I am puzzled why Emery cannot seem to improve our defending one iota. If he simply accepts we are what we are at the back and helps them with a DM's that SIT AND HOLD. I said we should defend deep today others thought we should press them - 5-1

Is this the Tott an Ars losers club lads ?

Another small I]ick complex exposing his insecurities on a forum poor lamb.

Agree with Enp. Thought our defence capabilities would improve as the season went on. Thought the players would take time to bed into a new system, but i don't see a system - looks like they have just been dragged off the street and told to play at the back.

This is the unfortunate legacy of persisting with the old fraud for about 10 years too long.

We have a squad packed full with dross & sh!t.

To cap it all, our highest paid player can't be trusted against decent opposition.

Merci Arsene.

Hopefully he will bring his own defenders in and address it.

He can't exactly rely on the sh!t he was left with.

That's my point.

Totally agree lurka.

There will be some on here who'll still be blaming Wenger in ten years time for the club's failures. I think the passage of time will put a different perspective on his tenure.

Let's see what we win in the next five years (I'm not holding my breath) and let's also see if our notoriously tightfisted owners are prepared to back the new manager with quality signings.

Yeah, you're right fink & lurka.

Wenger has left us with a terrific squad bulging with talent.

Such is the depth that we can afford to leave £350k a week player out the squad whenever we play top class opposition.

Its a wonder he was ever sacked.

Nobody has suggested Wenger left a terrific squad or didn't deserve the sack. You seem to be blaming equally poor if not worse defending on a manager who you said was clueless on the defensive side and applying a different standard to Emery.

You can't defend just as badly if not worse with the same and some new personnel and avoid criticism. If there was any attempt at organising a previously unorganised defence you'd see it immediately just like we have on the attacking side. There hasn't been, yet. He's had 6 months to sort it out.

Mitakes like diving in, kicking Salah of all people twice in the back of the legs after letting him goal side of you in the box, putting two hands on the back of an attacker in the box (also happened against Burnley) are all things a schoolboy of 10 or 11 knows not to do and most managers would pull the player aside and tell him not to do that. Doesn't seem to be happening. We are handing goals to teams rather than them having to play well to score against us. Hopefully Emery will bring in some of his own style of defenders in the Summer and we'll see a big improvement. All of his other teams didn't defend like that so there is hope. But he clearly hasn't done anything yet to stop our defence leaking silly goals.

Emery has only signed a 2 year contract as well and hasn't hung around much longer than that at any of his clubs. That's a bit of a worry in terms of him taking 2 or 3 windows to get players in, especially if he doesn't want to extend his stay in his second year.

Emery will have very few high profile opportunities if he fails here. If he 'doesn't want to extend his stay' on the back of failure he will go back to small clubs and that may be the end of any hope of managing one of the big 2 in Spain or whatever ambition he has. So I cannot see him walking away, if given the funds to do the job. He may use, not being given the money needed to walk away and who could blame him if that turns out to be the case.

I really cannot believe Ozil is out for the reasons suggested above. He surely must be on his way out; if we can get him out that is.

Yep it's not a bad idea, but the worry is only if Emery is doing really well by next year and is getting attractive offers from other clubs because most big clubs will pay him more and give him more to spend. Then you risk all his progress being undone and the most valuable asset at the club leaving, something that's been happening with us for years. With Wenger you didn't really have to worry about giving him more than two years. I doubt he's going to want to leave if he's not doing well and getting other offers, unless there are issues with transfers and Sven and him not seeing eye to eye on players. But he's probably more suited to a club like Arsenal than one of the bigger European clubs.

^ Unbalanced, lacking flair and has Xhaka in it. Niles shunted out of position again after showing where he ought to be played again(looks like that on paper anyway). Iwobi will need to be given freedom to roam in this set up or we have nil creativity in the side.
We may be fortunate it is Fulham today given this team selection 'cos it doesn't look good on paper at all.

"Our challenge now is to improve defensively. What’s the reason? Maybe different things. First, not with every player, we need to defend more than we did today with different injuries. Today’s the first time we could play with Koscielny, Sokratis and Mustafi - and the injury to Mustafi in the first half meant we had to change to four at the back in the second half. But we are very happy with the attacking players scoring lots of goals like today, but we need to take more balance defensively and to improve. It’s one thing for us to work on, to prepare for the second half of the season. We need to do it better in the second half of the season by working with every player in the team tactically - and that’s what we’re going to do. "

That's a lovely shopping list enpassant, but completely ignores the financial realities at the club. The fans want us to shop at Fortnum & Mason, whilst the owners are making a beeline for Lidl.

The club simply won't spend to try and be competitive and Stan "I'm not here to win trophies" Kroenke won't sanction spending the kind of money to make up what is now a sizeable gap in quality. As long as there are enough fans coming through the turnstiles and the tv money keeps rolling in, the owners will be more than satisfied.

It's no coincidence that Emery was chosen as the successor to Wenger - a manager who built a reputation (PSG aside obv) for getting bargain-basement players to punch above their weight.

Agree with Eboue's points about the league - top three set in stone now and Chelsea and a resurgent Man U battling for fourth. Think we'll finish sixth again, albeit a little closer to the clubs above us.

Unbeaten records all gone.

Harder to go unbeaten nowadays than when we did it. Record will stand for many a year.

Thought the game last night was excellent. Getting stuck in and no nonsense defending. We are light years behind those two sides.

Press reports say we are v close to signing
Denis Suarez from Barcelona & it seems that Ramsey
Has signed to join Juventus ( not surprising news)

Tough cup draw. I'm guessing that the fixture will be chosen by the Beeb, possibly moving it to Monday - which means that the midweek fixture against Cardiff will also be moved?

Be interesting to see what sort of side he puts out for Round 4, assuming that some of the walking wounded are back and available. Think he'll prioritise the Ropey League above the domestic competition as it has the carrot of CL qualification.

West Ham looks difficult on Saturday. We were lucky against them at home. They've improved this season but can still throw in the odd shocker.