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

http://www.football365.com/arsenal/9380152/Transfe...

I feel sorry for Wellington Silva. Seems to have great ability but we keep having to loan him out to Spain due to work permit issues, hopefully he'll get a crack next season.

Cripes our 2nd eleven would seriously be better than that now. 

Interesting that Szy is now number one, Gibbs is our starting LB, and Rosicky is considered one of our best squad players.

Checked out Rebel Lower Hutt today and no Puma team shirts so guess it should arrive in Wellington this week.

Also my current boots have just about come to an end. A hole in the side makes them not much good when it's wet like yesterday, so have just gone and ordered the Puma exclusive Arsenal Red and white ones. Sucked in? Lol.

3 world cup winners...that'll do their confidence a world of good going into the new season!

Hopefully four.

Lots of reports suggesting we're fairly close to signing Ospina. He looked good at the world cup. Apparently has been pretty good for Nice the last few seasons too. Decent back-up or even competition for Szczesny.

Wenger has been quoted as saying after the world cup win it will be hard to motivate his German players for a match vs. Stoke

Can they do it on a cold Tuesday night at Stoke?

Happy for our guys, three World Cup winners. A year ago we were team full of losers who had never won anything. Now we have an FA Cup, three WC winners and add in everything Sanchez won at Barcelona and it's a squad full of winners again.

Don't forget Santi's 2 Euro medals

Appaarently we have agreed fee for Sami Khedria.......really hope its true

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-ne...

This article suggest he'll be 3 million as he has 12 months left on his contract at Nice. But he's a free agency according to Wikipedia...?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ospina

Good bit of business either way to get a ready made back up for Szy for free/3m.

Article goes on to highlight Debuchy being imminent. Could be a good week for us.

Still interested to see what happens with Vermalen/DMF/Striker...

True. Shame he missed out injured in 2010 or we'd have four WC winners.

On the Manquillo and Debuchy signings and what it means for Jenkinson I imagine we'd see Jenko loaned out to get more game time, and Debuchy to be a 2-3 year signing, with a view of Manquillo/Jenkinson being the long term succesors. If Jenkinson doesn't cut it we'd still have Bellerin coming through, but I still don't mind Jenkinson being seen as a longer term prospect.

Just heard from Football Central that the new home and away shirts are now in stock.

Debuchy quoted as saying he has joined us. Nice work

Madrid's AS paper is reporting the Khedira deal is nearly done.

http://news.arseblog.com/2014/07/as-reporting-khedira-to-arsenal-as-almost-done/

Ozils missus = WOW!

Khedira is an absolute boss.Really getting exited about this season.For once we're actually making smart , well thought out signings of players that are a proven quality. 5 weeks to go COYG!

Mandy Capristo?

maybe your thinking of his ex

Aida Yespica

Neither of them. Must have been one of the other German players wife/girlfriend talking to him after the game today.

Any way onto a bit of transfer chat:

Been reading online a heap of Arsenal transfer news and according to caughtoffside we've agreed to terms with Khedira , Debuchy and Ospina with medicals to come this week/next week.Also Yaya Sonogo will go on loan to Nice . Not signed yet but definitely exciting.

Khedira, Debuchy and Ospina would be friggin excellent signings to fill those holes in my opinion.

Some pieces I've read claiming Debuchy is a step down from Sagna, but I think that's being a bit nit-picky... considering Debuchy starts ahead of him for France

It was actually the catalan paper reporting that Khedira is a done deal, not the madrid one, and they're renown for printing rubbish to try and unsettle Real Madrid, so we can't trust that just yet I don't think... I'm waiting for something more before getting too excited there

Brumbys, despite the Remy rumours, I get the feeling that might be it in the forwards with the Sanchez signing. Early in the season we'll probably see Sanchez on the right while Walcott comes back from injury, but then I expect Sanchez to start getting time up top, and even Walcott as well for that matter. 

I don't like this rumour of Sanogo being loaned out though, I'd still prefer to have him around as an option, and for him to keep working with Wenger. 

I wonder if Vermaelen might consider staying on now that we are making moves in the market like this? If he does then we might just be set without another CB. We'd have 3 experienced ones plus this Semi Ajayi that we signed last year from Charlton. I think he's 20 and is apparently the business. Either that or hold onto Miquel for now, although I wonder if his time is up considering he hasn't really managed to break through. 

Back on Khedira, it would be really good timing for signing him - he's sat out a huge part of last season with injury and only came back just in time for the world cup, so he should be fairly fresh coming into the season as opposed to our other world cup players.

I don't like to post lineups before players are signed, but if we did manage this, this potential side is fairly mouth-watering...

                      Szczesny

Debuchy-Mertesacker-Koscielny-Gibbs

               Khedira-Ramsey

            Walcott-Ozil-Cazorla

                       Sanchez

Bench: Ospina, Vermaelen, Flamini, Wilshere, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Podolski, Giroud

Bit off-balance with Flamini covering DMF and fullback from the bench... but how do you leave out some of these guys???

No room for Rosicky, Monreal, Jenkinson, Diaby, Arteta, Gnabry, Campbell... cripes

I wonder if someone will be sold? Podolski sticks out as the least needed in my opinion, as much as I love the guy.

Sanogo and Gnabry will have to be loaned out if campbell comes back to us this season. Another lower epl team will be stoked to take Gnabry i reckon

Yea definitely aint room for all three of them with the squad we have for this season. 

I think this is why Wenger has been fairly coy about Campbell and whether or not he'll be with us. We basically have Walcott and now Sanchez who fill that "wide player come striker" role, and then Giroud and Sanogo who are out and out strikers. 

Sanogo gives a point of difference with his size and strength, considering he also likes to run in behind (which Giroud doesn't). He's a bit of an all-rounder as opposed to Giroud/Sanchez/Walcott. 

Campbell could be prime for a loan to a lower EPL side for the season, somewhere where he might be a guaranteed starter, Crystal Palace might be a good place for him to learn about english defenders, and also to keep him in London.

That's a good team Paulm. Regardless how they line up to be honest.

I'm still wanting the Walcott  -  Giroud  -  Sanchez, but feel like for once we might have the ability for a plan A, B and C. Depending on if Wenger will utilise them :) 

If we do sign Ospina and Sami......we are pretty much sorted and ready to go??? apart from if TV5 leaves offcourse. Last day of the transfer window might be a bit boring for us then aye :P

I welcome a boring last day of transfer window....would make a huge change ;)

Does sound like we are trying to get our business done early which would make a welcome change from going into the season understrength and having to play catch up from the start.

We have now had 6 World Cup Winners, as in 6 who were Arsenal players at the time of winning - Vieira, Petit, Fabregas, Ozil, Mertesacker, Podolski. This overtakes West Ham and United who have 3 to make us the leading English club. Juventus have the most with 22, followed by Bayern with 21 and Inter with 18.

And doesn't count players like Henry, Pires, Gilberto and Alan Ball who joined after winning the World Cup. Have we had any other past World Cup winners?

Riding the tube the day we signed Ozil was f*cking sublime.

Arguably seven... George Eastham was a member of the 1966 squad but didn't play... 

Sorry sometimes the pedantic urge just overwhelms!

So many mixed messages coming out about khedira. Some saying we are close, some saying RM dont want to sell, some saying his wages are too high.

I have zero confidence in sign him.

Madrid would sell with Kroos coming in and Sami being in the final year of his contract and keep reading that 23milli has been agreed, yeah i have read the wages thing as well

Thanks. The Daily Mail article I got the info from didn't list him - in fact they only list 14 from the 1966 squad so it looks like they have only counted those who played. Link

Aside from 1966, of the 10 other winners coming from the English league 6 were Arsenal players.

Ospina for 3200000 is a good buy.

Looks like  I was  wrong about Schneid and instead we have Khedria. Some Uk Bookies have suspended him moving to Arsenal as an option.

Big call this signing. 

As for Joel Campbell returning I certainly hope so. Need to also consider Gnarby and Zealem. Got to give the younger ones a proper shot. Even Coq, he looked good but look who is in front of him.

There has been a different attitude in relation to playing youth players last season. It worked out for us in the cup though, so no complaints. Point I'm making, is in relation to what you're saying foal, and I agree completely. If they stay at Arsenal (they being the likes of Campbell / Sanogo, Gnabry and Zelalem) then they have to be given full priorities for the league cup and then matches where possible in the FA cup and the odd appearance off the bench in the league - or get sent to a premier league team on loan. 

To me unless they are an injury away from being involved then we need to look at sending the kids out on loan. As much as they can learn from the tutelage of AW and co. I dont think its substitutes playing regularly. I understood last year with sanogo was doing a lot of rehab. But this year I think he needs to be playing

I tend to agree kwlap, the more game time the better. I always thought you wanted to be 3 deep across your positions, where the first and 2nd string players could start without giving you palpitations, while the 3rd stringers are the young up and comers getting cup matches/injury cover for 1st or 2nd stringers.