So the great new dawn is upon us. We have rid ourselves of Arsene Wenger and his gang of incompetents, and replaced them with high class people that can bring us the success we deserve.
It’s absolutely fantastic. The players are drinking water, smiling,training hard, young players are involved and the manager is hands on on the training ground. These things never happened before , now did they?
That there have been major changes in personnel is undeniable. That they are all top people in their fields of expertise appears to be the case, they are certainly experienced with good track records. Its more people with more individual responsibility and a coach with much less. Modern football? Or should I not say that because “modern football” is frowned upon by the “we want our Arsenal back” hoards. But I digress.
The point is almost every fan is happy, us included, the future looks bright. But what has actually changed other than our perceptions?
We have spent about £70m up until now, I suspect there will be outgoing and our net spend will be considerably less. So are we spending more? Is the new regime spending the money Arsene refused to? Seems not ?
Have we dipped into the £250m in the bank that should be spent on making the team as good as it can be? Seems not ? Perhaps that’s not for spending then, or not anywhere like that figure?
Are we competing for the likes of Marhez ,with City, or are we still buying from the second shelf ? It seems we are not and we still are ! So what’s the big change?
Have we tied Aaron Ramsey down to a new deal, or is it dragging on? Dithering?
Now here is the rub, the moment many readers start shifting uncomfortably on their seat, searching for an answer that doesn’t destroy all their hard earned narratives.
If you are happy with all things Arsenal now, you have a certain Stan Kroenke to thank.
Without spending any more of the clubs money, and of its reserves ,or dipping into his own pocket for a single silver dollar, he has given everyone what they wanted ? Without being a football man or spending time at the club he has granted the wishes of the permanently malcontent.
His useless puppet (Ivan) is now the dogs bollocks. We are Kroenke FC , being driven by Ivan, and he is the very image of a none football man.
So if everything is rosy in the garden, and I hope it is, then we should be very much KROENKE IN ? He has come through big time and perhaps all the hate was for nowt?
Positively Arsenal 
18 year old striker Reo Griffiths has left spurs to sign for Lyon on a four year contract, the lad scored 33 goals for spurs u18’s last season. spurs will get compensation, probably around £400K
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Emery on if Ramsey doesn’t extend before next week’s deadline: “I think this is a question for the club & player. My opinion is clear – I want him to be with us. He’s a professional & he’s in the team, he’s the type of player I want in this team.”
wenger would have been slaughtered for these comments
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Iwobi contract extension confirmed
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how many of Wenger’ pets is that now that the new regime have given new contracts to
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Jeez, the stick this boy gets on social media, they won’t be happy till someone tops themselves the arseholes
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The funny thing about Iwobi is that when you look at his game the obvious missing ingredient is confidence. So abusing him is sure to make him play better.
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Ed
On Dasilva : very true, but watch how quickly they’ll ‘report’, with their customary air of authority/certainty, ‘after ‘ some news finally emerges. I’m hoping one day someone does a proper psychological study of them.
As it happens, I strongly suspect he’s off, but then I’m not an optimist on these things.
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Yes Birdkamp, the fuckwits have been as much to blame for quite a few players being under par I’m sure. Just try getting them to understand that though.
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Unexpected departure in shape of young keeper Joao Virginia. Really liked look of him. Even managed to look good in that difficult youth cup final against Chelsea.
Always thought there was marked difference with us and other clubs, especially Chelsea, in that we generally make decisions way earlier on youngsters and keep very few into twenties even.
I doubt Chelsea’s way is half as cost effective as made out, because so much attention paid to the ones they do make good money on, and very little to the dozens they don’t.
Still, when you look at city getting 13.5 mill for their good young keeper Gunn after one good loan, there’s a strong economic case for trying to keep best youngsters on.
Contract, i’m guessing, with Virginia, maybe only a year left.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/TheFalseNein/status/1025294108389253120
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https://mobile.twitter.com/ShereWiIIPower/status/982005328060604416/video/1
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Great news on Iwobi, a seriously good player who will hopefully develop further
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some injury news,
Ramsey looks set to miss the Lazio game, but aims to return to training next week
not such good news on Kolasinac who is out for 8-10 weeks with a knee injury
this new double session, full on training sessions not bearing fruit so far
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surprising news on Joao Virginia, I suppose he seen his path to our first team blocked with Leno, Martinez and Macey all between the ages of 22 and 25, and Cech still likely to be here this season too.
Virginia rated highly, although I’m not sure if he has the height to be a top keeper in England.
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is Pires on the coaching staff now, he is wearing what looks like a staff kit, with his initials on it
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Not sure of Bobby is officially staff, but he seems to have been around Colney for a while, and I am sure a man like is a most welcome presence.
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we have a fan base full of hypocrites, guys I’ve seen for years blame wenger for AFC being unable to rid ourselves of “deadwood” cos they were on long highly paid contracts, but now the same guys are congratulating Emery for getting Iwobi, Xhaka, Eleney etc on long contracts, cos thats how you stop players going into last year of contract and if they don’t work out we can get big fees for them when we sell them.
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mandy its him having his initials on the kit, last season and before when he was at Colney he just used an unassigned players number kit, only staff have initials on kit.
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good god fins, that podcast was seriously hard work, could not cope with more than about five minutes of it, awful stuff, neither guy had a clue, didn’t seem to have more than a passing interest or knowledge in Arsenal, no idea who we had played so far preseason or who we are about to play, no idea what actual position Xhaka plays, etc etc, that was it for me. A pair of boring cunts who should at least do some prep if they are to inflict their AFC views on us.
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Ed
He looked to have grown a fair bit last year by the final. Height listed as 1.91/ 1.92 now.
Apropos of nowt; just saw a very internety argument just now.
Someone indignant at suggestion of AMN covering left back. Began with something like ‘can’t believe it. Everyone (or maybe just ‘you’, incorrectly) slagged off Wenger for playing people out of position, and now you want Emery to do same! Fucksake.’
Didn’t look closely at him but fair guess it was no Wenger fan saying it (he was furious at the prospect of us not buying another left back)
Beyond football, it disturbs me that this ‘style’ of debate seems more and more common. The obvious flaw, and nonsense, is in the ‘everyone’ bit.
Again, i’m just hoping the internet lets you see more thick people than ever, and it’s not that we’re getting dumber, and less fair-minded, at an alarming rate.
*’hypocrite! You [i.e some, maybe one, of the hundreds, thousands or millions within a group] said so and so [something some people in that group have said], and now you say this [something else]. Wanker’
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Eddy, don’t fret I’ll be on it next week with all the right words in all the right order.
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reports are suggesting that the proposed move of David Ospina to Besiktas is off, due to wage demands, DO wants £70K a week and they are only offering half that amount
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only advice I’d give you George is to take some stimulants before it, to stay awake, I’m fully expecting you to roar at them “liven up you pair of boring cunts” not forgetting to tell them to stop wasting peoples time by not researching the topic they are talking about.
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Kolasinac out for up to 10 weeks, and the clamor from much of our fan base is
“buy a left back”
I daren’t ask what do we do with the extra left back when Kolasinac comes back with 7/9 of the season to play.
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Comprehensive dismissal of the Manchester Grunt and failed novelist Barnay Ronay:
https://mobile.twitter.com/LGAmbrose/status/1025427861556146176
(Data innit guv.)
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Fortunately if we dig past the gibberish there is some content out there. Adrian Clarke this morning expressed an opinion supported by the above data:
“Ramsey is already an Arsenal legend”
Common Sense would also agree with him.
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Ronay is a gobshite
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My concerns for UE are in regards to him quickly realising that he can only start Rambo once every five/six days or so in the PL (that is an observation over the last few seasons, could be wrong but that is how it looks like he had been managed), selling off Wilshere who was proven cover in that creative midfield area (understandable if he needed to direct the wages towards the new CM), in general appreciating that he’ll need a little time to observe and absorb and adjust to the intensity of the PL of course not forgetting the Arsenal handicap with the pgMOB – could it all change with the change?
A mercifully brief sniff of Ronay’s gibberish, a quick glance, drop of the shoulder dummy and swerve past the other plonkers, the spawn of Partdrige, would suggest: not yet!
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despite Arsenal’s media being very active by showing first team training clips and photos its very disappointing that this summer, with Per now head of the Academy and Freddie the new U23 manager, both the youth teams preseason games have had no coverage at all on Arsenal.com, and we haven’t even had photos or articles of the new intake of scholars. We have not even been informed of who they played or what the results have been.
Maybe this is how Mertesacker wants it, he has talked about changing things, and doing things to stop young players getting ahead of themselves and thinking they have already made it just cos they got a bit of publicity. If so the fear of it would be that they are not being made used to media coverage, which is something that they will need to be able to deal with.
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Lewis Ambrose Took over from @Arsenalcolumn to discuss the football on behalf of the blagger (who focus’ upon the narratives).
However for someone happy to use the stats he’s only making emotive projections here:
“In recent years, Arsenal players have been accused of not giving their all and many appear to believe the team simply didn’t want to press, rather than accepting they hadn’t been instructed how to press.”
How are we to equate the above opinion with data that indicates that the Arsenal had a little bit pressing in their game last season. Third best behind City and Liverpool, in the most intense league in the sport? Safe to say: not useless.
Disappointing effort from Lewis. Gave up after that paragraph as my cup of tea was more interesting. And useful. Not @Arsenalcolumn or @adrianjclarke or Arsenal quality.
But so many people bought into that rubbish last season.
My best advice? Keep yer eyes on the football.
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fins I’ve seen lots of gooners on twitter be gushing in their praise of all that Ronay said. It really does show that we have a lot of stupid cunts in the fan base.
I would also disagree with you on Wilshere, he does not and did not play the same role as Ramsey, so for me could not be considered back up to him. In fact one of our big problems is that we have not had a guy with similar game style to Ramsey to put in when Rambo out injured or in need of a rest. Ramsey the only midfielder we have who wants to get in the box and overload opposing defenses, only one looking to make a run past the strikers. Plus ramsey can do that and also a good job at doing anything any the rest of our midfielders can do.
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Eddy at 10.44pm
Haha! For the reasons you express I greatly enjoy their podcasts. I get the impression that they don’t pretend to know that much. I also appreciate that the “prick of the week” award may not appeal to everyone.
It’s just refreshing tome to hear people not telling the club what to do.
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Not the same role Eds, but still effective when he put his body on the line through all those games at Xmas and suffered for it later on but during that spell played with good form after the Europa league group stage build up to top fitness.
the new French CM provides another option who can play some PL games over the season of required, so the numbers in midfield look ok.
As you mentioned the other week, could still do with perhaps another CB to get us up to 2015 levels. Chambers ended the last season in very good form so maybe not?
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chambers has barely had a look in at CB this preseason, played more at DM and RB than at CB, suggests he aint in line for a starting role at CB any time soon
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Yes it is unlikely that he’ll start at CB tonight.
Promising cameo at RB the other day, playing in CM was something he’s done in other pre-seasons (I think) for fitness. But I expect the new back up RB to get his chance this evening, along with a return for Monreal?
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Fantastic test match in the cricket.
Not sure why anyone would ever choose to argue against the proven models introduced to help the very professional aids for the officials and umpires that have completely removed controversy surrounding the officials from the sport and also improved the games in other ways (For LBW improvements see the instant purge of Divers with the introduction of VARs).
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Pressing Matters
I think the genuinely weird and remarkable consideration is the instance that there is only one type of pressing for a football team.
How did this belief take hold?
For Madrid and City with two top players in their squad for every position maybe so though even Madrid struggled in their league which is the true test of stamina compared to club knockout football.
Perhaps it’s all a result of the Football Manager age where some think that any club can just buy any player etc.?
The avoidance of the easy observation that successful teams in international tournaments where teams play every three / four days play with subtle variations appears to be too subtle for some folk. So subtle they’ve made themselves look rather foolish when they declare with assurance that AFC didn’t or don’t press. Oops.
The new coach will have some variations to introduce, we’ll see what happens but I don’t expect to see AFC gegenpressing every three days. not even when rotating for the Europa league group games, though we could be surprised I’m not sure as the B team did not play well that often in the group stage last season and there must’ve been a reason they went aske to do so, but they were effective in front of goal and got the goals and the points and I think that’ll be all that most AFC fans care about along with hopefully some good league form (we know the home form will be good…).
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< insistence
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Rumours that Munchen are ready to sell Boatang.
The “bling bling gang”.
If any of us were ever curious what would happen if one of the Big Three imploded (at least for a short time) this could be the moment.
Özil got out of that scene whilst he still could. Hehe.
And: it’s no longer a mystery why he chose the Arsenal over Munchen
A divining rod is not required.
This is a safe bet: Mbappe will never play for Munchen.
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https://bergkampesque.com/2018/08/03/wenger-spoke-and-emery-listened-a-smooth-baton-change/
This reads like a sane and reasonable account.
However the assessment based on three pre-season knock abouts/training sessions is really not that different to pre-season last year,the year before, etc. No appreciation that perhaps there are reasons which made it hard to maintain what he saw in a few matches last year over the course of an entire PL season, reasons such as not having a squad like City and Madrid.
For those who claim the system is more important then the players I present you all with the oft given reference with that quote, the Tottenham manager.
Who upon arriving in Tottenham immediately bought over Alderweirald from Southampton looooooool! As he was one of the best CBs in the PL for Southampton in his debut season – AFC still had a peak Koscielny and BFG with a few years each still left (before Koscielny’s chronic injury) so I don’t believe that they could have afforded the indulgence of such a signing when the opportunity was there. MP also soon figured out that his team played better, finished higher up the table etc. when he dropped Rose for Davies…
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The players are the ‘system’.
Otherwise we’d all just be staring at the grass…
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< to conclude my ramble on the DFB and Munchen and tie into the thoughts on players vs systems:
It's easy to appreciate the quality of character not forgetting football talent exhibited by the German triumvirate that led them to successive multiple tournament finals.
Mertesacker, Lahm and Schweinsteiger. Not just admirable footballers but characters too. No wonder Jogi's system unravelled when Players of lesser quality took up their mantle (not Özil's role, he was the mollycoddled playmaker who bought them success, the latter explaining the former).
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<< consequently it's hard not to be impressed by UE's handling of Özil after what happened.
It's hard not to like UE!
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“Aiming to train next week”
=
No Ramsey vs City and likely Chelsea.
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Xhaka is captain tonight
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lucas perez not in our squad tonight, looks like he is not part of Emery’s plans
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Exciting to see the two young English CBs start. Adrian Clarke doesn’t think Stones will hit the very top level. Can either of these two?
Lovely pass from the experienced new RB to set up Lacazette for a chance.
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Lazio miss a good chance coming from Arsenal’s left. Iwobi and Niles stretched by some good passing.
But Iwobi finds space and is found by Nelson, takes the shot, hits the post, and Nelson following in finishes it off! Possibly offside but borderline so you can’t complain (benefit of the doubt innit).
Great confidence boost for both players there.
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17 minutes Nelson puts AFC 1-0 up, Iwobi shot comes back off the post and Nelson taps in, he looked a fraction offside
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