Pre-Season 2016/17

Theres a difference between that though and saying he’s the best of the mediocre bunch that we’ve got. Which is actually what most people who like him think.

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I find his Wilshere RW delusion fun.

Viking must be a God awful football side.

they weren’t great, but mind you we played some nice stuff especially in the 2nd half. The score should have been in double digits if it werent for some fluffed lines and a missed penalty. But in no way should we think it will be this easy in the EPL because they will be destroyed if they think that teams will be like that.

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That’s fine, that’s an understandable opinion. Though it’s quite silly the conspiracy theory stuff people got into about Wenger having it out for him, when it’s also perfectly understandable why one would prefer Iwobi, Ox, or, yes, Walcott (you can talk shit about Walcott all you like but he’s had a season in 12/13 that is better than any this lot might have in their career, so it’s not at all too crazy to wonder why Wenger would play a player like him and hope he can recover that form). It’s all much of muchness really, but you don’t get that feeling at all with some of the comments you see on Campbell.

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Really there isn’t too much to read into tonight’s result. Norwegian football is some of the worst I’ve seen over the last 3 years…it’s truly awful. Although this Viking team tonight was not their strongest as they are bang in the middle of the season here and they have a game against Sogndal on Sunday.

Wasn’t he a nothing player to you not so long ago?

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The last four winners of the Premier League started the following players on the wing: Mark Albrighton, Willian, James Milner, and Antonio Valencia. RW is a weakness for us but it is hardly the massive problem you make it out to be, at least as long as we got in a top striker so that we wouldn’t need a ton of goals from the RW position (because none of our options will do that).

In midfield, we are in agreement on Ramsey (and Wenger’s comments today are not encouraging in that respect) but I’m not sure we lack the quality overall. United is probably going to start a 35-year-old Carrick in CM and their backups are Schneiderlin/Fellaini/Herrera, the latter two of which are both awful as CMs. City will likely start Fernandinho and their backups are players like Fernando and Delph, the very definition of mediocrity. Xhaka/Cazorla/Ramsey/Elneny/Coquelin is not a bad group of CMs in comparison.

I will give you that Wenger is not as good as the managers of the competition. Nevertheless, we could still be right in the mix with two good signings. Every club needs a combination of health, luck, and players hitting form together to win the title. Much would have to go right for us but that is also true of other clubs.

We should be able to start tally up where our goals are going to come from in this side. I have a rough calculation in my mind and we’re not scoring enough goals with this current team imo.

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Yeh yeh, ignore all the academy players I was right on (Akpom, Gnabry, Bellerín, Hayden, Coquelin, etc. etc.) and focus on this one.

Imagine if I brought up your opinion on certain players I will not mention in this space the way you do with me and Iwobi.

[quote=“Powderfinger, post:188, topic:284”]
The last four winners of the Premier League started the following players on the wing: Mark Albrighton, Willian, James Milner, and Antonio Valencia. RW is a weakness for us but it is hardly the massive problem you make it out to be, at least as long as we got in a top striker so that we wouldn’t need a ton of goals from the RW position (because none of our options will do that).[/QUOTE]

I think that speaks to the quality (lack thereof) in the premier league lately more than anything. Quality that the only reasonable expectation for this season must be that it will improve, given the influx of Conte, Guardiola, and Klopp’s 2nd season/Poch’s 2nd season.

Anyways, the last sentence is true, but I thought we were talking about Lacazette, and I don’t think we consider him to be a top striker? Sure, if the signings were Benzema/Aubameyang + Benatia that we were talking about, that can definitely compensate for some lack of quality in other positions.

No, I agree, but this is where Wenger really comes in. I trust Pep to do a lot more with an inferior midfield than I do Wenger. If we want our midfield to function properly not only do we need top options (ie Xhaka + Cazorla, and arguably another player, a Cazorla type player with a bit more athleticism), we also probably need to remove the bad options that Wenger can’t see as such. When Xhaka/Cazorla miss games, a Xhaka/Coq + Ramsey midfield is going to perform very badly, even worse than other midfields with just as bad options on paper.

I agree that Wenger can’t really be trusted on this but it also should be acknowledged how much better our options are now. Last year, once Cazorla went down we were ruly fecked since he was the only CM we had who could pass and once teams figured out they could pressure us high our entire offense ground to a halt. Even just the addition of Elneny, who is not a fantastic playmaker and passer but looks like Pirlo when compared to Flamini, Coquelin, or Ramsey, improved our fluidity quite a bit. Now we have Xhaka, Cazorla, and Elneny as options. I don’t think we’ll ever see a midfield as stunted in its ability to dictate play and tempo as Flamini/Ramsey or Coquelin/Ramsey.

Beyond the question of results, I think we will play better and more exciting stuff this season than we have in a while, as long as we get in a mobile striker. I am frustrated by the transfer window and apprehensive about the extent to which our competitors are improving but sometimes the negativity here gets out of control. This could be a really good Arsenal team with the right additions. Maybe it still won’t be enough and that sucks but it should be some good football to watch nonetheless.

In my defense I bring up Sanogo from time to time too.

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The thing is we could very well see a good deal of Coquelin/Ramsey this season. Given our injury record it’s pretty probable we will, tbh.

The negativity gets out of control for sure, but so do the reactions to it. I said last season that this was the worst I’d felt as an Arsenal supporter since I began following the club as a little boy in mid 90s, and I think I can/did give some pretty compelling reasons for why that was/is the case. Right now it’s pretty understandable to be negative as an Arsenal supporter.

There’s no denying this could be a good team with the right additions, but it’s been that way for a good bit now, tbh. What’s changed is my faith in Wenger to make those additions/ compensate for the lack of additions by educating players/finding ‘moneyball’ talent/through all the things that go under the vague umbrella of ‘managing’. And I don’t think anyone can fault me, nor am I in a position to fault anyone, who doesn’t have that faith.

As we stand now, losing Mertesacker + gaining Xhaka + possibly regaining Cazorla (depending on fitness) + competition getting much more difficult tactically, doesn’t really have me that confident we’re going to be seeing much better football than last season. Which was of course an awful standard for a big club like Arsenal.

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[quote=“AbouCuellar, post:193, topic:284, full:true”]
The thing is we could very well see a good deal of Coquelin/Ramsey this season. Given our injury record it’s pretty probable we will, tbh. [/quote]

I really don’t think we will. After the Coq/Ramsey midifeld played significant roles in our back to back losses to United and Swansea last spring, Wenger never started them together again. It was always Elneny paired with one of them. I think the only way we see Coq/Ramsey starting a meaningful match together is if Xhaka, Elneny, and Santi are all hurt at the same time. Could it happen? Sure. But even with our injury record I would not worry too much about it.

I think its perfectly understandable why some people are negative right now. Even my relative optimism is completely reliant on us making two more good signings, which is a big ask given the realities of being managed by Wenger. At this point, I just want the season to start and the window to close, so that we can get on with it and see what happens!

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Fair enough, though tbh ElNeny-Ramsey isn’t a big upgrade on Coq-Ramsey. And we’ll certainly see that midfield if Wenger resists using the Coq-Ramsey one.

A couple of days ago you were telling me that Arsenal had a “pretty decent” injury record last year.

Indeed:

Actually the point here is similar to the one I already made here: http://onlinearsenal.com/t/summer-2016-transfers-thread/310/285?u=aboucuellar (ie, let’s plan around something that is clearly endemic/systematic)

Can’t wait to see how we replace Cazorla next summer if his achilles proves to be too much of an issue or we can’t/don’t renew his contract (1 of 5 players in the last year of their contracts, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gnabry & Sanogo the others).

I’m pretty sure that Kos is under contract until 2019. It seems to be one of those cases where there is a lot of misinformation on the Internet as sites like Transfermarkt assumed he signed a three year contract in 2014 (when it was really five years) and never corrected the mistake.

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How were you right about all those players?

Did you correctly predict that Gnabry would have injury problems and his career would stall to the point that he couldn’t get a game for a middling/lower PL side? Did you predict that Hayden would have a few loans and get sold to the Championship? What did you predict about Akpom?

Genuine questions as it sounds like you were right about loads of stuff but I can’t remember any of what you said.