Squad depth 2025-2026: Page 8 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Squad depth 2025-2026

MistaT

Meatwad -- I have very vivid and fond memories of the FA Cup wins during Wenger's last few seasons. They were all great for different reasons:

epic comeback vs Hull, cementing Cazorla's legacy with that free kick
feel good nature of smacking Villa around...can still remember screaming "fucking hit it" right as Sanchez looked up to shoot
beating Chelsea, cause fuck em and their cheating/slimy ways

As for the FA Cup win under Arteta being forgettable. I do think that's a result of some extenuating circumstances like no fans (COVID) and half the team, and damn near all the stars, being moved on shortly after.

Klaus

MistaT feel good nature of smacking Villa around

I remember Özil just running around and dicking all over them for 90 minute in that final. There's a compilation somewhere on youtube. Just completely humiliated them with every touch.

My favourite is the one Auba decided against Chelsea though, sent Zouma running the wrong way and then chipped the keeper. "Yes Zouu! Ahh Zouu, nooo"

MistaT

Klaus -- it was so obvious we were going to smash them too. That game was stress free fun from the first minute.

It was for me also the highlight of the back half of Wenger's tenure....I didn't ever enjoy pipping 4th each season, but that final was a perfect illustration of the beauty Wenger could conjure with disparate teams. Coquelin and Cazorla as a CM duo, and shoehorning all of Sanchez, Cazorla, Walcott, Ramsey, and Ozil into a squad.

Walcott had found that purple patch as a CF, Sanchez could beat teams single handily, Ramsey in strong form (who needs a right wing(er)), and Ozil conspiring across the whole field.

And then you layer on the feel good factors like Koscielny with his shirt pulled over his head, Mertesacker scoring/celebration, a great kit, a ref on our side for once, and Wilshere at the parade.

Sicario2

On a separate note we have a healthy number of England internationals now:

Rice
Saka
Eze (touch wood)
Madueke
MLS

Nwaneri in the under 21’s and White always an outsider.

Should help against ref decisions not going our way.

flobaba

Sicario2 Should help against ref decisions not going our way.

Feel it's going to make things worse, if anything. Not the part that they're England internationals - The anti Arsenal bias, in my opinion, has xenophobic and racist undertones.

We are going to have to do be so much better that the refs won't have much of a say.

Meatwad

Sicario2
so just adding eze to this existing mix is going to change things with PGMOL? damn he has some serious power. you would think someone with the complexion for the protection like declan would have swung things in our favor but yet they were making an example with him and costing us 3 pts.

Qwiss

Sicario2 Should help against ref decisions not going our way.

Have you never seen a Palace match? Eze get loads of fouls not called for him.

RocktheCasbah

Was a fun day for sure. Me and James took our better halves to the Emirates to watch. Not quite the same as being at Wembley, of course, but perhaps he next best thing.

Asterix

flobaba isn't it also a north / south thing? Although that doesn't explain why Chelsea don't get the horrible decisions we do.

invisibleman18

Asterix I figure it's just continue hate/bitterness from the Wenger days. He had too many French/foreign players so it was his and our fault the England team was no good, and we were the first team to name a matchday squad without a single English player (think Cole and Campbell were both out injured the same week). From memory there was a bit in Wenger's book about how he didn't even realise until such a big deal was made about it.
It won't make a difference that we'll contribute a chunk of the England squad going forward.

Qwiss

Sicario2 if we can avoid an injury crisis our cup teams should be extremely strong. Kepa, Mosquera, one of the starting CBs (I'm at the point where I'm considering Kiwior gone), rotational full backs, Noorgard, Merino, Eze, Nwaneri all CM options, then a front line from Havertz ( 🤞 ), Martinelli, Madueke, Trossard, Dowman. So much quality and that's basically without most of the first XI

Herbas

Qwiss On paper that looks great, but does Arteta really rotate players effectively? As far as I remember, whenever he did wholesale changes for cup games, most of the players were kept on the shelf for months and thus really rusty and uninspired. While key players like Saka are being played every minute no matter the result until they literally can't run due to injuries.

Sicario2

Qwiss is selling Kiwior a mistake given how brittle Cala is around that LB/LCB area?

Qwiss

Herbas his argument was we didn't have the depth. He has no excuse not to rotate now. He'll probably throw in a Gabriel or a Rice sometimes but he needs to make effective use of the squad in the cups now.

Sicario2

Qwiss fuck Palace. We are Arsenal and high profile

Sicario2

QuincyAbeyie

Sicario2 Yeah, with any luck he'll get favourable treatment from refs like... Saka.

Qwiss

Sicario2 have you never seen an Arsenal game 😂

Qwiss

Sicario2 I'd rather not sell him, especially for the figures being thrown around at the moment. I'd be looking for £30m minimum.

JazzG

Sicario2 We need to raise money and considering the depth we have if we get a good offer we need to sell. We have two LBs in Calafiori and MLS, LCB Calafiori could cover but do get your point about his injury record. Maybe White, Timber or Mosquera could play there if worse comes to worse?

Meatwad

Qwiss
declan and MLS are confused by their supposedly favorable three lion at a big club treatment.

Sicario2

JazzG I don’t know. What I like best about Kiwoir is his availability which is an underrated feature nowadays. Most of those players you mentioned can’t be 100 percent relied upon through a season. I can’t remember the last time Jacob even had an injury with us (touch wood)?

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