Arsenal

[Rev]

Did you mean: croquet

I feel like I'm missing a joke. But honestly I'm no happier with Arsenal's players moving onto a hobby involving mallets or hooks, they hurt themselves enough running around with only a round ball.

[Art Vandelay]

Crochet, like needlework. I even looked up the spelling!

Also, it's terrifying we rely on Arteta so much when he replaced a player who is, no offence to Arteta, better than he is. Personally I'd sack Song off, play Arteta even deeper, then spend what it takes to get Gotze, Eriksen or A.N.Other to supply the razzle dazzle.

[Timmo]

ART VANDELAY YOU OWE ME £60

[Rev]

Also, it's terrifying we rely on Arteta so much when he replaced a player who is, no offence to Arteta, better than he is.

I'm not entirely sure about that. On his day, Fabregas is brilliant but towards the end of his time at Arsenal he was having an increasing number of sulky useless matches. Arteta has been a lot more consistent.

[Art Vandelay]

That's all I need. Timmo.

I was throwing you off the scent in an attempt to consolidate my 54th position in the Rllmuk league.

[The Fox]

Positionally Arteta is playing a totally different role to Fabregas, though; it's more like Wilshere's role from last season. Though I suppose if we'd ever played Cesc as a regista he'd be at least as good as Arteta is at that job.

[Timmo]

Fabregas reminds me of Gerrard a little bit in that he sometimes tries to do too much and can sometimes be a liability defensively, whereas Arteta knows his role and plays it well.

[Rev]

Positionally Arteta is playing a totally different role to Fabregas, though; it's more like Wilshere's role from last season. Though I suppose if we'd ever played Cesc as a regista he'd be at least as good as Arteta is at that job.

True, but I think if Fabregas had been there he'd have joined Song in flouncing off and forgetting about his job when he felt the urge to. Arteta just works.

We should have bought him years ago, they'd have been brilliant together.

EDIT: What Timmo said.

[toythatkills]

The new kit is up for pre-order now. Form an orderly queue.

The shirt is based around the fact that we sort of had some blue on a sock once eighty years ago. That's not even a joke.

There are more pictures of it and of Ox looking like a 45-year-old man. I really don't understand that boy's face. Some of those pictures have RvP looking like he just wants it over and done with. Like, everything, just wants it all to end. The long-sleeve version is comically shit

[Daley]

The long-sleeve version is comically shit

You aren't joking. Poor Arteta looks a little confused.

[Rev]

We also seem to have done a riff on the "sit star player on a train platform as if waiting to leave" again. Not at all as blatant this time, but:

[Jonathan_Kerr]

I'm coming around to the design, actually.

[Shoes]

Alex looks clinically depressed.

[Sirloin]

Looks like a promo poster for the new season of Shooting Stars.

[BlinkyBear]

My old man has just sent me a text to say that I shouldn't buy it because he's bought me one for my birthday.

Love that kit. Mmmhhhmmm. Love it.

[wev]

Has anyone noticed Rosicky is growing a "Pires"?

[Guest]

I think the long sleeve version is alright actually.

[SeanR]

It's blue? Hell in those photos one arm band looks black, and the other grey!

[Dude Ranch]

Alex looks clinically depressed.

So would I with the amount of game time he's had.

[toythatkills]

Lot of talk about Yann M'Vila all of a sudden...

[Gotters]

Anybody cynical would think its a coincidence how every year when the membership and season ticket renewals go out we get linked with lots of potential signings

[Dude Ranch]

Anybody cynical would think its a coincidence how every year when the membership and season ticket renewals go out we get linked with lots of potential signings

True, but I do think we have to go balls out this time and I think we will. Podolski could be a brilliant signing, I think we'll get at least two more mid to big signings and maybe swap out some rubbish for better replacements.

[toythatkills]

Anybody cynical would think its a coincidence how every year when the membership and season ticket renewals go out we get linked with lots of potential signings

I know it's a bit battered-wife, but it really feels like it's going to be different this time. Podolski suggests that Wenger really wants this all done ASAP so another signing before the season's over wouldn't actually be a surprise. It'd certainly make the inevitable three months of RvP will-he-won't-he a bit easier to deal with if we know there's stuff happening independently of that, unlike when Cesc and that cunt left.

[Rocafella]

What we do is irrelevant if Robin leaves. When Cesc left, our team went down a notch and the same would happen again if Robin left. There's only so long we can keep losing our best players year after year, with the other teams around us getting stronger. Something has to give.

Either we seriously invest in quality talent for this team and cut out the rubbish signings on the cheap ie. Park/Chamakh or we'll find ourselves outside of the top four.

[Art Vandelay]

Apparently M'Vila is done and dusted. If you think about it, if we get him, Podolski then manage to finish 3rd and Van Persie still leaves, he was never likely to stay anyway.

[Daley]

He sounds like he is gonna fit right in:

Quote from M'vila this season: "I'm so concerned about trying to play a killer pass I've been forgetting about my defensive work." Perfect!

[Rev]

What we do is irrelevant if Robin leaves. When Cesc left, our team went down a notch and the same would happen again if Robin left. There's only so long we can keep losing our best players year after year, with the other teams around us getting stronger. Something has to give.

Either we seriously invest in quality talent for this team and cut out the rubbish signings on the cheap ie. Park/Chamakh or we'll find ourselves outside of the top four.

Chamakh really wasn't a rubbish signing on the cheap. He was doing pretty well in France and we didn't (really) have RVP then either - he was a big signing. Wiki fact that I've not bothered verifying, but the season before "[Arsenal] offered Bordeaux £18 million for the player and offered Chamakh a four-year contract worth £3 million a year."

That he's been shit is...Unfortunate. He certainly wasn't intended as a bargain.

[Rocafella]

We signed him on a free transfer. I think Liverpool were the only other half decent team who showed any serious interest in him. If we'd paid anywhere near £18 million for him, that would have been a travesty. He's never been a goalscorer, so we'd never have been able to rely on him to carry the team for goals the way we do with Robin.

It is unfortunate just how rubbish he's been. His first 2-3 months he looked a great signing. Somebody who would be able to hold the ball up and relieve the burden on Robin, but after Novemeber when he came out saying he felt 'tired', which coincided with the start of his awful form, he's never been able to recover.

I think he's resigned himself to leaving this summer anyway. He hasn't really kicked up a fuss in public about lack of playing time, so I imagine in private him and Wenger have come to an agreement that he'll be allowed to leave.

Edit: Checked Wiki. It was West Ham who offered £18 mill. We offered £7mill, Bordeaux rejected it, so Wenger thought I can wait a year.

[Rev]

We signed him on a free transfer. I think Liverpool were the only other half decent team who showed any serious interest in him. If we'd paid anywhere near £18 million for him, that would have been a travesty. He's never been a goalscorer, so we'd never have been able to rely on him to carry the team for goals the way we do with Robin.

It is unfortunate just how rubbish he's been. His first 2-3 months he looked a great signing. Somebody who would be able to hold the ball up and relieve the burden on Robin, but after Novemeber when he came out saying he felt 'tired', which coincided with the start of his awful form, he's never been able to recover.

I think he's resigned himself to leaving this summer anyway. He hasn't really kicked up a fuss in public about lack of playing time, so I imagine in private him and Wenger have come to an agreement that he'll be allowed to leave.

Edit: Checked Wiki. It was West Ham who offered £18 mill. We offered £7mill, Bordeaux rejected it, so Wenger thought I can wait a year.

Fair enough. I'll learn to read at some point, promise.

But I still maintain he was a big signing and it wasn't a panicked one like the ones we got at the end of the transfer window last summer either. He tactically made sense, sort of, but when Bendtner was being forced out to the wing it wasn't surprising he didn't manage to fit in.

You have got to think he'll be heading back to France ASAP though.

[Dude Ranch]

What we do is irrelevant if Robin leaves. When Cesc left, our team went down a notch and the same would happen again if Robin left. There's only so long we can keep losing our best players year after year, with the other teams around us getting stronger. Something has to give.

I do agree, but something tells me that if RvP goes then Podolski plus, say, Clint Dempsey and another new striker with Park and Chamakh leaving would see us stronger regardless. I'd love to see RvP in that forward line, naturally, but it wouldn't be the absolute end of the world as long as we get decent players in. RvP staying would probably mean less investment up front but of course RvP hardly needs replacing. I also think that we have and will play to RvP so much that it's possibly becoming detrimental to the team anyway.