Gday fellow Gooners! I am a serial lurker, but with Reddit determined to cack its pants and walk around with it, I thought I should try contribute to some content (here) for once (I think I only ever posted in r/gunners once about how I started supporting Arsenal).
Although disappointed with how the season ended, I couldn't help but feel positive about where we are from where we were. I was a little skeptical of Arteta, and although it's not been the smoothest ride, you can't say he hasn't brought some stability to the club on and off the pitch.
It also feels like this transfer window is going to be vital with us now back in the CL. I obviously want to give our Saka's Martinelli's and ESR's game time, but we definitely need some strong depth going into this season.
So! Other than Rice and Havertz (the later being a little more controversial), are there any other strong links with players you are excited for? Also why are you excited about them?
I don't catch much football outside of the English top flight, so I mostly only know of names (sometimes 🙂).
Edit: Fixed spelling of Gooners. Don't know what a gooders is...
I haven’t Googled that one. I had a joke with [Bukayo] Saka today when I saw him in the gym. He said: “Oh, do we have to call you by anything now?” I’m like: “No, no. If you just curtsy every time you see me, that’d be great!”"
Beehaw.org decided to defederate from lemmy.world so might want to warn new users not to create an account on beehaw.org if they are wanting to see c/gunners.
Any specific reason why they've decided to do that?
EDIT: Seems like their instance is heavily moderated and they are de-federating from any instance that has communities they are not a fan of. With lemmy.world being so big, I'm not surprised we're part of the axe. Honestly, if you're part of beehaw and want to connect to the wider lemmy fediverse, it looks like you'd have to leave that instance.
I think they are still federated with your instance so you shouldn't notice a change.
I think how it works is your instance is lemmy.world you can see the Beehaw subs and comment and I will see it being since we are on the federated instances, but their users and mods won't see your comment since they aren't pulling in lemmy.world data.
It will mostly be a problem for Beehaw accounts because if they were subbed to c/gunners then they will not be able to see the sub anymore.
Tierney was discussed as part of a player + cash deal with Man City
Arteta sat down with Tierney and convinced him to stay as he'll get a lot more playing time next season
Reason he'll get more playing time is because Arsenal will play a back 3 more often which suits Tierney's playing style
The reason why I think this story might actually be true is because if a journo is making stuff up, there are a lot more safer stories to write than to insinuate Arsenal might have a change of tactics.
I honestly can see Arteta experimenting with a 3-4-3 when we move forward with one fullback tucking in to the CBs and the second one joining the midfield. This year we tried something similar but because Xhaka was more defensive than attacking minded, White would push up and Xhaka would sit back - creating our famous overload in midfield of Zinny, Xhaka and Partey crowding out teams. Next season I think our number #8 will push higher up, putting more pressure on the #6 and the full back that pushes up (Zinny or new RB) to hold the midfield. I wouldn't be surprised if we also employed a tactic similar to Man City of pushing Gabriel up to create an overload as well.
The key though is to create more attacking options higher up.
Tierney has been one of my favorite players since he joined. There was even talk about him being up for captain when Auba left.
As much as I think we need to do better on player sales, I think Tierney still has a lot to offer at Arsenal. Champions League and cup matches will definitely give him more playing time and offer Arteta more tactical flexibility.
Suspect the leaks about Partey being available have come from Arsenal with the Saudi negotiation team in town this week.
There's no way anyone in Italy can afford his wages and if we were to sell him we'd want a transfer fee which no club in Europe would pay when he is on 250k per week.
It's a come and take him plee to the Saudis so we can reinvest the funds on his replacement while he still has value.
A bit surprised to find I am A-OK with him going this summer. I think the whole possible/probably rape saga from the last season has really soured me, despite how great he was.
Tough to banter about footy with friends when literally all they have to do is bring him up to shut it all down.
Rumours that Arsenal are about to sign former PSG defender Amanda Ilestedt to play Williamson's CB role as she recovers from injury. Not sure if she could play alongside her as a Rafaelle replacement as she's a right footer but you'll never know.
Tbh we need 2 CBs imo, Rafaelle leaving is a big one but also between Leah and Wienroither's injuries we need to get someone in to cover IMO. Unless Goldie steps up massively.
looking at google, we last played messi's team in the Joan Gamper trophy in 2019 but he was on the bench and didn't come on so the last time we played him was 2016...