Of course, I doubt the only team in his career that regret signing him are Man U 1 year ago. He bought huge success to all those teams so I'd have loved us to have got him instead of Man U back in 2004 or so. Doesn't change my opinion of him as a person and his current attitude

He would have been amazing for us Andy. What a player he was in those days, would have loved to have had him.

Might have been just click-bait (if it existed then!), but around the time we were supposedly courting Ronaldo, weren't we also linked to Van Nistelrooy?
We've come a long way from the Ceefax and Compuserve days!
Still have my short-wave radio though - a life-saver for hard to get footie intel back in the day!

Might well have been click bait RB......I think I saw him in an eleven.....of players we woulda coulda shoulda signed.....Ibrahimovic as TG pointed out VN as you say and I think Drogba also.....who knows.....what may have been

Terrific player and a terrific body of work......I still f...ing hate the flash you know what

Looking ahead to January signings, I'm struggling to think of a better potential signing than Ruben Neves. He just ticks all the boxes for me; very comfortable in the no 6 position but could easily play as an 8 as well in our team, technically very good, excellent passer, ability to play under pressure, not afraid to get stuck in and has a very good shot on him as well. He's also just 25 but already have four excellent seasons in the PL so he's unlikely to need any adjustment period at all.

It's hard to speculate about our budget and whether he'd be available, but for the second part you have to figure he'd jump at the chance to come to Arsenal playing the way we're doing so maybe he could push for a move if we show interest. I think he'd be an amazing signing, and would go a long way to increase our chances of challenging for the full season.

Really hope we go for PL proven players in January, without completely stepping away from the transfer policy that has worked so well in recent years. You never know what will happen next season with so many teams capable of spending big, so we have to make the most of this opportunity.

Yes in those early days and then resale value. But now I don’t rate him

100% agree. Every time I see him play he impresses. Arteta is supposedly an admirer and as you say he has 4 years under his belt in the Prem. Ticks all the boxes!

His antics are similar to Aubameyang

Agree with you on Neves. Would love for us to put in a bid. I'm quite sure Neves will relish the chance to jump from relegation candidate to potential Champions.

I like the shout for Neves, in terms of knowing exactly what you’re getting that can’t be many better sure things. The lone 6 is a very difficult role to recruit for, I think it might be the hardest role in football right now. Firstly very few teams play with a single player at the base of the midfield with 5 attack minded players ahead of them. We do and City do and have two of the best in the world at this role in Partey and Rodri. Fabinho at Liverpool could do it but Liverpool don’t play the same formation.

I think there is more than something in the links to Danilo from Palmeiras, he’s one of the best in the Brazilian league, just won the title there and Jan is a good time for them to move as their season is finished, he’s 21 and can play def mid or more advanced, rumoured to be available for £20-25m which is probably half the price of Neves.

I could see Arsenal doing something like that for the def mid position and going bigger on a winger

I could see that as well, he seems like a great talent and the rumours are persistent. My only concern would be that he's very young and coming from a completely different league, so it might take some time for him to adapt. I really want us to push on from a position of strength and keep an eye on this season as well as the future. With Neves you would get someone who could do a job right away, and as he's only 25 he could still give us at least 6-7 years.

What are Cristiano's best options out there? What about these?
Atletico Madrid? Milan? Chelsea?

I'm not saying he's not probably right but I've always thought it was an unsaid rule not to openly criticize an ex teammate in the press? If you are retired and you are a pundit, its okay to critique your present team.

I've always understood that to be an unsaid, unspoken 'rule' across all sports. Is Rooney's comments about Cristiano a violation of that unsaid rule?

I would have loved to have signed him. I can remember the first time I saw him play and he scared the bejeezus out of me. I knew he was going to be a HUGE problem, possibly transformative for them.

We wouldn't have been able to keep him as long as someone like Bergkamp or Henry, but he would have been massive for us in terms of impact.

By the way, tough finals loss for the Phillies, but the 'Iggles' are doing well, despite their first loss last night.

This is the bit I don’t get. I can’t see many clubs willing to take his 500k a week. Maybe an MLS club with a divvy owner. Honestly any club would have to be out of their minds and the manager and owner taking leave of their own senses to sign him.

If he signed for Chelsea it would be the funniest thing of all time. It would be brilliant a total circus I’m praying it happens. Potter will have dropped him in no time at all and would have him sat next to aubameyang on the bench with them both moaning and undermining the manager. A festival of dickheadery and so so chelsea

We’re all getting so ahead of ourselves

Jacob Rees Mogg was referred to on LBC as the haunted pencil.....

That’s perfect

You seen this ..

https://youtu.be/hdTATfc_QSg

It’s amazing even at 12 years old he was a total piece of shite

Inter Miami. Beckham showed interest early October.

Slow day at work as I'm waiting for IT to take care of some things...so I had a look at the World Cup squads to see what players from which teams are likely to start for their nations, and I have to say Arsenal look in decent shape.

We have ten players going, and from those I count four as unlikely to start (Jesus, Martinelli, White, Ramsdale). Four seem nailed on (Xhaka, Partey, Turner, Tomiyasu) and two more who are likely to start or at least feature heavily (Saka, Saliba).

In contrast, I figure Man City have six in the nailed on category (De Bruyne, Dias, Cancelo, Bernardo Silva, Akanji, Ake) with another five likely (Stones, Foden, Laporte, Rodri, Gundogan). That leaves Grealish, Ederson, Alvarez, Phillips and Walker.

The schedule will be quite hectic when the season re-starts, so not having as many players feature heavily at the World Cup might be a slight edge. Man City have both Chelsea and Man Utd away in January, and they'd probably want their best players in good shape there.

And none of our nailed on starters are in teams likely to go very far. Saliba looks like he'd thrive with more work. Saka would be the only real worry.

It hasn’t even kicked off yet but I am already so bored with this poxy World Cup. I have no great interest in international football or tournaments, but this one has been a truly ridiculous idea from the moment Qatar was awarded the competition.

Qatar has a land area of about 4,500 sq miles and a population of about 2.8m. For context, England is 50,000 sq miles and has a population of about 57m.

It gets far dafter though. It never fully occurred to me until quite recently (my geography is as poor as my level of interest) that the entire competition is to be held within its only city, Doha which has an urban area of about 50 sq miles. London is getting on for 700 sq miles.

Imagine the small semi-circular bit of London contained within the North Circular Road and the Thames. Now plonk down 8 brand new stadiums, each of 40,000 to 80,000 capacity, some just a mile apart, and we’re all set for the North London World Cup.

How utterly stupid is that as an idea?

I mean it should never have gone ahead. Seems so crazy alone that England have flown out and will play next Monday with barely any preparation time. Kane has been looking lethargic anyway.

A mate is going to the wales games, apparently it’s 15 quid for a beer out there at normal times. I do think some of the fans travelling are in for a shock. Apparently Fifa have booked up 80 percent of the main hotels out there for sponsors. It’s purely about cash and *%^@ all else

I’ll make a prediction. Russia will get to host the tournament before England do again. Totally bent

As recently as the '90s, the top-flight rugby union team Racing Club de Paris used to cycle to their home games wearing pink bow ties and stopping for champagne refreshers on the way.

That should be a positive requirement for World Cup teams in Doha, making a virtue of the tiny travel distances. They could choose different coloured bow ties. Roadside bands dressed as clowns could play Entry of the Gladiators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmQFY4XgR98

Nobody here will live long enough to see England as hosts again. Here's another joke.

The 2026 World Cup is to be hosted by Canada, USA and Mexico.

Vancouver to Mexico City – about 2,500 miles. Los Angeles to Boston – about the same.

No doubt there’ll be plenty of hotel accommodation and affordable beer but check those carbon footprints and air miles – if indeed we’ll still be flying by then.

From one extreme to the other. Anyone spot any logistical strategy or consideration for fans?

Bent as hairpins, the lot of 'em.

Oh great the Russians have lobbed 2 missiles into Poland.

This could get out of hand now

I'm fairly progressive about a variety of things but the World Cup and the Olympics have tried to expand venues in hopes of this kumbayah, kinda thingy in places that simply aren't ready to host...yet. Or not conducive to hosting...yet.

I completely get breaking the traditional one world cup in Europe, one in South America trade off that was going on for decades, but you have to choose wisely. From my understanding Korea and Japan pulled it off. Japan is the 3rd largest economy and Korea is very modernized. They could. They have the infrastructure and population to do so. Not everyone is Japan.

How ridiculously stupid? Not from where the amount of money that was exchanged obviously.

Staying optimistic and believing in this team
And the manager I once wanted out is doing a fantastic transformation job
Credit where credit is due
We just need to reinforce in some areas, IMO, defensive mid, central mid and a striker

Oh look. We aren’t going to get a trade deal

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -joe-biden

It’s almost like everyone was lied into making themselves poorer. Funny that

That's a shame. I was looking forward to some chlorinated chicken and hormone-hyped beef.

The closest we came to the title since 2004 was the 2007/08 season where we finished with 83 points.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%8 ... .C._season
Even with the melt down after Eduardo had his leg snapped by a thug we were only 1 win in the game v Man U from winning the title, and we were 1-0 up in that game.

So who wins between that team and our current team?

Almunia, Sagna, Toure, Gallas, Clichy, Flamini, Fabregas, Hleb, Rosicky, Adebayor, Van Persie

Ramsdale, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko, Partey, Xhaka, Ødegaard, Martinelli, Saka, Jesus

I think the 07/08 team had some better depth of squad players: Lehmann, Eboue, Senderso, Song, Gilberto, Diaby, Denilson, Eduardo, Walcott, Bendtner, but I can't help feel that the current team would be too powerful in midfield and the tactical side of Arteta's plan might be too sophisticated for the classic 4-4-2 of the 07/08 team.......but Saliba and Gabriel would have a very tough time up against Adebayor and Van Persie!
I'd back Saka to beat Clichy but Sagna was top class and Martinelli might have found it tough to beat him. Someone would have had to pin Fabregas down

As we all know things changed immediately after the infamous and track Eduardo injury. Still tough to take. Both the injury and the aftermath where we surrendered the title quicker than I thought we should respective of the injury.

Anyway, as to your question. I'm going with 2008. I didn't even have to give it much thought. Flamini, Hleb, Rosicky and Fabregas may be smaller but as we saw in that season, they more than held their own.

Yes, I'm a bit biased but Fabregas alone on both sides is the best midfielder of the whole lot. Van Persie, a healthy van Persie is as if not more effective than Jesus. RvP can score from in the box and from distance.

I'd love to be proven wrong via a title. This side seems to be made of sterner stuff so far. But it we still have a lot more football to play and they will be tested to their full mental and physical limits. But as it stands, 2008.

Interesting question though.

We won four straight games after Eduardo's injury, so that narrative just isn't true. It was the run of games after those four wins that ultimately cost us the title, we were winless in five during that stretch.

For me, it's no question this team is better overall than that one though. The full backs in 07/08 were good, but not much better (if better at all) than what we have now. I'd take all of Saliba, Gabriel and White before Toure and Gallas, and Ramsdale is clearly better than Almunia.

In midfield, Fabregas is clearly the best, and Flamini clearly the worst. Hleb and Rosicky were terrific players that wouldn't look out of place in today's team, but like the full backs there's not much in it if we compare to how Saka and Martinelli are playing.

van Persie went on to become world class, but he wasn't yet at this point, and Adebayor caught lightning in a bottle that season - the only season he scored 20+ goals in any league during his career. I'd go for van Persie as we knew what he became, but no way I'd rather have Adebayor than Jesus.

Player for player it could go either way really, but if you add in such things as structure and organization today's team wins hands down for me.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62354857

A reminder of the BBC Pundits pre-season predictions

After the Birmingham 2-2 (in which that last minute penalty was a joke by the way as Clichy clearly won the ball) we had the following results in the league
Arsenal 1-1 Villa (last minute equaliser for us)
Wigan 0-0 Arsenal
Arsenal 1-1 Boro (6th minute equaliser for us)
Chelsea 2-1 Arsenal
Bolton 2-3 Arsenal (last minute winner for us after being 2-0 down and down to 10 men)
Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool
Man U 2-1 Arsenal

So the wheels most definitely came off after the Eduardo injury

I'm trying to trigger Rich.

Yep, that's how I remember it too, Rich. Disaster in increments - one slow-drip draw at a time.

Yes, actually I was looking at the wrong Birmingham game (we drew 1-1 in January, after which we won four straight before facing them again).

I do feel the Eduardo injury narrative gets overblown though. We had a very young team at the time, and were probably bound to struggle at some point that season. It's also worth noting he had something like 3-4 goals at the time (while being considered mostly a pure goalscorer) and was clearly our third choice striker.

I think if you had asked the most optimistic of Arsenal fans very, very few would even have us top 3...lol.

From memory wasn't Van Persie missing injured quite a bit in the final quarter of the league campaign? I recall thinking how unlucky we were that we lost two key strikers and due to the transfer window closing, couldn't replace either. That 2007/8 side was excellent and Adebayor could have been a great.