Not too fussed about what the attack looks like against Southampton but I'd give Holding and AMN another nod. They were good against Reading.

Southampton knocked us out last year, would be good to get a revenge.

I can see Liverpool and United drawing each others in the semi so if we win this we have a good chance of making the final.

Cant believe Wenger never won the league cup. Clearly doesnt give two fucks about the competition.

Question is, why are you so jacked up about the bloody league cup?

Im not really bothered about the cup, but its amazing that Wenger has never won it in his 20 years in charge.

We should had won it in 2007 and 2011. The latter being one of my worst defeats as an Arsenal fan.

Ospina must start this game. Southampton knocked us out 2 years ago with a Nathaneil Cylde belter, typical Koemann getting one over Wenger at the Emirates. On a side note, I hope we stuff Everton in the league.

2011 was brutal, should have won it.

2006 CL
2008 PL
2011 LC

3 huge misses for Wenger that could have given a whole new outlook to the Emirates aka the "Banter Era". 2006 and 2008 would have given us so much more income and made us more attractive as a destination for good players. Could have probably avoided falling as low as we did by 2010-11-12.

Forget about the other 2, the UCL win in 2006 would have transformed the club.

Like it did Liverpool?

Tbf, Liverpool actually did build a really good team on their success, but then fucked it all up after Man City disrupted the old "Big 4".

also, we didn't really have much ambition on the football field then. wenger would've still gona for the rosicky, hleb, diaby, denilsons instead of the riberys.

"Ambition" = having money. We didnt have any.

yup, same as i said.

This is absurd yet interesting at the same time.

The funny thing is technically the last one should have been ruled out too

That's the definition of farcical right there

goon wrote:

The funny thing is technically the last one should have been ruled out too

The referee actually explained that he allowed the last one because he gave the advantage to the attacking team since they scored

It's farcical yet at the same time the ref was doing his job.

est wrote:

He was just being a dick.

Basically, a bureaucrat with a whistle.

Red Bull are in talks to buy Swindon town :/

We'll see them in the PL soon so.

What a freekick by Forsberg to put Sweden in the lead against France. Incredible finesse on the knuckleball.

Gnabry scored a hat trick for Germany.

Against a bunch of farmers from San Marino.

Regardless, the fact is he's making the German national squad and scoring hat tricks after his Olympic exploits, just goes to show we made the wrong decision allowing both him and Campbell to leave when they could have contributed. Yes, Gnabry wanted to play games and that's why he left but it would't have been hard to convince him if we wanted to keep him.

The weird thing about this whole episode is how Brom didn't give a single minute to him.

Big Willie wrote:

Regardless, the fact is he's making the German national squad and scoring hat tricks after his Olympic exploits, just goes to show we made the wrong decision allowing both him and Campbell to leave when they could have contributed. Yes, Gnabry wanted to play games and that's why he left but it would't have been hard to convince him if we wanted to keep him.

Well, we dont really know that. It was a mistake to let him run it down to the last year, though.

Players who don't play any football are generally not going to be quick to sign new deals. Gnabry would have never gotten enough mins here to stay at the end of the season. At least by selling him we can put in a few clauses, including a buy-back one hopes.

Jed wrote:

Against a bunch of farmers from San Marino.

Exactly.

goon wrote:

Players who don't play any football are generally not going to be quick to sign new deals. Gnabry would have never gotten enough mins here to stay at the end of the season. At least by selling him we can put in a few clauses, including a buy-back one hopes.

Unfortunately in this case it wasnt included, i think. Noot sure if there was a sell-on fee clause either.

Give him Chamberlain's minutes and he would have stayed.

Ray wrote:

Give him Chamberlain's minutes and he would have stayed.

We dont really know that too. What if his head was turned by Bayern? They told him to force a move to Werder, be starter there for a season and they would buy him. Sounds like a better deal than staying here to be on the bench.

That's just rumours though, Bremen's CEO said there was no contact and while it's obvious he'd say that regardless of whether it's true or not it would be pretty difficult to set up a valid contract in that vein.

Nevermind the game vs San Marino just look at his performances in the Bundesliga to see his quality. He's making his mark in every game and looks a lot more mature than he used to, also his first touch and even more so his work rate are on a different planet compared to Ox.

I think Gnabry was just bad timing. He had two very difficult knee injuries in as many years and couldn't get back into shape. There were reports from West Bromwich that he was physically unfit for Premier League (and they didn't come from Tony Pulis). And then his contract was running down and he started looking for other options. He would have been sent on another loan otherwise.

marv3llous wrote:

We dont really know that too. What if his head was turned by Bayern? They told him to force a move to Werder, be starter there for a season and they would buy him. Sounds like a better deal than staying here to be on the bench.

Pointless to speculate on such baseless rumours. It was just unfortunate that we didn't hold on to him for obvious reasons.

Klaus wrote:

I think Gnabry was just bad timing. He had two very difficult knee injuries in as many years and couldn't get back into shape. There were reports from West Bromwich that he was physically unfit for Premier League (and they didn't come from Tony Pulis). And then his contract was running down and he started looking for other options. He would have been sent on another loan otherwise.

Those reports were clearly fake IMO. He looked so fit and on fire in the Olympics. I don't believe he can just turn it on like that if he was that unfit for an entire season.

The Olympics were sunday league football though. Every single team there would have been thoroughly schooled in the English League Two. It was just embarrassing.