a tricky one. Decent back-up, good character, well-liked by the team, and now that we finally have some squad depth you don't want us to go back to having a thin squad.

At the same time, he's just 4th choice and he doesn't cover multiple positions, so if Villa comes in and offers 25m it would be hard to say no. That money could go towards signing someone who could potentially improve our starting eleven, and we do have Tomiyasu who could fill in centrally if needed.

We have a really exciting pair of young full backs. Norton-Cuffy on the right and Lino Sousa on the left. 18 and 17 respectively. Norton-Cuffy will likely go on loan again this year and if he does well could be integrated properly in the first team soon as Cédric’s replacement

We've had a really good window so far and Saliba is like a new signing but it does feel that to get to the next level we are still a couple of players short of what we need. A CM and a winger if Pépé goes.

Having spent so much already it is fully understandable that we are not prepared to spend inflated over the top fees for players but it would still be disappointing not to have that extra boost a couple of additional players would bring.

If anything is going to happen you would expect it to break pretty soon unless they can sign someone out of the blue like Vieira.

I agree it is a difficult one. As you say he represents decent back up, but is now firmly fourth choice. Unless two of Saliba, Gabriel and White are out at the same time for whatever reason, the only games Holding is likely to start are in the early rounds of cups (by which I’m including the group stage of the Europa League) against nondescript opposition.

He’s 27 next month, so is no longer a promising youngster. At this stage of his career, surely it would be much better for Holding himself to play for Aston Villa where he’d play loads more games? Did our friend from across the Atlantic imply there’s arguably a responsibility for Arsenal to do the right thing for Holding? If so, I think he made a valid point.

I think it’s highly likely that Holding would have a more satisfactory career at Aston Villa than Arsenal next season and would therefore welcome the chance of going there. If Arsenal get an acceptable transfer fee for him and can find an adequate replacement as a squad back up while Holding joins a big club like Villa and plays regularly, then I’d say everyone comes out of the transfer a winner. Arsenal, Aston Villa, and importantly Holding himself.

Journalism is strange. Some media have asked Cucurella if he will cut his hair (to stop it being pulled). Would they ask Romero if he's going to stop pulling other player's hair?

Chelsea spending 22m on aubameyang apparently.

Seems a nuts transfer

Going to be a lot of questions that they have managed that fee and we got literally nothing for him 12 months ago.

Matt law saying Chelsea are willing to spend over £150m on Wesley Fofana, Anthony Gordon, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Frenkie de Jong and Cesare Casadei.

*%^@*** hell new all or nothing is painful viewing.

Arteta is right the spurs game was a joke. Weakest penalty award of all time, daft second yellow.

Defence riddled with injuries at Newcastle I forgot we even had to sub Tommy during hat game,

Arrrghh.

If they manage to get those 5 for anything close to £150m they'd have done very well......or cost, whether they are the players they need I'm not so sure. Would Fofana get in the top 10 CB in the prem? De jong looks very good for that deeper holding mid who can play. Gordon is unbelievably raw (and dives a lot), Aubameyang is 33 and we all know how he played with us in the final months - don't know anything about Casadei.

Leicester want £80m for Fofana, Barca want north of £60m for De Jong, Everton just rejected £45m for Gordon, I think the Casadei deal is nearly done for around £20m - then whatever Aubameyang costs. It looks closer to £225m+ to me

Saliba, Zinchenko and Jesus have had a huge impact on the quality of our team. All 3 are versatile to play in other positions which helps greatly as well
Vieira is the wildcard and Marquinos is one for the future and at £3m is a low risk gamble.

If you were being greedy I'd be looking at 4 positions
1.Cover/competition for Partey
2.Another striker
3.a left-footed/sided centre back
4.Right winger

3 and 4 probably only happen if Holding and Pépé move on. I don't think 2 happens. I think another midfielder could come but if its Tielemans (who I like) that isn't Partey cover really.

If Pépé leaves and you can bring in a right-winger who can play as a No.9 as well then we're looking very strong in attack

Casemiro to Man U is gaining momentum, apparently £70m and £400k a week on a deal that gives him 2 more years than his current Man U deal. He's 30 years old

That is a car crash transfer strategy. Casemiro is obviously a class player, multiple CL winner and formed a formidable midfield 3 with Modric and Kroos......not Fred and McTominey.

This smacks of the arrogant quick fix route. Man U are getting rejected by targets all the time because their house is a mess, they need to be humble and admit they can't attract the players they think they can - and those at that level who they might get, like Casemiro, may not get any better than they are, may not have the same hunger and maybe are on the lookout for their final chance for a big wage move before the twilight of their career.

Give me Arsenal's current strategy any day of the week

Forest paying £44.5m for Morgan Gibbs-White from Wolves. That's what we paid for Gabriel Jesus.

Crazy

One thing the Amazon documentary has showed though is the kind of futility and difficulty of Arsenals predicament over the last few years

You have this young coach shouting at his players when bad results come saying it isn’t good enough because he might get fired if he doesn’t finish higher than fourth because the club has been in the wilderness for years yet in his own heart of hearts as a professional he must have known this is a very young team with little adequate back up on the bench. I mean he’s even screaming at them after Newcastle when we had a makeshift defence and no partey.

The players must have been in the dressing room thinking *%^@* sake mate I’m only 22. I mean the documentary shows the level of focus, tactics and motivation our coaching team gives the team so for them still not to do it really I don’t think you can really fault the coaches or even the players really. It’s like the standard we need to achieve is beyond our ability to deliver financially and professionally.

I really hope this season we can return a cup or league position that gives the coaching team some credit to continue our development because the futility of changing and starting again in such a highly competitive sporting league seems just futile.

Yeah that post sounds negative on a re read and maybe I woke up on the wrong side bed today.

I guess maybe I just feel even despite our new signings i just kind of don’t see it right now if you know what I mean and I’m not sure it’s anyones fault.

I’d say based on his initial showing Gabriel Jesus easily looks our best player coming into this side and I’m not sure if that says something about where we are, after that saka and loads of promising players but it doesn’t feel like one for now.

Who knows. We’ll probably blow away the teams in our next few games, normal service will be resumed and I’ll be back in William hill sticking a monkey on us winning the league and buying pints of madri for all and sundry around kings cross after every game we win.

With Arsenal scoring the highest number of goals from corners since the start of last season I thought I'd share a stat I read. In the Prem league there is a 3% chance of scoring from a corner. Inswinging and Outswinging corners have roughly the same % chance at around 2.5% but short corners have closer to 5% chance of ending up in a goal.

Unsurprisingly City take the most short corners and perhaps their goals are skewing the stat, so someone like Fulham shouldn't start switching to short corners to get a 3% better chance from them.

Arsenal put 75% of their corners in as inswinging. Teams who do this tend to have players who can deliver accurate flat corners at pace (Saka, martinelli). Liverpool were one of the biggest % of outswinging corners and teams that do this tend to have taller players to come on to the ball and power headers in (van dijk)

Completely forgot about Kompany. Also Stam?

Soc mentioned a CM and I agree. Maybe I've been spoiled by Paddy. Partey is a fine player. I've said before, I thought he'd be a wee bit better based on comments about him and the little I've seen of him. That said, he's very good, but I want a more dominating sweeper type if not a Kante at his prime type.

I know what you mean, but for the first time in ages, I kind of know what we are, where we're at as a club and the potential we have. I think we absolutely can get top 4, wouldn't be surprised if we didn't, but absolutely know that we are improving as a club. If Arteta was sacked tomorrow, the identity of the club and starting point for any new manager is the highest it's been for quite a while. We have an identity again and whilst there absolutely will be some blips, we feel on an upwards trajectory for sure. With one or two more signings, which I feel optimistic will happen, I think we could get CL football again.

https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/clubs/

Really looking forward to the Europa this season.
Last season without Europe was just horrible.
Looking at that list of teams in link provided we must be one of the strong favourites.
Frustrating that when we have been in it recently we have had strong teams drop into it or strong teams already in it like Atletico who beat us in the semi and Chelsea in the final another year.
Look at when Utd bloody won it , was weaker than it was for us and even last year the final was Rangers v Frankfurt. Having said that Frankfurt did knock out Barcelona!
Have to hope all the favourites have strong champions league qualifying groups so none of them drop into the Europa.
Really have to take this competition seriously when it gets to the knock out stages.

I think most fans share this sentiment now, which is nice to see. Someone made a comment that it's been a while since Arsenal went this long in a summer transfer window without signing anyone (almost a month since Zinchenko joined) without the fans having a meltdown about it.

Shame for Charlie Patino although (so far) it doesn’t sound like a long term issue.

https://www.lancs.live/sport/football/f ... e-24790775

To add to this Wolves themselves just bought Matheus Nunes - one of the best and most sought after young players in Europe for virtually the same price

https://www.mailplus.co.uk/edition/spor ... hared_link

Mike Dean admitting he got the Romero hair pull wrong. I know a draw was good for us, but that mistake from an experienced VAR ref who had time to review the incident from multiple angles cost Chelsea 2 points and meant Romero isn't facing a 3 game ban.

*Romero might miss 3 games with an injury but that's by-the-by

We're the current favourites for the trophy at 6/1 or with most bookies.
As you say, you need the big boys to finish top 2 in their CL group, that includes Spurs - they can get knocked out next round but I don't want them dropping in to Europa (finishing 4th in their group would be ideal!)

In another piece, Cucrella said he wouldn't cut his hair.