What are the odds on a Vardy winner while the window is still open and we haven't signed a striker?

Too much footie these days....not terribly excited for the season

Feel almost the opposite; when we turned to shit after Christmas I lost a lot of interest in football in general. Watched Arsenal, of course, but hardly any other games from the beginning of March. Been watching a lot of the Euros, but now can't really wait for club football with Arsenal to start again.

Yeah, same. The Euros have been a nice break from club football, which I lost almost all interest in during the spring. I was so pissed off at everything about Arsenal.

I need a signing or two to really pique my interest in the new season. Please, Wenger—give our squad a couple more guys to place faith in.

The euros have been incredibly dull. I look forward to watching some decent football again when the PL returns.

Tough run in and in tricky few games at the start, we need to rack up those points mid-season.

Excited to see Giroud and Walcott run riot up front for us! Cant wait.

Yup. Walcott would be well rested and have a serious point to prove.

20 goal season I reckon

Man City - Guardiola
Man Utd - Mourinho
Chelsea - Conte
Liverpool - Klopp

All the PL needs now is for Simeone to come to Arsenal.

Think Guardiola will find it tougher in the PL. He had it relatively easier with Bayern and Barcelona as those were the top teams in their respective leagues. Also the competition is far more in PL

also had the best players in the respctive leagues

Of course he'll find it harder. I honestly hope he fails, I'd like to see his bubble burst.

I recognise he's a great manager, but it's not as if Rijkaard and Heynckes didn't achieve a lot before him, and Vilanova / Enrique after him with the players and squads he has worked with.

He's still likely to have the best squad at his disposal by the end of the summer but it'll certainly be a bigger test than he's faced before.

What Pep did for Barca is so underrated.

Not really, he's widely considered one of the best managers in the world because of it.

You mean cheese off of the squad Rikaard et al gifted him? The guy is a quality manager but let's not pretend his teams were punching above their weight and he was performing miracles. He has some of the best youth players ever coming through she he took over and also had the likes of Xavi, Iniesta, Eto'o and Pugol at their peaks (don't even remember if Ronaldinho was still there or not).

Qwiss! wrote:

He's still likely to have the best squad at his disposal by the end of the summer but it'll certainly be a bigger test than he's faced before.

It might just be the most competitive season in PL. Mourinho and Conte is making some impressive signings and they are not stopping yet. If Leicester don't lose any players and continue to strengthen they might just continue to do well.

People everywhere downplay the impact Pep had as manager in his first season and dwell on the number of good players he had.

Is he a genius?
In short, yes. He's absolutely incredible and you only have to look at the season before Pep and the seasons with the likes of Tata since. Even under Lucho they reverted to more of a Pep style after Christmas of the 2014/2015 season and they ended up winning the treble.

Big Willie wrote:

You mean cheese off of the squad Rikaard et al gifted him? The guy is a quality manager but let's not pretend his teams were  punching above their weight and he was performing miracles. He has some of the best youth players ever coming through she he took over and also had the likes of Xavi, Iniesta, Eto'o and Pugol at their peaks (don't even remember if Ronaldinho was still there or not).

lol. One of his masterstrokes was selling Deco/Ronaldinho/Edmilson/Zambrotta.

Big Willie wrote:

You mean cheese off of the squad Rikaard et al gifted him? The guy is a quality manager but let's not pretend his teams were  punching above their weight and he was performing miracles. He has some of the best youth players ever coming through she he took over and also had the likes of Xavi, Iniesta, Eto'o and Pugol at their peaks (don't even remember if Ronaldinho was still there or not).

Yup. Here's the awesome season Barcelona had when Pep arrived:

Groan......The la Liga wankfest has invaded the PL thread.

Clrnc wrote:
Qwiss! wrote:

He's still likely to have the best squad at his disposal by the end of the summer but it'll certainly be a bigger test than he's faced before.

It might just be the most competitive season in PL. Mourinho and Conte is making some impressive signings and they are not stopping yet. If Leicester don't lose any players and continue to strengthen they might just continue to do well.

Have they completed much more than us and City though? Xhaka and Gundogan as good as any other clubs signings I'd say. And Chelsea have only done Batashuyi? Not that impressive so far.  Obviously a lot to come from everyone barring us.

Qwiss! wrote:
Clrnc wrote:

It might just be the most competitive season in PL. Mourinho and Conte is making some impressive signings and they are not stopping yet. If Leicester don't lose any players and continue to strengthen they might just continue to do well.

Have they completed much more than us and City though? Xhaka and Gundogan as good as any other clubs signings I'd say. And Chelsea have only done Batashuyi? Not that impressive so far.  Obviously a lot to come from everyone barring us.

I am not that big a fan of Mikhitaryan but you have to say he is the perfect Mourinho player. In addition, his stats last year is too impressive to be ignored. Zlatan is Zlatan and Bailly had an impressive season with Villarreal last season. I don't think they can manage to get Pogba but stranger things have happened.

Those clubs are already threatening enough with 3 top top managers. We couldn't beat Leicester last season, I won't be confident we can beat these unless we do something significant in the transfer window. It is likely to be Wenger's last season so I hope he at least get a non-embarrassing conclusion to his reign.

Well I have zero hopes of us winning the league. Just don't think all 3 of those managers will manage to do as well as expected.

They are all pretty much expected to win the league so, yeah, not all of them will do as well as expected. 🙂

My money is on Chelsea, who are now managed by the tactically the best manager in the league.

Qwiss! wrote:

Well I have zero hopes of us winning the league.  Just don't think all 3 of those managers will manage to do as well as expected.

I don't think all of them will be success stories either. The problem for us is that just one or two of them meeting expectations (or thereabouts) could be enough to see us dumped out of the CL spots. We almost always do worse every time there has been a big summer tournament and our players come back tired and lacking a proper preseason. And Wenger doesn't seem to have the hunger to win things anymore.

Least confident I'll be going into a season in 3 to 4 years unless things change

Sicario wrote:

My money is on Chelsea, who are now managed by the tactically the best manager in the league.

We'll see. A lot of Italian managers have come to the PL and not set it alight. He needs a few serious defensive signings to suit his game.

Im saying United.

Burnwinter wrote:

Of course he'll find it harder. I honestly hope he fails, I'd like to see his bubble burst.

I recognise he's a great manager, but it's not as if Rijkaard and Heynckes didn't achieve a lot before him, and Vilanova / Enrique after him with the players and squads he has worked with.

Look at Barca 07/08 and then the next 4 years you have to be good enough to make the best of the players. It's not just about having some of the best anyway and he improved most of them to make them some of the best too. You have to be a fool to think he didn't help nearly all of them improve.

Its strange how most of us have no confidence in Arsenal winning the league. Contrast this all the BIG talk from Gazidis and Wenger and you get the amount of faith supporters have in Club and Wenger.

What do you mean BIG talk?

Jose Mourinho will be formally unveiled as Manchester United's new manager later this afternoon.

Good work agent Savz, keep us informed.

Just keeping you all up to date.

Jose is reinvigorated.

"Here is where I've wanted to be"

"When you have the same menu for many years, it has to get better. To finish fourth is not the aim."

"I want everything - to win matches, to play well, to play young players, to score goals, for the fans to be behind us. Everything."

"I want specialists, not multi-functional players. When we get the fourth (signing) I can breathe."

"We have 3 players done, we are working very hard on the 4th"

Mourinho on Pep: "To speak about one enemy is not right in this country, it was a 2 horse race in Spain now the PL is anyones game."

"It's not my responsibility that Ryan is not at the club. He wanted to be manager & the club decided job was for me" Jose Smiles

Ohhh scornful.