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

To replace Sokartis? Me too...

Interesting move considering he just signed a 4 year contract. Was this the plan all along?

We were being linked with that Croatian with the hair in the weekend, Vida. And talk came back up around the possibility of Mustafi being sold. 

I wonder just what is going on with Emery's thinking on the CBs. Obviously we have Koscielny to return in a few months which makes things a bit difficult in terms of the decision-making. Can we recall Chambers from loan if he has a setback?

Does Lichtsteiner play CB too or is he always a RB?

And also, does this mean Holding has gone ahead of Chambers in Emery's pecking order? Seems that way... 

Man City were scary against Chelsea. And this is them with quite a few players still away due to World Cup duties..

I would take one win out of our first two games.

Chambers on loan doesn't make any sense to me; he's a better player than Holding and has more minutes under his belt. I actually thought he could be our best current CB..

I'd rather a loan than a sale though, which would be even worse.

Given you're starting the season with Mustafi, Chambers, Holding, Sokratis, Mavropanos with Kosc and Monreal to come back as possible CB contenders it isn't surprising we're considering him for a loan. And let's be honest, it's a loan to Fulham which keeps him in the EPL and close by in London - him and Holding can keep flatting together ?

Starting weekend line up is hard to pick, especially CB and CM:

                     Cech

Bellerin Mustafi Chambers AMN

         Ramsey Guendouzi

    Mhiki        Ozil         Auba

                    Laca

Yea it's definitely not surprising in terms of numbers, but I think it is in terms of the individual. 

Chambers seemed to have been improving and developing well, I think a lot of fans definitely had him ahead of Holding and Mavropranos in terms of first-team readiness at the very least. With Mustafi's fall from grace in the fans eyes, and Sokratis' underwhelming start in pre-season, some even had Chambers as first choice in our best 11. 

Obviously not Emery!

I thought Holding would be the one to go on loan personally.

However, perhaps it's RCB v LCB thinking - Holding is a LCB, and we have a lot of RCBs (Mustafi, Sokratis, Chambers)

Mavropanos played at LCB when he started for us last season, while obviously Kosc can play there and Monreal too (though Kos is out, Monreal isn't really a CB unless used in a back 3)

Great point re: LCB vs RCB

That might well be the rationale here

The more I think about it we're a little light at CM for opening weekend. Ramsey should be OK, youngsters are all good. Elneny you'd say is borederline like Ozil is, while Xhaka and Torriera must be a too soon right?

I wouldn't be surprised to see Guendouzi start, the way pre-season has been tracking. 

I think Ozil will start. 

Be interesting to see what formation we play. It may not necessarily reflect the rest of the games this season. Emery is known to change formation and personnel depending on the opposition. I dare say we'll see the more defensive of Emery's set-ups this weekend.

XI v Man City for me;

Cech/Leno (who the hell knows? Would probably edge towards Cech)

Bellerin Mustafi Sokratis Maitland-Niles

Elneny Guendouzi  Xhaka

Ozil Mkhi

Auba

Cech's gotta start as far as I'm concerned. He's looking bigger, stronger, and in better form than we've seen in awhile. He's also got a new CB pairing in Mustafi/Sokratis and our 3rd choice LB starting.

Also, is this the kind of availability issues that should be giving Cohen Bramall a crack? I know he's being talked up an exit but perhaps it's worth giving him a shot this season in the absence of any depth.

I did also see us being linked with Ricardo Rodgriguez but at 30m and an unwilling AC Milan I doubt he'd be coming over last minute, nor would he solve the immediate problem of Monreal being a little bit out of action.

I think we're better off playing Maitland-Niles until Monreal is fit. And we can give the young guy Osei-Tutu (sp?) a run in the Europa League perhaps?

I also wonder if Lichtsteiner might be able to fill in on the left at a pinch? 

Definitely don't think it's worth spending money on when we have 2 good options to come back from injury. The only other option is perhaps splashing some cash and letting Monreal go, as there seemed to be some interest from Real Sociedad a few weeks back. I'd prefer not to though, I see him as very important to us, especially since the jury is still out on Kolasinac. 

Cohen Bramall, I can only assume he isn't up to it. He was a transfer gamble when we signed him, went on loan to Birmingham and wasn't able to cement a starting berth last season at championship level. Not writing him off of course, but to be honest I don't even know where he's at right now - has he even been with the first team in pre-season training?

Man I'm really excited as to how Emery lines us up for the first game. He's been playing different formations through pre-season, changing them in-game, using different players in different roles, it's a real guess at this point.  So much intrigue come Monday morning!

God I hope we don't get a hiding! It's certainly possible. Man City appear to have their sh*t together even without so many world cup players. If things don't go well they can pile on the goals... yikes. 

Also lots of talk this morning that Reiss Nelson has impressed Emery a lot, and is going to sign a new 5 year contract. 

Mate, Bramall is about 10 rungs down the pecking order. He is nowhere near the level required.

Also, Osei-Tutu is a right back, not a left-back, though he's played there at a pinch a couple of times.

Sure, but Coquelin was halfway out the door too when his resurgence began. I hadn't considered using Lichtensteiner but it's not a bad shout, bit of added bite and experience. 

Cripes, shows what I know about the youngsters! 

No way he's an option if that's the case. An old head might be able to manage a switching of sides but it's not a good thing to put on a young player trying to make his way. 

Is it that big a deal? If AMN is right footed and a midfielder surely it's harder for him to adjust to playing full back than a specialist swapping sides?

AMN is more experienced and has been used all over the pitch.

Re: Bramall, he's nowhere near first team and never has been. He was a low risk Wenger gamble, but he's League 1 level.

This is a good point. Wenger would do this without fear, but under Wenger we were lacking defensive organisation and discipline, we want Emery and co to remedy that, so perhaps going down that path is not a good one.

At this point, given all the options discussed, my preference would be to not buy anybody, and to play Lichtsteiner there. His experience would surely make him the best prospect at handling the switch. 

Anyone's guess as to what will actually happen though!

I'm hanging out for Monday morning, waking up at 5am to see the line up. I'm actually not bothered by the result, just keen to see how we line up in the new era, who he starts etc. 

As long as we don't get smashed. I'd take an arsey draw.

1-0 to the Arsenal.

I've been pondering what I'd consider a good season for us. Champions League football has to be the priority, while it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect a strong Europa league run from a manager who has one it several times...

If we make Top 4, I would be over the moon. I still think we have the weakest squad in the prospective top 6, except for the maybe Spurs but they obviously have a very defined style of play and everyone knows their roles well; which we do not yet have.

If we make top 4 I also don't care what happens in EL.

I think ManC and Liverpool have the strongest squads, but the rest are fairly close to each other, even if ManU and Chelsea might have slightly better ones than ours (still debatable though, particularly regarding Chelsea). 

Spurs definitely have the worst squad, by miles in my opinion. Pochettino is just consistently getting more than the sum of their parts out of them. They're a lot like we used to be circa 2006 - 2013. 

When it comes down to it, our squad is good enough if Emery does the business. If he gets the buy-in and gets good output out of them, they can be successful. 

Perhaps it's just because for me, I can't come up with a First XI back-line which doesn't make me shark myself. With every other top 6 club, their back 4's are reasonably solid. That has to be telling over the course of a season.

There is not one CB in our squad that I have confidence in.

The other side of the pitch, we have a lot of depth; but there's also a lot of similar players. No wingers, imbalanced.

In the middle, we've got unproven guys like Torreira, underperforming players like Xhaka and young potentials like Guendouzi. Again, no player in that midfield really fills me with confidence.

So, what's the verdict on Kroenke taking 100% control of Arsenal? Seems to be a bit of disquiet from the Arsenal Supporters Trust over the move. Looks like he's using £45m million of his own money with the rest of the £600m coming from Deutsche Bank.

i'm not sure at all regarding the take and what it would mean long term really.....was hoping someone on there would explain it "simple" terms LOL 

Not a fan.

We knew this would come eventually, whether it be in the guise of Kroenke or Usmanov. 

He's leveraged himself with this massive loan to do it, he now has the ability to leverage Arsenal with more debt at his own discretion, there's no transparency on our financial business any longer, no more AGM, rumour has it that Gazidis is going and Kroenke will put his son in the CEO role, so there's quite a few scary unknowns here. 

I have a negative outlook at the moment but no choice but to wait and see how this pans out. His achievements both on and off the pitch with his american franchises does not fill me with confidence. 

There are a couple of decent articles on the Guardian that do a good job of explaining it. My basic understanding is that this doesn't really change much as far as the day-to-day running of the club is concerned, given that Usmanov didn't exercise any control/power previously. The main concerns seem to be around transparency now that Kroenke will have full control. He'll be the sole shareholder as he can now purchase the remaining shares (some of which were owned by individual fans) on a compolsury basis.

So the Dembele talk looks real, but very unlikely.

Rumours last night suggest that we are trying to get him with a 10m loan fee for the first season, with the option to buy for 90m (!) at the end of the season. 

They say ManU are in the mix as well. You would think that would put paid to our interest as I'm sure they could just stump up the cash in one go. Only chance of us getting him is if the player himself really wants to come, and doesn't want to go anywhere else. 

The takeover is inevitable, but it isn't great. That said we're basing that on the fact that their experience in the US is fairly average. But, I doubt they would run us like an NFL franchise. It's going to be a few years before we can really understand the impact of it all. Most concerning to me is that the debt borrowed isn't tied to the performance of the club, but they've ruled out recouping any of that debt through the clubs performance if that makes sense.

Chambers has also been confirmed on loan to Fulham. Good luck to the lad, I'm sure we'll spend a chunk of the season bemoaning his absence but it's done.

Looking forward to seeing how the window unfolds now, we've got around 45 hours until it's shut - with Chambers gone you'd have to expect we'll be getting another CB in - and maybe, just maybe some M A D N E S S

This wikipedia page gives a quick explanation on the history of Arsenal's ownership, it's quite interesting;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership_of_Arsenal...

That whole David Dein/Kroenke/Usmanov kerfuffle and then Nina Bracewell-Smith's eventual cave really fudgeed us.

Arseblog had a good emergency Podcast on it. Andrew chatted with his usual mate, head of the AST, and Ian Wright. He talked through the David Dein initiated chaos and how it's really ballsed us right up.

This one from Arsenal Vision was better I thought.

Dembele has announced he's staying at Barcelona.

Ramsey is apparently close to re-signing. 

Rumours suggest the Vida thing may be over, and that we're not signing anyone else. 

Attempting to sell Lucas, Welbeck and Campbell on deadline day. 

Lucas to West Ham seems pretty much done. I can't see Welbeck moving on as I doubt he'd go abroad and there hasn't been enough time since his return from holiday to find a new home for him. I'm hopeful Campbell & Ospina head abroad giving us more time to sell.

If you really want to shark yourself about KSE (I did), have a look into how their LA stadium is being financed. 

House. 

Of. 

Cards.

Also talk that we're open to offers for Elneny.

Seems very weird now that Chambers and Elneny were offered, and signed, new contracts in the last couple of months. 

Is this part of a plan or just a total shambles?