2016-17 UEFA Champions League

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

He's averaging a goal a game this season.He had one really **** game that's all it was, he's been unbelievably good this season apart from last night.

Agreed.
He seems to have a bad attitude in the away champions league games over the last couple of years though, looks disinterested and lazy.

Wenger said his players got mentally jaded after the second goal.
Mentally jaded, sounds like something you'd say about school kids....

Next week's matches seem kinda lame.

mansize wrote: »

Surely Chelsea would take Kos, unless their CBs have suddenly improved beyond recognition???

What has this got to do with anything? Why would Arsenal sell their best (only competent) centre back to Chelsea?

Jelle1880 wrote: »

Because it's not just up to them ? If Koscielny could be tempted by Chelsea there won't be too much Arsenal can do about it.

Correct, people think clubs hold the power, but its players by and large. Yes clubs with stupid amounts of money can send someone down to the reserves to rot, but by in large clubs are run by businessmen not managers.

If a player is kicking up a fuss and is worth a lot of money the club has two options.

Sell and Cash in and replace
Let him rot in the reserves and go on a free.
Either way the club loses and the player ultimately gains. If he is left to rot he will normally find a club for a large signing on fee, if hes left rot for a period of time and then sold the club has lost money. There is also the bad publicity element and the disconnect it could cause within the team.

You have players routinely signing contracts with clubs just so the club gets a bit more money for them. I mean look at the case in point of Griezman (SP). He's just signed a 5 year deal with Madrid in the summer, we all know it's a farce and the likelyhood is he will be gone in the summer. But look he gets a bumper pay rise for a year, these wages then get increased again by a factor of x when he joins a new club. It's a lot easier for a player to negotiate up to 250k+ when they're on 120k as apposed to 50k.. And the club get a nice new buyout clause that pays the wages and then some to replace.

However, ultimately I'd love to see clubs enforce contracts. I'd love to see clubs leave players in the reserves and set a precedent that if you don't break your bollix for the team you can go swan it somewhere in the doldrums. It would make the game better and would take the power away from the players (which I think they have too much of) and give it back to the clubs.

mansize wrote: »

Surely Chelsea would take Kos, unless their CBs have suddenly improved beyond recognition???

If we're cherry picking Arsenal players, it would be Sanchez, then Bellerin I'd take before Koscielny.

None of the baove three though will cross the divide so its really a moot argument.

mansize wrote: »

All things are. If I was Chelsea manager I'd see Kos as the greatest need of the three. Sanchez could prove difficult to manage with bigger stars about. No love for Özil?

We couldnt afford the luxury of Ozil in 3-4-3, its the same reason Cesc doesnt start for us. Sanchez would be a fantasy signing to add depth to the RW slot but I just cant see Arsenal selling any of their star players to any English side no matter what the price.

Kos is better than Cahill but given his age profile, even if he did come on the market, I dont think we'd go for him, he'll be 32 shortly after the next season starts, slightly older than both our current CBs.

It does though, make an interesting proposal to what Conte will do with Cahill in the summer, hes got Zouma, Ake and Christensen all to accomodate and I wouldnt be surprised to see a new CB brought in the summer and at least 1 of the above sold.

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

:D:D:D

To be fair, at 45 minutes gone, it wasnt so far fetched. Arsenal could have been 2-1 up before half time had they taken their chances.

But yeah they imploded emphatically as soon as the 2nd goal went in. When Ozil isn't in a game, it's like Arsenal are down to ten men

jacool wrote: »

Ashley Cole
Samir Nasri
Emmanuel Adebayor
Kolo Toure
Gael Clichy
Robin Van Persie
There's always a price, and if Wenger goes, no players will have to show loyalty to the new manager.

All pre 2013 which is when the club have become financially sound and actually loosened the purse strings a bit, with the signing of Ozil which blew the previous transfer record on an Arsenal buy.

I'd hope the club nowadays wouldn't be stupid to sell players to direct rivals, but to a club abroad instead. It's not like they need the money. If Sanchez is sold to anyone in the premier league I'd be fuming.

Still to this day can't believe that Wenger sanctioned the sale of Van Persie to Man Utd, that was the one sale on that list that hurt, the others were meh.

KaiserGunner wrote: »

Yeah it's amazing when you think about it. Back in May 2006 Arsenal were 15 mins away from their first ever European cup and thus matching the Mighty Barcelona in European cups won. Obviously Barcelona won it in the end winning their second European cup.

Just goes to show the fortunes on the pitch since. Barcelona are this European juggernaut with multiple European cups since and Arsenal are regularly ridiculed about their European pedigree. A decade is a long time in football.

Arsenal never have been a major player in Europe and really have no historical pedigree in Europe.
Hell Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest have won more major European trophies.

KaiserGunner wrote: »

...
Still to this day can't believe that Wenger sanctioned the sale of Van Persie to Man Utd, that was the one sale on that list that hurt, the others were meh.

But didn't Arsenal get Silvestre from united.:D
Ok I know t was free transfer.

And to show how screwed up Wenger's thinking has been for a very long time, he actually went out of his way to offer Silvestre a contract. :mad:
For some reason Arsene has a thing for gutless players prone to making mistakes.