Sold the wrong keeper

[hobson's choice]

To be fair though, look at the pile of shit he had to work with when he arrived. At least we aren't seeing Mustafi flounder around at the back. There were some managers, you know, who swore by that donkey. My guess is the culture is so fucked up at this place he's had to go with people who still have a distant memory of what the game is about. If he can rely on a guy in training and then the same guy doesn't totally fuck up on the pitch every 5 minutes, then maybe he's saying we'll start there, for stability. As the very basic model of what he's hoping to achieve.

I'm reaching. Aren't I?

I just can't stand seeing Xhaka in an Arsenal shirt. Why is this guy playing every league match regardless of his form. No matter how much more we play more fluid when he gets subbed, he's always guaranteed a start the next game.

Are these managers forced to play him. Everyone but our managers seem to understand Xhaka simply aint cut out for the PL.

And with our RB situation, again can he not see, how we play better as team and have more balance when AMN plays especially when Pepe plays ahead off him. But off course Bellerin is guaranteed a start regardless off his utter nothingness.

[Mac76]

I just can't stand seeing Xhaka in an Arsenal shirt. Why is this guy playing every league match regardless of his form. No matter how much more we play more fluid when he gets subbed, he's always guaranteed a start the next game.

Are these managers forced to play him. Everyone but our managers seem to understand Xhaka simply aint cut out for the PL.

And with our RB situation, again can he not see, how we play better as team and have more balance when AMN plays especially when Pepe plays ahead off him. But off course Bellerin is guaranteed a start regardless off his utter nothingness.

he seems to have seen the light on Xhaka perhaps, as for Bellerin i guess AMN might not have helped things by having said he wanted to play midfield but who knows maybe over time he'll work his way in to being first at RB

but again Arteta is so slow to see these things and there's definitely some teacher's pets in there

[fakeyank]

Emi is one of the best keepers in the league. In a non-pandemic year, I'd have sold him for nothing less than 70-80 million quid. Even in todays market, he is close to the 50 million quid range. Pity we sold him for pennies and kept deer caught in headlights with the ball at his feet.

[Letters]

Emi is one of the best keepers in the league. In a non-pandemic year, I'd have sold him for nothing less than 70-80 million quid.

Are you mad?

£70-80m for a ‘keeper who made 15 appearances for us in 8 years and who had a string of loans at lower clubs none of whom he made that many appearances for. He’s had a couple of international call ups but only as a squad player and didn’t play.

Don’t get me wrong, when he stepped in last season he did great, but he’s gone to Villa, the top clubs weren’t scrambling for his signature.

Leno is worrying me right now but you’re massively overrating Martinez

[fakeyank]

Are you mad?

£70-80m for a ‘keeper who made 15 appearances for us in 8 years and who had a string of loans at lower clubs none of whom he made that many appearances for. He’s had a couple of international call ups but only as a squad player and didn’t play.

Don’t get me wrong, when he stepped in last season he did great, but he’s gone to Villa, the top clubs weren’t scrambling for his signature.

Leno is worrying me right now but you’re massively overrating Martinez

His 15 appearances were enough to show how good he was.. especially in this new way of "everyone wanting to play from the back". There are not many keepers who look at ease barring may be the Man City keeper. Good GK's are hard to come, hence why I value him so highly. I frankly do not see any weakness in his game... his attitude seems spot on too. At a minimum, we should have held on to him for one more season. It would have lit a fire up Lenos ass to perform better... right now, Leno has no competition and he is playing like that too.

[Mac76]

valuing Leno over Martinez was a case of misplaced loyalty and nothing else - in the old days if a player - including the goalie - was injured and the stand-in did better, then they remained in place even after the other player recovered.

i'm old enough to remember Fergushite being single-minded enough to drop the goalie Jim Leighton for the reply of a cup final after he messed up in the first tie

i hate fergushite but he always kept his eye on what was important - for example playing kids in nothing cup games, whereas both Emery and now Arteta commit too many of our 'better' players

we need some of that single-mindedness - Arteta's teams are loaded with teacher's pets and bad buys from Kia Joorabchian which he then has to do something with

[Letters]

His 15 appearances were enough to show how good he was.. especially in this new way of "everyone wanting to play from the back". There are not many keepers who look at ease barring may be the Man City keeper. Good GK's are hard to come, hence why I value him so highly. I frankly do not see any weakness in his game... his attitude seems spot on too. At a minimum, we should have held on to him for one more season. It would have lit a fire up Lenos ass to perform better... right now, Leno has no competition and he is playing like that too.

Don’t get me wrong, Martinez did great last season and there is certainly a case to be made that we should have kept him over Leno. But we were never going to get £70m for him. And I don’t think it would have been fair to keep him and put him on the bench, he deserved first team football and if Arteta decided that wasn’t with us then it was reasonable to sell him.

[Mac76]

Don’t get me wrong, Martinez did great last season and there is certainly a case to be made that we should have kept him over Leno. But we were never going to get £70m for him. And I don’t think it would have been fair to keep him and put him on the bench, he deserved first team football and if Arteta decided that wasn’t with us then it was reasonable to sell him.

yes £70m's a ridiculous figure

but Arteta got it wrong with Leno and Emi

he's making a lot of bad calls, that's what worries me

[mkkreuk]

Emi is one of the best keepers in the league. In a non-pandemic year, I'd have sold him for nothing less than 70-80 million quid. Even in todays market, he is close to the 50 million quid range. Pity we sold him for pennies and kept deer caught in headlights with the ball at his feet.

I’ll have what he’s having!