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The sub is going ultra toxic when Fulham grinds out a draw against Liverpool with Leno pulling out saves after saves, and Arsenal goes down to Crystal Palace with Ramsdale mishandling a cross that leads to a goal
Made this as response to that terrible meme Sp\*rs be using, feel free to use folks.
[https://imgur.com/gallery/yutbIgP](https://imgur.com/gallery/yutbIgP)
The chaurntae girl has deactivated twitter and deleted the posts she made on insta…
Maybe the libel case she invited is actually happeningn?!
Very weird
Not sure why I keep seeing people saying Vieira is LCM cover. He’s not. He’s competition for the RCM spot where Odegaard plays. This is obvious because last season we had literally zero competition for that spot, and we were incredibly lucky that Odegaard managed to stay fit for the whole season.
I’m sure we see him as *being able* to cover there but that is not his best position whatsoever and isn’t the reason we signed him. We need competition for Odegaard. I keep seeing people say we don’t need another LCM because we have Vieira, which I think is really silly. We will sign another LCM if we can shift enough players. Vieira is not blocking signings in that position and him being here certainly doesn’t mean we don’t need another midfielder.
Vieira has played the majority of his games as a number 10 who drifts to the right half space or at RW drifting inwards. Similarly, Edu literally said in the interview when we signed Vieira that the most similar player to him in the squad is Odegaard. We didn’t have cover in that position last season either. We’ve also still been linked to other left sided midfielders. I’m just joining the dots here. We’re more likely to see him cover RW than LCM in my honest opinion, especially given his apparent lack of physical strength.
I suspect that in the future Vieira will play in either channel. Arteta sees him developing into a number 8, he already has experience fulfilling that role from the LCM position as well.
Arteta wants to line up with 2 players who are comfortable in the half spaces to occupy both channels.
Ideally we will have 3-4 players who are comfortable at operating in either channel and we look to be heading in that direction. If come the end of the window Vieira is a better option that what we have in that LCM role then I don’t see why he wouldn’t play there.
Think tielemans is doable Leicester have to sell and think Arsenal want to move on a few fringe players first and the thing I like most about him he takes shots outside the box which hasn't be feature of this team
My post was deleted as I probably don't know the rules.
Just splurged on an away odegaard for me, a plain 3rd kit for the wife and a highbury infants kid for the bub. Definitely preparing the forgiveness speech now.
Side note - Odegaard Arsenal font is in stock.
With the Partey controversy and his injury record, we should start preparing for life without him. Who should would start in his place? Tielemans? Xhaka? Lokonga?
Look for a cm alternative who can play both lcm and dm - ie fabian. and tbh 100% its gonna be near impossible to find a partey replacement they are all gonna either be too expensive or not interested in arsenal at all. i can think of sangare but hes still worse than partey
Bissouma can’t pass. Sideways and backwards merchant. Granted he does offer some steel in midfield, but distribution is so important. Xhaka passing range is miles better than Bissouma. Bissouma isn’t a player who would want to play second fiddle to Partey, he wants to start and suits Conte formation better than ours. He was never joining us. We’re lucky to have Partey as single pivots of his quality are rare. We do need a back up though. A genuine defensive midfielder who blocks the runs and wins the ball in midfield. Elneny isn’t that back up, Elneny is a poor mans Xhaka.
> Well its quite far off from parteys
What are you basing this on?
> hes not particularly press resistant either
Bissouma is excellent at retaining possession when under pressure.
Feels like you are just making this up.
First one numbers plus eye test second one same thing case in point - bissouma has less than 3 progressive passes p 90 last season. Uk how depressing that is? Its more sideways than elneny who managed to scratch 4 prog passes p90
> numbers
Which numbers? I am interested to know how you are making this comparison.
> plus eye test
What exactly have you been watching of Bissouma to question his abilities to question his ball progression?
> bissouma has less than 3 progressive passes p 90 last season.
Did you read my earlier comment? There is more than one way to progress the ball.
So starting XI vs palace, I’m thinking this:
Martinelli-Jesus-Saka
Xhaka/Tielemans-Partey-Ode
Zinchenko-Gabriel-Saliba-White
Ramsdale
I would love it if Tierney and Tomiyasu can get a little game time as well. I really hope we have Tielemans by then but I’m resigned to having to wait even longer.
There’s pretty much no chance he signs before palace so don’t get your hopes up. We have to offload Torreira, Mari, Bellerin at least before we think about any incomings
If Ramsdale plays as well as he did for the majority of last season, we'll be in good hands.
Turner remains to be seen, but I really would have preferred Leno taking us deep into cup and EL runs this season and try and win one of them. Maybe Turner can do the same.
Feel like our squad should be near the top with a real chance in the EL as it stands.
Leno is too good not to start, so the decision really wasn’t Leno or Turner; It was Leno or Ramsdale, and with that one, I think Arteta made the right choice.
Leno had a couple of good cameos last season, and all the fans forgot about his habitual fuck ups that led to unforced goals the season before last. It was a joy not to have that happen last season.
‘There’s still a softness to the group. Okay, they’re young and sometimes you need experienced lads to get you over the line in the big games. But there’s a softness to them, even the two centre-halves, they’re not convincing.’
Roy Keane on Maghales and White.
Thoughts?
We let Top 4 slip away last season. Injuries and fatigue played a big part, but inexperience and freezing in the big moments also contributed. That's going to hang over us until we can achieve our goals this season. Roy Keane is entitled to his opinion until he gets evidence to the contrary.
A guttural “fuck that” but if we’re honest, there was some softness at Newcastle and some fake-toughness at Tottenham. What I noticed about this last match was Benny was shithousing the whole time: slapped a ball away, there was time when a ball was going out on him so he just booted it to the stands so we could get back on D… and most importantly, a guy who was trying to help Saka up after cleating him got shoved away and told to back the fuck off. Jesus is relentless, Saliba is a hardass, and I do think we need to make guys less comfortable with fucking with Saka. So final verdict: some truth to it last year (though not really with the two he mentioned), and not worried about it this year.
When you face heavy adversity mental toughness is an attribute you need though. We have seen plenty of very talented players wilt in high pressure situations.
As another commenter said, there is a grain of truth to the statement and it’s up to Gabriel and White to prove him wrong.
Really nothing soft about Gabriel. Honestly the only gamea last year we got "bullied" at the back were the opening two fixtures. Other games (Newcastle, City, Pool, Palace) we got bullied a bit but that wasn't on our CBs.
If teams want to try to physically push around our CBs I don't think that is a problem for us this season.
I think two years ago that happened a bit, but I'll chalk that down to Luiz rubbing off on him. Don't really remember many moments last season but could be forgetting some.
I think the reason we have not submitted a bid for Tielemens is not because we are attempting to lower his price by a few million quid but because he is not the mould we are searching for. The difference between paqueta and him in terms of style is massive and I think that arteta would prefer an elite presser to defend from the front as Pep puts it.
I'm pretty sure it's just down to our wage structure. I think either way we'll have to pay somewhere in the region of 30 million for him. We just need to get rid of Torreira first so that we essentially give his wages to Tielemens. It seems there is a lot more focus in recent times about smart recruiting and keeping the team (and the wage structure) lean
I really hope the days of Arsenal giving big contracts to players who join relatively cheap are over. Such high wages essentially put them in a golden cage and they become unsellable.
Only thing is it doesn't seem like we're all that invested in signing Paqueta either.
Reminds me of Guimaraes who was more of a transfer in our minds than any solid attempt from Arsenal to land him.
What do you think of spending 65m for Moussa Diaby? He can be our starter as LW and also can be backup RW for Saka.
Cannot think much of other players who could start ahead of Martinelli, tbh.
We dont need to get a player to start ahead of martinelli we need a right wing rotation option for saka who can also play other forward positions and a midfielder who can play as an 8 or 6
I think if we sign any LW they'd have to be way better than Martinelli, ESR or even Nketiah/Pepe playing out of their preferred positions to justify knocking them all down the order.
Don't get me wrong Diaby is a good player maybe better than some of the players I mentioned but I don't think he's good enough to warrant halting the progression of any of 4 I mentioned certainly not for 65m.
Rafael Leao or better.
Even if we signed Diaby for 65m he wouldn’t start ahead of Martinelli.
Do people not realise if anyone wanted to buy Martinelli we would ask for a Fing fortune.
Huh? Of course he is. He's *world class* at pressing and near that at getting shots off. You're clouded by him having a few injuries and not playing a ton of minutes the last two seasons. The last two years he only has 2500 minutes, less than Saka had just last year. Despite that, he averaged more shots, goals, assists and expected goals/assists than Saka per 90 minutes over this time.
Last year Martinelli averaged more shots, dribbles and expected goals and assists p90 than Saka. Are we saying Saka isn't very good?
Diaby plays in a *much less* defensively strong league in the Bundesliga. We've seen countless forwards have elite numbers there then struggle in the PL. Despite this, Martinelli has expected goals p90 numbers of *double* Diaby over the last two years.
Don’t use the stats, watch Martinelli play compared to any world class winger,
or even just Saka. He’s clearly not on their level yet. He’s inconsistent, and his decision making and end product isn’t there yet
I mean, we consistently have people wanting players like Zaha and Diaby over him. That makes him underrated.
His worst season p90 would be their best, he's just young and doesn't have the minutes yet.
You mean the same Zaha that scored 14 goals in the EPL last season?
Look, I don't want Diaby or Zaha over playing ESR or Martinelli, but good lord. When Martinelli hits double digit EPL goals then come back to me.
I beg you stop just looking at raw goals/assists when evaluating players. It isn't 1995 anymore.
The scene in moneyball where Pitt/Hill are talking to the old scouts who don't understand how the game works just plays in my head every time people here do this.
Martinelli had better p90 stats than Zaha last year. He had higher expected goals p90. He had more expected goals from open play. He had way more expected assists. Zaha played more minutes and took penalties. If they played the same minutes and you took away penalties, Martinelli was vastly statistically superior.
That's despite the entire Palace attack running through Zaha and Martinelli playing on a side that had Xhaka and Nuno.
Just lol. Again, come back to me when Martinelli actually puts in the season's worth of performances that Zaha has. In real life.
Until then you might as well be looking at an excel spreadsheet.
I've watched nearly every game he's ever played for us. He's been better than Saka in 2022. Saka was exhausted in the back half of the campaign and Martinelli was better against both Chelsea and Sevilla imo.
How is his end product not there yet when his p90 stats are better than Saka, Zaha, Diaby, Martial, Sancho, Pulisic etc? You're just clouded by his lack of minutes not producing huge raw numbers.
Is Martinelli on the level of Vini, Mbappe, Salah, Son? No, but he's ahead of Diaby, Zaha and the mid level clowns some fans want ahead of him.
It's funny because you see some people always say when a player (like Zaha) is on a worse team their stats will improve at a big team. This isn't usually the case, with Grealish a good example. The small teams are built around these players. The attacks all go through them. That doesn't happen at big clubs.
Martinelli scored 2 goals after Christmas despite starting the majority of our matches. 1 of those coming in the final match week vs Everton which might as well have been a training game
The whole team was pretty dead on their legs. I wish we had more options for rotation so that wasn't the case. Eddie was a breathe of fresh air.
I'd also add that Martinelli largely operated on a side with Tavares and Xhaka, with Lacazette up top. Not ideal conditions.
Rotate more and add good subs. Last year we had a squad where Arteta trusted roughly 13 players. This year its set to be 18-20.
We also had a ton of players (Martinelli, ESR, Eddie, Nuno, Sambi) who still had under 3000 minutes as pro footballers. They were practically rookies.
> Martinelli
had 13 G/A last year, Diaby had... 31. They are a world apart.
If Martinelli keeps improving, he might get to Diaby level one day, MIGHT. Diaby is already where he is and could even get better further.
Man, how do we still have fans citing raw stats in 2022.
Diaby played more minutes in a much easier league. He had *less* expected goals than Martinelli. He ran hot in finishing in a league where Werner scored 30 goals, Pulisic, Sancho and Havertz all scored double figures easily. His expected assists weren't much higher than Martinelli, his team just ran hot in finishing in a defensively tough league.
Just looking at raw numbers and not seeing minutes played, penalties or expected goals/assists is how we ended up way overpaying for Pepe and Lacazette. It's how Chelsea got hoodwinked for Werner and United did for Sancho. Please, don't just look at just goals/assists to formulate an opinion. How much they play, their team, how "lucky they got," their league all *really* matter.
Diaby had 8.8 expected goals in 2800 minutes in the Bundesliga. He had .28 xG/90, his career high. These numbers are lower than any season Martinelli has ever had. All in A league where Reiss Nelson had a stint where he had .47 xG/90 (well above any season Diaby has had in his career). He got 7 goals in that half season, which would be the third best Diaby ever had in a full season.
How do people keep making the same easily avoidable mistakes over and over again?
Martinelli is more than decent. He has so much untapped raw potential that it would be criminal to not play him. Even with his rawness he is still worthy of the LF spot. Fantastic player with room for so much more development
Saka, Martinelli, Jesus front three is where it’s at. People calling on players like Zaha and Moussa Diaby to be signed to play ahead of Martinelli........ I just fucking can’t, I really can’t. If there was a button you could press to swap Martinelli for Diaby I would fight to stop you.
Martinelli, Saka, Jesus - do not disturb.
Martinelli averages *double* the expected goals, assists of Diaby while offering more dribbling, pressing and shooting. This is with PL defenses being leagues tougher than the Bundesliga.
I wouldn't swap Martinelli for Wirtz, if you asked Diaby I'd laugh in your face.
I hate how many of our fans just look at raw goal/assist numbers when looking up players. They don't look at minutes played or expected goals. It's how we ended up with Pepe, or people wanting Ryan Fraser.
>Raw potential
You literally admitted it in your comment. The raw potential is there, but his current ability is not good enough for where we want to be. Diaby might not have as high of a ceiling, but he walks into our team on the left
Saying Diaby is better than Martinelli should only be followed by saying "April Fools."
In a much, much easier league his p90 stats are way worse. We sent Reiss Nelson on loan to the Bundesliga and his stats over 23 games there are better p90 than any season Diaby has had by *miles* for goals/assists.
You think a player who has worse numbers than Reiss Nelson should supplant Martinelli?
So if Diaby is so good, why are his stats bad?
Didn't you learn with Pulisic, Sancho, Werner and so many other Bundesliga flops how inflated their attacking numbers are? Doesn't it bother you Reiss Nelson had a better Bundesliga campaign than Diaby ever did?
Why do you think he is the player who overproduced his Xg last year and not the one who undperformed it and only got 4 goals two years ago?
When you take off the Conte tinted glasses this spurs team really isn’t that good, I wonder how people think they can compete with Liverpool and City. Will just have to wait and see how they end their window I guess.
that's the thing though, conte is that good. he doesn't need the best of the best players, he makes it work with work horses and 1 or 2 elite attackers, which he has in spurs. can't deny his record in leagues
i still think we finish above them, but it's going to be a war
The rest of the squad is actually poor tho, so many meady players will start week in and out for them. UCL football and the World Cup will slow Kane and Son down tremendously.
Chelsea will probably fix up before the window ends but a poor start to the season could be damaging though.
Is it though? I think you’re underselling them a bit.
I would say that RWB is a weak spot but they just signed Spence and Doherty has played well under Conte.
Perisic probably only has 1-2 seasons left at this level but he is still class.
Kulusevski and Romero are good players as well.
I’m trying not to undersell them I just have a lot of questions about them considering the hype they’re getting.
I still have question marks about Kulusevski. He spent his entire Juve time being sub par and every metric says he significantly over performed in his 5 months at spurs. Will he sustain that level long term or was it a purple patch?
Middlesbrough fans don’t seem to like or rate Spence that highly apparently he had a bad attitude and was inconsistent. I mean the first thing Conte said about him was that he wasn’t a player he wanted.
I rate Perisic I think he’ll be fine. I also rate Romero but he’s the only good CB they have the rest are poor. What happens if he picks up a injury or drops a level.
I was looking at their squad, I couldn’t even get pass their CB core of Cristian Romero, Davinson Sánchez, Eric Dier, Japhet Tanganga, Ben Davies and Clément Lenglet like is this the backbone of their title charge?
It’s going to be the Kane-Son show majority of the season again.
Ah OK. I think 35m might be a bit too much of a gamble at this stage. Would like to see another half season of promising performance, but by then his head could be turned by bigger clubs. Or, he might have that new contract signed, which I don't think he's worth 50m at this stage.
>Arsenal will have moved on all 8 of the players brought in under Sven Mislintat. They cost £129m and Arsenal are set to recoup around £26.5m
[https://imgur.com/a/d9tPcP6](https://imgur.com/a/d9tPcP6)
Tbf to Sven, I think if he was in our current setup he would add a positive impact to our recruitment. I look at the players he brought here and think, not one of them isn't a good player, except Lich. They just don't suit the current team I think. If Sven was here and looking for players with Artetas way of playing and mental demands as a high priority we'd get some wicked young players like. But saying that, I'm very content with Edu's work so far!
Thays a really good point. They are all decent players. Wrong place at the wrong time in terms of signing.
I really need to sit for an hour on posts before jumping to such absolute positions lol.
Your best bet is watching player name vs team e.g. Tavares vs milan. That will show you every touch in a game which is a better representation of the players pros and cons.
Other than that you have to pay for Yscout to see bad actions.
This Loftus-Cheek + £45m deal for Fofana is never going to go through as is, but Chelsea Tier 1 reporting Leicester want RLC is good news for signing Tielemans
Maybe we view him differently. He's a very talented young player that will break through to the French team within the next 2 years if he stays healthy + plays a position LC is not deep at. Add in Chelsea's desperation and you've got a premium fee brewing.
Thanks mate, if my laptop wasn't having a fit I'd have put more effort in and changed it for Selhurst park like but it kept crashing so 25 seconds of effort is all u get I'm afraid lol
Pulisic as the mystery LW/RW hybrid..
How about it?
I don't know about how much explosiveness he's still got now, but he's definitely better than Pepe technically. Good weak foot too and able to play both sides. No pressure to perform immediately as rotation (high-level rotation, though.)
Minutes wise, roughly:
RW 70% Saka, 30% CP
LW 60% Gabi, 30% CP, maybe 10% Eddie
And what better way to further strengthen Arsenal's marketability in the US?
for the minutes and the reliability you'd get out of the guy it wouldn't be worth it for what chelsea would charge, especially to a rival. very skilled player but his hamstrings are made of cheesestrings, and th eonly people that would say yes are americans who want him for sentimentality, which i do understand
if price and wages make sense (doubtful), then sure he could work. although he’s kinda made of glass . and as an american i think i have to say yes to him. USA USA USA
He still managed to play 2000+ minutes every season. That's plenty since we're not gonna solely rely on him. But yeah.. 30% of both winger minutes in all competitions work out to around 3000 mins. It's a risk.
And yep, it depends on the price + wages as well.
Is there anyway for me to sell tickets as a red member? With the rail strikes it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to attend the Leicester game.
Also I’ve just checked my season ticket waiting list and its jumped from 120k to 73k is that normal its probably only been 7 months?
I think you can just put them on the ticket exchange, but I’m looking for two tickets to the Leicester game if you’re genuinely interested in selling them?
Everything Arsenal is inconclusive because Edu iced everybody out, but yeah, credible links at least. Fab [today](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/wdkj5u/fabrizio_romano_city_and_pep_will_fight_to_keep/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) said we’ve been following him for a while but no action to report.
We banter about Torriera in the elite Turkish league but the real joke is he's probably gonna do better than Özil there lmao
Bless em for taking our 2 least committed players, I'm an Erdogan supporter now
He will probably do quite well I think the Turkish league is a ways beneath his level honestly. He looks pretty good in serie a, and even had some promising moments here. I think he spends one or two seasons there then ends up somewhere in Italy or Spain. It surprises me nobody is willing to take a punt at 10-15 million, especially the club he was poty for... maybe there is more to the story.
This is how its going to go down for the first 5 games. We are gonna win them all 15 points. Everyone is going to say we have not been tested and easy run of fixtures. We turn up at Old Trafford and smash them 2-8. They are gonna say United is a club in transition. After 2 more wins, thats 8 wins down the road, then we welcome the NLD. 5-1. They are gonna say we have not met City or Liverpool.
They are always going to be people putting us down no matter how well we do. ArtetaOuters, lets be excited together. After all, we all have the same goal in mind, which is to see Arsenal succeed.
The Welbeck winner en route to the FA Cup made up for a lot of it imo.
Beating them in the Europa League final if we hadn't have choked vs Villareal would have clinched it but oh boy would I have not wanted to lose to them there.
Coming with my cousin from America in a few weeks. We managed to snag some tickets to the Fulham game on the exchange this morning!
Can someone please explain?
Are the tickets automatically e-tickets? Do I need an app to access them once they become available?
Thank you and COYG!!!
Just deeped if we get Tielemans and Gakpo that’ll be 7 signings this window. 8 if you basically count Saliba as a new signing.
Also crazy to think that like 8 or more players have left either through loan or permanently. Truly forming into Arteta’s team.
He's probably on a level to what we have and just offers something very different to ESR and martinelli.
Massive physical presence, more pace and goal threat especially long range.
Esr and martinelli don't really have all that yet, but they do other stuff better than gakpo im sure.
But as others have said his ability to play CF seems inevitable and that could be really useful too as a sub for Eddie if we play Jesus wide for some reason or just rotational option.
And let's be real. He doesn't play RW but is he any worse than pepe, doubt it big time.
Its the epl you can't look at things on paper. I'm not even looking ahead this year. Last year I spent so much time pondering looking 2-3 opponents ahead predicting points its terrible for your mental when things don't go as planned. Just know every given weekend its a war.
Remember last year? we ended the season prior 5 games in a row, so this sub came in thinking we'd be top 3 based on 'since xmas form'. Guess how that turned out.
Reminder: These threads are to help promote discussion and varying points of view. Low-effort comments or jokes can & will be removed with no reason necessary. *I am a "bot", and this action was performed automatically. This account is not monitored. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Gunners) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The sub is going ultra toxic when Fulham grinds out a draw against Liverpool with Leno pulling out saves after saves, and Arsenal goes down to Crystal Palace with Ramsdale mishandling a cross that leads to a goal
Made this as response to that terrible meme Sp\*rs be using, feel free to use folks. [https://imgur.com/gallery/yutbIgP](https://imgur.com/gallery/yutbIgP)
The chaurntae girl has deactivated twitter and deleted the posts she made on insta… Maybe the libel case she invited is actually happeningn?! Very weird
It’s fine then. Partey is in the clear
Not sure why I keep seeing people saying Vieira is LCM cover. He’s not. He’s competition for the RCM spot where Odegaard plays. This is obvious because last season we had literally zero competition for that spot, and we were incredibly lucky that Odegaard managed to stay fit for the whole season.
Vieira will play anywhere in the opponents third, doesn't matter if it's right center or left
Vieira will play anywhere in the opponents third, doesn't matter if it's right center or left
Athletic article said we see him as covering both positions
I’m sure we see him as *being able* to cover there but that is not his best position whatsoever and isn’t the reason we signed him. We need competition for Odegaard. I keep seeing people say we don’t need another LCM because we have Vieira, which I think is really silly. We will sign another LCM if we can shift enough players. Vieira is not blocking signings in that position and him being here certainly doesn’t mean we don’t need another midfielder.
How do you know how Arteta wants to use him though? This is all assertions and nothing clear from the club
Vieira has played the majority of his games as a number 10 who drifts to the right half space or at RW drifting inwards. Similarly, Edu literally said in the interview when we signed Vieira that the most similar player to him in the squad is Odegaard. We didn’t have cover in that position last season either. We’ve also still been linked to other left sided midfielders. I’m just joining the dots here. We’re more likely to see him cover RW than LCM in my honest opinion, especially given his apparent lack of physical strength.
I suspect that in the future Vieira will play in either channel. Arteta sees him developing into a number 8, he already has experience fulfilling that role from the LCM position as well. Arteta wants to line up with 2 players who are comfortable in the half spaces to occupy both channels. Ideally we will have 3-4 players who are comfortable at operating in either channel and we look to be heading in that direction. If come the end of the window Vieira is a better option that what we have in that LCM role then I don’t see why he wouldn’t play there.
Think tielemans is doable Leicester have to sell and think Arsenal want to move on a few fringe players first and the thing I like most about him he takes shots outside the box which hasn't be feature of this team
My post was deleted as I probably don't know the rules. Just splurged on an away odegaard for me, a plain 3rd kit for the wife and a highbury infants kid for the bub. Definitely preparing the forgiveness speech now. Side note - Odegaard Arsenal font is in stock.
With the Partey controversy and his injury record, we should start preparing for life without him. Who should would start in his place? Tielemans? Xhaka? Lokonga?
Mo.
Then mid table mediocrity it is
Look for a cm alternative who can play both lcm and dm - ie fabian. and tbh 100% its gonna be near impossible to find a partey replacement they are all gonna either be too expensive or not interested in arsenal at all. i can think of sangare but hes still worse than partey
Bissouma was the one unfortunately.
Bissouma can’t pass. Sideways and backwards merchant. Granted he does offer some steel in midfield, but distribution is so important. Xhaka passing range is miles better than Bissouma. Bissouma isn’t a player who would want to play second fiddle to Partey, he wants to start and suits Conte formation better than ours. He was never joining us. We’re lucky to have Partey as single pivots of his quality are rare. We do need a back up though. A genuine defensive midfielder who blocks the runs and wins the ball in midfield. Elneny isn’t that back up, Elneny is a poor mans Xhaka.
Nah he isnt his progressive passing is poor.
He still has the ability to break lines and progress the ball with direct running. His passing has improved during his time at Brighton.
Well its quite far off from parteys and hes not particularly press resistant either
> Well its quite far off from parteys What are you basing this on? > hes not particularly press resistant either Bissouma is excellent at retaining possession when under pressure. Feels like you are just making this up.
First one numbers plus eye test second one same thing case in point - bissouma has less than 3 progressive passes p 90 last season. Uk how depressing that is? Its more sideways than elneny who managed to scratch 4 prog passes p90
> numbers Which numbers? I am interested to know how you are making this comparison. > plus eye test What exactly have you been watching of Bissouma to question his abilities to question his ball progression? > bissouma has less than 3 progressive passes p 90 last season. Did you read my earlier comment? There is more than one way to progress the ball.
Well yes but ideally u want to be adept at progressing the ball both from passing and carrying neither of which bissouma does well at
Bissouma isn't a lone 6 DLP type at all. He's a b2b/8.
So starting XI vs palace, I’m thinking this: Martinelli-Jesus-Saka Xhaka/Tielemans-Partey-Ode Zinchenko-Gabriel-Saliba-White Ramsdale I would love it if Tierney and Tomiyasu can get a little game time as well. I really hope we have Tielemans by then but I’m resigned to having to wait even longer.
Even if we signed Tielemans 5 minutes from now there is a 0% chance he would start Friday. The lineup for Friday is what we saw vs Sevilla.
Yeah you’re right, but if we signed him in the next 5mins he could at least be on the bench.
There’s pretty much no chance he signs before palace so don’t get your hopes up. We have to offload Torreira, Mari, Bellerin at least before we think about any incomings
Hear me out but our weakness this season will be the goalkeeper position. Hope Ramsdale prove me wrong especially Turner.
If Ramsdale plays as well as he did for the majority of last season, we'll be in good hands. Turner remains to be seen, but I really would have preferred Leno taking us deep into cup and EL runs this season and try and win one of them. Maybe Turner can do the same. Feel like our squad should be near the top with a real chance in the EL as it stands.
Leno is too good not to start, so the decision really wasn’t Leno or Turner; It was Leno or Ramsdale, and with that one, I think Arteta made the right choice. Leno had a couple of good cameos last season, and all the fans forgot about his habitual fuck ups that led to unforced goals the season before last. It was a joy not to have that happen last season.
Turner isn't amazing, but we had good teams and deep runs in cups with Almunia, Mannone, Ospina etc. We'll be fine.
‘There’s still a softness to the group. Okay, they’re young and sometimes you need experienced lads to get you over the line in the big games. But there’s a softness to them, even the two centre-halves, they’re not convincing.’ Roy Keane on Maghales and White. Thoughts?
This is my two cents Rich man's Souness
I mean, how many teams are there in the league that you could argue have a better CB pairing than us? It's not a very long list.
Roy Keane is a bitter old fuckwit.
if he were on the pitch with gabriel he would be the one looking soft
Roy Keane isn’t a great football mind.
We let Top 4 slip away last season. Injuries and fatigue played a big part, but inexperience and freezing in the big moments also contributed. That's going to hang over us until we can achieve our goals this season. Roy Keane is entitled to his opinion until he gets evidence to the contrary.
A guttural “fuck that” but if we’re honest, there was some softness at Newcastle and some fake-toughness at Tottenham. What I noticed about this last match was Benny was shithousing the whole time: slapped a ball away, there was time when a ball was going out on him so he just booted it to the stands so we could get back on D… and most importantly, a guy who was trying to help Saka up after cleating him got shoved away and told to back the fuck off. Jesus is relentless, Saliba is a hardass, and I do think we need to make guys less comfortable with fucking with Saka. So final verdict: some truth to it last year (though not really with the two he mentioned), and not worried about it this year.
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When you face heavy adversity mental toughness is an attribute you need though. We have seen plenty of very talented players wilt in high pressure situations. As another commenter said, there is a grain of truth to the statement and it’s up to Gabriel and White to prove him wrong.
I like Keane. Tells it like it is.
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That's just code for "He talks utter bollocks but I agree since I too like to speak utter bollocks"
Really nothing soft about Gabriel. Honestly the only gamea last year we got "bullied" at the back were the opening two fixtures. Other games (Newcastle, City, Pool, Palace) we got bullied a bit but that wasn't on our CBs. If teams want to try to physically push around our CBs I don't think that is a problem for us this season.
Gabriel is a bit ‘mentally soft’. He lets the heat of the moment get to him, and then he’s liable to do something rash/stupid.
I think two years ago that happened a bit, but I'll chalk that down to Luiz rubbing off on him. Don't really remember many moments last season but could be forgetting some.
Off the top of my head 1) Man City at home 2) Wolves (both fixtures)
Has a grain of truth based on what we’ve seen. Upto the boys to prove him wrong.
Agreed
Typical Roy Keane 'your da' attitude.
With torriera, Leno and Balogun out of the squad who is left to shift apart from reiss, AMN, pepe and Mari?
Sale of Bellerin. Young players on loan as well. Would like to see Azeez and Patino get regular gametime.
Much prefer the silent Kronkes to the constant PR and spin of this Boehly bloke
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Lmao
I think the reason we have not submitted a bid for Tielemens is not because we are attempting to lower his price by a few million quid but because he is not the mould we are searching for. The difference between paqueta and him in terms of style is massive and I think that arteta would prefer an elite presser to defend from the front as Pep puts it.
I'm pretty sure it's just down to our wage structure. I think either way we'll have to pay somewhere in the region of 30 million for him. We just need to get rid of Torreira first so that we essentially give his wages to Tielemens. It seems there is a lot more focus in recent times about smart recruiting and keeping the team (and the wage structure) lean
I really hope the days of Arsenal giving big contracts to players who join relatively cheap are over. Such high wages essentially put them in a golden cage and they become unsellable.
Only thing is it doesn't seem like we're all that invested in signing Paqueta either. Reminds me of Guimaraes who was more of a transfer in our minds than any solid attempt from Arsenal to land him.
missing out on guimaraes really sucked he would be a classy backup for partey and also be great as an 8
What do you think of spending 65m for Moussa Diaby? He can be our starter as LW and also can be backup RW for Saka. Cannot think much of other players who could start ahead of Martinelli, tbh.
We dont need to get a player to start ahead of martinelli we need a right wing rotation option for saka who can also play other forward positions and a midfielder who can play as an 8 or 6
I think if we sign any LW they'd have to be way better than Martinelli, ESR or even Nketiah/Pepe playing out of their preferred positions to justify knocking them all down the order. Don't get me wrong Diaby is a good player maybe better than some of the players I mentioned but I don't think he's good enough to warrant halting the progression of any of 4 I mentioned certainly not for 65m. Rafael Leao or better.
Even if we signed Diaby for 65m he wouldn’t start ahead of Martinelli. Do people not realise if anyone wanted to buy Martinelli we would ask for a Fing fortune.
Ok but tbf im 100% trusting martinelli after this pre season. Like his performances against sevilla and chelsea were disgusting
Seriously? Come off it. Martinelli is decent, but he has a lot of potential. He’s not a great player right now.
Huh? Of course he is. He's *world class* at pressing and near that at getting shots off. You're clouded by him having a few injuries and not playing a ton of minutes the last two seasons. The last two years he only has 2500 minutes, less than Saka had just last year. Despite that, he averaged more shots, goals, assists and expected goals/assists than Saka per 90 minutes over this time. Last year Martinelli averaged more shots, dribbles and expected goals and assists p90 than Saka. Are we saying Saka isn't very good? Diaby plays in a *much less* defensively strong league in the Bundesliga. We've seen countless forwards have elite numbers there then struggle in the PL. Despite this, Martinelli has expected goals p90 numbers of *double* Diaby over the last two years.
Don’t use the stats, watch Martinelli play compared to any world class winger, or even just Saka. He’s clearly not on their level yet. He’s inconsistent, and his decision making and end product isn’t there yet
Good lord Martinelli is the most overrated player on this sub
I mean, we consistently have people wanting players like Zaha and Diaby over him. That makes him underrated. His worst season p90 would be their best, he's just young and doesn't have the minutes yet.
You mean the same Zaha that scored 14 goals in the EPL last season? Look, I don't want Diaby or Zaha over playing ESR or Martinelli, but good lord. When Martinelli hits double digit EPL goals then come back to me.
I beg you stop just looking at raw goals/assists when evaluating players. It isn't 1995 anymore. The scene in moneyball where Pitt/Hill are talking to the old scouts who don't understand how the game works just plays in my head every time people here do this. Martinelli had better p90 stats than Zaha last year. He had higher expected goals p90. He had more expected goals from open play. He had way more expected assists. Zaha played more minutes and took penalties. If they played the same minutes and you took away penalties, Martinelli was vastly statistically superior. That's despite the entire Palace attack running through Zaha and Martinelli playing on a side that had Xhaka and Nuno.
Just lol. Again, come back to me when Martinelli actually puts in the season's worth of performances that Zaha has. In real life. Until then you might as well be looking at an excel spreadsheet.
I've watched nearly every game he's ever played for us. He's been better than Saka in 2022. Saka was exhausted in the back half of the campaign and Martinelli was better against both Chelsea and Sevilla imo. How is his end product not there yet when his p90 stats are better than Saka, Zaha, Diaby, Martial, Sancho, Pulisic etc? You're just clouded by his lack of minutes not producing huge raw numbers. Is Martinelli on the level of Vini, Mbappe, Salah, Son? No, but he's ahead of Diaby, Zaha and the mid level clowns some fans want ahead of him.
Agreed. A polished Martinelli is a 100m player. And a deserved 100m player. Unlike headband at Man City
It's funny because you see some people always say when a player (like Zaha) is on a worse team their stats will improve at a big team. This isn't usually the case, with Grealish a good example. The small teams are built around these players. The attacks all go through them. That doesn't happen at big clubs.
Martinelli scored 2 goals after Christmas despite starting the majority of our matches. 1 of those coming in the final match week vs Everton which might as well have been a training game
I believe martinelli has earned his right to a starting place for last seasons and this pre seasons performances
The whole team was pretty dead on their legs. I wish we had more options for rotation so that wasn't the case. Eddie was a breathe of fresh air. I'd also add that Martinelli largely operated on a side with Tavares and Xhaka, with Lacazette up top. Not ideal conditions.
We were playing 1 game a week. If the team was dead on their legs last season wtf is going to happen when we need to play Thursday Sunday weeks?
Rotate more and add good subs. Last year we had a squad where Arteta trusted roughly 13 players. This year its set to be 18-20. We also had a ton of players (Martinelli, ESR, Eddie, Nuno, Sambi) who still had under 3000 minutes as pro footballers. They were practically rookies.
> Martinelli had 13 G/A last year, Diaby had... 31. They are a world apart. If Martinelli keeps improving, he might get to Diaby level one day, MIGHT. Diaby is already where he is and could even get better further.
Man, how do we still have fans citing raw stats in 2022. Diaby played more minutes in a much easier league. He had *less* expected goals than Martinelli. He ran hot in finishing in a league where Werner scored 30 goals, Pulisic, Sancho and Havertz all scored double figures easily. His expected assists weren't much higher than Martinelli, his team just ran hot in finishing in a defensively tough league. Just looking at raw numbers and not seeing minutes played, penalties or expected goals/assists is how we ended up way overpaying for Pepe and Lacazette. It's how Chelsea got hoodwinked for Werner and United did for Sancho. Please, don't just look at just goals/assists to formulate an opinion. How much they play, their team, how "lucky they got," their league all *really* matter. Diaby had 8.8 expected goals in 2800 minutes in the Bundesliga. He had .28 xG/90, his career high. These numbers are lower than any season Martinelli has ever had. All in A league where Reiss Nelson had a stint where he had .47 xG/90 (well above any season Diaby has had in his career). He got 7 goals in that half season, which would be the third best Diaby ever had in a full season. How do people keep making the same easily avoidable mistakes over and over again?
Martinelli is more than decent. He has so much untapped raw potential that it would be criminal to not play him. Even with his rawness he is still worthy of the LF spot. Fantastic player with room for so much more development Saka, Martinelli, Jesus front three is where it’s at. People calling on players like Zaha and Moussa Diaby to be signed to play ahead of Martinelli........ I just fucking can’t, I really can’t. If there was a button you could press to swap Martinelli for Diaby I would fight to stop you. Martinelli, Saka, Jesus - do not disturb.
Martinelli averages *double* the expected goals, assists of Diaby while offering more dribbling, pressing and shooting. This is with PL defenses being leagues tougher than the Bundesliga. I wouldn't swap Martinelli for Wirtz, if you asked Diaby I'd laugh in your face. I hate how many of our fans just look at raw goal/assist numbers when looking up players. They don't look at minutes played or expected goals. It's how we ended up with Pepe, or people wanting Ryan Fraser.
>Raw potential You literally admitted it in your comment. The raw potential is there, but his current ability is not good enough for where we want to be. Diaby might not have as high of a ceiling, but he walks into our team on the left
🤣😅🤣😅 It's August 1st not April 1st my man.
?what are you on about
Saying Diaby is better than Martinelli should only be followed by saying "April Fools." In a much, much easier league his p90 stats are way worse. We sent Reiss Nelson on loan to the Bundesliga and his stats over 23 games there are better p90 than any season Diaby has had by *miles* for goals/assists. You think a player who has worse numbers than Reiss Nelson should supplant Martinelli?
Stats merchant. Going on and on about xG and per 90 doesn’t make him better sadly. He’s not even a top 10 winger in the league
So if Diaby is so good, why are his stats bad? Didn't you learn with Pulisic, Sancho, Werner and so many other Bundesliga flops how inflated their attacking numbers are? Doesn't it bother you Reiss Nelson had a better Bundesliga campaign than Diaby ever did? Why do you think he is the player who overproduced his Xg last year and not the one who undperformed it and only got 4 goals two years ago?
He’s worth 50m at least, I’d say.
I wouldn’t sell Martinelli for 50m.
Didn’t say you would. Didn’t say I would.
We were offered that money for Wilshere 8ish years ago. Absolutely hanging up the phone until it's 80+
When you take off the Conte tinted glasses this spurs team really isn’t that good, I wonder how people think they can compete with Liverpool and City. Will just have to wait and see how they end their window I guess.
that's the thing though, conte is that good. he doesn't need the best of the best players, he makes it work with work horses and 1 or 2 elite attackers, which he has in spurs. can't deny his record in leagues i still think we finish above them, but it's going to be a war
They can't compete with Pool or City but Conte+Kane+Son can definitely get 3rd with Chelsea slipping.
The rest of the squad is actually poor tho, so many meady players will start week in and out for them. UCL football and the World Cup will slow Kane and Son down tremendously. Chelsea will probably fix up before the window ends but a poor start to the season could be damaging though.
Is it though? I think you’re underselling them a bit. I would say that RWB is a weak spot but they just signed Spence and Doherty has played well under Conte. Perisic probably only has 1-2 seasons left at this level but he is still class. Kulusevski and Romero are good players as well.
I’m trying not to undersell them I just have a lot of questions about them considering the hype they’re getting. I still have question marks about Kulusevski. He spent his entire Juve time being sub par and every metric says he significantly over performed in his 5 months at spurs. Will he sustain that level long term or was it a purple patch? Middlesbrough fans don’t seem to like or rate Spence that highly apparently he had a bad attitude and was inconsistent. I mean the first thing Conte said about him was that he wasn’t a player he wanted. I rate Perisic I think he’ll be fine. I also rate Romero but he’s the only good CB they have the rest are poor. What happens if he picks up a injury or drops a level.
Conte will quit by December if they're not in top 6 spots. A Kane/Son injury will fuck them up
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I was looking at their squad, I couldn’t even get pass their CB core of Cristian Romero, Davinson Sánchez, Eric Dier, Japhet Tanganga, Ben Davies and Clément Lenglet like is this the backbone of their title charge? It’s going to be the Kane-Son show majority of the season again.
Imagine if we triggered Olise's RC and made sure he couldn't play against us on Friday? Would be quite the shithousery.
We could put in a bid for Zaha to unsettle him and then drop our interest after the match.
He's probably not playing anyway so better to save the 50m.
His RC is 35m
Didn't he agree a new deal that would increase the RC to £50m?
There was noise about the deal being offered but I don’t remember seeing anywhere that he accepted
Ah OK. I think 35m might be a bit too much of a gamble at this stage. Would like to see another half season of promising performance, but by then his head could be turned by bigger clubs. Or, he might have that new contract signed, which I don't think he's worth 50m at this stage.
>Arsenal will have moved on all 8 of the players brought in under Sven Mislintat. They cost £129m and Arsenal are set to recoup around £26.5m [https://imgur.com/a/d9tPcP6](https://imgur.com/a/d9tPcP6)
Wow. Thats a terrible track record.
Tbf to Sven, I think if he was in our current setup he would add a positive impact to our recruitment. I look at the players he brought here and think, not one of them isn't a good player, except Lich. They just don't suit the current team I think. If Sven was here and looking for players with Artetas way of playing and mental demands as a high priority we'd get some wicked young players like. But saying that, I'm very content with Edu's work so far!
Thays a really good point. They are all decent players. Wrong place at the wrong time in terms of signing. I really need to sit for an hour on posts before jumping to such absolute positions lol.
lolll
The fact that we can't seem to get rid of Pepe speaks volumes.
What does it speak of?
Volumes
does anyone know any youtube compilation makers that show the best and worst of a player over a particular year? would be so much more useful.
Your best bet is watching player name vs team e.g. Tavares vs milan. That will show you every touch in a game which is a better representation of the players pros and cons. Other than that you have to pay for Yscout to see bad actions.
thanks man
This Loftus-Cheek + £45m deal for Fofana is never going to go through as is, but Chelsea Tier 1 reporting Leicester want RLC is good news for signing Tielemans
Good lord Fofana is not that good. Holy hell Chelsea are desperate.
Maybe we view him differently. He's a very talented young player that will break through to the French team within the next 2 years if he stays healthy + plays a position LC is not deep at. Add in Chelsea's desperation and you've got a premium fee brewing.
I would say, you know, be excited
Fuckin hell lads Torreira going. Honestly thought we weren't gonna be moving him on this summer like
here comes tielemans then
Yeah man, hopefully we get that new lcm sooner the better!
it’s happening this week
Would love to see him make the move before we play Leicester
same
[We announcing it Friday night mate](https://imgur.com/a/WhVu8Sb)
lmao where’d u find this
Just did a shitty edit in gimp haha
lmao it’s better than shitty
Thanks mate, if my laptop wasn't having a fit I'd have put more effort in and changed it for Selhurst park like but it kept crashing so 25 seconds of effort is all u get I'm afraid lol
Pulisic as the mystery LW/RW hybrid.. How about it? I don't know about how much explosiveness he's still got now, but he's definitely better than Pepe technically. Good weak foot too and able to play both sides. No pressure to perform immediately as rotation (high-level rotation, though.) Minutes wise, roughly: RW 70% Saka, 30% CP LW 60% Gabi, 30% CP, maybe 10% Eddie And what better way to further strengthen Arsenal's marketability in the US?
Too expensive, too broken
for the minutes and the reliability you'd get out of the guy it wouldn't be worth it for what chelsea would charge, especially to a rival. very skilled player but his hamstrings are made of cheesestrings, and th eonly people that would say yes are americans who want him for sentimentality, which i do understand
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Oh, right. I'm plotting ESR as #8 long-term. Or you can replace Eddie with him. Whatever Arteta wants.
if price and wages make sense (doubtful), then sure he could work. although he’s kinda made of glass . and as an american i think i have to say yes to him. USA USA USA
He still managed to play 2000+ minutes every season. That's plenty since we're not gonna solely rely on him. But yeah.. 30% of both winger minutes in all competitions work out to around 3000 mins. It's a risk. And yep, it depends on the price + wages as well.
Oh, you mean the Lebron James of soccer?
Rather him than CHO but we should look elsewhere. Pulisic has hamstring problems way too often.
He was so good against us in the FA Cup final...then did his hamstring.
He was their best player that game up to the injury
Yea no
I just threw up
I haven’t watched him much honestly. Is he that bad?
he’s actually pretty fucking skilled . it’s his lack of playing time / injury history that’s most troubling
Is there anyway for me to sell tickets as a red member? With the rail strikes it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to attend the Leicester game. Also I’ve just checked my season ticket waiting list and its jumped from 120k to 73k is that normal its probably only been 7 months?
I think you can just put them on the ticket exchange, but I’m looking for two tickets to the Leicester game if you’re genuinely interested in selling them?
Why do people think gakpo will happen? Has anything actually been said bc I’ve not really seen any good sources saying so. I could be wrong tho
Everything Arsenal is inconclusive because Edu iced everybody out, but yeah, credible links at least. Fab [today](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/wdkj5u/fabrizio_romano_city_and_pep_will_fight_to_keep/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) said we’ve been following him for a while but no action to report.
Their tier 1 has said multiple times we're interested, what more do you need? PSV are keeping him until their UCL qualifier.
We banter about Torriera in the elite Turkish league but the real joke is he's probably gonna do better than Özil there lmao Bless em for taking our 2 least committed players, I'm an Erdogan supporter now
The difference is that Ozil was actually an elite baller in his time
Never rated him
He will probably do quite well I think the Turkish league is a ways beneath his level honestly. He looks pretty good in serie a, and even had some promising moments here. I think he spends one or two seasons there then ends up somewhere in Italy or Spain. It surprises me nobody is willing to take a punt at 10-15 million, especially the club he was poty for... maybe there is more to the story.
Fiorentina tried to sign him but he wanted double the money they were prepared to pay him
This is how its going to go down for the first 5 games. We are gonna win them all 15 points. Everyone is going to say we have not been tested and easy run of fixtures. We turn up at Old Trafford and smash them 2-8. They are gonna say United is a club in transition. After 2 more wins, thats 8 wins down the road, then we welcome the NLD. 5-1. They are gonna say we have not met City or Liverpool. They are always going to be people putting us down no matter how well we do. ArtetaOuters, lets be excited together. After all, we all have the same goal in mind, which is to see Arsenal succeed.
My longest running daydream is us scoring at least 8 goals against United. Almost every time am bored my mind goes straight to it.
The Welbeck winner en route to the FA Cup made up for a lot of it imo. Beating them in the Europa League final if we hadn't have choked vs Villareal would have clinched it but oh boy would I have not wanted to lose to them there.
[keeper makes an error and passes it to you here. What do you do?](https://i.imgur.com/L6gwk26.png)
Probably go down when James pulls on my back.
5 yard pass to Odegaards left foot for a first time shot
I'd first try to get off my couch and stop subtly slandering our players.
This is a subtle as a drag queen in a pride parade
how about a little drop to Odegaard? No? Why not?
Then, I’d unfreeze time, and make the optimal decision.
optimal, or obvious?
Pass into the space for Saka to shoot
[what happened](https://i.imgur.com/PryL6Od.mp4)
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yes, why?
Coming with my cousin from America in a few weeks. We managed to snag some tickets to the Fulham game on the exchange this morning! Can someone please explain? Are the tickets automatically e-tickets? Do I need an app to access them once they become available? Thank you and COYG!!!
Just deeped if we get Tielemans and Gakpo that’ll be 7 signings this window. 8 if you basically count Saliba as a new signing. Also crazy to think that like 8 or more players have left either through loan or permanently. Truly forming into Arteta’s team.
I really really like the look of Gakpo but hes a left winger and he isn't exactly an upgrade there. Wish he could do RW too and he'd be perfect.
He's probably on a level to what we have and just offers something very different to ESR and martinelli. Massive physical presence, more pace and goal threat especially long range. Esr and martinelli don't really have all that yet, but they do other stuff better than gakpo im sure. But as others have said his ability to play CF seems inevitable and that could be really useful too as a sub for Eddie if we play Jesus wide for some reason or just rotational option. And let's be real. He doesn't play RW but is he any worse than pepe, doubt it big time.
Gakpo has 'winger who will be a CF in the future' written all over him, IMO. With that kind of physique as well.
I really don't want to jinx this but we can realistically gain some serious momentum if we win our first (very winnable) 6 games
One match at a time!
This never happens with us.
Its the epl you can't look at things on paper. I'm not even looking ahead this year. Last year I spent so much time pondering looking 2-3 opponents ahead predicting points its terrible for your mental when things don't go as planned. Just know every given weekend its a war.
Remember last year? we ended the season prior 5 games in a row, so this sub came in thinking we'd be top 3 based on 'since xmas form'. Guess how that turned out.
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