this season is a write off, no use rushing him back

mdgoonah41 please elaborate

Claudius i think we'll be fighting with liverpool for second place. our forward options are just not up to the standard that will be needed to run down man city. they were pretty meh for big chunks of last season, but when they needed to, they accelerated and went right past us. i think we're going to be in this same position until we buy a top class striker, its the most glaring weakness in our team and hasnt been addressed.

mdgoonah41 we finished two points behind City last season with a weaker squad than the one we've got now and you're already this emo after three matches?

md's pretty dark on us in general these days but I can see where he's coming from. Would we have put a Brighton to the sword earlier with a Haaland instead of a Havertz (who has been good) and avoided the nonsense that befell us? I don't think it's unreasonable to say yes.

SimplyThePest there's degrees though. We all want someone more clinical up front but to be throwing in the towel at this point in this season?

Don Pacifico for sure. I don't agree with throwing in the towel just yet but do agree that we have erred in not prioritising the acquisition of a (potentially, if need be) elite attacking player.

Hey, maybe Sterling will surprise us all!

SimplyThePest I hear you. And I agree to an extent. I think we tried this summer to rectify but (a) we failed on securing the options we had lined up and (b) didn't rate there being much else around

On the latter point, I've been going on about bringing in someone more clinical and/or a Sanchez 2.0 but I'm just not sure how many are around at the moment.

Know it sounds like a freak accident rather than a Tomiyasu situation, but could there be anything more Arsenal than a new signing not being able to get through 5 minutes of his first training without being injured for months? You can only laugh.

Well, luckily for us, its already been more than a week, and the international break is upon us, which takes up 2 weeks, so really he will only be missing 3-4 weeks of "Arsenal time". That said, i've been looking forward to seeing what he can do. He's already familiar with the league, so the settling in period (outside of the injury) should not be as long.

Don Pacifico emo is the right word. First international break and cats have called it a day.

Made some good tackles but looked a bit rusty. Thankfully Partey has found form again so he can be eased back in.

You could see why he's a duel monster, won the ball 5 or 6 times in the short time he was on.

Did look a bit Xhakaesque in terms of mobility.

goon Did look a bit Xhakaesque in terms of mobility.

Yes, but i also put that down to 1 training session with the team after being out for a month, so he is not really up to speed yet. I guess in another month or so, we will start seeing much more.

I wouldn't entirely put it down to that. His one big challenge is his mobility and press resistance - he does move quite awkwardly at times. The big offset to that of course is his physicality.

It's definitely going to take some time to get him match fit and also integrated into the team but I thought his cameo was promising - he is great at sliding tackles and is another big body to clog the middle while still having some good technical ability, which is becoming the hallmark of Arteta's recruitment for the most part.

I really hope he can get up to speed soon because he wasn't good enough at all yesterday and we need him. Obviously the midfield balance was off yesterday and he was being asked to play in a way that's not his natural game but he looks like he's finding the pace of the league a challenge now and we don't really have time for him to settle in. Hopefully Odegaard will be back soon and he isn't asked to do that again.