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

Better.

bahaha thats pretty good

Apparently Crystal Palace are going hard after Chambers but not much more than what we got him for. Given Mertesackers retiring end of the season and Kosc/Monreal are north of 30 I can't fathom letting him go. Him and Holding provide a young pairing that's making an impact at international level and provide perfect replacements as our older chaps move on with Mustafi, Gabriel, Kolasinic ready in between.

Reports that we've offered Wilshere to Westham for 20m and want a buyback clause inserted. 

I would be quite happy with that. Were he to shake off his injuries and get back to his best, we could bring him back in... if not, leave him be, win win. 

Apparently despite being with us since 9, he was a boyhood Westham fan. He's also very good mates with Joe Hart. So would probably suit all parties.

20mill for him is a large amount of cash. im not sure if i believe it. But i think having a buy back clause wherever he goes is a good idea

turns out we have also re-signed wellington silva from brazil so we can sell him to a french club...not totaly sure how that works coz i thought we moved him on a while ago...

I really hope there is some movement soon on a new CM, there havent been any rumours on any, but i feel thats a spot we could do with an upgrade on. 

That would be a good bit of business. Agree with you kwlap, if we sell him and with Cazorlas permacrooked state continuing I'd like another CM option, not just Coquellin/Elneny challenging Xhaksey.

I thought everyone in the South supported Man United...oh wait, thats only those from Surrey, not Hertfordshire ;-) 

Is it me or do we look a little short a RB/RWB when we see Jenko & Debuchy go + maybe The Ox.

Even if we keep The Ox I feel like we're still short there!

Wenger keeps doubling down on the sanchez comments, day after day, adamant that he is staying. 

At what point do we actually believe him? I am starting to. 

How exactly do these buy back clauses work?

I see comments about how we should have had one with Lukaku and De Bruyne. Also wondering if we've done so with a few of our young guys we've sold this summer - Chalobah, Traore, Ake.

It seems too easy to just put a buy back clause into any selling of a young guy who might turn out good?

I imagine it adds a layer of contractual complexity which may kill deals. If you put a clause like that in you'll need to sacrifice something to put it in - i.e. you're taking away the new clubs ability to make a profit on a player, so they'll likely pay less for the player overall in that instance.

Yea it does seem a little bit "have your cake and eat it too" for the selling club. However it seems there aren't that many players with these clauses, so I think brumbys must be right in that it puts a dampener on the deal for the buying club. 

I think Arsenal uses these clauses more than most - it's well-known that Carlos Vela had one, and a brazilian guy Wellington Silva also has one currently. Rumours are floating around that we're looking to use that to take him back and re-sell him for profit, which seems a bit scummy to be honest. 

Was there one for Fabregas?

Buy back clauses often only last one or two seasons. So the ability of the buying club to make a profit isn't inhibited too much.

I think the reason we don't see them too often is that, for this reason, they don't really work.

We've all seen this film before, and it always ends with Wenger selling to a rival instead of losing the player for free. 

yup there was. Wenger passed on activating it.

The Perez story is odd.

He was injured when we needed him. He was fit when the rest of our strikers were fit. Not surprising he didn't get much game time. He's also been mouthing off in the press before the season ended and I think that's what has killed him.

Surely his number going to Lacazette was pre-planned as he must have been allowed to leave/told to find another club.

Additionally, it's worth noting that those quotes aren't verbatim; Arseblog's got the deets:
http://news.arseblog.com/2017/07/lucas-perez-fed-up-feels-cheated-wants-deportivo-return/

Sounds like that process has worked well

Not a lot of new transfer news about at the moment. Possibly looking at another midfielder, Wenger standing his ground on Sanchez, people need to be sold etc. Still haven't hit August yet so it should begin ramping up in the next few weeks - hopefully involving some of the deadweight being shifted on.

Slightly related but it looks like we could see Wilock vs Wilock this weekend. The Wilock We Wost (sorry) has apparently done better than expected and been training with the firsts a lot - which is great for him! 

Positive news from Santi

The new away kit has been released. I don't think I'll be buying it. Could've been worse I guess.

terrible

Reiss Nelson was decent again this morning;

https://twitter.com/ValoliGroup/status/89154209109...

Arseblog reporting that Ospina is going to stay for the season. Great news imo. 

It really came down to him or Szy right? We couldn't let both of them go so we should be sorted. Do need a long term successor to Cech though, can't see it being Ospina.

Hit and miss in the Emirates Cup this weekend. The goal Coquellin helped set up showed a lot more attacking and driving forward impetus than we're used to seeing. Maybe he's just a very disciplined midfielder who can attack but is instructed to sit deeper.

Looking ahead to the community shield I'd like to see us try:

                  Ospina

    Holding Mertesacker Kosc

The Ox   Ramsey  Xhaka    Sead

        Ozil     Giroud  Lacazette

Bench: Cech, Bellerin, Monreal, Elneny, Walcott, Iwobi, Welbeck, 

Not a bad starting 11 and bench to start the season with...

2nd game was terrible - Laca looks like he'll take at least half a season to settle in. He's not quite there yet.

I also don't think he'll be very effective on the wing.

We don't play with wingers so I don't think that will be an issue we have to worry about. Our fullbacks are basically our wingers now. 

The only real concerns I have out of preseason are;

1) We're very light in midfield right now, with Coquelin getting injured this weekend, and Xhaka also having a small niggle. 

2) We haven't yet played an actual viable central defence. If it's got Elneny or Maitland-Niles in it then it's just not a real back 3 for me. I am a bit puzzled about this because even with Gabriel and Mustafi yet to come back, we've still got plenty of numbers. Mertesacker, Koscielny, Chambers, Holding and Monreal, why have we not seen a back 3 made up of them alone? Minor gripe though to be fair, I expect we'll see the probable starting 3 come together in the Community Shield. 

Also, I would love to see the Ox playing in a forward role again. He looked dynamite at wingback once again at the weekend, but with Bellerin likely to start at RB, why can't we give him a crack in Sanchez' role? He's probably the best suited to it anyway. Walcott did alright there against Benfica but I'd prefer the Ox. Has a better all round game.

Watched the Benfica game but not the Sevilla game. Watched highlights this morning.

Man, Welbeck... what an enigma... the guy literally has it all in his locker, including speed that manages to surprise me nearly every time, but he cannot finish to save himself! 

His air swing on the cross that Lacazette scored from was an absolute classic, something very similar happened last season before someone scored from memory. He also created an awesome chance with his pace, but then toe-poked it a mile wide when the moment of truth arrived.

Arsene better have him out the back for an hour after training, every single day... I'll never forget in one of my Thierry Henry books, he talked about the training that he put into finishing. He said for years, he would just go for hours AFTER training, day in, day out, picking the ball up from the left, using his pace, opening up the body and finishing at the far post, (we all know the classic Henry finish), day after day after day after day after day after day. 

Then when he did it on game day we would wonder how he made it look so easy. Because it IS easy when you've done it literally millions of times!

I feel like finishing is about your mentality very early in your career, but later on, the 10,000 hours rule comes into play. 

So come on Danny, do those 10,000 hours! ALL of them on finishing! The rest of your game is totally sussed as far as I'm concerned mate!

I'm with you on the midfield Paulm. Coquelin is apparently good to go for the season opener, but still, that's not ideal. I guess The Ox might be about to get some game time there, albeit from the bench. It does highlight why he's such a good squad player, he can cover full back (either side), centre mid, or attacking player behind the striker.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premie...

Cracks me up, its like writing a headline saying "Bill Gates releases windows update that has bugs"

Kroenke's actual involvement is nil, but namedropping him and Arsenal + animal rights rage = clickbait gold

Kroenke Out

From a brief skim of another article the channel has been on the air in the US since 2006, odd that folks are only kicking up a stink now that it's being launched in the UK. Kroenke didn't exactly have anything to do with its creation anyway, he merely bought the company that bought the original channel.

Apparently Wilshere wants to stay and fight for his place. 

We are short in midfield, there is room for him there, but can he stay fit?

Ramsey, Xhaka, Elneny, Coquelin, then Wilshere and perhaps the Ox. Is it enough for central midfield? (not expecting anything out of Santi this season)

Nope. None of those players bar maybe Xhaka are going to last a season. Wilshere/Cazorla may give us 15 games each if we're lucky. Still think we bring in one more who is the long term Santi replacement.

Possibly enough in terms of numbers, but certainly not in terms of quality if you're fighting for top four.