Rival watch

I'm happy with that. Currently, I don't see Emery delivering that for Arsenal fans...but maybe he will?

 

Oh i expect it to not be great. Of course whoever comes in needs time. Hopefully they get it as sarri was meant to originally have been pegged with getting time.

Just because we might not play how i want (cause if personnel) im not sure drafting in a master defensive manager like simeone will get to where i want the team - personnel permitted or not

I always watch football (avid fantasy premier league player) come rain or shine

 

Simeone would make the best of what you've got today, which seems to be some decent defenders, Kante and a lack of forwards in their prime.

I'm not sure it's worth worrying about season 2020/21.....he'll be counting his compo before then and that's the problem, Changing the style of play takes time and that's a rare commodity at your place, as you say.

 

Villa have signed Jack Butland

Anyone got any suggestions of how they can offset this cost to comply with FFP?

 

Emery has come into the club in dire straits. I know he's worked on tight budgets before in Sevilla and Valencia, but I don't think he anticipated the wage bill to be as restrictive as it has been and I don't think he anticipated the ageing players to be so ineffective.
When he was giving each player their individual assessment of how he thinks their season went, he didn't tell Mkhi, Ozil or Mustafi that they need to be looking for new clubs because he is expecting them to be here next season. That's not because he thinks they're good enough, it's because he knows no-one will pay them that sort of money.

We've been over this before, but it still boggles my mind:

Ozil - £350k per week
Mkhitaryan - £180k per week
Mustafi - £90k per week

No club in their right mind is going to pay that sort of money, so we have to accept they will be staying until their contracts expire. For me, I am hoping we can loan them to clubs who are generous enough to pay a portion of their wages. It will at least give our wage bill a bit more flexibility.

The one good thing is that Freddie Ljunberg, who was working alongside Mertesacker with our U23s, is soon to be our assistant head coach, with Steve Bould going in the opposite direction. This suggests Emery is looking to tap into Ljunberg's expertise on our youth academy regarding who should be promoted to the first-team. It's the most promising batch of youngsters we've had for years, so I'm looking forward to this if nothing else.

Some people say Emery's job is on the line if he doesn't get top 4 and so won't risk youth players.
However, I don't think he has much choice.

A lot of Arsenal fans are also saying Emery has 'no hiding place' if he doesn't deliver CL football next season. If the rumours of a £45m-£50m transfer budget are accurate, I don't know how you can expect him to deliver CL football with a squad that needs major surgery. Any other manager which comes in will suffer the same problems, too.

If Emery's told the club he can deliver under these circumstances, then fair enough. Equally though, there is more competition in this league than he's had to deal with at other clubs, so his job is a lot harder.

Not sure whether he will still be here after May 2020, but my gut feeling is I don't think we'll get Champions League football either next season. So if he leaves, who comes in after him is anyone's guess.

 

Drop the k and you've got a deal

 

With Aubameyang and Lacazette up front, you should score enough goals. You did last time out although Ramsey's departure is a significant loss.

I think we're all agreed that your defending is all over the place. Unless that improves, you will continue to miss out on the CL places. Someone has to get hold of that and the answer isn't likely to be amongst your young players. Some better personnel would help but given money shortages it's got to be in the coaching and that isn't Emery's strength and possibly/probably no Ljunberg's?

I'd try and get some more English grit into the side, maybe try for Lewis Dunk? He's got the right attitude and alongside the quicker Holding, he'd possibly tighten things up? He is very disciplined and will dig in.

 

Him and Duffy are a brilliant CB pairing, in my opinion one of the best pairings in the Prem. When looking at Arsenal and Utd's defences, they could do a lot worse than signing those two.

 

By all means, tell us what would be a lot worse

Actually, scratch that: tell them what could be a lot worse, but suggest to them that it would be a marked improvement...

 

This makes too much sense for Arsenal. Therefore it won't happen.
We'd rather spend a huge chunk of our budget on an 18-year old Frenchman who we can't use until the season after this.

 

Ramsey going is Arsenal's biggest problem...if he had stayed fit they'd have got 4th imho.
Letting him go was insane...but not as insane as paying Ozil £350,000 per week or Mkhitaryan £190,000 per week so I guess it is all relative.

 

There have been some terrible, schoolboy errors at Arsenal in the last few years. The Americans don't get 'soccerball' but most that have purchased big clubs have experience of owning other franchises. Kroenke owns one of the biggest businesses in the world, so the level of naivety displayed at Arsenal is still very surprising.

Either, they've looked at United post-Ferguson and ignored everything or chosen not to look at a club that very recently went through exactly the same process they were embarking on. The club's been run like the senior management has been supplied by the worst of the bed wetters on twitter.

There seems to be a disconnect between the ownership and management, which is always bad news for any business. The owner hasn't been pressing the right buttons or asking the right questions. Money's been thrown around with no thought as to its effects beyond the next 5 minutes and that's rank amateur stuff. Arsenal aren't Chelsea or Citeh, who can write off money going down the drain as if it was water. Now, it's time to pay the price for those mistakes..

 

It was at this moment, Jak Hickman pissed away any potential career he had:

 

Depends which way you want to look at it.

Scoring goals wasn't our issue, but conceding goals was.
If Bellerin and Holding didn't get season-ending injuries, I think we could have got Champions League football. They were very good for us up until that point.
Defensive mistakes was more of a factor than Ramsey's influence.

For the majority of his Arsenal career, Ramsey was massively inconsistent. He was at the club for 11 years and probably had 3 good seasons if you're being generous (none of which were consecutive). He had moments of brilliance followed by moments of sheer idiocy. He wasn't positionally disciplined and his wayward passing/amount of touches he was taking on the ball would ruin our attacks. After his breakthrough season in 2013-14, his only focus was shooting on sight, rather than playing more intelligently as a central midfielder.

Even this season, he was extremely poor up until it was officially confirmed he was going to Juve. Then he started to play really well.
People get nostalgic over him because he scored 2 Cup final winners for us, but that shouldn't cloud how he performed for us overall.

The money that Ramsey and his agent were demanding wasn't justified, in my opinion, but the obvious mistake we made was not selling him earlier on.

 

Man Utd reportedly looking to liberate Issa Diop from his Stratford purgatory

Yeah, about how we could've triggered his release clause last summer...

 

Sky Sports are reporting that Derby are negotiating a contract extension with Fat Frank.

Brian understands that John Terry is ready and waiting on the bench, kit on and everything....

 

"Now might be a good time to leave".
If Utd can make a profit on the £89M paid for Pogba, sell him now.
When he is committed and on form, he can be unstoppable; his physical attributes give him every advantage.
But how often does he want to do it? Half a dozen games a season?
The negatives outweigh the positives and £100M could buy you a player who would make a far bigger difference to a squad with a lot of young players with pace and ability, who need a top drawer player in midfield to bring the best out of them. That isn't Pogba.

 

Bye Bye Sarri....

 

not

 

Question is, who’d be that £100m player to join you that’d be better than Pogba/ better impact than Pogba?

There aren’t many too many “world class” players on the market right now.