(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread (Part 3)

BUY A FUDGEING CB.

3 points, so important. ManU dropping points was great, considering we go to City this weekend, yikes. 

Mustafi off injured, not sure how bad. Great to have Mavropanos back, hoping he can be as good as he promised to be when we saw him last season .

Sounds like Denis Suarez has been signed on loan with an option to buy in the summer. Ornstein reporting that we're still chasing a winger, looking at Carrasco or Perisic. No CBs incoming.

In better news it seems that Koscielny's jaw is not broken after all. He will be out but not for long. Sokratis possibly out a month. 

I would rather Carrasco over Perisic. Carrasco is younger and cheaper, a longer term investment in our squad. Perisic has no re-sale value and will cost a lot more. 

I doubt we'll see any defensive cover come in, as much as it's needed. I take this as a sign that we've got players in the pipeline for the off season we don't want to ruin getting by making a short term impulse buy.

The more I think about Cahill on loan for 6 months the more I don't mind it. I'd rather we had him available occasionally for CB than end up with a back 3 of Monreal, Mavropanos, and Lichsteiner.

Good to see Jenko get some minutes, I'd genuinely rather see him at RB over the aged Swiss. 

Chelsea just got spanked 4-0 at Bournemouth, fantastic.

I actually think that puts us into the top 4 for now?

We're equal on GD, but I think it then goes on goals scored, and we have 10 more than them... 

Obviously we'll probably get a thumping at the weekend but it's nice to be in the top 4. 

Enjoy the Champions League next season, chaps. 

ManUtd might have something to say about that.

Yea not sure if this is a classic yellow fever anti-jinx wind-up or what... 

Top 4 still seems a bazillion miles away. The next 3 days may be the only period we're actually in it for the rest of the season HAHAHAHA

Oh ffs, really?

A nice touch including Sala in the Cardiff squad in the Arsenal programme yesterday

Suarez looks to be our only incomings. Smith-Rowe off to germany with RB Leipzig for the rest of the season, good opportunity for him hopefully. Wonder which youngsters can expect some more game time in his absence?

Apparently Nketiah was on his way to Ausburg but it looks like Emery vetoed it.

Classic arsenal really, loan a wide player when we're desperately short in that position, sign a CM when we're overflowing with them, and ignore the mounting casualties at the back! Wenger's clearly still pulling the strings!!!

This is clever. If he turns out sharke we send him to Juve and say it's Ramsey. They won't know the difference.

Thing is, I don't think Emery sees Ramsey or Ozil as the ideal no.10 style player in our team. He is looking for a player with a lot of energy, sound defensive play, who is also creative and can score. Ramsey to me could have fit that mould but is on the way out, I wonder if that decision is purely financial, given the wages we'd have had to give him to re-sign. Ozil just doesn't fit the bill at all. He has all the creative nous, he can score, but he's phenomenally weak in the challenge, and although he's fit and runs a lot, he just doesn't have the commitment to chase the ball enough when we don't have it, which is fundamental under Emery. 

I reckon that's why he was chasing Banega, he's that type of player. Perhaps he sees Denis Suarez as someone who can do it.

I am interested to see if anyone will leave because of this. There's talk of trying to find a loan for Joe Willock, and perhaps letting Elneny go, given our midfield options now. 

I am guessing Nketiah might have been vetoed because we haven't managed to get Perisic or Carrasco. There is talk we're still hopeful of the young PSG guy, Nkunku. 

Some good news... apparently Koscielny is fit for this weekend. 

I can actually imagine Emery starting Suarez this weekend. 

He debuted Guendouzi at home to City on the first day of the league, why not do it away with someone he thinks can help?

Suarez looks like a skinny Ramsey. It's uncanny.

so where does Suarez play best then? I've heard from some that he's a wide player and from others that he can can play through the middle. He is clearly not a central defender, but he seems to played in most other positions at some point. 

arseblog thinks he’ll be the equivalent of Iwobi on the right, not quite a winger, more of a link up play kind of guy.

Could see us going with him and Iwobi wid, and either 2 or 1 up front depending on how many through the midfield we want.

Sounds like Mkhi v2

I like that we have try before you buy on him though, unlike Mhikitaryan...

We’ve got to target February as a month to start another run after the City game.

We play Huddersfield away, Bate away, SOTON home, Bate home, Bournemouth home.

Those should be 5 from 5 wins. You could excuse a draw away to Bate but 9 points from EPL is a must.

Well. That was unsurprising. Most dissapointed we didn't last 40 seconds without conceeding. Even my mrs would have been disappointed by that.

Alarm goes off, into lounge, jug on, fumbles around with phone, gets going, casts to tv, appears on screen, already 1-0 down. Lovely start to me Monday hahahahaa.

I think Emery really lost out this morning. We usually improve from the beginning as he works things out but that wasn't the case. We were ok in the first half, non-existent in the second. 

Not an unexpected result whatsoever though, we need to pick ourselves up and move on, as per Brumbys post about the rest of our February. 

P.S. Suarez really is the lovechild of Ramsey and Holding, it's uncanny. 

I thought it was bold of Emery to go 4-4-2 and us Kolasinac as a LM and Monreal at LB.

No Jenkinson or AMN in the squad is a massive concern, meant we were left with 90 minutes of aged RB to watch - surely Osei-TuTu is a better option there right now than the old man we're using.

I think AMN might have a niggle, he was out last game too, but could be wrong. 

Oh and Brumbys, I think I read somewhere that Cohen Brammall has been included in our EPL squad list for the remainder of the season...... hahahaha... imagine if the lad got an appearance at some point, that'd be insane

Jenko & Brammall to line up for us at home in an EPL match. Valeo would pretty much have to burn the shirt wouldn't he?!

Imagine if the both of them started a game, that would be amazing. Wenger would have himself a nice glass of red I imagine hahahahaha

Can't imagine they would do any worse than Lichsteiner at this point.

Find myself repeating the same thing so often, but when you're under pressure stuck in your own penalty area like Guendouzi and Iwobi were, you hoof the ball up the fudgeing pitch or into row Z and then you at least have the opportunity to get into position to defend. Defending 101.

On the plus side I see Kroenke's team lost the Superbowl. Did he turn up to the game grinning as if he had anything to do with it like the FA Cup Finals?

Now we're past the window I'm seriously interested in our summer business.

Current squad likely with us in the new year based on Arsenal.com:

GK - Leno, Martinez

RB - Bellerin, 

CB - Sokratis, Mustafi, Holding, Chambers, Koscielny, Mavropanos

LB - Monreal, Kolasinac

CM - Guendouzi, Xhaka, Torreira, AMN,

CAM - Ozil, Mhikitaryan, Suarez

Forwards - Aubamayang, Iwobi, Lacazette, Nelson

Departures - Cech, Jenkinson, Lichsteiner, Elneny, Ramsey, Suarez, Welbeck

Looking at that list you've got players like Mustafi, Ozil, and Mhikitaryan who are on big wages we would ideally move on and replace. However I'm unsure the club will do that to all 3, and may in fact struggle to do that with any of them.

In Goal we could probably give Martinez a season at #2 and be OK, but if Leno was to sustain a decent injury we could be in trouble.

I also see a lot of depth a CB - however it's clear given Mustafi's not exactly up to suff, and both Koscielny and Sokratis are heading towards retirement age we could do with an established powerhouse there.

Right back is clearly screaming out for some support, and you could argue similarly for left back too.

CM looks relatively strong, even with the likely departure of Elneny.

Our forwards still present an area of opportunity for improvement, an established wide player like Carasco or Perisic would be magnificent.

Minimum shopping list: established CB & winger, up and coming right and left back.

4 players, likely a good bit out financial outlay, but with a new kit deal and 6 maybe 7 salarys off the books should be doable.

Awesome breakdown brumbys, don't think I'd argue with any of it. 

A winger, and a CB (direct upgrade on Mustafi), should be the main things we're after. We do have Holding and Mavropanos who do look like potential long-term starters, but as you say, with the age of Kosc (and Sokratis to a lesser extent), we gotta be careful. Having said that, we do have numbers in that position, so players need to go out to allow new ones to come in (Chambers is on loan too remember, although he's been playing DMF almost exclusively). 

Martinez was recently quoted as saying he's been told he will be no.2 next year as long as he performs on loan for the rest of this season, so I think you're spot on there. 

I have a feeling Emery is going to go all out to get rid of Ozil in the summer, but that Mkhitaryan will stay. If we do get that winger, and we sign Suarez permanently,  then Iwobi may go too? Would be a shame, but lets face it, even when he plays well (which is fairly often), he still doesn't score goals. That's his main issue for me. 

I suppose another plus side of this week was the title race tightening after this morning. Not sure I'll ever be ready to live through Liverpool winning the league. 

I agree. You can't have a bloke on wages like that clearly not playing football. If you're the top earner you need to be undroppable, end of story. It seems Ozil is not this guy for Emery and probably the biggest indicator of the difference in style between he & Wenger.

As for Iwobi I'd be sad to see him go. 2 goals and 4 assists from 22 starts this year just isn't enough output. It would be interesting to see his '2nd' assist stats as he's done well with some killer passes for someone else to assist from etc. With Nelson coming back into the fold I'd back him to have an impact as much as Iwobi has had, if not more.

Would be interesting to see what the assist stats would be like if football adopted how it's done in ice hockey, with (iirc) the two preceding passers being credited with an assist. 

In football it's not exactly uncommon to have a chain of events along the lines of: 1. defence-splitting killer ball to winger, 2. bog-standard pass into the path of a striker, 3. goal. I'm sure there's some advanced metric out there that measures the quality of an assist. 

I dont know about crediting as an assist but i agree there needs to be more analysis done on "assisting the assist". Often overlooked. At least one of the Man City goals against us involved a great ball like that from memory (didnt watch them twice!). 

In his time at Arsenal Fabregas was the king of it. 

I liked this from football365

The clamour to denounce Emery and proclaim that a manager who has been tasked with overhauling a 22-year dynasty has failed after just nine months is bizarre. It was a regrettable result and a dreadful second half, but that is worrying short-sightedness.

It feels like the inevitable consequence of having six clubs constantly fighting for four places at the top of one division. A single result can rescue a team from or plunge one into crisis at any one time.

This week, and after wins for the teams in second, third, fourth and fifth, it is Arsenal. Next week, when the Gunners face Huddersfield and City host Chelsea, the odds are that someone else will take up the mantle.

Arsenal have three fewer points than City did after 25 games of Guardiola’s first Premier League season, and that is after much less investment against much stronger direct competition. There is every chance he will not go on to achieve half of what his compatriot has, but he does at least deserve a proper opportunity.

https://arseblog.news/2019/02/mavropanos-to-sit-ou...

This is a good write up of how the home grown player rules work out in Europe.

Unfortunately for Mavropanos he isn't homegrown, and to satisfy our quota we have to list 3 players who are all out for the season still in our capped Europa League squad just to meet the requirements (Bellerin, Holding, Welbeck). This means the remaining senior players fill the spots at the expense of Mavropanos.

Reflecting on my comments above about the squad I've not considered how this might all impact on home grown player rules for either UEFA comps or the EPL. This might be where we need to see more grads step up, Emile-Smith Rowe, Nelson, Nketiah etc.

It wasn't pretty but we got the job done. No Ozil, Ramsey, Xhaka, Sokratis, PEA on top of the long term absentees today. Bench continued to look a little wobbly. Felt Iwobi got lucky with his goal then bottled his best chance. AMN got forward well, defended OK, but gave the ball away a few times at the back which could have hurt us. Mustafi seemed to concentrate his errors on his passing instead of giving away fouls/missing tackles. 

Lacazette was strong up front and Mhikitaryan seemed to be a good option again from the right. He does bring a bit of balance to the team, and at least has the managers backing. 

Yea watching that made me realise how important Mkhitaryan actually is to us. He may miss a few things and make errors, but he's a solid forward to have, he does create, and score. He has better end product than Iwobi. 

Maitland-Niles needs to really perform now, with Bellerin out, and he's showing good signs. Nice assist, good to see him hit the ground running after a wee niggle. It seems that Lichtsteiner is not up to it, so tons of pressure on AMN's shoulders for the rest of the season. 

Fixed!

They were so right... seen lots of stuff around today claiming Sarri has bombed, and should be on the way out. Mental really.