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Arsenal Mid-Term: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

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On the eve of this, my mid-season review of AFC’s performance in the Premier League, the prevailing mood in the media and blogsphere is of pessimism and despair.  Arsenal had dramatically snatched a draw after falling behind 0-3 down to Bournemouth. Instead of joy and optimism that in 20 minutes the club had turned around a seemingly hopeless situation to salvage a point, the main theme was the Gunners was out of the title race as Chelsea look certain to open a 11 point lead.

After retrieving a three-goal deficit, it’s usual for some euphoria but that’s noticeable by its absence this morning. Anyone who had lingering hopes of the title has surely had them dispelled by now? It’s a draw which feels like a defeat or draw when so often a comeback of that magnitude feels like a victory.   ACLF

All in all a bad night for Arsenal, and a bad night for Arsene Wenger who, despite having the biggest, deepest squad he’s had in years, sees yet another season unfolding in pretty familiar fashion. The position we’re in is the same, the way we drop points is the same, the failings are consistent. Arseblog

RIP Arsenal’s season. – 7amkickoff

Nothing sums up Wenger more perfectly than the game last night. All the chickens came home to roost as we tapped out of the title race and handed the momentum to proper managers.le-grove

Based on Chelsea’s subsequent loss to Spurs this Wednesday evening, I can confidently predict that there will be a dramatic u-turn in the in the tone of these blogs by Thursday. Safe to say the euphoria of Chelsea failing to break Arsenal’s record of 14 straight PL wins will convince most of these fine bloggers that the 8 point gap is no longer insurmountable. Within 24-hours an impregnable Chelsea lead on Wednesday morning will become surpass able on Thursday.

Once again readers of PA will get a perfect lesson in how the majority, not all, of Arsenal bloggers, act in a fashion similar to the mainstream media, preying on the emotions of the Arsenal fans by using a short term setback to promote fear that Arsenal and Arsene Wenger have failed in their title bid. Mark you, it still early January with practically half a season to go. Most importantly, these conclusions are being drawn without presenting the unbiased data to support their point of view.

As part of my mission to educate myself and inform my readers about the importance of the unbiased data in making sense of football (as well as of politics and economics), in my very first blog at the start of this season, based on the most recent 8 years of PL data, I predicted the following 2016/17 league positions:

My Prediction Club Time Series Projection
1st Man United 2.88
2nd Man City 3.38
3rd Arsenal 3.38
4th Chelsea 3.63
5th Tottenham 5:00
6th Liverpool 5.75

Just a reminder, for comparison’s sake, the BBC pundits made the following forecast:

Prediction Club
1st Man City
2nd Man United
3rd Chelsea
4th Arsenal
5th Tottenham
6th Liverpool
7th Leicester

The ESPN experts were singing from the same hymn book:

Prediction Club
1st Man City
2nd Man United
3rd Chelsea
4th Arsenal
5th Tottenham
6th Liverpool

After exactly 19 games the Premier League table top-6 reads as follows:

Clubs W D L F A GD Points
Chelsea 16 1 2 42 13 29 49
Liverpool 13 4 2 46 21 25 43
Arsenal 12 4 3 41 19 22 40
Tottenham Hotspur 11 6 2 37 14 23 39
Manchester City 12 3 4 39 21 18 39
Manchester United 10 6 3 29 19 10 36
Leicester City* 5 5 9 24 31 -7 20
Crystal Palace* 4 4 11 29 35 -6 16

Leicester City and Crystal Palace listed for illustrative purposes only.

Contrary to all prior projections Chelsea and Liverpool are sitting atop the table in 1st and 2nd positions respectively. In contrast, Manchester City,  the pundits most favored team because of their spending power and brand new celebrity manager, is sitting 5th instead of  their projected 1st. Below them in 6th is United, the second most favored team of both BBC and ESPN journos. Yours truly is similarly off the pace as my prediction was for United and City to be 1st and 2nd respectively. Where I differ from the mainstream pundits is my minimum expectation of Arsenal coming 3rd. Most of the so-called experts have Arsenal at 4th.

Even though half-way through the season and the short-term results may look bleak, I stand by my earlier prediction based on the 20 year history of Arsene Wenger as manager:

  • Arsenal has finished an average of 3rd; no other club except Manchester United has a better average.

  • No other team has a better absolute deviation from the mean than Arsenal at 0.985, meaning that on the average the club’s position will deviate by less than 1. United is the next best at 1.28.

  • All other big -6 team have in 20 years finished lower than Arsenal; City fell away to as low as 47th, way down into the 3rd

  • Arsenal has never finished less than 4th.

  • Arsenal has never finished below Tottenham.

By comparing the performance of each top-6 club midseason this year to 2015-16, it is evident  Arsenal remains the most consistent despite the absence since last October, due to injury, of  arguably its most important player, Santi Cazorla. I have provided four years of data to demonstrate that Arsenal averages over 2.09 points per game (ppg) with Santi playing in comparison to a team average of 1.92 ppg. Seven games with Santi this season yielded a ppg of 2.7, nine games without Santi up to early December and the ppg dropped to 1.3, a fall of more than 50%.

Percentage Change in Key Performance Data Mid Season 2016 vs 2015

Clubs W D L F A GD Points
Chelsea 220% -80% -78% 83% -55% 583% 145%
Liverpool 63% -33% -60% 109% -5% n/a 43%
Arsenal 0 33% -25% 24% 6% 47% 3%
Tottenham Hotspur 18% -33% 0% 11% -7% 22% 10%
Manchester City 8% 0% -25% 5% 5% 6% 8%
Manchester United 25% 0% -40% 32% 19% 67% 20%
Leicester City* -55% -17% 350% -35% 24% -158% -49%
Crystal Palace* -56% 0% 83% 26% 119% -186% -48%

Leicester City and Crystal Palace listed for illustrative purposes only.

Main takeaways from the table on a club by club basis:

Chelsea:

  1. Have made dramatic changes in all the key data categories resulting in a 145% improvement in their points haul.
  2. Have significantly improved in their scoring with 83% more Goals For as well as in their defending with 55% less Goals Against, the net result being a fantastic 583% improvement in Goal Difference.
  3. The challenge for Chelsea is this sort of exponential improvement is almost statistically impossible to sustain. The law of diminishing returns begin to set in after an optimal level has been reached. Furthermore, it is inevitable that over time competing teams will find ways to narrow the differences that have given Chelsea such a dramatic superiority in recent months.
  4. Long winning streaks are correlated with title-winning teams as evident from the data previously presented of Arsenal’s winning campaigns. There is however one major exception, i.e. Liverpool in 2014-15 who had an 11-game unbeaten run but failed to win the title after 2 grievous losses in the last month of the campaign.

Liverpool

  1. Apart from a 109% improvement in Goals For, their improvements in the various categories have been relatively less dramatic than Chelsea.
  2. A 43% year-on-year improvement in Points, while two-thirds less than Chelsea, is still significant. Can this level be sustained statistically?

Arsenal

  1. Only club whose points haul has remained substantially the same, a mere 3% improvement.
  2. Measureable improvements have been made in both Goals For and Goals Against. As a result goal difference has improved by 45%, the second highest of the clubs.
  3. Consistent marginal improvements are more sustainable over time in any physical endeavor. It is well known that Arsenal title challenges have in recent years been shot by mid-season injuries to key players. Should such injuries repeat themselves Arsenal will be struggle to earn more Wins and less Draws/Losses to sustain a serious title challenge.

As the table above illustrates consistency is not easy to sustain in the football, at least not in the Premier League. One year ago Crystal Palace and manager Alan Pardew were the toast of the town. Instead of 5th in the League they now have 48% less in points, fighting relegation at 17th place with Pardew sacked. Similarly, Leicester City, the defending champions were the miracle club, the so-called proof that a non-fashionable club can have sustained success amongst the big boys. Today they are in 16th position, recording a significant decline in all the data categories with 49% less points than last year. And we are told Claudio Ranieri is a genius.

Wenger’s consistency is easily disparaged; bloggers are quick to write him off at the first setback. The recent draw at Bournemouth was evidently due to having to play a team with barely 48-hours recuperation time from a prior demanding physical engagement, at least 24 hours less than the optimum time according to the scientific studies, a fact none of the bloggers quoted above gave any attention to.

It bears repeating. Woe to the pundits and bloggers who write-off Arsene Wenger despite 20 years of unbiased data showing a remarkable consistency by him as manager of the football club.

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95 comments on “Arsenal Mid-Term: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

  1. I’m not joking:
    I think Arsenal should make a bid for Harry Arter.
    Has anyone else seen a better ‘low profile’ midfielder in the PL?
    Jeff Hendrick?

    Like

  2. Arsene Wenger to @beINSPORTS on Alexis Sánchez and Mesut Özil:

    “They tell me they want to stay.”
    “No matter what, we’ll try to keep them. We’ll go as far as we can. If we can’t go further, we can’t go further.”
    “That’s basically it. That’s the way you have to manage a football club.”
    “He (Alexis) wants to stay. I am convinced that we’ll find an agreement. It has to be within our potential.”
    “We are not scared to spend the money. We are not scared to show the players that we love them. We want them to earn big money.”
    “What is absolutely fantastic for the players today is that the club is about identity, values. We also have to work for that.”
    “I’m convinced that when a player meets his needs somewhere, he has the luxury today to say: it’s not £500,000 more that is decisive.”

    Liked by 1 person

  3. DC, when covering Ireland games Iiam Brady always talks highly of Hendrick.

    Like

  4. the WOB tell us Usmanov loves Arsenal, and would put his own money into the club, in fact they tell us he offered to do just that, despite Usmanov’s response to Arsenal asking him for sponsorship, being him refusing and trying to curry favor from the malcontents by trying to discredit Gazidis for having the audacity to ask him to become a club partner.

    now Usmanov shows his love for Arsenal, by sponsoring Everton’s training ground and other bits and bobs to the tune of £75M.

    Like

  5. Thanks Shotta – I always feel slightly anxious that I don’t show enough gratitude to your posts, but as borderline dyscalculic they take me a bit longer to process.
    What struck me most was the tone of smug glee those three writers you quoted adopted. I should not care to meet them. It interests me how readily commentators dismiss the physical aspects of the game (in contrast to managers who are super-aware of its importance). Perhaps they are lucky enough to feel 100% every day but anyone who has struggled through a working week with a cold should know how little it takes to affect performance.

    Liked by 7 people

  6. Serious question eddy – why do you think there are any London or southern referees who are either of good enough or better quality to replace the existing crew ? I ask because there are Southern referees in the Championship and Div 1etc who are rubbish – according to fans of clubs who play there. If you have any names of top Southern refs excluded unfairly from the PL I’d be genuinely interested to hear them.

    Refereeing is not a matter of geography, but quality, or so I thought.

    Like

  7. @finsbury I could never understand why England wouldn’t pick and build the side around Carrick. He is the best English born regista I can remember the best British one since John Mcgoven.
    Can anyone remind me of one that was better?

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  8. WWB

    Carlton Palmer?

    Like

  9. WWWB: It absolutely amazes me how almost all the English pundits and even United fans are dismissive of Carrick? He is so calm, so technically composed, great positionally, the master of the quick short lateral passes that gets his team moving up the field. I haven’t check his pass completion percentage but I am sure it is the high 80s if not low 90s. Since Sir Alex left every United mgr has tried to get rid of Carrick and all the wannabes have failed. Mourinho himself tried, being an acolyte of physical, hard tackling DMs, but when early results went against had no option but to start playing the best deep lying English central midfielder currently in the game.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. Andrew

    Don’t be silly!

    Like

  11. Can anyone give me the details about the rule saying the PL clubs can’t recall players from other PL clubs? Someone once posted then on here.

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  12. foreverheady @ 7:31 am – The thing that most gets to me is how nobody is willing to call out the high priests of Arsenal blogging for repetitively being wrong. They simply preach doom and gloom with limited use of data to support their prognostications. For example, yesterday the Sage of Dublin in his blog used the exact same league tables I sourced, i.e. midway this season and last, and came to the conclusion that Arsene should dispense with Giroud as a central striker. I kid thee not.

    i suspect because I owe no allegiance to the their clique, that I have no desire or need to become a mainstream journalist, no need to use them as a vehicle to increase my popularity by appearing on their pod or writing a guest article, that I am not under the same restraints as most of the wannabes in social media. Thank heavens our Pedantic George is in the same boat or I would have long been run out of town.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Shotta, those same bloggers don’t like me one little bit.
    P.S. I found the rules myself.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. I know George. You are one of the few that call them out on their non factual shit.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. ah the AST mouthpieces are in a tizzy, they are not happy that the Usmanov horse they backed is now putting money into another BPL club, of course they are going with the line that this is all Stan and Ivan’s fault, oh and lets not forget Danny too, him not allowing Dein to get away with his underhand moves, does not sit with them. Funny that, when they talk so much about how Arsenal should be run properly, honestly and above board. Double standards hey.

    Like

  16. Arsenal FCVerified account@Arsenal
    Today we made our annual floral tribute to the grave of Herbert Chapman, who died on this day in 1934

    Liked by 1 person

  17. looks like Willock, Jeff, Bielik and Maitland-Niles might be in squad for the Preston game, as tehy aren’t in the U23 team today

    Like

  18. Arsenal FC ‏@Arsenal 2h2 hours ago
    #AFCU23 to play @dcfcofficial: Keto, McGuane, Sheaf, Olowu, Bola, Bennacer, Zelalem, Mourgos, Mavididi, Dragomir, Akpom

    HT: Arsenal 1-0 Derby Co.

    Mourgos with the goal
    good to see Akpom back in action after his injury problems.

    Like

  19. also seeing as Welbeck is not playing for the u23’s it suggests he will be in squad for the cup game tomorrow.

    Like

  20. Arsenal FC ‏@Arsenal 3m3 minutes ago
    Derby had equalised but we’ve restored our lead – sub, @EddieNketiah9 finds the net after good work by Mourgos

    #AFCU23

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Can only agree with appraisal of Carrick. Top player. Also remarkably clean and decent by Utd standards. Don’t recall much in way of vicious fouls, diving, play-acting, ref-bothering. You have to be really good to play under Ferguson or Mou if you’re not bringing that to the table.

    As for his lack of international recognition. I guess none of those managers could find a way to accommodate him and the big dogs with their superior goal-scoring records and profiles.

    More importantly for me,though, is that no player plays in isolation, so to see anything like the best of a player like Carrick you need complementary players around him operating on the same wavelength. I feel it’s a bit of a similar story with Wilshere : you’ll get nothing like the best of him unless you appreciate his strengths and weaknesses properly and provide a suitable platform for him.

    Anyway, we don’t want the site to become PositivelyCarrick, but I had to jump onboard as he’s a player I can’t help but admire and that rarerst of things for me, a Utd player I don’t utterly loathe

    Liked by 4 people

  22. Everytime I see him play I think, there is something very Ian Wright (minus the left foot) about EddieNketiah9 ,
    Come on Eddie work on that left foot.
    He has got a chance.

    Like

  23. Arsenal FC ‏@Arsenal 53m53 minutes ago
    Full-time: #AFCU23 2-1 @dcfcofficial

    Mourgos and Nketiah’s goals secure all 3️⃣️ points for our young Gunners

    Like

  24. An “18-year-old” Michael Carrick – that would be about 1999/2000;

    WENGER DECLARES CARRICK DESIRE
    By Patrick Goss

    ARSENE WENGER has admitted that the English player he would most like to sign for his Arsenal squad is West Ham prodigy Michael Carrick.

    Wenger, who has rarely bought players from the English market, reiterated that this was due to inflated prices – and not because he doesn’t want players from the nation in which he manages.

    But Wenger also surprisingly revealed that his first choice Englishman wasn’t Michael Owen or Joe Cole – but 18-year-old Carrick, saying: “I’d take him tomorrow morning.”

    The Arsenal boss also questioned precisely who Gianluca Vialli was going to bring into his new ‘British era’ at Chelsea.

    “I’m curious to see who he’ll get. If they must not be too expensive, he’ll be buying nobody.”

    Liked by 3 people

  25. A5: That was a real interesting quote by AW about Carrick. That’s a first for me. I had self doubts before but clearly I know a thing or two about football. (Insert banned smiley or two).

    Like

  26. anicoll

    Jeez. Wonder what happened there then to allow Spurs to get him for such a good price a few years later?

    Saw one of those premier league stories on Carrick not long ago and I think he had a period in the middle or end (middle, i think) at West Ham where he dropped from favour and wasn’t their managers cup of tea. Still, for Wenger to speak so well of him I can’t imagine the interest died away.

    Guess it’s just one of those things, timing etc.

    I still harbour a dislike for Hodgson after Ferguson gloated that the former’s intervention was crucial in ensuring Smalling (I rate him highly) went to Utd instead of us. Why Roy, ya prick?!

    Could be a similar story with Carrick. Who you know, like or dislike, and all that.

    Like

  27. arsenal were signing Carrick from west ham when they thought PV4 was off to Real Madrid, but when paddy was not offered the galactio wages he took the huff and stayed for another year, and AFC pulled out of the Carrick deal, and he went to spurs.

    Liked by 2 people

  28. Jeorge Bird ‏@jeorgebird 3h3 hours ago
    Perez trained today. Maitland-Niles, DaSilva, Nelson and Eyoma trained with first-team.

    Like

  29. eduardo

    Cheers for info. I may have known something of that at the time, but I have forgot much from back then.

    Liked by 1 person

  30. Having watched the Zabaleta penalty 23timex and from 4 angles – at full speed, slo mo and double speed I have no idea if it was a penalty or not.

    Probably not.

    Although ……

    Like

  31. I’ve seen them not given.

    Liked by 2 people

  32. I can see Bilic on his bike after this

    Absolutely appalling

    If I was Gold I’d probably prefer to get rid of 9 out of 10 of the players after this and recent shite

    I guess Slaven will have to do

    Like

  33. Indeed George, indeed.
    Oliver don’t spent too much time thinking about it, I wonder what he saw?

    Like

  34. Bilic might well take the brunt, but the problems there go well beyond the manager.
    Funny the affect a new bigger stadium can have on a team. And therein lies only part of Wengers genius

    Liked by 1 person

  35. FourFourTweet ‏@FourFourTweet 5h5 hours ago
    Ex-Valencia president

    “What does the owner know about football? The pundit who came, the Englishman, was the worst coach I have ever seen.”

    Liked by 1 person

  36. Cohen Bramall: Arsenal’s new recruit revels in ‘crazy’ Premier League move

    By David Ornstein & Caroline Chapman
    BBC Sport
    16 minutes ago From the section Football
    Share this page

    Non-league footballer moves from Hednesford Town to Arsenal
    “It blows your mind, mate.”

    Cohen Bramall – Arsenal’s unlikely new recruit – is attempting to sum up a whirlwind few weeks.

    One minute the 20-year-old is working at a car plant while playing part-time for Hednesford Town in the Northern Premier League, the next he’s training at a Premier League club.

    “I was working in Crewe for Bentley Motors,” he tells BBC Sport.

    “I was on the production line, filling up cars with gasses, brake fluid, washer fluid and all that. Day in day out, Monday to Friday, 6.30am until 5.15pm.

    “I enjoyed it but when you’re doing those shifts, then training on Tuesday and Thursday, going from Crewe to Birmingham, and playing on Saturday it’s pretty tiring.”

    But his busy schedule hit a setback just days before Christmas.

    “I got made redundant by Bentley on the Tuesday [20 December], which was crazy because I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he explains.

    I think the first one-two I did was with Alexis Sanchez

    Cohen Bramall
    “I needed a full-time wage coming in, not a part-time wage from Hednesford, so I started thinking of getting a new job.”

    The following day, however, his world was turned upside down.

    “My agent rings me on the Wednesday saying you’ve got a trial at Arsenal,” Bramall recalls. “I was like ‘what?’ – I was gobsmacked.

    “He said pack your stuff and get to this postcode, so I packed all my stuff in about an hour, got there as fast as I could, slept for a bit, then the next minute I’m in training with the first team.

    “It was crazy how quick everything happened, how I met everyone and they just took me straight in. I had to take the opportunity with both hands.”

    ‘If he wasn’t there it wouldn’t have happened’

    Crewe-born Bramall started playing semi-professional football for Kidsgrove Athletic as a 17-year-old, and had spells at Newcastle Town, Market Drayton and Nantwich.

    He was picked up at Hednesford by then manager Liam McDonald, who has likened Bramall’s story to that of striker Jamie Vardy, who went from non-league to Premier League champion with Leicester in the space of four years.

    Crystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday had both watched the promising left-back closely, but it was Arsenal who agreed terms on the £40,000 and made Bramall’s dreams come true.

    “Two weeks ago, I played for Sheffield Wednesday in an Under-23s game against Birmingham City,” Bramall says.

    “Brian McDermott, one of the scouts at Arsenal came down. He doesn’t really come down to those sort of games, he’s always abroad and looking at the next star. If he wasn’t there it wouldn’t have happened.

    “I would tell the whole of non-league to just keep believing and keep working hard. If you don’t work hard it’s not coming. You need to work hard, you need to put 110% into it and believe in yourself, stay confident, stay humble and keep going.”

    On training at Arsenal and one-twos with Sanchez

    “I came up to Arsenal, I get my kit, I get ready and I’m expecting to go out with the Under-23s, but I was training with the first team,” he recalls.

    “It was insane. You see people on social media, you see them on Match of the Day, then you see them in real life and your heart’s pounding. It was crazy.

    “Danny Welbeck, Chuba Akpom, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – all top guys who are dead welcoming and they knew my name. I was gobsmacked. I was so happy that they knew my name and honoured to play against those players. It was just a dream come true.

    “I think the first one-two I did was with Alexis Sanchez.”

    On meeting Arsene Wenger

    Players at Arsenal’s London Colney training base
    Bramall has already been rubbing shoulders with Arsenal first-teamers at the club’s London Colney training base
    “It wasn’t really a conversation, it was a quick shake of the hand. A ‘Hi, nice to meet you, Cohen’ and a quick chuckle, really,” he says.

    “It was unbelievable seeing him. One of the top, top managers in the world. You see him on TV a lot, then you see him face-to-face and it’s ‘wow’. It blows your mind, mate.

    “It was two days of training, a quick two-day session with the first-team and then we just spoke about what’s going to happening next.

    “I haven’t even had time to reflect on what’s really happened. It hasn’t even hit me where I am.

    “I just need to forget who I train with and work on me, my personality, my body and mentality. I know I’m around with the stars but I need to do the best I can and try and not get trapped in that frame of mind where I’m with all the big dogs.

    “It’s an honour to play with them but I need to do what’s best for me.”

    Like

  37. WENGER ON XHAKA, JACK, SANTI’S FUTURE

    Arsène Wenger’s final act at his pre-match press conference was to sit down with journalists from the daily newspapers.
    On the agenda were the futures of Santi Cazorla and Per Mertesacker, the penalty conceded by Granit Xhaka at Bournemouth and the terms of Jack Wilshere’s loan.

    on Mertesacker being close to a return…
    No. He had a little calf problem. He’s on the pitch but not close. He’s still three or four weeks away, not more.

    on whether Mertesacker and Cazorla’s contract are dependent on their fitness…
    No. We have an option on both of them and I think we will take it.

    on whether he could have used Jack Wilshere now…
    Yes, I could use him now. But if he had not played until now, he would not be ready to play now. What looks unfair is that at some moment in the season you know you could need the player. But even at the start of the season you need to have the right balance between competition and numbers and chances for the player to play. And still today I think it was the right decision for him to go to Bournemouth.

    on whether he could have loaned Jack until January…
    In the Premier League, I think no. It’s season-long loans in the Premier League.

    on Xhaka conceding penalties…
    He has conceded a few and I agree he has to stop that. But always it’s… is it really a penalty or not? I think he was unlucky on both occasions, but he has to adapt. Especially on the other night it was a really soft challenge. Because if it’s a penalty, why is it not a foul on Hector Bellerin [for Bournemouth’s third goal]? It’s not even similar. The challenge on Hector was much bigger. Xhaka was a bit unlucky but he has to correct that.

    on if Xhaka’s Bundesliga reputation precedes him…
    I don’t think so. You can see in his game he is not a dirty player. Overall I am quite happy with his defensive evolution. He is less spectacular in his tackling and he stays more on his feet. He uses his body better to win the challenges and his recovery runs are stronger when the ball goes behind him. He is much more focused defensively than before. He has improved a lot on that front.

    on why he wants to keep Santi and Per…
    For their qualities as football players firstly but as well for their mental guidance. We need to have a balance between youth and experience. They are important in that.

    Copyright 2017 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source

    Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20170106/wenger-on-xhaka-jack-santi-s-future#TVvwitZuwGzJIbh8.99

    Liked by 1 person

  38. looking very likely that both santi and per will be here next season. Now that will disappoint a lot of the malcontents

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  39. Wenger on Wilshere “And still today I think it was the right decision for him to go to Bournemouth.”

    Media headlines – Wenger regrets loaning Wilshere out – Big Mistake, Wenger admits he needs Jack, etc etc etc

    Like

  40. Sniper ‏@clockendsniper 29m29 minutes ago
    Since Spurs last won the FA Cup in 1991 (a record 8th win at the time) Arsenal have won it 7 times.

    Like

  41. Good news if we are keeping Per and Caz. We have missed both of them at times, excellent players and superb servants to the club. Both have helped bring us through a few tough times

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  42. Leo ‏@_LS87_ 20 Jun 2016
    Leo Retweeted Knowledge
    “Why doesn’t Arsène listen to the fans?”

    Leo added,

    Knowledge @classifiedfact
    Intelligent people are less concerned with the approval of others. The higher your IQ level, the easier it is to resist peer pressure.

    Like

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