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

Gustavo to Wolfsburg FFS not signed and sealed yet but man worst transfer window EVER

See there is a far fetched rumour of Jenkinson being loaned to Sunderland 

Who the hell thought Sagna would stay injury free for nearly 60 games lol

Also gutted over the potential of Gustavo going to Wolfsburg.

The cynic in me thinks there has been a lot of smoke blown of this 70 mil money that is apparently available, but what is fact is still none of it spent. We started June supposedly chasing Higuain, now it 15 August with what 17 days to go.

Gazidis and Wenger will have a rocky season if we fail to bring 2-3 key players.

Andrew Mangan has it spot on in his evaluation we will either get fourth or struggle to hit fourth with the arming up Spurs have done. Chelsea and Man City will be strong and people are writing off Man U because of Moyes, yet they still have a good squad and dare I say RVP.

What about stealing the march on Samuel Eto'o? or is this clutching at straws...

Got an e-mail from my cousin in London today inviting me to his place for a bbq and to meet all the wider family over there. Only catch is that its on 1st of September. Same day as the Spurs game. No way I'm missing that. Not sure how well my decline is going to go down :(

arteta out for 4-6 weeks..........

Yup... luckily we've got Rambo and Jack who've never been known to have injury issues - we'll be sweet til the Jan window.

The Arteta situation is devastating in my opinion. This seals for me the fact that this off-season has been an absolute debacle. DMF is the position I think could be easily argued as our most in need, yet we've made virtually no noises about fixing the situation, even this week when gustavo has been asking us to come get him. 

What price on Wenger giving Flamini a short-term contract now? He's training with us and has specifically said he'd like to return to the EPL. 

What was wrong with Etienne Capoue???

He was scouted by us for what 2 years and we need a DMF, Spurs nab him and they have a couple that already cover Sandro, and then add Arteta's injury to that mix and we are effed in that part of the park.

It was glaringly obvious that Arteta was the best DMF through last season and pre season. It is arguably not even his best position as he is a CM.

I was trying to think of who else has done well at DMF in the premier league, Mohammed Diame, Chiek Tiote and Morgan Scheindlerland (spelling) the chap from Soton. We might get a bit of a panic DMF purchase now that Arteta is out for so long. 

Long live the 70 million lol

Gustavo officially joined Wolfsburg on a 5 year deal today, Grrrrrrr!

Meanwhile Wenger quoted again "we are active" 

lol

I saw this on the Daily Mail site. And today listened to the ESPN Podcast and they had John Cross from the Mirror on, who is a big Arsenal fan. His concern was of the non-marquee signings obviously but also the thinning of the squad in general, which when you look at this (below), could well be an issue...(thank god we've actually signed a few prior to the last second of the transfer window closing this time around). I can still see us losing to Palace on the weekend and Chamakh scoring the winner...

The most baffling one on that list for me is Coquelin. Given the fragile state of Jack and Rambo all of the time and a realisation that Arteta can't play every game going I would have thought keeping him was a no-brainer. I was always quite impressed when he got a run last season.

skinny

2 of the best DM were the WBA pair, Mulumbu and Yacob.

Gustavo wants to stay in Germany, good luck to him. It is vital we reinforce that  position though.

The Capoue signing did surprise me. That is one player I definitely think we could have had. We've scouted him for a long time, we know we can at least match any price/wages spurs can offer, and we have the champions league carrot. Playing time shouldn't be an issue as we only have Arteta in that role, so they'd both get plenty of games. If anything it'll be harder for Capoue at spurs with sandro etc. This means one of two things, either:

1: we decided not to pursue him for some reason that we're not privy to

2: we f*cked it up and have missed out

It better be 1, or heads should be rolling. We don't have a director of football, perhaps we should.

The Coquelin thing, yes I mentioned that earlier. Djourou and Miquel have also been loaned out. Three moves that look very bizarre should we not re-inforce those positions. If we end up with panic buys I will be soooo f*cked off.

I wonder if with this new cash we're in a world of transfers we aren't used to. We're  usually shopping in the capoue price areas, yet here we are unsuccessfully trying to make big deals like suarez/higuain/gustavo, all the while the smaller clubs are buying up the tier underneath. If we fail, we could come out with nothing. 

squad looks very fragile at present, lets hope we can stay in the top 4 until january and make some killer signings then

Yeah but staying in the top 4 through to January might still mean being 10+ points behind 1st

squad is close enough to winning EPL providing the best XI saty fit

clearly that will not happen , in fact R1 we will miss arguably our most important player.

DM, CB and a GK should all have been well sorted by now.

shark so we missed out on gustavo?!?! is there anyone we can sign this off season!!

And.........Season over. 70 million to spend, released all the dead wood and brought in a free transfer. Now plagued with injuries and a red card in our first game. Waste of fudgeing time having Wenger as manager.

FFS.

Gutted......injuries to boot. pretty speechless really. It's gonna be another long season.  We better win on we

Haha, seriously, I'm having problems getting out of this without offending the whole family. "Um yeah, I've travelled halfway round the world and you've gone to all this trouble to get the family together on the only day that suits but I'd rather go and watch football"

no good. 

Referees aside, we really didn't deserve to win that...

we deserved a lot more than we got!

OK lets rehash the game.

First goal from us was all class.

First goal from them was piss poor defending to put them through. Clear penalty and lucky not for Szy to see red. Good save but weak following up.

Second goal from them wasn't a penalty, and shouldn't have been a yellow card.

Third goal from them was a good counter attack, but we wern't really defending at this point.

The red card seems harsh and excessive given the first yellow was for a legit tackle. Given it's 2 yellows does it mean he misses on match?

Rosicky had 2 cracking opportunities 1v1 he should have scored. Giroud and Cazorla also had a couple of good opportunities.

By my count we now have Monreal, Gibbs, Vermalen injured and Kosc suspended. Leaving a back 4 of Jenkinson Mertesacker Sagna and ?. Apparently AOC & Rosicky picked up niggles too.

We need back up, I think we need to sign another defender AND call either Djourou or Miquel back. Coquellin might need to be called back too, but Frimpong might be needed to start next match in Artetas absence, we need someone protecting that back 4!

Yeah Jack is not suited to protecting the back and Ramsey is a good foil for someone Defensivly minded

Found myself annoyed with Jack in the first half when he kept throwing his toys over fouls, I used to like him showing emotion but found today  it was counter productive (and maybe it was last season too).

When the Villa players saw him reacting like that it was playing into their hands that all they needed to do was keep frustrating him/us and they would be there abouts at the final whistle, it turned out a helluva lot better than 'there abouts' for them.

Reality check,we are out of the title race after the first game, some may say this is an overreaction, but reality is reality!

I loved the chanting to spend more money, you need to spend some money to spend more money haha

Hopefully we can get a good cup run going

with the potential of Gibbs, Kos and Sagna all being out the folly of releasing the younger guys and the failure to bring in both DM and CB options is exposed just 1 match in.

all sides will get runs of injury/suspension but our situation was surely apparent to anyone who watches over 25mins of football a calender year. Quite frustrating.

Given the likely ongoing stratification of the league as well this year losing to teams like Villa at home is totally out of line for finishing in the top 4 , let alone challenging for silverware. 

is going to be a very long season if this is whatr we are geting served up to start with.

Agree with most written, so frustrating i dont even want to go into my rant, I'll leave it unsaid

Looking to the fener game, I think gibbs will play - he just had a cut and didnt even want to come off. Few stitches and he should be right. That leaves us with a bare bones backline of Jenkinson-Mertesacker-Sagna-Gibbs. 

Although the worry for me will be Sagna - that fall at the end of the villa game looked very nasty. 

Arsene better be f*cking working on some signings ASAP. We need the re-inforcements NOW.

oh and ox may have knee ligament damage - 3 months or even more maybe.

Unbelievable. We haven't had injuries this bad for a couple of seasons - remember the dark days of 2006 - 2010? Our injury list was ridiculous for those few seasons. 

Might have to resurrect the regular injury update post.

Its a long season but we should be banking 3 points at home. Wednesay's line up should be very interesting. Ox out for 6-9months possible

Am a Villa fan, so obviously watched the game from a different viewpoint...

I think the 2nd penalty was debatable, but lets be honest - we've all seen those given as much as not. If you're going to make such a tackle in that location, you can't be surprised at the result. He should have stayed on his feet and waited for the calvary to arrive - Agbonlahor was running into a wide space anyway. Claiming you got the ball doesn't mean it's not a foul. 

The red was a little absurd though - given some of the other tackles that had happened in the game. The ref certainly didn't earn himself any friends. That Luna yellow just before half time was ridiculous, and I thought Szczesny was lucky to still be on the pitch after the first penalty.

Hope Sagna is ok - that fall looked nasty.

Given how Tottenham have strengthened over summer, you guys are looking dangerously thin -  must be hanging out from someone (anyone!) to arrive.

Am I the one who finds it interesting that Aresnal are being so heavily criticised for not signing anyone (well one player) when Man Utd have also not signed anyone (as far as I'm aware - Zaha signed last year right).

I'm aware Arsenal definitely need to add new quality to their side, but think i can see where Wenger is coming from - was  stupid move going so public with the promise of big signings

Yeah but our existing squad isn't as deep as theirs (nor as broad), and ours is now less so having gotten rid of some gumby's and is exacerbated by injuries and now suspension.

I don't ever want to see B52 in an Arsenal shirt again. As it stands; I may well do lol

At least we don't have to resort to picking 40 year olds in our starting line up? Saying that though, United still did the business away to Swansea so credit to them.