(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread (Part 1)

Looks good to me. Especially when you consider we will probably need the squad given the short turnaround to the Everton game.

Great point, perhaps the returning three to start that game

That was a VERY lucky escape. Not a great performance at all. Walcott needs to start the next game. We lacked his pace at the start. We can't afford to play like that again during the run in if we want to grab a top four spot.

So happy to get there in the end though.

Third in the table.

That was awesome

Lucky escape? Not so much for me... we missed rosicky's form from the last cupla games and we played poorly for a long time, but some players stepped up when we needed it and the season was on the line. Proud of Giroud, Ox, Poldi, Fabianski, they really delivered at the end there. Especially that save from fabianski with his feet.

I was jumping around like a madman, that was bloody great

3rd baby!

bit lucky.

3 points is all good. 3rd goal was offside for sure. Gibbs was hard done by on their free-kick but we still struggle with defending set-pieces. 

more OX

Lucky alright. If it weren't for that incorrect call in the 83rd to award a corner and not a goal kick it would've been curtains

 Can you please change your forum name. It's too long and stuffing up the formatting.

[quote=paulm]

Election Night Special 

beat Everton and it;s all rosy. Surely. 

halfway in the tipping comp.

if current form holds the total points would be 30 , which no one picked haha

Arseblog's match report a quality read this morning.

https://arseblog.com/

Loved this bit:

"The outrage from Norwich players and pundits alike was so delicious Grant Holt tried to eat it. What does it matter if the linesman is miles away if he gets it right? So what if the referee is closer, it doesn’t mean he got it any less wrong. The Norwich keeper was booked in the aftermath of the award, possibly the most righteous booking ever seen, and as their players tried to rattle Arteta as he waited to take it, the Lego-haired Spaniard just stood there, ignoring them, the rain rolling off his perfect hair.

That the keeper got a hand to the penalty makes it even more hilarious. I can imagine him sitting at home afterwards thinking ‘Oh, if only …’ and I do take great pleasure in the pain of others, especially when they’re time-wasting cockblasters who, all of a sudden, wish they had more of it."

Cockblasters?... wishing they had more of it?.... ouch...

But jeez, it was bluddy hilarious - and the stupid ex-Yiddo Gaffer going off on one is even better, just underlines why they lost the plot.

LOL yea there's not too much neutrality in there but it is called arseblog for a reason.

He's my favourite blogger these days, very funny and usually spot on. Also writes for ESPNfc (formerly espnsoccernet) as their resident arsenal blogger.

Missed the game but caught some highlights, good to see we came back from a loosing position. I'd be interested to see if we've done more of that this season.

Wednesday morning squad will be interesting, 6.45am K/O for us, hope Sky has it live, great way to start the morning!

Getting top 4 is now 100% in our hands, as we're ahead of Sp*rs on level number of games. 3rd isn't out of the realm of possibilities too with Chelsea still to push on for Europa.

So, if Chelsea bottle it and finish 5th, Sp*rs in 4th, and Chelsea manage to win Europa do they qualify for Champions League at Sp*rs expense again?

Wenger has said he's been working with Podolski in training as a central striker. That's interesting. 

I wonder if we really need to buy that striker in the summer when we've got Giroud and Poldi, with Theo as back-up, as well as Joel Campbell and Akpom developing nicely?

With Cazorla playing wide left now, Gervinho showing the odd flash, plus the Ox, Gnaby and Miyaichi as our young wide players coming through, do we really need to buy anyone in the attacking third?

With Fabianski's sudden improvement and apparent maturity, I'm not sure we need to bolster the keeping stocks either. Szczesny is obviously the long-term no.1 and Fabianski is now up to providing good competition there.

Personally I'd like to see this action in the off-season (no particular order);

1: Sign a defensive midfielder

2: Re-sign Rosicky

3: Re-sign Fabianski

4: Re-sign Sagna, but convert him to CB

5: Sign a right back to compete with Jenkinson

6: Finally get Arshavin, Bendtner, Denilson and Squillaci off the wage-bill

And that'd be it for me... I understand it may not be the most popular view in the current football world where a whole swag of new players is apparently the only solution, but stability does mean a lot, and it's something we really haven't had since 2004. 

Agree with this, particularly the points in bold.

Our wage bill has crippled us for years. Having shark players like Denilson on 50k a week is simply unsustainable. We need to offload them asap in order to give us the room to sign 1 or 2 quality players that will have us competing for trophies again.

It does sound like we are after a keeper, we seem to get linked with one every other day. Most of it rubbish but when that's happening it's generally a sign that we are sniffing about. If we are, then Cesar would be a great move I think. 

Anyone else heard about this 16yo Zelalem who made his debut for the 21s the other week? Apparently he's top notch

Also we have Eisfeld coming through too. Rave reviews about the young fullback Bellerin we've nabbed from Barca too. I wonder if Arsene will 'do a wenger' and get rid of Sagna and promote Bellerin in his place... 

Still seeing Gotze rumours too - strangely they just aren't going away. Could explain Caz moving left tho... jeez - JW and MG in the middle. Yes thanks!

But we know it'll never happen :-)

yeah just read up on Zelalem earlier this week, will be in the first squad next season apparently.....I'd take Remy from QPR :)

Remy? Hmmm. I guess we could get him on the cheap after QPR are relegated. Do we need him though??

I think we need the following

DMF

Another Striker - Loic Remy to play of Giroud would be nice

Out and Out winger....Serge is too young to expect much from and Ryo needs to go out on loan again with all the injures

RB if Sagna leaves

CB if TV5 leaves

Keeper....50/50 on this one

yea saw the gotze rumours, that'd be lovely

No new wingers for me unless we get departures - if we want to keep guys like ox, gnabry and miyaichi happy then we'd do well not to put anyone else ahead of em. They've already got theo, poldi and gervinho there to overtake (some easier to overtake than others lol). And now cazorla seems to have found a home out wide there's real competition goin on, even in the event of injuries. 

DMF seems to be a consensus, who are the realistic candidates?

Capoue seems to get mentioned a lot, dont know anything about him though

i still think Carzola's best in the middle.....for dmf i'd take capoue or diame.

Yes i reckon he would be great if we could pick him up on the cheap

2 points dropped??? was meant to be a tricky tie i know but 3 points would have been handy. Fulham now a must win?? Ref was crap as well. Thought Santi and rambo were great....rambo has been awesome over the last few months. Was very suprised to see Jack start to be honest. Giroud had a few chances to win really. Clean sheet was nice to see thou 

Every game is a must win. Only 5 games left we can't afford any slips unless we know we are mathematically safe in the top 4.

Now out of our hands. But probably still in them in reality as both spurs and chelsea will drop points. 

I had hoped a win today would take pressure off the manU game, but we really need something from that now. Draw or lose to Fulham and we could be dusted.

This might come down to the final day, makes me nervous as hell just thinking about it. Last season was a heart-stopper. 

Todays game and the Man United game would be the hardest of our remaining games. If we truely are worthy of a top four place, we should win the remaining other games. Spurs still have to play Man City and Chelski so they will hopefully drop points.

And Chelsea still have Spurs, ManU, Liverpool and Everton among their remaining games. 

Chelsea-Spurs is the big one there. One of them must drop points there, if not both.

Apart from that we can't rely on them dropping points just because they have tough matches.

i can't see qpr and newcastle being a walk in the park.....i'm still nervous as hell

I'm hoping QPR are confirmed down and Newcastle are confirmed up when we play those games. Should take the edge off them.