We're Arsenal. We'll bring him back here next season, not play him and destroy his value.

But on a more serious note - we're getting really good loans for our players in Ligue 1, Championship etc.

We need to be ruthless next summer and cash in on the ones we don't think can make it but had good seasons out on loan. Or follow it up with another loan.

We absolutely can't do what we've done in the past with the likes of AMN and Nelson.

Loan round-up:

A whole game in Ligue 1 without scoring! Wtf Nuno. You can see his speed and strength count for a lot more over there, as ever in Ligue 1, he's looking more confident because of it I reckon.

Big Willie's boy, Marcelo Flores, in his second game for Real Oviedo in the Segunda Division. He's so small at weak at this point in his development that when you see this it feels like he's doing well just to compete. But you can see his skill, agility and awareness is of a very high order. This is a good level for him.

Balogun with another goal - that's 3 in 3, and he looks like he has a lot more in him too. Showing he has a lot of other impressive aspects to his game as well.

Brooke Norton-Cuffy has joined Rotherham on a season long loan.

A young right back who is very highly rated by the club. A season in championship should be a very good learning experience for him.

a season in ligue 1 would be even better.

He's only 18. If he starts regularly this season in the Championship that would be massive for him. Hopefully he does well enough to get himself a PL loan next season. A bit like what Chelsea have done with Colwill.

Ricky1985 wrote:

Loan round-up:

A whole game in Ligue 1 without scoring! Wtf Nuno. You can see his speed and strength count for a lot more over there, as ever in Ligue 1, he's looking more confident because of it I reckon.

Big Willie's boy, Marcelo Flores, in his second game for Real Oviedo in the Segunda Division. He's so small at weak at this point in his development that when you see this it feels like he's doing well just to compete. But you can see his skill, agility and awareness is of a very high order. This is a good level for him.

Balogun with another goal - that's 3 in 3, and he looks like he has a lot more in him too. Showing he has a lot of other impressive aspects to his game as well.

Thanks for the videos Ricky.

Tavares is a weird one, ohysically and technically he can become a quality player. He just seems to be weighed down by an extreme lack of composure and panics a lot. On the plus side he never shies away, but he goes the opposite way of trying too hard and trying to force moves and dribbles that aren't on. Hopefully this loan will give him confidence in his own ability to the point where he doesn't constantly feel the need to overcompensate for his lack of confidence by trying to do the most with every touch.

Balogun is looking pretty good to be honest. Think he'll have 2-3 years of his contract left next summer. We'll have to make a decision on him in the next year or so on whether to integrate him into the team, sell him off or extend his contract and loan him out again. With Gabriel making the spot his own and Nketiah looking good himself it'll be a good decision to have to make, one that eill hooefully end up in either us having a player just exploding onto the scene or one who can be shifted off for a decent chunk of change.

Flores excites me man. He's still just only 18 and not one of those ohysically gifted guys who dominates his age group the sheer force but rather through his guile and game intelligence. Futs in with this generation of youths we seem to have been producing over the last 5-8 years since the days Iwobi, Willock, Nelson, Saka et al who have the technique to do almost anything with the ball and play in almost any position. He's played left back, left wing, in an 8 and a 10 and seems to have adapted to all those roles with ease.

The video above shows he's struggling with the step up to playing against grown men with the power they have. Not sure if he'll ever develop that side of his game but he definitely has the potential to negate all that through his speed of thought and quick feet once he gets used to playing with guys who are bigger and stronger than he is. He's still a way away from being ready for us. Hopefully we can extend him and give him another year or two on loan.

Not sure how much he has left in his contract, think he signed professional contract with us about a 1.5-2 years ago. The rumours linking him to Barca are a bit of a worry but as he's under contract we should be able to hold on to him until we can see whether he really has what it takes or not.

There's so many moments in that Nuno clip that make you go "yup, that's definitely Nuno".

Chaos agent. Still unacceptably raw in that clip. Look how nearly every single pass is either straight at or a yard behind its target.

He's an explosive athlete and a very loveable, sympathetic force on the pitch but there's so much detail that needs to be added to his game I'm doubting he'll ever play for us.

Burnwinter wrote:

Chaos agent. Still unacceptably raw in that clip. Look how nearly every single pass is either straight at or a yard behind its target.

He's an explosive athlete and a very loveable, sympathetic force on the pitch but there's so much detail that needs to be added to his game I'm doubting he'll ever play for us.

Our football needs predictability and good technique. You need that as a baseline. It is then good to have players like Saka and Jesus who can put a man on his back and break the routine. But you cannot staff for our football in the opposite direction, with a player who mainly excites you because he does something different. If the fundamentals are not there, the football doesn't work. This is the case with Pepe. He has outlier skills when it comes to dribbling and shooting, but his team game is too underdeveloped. 

We call it "fail fast" in my line of work.

flobaba wrote:

We call it "fail fast" in my line of work.

Also a good sign. Instead of holding onto players like AMN and Chambers forever, send Nuno out to prove himself elsewhere. It's easy to do this if you know what good looks like. I don't think we had any clue what we were doing in late stage Wenger/Emery .

Should get some nice loan highlights throughout the season with Tavares, Patino and Pepe on loan

So long Pepe. Fingers crossed you can outscore the other loanees we sent to France and get us a decent fee when we look to move you on next season.

Just didn’t work out for him. The league is full of players who did wonders is another league without being able to replicate it consistently in the prem, so there’s no shame in it.

nuno scored for marseille again.

pepe was straight into the nice lineup against marseille as well

Definitely one to keep an eye on. Bit raw but a supreme athlete already

Like Tavares on steroids. I can't believe he's eating up Championship players like that at 18.

Stood out to me the first time I saw him in an U23 game, I didn't even know who he was at the time. That he's able to replicate it at senior football is a really good sign.

Tavares and Brooke as starting full backs in 2024 :drool:

Balogun scored again, from a penalty he got himself.

He is definitely making it here. Seems really quality

Also we need to keep up this trajectory of finding meaningful loans for our youngsters.

So far, all the loan destinations have looked on point.

Balogun with another goal, only neymar and mbappe with more goals in Ligue 1

praise for nuno from a well known French journo. I think lokonga might benefit from a spell like this as well.

Not only him, a lot of rave reviews on Tavares. Julien Laurens say he is the most important player in Marseille squad currently, they can't play well without him

Bouhafsi says Tavares is a "defensive rock" and "offensively so intelligent"... he is obviously neither of those two things, even if you account for the French league being a much lower standard.

It's good he's doing well though, hopefully he matures a lot in the next year and either comes back a serious option or we can sell him on for really good money.

This is Tavares' latest outing from last night, a very Tavaresy performance!

Balogun and Pépé are due to play later today, this is from last weekend:

Ricky1985 wrote:

This is Tavares' latest outing from last night, a very Tavaresy performance!

 looks like it was. Absolute chaos.

nuno went full nuno against Frankfurt, im led to believe. not his best night

Gazza M wrote:

nuno went full nuno against Frankfurt, im led to believe. not his best night

Where did you hear this? He was probably Marseille's best player last night, mostly solid in defence made a couple of good tackles and was involved in almost every attack.

Good to hear! Not often it can be said that he's been strong defensively. Did he look like he had potential to adapt to FB or still quite wing-back-y?

He played something in between, Marseille were pretty fluent between 3-5-2 to 4-4-2 in the game.

Don't think it's fair to say he was weak defensively anyway, he's very inexperienced and last season got six starts early in the season then another six in the end and in most he did well defensively, no worse than Tierney in my view.

He's an undisputed starter in Marseille and it shows, he's playing with a lot of confidence both going forward and defensively, tries a bit too much still but definitely worth keeping tabs on. Wouldn't be the ideal solution but I'd be happy with him taking LB next season and moving Zinchenko centrally.

Thanks for elaborating. Definitely beneficial for him to get get more games and build his confidence up, even if we end up deciding he's not the right fit for us but my hypothesis is the same as yours in terms of Zinchenko shifting more into midfield in the longer term.

I didn't give up on Tavares but never expected him to be so important for a good club like Marseille. Impressive

Hearing Auston Trusty is performing well

Patino came back from his injury, straight into the team and got a goal.

Doesn’t look so skinny anymore