(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread (Part 2)

Man love moments in that celebration

anyone else think our third strip is horrid?

3-1 

Debuchy gives away a peno

Did you watch the game? Arm chair analysis?

Yea did watch most of it

Holding was really good, Chambers too, but we did have a few moments. 

Ox is looking top of his game, and played the most minutes too. Reckon he's nailed on to start against Liverpool. 

Walcott was pants, absolute pants. Can't keep it for more than about two touches. Posting those fitness vids in the off-season, where was the ball-work son??? His key weakness. 

Santi looked unfit, but technically as good as ever. 

Akpom doesn't look like much but finds himself in the right places. 

Monreal I thought looked excellent. Debuchy did do some good things but huffed and puffed towards the end, giving up the penalty and a few silly fouls.

Didn't notice Xhaka much, Coquelin was everywhere as usual, but a bit fouley. 

Elneny has been decent in pre-season, he's very tidy, a good all-rounder. Could be a good Edu type in our squad I reckon. 

Where was Wilshere? 

Puma on twitter...

puma trolling?

Wilshere injured already, knee this time. Only "out for a week" apparently but take that with a grain of salt. Xhaka signing thankfully means he's a luxury and we're not counting on him playing 50 games.

after reading various sites this morning it seems like the only CB in the EPL we arent linked with at the mo is Reid!! 

on the Wilshere- the guy cant get a break ay. hope he has the mental strength to keep coming back. 

AFCamden has tweeted "madness incoming" and claimed that Lacazette is only our "last resort".

Interesting. He's usually on the money.

I hope it's Ozil/Sanchez madness and not Park/Santos madness...

They're (the alleged AFC ITK's) claiming madness will soon descend... I'll believe it when I see it. On our website.

Surge, what other Arsenal "ITK"s do you follow on Twitter?

I'm pretty new to it, trying to get a handle on who is worth following and who isn't. AFCamden appears to be excellent, who else would you recommend?

If Lacazette is a "last resort" then who is still yet to move who would be considered more of a "madness?" Morata? Lukaku? Mandzukic?

My two would be Aubameyang and Griezemann. 

Griezemann did just sign a new contract, but there are pretty strong rumours of a merry-go-round - Lukaku to Chelsea, Costa back to Atletico, which could facilitate such a move. 

Still unlikely though.

Perhaps they class Mahrez as a madness? 

No idea tbh. 

Don't bother with these part timers

OBAFEMI MARTINS is on his way

I've been waiting for this all off season.

Would actually be a better alternative than Akpom or Sanogo.

I still think Bacca would be a good signing for the Arse. I don't actually want him to leave Milan though. 

He has a buy out clause of ~30M Euros I believe. Bacca wants Champs League and he's good enough. Different type of striker to Giroud and I reckon the perfect fit to Wenger and Arsenal's game plan. 

29 y.o. and at his peak. 

my skinny is that it's Aubaemyang 

And Dortmund get a guy from Bayern 

Obafemi It's a tragedy he's in China. At least in MLS I got to see him play a bit

Xhaka touches vs chivas

https://twitter.com/GurjitAFC/status/7603377441283...

None of them. Genuinely, just avoid anyone claiming to know anything about transfer deals on Twitter. Or if you do follow it, you'll need an ocean of salt to take it all with rather than just a grain.

So looks like Ospina and Gibbs will both remain with us this season.

That's excellent news imo. Great squad depth with guys like that hangin round. Should Cech or Monreal go down we're in good hands. 

I see you are following a lot of them... seriously no opinion to offer on any of them individually?

Certainly put that back 4 under pressure at times with some underweighted back passes

I'm seeing reports of a significantly weakened team being put out by AFC against us next weekend (NEXT WEEKEND! YAY!).

What's the story? Injuries or just resting players up against the mid-table teams (had to get that in before someone else did)?

Just badly affected by summer comps - more so than other EPL teams.

Ozil, Giroud, Koscielny, Ramsey all yet to return for pre-season. 

Cazorla, Wilshere, Sanchez struggling for fitness.

Mertesacker, Welbeck injured. 

Rumours that Draxler is the reported madness.

Apparently we have a 'delegation' in Germany talking to Schalke. 

Combination of injuries and players who went far in the Euros (plus Copa America) not back yet. Mertesacker out for at least 5 months with a knee injury. Welbeck a write off for the season and Wilshere obviously already crocked though apparently only "out for a week" this time if you can believe that. Also some rumours Cazorla's achilles is fudgeed and hasn't recovered with a summer off, but that's only from twitter at this stage.

Players with long summer exploits were Giroud, Koscielny, Ramsey and Sanchez. With no forward signed as yet the attack is a major worry. As things stand our front 3 are going to be Ox-Walcott-Iwobi.

Edit: What Paul said.

Yea saw that Cazorla stuff. Bit of a worry. With him starting slow he's not really adding much value - I felt we needed him to start the season with a bang to help offset the late return of Ramsey. That's not going to happen now. 

If I was Wenger I would get him into some rest and rehabilitation to try and get the achilles sorted. Although we would miss him, we do have depth in midfield with Elneny, Xhaka and Coquelin all fit and raring to go from day 1.

Ox and Walcott do look nailed on for starting spots at the moment. Personally I'd go for Campbell over Iwobi.

I know Iwobi looked decent last season and there's a bit of hype, but call me crazy, I honestly don't know if I rate him yet. He's got talent for sure, but I'm not sure he's up to our level in the long term. He has to improve quite a lot for me yet. 

Looking ahead to Liverpool... what do we think of a potential starting lineup?

I'm assuming that any signings will now be too late to start that game. 

And I assume this will be the full list of unavailable players;

Mertesacker

Koscielny

Ramsey

Cazorla

Ozil

Sanchez

Giroud

Welbeck

If that is the case, my preference would be;

                      Cech

Bellerin-Chambers-Gabriel-Monreal

                Xhaka-Elneny

         Ox-Wilshere-Campbell

                    Walcott

If Wilshere is injured, then Iwobi comes in. 

Perhaps Holding over Chambers depending on how he looks in the last couple of pre-season games... and Coquelin might take Elneny's spot if Wenger feels we need a more defensive set-up. 

Rest of them pretty nailed on for me. 

Mainly none, because:

Though I do follow @Memz_Dogi cos some of his rants and RT's are hilarious and he seems an ok bloke.

I do follow a lot of Gooners (both myself and on the AFCNZ account) so see a lot of RT's... the "madness" thing has been like a plague. As I said earlier, I only believe it when it's on our website... none of them get everything right - it's mostly just a jizzfest for followers (which I don't get the point of).

This is madness for me.

Don't think Shalke would sell Draxler having just sold Sane to City.

Draxler has not been at Schalke for over a season. Woflsburg replaced De Bruyne with Draxler last year.

Draxler's come out and said he's basically leaving... there were some quotes last night... something about being told he is allowed to go to a bigger club...

Sorry he's at Wolfsburg now, not Schalke, I got that wrong.

Bundesliga is getting cleaned out of top talent with lots of money going in the opposite direction.

I'd start Holding or Le Coq at CB 

Put Campbell at the top, replace Theo with Gibbs

Sooner Iwobi at #10 then playing him wide mid. 

Do hope Jack is good to go, his luck has to change at some point.

Ox is looking good fingers crossed he stays confident and try's things. 

regardless of who starts I want 3 points

Hit the ground running Arsene... 

Are you sure Rob Holding has the quality to begin in his first Premier League match? Seems a bit overconfident.