It's an indictment on Wenger that right now, if you offered me Big Sam, I'd take him. I'm thinking of his Bolton days with Jay Jay and the fuzzy haired bloke and I'm thinking he could do a job. The (Arsenal) world has gone mental.

Trouble is there seems to be absolutely no coherent plan for the long term strategy. What is our defensive strategy? Our midfield strategy? It's all completely made up week to week.

Asterix wrote:

It's an indictment on Wenger that right now, if you offered me Big Sam, I'd take him. I'm thinking of his Bolton days with Jay Jay and the fuzzy haired bloke and I'm thinking he could do a job. The (Arsenal) world has gone mental.

Trouble is there seems to be absolutely no coherent plan for the long term strategy. What is our defensive strategy? Our midfield strategy? It's all completely made up week to week.

I would too. Allerderci would make obvious decisions and drop people who didn't give 100%. That alone is better than Wenger.

Spot on about it being week to week. I'm expecting a formation change pretty soon.

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Seriously we should cash in Alexis

I think Ozil is the one we should cash in on, assuming there are any suitors. Dortmund have that Dembele money right?

Sanchez can make a difference to our season.

He can but he probably won't. He had the best season of his career last year and we still finished 5th and missed out on Champions League. He didn't make any more difference than Özil did when he was playing out of his skin the season before; we ended up 3rd that season with a bit of final day luck, and our campaign was still very disappointing on the whole.

People expect great players to lift the team a full level, and it's rarely ever the case unless they already have teammates who can match that level. Their top-end qualities are wasted otherwise. History is littered with great players who never accomplished much at bogstandard clubs. Totti recently ended his career with a single Serie A title and a couple Coppa Italia in 24 seasons. Roma have been in Champions League about as often as Spurs in the last 10-15 years despite having one of the greatest players of any generation.

The point I'm making is: don't sell either of them. Sign more players on their level instead. Everything else is a spectacular waste of time and effort.

Asterix wrote:

It's an indictment on Wenger that right now, if you offered me Big Sam, I'd take him. I'm thinking of his Bolton days with Jay Jay and the fuzzy haired bloke and I'm thinking he could do a job. The (Arsenal) world has gone mental.

Trouble is there seems to be absolutely no coherent plan for the long term strategy. What is our defensive strategy? Our midfield strategy? It's all completely made up week to week.

Yeah I mentioned that last season, rather Allardyce than Wenger in recent seasons. At least Allardyce teams has never given up like this, let alone on a regular basis.

Klaus wrote:

He can but he probably won't. He had the best season of his career last year and we still finished 5th and missed out on Champions League. He didn't make any more difference than Özil did when he was playing out of his skin the season before; we ended up 3rd that season with a bit of final day luck, and our campaign was still very disappointing on the whole.

People expect great players to lift the team a full level, and it's rarely ever the case unless they already have teammates who can match that level. Their top-end qualities are wasted otherwise. History is littered with great players who never accomplished much at bogstandard clubs. Totti recently ended his career with a single Serie A title and a couple Coppa Italia in 24 seasons. Roma have been in Champions League about as often as Spurs in the last 10-15 years despite having one of the greatest players of any generation.

The point I'm making is: don't sell either of them. Sign more players on their level instead. Everything else is a spectacular waste of time and effort.

Fucking Klaus making fucking sense eh?

The whole throw the babies out with the bath water idea that is seeming to have gripped the whole of goonerdom is irrational. 

But I understand it, kinda. 

Flo - I think it's not about throwing the baby out but the realization that Alexis is not staying and he won't win us anything this season either. So why not cash in especially if you can get a young player instead and build for the next manager so that he only has to fill 10 positions and not 11 when he joins.

The idea is that this team just isn't working and it isn't going to work this season especially if they're putting in half arsed performances. We'll be back in rebuilding mode next summer for certain, we may as well start now.

I still want us to keep Sanchez. I want us to sell Ozil because he doesn't fit Arsenal and playing him causes more problems than it fixes. Get 50M for him and bring in a midfielder - we'll be a better team for it.

Sanchez is a goal scorer, and is thus far more valuable than Ozil. Especially with the squad that we have. Giroud is the only other goal scorer in the squad that we know can still perform.

We aren't doing anything of note this season so best to get as much out of Sanchez as we possibly can. He's in demand. Ozil isn't so even if we show him the door it'll be for a tiny fee. Sanchez has to go. Has to. I don't see anyway around it now.

All over twitter now that Southampton wants Walcott for Van Djik

It's not true at all but I would fucking charter a 380 to ship him there.

Once Ox goes I hear Arsenals net spend is £10m....

I can see you guys overspending on the final day. Perhaps 65m for Van Dijk.

goon wrote:

The idea is that this team just isn't working and it isn't going to work this season especially if they're putting in half arsed performances. We'll be back in rebuilding mode next summer for certain, we may as well start now.

Exactly.

And every time I think about a rebuild having Ozil in the middle of it as a number 10 really limits our options.

Clrnc wrote:

All over twitter now that Southampton wants Walcott for Van Djik

It's not true at all but I would fucking charter a 380 to ship him there.

If we get Sterling and lose Sanchez and Ozil I'd quite fancy a Sterling, Laca and Theo front line. That would really stretch teams.

Qwiss! wrote:

Clrnc wrote:

All over twitter now that Southampton wants Walcott for Van Djik

It's not true at all but I would fucking charter a 380 to ship him there.

If we get Sterling and lose Sanchez and Ozil I'd quite fancy a Sterling, Laca and Theo front line. That would really stretch teams.

Idea is good but Walcott never stretches teams for some reason. He's pretty slow on the ball. Especially in recent seasons plenty of slower defenders defended easily against him.

He was pretty nippy this time last year and was really tearing it up, adding goals etc Right now I'd rather hang onto him as he's committed and can score goals. If Sanchez goes we will need him. Even if he's just back up to Sterling he's still better to have for the wings than shitsters like Welbeck.

We've tried every possible combination to make Walcott work - the bottom line is that he's utterly useless over the course of a season even if he has a couple of good months. After 11 years I think it's time to accept that he's a write off.

Mirth wrote:

We've tried every possible combination to make Walcott work - the bottom line is that he's utterly useless over the course of a season even if he has a couple of good months. After 11 years I think it's time to accept that he's a write off.

He's not amazing but he still scored 10 goals last season. He's frustrating and if its a Theo or van Dijk situation obviously you do the the deal but Theo is more effective than he's given credit for.

I want to see Iwobi given a run. Unlike Welbeck who is completely useless, Iwobi is a fantastic prospect.