Arsenal 2023/24

A much needed win against Brighton. 20 points now. Halfway to Premier League survival.

Fat Sam will be fuming given they got spanked and we got the result.

Which means he'll put 11 behind the ball when we play them.

Hopefully the rubbish we've pulled out of Chelsea's bins remains in our bin now that things have started to go right without it.

If we beat WBA in our next game we will be ahead of where we were at the same stage last season. 

Wow, that's some feat!

Give KT a new 10 year contract on Ozil's money now. Absolute legend.

Suck on that fat one you fat one!! 
Dont know who KT transformed into this morning but it was glorious to see. 

we are staying up I say we are staying up

Well after all the relegation talk silliness we can get back to focussing on our goal for the season - top 4. 

Currently 6 points off. 

The league is a real lottery this season. You can throw a blanket over a huge chunk of the table. It only takes stringing together 2 or 3 wins and a team will rocket up the standings. 

We got the FA Cup next but after that, Crystal Palace and Newcastle, both at home. We really need 6 points from those two, before we go to Southampton and then host ManU, in what will be two pretty big games. 

Partey should be back fit now, and I expect we'll see Gabriel back shortly too. Will be a bit of a bitter pill for Mari who has been very good of late, but the games are coming fast enough that they should both get minutes. Holding has been excellent lately, has taken the RCB starting spot as his own, and deservedly so.

Good summary Paul. Few outgoings too with Kolasinac back to Schalke and Saliba off to Nice. As much as we fudgeed up his loan move in the summer I'm glad he's headed on loan now - I back Arteta's decision not to play him and give him time, especially with his challenges on and off the pitch over the last 12 moves (in the context of him being all of 19 years old).

Can't wait to see what happens in the summer with Mustafi, Ozil, Socratis, Luiz all out of contract. There must be close to £1m a week in those wages.

I'm also not convinced we'll sign another CB without more exits as we'll still have Holding, Mari, Gabriel, Chambers, Saliba, and Mavropanos.

Arseblog's also talking about Lacazette being moved on in the summer. If get £20m+ for him we'd be doing well, especially if we re-invest it wisely.

Looks like Matt Macey is off to the Fitbar league. Wish him well. I cant see us signing another GK this window as I think we are waiting for that Brentford one in the off season. So I guess one of our younger ones will play third fiddle? or is that Illev(sp) still around? 

Well, we're cashed up courtesy of the UK govt to get us a warchest for this window - anything could happen!

Finally looks like ozil might be gone then, to fenebahce, deal being threshed out

Kola gone.

Sokratis about to go.

Mustafi and Luiz to be gone at seasons end.

Squad will finally start to look like Arteta's team very soon. 

I so wish we had signed David Raya. He is quality. I saw Matt Macey play for the U23's back in 2013. He looked solid back then. Shame he hasn't been able to make the 2nd choice keeper position his own.

Yea I think they were saying on The Athletic that plan with Raya is that they get him in the summer. 

Waiting until the summer for Raya will be risky, one Maupayesque shove on Leno and our goal is looking very fragile...

That was entertaining. Kudos to leno keeping us in it with the saves at the end of the 90... Saka and Tierney are our two best right now for me. Smith-Rowe, Lacazette, Holding and Mari close behind. 

That performance really cemented what i think is our top lineup. The ineffectiveness of the out-of-form followed by the effectiveness of the in-form.

The biggest battle is for the spot next to Partey when he is fit, perhaps Xhaka on this morning's evidence. Martinelli is actually putting pressure on Aubameyang now fpr the left forward spot too, if he can get fit. With Laca's form i wouldnt be taking him out, his style of play is a better fit at CF with how we are playing. Mari has also been very impressive, i am a fan, i think he is legitimately challenging Gabriel for that spot. 

I reckon our best team when all fit would be:

                       Leno

Bellerin Holding Gabriel Tierney

               Xhaka Partey

     Saka Smith-Rowe Auba

                  Lacazette

This.

Crying out for a 6 month loan for someone experienced. 

Lehmann keeping himself fit? Lol

We should take that Kepa bloke of Chelsea for 6 months, keep that Chelsea retirement home status in place.

It's nice to know Mari & Martinelli would feel disappointed by this - actual depth.

I'm still hopeful for Pepe, but Willian needs to be moved on asap. He's turning into Ozil 2.0 without having delivered anything for the club.

Team for Friday?

If Partey is fit then I'd be going with that first eleven I posted earlier;

                    Leno

Bellerin Holding Gabriel Tierney

              Xhaka Partey

     Saka Smith-Rowe Auba

                 Lacazette

Harsh on Mari but Gabriel might be better suited against the quicker forwards of Palace. Could give Mari a run against Newcastle on Tuesday. 

If Partey isn't ready then I'd go Elneny next to Xhaka. 

CANNOT WAIT until Partey is starting week in week out! Now that we've recovered a bit of form I think he's gona be a BEAST in there for us.

If he's fit start him on the bench, no need to rush him back. Bring him on at 60 minutes and bring him in slowly. No need a repeat of what happened against Sp*rs!

Yeah he was just doing light jogging at training so I'd expect to see him on the bench with Xhaka and Dani in the middle

I don't think you can drop Mari (even though I rate Gabriel higher) when we have 3 clean sheets in 4 games. Sends the wrong message.

Yea you are probably right there valeo re: Mari, wouldn't send a good message after such good performances.

I like that Mari appears to have a very calm head on him. When he picked up that early yellow a cupla games back I worried, but he handled that very well for the rest of the game.

I also think he's quicker than we think. At first I had a bit of a mertesacker feel about him but when you watch him he actually covers the ground quicker than I expected, even if he's not as quick as Gabriel (who is very fast for a CB).

Well didn't see that coming... Mari not in the squad, Gabriel on the bench, Luiz starting at LCB.

Maitland-Niles at LB, Tierney not in squad. 

Ceballos and Xhaka in midfield.

Otherwise as expected.

Apparently we have to pay another £1 million when Mari makes his 10th appearance (he's made 9). We won't see him again.

making palace look good, 76 mins and no score!

Geez you know what, Im just about ready to just stop following any football on social media. It's a pathetic world. 

We had a terrible run and then pulled out of it, to win 4 in a row. Then this morn we huffed and puffed and couldn't score, but defended pretty well, and at least kept a clean sheet.

Tierney, Mari and Gabriel were all missing from the starting lineup for various reasons, so far from a first choice defence.

Not the worst result all things considered, but obviously not ideal.

On social media you'd think someone died. It's all Pepe's fault, our team is nothing without Tierney, the owners need to give Arteta more spending money, the same old tropes just return every time. If we'd been completely out-played and battered 2/3 nil I would get it, but it was just one of those games where we couldn't quite get the goal, and I was thankful we were disciplined enough not to concede (Xhaka was immense this morn, as an aside).

I honestly don't know how people can live with taking extreme opinions from game to game. No wonder mental illness is such an issue these days, that kind of emotional flip-flopping is so bad for your wellbeing.

FB is full of noise makers looking to make a controversial call so they can get more likes or something. Id go as far as saying most of them arent fans at all......

Arteta says he doesn't know when Tierney will be back and he's going to have an MRI scan. Turned out a good idea playing him for 120 minutes in the cup the other day.

Turns out he's actually fine and in contention for tonight. Not everything's a crisis at the moment :)

I think you need to understand what it's like in the UK. We're at the absolute worst point of the crisis right now with a person getting admitted to hospital every 30 seconds with Covid. Most of us didn't get to celebrate Christmas with our families, and now we're on our 3rd national lock down. It's pretty grim, and I've personally found this year has really brought it home with a number of colleagues falling ill with it. Also, January in the UK is fudgeing bleak anyway. Everyone ditches the booze, the weathers sharke, and no one has any holidays booked for awile!

However, you're absolutely bang on with the broader point here - our fan base can be fickle at the best of times.

Feeling pretty good about the window so far, Ozil & Kolasinac gone is a huge result. Mustafi & Sokratis would be the icing on the cake. Those 4 must take up £1m in wages a week.

Partey and Tierney starting... eeekkkk :)

we are either threatening or incompetent this morning. very frustrating to watch. especially auba. the guy looks devoid of confidence. 

annnd then he scores on the break!! Get in auba!!!

Partey is absolute class

Very excited about this guy. Born for the EPL.

3-0 win, great second half after a frustrating first 45.

Whatever Arteta said or changed at the break worked. Great to see Auba scoring and Smith-Rowe creating the chances.

I've only seen the goal highlights but we looked good in scoring those goals. That first one was classic Auba of old. Hopefully we can keep this up.