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

As I said earlier, I don't really know anything about Emery due not really following any club football outside of Arsenal games. From what I can gather he won 5 of the 6 French domestic trophies over the last 2 seasons, as well as winning the French equivalent of the Community Shield both seasons. And he won the Europa League for the 3 seasons prior to that with Sevilla. In terms of winning things I'm not sure how many managers we could have chased who have had greater success over the last 5 years. Much of the negativity seems to come from failure in the CL in which he was battered by Barcelona in a CL knockout tie, even though they also gave Barcelona a thrashing of their own in the first leg, and lost to Real Madrid the next season. That about sum it up?

Also a few squad number changes overnight:

Petr Cech – 1 (previously 33)

Hector Bellerin – 2 (previously 24)

Mohamed Elneny – 4 (previously 35)

Granit Xhaka – 34 (previously 29)

So we’re expecting Cech as number one next year?

Seems like Bellerin will stay then?

New home shirt for 2018/19 released. Not too bad. Still wish they'd go with red socks.

Doesn't really mean anything

New home kit is the worst one in years. PUMA's last kit, so they thought "fudge you all!"?

Just mentioned over in the United thread that I think Emery is an absolutely brilliant pick-up for Arsenal. He's still relatively young and has won a lot in a relatively short space of time. See he has now confirmed the appointment on his official website.

At least you Arsenal fans can almost guarantee you'll win the Europa League this season ;)

I think Cech will hold #1 unless we go balls to the wall for another world class keeper. Given our budget situation I'd take a younger better version of Ospina to come in under Cech and learn off him. Like Buffon did with Szy.

If we're really only dealing with $50m and possible player sales, I'd sell Elneny, Mustafi, Welbeck, Ospina, then prioritise:

1) Worldy CB

2) Phenomenal CM

3) Up & Coming RB

4) Up & Coming GK

5) Up & Coming wide player

Even with player sales + 50m, that wish list is a stretch with player prices what they are now. Add a decent WC performance into the mix from any targets and you'll be shopping north of 70m per player depending on their contract situation.

There is a huge misunderstanding around the 50m being quoted. It's not 50m overall for transfer fees. It's 50m for the year for all new expenses relating to the playing group. 

For example, if you sign someone for 40m on a 4 year contract, that will be amortised, so will take up 10m in this year's budget, plus the players' wages for the year. 

We are not limited to 50m for the total transfer fees on new players. 

There were much better explanations of this on twitter floating around, will attempt to fish one out if I find some time. 

Does anyone know if there is any reasoning around Xhaka taking #34? Is it a number he has favoured previously?

Saw something saying he'd played in it before and somewhat of a lucky number - bit like Schweinsteiger and #31. See he's got the number tattooed on his back.

It was his first number as a professional and he kept it all the way through his other teams, but it was taken when he got here. He's got it tattooed on his back.

His brother also took the no.34 as Basel when he left there, and favours it as well, so a bit of a family thing. 

Here you go, read this: 

https://shewore.com/2018/05/19/arsenals-50m-budget...

Explains it really well.

We are fine for money. 

Excellent article.

Probably the number of times he has been sent off. :)

I forgot out Cazorla and Mertesackers salaries going too. Then as he highlights we've still got salaries for Perez, Campbell & Jenkinson to go as well - assuming they disappear permanently.

When will Ospina get linked to a Turkish club and not be sold?

Emery officially announced. 

Well there it is

I'm excited

Let's all get behind our new manager. He deserves a proper chance at the very least.

You were excited when Arteta was mentioned. It would have been a disaster. A nobody that had coached nothing, having played with most of the Arsenal players, and now being the boss. That in itself  would have been a problem Why would the the board give an unknown and unproven  millions of pounds to buy players?

They didn't, we hired Emery. What is your fudgeing point?

Yes, come on paulm this is Yellow Fever supporters of the Wellington Phoenix.No excitement allowed.

You're just an absolute tool mate. 

We've got the best Unai in the league.

So very much this. Can't wait to see who he signs and the style of football he tries to play.

So some talk came out from his interview. Apparently he saw Ramsey and Aubameyang as the two key figures in the team, and the ones to build around. His knowledge and analysis of every player in our squad was apparently top level. Sounds like this guy already has his plan sorted. 

I think our squad number changes are revealing, especially since they only happened in the last few days, seemingly after the decision on Unai was made. Perhaps it's a 2+2=5 situation so take with a grain of salt, but it suggests to me that he sees Cech continuing as our no.1. 

If that's the case I'm not entirely happy, I feel we could go to market and do better, but I'll accept it and move on. Last season was probably Cech's worst for us, and even his career, I back him to rebound and have a better one this time round. He's 36 now but GK is the one position where I don't expect that to be an issue. If he's rested and cleared himself of the niggles he had last season, he will get cracking and we'll hopefully be fine. He's the utmost professional, I don't doubt his attitude and the work he will put in to bounce back. 

We seem to be very active in the CB market so obviously it has been identified as an area for improvement. Mert has retired and Kosc will be out for a long time, so it will be a fresh pairing at the back. Chambers really came on last season in my opinion, jury is out on Holding, but re-signing sends a signal that he is rated at the club. Personally I'm hopeful that Emery might get the best out of Kolasinac, thus allowing Monreal to play CB, where I think he could be just as valuable for us as he is at LB. Mustafi has got a lot of stick for some glaring errors last season, but I am swimming against the tide here, I think he's a real player. He has all the ingredients, just needs to improve his focus. It seems when he gets tired or has put a string of games together, he's more prone to a gaffe. If we can get him fit and manage him right, I think he'll be very successful. He's still on the young side for a CB, there is time, I would not be throwing him out at all. At the same time I wouldn't be guaranteeing him a starting spot like Wenger seemed to. I hope Emery can challenge him and get more from him. 

Also the Seri talk has hotted up since Emery signed. Apparently he tried to sign him for PSG and is keen again. We've been chasing him for a while. He's available for 35m according to reports, which is frankly cheap as chips in this market. For our infamous 50m budget, if we signed him for 4 years, that would be 8.75m plus his first year's wages that would come out of that. If we do get these two CBs we've been heavily linked with (the 29yo from Dortmund who is cheapish, and the young fella from Freiburg), then we'd have only used a bit of that budget, and we'd clearly be selling a CB or two, as well as a midfielder, which would free up more of it. So I think these moves have been identified as cheap-ish ways of improving our squad - they would leave a good chunk of change for a potential top-level purchase as well. 

I imagine the squad numbers were just updated in time for the new kit launch rather than final decisions over players being made.

Like the sound of Emery from his interview. Also find it quite revealing he's being referred to as "head coach" which I can't recall Wenger ever being called. Strong emphasis on the new structure. Also seen more of Gazidis in the last few months than in the last 10 years now he's finally managed to climb out from behind Wenger.

Very much a case of the club moving toward a more continental structure and away from the central figure doing/controlling everything. As the club grows it gets further away from the club/role that AW walked into 22 years ago and it's great to (finally) see the club structure evolving too.

I'm excited.

Yeah but so what? You were excited about Arteta.

I know how the board have been, and I've not been a Gazidis fan after watching him and the rest of them hide while Wenger took it like a human shield, but I can't see how we can do anything but praise them for what they've done in terms of preparing for Wenger's exit, and particularly since he announced his resignation. 

Gazidis specifically said when Wenger announced he was leaving that Arsenal had too much respect for Wenger to talk to, or negotiate with, anyone else before he announced he was actually going. He said we start the process now.

They went through the process, which we now understand through many sources was very thorough, and seemingly well thought out. 8 candidates, hours and hours of interviewing, involving many presentations and thorough analysis. The 3 decision-makers who sent the Emery decision to the board for approval (Gazidis, Mislintat, Sanllehi), all chose the same top 3 in the same order. Two of those decision-makers were bought to Arsenal in 2017, specifically to make up key components of the new post-wenger structure, of which the head coach term is a part of. We can now tell that this was probably designed and planned out in 2016-2017, to be there and ready when the time came. 

The strength of the Arteta rumours is the only negative in this process really. I'd love to know where all that came from, and if Gazidis and the club were involved at all. I hope not. That's the only question mark I really have. 

Gary Neville has come out looking like a bit of a fool in my opinion. He criticised the club a week after Wenger resigned, saying they were idiots for not already having their man lined up. But I think Gazidis' immediate comment about respect for Wenger was the right way to go, I have no issue with them not secretly running around Europe beforehand. There would've been rumours everywhere which would've been hugely disrespectful to Wenger after all these years. 

And Neville's now claimed the whole process was a mess, but I can't see why, seems absolutely fine to me. Again the Arteta rumours were the only thing that hinted at any trouble, some claimed there was a flip-flop at the last minute. If that's true then it throws it into question, but from the information I've read, I don't think it is, and I'm very happy after seeing all the detail of how they went about this process.

I'm excited about anyone who doesn't have the name Rogers. So that.

Some talk that Emery is a fan of Lucas Perez, and that he'll be bought in for discussions.

I think he has 1 more year under contract doesn't he? Interesting development. 

I wonder what a style where we press hard from the front means for someone like Ozil?

Bringing Lucas back would just be standard at the end of the loan, but wouldn't be opposed to him getting an opportunity. Guess he would have seen a bit of him in Spain this season too. Not even an exaggeration to say he looked our best striker at times last season and I remember some particularly good performances in the FA Cup. Was a strange signing whose history looked a bit like a mid table sort of journeyman and then hardly got given a game.

Good Arseblog:

https://arseblog.com/2018/05/unai-emery-makes-a-go...

I agree AJC, for Lucas quality he never was afforded a proper chance. He's versatile and could still contribute to the team without needing to buy another name. The big risk in this scenario is for Lucas. At this stage of his career coming back for a season with us and having it go the same way as last time would be a wasted year for him in his prime. I'm not sure with Laca & Auba in front of him he'd get the assurances required from Emery to have a go again. 

Lols from Reddit:

Can’t wait for the #wengerout brigade to become #emerytirement