Bloody hell, it took Mikel Arteta a total of five and a half season to get a CF. He inherited three – Pepe, Lacazette, Aubameyang but he shipped them all off to play Kai Havertz – a midfielder, Mikel Merino – another midfielder and Trossard – a winger. We finished 2nd three times in a row and I can bet a tenner we would have won at least one of them had there been a proper goal scorer upfront. With the Sesko and Gyokeres saga and the delay that was happening, I was getting sceptical that it might not happen at all, but better late than never.
Since The King left, we had the young 16 year old Walcott wearing that number for a decade, he did much better for his age and the support he had around him. Auba came and delivered some beautiful goals and games for us. Loved him except for his move to Chelsea but hey, he got a family. Nketiah was a trial and failed as it did for the ESR #10. Time will tell whether Gyokeres does justice to the number but let me be clear, I am pretty sure he will.
We are paying £64m to Sporting because the add-ons are too easy. That’s a lot of money after we have already spent some on Kepa, Zubimendi, Norgaard and a lot of money for Madueke. But I DON’T CARE. I just don’t want to see midfielders playing as a striker and I don’t want to see a sulking Havertz up top. We are bringing a striker who has got personality, presence, and intimidation in him. He has some unbelievable stats albeit in a weaker league but hey, he did pretty well in Champions League.
I have no doubt he will do great in red and white. He knows it, so he pushed for the move; his agent knows it so he is marketing himself by dropping 6m of agent fees, the club knows it because ultimately they are going to pay 60+ million GBP for him.
Cristhian is here – Welcome to Arsenal
We have signed Cristhian Mosquera from Valencia. I was always calling out the club to get a proper CF, and ignore this versatility crap everyone throws around these days. How many games have you seen Kiwior, White or Tomiyasu play at CB or which one of them were able to bench Saliba when he was going through a bad form couple season back? No one. We need competition everywhere and we need good back ups.
Mosquera has been a starter for Valencia since 2023/24 season and have played the most number of games for any player in Europe top 5 league who is under the age of 21. If you are not even 21 and you play 73 games as a CB in couple of seasons, you are a talent.
A very good signing according to me, hats off to whoever pushed for it. And we only paid £13m for him with some add-ons. Brilliant deal considering Tomiyasu is gone and we have White/Timber for RB while Calafiori/MLS fight for the LB spot.
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Right, sorry for a short one today. Days are just getting busier as I am getting old. Hope you are have a good one, wherever you are in the world. Cheers.
Fuck me how bad do you CB’s have to be to lose a race with Havertz from inside our half?
Nwaneri replacing Odegaard, now that’s something that should be more often and for more than 8 minutes. Come on Mikel, be a bit more brave from next time yeah
First it should be noted that Bayern L are a level or 2 above Athletic so we were always going to look better and more assured with little pressure on the ball compared to what we will face in the PL.
That said it was a comfortable run out with VG and Havertz kicking in the after burners to win 3:0.
Will Ode, Zubi and Rice be creative enough for the PL? I have grave doubts. I think Noni will get more game time than Marts. Noni has a better football IQ than Marts and can also play 8, which is probably why the news has gone cold on our Eze interest.
Still say with Norgaard and Rice we didn’t need Zubi.
I don’t see this squad with MA winning a major trophy but a minor cup maybe.
Nice Gyöl
Very selfless of Martinelli to set up Saka fir the second.
Havertz took that goal well. In previous seasons, he’d’ve fluffed that
Ambarish on my macBook LIR doesn’t remember my credentials, but does on my iPhone.
So, MA has fired a warning to the PL because VG scored from a Zubi cross.
That vindicates his brilliance in the summer TW, right?
Wrong! On further inspection it was an easy goal to take for a ST who claims to be better than Haaland. It was also MA’s fav tactic he’s been doing for nearly 6 years against a very poor Bilbao.
You’d think we’d just done a ‘Chav’s on PSG’ instead of a win against a very laborious Athletic B.
I’ll qualify that a bit better. When Rice loses the ball in the final 3rd, as he oft does, he has no chance to redeem himself. As much as he huffs and puffs, he is left for dust as the opposition counter, Right?
Yesterday he lost the ball, as he usually does by their penalty box, and then actually overtook the Bilbao player running at warp Jorginho speed on their counter and dispossessed him just past the halfway line.
Then we have the Havertz goal who can actually clock up about 22mph where Haaland his his top speed of 22.9mph. Our VG can hit 24mph, so we are likely to see more balls over the top with VG & Havertz playing on the shoulders of CBs, which if played together should see opposing defenders play diarrhea footy.
So, as usual MA gone all motormouth forwarding the PL that he’s bought a striker who can actually score. A novelty in some ways but the burning question is can VG produce the consistency Havertz can’t?
Bibao were very poor and Manure will offer more resistance and pile pressure on MA, and we all know what happens when MA is under pressure…….
Tony
There’s another burning question – let’s assume VG is going to be a decent striker who can get 20 PL goals a season what the hell do we do with Havertz? Sit him and his £15 million a year salary on the bench for a 15 minute run out? That’s fine assuming we’re winning by a few goals but what if it’s 0-0 or we’re chasing the game you don’t take your best striker off, so we’re back to either shoehorning him into the team or stuck with a player we can’t sell because Captain Fuckwit put him on a ridiculous salary.
As it currently stands the squad is bloated and we need to actually lose a few bodies – I’m guessing a deal for Trossard will happen but why is Zinchenko still here?
Palace look a decent team – if European commitments don’t screw them up they’ll be tough opposition.
5 out of 8 pens missed or saved.
Last night was a massive improvement on our previous friendlies of which i would put down to Gabriel coming back into the side and Rice dropping back into a deeper role which allowed the excellent Zubimendi to play with more freedom who i thought was man of the match.
The big negative for me was Arteta giving Nwaneri only 6 minutes when it was obvious to whoever was at the game that Saka was running on empty from about the hour mark, surely it could have been possible to put Nwaneri on the wing for a spell and then replace Odegaard for the last 10 minutes.
Madueke may have booked himself a starting place in next week’s line up, he looked assured on the ball , he was aware of his team mates and he looked like a player who put fear into the opposition defence , plus his closing down and tracking back was very impressive.
A good goal from gyokeres, what I liked about him is his willingness to make the near post run as I have felt that is an area we have sorely lacked for a while, he runs the channels well and seem to link better with the left side more than the right , though it has to be said that bilbao are probably behind us in fitness and it showed , but at least we can go into the first game v united with a degree of confidence.
Wicksy
“The big negative for me was Arteta giving Nwaneri only 6 minutes when it was obvious to whoever was at the game that Saka was running on empty from about the hour mark, surely it could have been possible to put Nwaneri on the wing for a spell and then replace Odegaard for the last 10 minutes.”
Have you not been watching Arteta for the last 6 odd years – his substitutes and squad rotation are terrible. How many times have you seen regulars on here screaming for a player to subbed etc?
Eze rumours kicking off again this morning which will make Tony happy!
Assuming we do sign him I still don’t know where he’d play.
Marc
That’s the conundrum MA has, as in who fits best with who? We are overloaded with 6s (DMs) and soon to be three+ 8s if we buy Eze, with Rice’s thoughts of being a worldy 8 that Eze is becoming now, but will have to accommodate Rice.
As you say Marc it’s always shoe horning.
Tony
I was chatting to my brother earlier and his view (he’s an Arteta fan) is basically Arteta’s building two squads to compete on all fronts.
Which on paper sounds fine but firstly there’s going to be a group of players not happy with the “team” they’ve been assigned to and secondly Arteta’s can’t fucking rotate without things going to shit.
You’ve only got to look at this to see why it won’t work – https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/eingesetztespieler/wettbewerb/GB1/plus/?saison_id=2024&spieltag=1&filter=alle
Kin ell Marc
I bet the other members of your family have a whale of a time at get-togethers. I never thought I’d ever say but I’ll have to count myself lucky that other parts of my family are CFC fans. Much less offensive than having a Stubborn el Bastardo devotee to deal with.
I thought after last year’s reinforcements that we were close to having 2 first XIs as our squad. But now there’s no more wiggle room for that little culo of his.
https://youtube.com/shorts/FO5C5Ohx5Os?si=IiAHBaM46FtGgn1L
Respect to this Gooner for his straightforward analysis.
Kroenke
It’ll be interesting to see if that’s a common view this season. The Daily Telegraph’s predictor has us finishing in 4th with Chelsea, City and Liverpool above us. It loses a bit of credibility having the Spud’s in 5th though!
Maybe this is the season when fans – and more importantly the kroenkes – start joining the dots. 3/4 years and several hundreds of millions of quid too late.
Marc
Sadly the AKBs will shout, “but Slot only used 15”. The difference was Slot only really had a 15 player first team squad that was capable of winning the PL.
Slot plugged emergency gaps skillfully in his first TW, and kept the bulk of his powder dry for this summer and what a summer TW he’s having where I’d be very surprised if Isak doesn’t rock up there on the last day of the window with a couple more young additions to add depth for the future.
Pool’s transfer people management are very good, as Marina was at the Chavs. The Chavs still do well in the TWs flogging dead wood to gullible managers like MA, although Noni might buck that bad trend this season.
I doubt MA will use more than 15 players this season, but where as LCFC were able to win the league with 15 brave warriors in 2015 with their Tinker Man, MA will make his usual mistakes by sticking rigidly to his myopic tactics making like for like subs when the game needs someone different, such as Ethan or Dowman offers. He’s only bought like for like players to be used subs thus far.
I still say we didn’t need Zubi if we were buying Norgaard. Rice should be our 6 and Eze should be our 8. Then we’d look more balanced.
MA’s decision agony for games will look like this:
RW Saka – Dowman
LW Marts – Noni
LMF Rice/Eze/Merino
DM Zubi/Nargaard
ST VG – Havertz
LMF Ode – Ethan
RB White – Timber
LB Cauliflower – Skelly
Saliba and Big gabs pick themselves and we have back up for both positions.
We’ve gone from 5 LBs to having 4 CDMs.
What happens when we get injuries, loss of form, goals drying up and suspensions?
It is going to be interesting is when the wheels start falling off, which could happen from the off, will MA stick with his lumbering Rice as 8, and our speedster Havertz as 9?
Will they get benched for Ethan and Dowman to save MA’s season by giving VG the service he needs playing off the shoulders of the back lines who mark him?
As you rightly said earlier, Marc, and no doubt TRVL will agree, we have the players to amount a serious challenge to the last kick of the season, but we need a Klopp or Enrique level manager not our “Specialist in Failure” for the last almost 6 years manger who has spent near £1billion on building a squad to challenge in all fronts.
You’re right from earlier, Marc, I’d be very happy if Eze comes this window, so the next manager has people he can build a team around.
It’s a catch 22 really as if Eze comes he might just save MA for another season.
I’m hoping the MA mood in the Emirates will be win the league of PL this season or go forth and multiply.
Will you be going to more games this season? Like others here I look forward to your post home game thoughts and letting us know the mood of the fans……….
I see a lot of psg’s vitinha in zubimendi’s game, for me vitinha was the best midfielder in Europe last season and the similarities between the 2 players are obvious to me with their low sense of gravity ,flawless technique under pressure and the ability to keep the play ticking over whilst at the same time playing penertrating ball between the lines.
It was very interesting to hear Tony Adams view on the captaincy of Arsenal , he is spot on when he says that Rice should be immediately installed as our captain as unlike Odegaard, has all the attributes needed to lead the side to success, come on Arteta open your eyes and give the job to Rice .
Tottenham looking decent tonight, though it has to be said that PSG are a couple of weeks behind Tottenham fitness wise and it shows.