I think for the first time in years we are “poised” for a challenge. Emery may totally get it wrong, we may have lots of injuries, Leno and Sokratis may be disasters, but our chips are on the table. With the wild cards of no CL, no World Cup, a pretty deep front line, and a full preseason for all but one xfer we are definitely in the mix. Why? We scored the third most goals in the league last season and added defenders, keeper, DM and a pressing manager. Auba will have a full season and I expect us to improve GD by 10-15 which puts us square in the 3/4th mix.
It needs to be said again auba doesn't have a good record as a wide player I really hope he doesn't get pushed out there
He definitely did his first year at Dortmund, but Aubameyang was identified to replace Lewandowski. When Lewa stayed for that year Auba was shunted to the wing. His scoring record wasn’t good. Having said that, he scored a fair few for us starting from the wing.
There is a lot of talk in this tread and on various blogs of selling Iwobi, Ramsey, and Welbeck and sending Holding out on loan. There is one problem with these scenarios, Arsenal currently have 6 over 21 British or home grown players on their roster. The other two are Bellerin and Chambers. To fill out the 25 player roster they already need to include two U21s, presumably AMN and Mavropanos. Selling or loaning out any of the home grown players means that Arsenal have to either buy British or promote additional U21s to fill out the 25 player roster. If more than one of these players is sold or loaned out Arsenal will have to dig even deeper into the U21s. Obviously Arsenal can go with a shorter roster, but with multiple competitions I suspect they would prefer a full roster.
I guess for st etiene he was mostly thorough the middle as well so really he’s only had one season on the left. He didn’t do too badly there with .6 goals per 90 Which was higher than two of his seasons at CF. As I said, I fully expect him to get many games down the middle. I just like what I’ve seen from him and Lacazette together.
Yeah - BvB recruited several players to replace Lewa - including Immobile who was signed as a true 9 and was epic fail Auba only emerged as an elite 9 after those mistakes and his record is far better through the middle.
Ivan is all but gone at the moment. I know its rumors but there are a lot of rumors and there are no denials. Really would be shocked if they were just rumors.
I just listened to today's Arsecast and Andrew said "if he does go, the obvious replacement is Josh Kroenke". I couldn't tell if that was a tongue-in-cheek comment... his delivery was flat. Should we take that as true?? How much experience does Josh really have running an international football club? And I don't mean the Rams.
Honestly, I think this has always been the plan. Josh had likely been near and involved for quite some time. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but I don’t think the club will go far for Ivan’s replacement. Plus, with Raul and Sven around it just means josh needs to handle the business side.
Di Marzio is reporting Gazidis is likely to take the job in Milan. This confirms a lot of my prejudices and thoughts, not only about Gazidis being a limp, feckless coward who shies away from accountability, but also that Kroenke and the board are not a functional backroom setup. Think about it like this: did Gazidis know about emerging Milan opportunities when he apparently reversed course on Arteta and chose Emery instead?
How the rest of the upper management he's installed responds to this would seem to help us understand how this is going down, for sure. If one or more of them jump ship for Milan with Gazidis, it suggests ownership/the board are significantly more dysfunctional than previously thought. If nobody else leaves, it suggests Gazidis is weak.
Hard for me to imagine that trading Ivan for Josh is the best thing for this club right now or into the future.
interesting. i thought gazidis was just waiting to get out from wenger's thumb to make the moves. so who have been the architects of the moves we have been making?
So no offers for Ramsey in the media - this must mean he is crap right? Or maybe he is not available and the agent is not stirring the pot. My guess is if he doesn't re-up, his destination is already confirmed.
I am fine to lose Gazidis We don't need an executive getting paid multimillions to run this relatively small business. He brings nothing to the table except the occasional reup of sponsorship contracts at the rate of deal inflation