(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread

Wife and I are in London when we play Liverpool at home. Damn I love it when the timing comes together!

Relagation battle after two games :)

1.68m is 'unusually' short for a human male? 'A freak outlier'? Christ what country of giants are you from.

That's about the same height as Alexis Sanchez and Carzola. Also Paul Scholes was only a CM or so taller. Heck even Messi is barely taller. And like Kante, Claude Makelele was considered one of the best in his DM position at 1.68m. I don't think 1.68m is particularly short for a footballer.

A freak outlier in terms of height for a footballer might be someone like Lorenzo Insigne at 1.63m.

We have been linked with Gozte this morning... not sure that means much. Half of the teams in the EPL have been as well. 

Fair point, "freak outlier" is a bit of an extreme term. 1.68 is definitely a good halfway down the side of the bell curve for male height though... so you wouldn't expect many players to be that short. 

Of the names you mentioned, Makelele and Cazorla are the same height, the rest are all taller. 

However a quick google finds some who are shorter, so I do see your point... 

Nathan Dyer

Aaron Lennon

Manuel Lanzini

Pedro

And Maradona

Modric didn't exactly fail in the EPL like Wenger predicted based on his size at 1.72m.

The last thing we need our in squad is another creative midfielder or striker!

I was googling current/recent players in the EPL

Xhaka signs a new contract

Emery must be a fan

it’s interesting to seeing a balance of new contracts with new signings. Definitely gives you some clear signals of how he see’s his squad shaping up.

Just don't see it with Iwobi. Seems a nice enough guy and is a youth product but what is he actually good at? It's never nice when it's someone who came through the youth setup, but should be one of the first Emery sends out the door IMO.

I hear you. He's recently turned 22 so you'd expect he'd be landing more clearly into a mould of a player. However it's hard to see. 3 goals and 6 assists last year in 29 starts and 9 appearances off the bench is less than ideal. I would happily close the door on Iwobi if we're replacing him with someone of similar youthfulness but a more defined type of player - such as a winger.

Sounds like Leno is done now. 

Sokratis and Torreira also apparently done but announcements will come later, Sokratis on July 1 apparently, and Torreira probably after the world cup. 

So if this is all sorted, our new signings are;

Lichtsteiner

Sokratis

Torreira

Leno

With Soyuncu possibly to follow.

Will we sign anyone else? I am leaning towards no, probably only departures from here. 

Interesting. Given none of those are bank breaking transfers I'd be more inclined to hold out hope for another attacking player who is an out crossing/pacey winger. 

At a guess, from the figures quoted, that's a total outlay of approx 90m euros in transfer fees. 

So yea pretty cheap I guess, for 5 players... 

Lot's happening in Arsenal land this morning!

• Bernd Leno confirmed, 25m euros.
• Elneny & Egypt about to be knocked out of the World Cup.
• Ospina celebrating Bern’s arrival with a flappy performance for Colombia!
• Lehman’s been let go but Bould retained. While I feel for Lehman I don’t think one season as an assistant justified keeping him on ahead of someone like Bould who can provide much more continuity, or Emery’s right hand man who has replaced him.

Edit: reformatted.

Still more happening... Wilshere has announced he won't sign a new contract...

His statement said that he had agreed to sign, but then met with Emery, and was told he will not be guaranteed a first team spot, so decided to leave. He was professional about it though, very nice statement, and thanked Emery for his honesty, wished him all the best. 

I'm pretty gutted about this, but overall can understand the decision on both sides.

As long as Ramsey signs!

I’m glad Emery was up front about his plans and didn’t let sentimentally come into

it. Hopefully he can reboot his career elsewhere and we can get our midfield back to the heights it used to achieve.

Here's an entire team that were contracted to Arsenal just 12 months ago, and have now all left (or retired in Mertesacker's case):

                   Szczesny

Debuchy-Gabriel-Mertesacker-Gibbs

                 Coquelin-Ox

        Walcott-Cazorla-Sanchez

                      Giroud

Manager: Arsene Wenger

That would be quite a competitive team

........in League 2

Reflecting on the Leno signing I'm a little disappointed in the costs. We sold Szczesny for around 12m euros and have essentially replaced him a season later with Leno for 25m euros. If I'm brutally honest I'd rather we'd kept Szczesny. Hopefully time proves me wrong on this one, but I think it was a rare occasion of Wenger letting a young talent go too early.

That team, plus a few of the guys that have stayed, pretty much won 3 FA Cups.

Not league-winning obviously, but certainly competitive. 

I think we'd all agree with that, but there were quite clearly other issues behind the scenes with Wenger and Szczesny, you can't simplify it down to the fee size, and the player's age and talent level. The decision was obviously not made on those terms, things clearly must have gone down behind the scenes, probably starting with the ciggie in the Soton changing rooms. 

I hear you, but on a scale of athletes being inappropriate do you really think a ciggie in a changing room after a loss is worth being sold for? I guess if it's the indicator of a larger problem then I hear you, but I just didn't see enough coming out about his attitudes - especially after 2 years on loan which only served to grow him.

I've got no idea, I've just assumed that there has to be more we don't know between him and Wenger. It was an unusual sale from us, he appeared to want to stay, there must've been some issue there. 

Well, yeah, most people would agree - but we didn't keep Szcz and he was sold off before Emery got a hold of the team. 25m seems to be at the higher end of what people are quoting was the actual fee; but either way, that is about expected for a goalkeeper of 26 years old who is on the up.

I love Szcz but I don't think he's as good as people like to make out since he left - he has the same old problems.

You sure? He's the faster keeper for Juventus to get to 10 clean sheets (14 matches). Not bad for someone coming in after Buffon.

Because he plays for Juventus and not Arsenal..

See him in Poland's first game? That goal certainly bought back the memories!

Apparently on Bein Sports, Wenger claimed that Wilshere was the most loyal player he's ever seen. Reckoned that he turned down Real Madrid in 2012, and PSG "multiple times" just last year. That's astonishing really, considering Wenger told him from the outset last season he would be playing Europa League and would have to force himself into the EPL starting 11 (which he did). 

I think Bournemouth is what killed it. He made that decision for England reasons rather than club loyalty and it ruined his club opportunities when he couldn't fire. I think he'll struggle again outside of the Emirates given it's all so unfamilliar, although hopefully a permanent move elsewhere will help him mentally move on!

RE the Poland goal I don't think Szy is up for that, the back pass was average and was significantly complicated by the injured player returning to the field. He hasn't let in a sloppy goal like De Gea in Spains opener or Karius in the ECL final have!

That quote was made up on twitter btw, not real

Wow. Important lesson for checking sources. I usually do as well! 

Talk about burned. Cheers for the heads up Valeo. 

Not to mention Caballero today.

Wrong thread but I'm loving the increased number of keeping errors, penalties awarded, and own goals. It's nice to see the attacking side of the game flourishing at a world cup, much more exciting a spectacle. 

I've seen we've been linked heavily with Benaga again this morning. Arseblogs making the case it's not necessarily a sign that we're losing Ramsy but rather replacing Wilshire. If we get him and Torreia over the line we'd have Ozil, Banega, Mhiki fighting over CAM. Xhaka, Ramsey, Elneny, Torreira fighting over CM. I'm guessing in that scenario you'd see Mhiki pushing out wide or dare I say it see someone like Ramsey depart. Or Elneny. I know Wenger rewarded him with a new contract last year but I'd be happy if we sold him to make way for Banega, it would be an upgrade that's for sure.

I'm not sure about Banega. He has done well at Sevilla but he's 30 next week, never played in England, and last time he left Sevilla, for Inter, he was back in a year. He's an Emery player through and through, yet he didn't take him to PSG. 

I think it sounds like a bit of a hit or miss thing... 

No idea where he'd play in midfield either. He can play any role really, from a deep-lying playmaker through to a no.10. 

Which is interesting versatility when you consider how the rest of the midfield. Xhaka is an out and out deep lying playmaker. Ozil is an out and out playmaker. Ramsey is neither, an absolute box to box mongrel. Torreia seems an out and out defensive midfielder. Elneny is halfway between a Ramsey and Xhaka. Who knows about AMN. I imagine he's focussing on being more Elneny/Torreia styles early on before he adds a goal scoring/assisting threat.