The College Dropout

I blame Tonali. It was clear Sean is not good enough last season.

That would be excellent. But we really need to stem the goals.

I've been quietly confident of a win here. But the closer we get to the game. I just hope we concede less 2 or less.

Isak is quick, he's just weak.

We've had 8 clubs competing in Europe this season due to West Ham winning the Conference League. SO there's precedent for that. No it wouldn't.

It will be based on last season so won't include the sales of older players on massive wages this summer.

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/status/1762492809121280064/photo/4 Taken from the 2023 accounts for Newcastle, Man U & Arsenal clubs.

Arsenal’s wages are much lower than City, Man U, Liverpool and Chelsea. Our wages are closer to Arsenal’s than Arsenal’s are to Liverpool. Significantly so.

It’s also advent bump in revenue. £15m for winning the conference league and an extra 6-7 home game receipts. So call it £20-25m. Then the impact on commercial deals and any performance based incentives. Thats the difference between needing to sell a useful player and not. Or a new signing. I think for the whole mood of the club we need to finish the season strongly.

Aye I didn’t want to talk about Bruno.

I think a lot of it is down to mentality and professionalism. Wanting to be fit and wanting to play and train all the time makes a massive difference. Mentality and physiology are in the same box. Generally I think slender and less muscular physiques are also less prone to injury. I don’t think original Ronaldo had the best professionalism for example. But more than anything he had so much power and strength + agility something was likely to happen. But if he was as professional as Cristiano with that mindset he wouldn’t have had such bad injuries imo.

Some players seemingly always avoid injury. I had semi pegged Gordon in that bracket. saka and Fernandes never seem to get tired or injured for example. Even Messi and Ronaldo never seemed to get injured as often as you might expect. Edit: Ronaldo has 16 seasons playing 40+ games a season. 15+ 30 league appearance seasons in Europe.

Btw thought Porto were grade A at the dark arts last night. We've lost that mentality entirely. I think a part of it is believing our own hype. We should play that "we lie, we cheat, we steal" before every game so we never lose ourselves. Bigger than other teams, stronger than them, run faster and harder than all of them. And if it's not working well, we lie cheat and steal.

I had assumed he was tough as houses to not pick up an injury by now tbf. He's been getting flogged. I'm not going to tempt fate with another remark.

It doesn't like. The same accumulation of fatigue, higher risk of injuries, mental fatigue, distractions etc. we suffered they will suffer the longer they play in Europe. It might not impact our match with them but a good run will impact their league form. Whisper it... I wouldn't begrudge a West Ham Europa win

I don't think a club can take that £100m gamble on Isak unless he can put together a sustained run til the end of the season. We've got him in a Deathrow Contract. 4 years left in the summer. We'll need £100m to let him go and he'll need 20 league goals for a team to pay that

Arsenal have a CL level squad and were playing at home. No squad in the PL (except maybe Villa and Leceister a few seasons ago) is equipped to compete in Europe and the league bar the established top 6. West Ham did exceptionally well that season to get to the semi's in Europa and finish 7th.

Agreed. But if he only manages 27 league appearances this season - do you think Arsenal are spending £100m on him? After Bruno he's our biggest diamond anyway. We should do what we can to keep him. I'd sell anyone else before those two.

Yeh we'll sell him to one of the biggest 6 or so clubs itw. He won't go to Villa.

He has to end the season strongly and to stay fit. We could only justify selling him for £100m or close. Injury record is a blocker and prevents him getting the big numbers.

I don't agree with this. The biggest likelihood of Bruno leaving is that he;s been the most consistent and standout performer and he has a release clause (and he was signed for a relatively low fee and now has big wages which will help FFP wise if he's sold). If Isak can stay fit and score he might become more likely to be sold. However, he's developed injury concerns and makes less sense to sell from an FFP perspective as the fee is likely to be closer to his amortisation cost than Bruno's sale. Those are the last 2 I would sell. I'd sell anyone else before them.

We aren't Liverpool, Arsenal or Chelsea. You're doing this thing that I've seen here where people conveniently compare us to a top 6 side when the argument suits them. But will compare us to Wolves, West Ham & Brighton when the narrative better suits. People on this forum discounted Liverpool but sensible people knew Liverpool would qualify for the CL this season (and with a backwind, challenge for the title) and probably win the Europa. Look at Klopp's record over the years, he has the odd bad season. Not to mention, Liverpool pays the second-highest wages in the league. Arsenal rebuilt their side. Spend top dollar and have high revenues. Chelsea are shit. We've had 1 European campaign in a decade and face FFP issues. Most of us and the club itself would accept not qualifying for the CL next season too. Our "right" level isn't the CL and we are years away from that being a reality.

He's been pretty bullet-proof this season. He's not really had the rest he's been due so everyone kind of thinks he'll keep going.

UEFA are yet to confirm. The assumption has always been it will be an extra place total.

Brighton & West Ham going out also gives them a better chance of finishing ahead of us. Their squads can't cope with a deep Europa run. I expected us to go on a run of like 5 wins in 7. 7 wins in 10. Something like that. That would get us into the top 7/8 most likely. I'm not so sure anymore. We can't seem to build any momentum, confidence or back-to-back performances. We are the definition of midtable.