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

It was preceded by this;

"Shkodran Mustafi has been linked to Arsenal. He featured in SFHB1. Here's an extract from @MoarFootball's profile:"

Another couple of goals for Gnabry. 5 in 3 games.

It's starting to sound a bit like we have one £30m cheque that we're offering around until someone takes it. Can see Gazidis handing it to Dick Law and looking over his glasses saying "now, don't you spend this on anything silly son."

I've made something for you...

Sunday game so Monday 5 AM kick off for us. no bars I know of will be open

Can anyone get me excited about this season being an Arsenal fan? Apart from beating the yids twice and finishing above them. You would think if you sign 2 outfield players in two summer windows you must have the best squad in the world. 

looks like Mustafi is heading our way

still not convinced... Ive heard that his agent is talking to people, but not nessciarily about Mustafi and not nessecarily to arsenal

fudgeing muddy water surrounding this. 

Mustafi looks done to me. Perhaps available for Leicester. 

Team for this weekend lads? 

Some tough picks... so many questions...

Rush in Koscielny? Play 2 youngsters in the CB position? Or shift Monreal in there? Walcott start? If yes, up top or on the right? Iwobi start? Ox start? Sanchez at striker? No.10 role - Ramsey? Cazorla? And who in central midfield? Elneny done enough? Coquelin the incumbent or the back-up? Is Xhaka ready?

I think I would go with;

                        Cech

   Bellerin-Chambers-Monreal-Gibbs

                   Xhaka-Elneny

              Ox-Cazorla-Sanchez

                      Walcott

Personally I'd be swapping in Elneny for Coquellin - need some solid protection in the back there, and I'd start Ramsey on the right given how in form he has been for us, with Sanchez leading the line and the Ox wide right.

It's hard to know how to best shape things up with only Ozil and Wilshere unavailable.

Entire post was quite confusing

Assuming no Ozil Santi, Jack, Kos, Giroud, Meat, Gab, Ramsey

Cech

Bell, Coq, Holding, Monreal

Elneny, Granit

Ox, Iwobi, Campbell

Sanchez

Coq at the back? Not sure about that. I'd have nacho in the middle , paired with chambers and Gibbs on the left. Bell on the right. Best balance of experience and people playing in position. Coq still in the team though, just starting in the middle with xhaha

Apologies, for clarities sake I'd go:

                  Cech

Bellerin-Chambers-Monreal-Gibbs

           Xhaka-Coquellin

       Ramsey-Cazorla-Ox

                  Sanchez

hearing 5 year deal for Mustafi, 30mil. not a bad deal.

Yeah y'all

Klopp: Six strikers are too many

And we just want two.....

Would you have any of theirs though?

I wouldn't. 

Perhaps Sturridge but he's already injury-prone, he'd probably spontaneously combust if he came in our dressing room. 

In fact, of the strikers that have moved in this off-season, which would we actually have? There's this conception that we've missed out, but we haven't.

I suggested Ibrahamovic a year or so ago and the majority on here said no. 

Spurs' Janssen? No thanks. Most of us would've been unhappy with that. 

Batshuayi? Maybe, but I bet most gooners would've been pretty underwhelmed by that signing. Not an obvious increase in quality, unproven. 

Who else is there? No one has bought anyone we would have rather had, except Juve with Higuain, and he cost 80m which is absurd for someone that age, I would never want us to spend that on him. He also came back for their preseason fat which seems a bit sh*t to me. 

We all blame this stuff on Wenger but the fact is that there's just not that much available. A lot of gooners are looking to get Lacazette across the line, but go back to the start of the off-season - he was not a name we were braying for at all. We've just fallen upon that by default in our quest for anyone.

We're actually fully on a hiding to nothing to get a decent striker, unless Lewa, Griezzman or someone like that actually decides they want a change. I'll hold out hope for that, but to be perfectly honest, we'd probably be better off spending this cash on an attacking wide player and making Sanchez/Walcott play striker until Welbeck is fit. 

There are more quality players in that position potentially available, like Mahrez, Draxler, even Rodriguez. Those guys are all at ages where madness money would be more easily justified.

Nah hell no Paul, I wasn't meaning we'd want any of their's, was purely saying we want 1 and they have 6 and it's ironic.

And I agree a wide player like Mahrez or Draxler would be as good as a striker as it would mean we could change the formation (if Wenger was keen).

Now that we have Xhaka I'd like to see a formation and line up like this, if we got a Mahrez/Draxler:

      Cech

Bellerin – Mustafi – Koscielny – Monreal

Xhaka

Mahrez Ozil Cazorla

Alexis

Giroud

Dodgy rumour is we've put a bid in for Mario Lemina the DM/CM from Juventus, surely that's a joke as we're starting to bottleneck in those positions 

Either that or Arsene has hired a "hamstring listener" to communicate with our British midfielders and didn't like what he heard

That is so true!!

Other than scoring a goal Chambers had a nightmare, had a part to play in at least 3 of those four. His passing is so poor he puts people around him under pressure.

Holding looked good, Alexis quiet and mostly offside, Santi and Xhaka both looked under cooked coming off the bench.

Bring in Mustafi and a forward!

State of our defending. Barely even Champo quality.

Getting it back to 4-3 shouldn't paper over any cracks. Although it's more like gaping chasms at the moment.

Sadly much like the 8-2 it probably needed some sort of beating to show him the defence is not up to it and he needs to do something about it. No doubt we'll just be told that we came out for the second half "a little bit with the handbrake on" but that we "showed character to come back and are proud of the performance after that."

Chambers was awful. Kosc in for him quick-smart next week, and I feel that would make a massive difference. 

Holding on the other hand was quite impressive.

Man we were cruising in that first half, should've been up 2-0, but then Coutinho scores that freekick, which to be fair was quite brilliant. 

Even then where was our composure, we had halftime to calm down and come out and play again, but we get stunned again, and then we're in our shell and put to the sword. I put the 3rd and 4th goals down to not having good leadership on the pitch, and Liverpool quite brilliantly taking advantage of us being shell shocked.

They had about 20 - 30 mins complete dominance and killed the game off in that time. 

Fair play to the lads finally responding at 4-1, but the horse had bolted. 

Also, Arsene shoulda listened to my suggested lineup! Ramsey going down like that is just so predictable. He left the Euros at the same time as Ozil, why is he starting this game in the 10 role with Ozil cooling his heels??? Makes no sense to me, we know Ramsey's issues, where was the medical team on that one? Seems completely brainless. 

Very interested to see Wenger playing Coquelin in the box-to-box role like that, he was almost like a roving destroyer. It worked quite well a lot of the time too. 

Despite our third Day 1 loss in as many years, there are positives, aside from just showing a bit of guts from 4-1 down. 

All goals aside from the free kick came through the left channel - exactly where Koscielny will partner up with Monreal again from next week, you would hope.

Our midfield and forward play was actually pretty good, 3 goals and a missed peno was an ok return on Day 1. 

Next week I'd be hoping to see Cazorla, Xhaka, Koscielny and the Ox come in for Ramsey, Elneny, Chambers and Iwobi, and I think we'll be stronger across the board with that. 

Now go and sign Mustafi and Mahrez!

what a shark show

bit worried that talk of Mustafi has gone quite over the past few days. get him over the line and in the back line!

Well gents, I'm currently in New Orleans and linked up with the Arsenal chapter over here for the match, 10am K/O much better than the 3am(?) K/O in NZ?

While I definitely would drop Chambers in a second because of his passing, Holding lost gave away the free kick for Coutinho's first (which was a cracking shot, no one saves those), and lost Coutinho again for his second. Chambers/Monreal were terrible for Maine's goal.

Bellerin absolutely killed it down the right & tracking back covering.

Thought Theo was typical f*cking Theo. Win's a penalty, take's it terribly, scores 69 seconds later, get's fed the ball at his feet in the box with 30 seconds left and goes full clutz on it. He is utterly infuriating at times, but like my gif suggests has these moments of brilliance.

Alexis as a number 9 didn't work too well. 

Mahrez/Mustafi vital signings for us. 

Oh, and when you're desperately chasing an equaliser with time running out watch players like The Ox and Santi totally off the same page and showing zero responsibility for chasing down loose balls/passes that could be for multiple people.

This is so fudgeing true. There was a point late on where about four of our players were ball watching and I screamed at the telly "what the fudge are you doing?!".

Shark like that is fudgeing infuriating.

Yeah well done rushing Ramsey back too. Guess that's him for the usual 2-3 months now. Wenger talking about how "we were not ready." What have we been doing then and isn't that what he is paid to ensure? Why are other teams "ready?"

Rushed back and limped off with his hamstring gone.

I just don't get why he was rushed back. And none of us were really discussing it prior to the game, he just kinda slipped into training earlier than Ozil etc, and nothing was said. 

Wenger mentioned about Cazorla not yet being fit, but he played 90mins in Norway last week, and to me he looked pretty fit (especially compared to the game before). 

Even if Cazorla wasn't fit enough, Iwobi or the Ox in the 10 role would've been ok - Campbell didn't even make the bench today. 

Cannot understand our medical team or wenger thinking that was a good idea, with rambo's history of breaking down these exact situations. Especially when we appeared to be taking precautionary measures with literally everybody else - Kosc/Giroud/Ozil all in the stands, Wilshere on the bench. 

Madness (the bad kind). 

Rests Koscielny, Ozil and Giroud after long Euros campaigns but rushes Ramsey back even when he virtually went as far as those three.

Guy has lost the plot.

Mustafi's price will have just doubled too.

Apparently we've put the feelers out for Barca's Mathieu as our back up plan.

Could do a lot worse.