[FM22] Arsenal F.C. - Trusting the process?

[BrickCommo23]

On 17/02/2022 at 15:15, hasdgfas said:

2027/28 Season Review!
 

A very good season, clearly! Premier League and Champions League winners (which apparently wasn't enough to pass the required "win a domestic cup" club goal, and nearly got all my players mad at me  )

Nearly perfect league results, honestly! Highest scorers, lowest goals against, over 100 points, crushed the GD, Chelsea and Spurs out of Europe completely. The only thing missing is an unbeaten season.

Chelsea, by the way, is absolutely horrible since Abramovich left. 11th, 11th, and 15th in the past 3 seasons.

Champions League was...not easy after Krasnodar, but it was nice to see some new faces late into the competition with Mainz and Newcastle(even if it's Saudi money for Newcastle).

Stats from the season. An excellent season again from Vlahovic, but also from Martinelli with goalscoring, and Szoboszlai with assists, and a couple other forwards as well (Eck and Cerqueira). 

Too many individual awards to go over in this post, but there were a lot of them! A huge success of a season, and I really don't have much left to play for, except youth development and an undefeated season. This save might be coming to a close soon.

Blinding season, nicely done. Just out of interest, what sort of system are you playing?

[BrickCommo23]

Squeaky bum time in Season 3:

We are superb at home - see the above 8-0 and the most recent home match (Wolves xG is a little artificially high as they had a couple of shots from a corner scramble)

But away from home is a different story and I am coming up to a run of 3 away games on the spin...

We shall see...

[hasdgfas]

42 minutes ago, BrickCommo23 said:

Blinding season, nicely done. Just out of interest, what sort of system are you playing?

It's a 4-2-3-1, Wing-Backs (Support) for DL and DR, two BPDs (defend) in the center. 2 DMs (Segundo Volante and Half-Back). AML is an Inverted Winger on Attack, AMR is an Inside Forward on Attack, AMC is an Advanced Playmaker on Support, and Striker is an Advanced Forward on Attack. The 2 DMs help keep the backline protected if the BPDs push forward, and the entire front 4 contribute to goals and assists pretty consistently.

[BrickCommo23]

3 hours ago, hasdgfas said:

It's a 4-2-3-1, Wing-Backs (Support) for DL and DR, two BPDs (defend) in the center. 2 DMs (Segundo Volante and Half-Back). AML is an Inverted Winger on Attack, AMR is an Inside Forward on Attack, AMC is an Advanced Playmaker on Support, and Striker is an Advanced Forward on Attack. The 2 DMs help keep the backline protected if the BPDs push forward, and the entire front 4 contribute to goals and assists pretty consistently.

Ah yes, I recall now but thank you 

[BrickCommo23]

Hey @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! - any news on your save?

[BrickCommo23]

On 17/02/2022 at 18:53, Telegram Sam said:

2025/26 - Review

The season was over and we'd achieved an unprecedented clean sweep of every competition we'd entered, from the Community Shield to the Champions League. Winning our second Premier League title under my stewardship was particularly sweet having missed out in 2024/25 despite our 96-point haul, and we'd got even better this season as we notched up 99 points on our way to victory. Our opponents had all fallen away dramatically and the final weeks of the season were effectively a stroll to the title. The goal output figures for the season demonstrates our dominance:

We were fantastic in attack last season, although our goal figures were inflated considerably by the 10-0 and 8-0 drubbings of Wolves and Brentford respectively. The key to our title win was our rock solid defence, which only conceded 19 goals all season (with 4 of those coming on the final day during our draw at Norwich). Aaron Ramsdale was again superb, solidifying his status as one of the world's best goalkeepers, with the 26 clean sheets he notched up being a Premier League record:

The actual record was actually 24 clean sheets set by Petr Čech back in 2004/05, so being able to better that after over two decades was an impressive achievement. Between January and April 2026 we notched up an amazing 11 clean sheets in 12 games, with a number of those being 1-0 victories, and this period really sealed the title for us as our opponents all fell away in the meantime.

Our defensive stats show that, for the most part, the control we have over games means that we do not need to perform as many defensive actions as other teams in the league:

As a defensive unit, we are required to make very few blocks and clearances with much more of the play happening down the other end of the pitch, and our above average interception metrics shows that we are effective at winning the ball and turning over possession before attacks can build too much momentum.

Our possession metrics also point to one of our strengths, which is dominating the ball when we have it and winning it back well when we don't. We're one of the most effective pressing teams in the league and while we're careful on the ball when we have it, we're not obsessed with keeping it at the cost of being more adventurous. Sides like Newcastle and Leeds enjoy having the ball but with our 4-4-2 system I rarely found that we had issues preventing them from doing much with it.

In terms of personnel, none stood out more last season than Dominik Szoboszlai:

Operating primarily from the left side of midfield, the Hungarian was the creative hub of our side while also having a keen eye for goal. He earned an incredible 15 Man of the Match awards last season and made 45 goal contributions in all competitions last season, with 21 goals scored and 24 assists laid on for teammates. In the Champions League final he scored the opening goal and consistently made a big impact when we needed him most.

The truth was though that we had a number of incredible performers in the team, which was reflected in the PFA Team of the Year:

I could wax lyrical about the bulk of my squad but the long and short of it is that virtually all of them stepped up and performed with real consistency last year, and the depth and quality of the squad was the main reason why we had won every competition we had entered. Here's a breakdown of how they all performed:

As well as we had done, I knew that I couldn't be complacent this summer and that a squad refresh was probably needed. We had a number of players entering the last two years of their contract and a number of young players were ready to break through and compete for a first-team place. I'd likely need to let go of some talented players who had helped win us a lot of trophies, but with an already bloated squad I tried to put emotion out of the window and give my squad a breath of fresh air.

Outgoings

At the time of writing I am still in the summer window, so there may be more departures, but I did the bulk of my business early:

We've earned some huge money this summer from player sales, none of whom were regular starters despite their quality. The hardest player to let go was probably Folarin Balogun, a home-grown player who'd had a superb three seasons in the first team where he'd scored 65 goals in all competitions. Balogun is a great goalscorer but with Vlahović and Martinelli ahead of him in the pecking order, and some great young attackers waiting in the wings, I decided to cash in on him this summer. The £49.5m we received from PSG was a little less than I had hoped to get for him but it still represents fantastic profit on one of our youth academy prospects.

Takehiro Tomiyasu and Albert Sambi Lokonga had both been with us since the summer I joined and had been great options for me over the past five years. Tomiyasu and lost his place to Tino Livramento as our starting right-back, however, and wasn't going to get his place back anytime soon, so I opted to cash in on him this summer and bid a sad farewell. Chelsea had bid a good amount for him but I had no intention of letting him depart for a rival, so he instead went to Barcelona for nearly double what we paid for him in 2021. Lokonga was a player I had considered keeping around, but during his contract discussions he was adamant on being deployed as an attacking playmaker where I saw him as more of a ball-winner, so I chose to move him on to the other half of the El Clásico rivalry. I may regret losing the midfield depth he offers but with his insistence on being played in a position I didn't want to use him, I felt I had little other choice.

Another fan-favourite who left was Giovanni Reyna, who had become a peripheral figure in his final few months at the club. His influence had dwindled due to the immense quality and depth we had in attacking midfield positions and we ultimately let him leave to Inter for the exact same amount we had paid to bring him in from Dortmund four years prior. Not the best business, perhaps, but he leaves having left a big mark at the club as he seeks pastures new in Italy.

One deal I was very happy with was the sale of Maarten Vandevoordt to Spartak Moscow for a £36.5m fee. The Belgian had served as a capable understudy to Ramsdale for a number of seasons now, but was likely going to continue as one for a number of years yet. I figured it was best to cash in on him now at 24 years of age and aim for an older, short-term backup goalkeeper as a replacement, and then look to integrate one of the great young goalkeepers we have at the club when Ramsdale is past his peak.

In terms of deals that didn't happen, PSG had courted Bukayo Saka for months and came knocking with two huge bids for him in the summer:

I think I could easily have squeezed £150m+ out of them for Saka, but truthfully I don't think I would have sold him for any price. He was one of our own and he had had one of his best seasons under my management last season, so I felt that even if we received some insane money for him I wouldn't really be able to replace him.

Incomings

I had noticed in January that Wojciech Szczęsny's contract at Juventus was up in the summer, and kept him in my mind for this summer. The opportunity to bring back a former favourite on a free transfer was too good to pass up, and he was happy to take a reduced salary and role to rejoin the club where he made his name. Barcelona had also made him an offer but he chose to return to London where he will serve as a capable backup to Aaron Ramsdale. He has signed a one-year contract with the option for a second.

With our U23 side looking light in defence, I was keen to bring in a young defender to offer some depth there who could also develop into a good player for us. I had a number of options but opted to sign Agustín Seaone, an 18-year-old Uruguayan centre-back who looks very promising. It cost me £3.7m to sign him from Nacional, his work permit was granted at first request, and I intend on keeping him at the club to develop for the coming years as he'll qualify as a home-grown talent if he stays with us until he's 21.

In our single big move this summer, I broke our transfer record for the fourth time during my tenure to bring in Jamal Musiala from Bayern Munich for a fee of £111m. The young German also has English citizenship and qualifies as home-grown due to his youth career at Chelsea, and at 23 years of age is already established as one of the best attacking players in the world. This really wasn't a signing I needed to make but with £250m+ burning a hole in my pocket, I choose to go big and bring in a marquee name to give us a boost ahead of the new season. I haven't decided yet where he will play but his versatility means he should be a big player for us no matter where I choose to deploy him.

I intend on making one or two more signings before the window closes, but they're likely be young players who I'm hoping to develop at the club. I'll include an update on some of our most promising newgens who should be involved in the first team this season in my next post.

Great Post, thank you. I do find it weird your regens having photos

I bought Musiala in first season for about £45m. I feel like he's really now starting to develop (although still randomly chucks in a 6.5 here and there).

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

8 hours ago, BrickCommo23 said:

Hey @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! - any news on your save?

Watch this space 

I have a system that I am happy with and enjoyed a couple of very successful seasons but have struggled to find time - and am a bit rusty articulating the message I'd like to get across - after a busy period working in East Africa.

Returning to Europe later this week and am hoping to share something next week 
 

8 hours ago, BrickCommo23 said:

Great Post, thank you. I do find it weird your regens having photos

I bought Musiala in first season for about £45m. I feel like he's really now starting to develop (although still randomly chucks in a 6.5 here and there).

Absolute bargain! He's one of my favourite young players. Really world class player in my save.

[BrickCommo23]

3 hours ago, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

Watch this space 

I have a system that I am happy with and enjoyed a couple of very successful seasons but have struggled to find time - and am a bit rusty articulating the message I'd like to get across - after a busy period working in East Africa.

Returning to Europe later this week and am hoping to share something next week 
 

Absolute bargain! He's one of my favourite young players. Really world class player in my save.

Great stuff - looking forward to it. 

And yes, I was pleased with the signing. As I said, he sometimes rocks up with an absolute stinker but I don't know if that's my system or a bit of a thing with the player ratings which seems to mean that if they don't get a goal or an assist they can't possibly be playing well...?

[Telegram Sam]

2026/27 Season - Part 1

Going into the new season, I was keen to try and utilise the attacking talent we had at the club by implementing some form of 3-4-3 formation and getting more of our better players on the pitch. I loved the very fluid side of the 4-4-2 had worked last season, and while it would have been easy enough to keep with a formation that was already working well for, I wanted the side to evolve and get us playing some more interesting, dynamic football at the top end of the pitch.

I've spent a lot of time reading the fantastic Total Football thread on here and was keen to try and implement some form of it in my own Arsenal side. I'd tinkered with various styles in pre-season and the start of a new campaign—a standard 3-4-3, a 3-4-1-2, a 3-4-2-1 with two DMs—and was eager to find something that complimented our team. Aside from playing with only three defenders, the biggest change here was the desire to become a more aggressive, possession-dominant side, as last year the 4-4-2 (and the 4-1-3-2 the season prior) meant we would allow the opposition to keep the ball more with the intention of us breaking with speed when we had the chance. I was now looking for us to pen the opposition back, attack from all angles, and dominate games in the opposition's half.

I trialed this play style in the Community Shield against Manchester United, who had finished a distant second in the Premier League last season. The 3-4-1-2 worked wonders in the first half as we sailed into a 3-0 lead after 34 minutes, with Jude Bellingham scoring our third goal with an exquisite piece of attacking play:

The goal was a superb illustration on how I wanted us to play, with numerous attacking players involving themselves in the build-up and a clear goalscoring opportunity being created through some fluid movement and intricate passing. The formation allows for overloads in various areas of the pitch and makes it tough for defenders to decide on how to mark and engage when we come at them.

However, the drawbacks of the system were soon exposed as Marcus Rashford was left alone at the back post to make the score 3-1 just before half time, and United got themselves a second within a few minutes of the second half starting. We managed to restore a two-goal lead through Martin Ødegaard and that was the last strike of the game as we won the Community Shield for a third time with a 4-2 victory.

A Super Cup victory was then sealed over Europa League winners Leicester City as Vlahović, Smith Rowe and Gabriel all notched a goal on the way to a 3-0 win. In this game Leicester caused us few issues and we dominated the game in terms of goals, possession, shots, and xG:

Our Premier League defence started poorly as we went down 2-1 at Anfield, with Sadio Mané stealing a late winner after an error from Anel Ahmedhodžic. I had reverted to a standard 4-3-3 in this game as I didn't fancy leaving three defenders alone to handle Mané, Salah, and Haaland on their own. It was a disappointing start to the league campaign but we had a series of more winnable games to get us back in the hunt.

I continued with the 3-4-1-2 as we faced weaker sides, and it bore plenty of fruit as we beat Aston Villa 4-0 at the Emirates before notching up two 2-0 victories against Norwich City and newly promoted Stoke. I noticed throughout these games that while we dominated possession and created a fair number of chances, we were frequently forced to make last ditch tackles to deny opposition forwards and Aaron Ramsdale performed extremely well in these games to earn himself three clean sheets. 

In the Champions League we'd been handed a reasonably straightforward group with Juventus, Sporting CP and Astana being the sides we'd have to beat. Our first game was an away trip to Lisbon and we came out on top with a hard-earned 2-1 victory, this time playing an abbreviated 3-3-3-1 shape. You can see from the game's data that we controlled the game and earned our victory:

However, the nature of Sporting's equaliser had concerned me. It was their first shot of the game and again came about due to the vulnerabilities this formation contains:

A ball had been played to one of Sporting's central midfielders, who was in acres of space. As he drove forward Tino Livramento comes inside to close him down and this left Hirving Lozane with our entire right flank to himself, and as the ball is played out to him he has a free run at goal before firing into our top corner. If we were going to make this back three a long term success, I'll need to find a way to stop this sort of thing happening on a regular basis.

A dominant 3-0 win at home to Wolves kept up our superb league form before we fell to West Brom in out first League Cup game, going out on penalties after a 1-1 draw. The home side had drawn level with a header from a corner in the dying minutes, although in truth our general play meant they had probably deserved that. The problem here was a combination of the tactics and the players; I had fielded a number of youth players including giving three of them their first-team debuts, and this is not a formation where you can just plug players in and expect them to gel immediately. It wasn't a huge disappointment but after winning this competition for the past two seasons, it was tough to see us go out after just a single game.

Against Leeds in our next game we muddled our way to a 1-0 win thanks to a Jamal Musiala penalty, who had had a fine start to his Arsenal career. Leeds created a number of chances, however, and were unlucky not to equalise. This poor performance on the back of the West Brom defeat had me questioning my tactics, and I reverted to our tried-and-tested 4-4-2 as we faced Juventus at home. A brace from Gabriel fired us into a 2-0 lead in the first 11 minutes and Dušan Vlahović wrapped things up in the second half to give us a comfortable win and control of our group after two games.

I was determined not to give up on the 3-at-the-back formation, and made some tweaks prior to facing Brighton on the road. I decided to play with two attacking midfielders behind the lone striker, and pushed our central midfielders back to try and offer us more defensive solidity on the counter. I also made the point of having our two wide players man-mark the opposition's wide threats, who in this case were Lamptey and Cucurella. The result was a 3-0 victory that we just about deserved, although the quality of our finishing was the difference maker. This is the latest version of my tactic and this is, roughly, my strongest team:

The win at Brighton was followed to a disappointing defeat away at Manchester City, were we lost 2-0. We had chances to score and City's opener had come from a suicidal backpass from Saka, with their second coming late in the game as we chased an equaliser. I am wondering whether a more conservative formation is needed for the games against the bigger sides but it could also be a case of our players just needing time to get used to the formation.

We put this disappointing defeat behind us in our last two games, where we routed Astana and Fulham 6-0 and 7-0 respectively. This demonstrated to me why this formation can be so effective; we exerted near total control over our lesser opponents, spent almost the entire game in their half, and enjoyed great spells of possession (60-65%) while creating a high number of goalscoring opportunities:

I don't know yet whether or not this way of playing will bear fruit in terms of trophies, but I'm pretty committed to giving it a go.

I'll finish things up here by showcasing some of the newgens we have at the club who I am hoping to integrate into the first-team this season.

Newgens

Jörg Granatowski 🇩🇪 — 18 years old — CB/ CDM/ CM

Granatowski was my final signing of the summer window, joining us from Wolfsburg on deadline day in a £27m deal. At 6'5" tall, he's a dominant aerial defender who also has an eye for a pass. I'll be mainly using him in the U23s this season and will likely seek to use him more next season, as I expect this may be Benjamin White's last season with us.

Renan Renato 🇧🇷 — 19 years old — CB/ LB

This is Renato's second season at the club after joining us last summer for £13.25m, and his development is going nicely after making 15 appearances for us in 2025/26. He already has two Brazil caps to his name and looks set to become our long-term replacement for his fellow countryman Gabriel. He's even taller than Granatowski at 6'6" and I'm hoping the pair of them can become stalwarts of our defence further down the road.

Andrea Facchinetti 🇮🇹 — 20 years old — CB/ LB/ CDM/ LWB

The Italian-Japanese full-back joined us from Atalanta last summer to deputise for Kieran Tierney and made an impressive 21 appearances in his first year with the club. Already capped once for Italy, Facchinetti has a bright future ahead of him but may find his game-time limited this year as we've switched from a back four to a back three. I'm keen to keep him at the club for this year and the next to help him gain home-grown status with us, but if I can't find opportunities for him in the side I may seek a loan deal in January or next summer.

Mauro Guerrero 🇦🇷 — 21 years old — RB/ RWB/ RM/ RW

Guerrero has had to wait for his chance at the club after signing for us in 2023, but after impressive loan spells at Brøndby and Fenerbahçe I've decided to keep him around for this season. His return to the club was enough for me to reluctantly sell Takehiro Tomiyasu to Barcelona this summer as I felt he was ready to deputise for Tino Livramento at right-back, but our change in formation has meant I've opted to use him elsewhere. He's primarily been deployed as a right midfielder although I did also give him a few games as a Carrilero in central midfield, but opted against that as a long-term option as I tinkered away at my tactical set up.

He made his debut for Argentina at this summer's World Cup and made an immediate impact in his first game, notching up three assists in his nation's win over Uzbekistan. He got a goal and an assist off the bench in our 7-0 win over Fulham in our last match and I'm already starting to see him as my versatile super sub.

Lucas Gijzen 🇳🇱 — 20 years old — CB/ CDM/ CM

Lucas Gijzen had already broken into the Vitesse first-team at the age of 17, and after my scouts raved about him I opted to bring him in for £10.5m in the summer of 2024. After spending one year at the club, he then travelled to Greece to gain first-team experience with Panathinaikos last season. After a steady start, he broke his lower leg in February in what was a potentially devastating blow to his development. After recovering and rehabilitating back with us, he is now fit again and has made two substitute appearances so far this season. I'll look at potentially loaning him out in January but he is already looking like a player capable of making an impression in the Premier League if I can find the time for him.

Nguyen Van Toan 🇻🇳 — 21 years old — CDM/ CM/ CAM

I found Nguyen Van Toan playing for Pohang Steelers in the K-League and as I love young players from obscure nations, I brought the Vietnamese midfielder to the club in 2023. He's been out on loan at Union Berlin, Tenerife and Montpellier, with his most recent loan in France being his most productive as he scored 4 goals and assisted 7 in 26 appearances. This year he has taken the chances I've offered him in the first team, scoring a great free-kick in our 3-0 win at Brighton before notching a perfect 10.0 rating with a goal and two assists against Astana. It's hard to find room for my young attackers right now by he's certainly making a strong case for further inclusion.

Vyacheslav Spirin 🇷🇺 — 20 years old — ST

Spirin was the clear star of my first youth intake in 2022 and no prospect we've had come through Hale End since has come close to matching the Russian's potential. He's scored 16 goals in 30 international appearances for his homeland before his 21st birthday and in the last two seasons has scored 18 goals for us in a limited number of appearances. This season, however, he had reached new levels by scoring 12 goals in 10 games and has firmly put Dušan Vlahović's position as our starting striker under threat. His five goals against Astana was a clear highlight but he almost managed to bag braces for us in our victories over Sporting, Wolves, and Fulham.  

[BrickCommo23]

So, I've just about managed to keep the title in my own hands - but it was a close run thing...

Which means the league table looks like this:

City's game in hand is at home to Burnley. But my remaining two games are both at home (Leeds & Fulham) and our home record has remained excellent so I think I should just about be OK - we shall see though. 

I'm very aware I might win the league with 84 points which isn't usually enough so I will be having a rethink over the summer - but for now it might be coming home...

[BrickCommo23]

Same as last season - a goal short in the Champions League semi final at home to PSG. One goal with that many chances...crazy.

[Telegram Sam]

2026/27 Season - Part 2

I spoke in my last past about how I was trying to recreate a Total Football-inspired formation that included only three defenders, and after some tinkering I think I have found a variation of this formation that I'm very happy with. I've used this formation in all of the games I have played since my last update and it has fared me very well, and has gotten us playing some dominant, possession-heavy and ultimately beautiful football.

The formation I've settled on is a 3-3-3-1, inspired by the 1995 Ajax side that won the Champions League against all odds. I have read a number of articles about Total Football on the fantastic Dictate the Game blog, with this one in particular being the one I followed most to come up with our latest tactical set-up.

The formation is predicated on us having a lot of the ball, spending lots of time in the opponent's half, and placing immense pressure on the opposition defence to try and win the ball back early and punish them. We've a host of quality attacking players so going three-at-the-back allows me to better make use of this talent, and with a large squad we're able to rotate heavily when need be thanks to the depth we have across the field.

I mentioned in my last post that my greatest concern was being exploited in the wide positions when the opposition hits us on the counter, and I think I have been able to find at least a partial solution for this by using both of my central midfielders in the Carrilero role. This is not a role I've ever utilised before, seeing it mainly as a more conservative, boring alternative to a Box-to-Box Midfielder or Mezzala role, but it's been the must crucial aspect of getting this formation to work. The only instruction the Carrilero role has by default is "Stay Wider", which points to what I want my midfield duo to do. I have tasked the likes of Bellingham and Gravenberch, my go-to options for the role, to not only stay wider but also to man-mark the opposition's wingers when we lose the ball. This helps us be pretty strong defensively as they are able to cover the wide men while my defensive midfielder and back three are able to focus on any incoming threat down the middle. So far it has worked very well, and we've kept a number of clean sheets while operating in this formation. I've also asked both players to get forward when we have the ball, meaning they can support our front four and contribute in terms of goals and assists.

This is a hugely demanding role, nonetheless. I'm asking both players to immediately drop back and track opposing wingers when we lose the ball and burst forward to support attacks when we have them. It's knackering, hard work, and I'm also requiring these players to be defensively sound, good on the ball, and effective in the attack. I've used Declan Rice here due to his superb stamina and great defensive stats, while Ryan Gravenberch also fits well due to his physical attributes and creative ability. The star man for me in this role though is of course Jude Bellingham, a complete midfielder, who can do pretty much everything:

In the attack, I've found that our wide players generally perform well and have been notching solid numbers of goals and assists thanks to the high amount of possession we enjoy and the number of players we are able to get joining the attack. While the Carrileros push up and support, we also have the central defenders contributing as well thanks to the freedoms the Wide Centre-Back role allows. I'm still yet to find a perfect way to utilise the Attacking Midfielder in my side but I'm still seeing good performances and contributions from the likes of Szoboszlai and Ødegaard.

I usually do a game-by-game breakdown but as I instead wanted to frame this update around the formation we were using, so will provide an overview of our results from the end of October through to mid-December:

Fantastic, as you can see. After losing 2-0 to Manchester City in October, we went on a 10-game run without conceding a goal in all competitions before finally conceding against Juventus, which was the first time we'd achieved such a run. The formation we were using allowed us to complete dominate lesser sides like Astana and Sheffield United, helping us to really impressive scorelines, but against your average Premier League side we would usually come out deservedly a goal or two ahead by full-time.

One of the things I was also doing with this formation was setting a lot of oppositions instructions going into each game, which included the aforementioned instruction for our two central midfielders to mark the opposition wingers. I was also having our attacking players press the opposition's back line to try and force turnovers high up the pitch. While pressing each member of the defence and goalkeeper would be a given for each match, I'd also seek to show the full-backs onto their weaker foot and go hard on defenders with low bravery and composure. The opening goal we scored against Newcastle was a superb example of this, with Spirin winning the ball back from the defender and immediately playing through Smith Rowe to score an early goal:

A key fixture in this run was our final game in the Champions League group stage as we travelled to Italy to face Juventus. Our five wins from our first five games meant that we could play with relatively little pressure as top spot was secured, but it was still a great opportunity for us to try our new tactic against an elite side. It went fantastically well as we secured a 3-1 win and dominated our illustrious opponents for most of the match:

Gabriel Martinelli had given us the lead before Alex Isak equalised for Juventus immediately after, before Dominik Szoboszlai struck to give us a 2-1 lead with 27 minutes on the clock. We then doubled our lead five minutes later thanks to a second goal for Martinelli and saw the game out with minimal fuss. These last two goals were particularly pleasing to me as we overloaded the box and found ways to score, with the Juventus defence unable to cope:

In both goals we see Bellingham joining the attack from Carrilero position, with him playing Saka through into a dangerous position for the first goal and then making a key pass into Vlahović for the second. In both cases we have lots of attackers in dangerous positions, and both Szoboszlai and Martinelli were able to score with simple finishes when the ball found them free in the box.

After beating Leicester 2-1 in the next game, we were faced with a difficult set of fixtures over Christmas—a trip to Old Trafford to face Manchester United would come first, before then returning to the Emirates to host both Spurs and Chelsea.

In the United game I was emboldened to see us take a 2-0 lead in the first half, thanks to goals from Bukayo Saka and Dušan Vlahović:

Our opener showcased how vital it was for our Carrileros to be able to contribute effectively to the attack, as Gravenberch's superb lofted pass totally carved open the United defence and allowed Saka to finish one-on-one with the goalkeeper. The second goal from Vlahović was relatively straighforward but highlighted how dangerous we can be through the middle with numerous attacking options onrushing through the middle. I'm wanting my central striker to create chances for others but also to get in behind where possible and score goals with regularity.

Unfortunately, we were unable to secure a crucial victory as United came back to make it 2-2 in the second half thanks to goals from Jadon Sancho and Hannibal Mejri. In both cases they were able to get in behind our defence, although I think it was less down to our tactical frailties and more down to conceding chances being inevitable when playing on the road against quality opposition. It was massively disappointing to have drawn the game after going in 2-0 up at half-time, but it was probably a fair result:

A point at Old Trafford would feel much more valuable if we could take six from our next two games against Tottenham and Chelsea, and in the first of our London derby double header we battered Spurs 4-0 thanks to a brace a-piece from Jamal Musiala and Vyacheslav Spirin. I'll hold off on sharing goals from this game but our opener again came from us winning the ball from the opposition defender high up the pitch, allowing Musiala to score a simple goal from inside the box, while our second came about thanks to Gravenberch driving into the box and laying on a simple finish for Spirin. Bukayo Saka continued his fine form by laying on Musiala's second thanks to some great play down the right wing, and Spirin finished the onslaught late in the second half after getting on the end of a cross from former spud Heung-min Son. It was total domination on our part as Spurs were unable to get our from their own half, our our respective shot maps told the story:

Our pass map from this game also showed how we were attacking and building plays, with beautiful diamonds appearing across the pitch:

The Chelsea game was up next, and was a far closer affair. I had noticed that since we had been able to largely neutralise our opponent's wide threats thanks to the defensive action of our two Carrileros, we'd struggled the most against sides who had two strikers pressed up against our three defenders. In this game both Romelu Lukaku and Julián Álvarez caused us problems as Chelsea attacked by Aaron Ramsdale stood firm, denying Chelsea a goal in the game despite an xG of 1.80 for Chelsea. Goals from Vlahović and Martinelli earned us the win either side of the half and we'd just about edged the game, even if Chelsea caused us plenty more issues defensively than Tottenham had done.

This left us with 16 wins and 49 points at the half-way point in the season, but we still managed to find ourselves in third place thanks to the sublime form of Manchester City and leaders Liverpool:

This title race is surely going to be a much closer one than last season, where we won the league with numerous games to spare and ended the campaign with 16 points between us and Manchester United in 2nd place. Crucially, we have already travelled to Anfield, the Etihad and Old Trafford—which is where all of our points thus far were dropped—so I'm hoping we can gain the edge on our rivals between now and May with those tough fixtures out of the way.

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

18 hours ago, Telegram Sam said:

Beautiful pass map!  

[hasdgfas]

Anyone folks are super interested in seeing in the new update? I noticed right off the bat that Flores looks much more promising:

[Br3nB]

Any other notable changes?

Can’t wait to get started with what feels like a fairly blank canvas and tonnes of talent!

[hasdgfas]

Nothing that stuck out to me besides Flores, but I don't remember the starting attribute spreads of most of the players. 

[SteveUK]

21 hours ago, Br3nB said:

Any other notable changes?

Can’t wait to get started with what feels like a fairly blank canvas and tonnes of talent!

Ramsdale has been improved, Saka has a few minor attribute changes but has also been made less familiar in other position so should now reach a higher PA, Rekik has been updated.

Disappointed they didn't really change the finances, only an increase in £146k p/w for the wage budget, same crappy transfer budget, despite this I did a few quick tests and depending on start date you choose you can get £10-15mil for Elneny, £10-13mil for Cedric, £10mil for Lacazette, £40mil for Partey (if Newcastle are interested), £20mil for Pepe, £14mil for Leno.
 

[Cam NBH]

On my new game under his profile it says laca enjoys playing with aubameyang 

[gokalpcakir1]

On 23.02.2022 at 23:43, Telegram Sam said:

2026/27 Season - Part 2

I spoke in my last past about how I was trying to recreate a Total Football-inspired formation that included only three defenders, and after some tinkering I think I have found a variation of this formation that I'm very happy with. I've used this formation in all of the games I have played since my last update and it has fared me very well, and has gotten us playing some dominant, possession-heavy and ultimately beautiful football.

The formation I've settled on is a 3-3-3-1, inspired by the 1995 Ajax side that won the Champions League against all odds. I have read a number of articles about Total Football on the fantastic Dictate the Game blog, with this one in particular being the one I followed most to come up with our latest tactical set-up.

The formation is predicated on us having a lot of the ball, spending lots of time in the opponent's half, and placing immense pressure on the opposition defence to try and win the ball back early and punish them. We've a host of quality attacking players so going three-at-the-back allows me to better make use of this talent, and with a large squad we're able to rotate heavily when need be thanks to the depth we have across the field.

I mentioned in my last post that my greatest concern was being exploited in the wide positions when the opposition hits us on the counter, and I think I have been able to find at least a partial solution for this by using both of my central midfielders in the Carrilero role. This is not a role I've ever utilised before, seeing it mainly as a more conservative, boring alternative to a Box-to-Box Midfielder or Mezzala role, but it's been the must crucial aspect of getting this formation to work. The only instruction the Carrilero role has by default is "Stay Wider", which points to what I want my midfield duo to do. I have tasked the likes of Bellingham and Gravenberch, my go-to options for the role, to not only stay wider but also to man-mark the opposition's wingers when we lose the ball. This helps us be pretty strong defensively as they are able to cover the wide men while my defensive midfielder and back three are able to focus on any incoming threat down the middle. So far it has worked very well, and we've kept a number of clean sheets while operating in this formation. I've also asked both players to get forward when we have the ball, meaning they can support our front four and contribute in terms of goals and assists.

This is a hugely demanding role, nonetheless. I'm asking both players to immediately drop back and track opposing wingers when we lose the ball and burst forward to support attacks when we have them. It's knackering, hard work, and I'm also requiring these players to be defensively sound, good on the ball, and effective in the attack. I've used Declan Rice here due to his superb stamina and great defensive stats, while Ryan Gravenberch also fits well due to his physical attributes and creative ability. The star man for me in this role though is of course Jude Bellingham, a complete midfielder, who can do pretty much everything:

In the attack, I've found that our wide players generally perform well and have been notching solid numbers of goals and assists thanks to the high amount of possession we enjoy and the number of players we are able to get joining the attack. While the Carrileros push up and support, we also have the central defenders contributing as well thanks to the freedoms the Wide Centre-Back role allows. I'm still yet to find a perfect way to utilise the Attacking Midfielder in my side but I'm still seeing good performances and contributions from the likes of Szoboszlai and Ødegaard.

I usually do a game-by-game breakdown but as I instead wanted to frame this update around the formation we were using, so will provide an overview of our results from the end of October through to mid-December:

Fantastic, as you can see. After losing 2-0 to Manchester City in October, we went on a 10-game run without conceding a goal in all competitions before finally conceding against Juventus, which was the first time we'd achieved such a run. The formation we were using allowed us to complete dominate lesser sides like Astana and Sheffield United, helping us to really impressive scorelines, but against your average Premier League side we would usually come out deservedly a goal or two ahead by full-time.

One of the things I was also doing with this formation was setting a lot of oppositions instructions going into each game, which included the aforementioned instruction for our two central midfielders to mark the opposition wingers. I was also having our attacking players press the opposition's back line to try and force turnovers high up the pitch. While pressing each member of the defence and goalkeeper would be a given for each match, I'd also seek to show the full-backs onto their weaker foot and go hard on defenders with low bravery and composure. The opening goal we scored against Newcastle was a superb example of this, with Spirin winning the ball back from the defender and immediately playing through Smith Rowe to score an early goal:

A key fixture in this run was our final game in the Champions League group stage as we travelled to Italy to face Juventus. Our five wins from our first five games meant that we could play with relatively little pressure as top spot was secured, but it was still a great opportunity for us to try our new tactic against an elite side. It went fantastically well as we secured a 3-1 win and dominated our illustrious opponents for most of the match:

Gabriel Martinelli had given us the lead before Alex Isak equalised for Juventus immediately after, before Dominik Szoboszlai struck to give us a 2-1 lead with 27 minutes on the clock. We then doubled our lead five minutes later thanks to a second goal for Martinelli and saw the game out with minimal fuss. These last two goals were particularly pleasing to me as we overloaded the box and found ways to score, with the Juventus defence unable to cope:

In both goals we see Bellingham joining the attack from Carrilero position, with him playing Saka through into a dangerous position for the first goal and then making a key pass into Vlahović for the second. In both cases we have lots of attackers in dangerous positions, and both Szoboszlai and Martinelli were able to score with simple finishes when the ball found them free in the box.

After beating Leicester 2-1 in the next game, we were faced with a difficult set of fixtures over Christmas—a trip to Old Trafford to face Manchester United would come first, before then returning to the Emirates to host both Spurs and Chelsea.

In the United game I was emboldened to see us take a 2-0 lead in the first half, thanks to goals from Bukayo Saka and Dušan Vlahović:

Our opener showcased how vital it was for our Carrileros to be able to contribute effectively to the attack, as Gravenberch's superb lofted pass totally carved open the United defence and allowed Saka to finish one-on-one with the goalkeeper. The second goal from Vlahović was relatively straighforward but highlighted how dangerous we can be through the middle with numerous attacking options onrushing through the middle. I'm wanting my central striker to create chances for others but also to get in behind where possible and score goals with regularity.

Unfortunately, we were unable to secure a crucial victory as United came back to make it 2-2 in the second half thanks to goals from Jadon Sancho and Hannibal Mejri. In both cases they were able to get in behind our defence, although I think it was less down to our tactical frailties and more down to conceding chances being inevitable when playing on the road against quality opposition. It was massively disappointing to have drawn the game after going in 2-0 up at half-time, but it was probably a fair result:

A point at Old Trafford would feel much more valuable if we could take six from our next two games against Tottenham and Chelsea, and in the first of our London derby double header we battered Spurs 4-0 thanks to a brace a-piece from Jamal Musiala and Vyacheslav Spirin. I'll hold off on sharing goals from this game but our opener again came from us winning the ball from the opposition defender high up the pitch, allowing Musiala to score a simple goal from inside the box, while our second came about thanks to Gravenberch driving into the box and laying on a simple finish for Spirin. Bukayo Saka continued his fine form by laying on Musiala's second thanks to some great play down the right wing, and Spirin finished the onslaught late in the second half after getting on the end of a cross from former spud Heung-min Son. It was total domination on our part as Spurs were unable to get our from their own half, our our respective shot maps told the story:

Our pass map from this game also showed how we were attacking and building plays, with beautiful diamonds appearing across the pitch:

The Chelsea game was up next, and was a far closer affair. I had noticed that since we had been able to largely neutralise our opponent's wide threats thanks to the defensive action of our two Carrileros, we'd struggled the most against sides who had two strikers pressed up against our three defenders. In this game both Romelu Lukaku and Julián Álvarez caused us problems as Chelsea attacked by Aaron Ramsdale stood firm, denying Chelsea a goal in the game despite an xG of 1.80 for Chelsea. Goals from Vlahović and Martinelli earned us the win either side of the half and we'd just about edged the game, even if Chelsea caused us plenty more issues defensively than Tottenham had done.

This left us with 16 wins and 49 points at the half-way point in the season, but we still managed to find ourselves in third place thanks to the sublime form of Manchester City and leaders Liverpool:

This title race is surely going to be a much closer one than last season, where we won the league with numerous games to spare and ended the campaign with 16 points between us and Manchester United in 2nd place. Crucially, we have already travelled to Anfield, the Etihad and Old Trafford—which is where all of our points thus far were dropped—so I'm hoping we can gain the edge on our rivals between now and May with those tough fixtures out of the way.

Can you share your PIs?

[BrickCommo23]

Season 2023-24 - Final Update

So, following on from my previous brief update - I was out of the CL at the semi finals (again) to PSG (again) but it was still all to play for in the League and the aim of winning the league precisely 20 years since Arsenal last managed it. 

We finished the season with home games against Leeds and Fulham - knowing a pair of wins would guarantee the title, despite being chased by Jurgen Klopp's Manchester City (who had very much found their groove in the second half of the season). We knew we should beat both sides comfortably but you never know for certain...

First stage done. I like to imagine the next home game against Fulham would have been greeted with cautious excitement - it was basically a coronation.

So, it's finally done! 20 years after the last league title, we can add a new graphic to the roll of honour inside the Emirates. 

I am going to do another post in the next day or two about next season and my plans to change tactically (although, it won't be as good as @Telegram Sam) but for now I will just include the below, final squad and awards round up.

 

[Br3nB]

On 21/02/2022 at 06:57, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

Watch this space 

I have a system that I am happy with and enjoyed a couple of very successful seasons but have struggled to find time - and am a bit rusty articulating the message I'd like to get across - after a busy period working in East Africa.

Returning to Europe later this week and am hoping to share something next week 
 

Absolute bargain! He's one of my favourite young players. Really world class player in my save.

Can’t wait for this!

[Telegram Sam]

On 25/02/2022 at 15:20, gokalpcakir1 said:

Can you share your PIs?

Sure. I won't include the default PIs for the respective roles.

---

CB (Ball-Playing Defender) - Hold Position

DM (Defensive Midfielder) - Hold Position, Take More Risks

CM (Carrilero) - Get Further Forward

CM (Carrilero) - Get Further Forward

AM (Attacking Midfielder) - Take More Risks, Get Further Forward, Roam From Position, Move Into Channels

---

The key thing is getting the Carrileros to attack more when we have the ball, as they're naturally more defensive than Mezzalas or Box-to-Box Midfielders. I also have them set to manually man-mark the opposition wide men.

 

 

 

[hasdgfas]

2028/29 Season Review!

Five Trophies! A heck of a year.

Premier League is getting weird this far in. Newcastle is becoming very relevant and pretty consistent, with another finish in the top 4, and Chelsea and Liverpool have been bad lately.

Some Player Stats:

Vlahvoic, Martinelli, and Jovanovic are a ridiculous front 3, with 99 goals between the 3 of them. You can see there are a full 4 youth academy players who have been getting some time with the first team this year. Finley Heard, the star of last season's intake, got 7 appearances, some of them due to the early League win. He's still developing well, and probably will need to go out on loan pretty soon to continue that progress.

Individual awards(with a couple still cut off. CONCACAF Player of the year Steven Eck and England Player of the year Jude Bellingham):

I'm still invested in this save, especially as England manager, but it's starting to become a bit of a romp in the League.

Transfers above. Most of my ins will be for the future at this point.

Edited March 2, 2022 by hasdgfas

[Sunstrikuuu]

Wow, it's much easier to sell all the first-season dross than I thought it'd be.  I definitely think SI are missing some loan-to-buy clauses here (and there are definitely going to be some PAs going down too [cough cough nketiah, nelson, guendouzi]).  Pretty sure both Guendouzi and Torreira have them, and I know Mavropanos does.  I did two seasons with the first-season windows turned off, and I've sold Runarsson, Rekik, Leno, Azeez, Mari, Guendouzi, Bellerin, Torreira and Nelson for a combined sum big enough to buy Haaland.  That's a bit silly.  And I've still got £7.5m for Mavropanos waiting to be finalized, and Maitland-Niles waiting to be sold.

 

[KingLara]

Arsenal Season 1 – March/April

Still a three horse race.

 

FA CUP 5^TH ROUND

ARSENAL 3 – Pepe 29 61 Martinelli 67

WEST HAM 0

A March dominated by regens and only four matches began with a good win over West Ham to send us into the FA Cup Quarter Finals. I took a bit of a risk with team selection but we managed the game well. We would play Man City at home in the quarters. They beat their neighbours at Old Trafford. Spurs lost 1-0 at home to Bournemouth.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL 4 – Aubameyang 2 (pen) 10 Bale 16 23

NORWICH 0

Possibly our easiest game of the season. 4-0 after 23 minutes before I put the handbrake on. Norwich committed 30 fouls in the game.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL 2 – Bale 68 Saka 81

CHELSEA 1 – Mount 64

Despite not having their best season, Chelsea games are never easy. Having taken the lead against the run of play they sat back allowing first Bale and then Saka to snatch a 2-1 win. Could be crucial come the end of the season.

 

FA CUP QUARTER FINAL

ARSENAL 1 – Pepe 48

MAN CITY 1 – De Bruyne 90

Arsenal win 5-3 on penalties

 

I was Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsdale away from playing a full strength team. It was an even game of good quality but bad tempered. Pepe gave us the lead after half time before De Bruyne equalised with the last kick of normal time. Extra Time came and went in a flash before Pepe, Partey, Aubameyang, Smith Rowe and Martinelli all scored their penalties while John Stones missed the crucial one for City. A semi final against Bournemouth awaits. Liverpool would play Crystal Palace in the other semi. Our third penalties success of the season.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

WATFORD 0

ARSENAL 1 – Aubameyang 5

With three away games in a row we reached a crucial stage of the season with games becoming more about points than performance. Both Man United and Liverpool were still above us while Man City had also joined the race. Aubameyang’s early goal the difference. He did also have two disallowed.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

WEST HAM 1 – Noble 65

ARSENAL 2 – Odegaard 59 Pepe 63

We put in a really good display at West Ham. A good result at a tough ground.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

NEWCASTLE 0

ARSENAL 0

We had a good record over the season of turning draws into wins but unfortunately that wasn’t the case at Newcastle. Both Keepers were the highest rated player for each side. Ramsdale earning man of the match. The following day saw Man United lose 2-0 at Southampton so it ended up not being a bad point.

 

FA CUP SEMI-FINAL

BOURNEMOUTH 0

ARSENAL 2 – Pepe 12(pen) Aubameyang 90

Ten points clear in the Championship we faced a very inform Bournemouth at Wembley. I risked carnage by resting the whole defence and Aubameyang for the game. Although we secured a comfortable win Bournemouth showed enough that they’ll be ok in the premier league next season. Aubameyang off the bench with a lovely curled strike just before the end. Liverpool spanked Crystal  Palace 6-2 in the other semi.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL 3 – Smith Rowe 39 Aubameyang 79 Pepe 83

LEICESTER CITY 1 – Maddison 44

We finished the month with three home games. Smith Rowe picking a good time to score his first goal of the domestic season. He also laid on the two assists for the other goals.

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL 1 – Aubameyang 12

WOLVES 0

It should have been far more comfortable but Sa in the Wolves goal had a blinder.  

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL 3 – Aubameyang 42 89 Xhaka 90

MAN CITY 2 – Mendy 1  Torres 44

The final game of April saw us host Man City in a five goal thriller which im not quite sure how we won. A terrible start saw City take the lead after only 59 seconds. Smith-Rowe then went off with an injury and would be out for three weeks. We controlled the first half and looked like we would be going in 1-1 at half time but then City went and scored from kick off. It took a brilliant strike from Aubameyang to get us back to 2-2 and a draw was ok but then out of nowhere Xhaka smashed a volley past Ederson in the fourth minute of Injury Time. safe to say I was pretty happy at the end.  Citys faint title hoped were all but finished.

 

Premier league table  - Played/Points/Goal Difference

1.       Arsenal P 35 P 83 GD 48

2.       Man Utd P 35 P 81 GD 59

3.       Liverpool P 34 P 80 GD 69

4.       Man City P 35 P 76 GD 41

5.       Brentford P 35 P 63 GD 21

 

I don’t remember having a season this close late on. With four games left and a 21 better goal difference it is in Liverpools hands. However their fixtures are the most difficult including a trip to Old Trafford. I think 7 points should be enough to win the league for us.

Fixtures

Arsenal – Everton (A) Burnley (A) Aston Villa (H)

Man Utd – Liverpool (H) Tottenham (A) Wolves (A)

Liverpool – Crystal Palace (A) Man Utd (A) West Ham (A) Tottenham (H)

 

Brentford have done remarkably well to get to May and be fifth. They are level on points with Leeds but have a +2 better goal difference. Both will finish in the top six though as Chelsea are too far behind.

No teams have been officially relegated yet but Watford are only surviving by maths. Burnley and Crystal Palace have a slight chance of staying up but Leicester are four points clear of the dreaded relegation zone. All other teams are safe.

Bournemouth have been promoted back to the Premier League while Fulham, Barnsley, West Brom and Birmingham are in the play offs with the second promotion place still up for grabs with one game to go.

 

Premier League Top scorers

Ronaldo 27 Aubameyang, Salah 25 Greenwood 20 Calvert-Lewin 19

Premier League Top Assists

B Fernandes 17 Robertson, Canos 13 Sancho 12 Buendia 11 (Tomiyasu 11)

Premier League Av Rating

Robertson 7.85  B Fernandes 7.82 Ronaldo 7.80 De Bruyne 7.52 Salah 7.50 (Tomiyasu 7.34)

Premier League Motm

Ronaldo 10 B Fernandes 9 Robertson 8 De Bruyne 7 Trossard 6 (Tomiyasu 6)

 

REGENS

Three very highly rated players came through the academy. Two wingers and a cdm.

Otherwise I scoured the world for talent but there wasn’t too much available. Most of the best were goalkeepers with scout ratings never going above a C+. However I did sign a few players (15) but only three were English so most won’t be available for a couple of years at least. A 15 year old called Bertin from Bayern looks very promising.  

 

EUROPE

PSG and Bayern have already won their leagues. Barcelona are one win away and Juventus should win the Italian league.

Man United beat Bayern 3-0 at Old Trafford in the first leg of the champions League semi final. Real Madrid won 2-1 at Inter in the other game.

In the Europa League Lyon are 4-1 up on Leverkusen after the first leg in France while Villarreal and Napoli finished goalless.

There was an all English clash in the semi finals of the Conference League with Spurs and West Ham drawing 0-0 after the first leg. AZ and Roma also drew.

 

May Fixtures

Everton (A)

Burnley (A)

Liverpool (N) – FA Cup Semi Final

Aston Villa (H)

[Sunstrikuuu]

A pass map, presented for your interest and enjoyment.  1061 attempted passes, 990 successful. 

 

[Harper]

Finally got some time to play and started a new game. Used a real results file from a third party that started me on February 21, after the IRL Brentford win.

Winter transfers were wrapped up and all the teams set like they are IRL.

When my scouts brought up Benjamin Šeško, I added him to Edu's transfer targets, not expecting a deal to be reached with the £10m budget available to start. But Edu got a deal done for £7.5m. Another unexpected surprise was being able to tie down Eddie Nketiah to a new deal. He rejected my first two offers, but at the end of March, signed a four year deal for £56k weekly. I also gave Bukayo Saka a bumper deal, increasing his wages to £110k per week through 2026.

With European competition looking likely, I started plotting out a variety of options for depth and upgrades. On the list was a striker in addition to Šeško, two central midfielders, a defensive mid, and a left footed center back.

With no budget to make any substantial purchases, I had hoped to take advantage of some Bosman deals to upgrade my both my starting XI and bench options. This would also help preserve my projected £55m budget for the 2022/23 season.

Spoiler

With Dan-Axel Zagadou and Alessio Romagnoli in the last months of their deals, I thought I would have a quick win to fill out my backline. After scouting both, I offered a contract to Romagnoli. Who would provide not only a left foot, but also some veteran leadership in my young defensive core. Ultimately, my offer was rejected in favor of a move to Real Madrid. Hard to compete with that. I then approached Zagadou, but refused to negotiate, opting to wait until the end of his contract to assess his options.

At midfield, I offered Frank Kessié a move to North London. I wasn't sure how I was going to arrange Thomas Partey and Frank Kessié (one or both as defensive midfielders), but Kessié would ultimately replace Partey by 2024. I was really annoyed when he rejected my offer for the lesser North London team. His stated reason was Spurs offered more guaranteed playing time, maybe I should have pushed the boat a little on salary and offered more than £75k weekly. I then approached Marseille's Boubacar Kamara to sign as a back up and eventual replacement for Thomas Partey at defensive midfield. Similar to Zagadou, he rejected my approach and wait until the end of the season to make a decision. 

I considered an approach for Andrea Belotti to replace Lacazette, but ultimately left the negotiations too late to get a deal done.

By the end of the the campaign, I had secured Champions League football, a year ahead of schedule. Most notably, a 3-2 win at Stamford Bridge. Unfortunately, both Manchester United and Spurs scored a late equalizers to cancel out the early leads I established; a last gasp Maguire header and a cool finish from Heung-Min Son in the 81'. Chelsea's spring time form over the final six weeks of the campaign was atrocious, with two wins from their final ten games for a record of 2-4-4 (including the loss to my young guns).

With Champions League secured, the board increased my transfer budget to £104m and a weekly wage budget of £2.1m. This was immediately adjusted this to a transfer budget and wage budget of £80m and £2.65m per week. Despite my significantly larger budget, my intent was to be measured. Since my Bosman gambits had thus far failed, I had a lot of work cut out for me to improve the squad. With a desire to qualify for Champions League via the league and progress out of the group stage, I needed to improve both quality and depth.

I Zigged, He Zags (Defense)

With Champions League football on offer, I approached Dan-Axel Zagadou to offer both competition for and rotation to Gabriel on the left side of my center back pairing. I was disappointed to find that he had extended his stay at Dortmund. So now what?

Spoiler

Back to the recruitment department for left footed central defenders. PSG's Abdou Diallo was identified and a fee agreed, but the player's wage demands exceeded my expectations. Joško Gvardiol was never an option, with the energy drink company demanding an exorbitant fee. Sheffield United's Jack O'Connell was considered for his veteran experience and leadership qualities, but ultimately disregarded. A fee was agreed with Brentford for their 23 year old, Mads Bech Sørensen, but the Dane opted for lesser things and signed up for Tottenham's Europa League season.

For every door shut, a window opens. With my options dwindling, I got noticed that Dortmund had transfer-listed Manuel Akanji. With the Swiss defender's contract expiring in 2023, and the player rejecting an extension, the German's were looking to sell the player rather than lose him for nothing. For a cool £16m, I added the two-footed defender to my backline on a four year deal for £66k weekly.

Operating from Deep (Defensive Midfielders)

My options in midfield are thin. The triumvirate of Granit Xhaka, Martin Ødegaard, and Thomas Partey managed to stay healthy and suspension free for the run-in. The only options for rotation through the season were the departing Mohamed Elneny (played once) and the emerging Albert Sambi Lokonga. Omar Rekik, a center back turn defensive midfielder, made a few substitute appearances in relief of Thomas Partey. With Partey turning 29, a rotation option who can eventually step into his place is required, in fact it's a priority. Rekik can do a job, but I can't rely on him against Europe's best.

Spoiler

Boubacar Kamara was identified during the season and remained my primary target as a free transfer. Although he played as a central defender for Marseille, I believe he has all the ability to be a quality defensive midfielder in my squad. After the conclusion of the season, he was open to negotiations. After submitting my offer, I received word of competing offers from Sevilla, A.C. Milan, Leicester, Aston Villa, and a host of Bundesliga clubs hoping to secure Kamara's signature. I abstained from a bidding war, and started preparing alternatives in the event Kamara rejected Arsenal. Fortunately, this was not the case and Kamara accepted a move to North London at £65k weekly.

An Øde to Change (Central Midfielders)

With Elneny out of contract and Newcastle sniffing around Granit Xhaka, a new partner to start along side Ødegaard was required, as well as a quality rotational option.

Spoiler

To rotate with Ødegaard, we identified Swedish midfielder Mattias Svanberg. Negotiations with Bologna were quick, with an agreement totaling £10m (£7.5m + £2.5m) for the 23 year old. He arrives on a four year deal on £57k weekly.

To partner Ødegaard, the top of my list had Ruben Neves and Carlos Soler. Both indicated, via their agent, that they were not interested in a move to the Arsenal. The former agent indicated he was not interested in a move without Champions League football. I rekindled my interested after qualifying for Champions League, only to discover Neves had accepted a new contract from Wolves. Weston McKennie was suggested by scouts, but warned he might be wayward in his shooting and would be a poor fit for the dressing room.

Dominik Szoboszlai and Giovanni Reyna were also put forward by my recruitment team. I couldn't negotiate suitable deals for either. The energy drink company wanted £53m upfront, another £25m in two six month installments, and a further £10m after 50 league appearances and 40% of future transfer profits. BVB was more reasonable, demanding £45m upfront for Giovanni Reyna. In attempting to negotiate a more performance based transfer fee, the cost spiraled upward and beyond my immediate and hopeful valuation of the player.

Ajax's young Ryan Gravenberch was suggested at the same time as Reyna, with a much more reasonable price tag suggested between £22-28m. Ajax initially accepted an incentivized deal which would see an initial cost of £15m rise to £26.5m if certain player and team milestones were achieved. This initial approach as accepted by Ajax, but failed to produce a contract agreement with the player. After having secured Kamara on a free transfer, I revisited in June. My enquiry was met with a demand of £24m, which I gladly accepted without hesitation. I left the contract negotiation to Edu, and Gravenberch agreed to a four year deal at £93k weekly.

One more addition in midfield may be necessary, but that will depend on Xhaka's departure and opportunism.

A New Spearhead (Strikers)

My striker situation evolved significantly over my fourteen games in charge. Lacazette turned in some lovely performances, scoring eight goals in eight starts, but missing the final four matches due to injure. Martinelli scored three goals in three of the games he started as Lacazette's injury replacement. With Nketiah extending his Arsenal career and securing Sesko's transfer earlier, I wasn't short of numbers. I still felt a stronger and taller presence was necessary.

Spoiler

After significant scouting of Europe far and wide, I identified a wide net of options at striker: Alexander Isak, Andre Silva, Moussa Dembele, Maxi Gomez, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Gianluca Scamacca, Jonathan David, Saša Kalajdžić were all under consideration. Andrea Belotti was still on my radar as a free transfer. I even considered signing an aging Diego Costa (who visited London Colney on a trial in April) on a free. Real Sociedad would not budge from requiring Isak's £77m release clause. After some interest expressed in Nicolas Pépé by Everton and Frank Lampard, I could not reach an agreement for a player exchange for Dominic Calvert-Lewin. I had concerns with Dembele's work rate and team work, while I wasn't sure that David could cope with physical defenders in the Premier League and he was also similar in profile to Martinelli. 

I narrowed my options to Andre Silva, Maxi Gomez, and Gianluca Scamacca. Tall, strong forwards who can compete in aerial duels, and hold on to the ball or go it alone if necessary. I ultimately agreed a deal with Sassuolo for the 23 year old Gianluca Scamacca for £15.5m, rising to £19.25m. He arrives on a £65k weekly contract through 2027.

What's Left, if not Market Opportunity (Left Wing)

I wasn't intending to buy any wide attackers during this window. Even with Everton and Atléti sniffing around Nicolas Pépé, I was prepared to go into the season with 🎶 Saka and Smith Rowe 🎶, Martinelli, and Reiss Nelson as my wide options.

Spoiler

While scouting for a striker through the spring, Amine Gouiri routinely came across my desk, but I quickly dismissed him as a striker. Fortunately, my scouts are persistent and, after completing my key business, Gouiri was once again submitted for my consideration. Nice was reportedly will to do a deal for less than £20m? Okay, lets at least enquire. Martinelli and Smith Rowe have dodgy injury histories, the latter suffering a four week absence in April. And Martinelli could very well end up my starting forward. Nice respond to my enquiry, demanding £16m for the 22 year old Frenchman. If we can sign him up for £60k weekly that's been offered, it will be a bargain!

Registration Considerations and Outgoings

Champions League comes with a lot of benefits, namely money and stature. However, Champions League comes stricter squad registration rules, namely homegrown quotas. All of my incoming signings have been from the continent. In order to keep everyone happy, some players are going to have to move on. Bernd Leno, Granit Xhaka, and Nicolas Pépé are the primary candidates. We have loanees in Pablo Marí, Lucas Torriera, and Konstantinos Mavropanos who need to find a home. Two additional wayward sons are Hector Bellerín and Ainsley Maitland-Niles. Both are on the transfer list and have expiring contracts, but could be retained if a suitable right back is not found. Because both are homegrown, Cédric Soares is made available.

Spoiler

The first player out the door was Cédric Soares. With Hector Bellerin and Ainsley Maitland-Niles returning the club, there was no place for the non-home grown fullback. Brighton secured his services for £12.5m. This relieved £65k per week from the wage budget.

With his place between the posts taken by Aaron Ramsdale, his contract expiring in 2023, and Edu having arranged the signing of his replacement in American Matt Turner, Bernd Leno's days have been numbered since before I took over. He was transfer listed well before the season ended, with no interest indicated from anywhere. After the season, a Atléti came sniffing and agreed to part with £15m to take Bernd Leno off my hands and more importantly, his £100k per week off my books.

Having staved off the ignominy of relegation with a 1-0 away win at Burnley (a tie or draw would have seen Burnley survive and Newcastle go down), Newcastle was immediately interested in Granit Xhaka. With his £100k per week contract expiring in 2024, an offer of £30m from the Saudi Public Investment Fund was accepted without hesitation. The Gravenberch deal had yet to be finalized, but with the contract agreed and pending sign off from the Home Office, we felt secure in letting Xhaka go north to what will be a threat to our Champions League and Premier League ambitions in the not to distant future.

Nicolas Pépé, having drawn the attention of Frank Lampard, was expected to stay in the Premier League. With a wage of £140k weekly, interest was expected to be limited, or require some wage retention. Despite Everton's earlier interest, no bid was made by the Tyneside club. Attempts at a player exchange for Dominic Calvert-Lewin were spurned. When the Frenchman was officially placed on the market, the suitors were surprising. Initially offering the player out for £40m, bids arrived from Italy, Spain, and one cheeky bid from Manchester. Juventus offered a fee that couldn't be taken seriously. Despite offering the most money, Manchester United was rejected immediately. We're not in the business of helping our immediate rivals. We rejected all the offers initially, and restated the player's value at £30m. This elicited offers from Atléti and Manchester United. Atléti's upfront and United's with half upfront and half in installments. The player expressed a preference for a move to Spain, making our decision easy. Terms were quickly agreed and time was called on Arsenal's most expensive transfer blunder (to date).

Marseille left it late, but ultimately exercised their option to buy Matteo Guendouzi for £9.5m and his £50k per week salary.

Also departing is oft-injured Jordi Osei-Tutu, with an offer from Brest for £1.3m.

Here's The Rub (TL/DR)

This is where we stand on July 1, 2022. We have recouped all of our outlay via player sales and managed a slight profit. We're currently sitting on a transfer war chest of £78m and approximately £190k per week (2.455m committed spending of 2.645m wage budget) to further reinforce if a player of top, top quality becomes available. While Kylian Mbappe did not immediately reject our approach, his wage demands of £545k per week was not palatable to the board.

Our focus will turn towards clearing out the departure lounge and finding loans for our younger players. Right back is a position that requires attention. Although we have options for the current season, we will need to make contract and transfer decisions for our two long time servants on expiring contracts (Bellerín and Maitland-Niles), as well as assess options available for future transfer windows. The other area of concern is right wing. Reiss Nelson had a decent time at Feyenoord, but can he make the step to Premier League and Champions League? We'll see.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Harper

[Harper]

2023 Preseason

We start pre-season with training camp and a friendly with Bristol City. It was a 6-0 route to kick off the preseason.

Roster and Transfer Thoughts

Spoiler

Reiss Nelson begins the year as Bukayo Saka’s partner on the right wing. The young winger fills a vital home grown quota spot, but I’m unsure if he will make the step up to the Premier League. By all accounts, he had a successful loan spell at Feyenoord, scoring nine and assisting four in 28 appearances for the Dutch runner-ups.

At right-back, Takehiro Tomiyasu is my first choice. I had intended to reintegrate Hector Bellerín and Ainsley Maitland-Niles to rotate with the Japanese international. Unfortunately, both are in the final twelve months of their contracts and neither would extend on reasonable terms. Both have been transfer listed and have suitors offering acceptable fees.

At goal, I would like to bring in a veteran keeper to be an emergency backup. Ben Alnwick and David Stockdale are with the preseason training camp and available on a free transfer.

The problem I’m facing is that I have no spaces for non-homegrown player with Champions League. If I want to improve both positions, I’ll may be required to pay the home-grown premium for both positions. Right back is more pressing, and with Leeds, Norwich, and Burnley relegated, I may have some options at a discount. If I want to fill all three positions, someone will have to be unregistered (the emergency goalkeeper is the obvious choice), at least one will have to be a player trained at Arsenal

Contract News

With Gabriel Martinelli and William Saliba entering the final two years of their contracts, and interest being displayed by teams across the continent, both were offered contract extensions.
 

Spoiler

Martinelli agreed to a new deal worth £24m over 5 years (£80k per week, 2027 expiry).

Saliba extended is stay by two years and will look to earn his first appearances in Red and White this season. His new contract is worth £11m over 4 years (£49k per week, 2026 expiry).

Staff News

Filling out an improving the scouting department has been a priority task for me. After being approved to hire an additional six scouts, my recruitment department can be as large as 18 scouts and 5 analysts (two unfilled positions).  The main goal was to expand the in-house knowledge by replacing some UK based scouts with foreign scouts in regions the club had no presence. Most scouts were specifically sought out for their local knowledge, but Steven Hitchen and Eric Abidal were hired from an applicant pool.

Spoiler

In	Out
Francis Cagigao (Chief Scout)
Radu Baico (Scout)	John Jensen (Scout)
Dejan Vasiljev (Scout)	Eddie Prenderville (Scout)
Hernán Llano (Scout)	Jonathan Vidallé (Scout)
Mark Prizant (Scout)	Roger Smith (Scout)
Luigi Del Sordo (Scout)	Romain Poirot (Scout)
Goran Vučevic (Scout)	Hans Gillhaus (Scout)
Ricard Correia (Scout)	George Mackie (Scout)
Pedro Brandão (Scout)
Mikael Hjelmberg (Scout)
Steven Hitchen (Scout)
Eric Abidal (Scout)
Stéphane Clerc (Analyst)
Gil Henriques (Analyst)

On the coaching front, the primary changes have been in the fitness and goalkeeping fronts. After posting advertisements, the following coaches have been signed from the pool of applicants.

Spoiler

In	Out
Grégory Dupont (Fit)	Shad Forsythe (Fit)
Mácio Sampaio (Fit)	Sam Wilson (Fit)
	Barry Solan (Fit)
Alessandro Nesta (Gk - Shot Stopping)	Iñaki Caña (Gk)
Hugo Oliviera (Gk - Handling and Distribution)

 

[ajw10]

First season with the new update. Pretty successful.

Holding went to Real Madrid! in January. Sold Lacazette for £4.5m, bought Giroud for £3m. Sarr came in on loan to replace Holding, Bennacer during January to replace Elneny.

I always turn the first window off with Arsenal. Got Kessie coming in on a free, just need to work out what to do with the striker situation

[Harper]

2023 July

Preseason Results

Spoiler

We kicked off a preseason tour of China with a 5-0 win over Shanghai Shenhua F.C. Mattias Svanberg, Manuel Akanji, Gianluca Scamacca (2), and Bukayo Saka provided the goals.

That was followed up with a 5-1 win over Guangzhou City F.C. On the score sheet were Amine Gouiri, Emile Smith Rowe, Bukayo Saka, Gianluca Scamacca, and Benjamin Šeško.

After the preseason visit to China, we visited AS Monaco and won 2-0 with goals from Bukayo Saka and Benjamin Šeško.

Two days later, the Emirates hosted Hoffenheim for a tune-up match that ended 3-1. The ‘second XI’ started and finished the first half with a 2-0 lead through Martinelli and Svanberg. Reiss Nelson scored in the second half. With 20 minutes remaining, the ‘first XI’ was subbed in. Hoffenheim scored a late consolation goal in added time.

The final match of preseason saw Arsenal travel to and win 3-0 Stade Rennais FC. We started our ‘First XI’ with the exception of Kieran Tierney. Gabriel and Smith Rowe scored two goals in two minutes to provided a 2-0 lead going into halftime. Gabriel Martinelli, subbed on with the ‘Second XI’ scored in the final minute of regulation to finish off the match and pre-season schedule.

The first match of the season is a repeat of the 2021/22 Season Opener, a date with Brentford in West London.

Tactics

Spoiler

Our primary formation is a 4-3-3, featuring a defensive midfielder. This formation is intended to attack with intent. When Saka and Smith Rowe are playing together, they are instructed to swap positions. When playing on their natural side (Saka left, Smith Rowe right), they have personalized instructions to play as traditional wingers. The aim of this is to catch the opposition off guard with the change in position and manner of attack (sending in more crosses).

Similarly, if Martinelli and Gouiri are in the same lineup, they are instructed to rotate with each other between the left wing and forward position. The goal here is to draw the right back and central defender out of position and hopefully creating space for one or the other to take advantage of. In preseason, this also created room for Mattias Svanberg to occupy when he got forward from his midfield position.

If we're fortunate enough to get an early lead, we shift to a more possession oriented tactic that sees us slow the pace of the game down. Alternatively, if the direct approach isn't working, we'll change tack to this more patient and probing tactic, hoping to unlock a tightly packed defense. Players will still press the opposition, but forwards are instructed to engage attacking players closer to the the center of the pitch.

Towards the end of each half, usually with fewer than ten minutes remaining, we will shift to a more compact and defense first system. The goal here is to maintain positioning and clearing the ball away from our end. Players shouldn't be charging out to close down attackers. Pressure is invited, trusting that the central defenders and defensive midfielder will win the aerial duels.

 

Loan Watch

Spoiler

Youth development is a priority, ideally to train players for the first team, but also provide talented players that can make the grade elsewhere (and supplement our transfer budget in the process). Our primary concern is for players to receive as much playing time as possible. If this means supplementing their salaries, so be it.

The club has come to an affiliation agreement with Luton Football Club. The arrangement will allow Arsenal to send young players to the Championship side. Queens Park Rangers, Leyton Orient, and Millwall were also under consideration. Luton was selected due to the club’s good training facilities and its anticipated move to a new stadium in the coming years. In the immediate future, Omar Rekik has gone to Luton for the duration of the season. It was originally planned for Omar to stay at Arsenal, train with the first team, and start all Carabao Cup matches. With the finalization of this agreement, we reassessed and determined that week in, week out appearances would be better for his development.

Player	Team	Fee
Folarin Balogun	Middlesborough	£250k
Omari Hutchinson	Shrewsbury	-
Joel Ideho	Raith	-
Miguel Azeez	Barnsley	-
Marcelo Flores	Ipswich	-
Mika Biereth	Oxford	-
Catalin Cîrjan	Fotbal Club Rapid 1923	-
Ovie Ejeheri	Wealdstone	-
Karl Jakob Hein	Sheffield United	-
Jordan McEneff	Braintree	-
Booke Norton-Curry	Leyton Orient	-
Omar Rekik	Luton	-
Charlie Patino	Luton	-
Jack Henry-Francis	Cliftonville	-
Auston Trusty	FC Augsburg	£8.25k

The Departures

Spoiler

The departure lounge is emptying quickly. Three flights departed on July 8. Hector Bellerín departed for Paris Saint-Germain for a fee of £22.5m. Konstantinos Mavropanos returned to Stuttgart, where he spent the previous season on loan, for £7.5m. Surprisingly, the move was not the work of Sven Mislintat. ‘Diamond Eyes’ departed Stuttgart for Borussia Monchengladbach. This upheaval in the boardroom may explain why the optional clause in the Greek defenders loan deal was not executed. Regardless, the Germans got their defender in the end.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles followed Mavropanos to Germany. Initially, Hoffenheim offered an exorbitant £30m for the Birdwatcher. Unfortunately, the player did not agree to terms with the German outfit. Instead, the cold as ice penalty taker found himself with wings, moving to Leipzig for a £20m fee.

Lucas Torriera had his pick of Turin and Madrid. Both Juventus and Real Madrid offered structured £25m fees for the player: £10m upfront, £10m in one installment, and £5m if the player makes 50 league appearances. The Uruguayan opted for Spain, a surprise given his successful stints in Italy.

Pablo Marí had a surprising number of suitors. Real Sociedad, Lyon, Atalanta, Wolves, and Fiorentina all submitted bid for the central defender. The Spaniard opted to ply his trade in a seventh different federation (France), moving to Lyon for £10m.

Finally, Alex Rúnarsson departed for Nîmes for £1.2m.

These six exits relieve £329k from the wage budget.

Additional the departures of Kido Taylor-Hart, Mazeed Ogungbo, Zane Monlouis, Hubert Graczyk, Nathan Butler-Oyedeji, and Alex Kirk and added approximately £400k to the transfer budget.

Out
Player	Fee	Installments	Incentives	Salary
Nicolas Pépé	£30,000,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£140,000.00
Granit Xhaka	£30,000,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£100,000.00
Hector Bellerin	£22,500,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£110,000.00
Ainsley Maitland-Niles	£20,000,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£54,000.00
Bernd Leno	£15,000,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£100,000.00
Cédric Soares	£12,500,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£65,000.00
Lucas Torreira	£10,000,000.00	£10,000,000.00	£5,000,000.00	£75,000.00
Matteo Guendouzi	£9,500,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£50,000.00
Pablo Marí	£7,500,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£50,000.00
Konstantinos Mavropanos	£7,500,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£25,000.00
Jordi Osei-Tutu	£1,300,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£2,000.00
Alex Rúnarsson	£1,200,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£15,000.00
Alexander Lacazette	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00	£180,000.00
Mohamed Elneny	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00	£50,000.00
Totals	£177,000,000.00			-£1,016,000.00

Arrivals

Spoiler

With the most glaring holes in the squad filled (and performing well in early friendlies), our transfer business is mostly largely complete. There are some concerns at right back and right wing, but with limited maneuverability vis-a-vis Champions League squad registration and home grown quotas, options are limited. The decision to loan Omar Rekik to Luton has alleviated this to some degree. Although he is 20 years old, he had not been at Arsenal long enough to qualify as a U21 player under the UEFA regulations. Daniel Ballard, on the other hand is a homegrown player and can provide cover in defense and midfield, if required.

After a successful trial period, David Stockdale has accepted a contract to be my emergency back up goalkeeper. Fingers crossed that he never has to put on the gloves. Stockdale is not expected to be registered for the Champions League squad, so will only be available if the unthinkable happens, and both Ramsdale and Turner go down with an injury.

At right back, we were presented with an intriguing solution for a short-term rotational option. With Leeds relegated, several players demanded transfers. One of those players was the determined right back, Luke Ayling. Given the unique predicament I found myself in, Ayling’s status as a Hale End boy, along with his veteran presence provided a solution to my club home-grown predicament. He’s also noted as a leader by my scouts, which is a trait that is lacking with the churn in my squad.

With several players departing at the end of contracts, and more going out on loan, attention has shifted to filling out the U18 and U23 ranks. I am not personally handling negotiations on these transfers and contracts. If and when the recruitment team identifies a talent that intrigues me, I forward the recommendation to Edu to negotiate the finer details.

The first such incoming is Samed Baždar, joining from FK Partizan Beograd for a fee of £750k, with no other incentives or sell-on fees attached.

Edu agreed a £10.25m deal with Bristol City for the 18 year old English winger Alex Scott. After further deliberation, we abandoned the deal. The player's performances did not warrant the transfer fee that was agreed or the wage his agent demanded.

In
Player	Fee	Installments	Incentives	Salary
Ryan Gravenberch	£24,000,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£93,000.00
Manuel Akanji	£16,000,000.00	£0.00	£1,500,000.00	£66,000.00
Amine Gouiri	£16,000,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£60,000.00
Gianluca Scamacca	£15,500,000.00	£0.00	£3,750,000.00	£65,000.00
Mattias Svanberg	£7,500,000.00	£0.00	£2,500,000.00	£57,000.00
Benjamin Šeško	£7,500,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£15,000.00
Matt Turner	£5,000,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£16,500.00
Luke Ayling	£2,600,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£46,000.00
Samed Baždar	£775,000.00	£0.00	£0.00	£5,750.00
Boubacar Kamara	£0.00	£0.00		£65,000.00
David Stockdale	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00	£5,500.00
Totals	-£94,875,000.00			£494,750.00

Recruitment Planning

The general focus of scouts is to identify young talent on the British Isles. Ideally, our own academy will furnish this talent.

Our transfer and contract dealings have resulted in a transfer profit of £82.125m and wage savings of £521k per week. The finance department has informed me that we have £145m available for transfer fees and associated costs, and £502k per week (£26m per year) for salaries.

Right Back

Spoiler

At this time, our recruitment team is focusing on finding a young right back to provide a longer term solution to provide competition and rotational option for Takehiro Tomiyasu. Thus far, the targets my scouts have identified are promising. We will spend time scouting these players before making a final decision.

Player	Team	Status
Max Aarons	Norwich	Scouting
Dodo	Shakhtar Donetsk	Scouting
Jurriën Timber	Ajax	Unlikely (Other Transfer)
Mert Müldür	Sassuolo	Scouting
Lutsharel Geertruida	Feyenoord	Scouting
Ben Johnson	West Ham	Scouting

Defensive Midfielder

Spoiler

My scouts will also be instructed to look for defensive midfielders. Thomas Partey’s contract expires in 2025. We anticipate Boubacar Kamara will become our first choice defensive midfielder. Omar Rekik may be ready to compete for the backup role, but we will want another quality player in this vital position. Ambitiously, I have leaked to the press that Declan Rice is my top transfer target. My staff informs me that he would fit well with the personalities in my squad and he would immediately become a team leader in the dressing room. If we can get him unsettled enough for West Ham to drop their asking price, we may pounce on the opportunity to sign a top quality, home grown defensive midfielder.

Player	Team	Status
Declan Rice	West Ham	Declared Top Target - Unsettled
João Palhinha	Sporting Clube de Portugal	Scouting
Trevor Chalobah	Chelsea	Scouting
Jude Bellingham	Borussia Dortmund	Scouting
Aurélien Tchouameni	AS Monaco	Scouting
Edson Álvarez	Ajax	Scouting
João Gomes	Flamengo	Scouting
Aster Vranckx	Wolfsburg	No Interest - New Contract
Marco Kana	Anderlecht	Scouting
Mamady Diambou	RB Salzburg	Scouting
Kalvin Phillips	Leeds	Unlikely (Other Transfer)
Maxence Caqueret	Lyon	Scouting (Bosman)
Tyler Adams	RB Leipzig	Scouting

Right Wing

Spoiler

As stated, Reiss Nelson is getting his shot at the Arsenal after a successful spell at Feyenoord. That doesn’t mean we’re not planning for upgrades. Bukayo Saka, as talented as he is, cannot play every game in a season that has Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup, and Carabao Cup matches. The following players are currently on our shortlist for Right Wing

Player	Team	Status
Fábio Vieira	Futebol Clube do Porto	Unlikely (Other Transfer)
Moussa Diaby	Bayer Leverkusen	Unlikely (Doubtful Interest)
Cole Palmer	Manchester City	Unlikely (Cost)
Karim Adeyemi	RB Salzburg	Scouting
Michael Olise	Crystal Palace	Scouting
Harvey Elliot	Liverpool	Unlikely (Cost)
João Mário	Futebol Clube do Porto	Scouting
Ângelo	Santos	Scouting
Liam Miller	Basel	Insufficient Quality
Renyer	Santos	Scouting
Mikkel Damsgaard	Sampdoria	Scouting
Alexis Saelemaekers	A.C. Milan	Scouting

 

Contracts

Spoiler

Daniel Ballard signed a four year deal worth £3m (£15.5k per week) that will keep him at the club until 2026. Ballard has progressed each season. Ballard will form an emergency third pairing defense with Rob Holding for this season, while also filling in as a defensive midfielder, if necessary. His contract and home grown status gives us with flexibility to sell Rob Holding while staying within home grown regulations, if the need arises.

 

Backroom Staff

Spoiler

During our monthly staff meeting, the management team indicated that I should consider adding another member to my coaching staff. Among the suggestions offered was Kolo Toure. The Invincible accepted a 3.5k per week contract to join my coaching staff, pending approval of his work permit.

I also took the initiative to reach out to the legendary Dennis Bergkamp to offer him a coaching position. He previously discussed in an interview with FourFourTwo that he was open to returning to the technical area and Arsenal. With vacancies on the coaching staff and a generally young squad, this seemed the best opportunity for the Non-Flying Dutchman to be welcomed back in an official capacity around London Colney and the Emirates. Bergkamp quickly accepted the offer, but cannot join until the Home Office signs off on the move, which is expected on August 8th.

The Captaincy

Spoiler

The churn in the squad has left a leadership void. With captain Alexander Lacazette and vice captain Granit Xhaka. The fact that Luke Ayling, having left the club on a free in 2010, returns 12 years later and is immediately a highly influential player in the dressing room illustrates this point.

The after much deliberation, Kieran Tierney has been selected as the newest club captain. Tierney’s appointment makes him the first permanent British captain in 20 years, following the retirement of Tony Adams in 2002. Tierney also becomes the first Scot to captain Arsenal in nearly half a century. It was 47 years ago, 1975, when Bertie Mee named Eddie Kelly captain of Arsenal. The selection has not been made official yet.

We have not settled on a vice captain at this time. Aaron Ramsdale, Thomas Partey, and Ben White are among the contenders. Luke Ayling's immediate stature in the dressing room has given us pause. Although he was critical of the training methods he experienced under Steve Bould's tutelage, he seems to have taken very quickly to an Arsenal that is substantially different than the one he left in 2010.

 

Squad Number Updates

Spoiler

Current  Number	Player	Previous Number	Vacated By
1	Aaron Ramsdale	32	Bernd Leno
2	Takehiro Tomiyasu	2	Hector Bellerín
3	Kieran Tierney	3
4	Ben White	4
5	Thomas Partey	5
6	Gabriel	6
7	Bukayo Saka	7
8	Martin Ødegaard	8
9	Gianlucca Scamacca	-	Alexander Lacazette
10	Emile Smith Rowe	10
11	Ryan Gravenberch	-	Lucas Torriera
12	Benjamin Šeško	-	Willian
13	David Stockdale	-	Alex Rúnarsson
14	Gabriel Martinelli	35	Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
15	Boubacar Kamara	-	Ainsley Maitland-Niles
16	Rob Holding	16
17	Luke Ayling	-	Cédric Soares
18	William Saliba	-	Takehiro Tomiyasu
19	Reiss Nelson	24	Nicolas Pépé
20	Nuno Taveres	20
21	Daniel Ballard	-	Calum Chambers
23	Albert Sambia Lokonga	23
24	Amine Gouiri	-	Reiss Nelson
25	Charlie Patino	87	Mohamed Elneny
26	Matt Turner	-	Emiliano Martinez
30	Eddie Nketiah	30
32	Mattias Svanberg	-	Aaron Ramsdale
36	Manuel Akanji	-

 

Squad Registration Status

Spoiler

Player	Home Grown	PL U21	UEFA U21
Aaron Ramsdale	Nation	-	-
Ben White	Nation	-	-
Rob Holding	Nation	-	-
David Stockdale	Nation	-	-
Emile Smith Rowe	Club	-	-
Luke Ayling	Club	-	-
Reiss Nelson	Club	-	-
Daniel Ballard	Club	-	-
Eddie Nketiah	Club	-	-
Bukayo Saka	Club	Y	Y
Gabriel Martinelli	Club	Y	Y
Charlie Patino	Club	Y	-
Ryan Gravenberch	-	Y	-
Benjamin Šeško	-	Y	-
William Saliba	-	Y	-
Takehiro Tomiyasu	-	-	-
Kieran Tierney	-	-	-
Thomas Partey	-	-	-
Gabriel	-	-	-
Martin Ødegaard	-	-	-
Gianlucca Scamacca	-	-	-
Boubacar Kamara	-	-	-
Nuno Taveres	-	-	-
Albert Sambia Lokonga	-	-	-
Amine Gouiri	-	-	-
Matt Turner	-	-	-
Mattias Svanberg	-	-	-
Manuel Akanji	-	-	-

Around the World

Spoiler

The football world’s worst kept secret was confirmed with Kylian Mbappé joining Real Madrid on a free transfer. The French superstar signed a four year deal worth €100m (€500k per week).

Paris Saint-Germain signed Harry Kane from our rivals for £103m (€122m). The fee could rise to £123m (€144m). Gooners will be relieved at the departure of the Hale End reject turned England captain (and North London Derby record goal-scorer). However, there is an underlying feeling that the fee received will ultimately help the rivals sustain a challenge.

In a surprising move, F.C. Bayern completed the signing of Richarlison, parting with £51m (€61m), rising to £61m (€73m).

Hoffenheim raided relegated Leeds for Raphinha in exchange for £34m (€40.5m). The fee may rise to £41m (€48.5m)

Ajax has received offers from Bayern and Dortmund for their latest young and talented defender, Jurrién Timber. The German contenders have both bid in the region of £35m (€42m). The defender is also a target of mine for a longer term option at right back. The current price tag eliminates him from consideration.

Around the League

Just to keep an eye on moves our league opposition have made.

Spoiler

Tottenham

Having received a nine figure fee for Harry Kane, it was anticipated that Spurs would be heavily involved in the transfer window. Thus far, their transfer business has been very limited. Aside from an £18.5m fee to secure Mads Bech Sørensen from Brentford, Spurs have limited themselves to free transfers for their incomings.

Franck Kessié arrived from A.C. Milan. The midfielder claimed to have preferred Spurs for more guaranteed playing time, but with his contract details now confirmed, it’s likely that Spurs just offered more money (their £83k pw to my £75k pw). Thus far, he has missed all of the preseason with a torn groin muscle that he suffered at the beginning of preseason.

Andrea Carboni, a 21 year old central defender, arrived from Cagliari. Christian Eriksen turned down offers from West Ham and Newcastle to be reunited with Antonio Conte and Daniel Levy.

Shockingly, Alexander Lacazette opted to stay in London. After considering offers from Brentford and Tottenham, the Frenchman opted for a move to N17. This will certainly sully any fond memories that Gooners developed for him as he scored eight goals in eight starts down the stretch to end Arsenal’s five year absence from the Champions League.

Chelsea

The West End Londoners have been suspiciously quit. The only new signing comes in the form of Ferdi Kadıoğlu from Fenerbahçe A.Ş. on a free transfer.

Manchester City

The most substantial move made by a Premier League club not named Arsenal sees 2018 World Cup winner and 2020 Champions League winner Benjamin Pavard move to Manchester City from Bayern Munich for fee that could ultimately cost £32.5m (initially £27m).

Wolves

Wolves won the battle for coveted left back Owen Wijndal, arriving from AZ Alkmaar In a deal that could cost £27m (initially £22.5m)

Manager Changes

Team	Manager	Replacing
Leeds	André Villas-Boas (Unemployed)	Marcelo Bielsa (Sacked - Previous Season)
Leicester	Albert Roca (Unemployed)	Brendan Rodgers (Sacked - Previous Season)
Manchester United	Simone Inzaghi (Inter)	Ralf Rangnick (End of Contract)
Newcastle	Arne Slot (Feyenoord)	Eddie Howe (Sacked - Previous Season)

Edited March 8, 2022 by Harper

[Telegram Sam]

2026/27 Season - Part 3

Going into January, I didn't feel the squad needed strengthening in any particular position but I was keeping my eye out for the right player if he came along. We'd earned some big money in the summer through player sales and the money was starting to feel like it was burning a hole in my pocket, and ultimately I couldn't resist going big when a certain someone caught my eye.

Frenkie de Jong had only 18 months left on his deal at Barcelona and I moved early in the window to secure his signature. At 29 he was perhaps past his peak, but for the type of player he is I figured he'd still be a world class midfielder in his early thirties and as a true Model Citizen I was delighted to add him to the squad.

There wasn't much in terms of outgoings, although I did sell Son Heung-min to FC Porto for £7m almost one year after he arrived. It was an ill-advised transfer and he was nothing more than a fringe player for us during his time here, so I was happy to see hime gone. Getting his £135k p/w wage packet off of the books was great for our finances at the very least.

Bayern Munich had been publicly courting Dominik Szoboszlai for months now, so I was braced for a bid. After rejecting their first three bids, they came back in with this mammoth offer:

It was a reasonable bid but I was in no mind to let Szoboszlai leave mid-season, even if he at first told me he was desperate for a move. I was able to persuade him to stay and I rejected this final bid, although I anticipate they may return in the summer where I may be more open to allowing for a move.

We started 2027 with a narrow 2-1 win at home over Liverpool, with goals from Declan Rice and Dušan Vlahović earning us the victory. Aaron Ramsdale saved a penalty from Mo Salah before half-time to keep us in the lead, and despite being under heavy pressure for the second half, we managed to keep things as they were to secure a huge win in terms of the title race. Liverpool had just lost their last game at home to Manchester City 3-2, so these back-to-back defeats put them five points behind us with just under half the season remaining.

A 4-0 win over Swansea in the FA Cup and a 2-0 win over Norwich in the league kept up our perfect start to the year, but things soon took a turn for a worse. Away at Wolves, we took an early lead through Declan Rice before Wolves levelled through Arthur Cabral. We battered our opponents for the rest of the game but failed to score, only for Fábio Silva to pop up and score a winner for the home side with just over ten minutes left to play. The match stats from the end of the match show how unlucky we were:

We then conspired to lose our next game away at Leeds, making it back-to-back 2-1 defeats on the road. Unlike the Wolves game, we were really poor in this one and Leeds deserved their winner despite it coming with only minutes left to play. This made me seriously question the structure and security of the 3-3-3-1 formation I had used for most of the season as in both games our vulnerabilities at the back had been ruthlessly exposed. This put us 7 points behind Manchester City after 24 games played:

Wins over Stoke and Brighton in the Premier League, as well as Crewe in the FA Cup, lifted the mood a little before Manchester City came to visit the Emirates. It was a huge game given our recent poor form and a win was necessary to help us claw back some points on the league leaders. It didn't go to plan and City edged us out 1-0 at home thanks to a goal from Benjamin Šeško. We had our chances but failed to make them pay and this defeat left us 8 points behind City with only 11 games left to play. I started to believe at this point that retaining the title was pretty unlikely.

We responded positively to this latest setback, however, with a goal from Jamal Musiala earning us a 1-0 win at the San Sario in our Champions League. The goal was a stunning curled effort into the top corner in what was a poor quality affair, with me switching back to the 4-3-3 following our struggles with the 3-3-3-1. In the return leg, we ran out 2-1 winners to earn a passage through to the quarter-finals.

Things also started to look better for us in the league, too. We had responded to the City defeat with 5-0 and 4-0 batterings of Everton and Fulham respectively, before then earning a hard-fought 2-1 win at St. James' Park over Newcastle. In the same time, City had managed to draw 1-1 at home to Fulham before losing 4-2 away at Everton, putting us three points behind them with 30 games played. We were still third with Liverpool one point ahead of us.

Our hopes of retaining the FA Cup were unfortunately dashed as we fell 2-0 at home to Norwich. I had thought the 2-1 defeat to Wolves was frustrating, but this was another level:

Their second goal came from Wojciech Szczęsny deciding to run miles out of his goal, failing to win possession and allowing the Norwich player to fire home from the edge of the box into an empty net. It was a hugely frustrating game and one that was consequential as the board had expected us to reach the final this season.

In the Champions League, we were due to face Manchester City (again) and our woes against them continued as we lost 2-0 at the Etihad in the first leg. City had completed had our number this season and had beaten us three times without us even scoring a single goal. In the return leg, we struggled to get back into the game despite having more control than we normally do against City, but we were given a lifeline in the 67th minute as Szoboszlai scored a penalty to bring us back into the tie. A minute later, Bukayo Saka stepped up to score a stunning goal and level the tie:

The momentum was with us but neither side were able to score, so we went to penalties. After both sides missed two of their first five penalties we went to sudden death, and eventually managed to defeat Manchester City after Aaron Ramsdale saved their eighth penalty of the night and Saka slotted home to earn himself hero status.

It was a huge victory, not only so that we qualified for the semi-finals but also the belief it would give us going into the final weeks of the season. City had wobbled in recent weeks and we just needed to keep winning to stay in the title fight as we also focused on Europe. Interestingly, we were drawn against Wolfsburg in the semi-final—they were 12th in the Bundesliga but had beaten Manchester United and Barcelona to get this far—with PSG and Bayern Munich contesting the other semi-final.

Wins over Crystal Palace, Southampton and Sheffield United had kept up our momentum in the league and actually gotten is into top spot as both Liverpool and City had slipped up again. With five games remaining, the title race was by far the most exciting (and closest) I'd seen in my six seasons here:

Two home games against Bournemouth and Leicester should prove to be relatively straightforward, but things soon got trickier with two London derbies on the road coming before we hosted Manchester United at the Emirates on the final day.

Our first two games did indeed prove to be straightforward with 7-0 and 4-0 wins over Bournemouth and Leicester giving us six points while massively improving our goal difference. City responded in kind by beating Newcastle and Sheffield United 2-0 and 2-1 respectively; Liverpool could only manage a 1-1 draw with United before beating Norwich 3-1 on the road. 

Spurs would have to wait as we first faced off against Wolfsburg at home in the first leg of our Champions League semi-final. I knew they would pose us problems, but was perhaps guilty of underestimating our opponents as they took a 1-0 lead through Timo Werner in the first half, before then doubling their lead in the second through Magnus Mattsson. After making some changes and bringing on Emile Smith Rowe, however, we completely reversed the scoreline in the space of a few minutes with goals from Martin Ødegaard, Smith Rowe, and Vyacheslav Spirin turning things around. Further goals from Smith Rowe and Spirin made it 5-2 and capped off an incredible European night at the Emirates:

With our place in the Champions League final now looking pretty secure, attention turned back to the league and the first of our three final games to close out the league season. It was a thrilling game, with Spirin opening the scoring in the sixth minute before Adeyemi pulled Spurs back into the game with a header at the back post. We pushed Spurs back and kept threatening throughout, but disaster struck in the 63rd minute as Rúben Neves' free-kick hit the woodwork before bouncing back to Gabriel Jesus to tap in and give the home side a 2-1 lead.

It was a sickening feeling to know that we may lose our league title by losing against Spurs for the first time during my reign, but thankfully we managed to earn a point as Spirin got on the end of Saka's cross to score his second goal of the game. It was disappointing not to win but a point still kept us at the top of the table on goal difference after City and Liverpool both won their 36th games:

Our 5-2 win in the first leg against Wolfsburg allowed me to rotate heavily in the second game, and we ran out 4-2 winners in Germany to earn a 9-4 aggregate victory and make it through to the final. We would face Bayern Munich in the final after they put PSG's run to an end 2-0 on aggregate.

We faced an improved Chelsea side at Stamford Bridge; they were firmly in fourth place having spent a number of years outside the Champions League, and I knew after our draw with Spurs a win was an absolute necessity. We started well in what was an open game, with Vyacheslav Spirin continuing his fine run of goalscoring form to give us the lead after 21 minutes. Both sides threatened for the rest of the half but the first 45 minutes ended 1-0 to us. 

The second half got off to a perfect start as Jamal Musiala doubled our lead in the 50th minute with a placed finish into the bottom corner, but Lukaku fired one back for the home side on the hour mark. Chelsea pressed us in the final third of the game but we held firm to secure an absolutely vital win at the home of our London rivals. We would go into the final game of the season top of the league, level on points with Manchester City and a point ahead of Liverpool. Our goal difference was +18 better than City's, so a win against United and we'd retain our title.

The final day was upon us and I opted to stick with the 3-3-3-1, despite my concerns over it. We'd managed a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford and felt confident we'd secure victory against a poor United side, who were 9th going into the final day.

Things started brilliantly for us as Spirin sprung upon a suicide pass from the United goalkeeper and slotted home to give us a lead within 2 minutes of the game. Our lead was short-lived, however, as Hannibal slotted home an equaliser for the visitors in the 10th minute to make things pretty nervous. We were dominating the game but United looked dangerous on the counter, and the nerves soon turned to outright despair as Marcus Rashford fired home two goals to give United a 3-1 lead a half-time. With Liverpool winning at Stoke and City ahead against Spurs, it was looking like the title was slipping out of our grasp in the most painful of ways.

I ripped into the players at half-time and went with a 4-2-3-1 shape, recognising that the 3-3-3-1 was too risky a formation given the counter-attacking threat United posed. We started the second half well and managed to bring the score back to 2-3 thanks to a headed goal from Gabriel from a Szoboszlai free-kick. Minutes later, Bukayo Saka played an incredible cross-field ball to find Musiala on the right wing, and our record signing controlled the ball and slotted home an equaliser to make it 3-3 with 55 minutes on the clock. We'd clawed our way back into the game and now needed to find a winner to remain as champions.

United settled down defensively as we kept plugging away at them. Chances came and went but we continued to pressure them, and eventually a breakthrough came through the unlikeliest of sources:

Tino Livramento, who'd only scored a single goal for us in three seasons, stepped up to receive Musiala's pass and thundered in an incredible strike to give us a 4-3 lead in the 76th minute. It was a goal that would go down in history as we mounted an impressive comeback to defeat United and claim the Premier League title for the third time in four seasons. Feeling that the Arsenal fans had had enough stress for one day, Martin Ødegaard fired home a fifth goal from Jude Bellingham's cross to finish the scoring. We had done it, and not with a point to spare:

With the Premier League title secured, attentions turned to the Champions League as we faced off against Bayern Munich in Dortmund. I went back to a 4-3-3, knowing full well the 3-3-3-1 was out of the question with Mbappé playing down the wings, and hoped for the best.

In the end, it was relatively simple. Jamal Musiala struck twice either side of the half to down his former side, and we were European champions yet again.

For the third time we had won the Premier League and Champions League in the same season, although at times this season it'd looked like we'd win nothing. Retaining both titles was an immense achievement and signified our place as the dominant force in both England and Europe, and has left me thinking of what to aim for next. Nonetheless, we've built a squad for the ages here, and a number of the players can already claim to be bonafide legends of the club.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Telegram Sam

[Sysiphus]

I've really enjoyed following the thread this year, absolute quality saves that some of you have cooked up, supplied by great posts. Keep up the good work. Maybe I'll get back into an Arsenal save in the summer to pass the time until FM23 comes out, we'll see.

Edited March 10, 2022 by Sysiphus

[Telegram Sam]

6 hours ago, Sysiphus said:

I've really enjoyed following the thread this year, absolute quality saves that some of you have cooked up, supplied by great posts. Keep up the good work. Maybe I'll get back into an Arsenal save in the summer to pass the time until FM"# comes out, we'll see.

Please do! I've loved reading your career updates in the past.

[BrickCommo23]

Hi all,

Really enjoying reading everyone’s updates on this thread so thank you all for taking the time to write out your paths and decisions. It’s great how everyone takes such different approaches too but that’s the game, I guess!

So, two things from me; 1) Quick transfer update ahead of Season four 2) A hopefully half decent tactical post

Update

Like others, I generally enjoy the summer transfer window and getting the chance to pile in and get some more quality in the squad. However, I found myself looking around and not really seeing any obvious holes which needed filling. I flirted with Gavi, De Ligt (very tempted there), Meslier and Ansu Fati but a combination of wages and just not needing them meant I decided against bringing them in.

However, I was conscious that we had used the least players in the league last year (20) and I wanted to reassure myself we had a little bit more depth in case we had worse luck with injuries (without spending loads).

I settled on this lad to join Saliba, White and Gabriel in my back line – and he can also play DM – so the £35m upfront seemed like a good deal.

After that, my scouts found a couple of regens who *might* turn into world beaters.

Lopez comes straight to North London and will hopefully go great guns in the U21s and perhaps the occasional first team game. Moran is having another year at home before joining us.

In terms of departures – the one which hurt was Partey. In real life he’s been superb in the last few weeks but in my save he is slipping down the pecking order and even my coaches say his ability is declining so he’s gone to Benfica for a pretty cheap £20m (only £14m up front). I also needed to get the wage bill down – although with back to back CL runs and now a PL title you’d expect that to have increased more than it has.

The only other who might be on his way out is Balogun. He’s had a few loans without doing much and when you’ve got Haaland and Moukoko it feels like his opportunities will be very limited (but it would be with a heavy ‘virtual’ heart).

Part 2 – Tactics

I know this sounds ridiculous but despite winning the league last year, I was never massively keen on the way we played. The system was a bit of a fudge and I am pretty sure we relied upon the quality of our players. Fundamentally, it just wasn’t how I like my teams to play. Also, I knew I was fortunate to win the league with that point total – which was mainly a result of my away form.

So, I’ve had a think about how I want to play and what players I have at my disposal in order to implement it. I decided on a few key requirements:

1)      I like possession. Just a personal thing but I don’t like systems which create chances but have 50% (at best) possession
2)      I also really like the Half Back role. Purely from a style point of view rather than some deep seated tactical insight
3)      Lastly, I also like the side points people used to make about the Invincibles; they could pass you off the pitch but they could also kick you off the pitch too (ie, they were a big bunch) so I want to have a big side – particularly through the middle of the pitch.

Formation

This felt pretty obvious and straightforward. I have built the squad with a 4231/4411 system and therefore we are built accordingly:

-          Flat Back 4
-          One striker
-          Quality across midfield (both centrally and on the wings)

I have never had any luck with funky asymmetrical systems so really that leaves you with a 41221 (or the DM Wide as FM calls it).

So, the outline formation is like this:

I think the team instructions are pretty obvious. Essentially, it is shorter passing and high pressing.

However, I’ve also learnt from a few on here that in terms of team instructions, often times, less is more and you can use the Player Instructions to get a little more nuanced and affect the pattern of play you want to see.

LB: FB(s) – Get Further Forward (Tierney and Malacia also have these similar PPMs so they will provide an attacking threat on overlaps but also not disappear to far forward), cross from byline (to stop them lobbing crosses in from deep) and stay wider

CB: BPD(d) – Just shorter passing so they’re not trying too much Hollywood stuff

RB: WB(a) – This is aligned to the role of my AMR. But, I also have Reece James here and his stats and work rate means he can manage this and be a great attacking outlet, too. So, Stay Wider and cross from byline

DM: HB – Nothing fancy here, pass shorter and take fewer risks to make sure he’s giving it to the creative players around him

MCL: DLP(s) – I chose this as Hold Position is hard coded but it should also take advantage of Gravenberch’s passing range. This should help me to create an (almost) 3-1-6 in possession and allow the remaining players to be more attacking.

MCr: B2B(s) – After a bit of trial and error last season, I ended up with Bellingham as a B2B and he was immense, so I am loathe to change it. To help encourage him to be an attacking force I also have; Get Further Forward, Run With Ball and Shoot More. He’s also got a PPM of gets in opposition box which I think I trained in. Lastly, I added Tackle Harder to try and encourage the aggressive press at the front

AML: IW(s) – Probably quite typical; Get Further Forward, Roam From Position are added as is ‘Tackle Harder’ to help with the pressing.

FC: DLP(a) – This is slightly a work in progress but I want to stop my striker getting too isolated – particularly away from home. He also has tackle harder, roam from position and move into channels. I also added shoot more

AMR: IW(s) – This is a bit of a wrinkle as I am hoping to deploy Odegaard/ESR from this position and have them as a significant creative outlet (and not just a typical IW). So, as well as Tackle Harder, this chap also has roam from position and crucially (hopefully) sit narrower. I hope with a WB(a) coming from behind as well as B2B and striker ahead of him this will help to create another attacking outlet.

Note: I am doing some of these PIs from memory so I may be very slightly out on a couple of them.

This is probably my first choice XI:

Results so far

So, I have only completed pre-season and as per usual – I like to play a lot of lesser teams to get the fitness and tactical familiarity up. But, results (and stats/performances) are really encouraging and a second post will follow on that front.

If you still are, thanks for reading…

 

[KingLara]

Arsenal Season 1 – MAY / Season Review 

 

This was the table going into our final three matches of the season. Man United also having to play Liverpool was a huge bonus for us.  

Premier league table  - Played/Points/Goal Difference

1. Arsenal P 35 P 83 GD 48

2. Man Utd P 35 P 81 GD 59

3. Liverpool P 34 P 80 GD 69

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

EVERTON 1 – Doucore 73

ARSENAL 3 – Aubameyang 8, 22 Odegaard 24

In the only two Wednesday fixtures we travelled to Goodison Park the same night Liverpool journeyed in the other direction to play Crystal Palace. We did our job with a comfortable win. Palace came very close to doing us a huge favour before a 95^th  minute Salah penalty sealed a 2-1 for the reds.

Premier league table  - Played/Points/Goal Difference

1. Arsenal P 36 P 86 GD 50

2. Liverpool P 35 P 83 GD 70

3. Man Utd P 35 P 81 GD 59

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

BURNLEY 0

ARSENAL 1 – Nketiah 71

Bizzarly despite being a massive title deciding fixture and everything else that history brings United and Liverpool met at 3pm on Saturday in an untelevised game. We were also playing at the same time. With us unlikely to make up a 20 goal difference we needed United to not lose. An even game saw Pogba stab home 5 minutes from time for a 1-0 win. We didn’t have it all our own way ourselves. Having just some off the bench Nketiah grabbed the only goal of the game from our single shot on target.  

 

Before we met Liverpool in the Fa Cup final they played West Ham away. United were also playing at Spurs to complete the game in hands. Surely one would slip up? Not to be. Liverpool surviving for the last half hour with ten men to win 1-0 while Spurs blew a 2-0 lead with greenwood grabbing the winner in the 90^th minute. It left the table delicately poised going into the final game.

 

Premier league table  - Played/Points/Goal Difference

1. Arsenal P 37 P 89 GD 50

2. Man Utd P 37 P 87 GD 61

3. Liverpool P 37 P 86 GD 70

 

FA CUP FINAL

ARSENAL 1 – Aubameyang 38

LIVERPOOL 2 – Mir 2 Salah 48

With concentration fully on the league I wasn’t too bothered about the Fa Cup Final.  Ramsdale aside for cup keeper Leno we were at full strength.  Liverpool for reasons I still am not aware of left out Van Dijk. It was disappointing to concede at the start of both halves but overall Liverpool played better and deserved to win.

ARSENAL – Leno, Tierney, White Gabriel Tomiyasu Xhaka Partey Bale Saka Odegaard (Nketiah 68) Aubameyang

Subs not used: - Ramsdale, Holding, Lainer, Arthur, Martinelli, Pepe.

LIVERPOOL – Alisson, Robertson (Tsimikas 69), A-Arnold (Mazraoui 59), Konate, Matip, O-Chamberlain, Jones, Jota, Salah (Elliot 64) Mir.

Subs not used: - Kelleher Firminho Koumetio Gallacher

Match Stats – Shots(ot) – 9(6)/20(9) – Possession 56/44 - XG 1.60/1.89 – Fouls 8/14 Yellow Cards 2/1

Woodwork 0/0 - CCC 0/0 – Passes - 727(88%)/468(88%) – Av Rating 6.86/7.06

Man of Match – Andrew Roberston 8.0

 

PREMIER LEAGUE

ARSENAL 2 – Odegaard 52 Aubameyang 71

ASTON VILLA 0

We secured the title with a nervy win over villa. Both United and Liverpool also won. We started nervously and only had 40% possession In the first half. Unheard of in my reign. We clawed it back to 48 by the end of the game as I let the players know I wasn’t happy. Odegaard scored a great free kick and then Aubameyang sealed it with his 28^th league goal of the season. I hope to not leave it as late next season to secure the league but nice to get it done.

 

Final Table

Premier league table  - Played/Points/Goal Difference

1. Arsenal P 38 P 92 GD 53

2. Man Utd P 38 P 90 GD 62

3. Liverpool P 38 P 89 GD 72

4. Man City P 38 P 85 GD 49

5. Brentford P 38 P 69 GD 23

 

Chelsea finished 7^th, Spurs 9^th while Crystal Palace, Burnley and Watford were relegated. 12 points ended up separating 18^th and 17^th.

 

Bournemouth and Fulham were promoted automatically. West Brom beat Barnsley in the playoff final.

 

Premier league stats Top 10

Goals – Aubameyang, Ronaldo 28 Salah 27 Greenwood 23 C-Lewin 21 Adams 19 Bale, Wilson 18 Lukaku, Toney 17

Assists – B Fernandes 18 Robertson, Canos 14 Sancho 13 Buendia, Tomiyasu 12 A-Arnold Henrique (Everton) 10 W-Prowse, Fraser 9

AV R – Robertson 7.83, B Fernades 7.75 Ronaldo 7.65 De Bruyne 7.52 Origi 7.49 Salah 7.44 Matip, Van Dijk 7.41 Mane 7.37 K Walker 7.36

MOM – Ronaldo 10 Robertson, B Fernandes 9, De Bruyne 8 C-Lewin 7 Trossard Aubameyang Buendia Salah Tomiyasu 6

Clean Sheets – Alisson 24 Ramsdale, Ederson 18 Meslier 17 De Gea 14 Ferandez 12 Gollini Areola 11 Martinez 10 Darlow 9

 

Awards

 

Footballer of the Year – Andrew Roberston

Players Player of the Year – Andrew Robertson

Young Player of the Year – Mason Greenwood

Golden Glove – Alisson

Manager – Kinglara

Team of the Season – Ramsdale Roberston Tomiyasu White Gabriel Bale Xhaka B Fernandes Sancho Aubameyang Ronaldo

 

Arsenal in the Premier League

Home

P 19 W18 D1 L0 GF51 GA9

Away

P19 W10 D7 L2 GF24 GA13

Overall

P38 W28 D8 L2 GF75 GA22

 

Performance timeline

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Comparison Man United and Liverpool Performance Timelines

Man United 

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Liverpool

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Arsenal premier league stats

Goals – Aubameyang 28 Bale 18 Odegaard 7 Saka Nketiah 5 Pepe 4 Xhaka 2 Martinelli Tavares Holding S-Rowe Gabriel 1 

Assists – Tomiyasu 12 Odegaard Bale 7 Xhaka Saka 6 S-Rowe 5 Pepe 4 Partey Tierney 3 White Martinelli 2 Aubameyang 1

Mom – Tomiyasu Aubameyang 6 Bale 5 Odegaard Ramsdale 3 S-Rowe Gabriel 2 Tavares White Holding Nketiah 1

 

Arsenal Total Season stats – Played /Goals/Asssists/Mom/Av R

Tomiyasu P 42 G 0 A 12 Mom 7 AvR 7.34

White P 42 G 0 A 2 Mom1 AvR 7.11

Gabriel P 40(+1) G1 A1 Mom 2 AvR 7.25

Xhaka P 39 G 2 A 8 Mom 0 AvR 7.12

Odegaard P 38(+6) G7 A 8 Mom 3 AvR 7.03

Ramsdale P 37 CS 18 A 0 Mom 3 AvR 7.14

Bale P 35(+8) G18 A 8 Mom 5 AvR 7.15

Aubameyang P 35(+1) G 32 A 1 Mom 7 AvR 7.31

Tierney P 31(+3) G 0 A 3 Mom 0 AvR 7.07

Partey P 29(+2) G 0 A 3 Mom 0 AvR 7.03

Saka P 27(+7) G 6 A 8 Mom 0 Av R 6.95

Pepe P 23(+15) G 9 A 7 Mom 2 AvR 7.00

Tavares P 19(+5) G 1 A 0 Mom 1 AvR 6.96

S-Rowe P 17 (+21) G 1 A 8 Mom 2 AvR 7.03

Martinelli P 17(+13) G 6 A 2 Mom 1 AvR 6.83

Nketiah P 16(+6) G 9 A 0 Mom 1 AvR 6.97

Lokonga P 15(+11) G 1 A 2 Mom 0 AvR 6.94

Leno P 14 CS 8 A 0 Mom 3 AvR 7.49

Holding P 11(+1) G 1 A 1 Mom 1 AvR 7.43

Arthur P 8(+6) G 0 A 0 Mom 0 Av R 6.93

Lainer P 4 G 0 A 0 Mom 0 Av R 7.30

Umtiti P 3 G 0 A 0 Mom 0 Av R 6.90

Patino P 1(+9) G 0 A 0 Mom 0 Av R 6.72

Hutchinson P 0(+5) G 0 A 0 Mom 0 Av R 6.70

 

Mari P 6 G 0 A 0 Mom 0 Av R 7.40

Elneny P 5(+3) G 0 A 0 Mom 0 Av R 6.84

Cedric P 4(+2) G 0 A 2 Mom 0 Av R 7.12

M-Niles P 3(+7) G 0 A 0 Mom 1 Av R 7.08

Balogun P 0(+1) G 0 A 0 Mom 0 Av R 6.60

 

Arsenal All Comps

Played 51 Won 29 Drew 9 Lost 3 Goals For 95 Goals Against 28 Gola Difference +67 Win Percentage 76%

 

Final Bits

Real Madrid won the Champions League. They beat Man United 3-2. Eden Hazard scoring the late winner in stoppage time.

Napoli were Europa League champions beating Lyon 2-1 while West Ham made it to the final of the conference league but lost to Roma.

Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern and PSG all won their respective leagues.

Chelsea sacked Tuchel.

 

Final Summary

 

Very pleased to win the league and also the Carabao Cup. Bigger fish to fry next season as I want a good run back in Europe.

I plan to sign a striker and a central midfielder with one already done (he’s Serbian) but we also have a few loans returning so need to see how the squad is shaped. Plus you never know what curveballs the summer window can bring.

I wasn’t happy with the goal output. I feel we were about 30 goals light. 95 goals in 51 matches is not good enough.  I want double figures in goals and assists for all of the attacking players next season. 

Edited March 9, 2022 by KingLara

[Harper]

Edit: Pictures restored

August 2022

On the eve of our Premier League opener, the boardroom felt it necessary to remind me of their expectations. I have to say, given the transfer business we’ve completed and the stellar preseason we had, I’m left a bit disappointed by their low bar for success. Fortunately, the players have higher expectations. At the beginning of training camp, I told the players I expect to qualify for the Champions League via the league and progress to the knockout stages of Champions League. I was meet with enthusiasm and approval. I know Arsenal have been out of the competition for a while, but this is a good bunch of lads and we’re going to surprise a few people.

Fixtures

Competition	Opponent	Venue	Result
Premier League	Brentford	Away	1-1 Ødegaard (1’) Pinnock (2’)
Premier League	West Ham	Home	1-0 Svanberg (21’)
Premier League	Blackburn	Home	2-1 Scamacca (20') Tierney (68')
Premier League	Everton	Away	3-0 Scamacca (11’, 21’, 83’)

 

Brentford Analysis

Spoiler

A wonderful start ending in frustration. Martin Ødegaard scored 37 seconds into the match. We were flying. We’ll need to work on set-piece defense. Gabriel left Ethan Pinnock in acres of space on the far post and he easily powered home an uncontested header a little over a minute later. We weren’t without chances. A few headers glanced just wide, while Benjamin White hit the post twice. We won the xG battle 1.69 - 0.63, but lost possession battle, 54-46%. In an effort to secure three points, Mattias Svanberg, Amine Gouiri, and Gabriel Martinelli were all introduced from the bench, but none were able to contribute anything significant, with no shots registered.

West Ham Analysis

Spoiler

After conceded a poor set-piece goal against Brentford, we revisited our corner defense and attacking routines. With new players in the squad, this should have been done sooner. That’s on me.

The week leading up to the match was frustrating. On Tuesday, we lost Martin Ødegaard to a knee injury (pulled ligaments) and then Bukayo Saka the next day to an ankle injury. Both will be out for 2-3 weeks, both will likely return after the September international break. Mattias Svanberg and Reiss Nelson will make their first starts of the season.

A match in which we were in control for most of the match, we had 59% possession and won the xG battle 1.55 - 0.58. Mattias Svanberg, starting for an injured Ødegaard, scored his first goal for Arsenal. We adjusted our corner defending and dedicating some training sessions to the new routines. The focus seemed to be beneficial as West Ham’s five corners were well defending. West Ham did get a fortunate deflection, but Tomiyasu was there to make a goal line clearance at the near post.

Boubacar Kamara and Manuel Akanji made their debuts from the bench as we closed out the match.

 

Blackburn Analysis

Spoiler

I turned out an unchanged side from the previous match against West Ham. We generated seven shots on target, had 67% possession, and a 92% pass completion rate. The game should not have been as tight as it was, with three clear cut chances and two half chances. We won the xG battle 2.45 - 0.04.

We went behind on West Ham’s only shot, a header from set pieces. Benjamin White lost his dual with Darragh Lenihan who headed home a Tom Cleverly free kick to take the lead (15’). Gianluca Scamacca scored his first Arsenal goal from the spot after we were awarded a penalty for a handball by Lewis Travis (20’). Reiss Nelson was substituted off with a groin injury (41’). Without a natural right winger in the squad, Emile Smith Rowe was shift to the right and Martinelli took up his familiar spot on the left flank. The Captain, Kieran Tierney, scored the winner from a free kick (68’). Darragh Lenihan was sent off after a second yellow (91’).

Reiss Nelson’s injury was not severe and the right winger will not miss significant time.

Everton Analysis

Spoiler

The trip to Goodison Park has been rough for Arsenal the last few years. With a 1-1-3 record on our last five visits to the Tyneside stadium, I was hoping to turn our fortunes around.

We were fortunate to have Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, and Albert Sambi Lokonga return from injury and be in the match day squad. Gianluca Scamacca demonstrated his ability with a hat trick performance and led Arsenal to our first win away to Everton since 2017/18 Season. Scamacca was assisted by Emile Smith Rowe, Martin Ødegaard, and Reiss Nelson.

Luke Ayling made his debut, replacing an injured Kieran Tierney. We learned after the match that The Captain suffered a pulled hamstring and will be out of action for two weeks. Fortunately, that two weeks will coincide with an international break. Tierney will likely miss our first game back, against Peterborough in the Carabao Cup, and should be fit for our next league match (Aston Villa @ Emirates Stadium).

 

Champions League Draw

Real Madrid is a real challenge and the likely group winner. We’ll be lucky to get a point from the two matches against them. I’m confident we’ll win the remaining two home games. Estádio José Alvalade is always a hard venue to get a result in. If we perform to our full capabilities, I think we can win. Freiburg is a mystery to us and will be a fun matchup, whatever happens.

Injuries

The injuries to Tierney and Tavares are most concerning. While they won't miss significant time with these injuries, we'll have to monitor both players to prevent recurrence. This injuries occurring in the   final days of the window forced me into a panic, opting to search for a third left back to provide ample cover, should the worst come to pass.

Player	Date	Injury	Context	Duration
Rob Holding	July 29	Calf	U23 Match	3 weeks
Albert Sambi Lokonga	August 8	Knee	Training	4 days
Martin Ødegaard	August 9	Knee	Training	2 weeks
Bukayo Saka	August 10	Ankle	Training	2 weeks
Nuno Tavares	August 11	Achilles tendonitis	Training	5-7 weeks
Kieran Tierney	August 27	Hamstring	v. Everton	2 weeks

 

Tactics

I tweaked our approach to matches after the first three games. In my primary tactic, a 4-3-3, my instructions changes to try to control the ball more and be slightly less aggressive. These changes came between the Blackburn and Everton matches.

Spoiler

In Possession
Previous	New
	Slightly Direct
Pass Into Space	Pass Into Space
	Play Out of Defence
Work Ball Into Box
Play for Set Pieces	Play for Set Pieces
Be More Expressive
Overlap Left

 

In Transition
Previous	New
	Distribute to CB
	Distribute to FB
Distribute Quickly	Distribute Quickly
Counter-press	Counter-press
Counter	Counter

 

Out of Possession
Previous	New
Force Outside	Force Outside
Higher Line	Standard Line
Higher Engagement	Standard Engagement
Much More Pressing	More Pressing
Prevent Short GK	Prevent Short GK
Get Stuck In	Get Stuck In
Use Offside Trap

 

 

Transfer Business

Spoiler

I had a £45m deal agreed and contract offered to Nicolo Zaniolo. After the injuries to Kieran Tierney (hamstring) and Nuno Tavares (Achilles tendonitis), I withdrew the contract and canceled the deal.

Fearful of Tierney or Tavares suffering from recurring injuries, I opted to reinforce my left back options with Tyrick Mitchell. We reach favorable terms for a home grown player. £15m up front and and a wage of £51k per week. Up to an additional £15m could be paid: £3m after 50 appearances, £0.1m per appearance for 30 appearances (£3m), £0.5m after one international appearance, £3m after ten international appearances, £2.5m if Arsenal win the Premier League in 2023 or 2024, £2.5m if Arsenal appear in the Champions League Semifinals (no expiration), and £0.5m if Arsenal win the FA Cup.

Two youth signings were completed by Edu. Robert Renan, an 18 year old center back from Corinthians, and Román Vega, an 18 year old left back from Argentinos Juniors, were purchased to fill out the U23 team.

The signings of Renan and Vega take the club to five U-21 signings from abroad for the year. The other three being Benjamin Šeško, Ryan Gravenberch, and Samed Baždar.

Type	Player	From	Immediate Fee	Incentives	Maximum Fee	Wage
Permanent	Tyrick Mitchell	Crystal Palace	£15m	£15m	£30m	51k p/w
Permanent	Robert Renan	Corinthians	£1.9m	£0	£0	6.57k p/w
Loan w/ Option	Román Vega	Argentinos Juniors	£275k	£0	£5.75m

 

Loan Watch

We have a number of youngsters on loan and several of them are performing well. Flo Balogun, extending his stay with Middlesborough, has six goals to his name thus far. He's also been called up the the United States national team.

Recruitment

I have compiled shortlists for three positions that may need attention in the summer of 2023. Unfortunately, some of my targets were the subject of transfers in the final weeks of the Summer 2022 window.

Spoiler

Right Back (Takehiro Tomiyasu Rotation)

Player	Team	Status	Notes
Max Aarons	Norwich	Scouting
Dodo	Shakhtar Donetsk	Transfered	Tottenham - £48.5
Lutsharel Geertruida	Feyenoord	Transfered	Gladbach - £10.5m
Ben Johnson	West Ham	Scouting
Matheuzinho	Flamengo	Transfered	Real Sociedad - £4.6m
Mert Müldür	Sassuolo	Scouting
Wilfried Singo	Torino	Scouting
Jurriën Timber	Ajax	Unsettled	Newcastle Bid - £49m; Player Rejected
Trilli (Álvaro Pérez Campo)	Deportivo	Scouting

 

Defensive Midfielder (Thomas Partey Replacement)

Player	Team	Status	Note
Tyler Adams	RB Leipzig	Scouting
Edson Álvarez	Ajax	Scouting
Jude Bellingham	Borussia Dortmund	Scouting
Max Bird	Derby	Scouting
Maxence Caqueret	Lyon	Scouting	Bosman
Trevor Chalobah	Chelsea	Scouting
Mamady Diambou	RB Salzburg	Scouting
João Gomes	Flamengo	Scouting
Marco Kana	Anderlecht	Scouting
João Palhinha	Sporting	Scouting
Kalvin Phillips	Leeds	Monitoring
Declan Rice	West Ham	Declared Top Target - Unsettled	£80m Ask
Aurélien Tchouameni	AS Monaco	Scouting
Aster Vranckx	Wolfsburg	No Interest - New Contract

 

Right Wing (Reiss Nelson Upgrade)

Player	Team	Status	Notes
Karim Adeyemi	RB Salzburg	Scouting
Ângelo	Santos	Scouting
Mikkel Damsgaard	Sampdoria	Scouting
Moussa Diaby	Bayer Leverkusen	Unlikely (Doubtful Interest)
Harvey Elliot	Liverpool	Scouting
Issahaku Abdul Fatawu	Porto	Scouting
João Mário	Futebol Clube do Porto	Scouting
Liam Miller	Basel	Rejected	Insufficient Quality
Michael Olise	Crystal Palace	Scouting
Cole Palmer	Manchester City	Scouting
Renyer	Santos	Scouting
Alexis Saelemaekers	A.C. Milan	Scouting
Luis Sinisterra	Feyenoord	Scouting
Viktor Tsygankov	Dynamo Kyiv	Transfered	Man City - £36.5m
Fábio Vieira	Futebol Clube do Porto	Transfered	Leverkusen - £24m

Staff

Filling out my coaching staff continues. One of the goals of this season will be to evaluate and overhaul the U23 and U18 coaching staffs and make sure the teams have managers and coaches who share my formation and style preferences.

Spoiler

 

In	Out
Danny Donachie (Physio)	-
Danny Murphy (Physio)	-
Dennis Bergkamp (Coach)	-
Allan Russell (U23 Coach)	-
Andrew Rolls (U23 Physio)	-

 

Transfer Window Wrap Up

We were very active team in the Premier League, with fourteen incoming players (ten first team players) and 39 departures. At the end of the summer window, our net transfer spend is a profit of £67.6m. Our transfer budget of £122m is nearly double the original (£65m) and we have significant flexibility in the wage budget, spending £2.2m per week with a budget of £2.6m.

Spoiler

Notable Premier League August Transfers

Player	From	To	Fee
Alex Iwobi	Everton	Aston Villa	Loan (£425k)
Solly March	Brighton	Aston Villa	£26m
Patrick Bamford	Leeds	Brentford	£16.75m (£22.0m)
Nicolas Seiwald	RB Salzburg	Brentford	£5m (£6.5m)
Layvin Kurzawa	PSG	Brentford	£2.20m (£2.00m)
Pascal Struck	Leeds	Brighton	£21.50m
Ibrahima Konaté	Liverpool	Crystal Palace	£14m
Richarlison	Everton	FC Bayern	£51m (£61m)
Kelechi Iheanacho	Leicester	Empoli	Loan
Nuno Mendes	Sporting CP	Manchester City	£41.5m
Viktor Tsygankov	Dynamo Kyiv	Manchester City	£36.5m (£43.5)
Toni Kroos	Real Madrid	Manchester City	£24m
Gabriel Jesus	Manchester City	FC Bayern	£37.5m (£45m)
İlkay Gündogan	Manchester City	FC Bayern	£23m (£27.5m)
Fikayo Tomori	AC Milan	Manchester United	£45m
Fabián	Napoli	Manchester United	£38m (£45.5m)
Luis Muriel	Atalanta	Manchester United	£14m (£18.75m)
Anel Ahmenhodžić	Malmö FF	Manchester United	£3.2m
Diogo Dalot	Manchester United	Dortmund	£23m
Jesse Lingard	Manchester United	Ajax	£15.25m (£18.25m)
William Carvalho	Real Betis	Newcastle	£33m
Angeliño	RB Leipzig	Newcastle	£27m
Ante Rebić	AC Milan	Newcastle	£21.5m
Giorgian De Arrascaeta	Flamengo	Newcastle	£21.5m
Jérôme Boateng	Lyon	Newcastle	£10.5m
Olivier Giroud	Milan	Newcastle	£2.4m
Moussa Djénépo	Southampton	RB Leipzig	£14m (£17m)
Dodo	Shakhtar Donetsk	Tottenham	£48.5m
Tanguy Ndombele	Tottenham	Ajax	£8m
Jack Harrison	Leeds	West Ham	£16m
Rúben Neves	Wolves	FC Bayern	£50m
Marc Roca	FC Bayern	Wolves	£15m (£18m)
Jack O’Connell	Sheffield United	Wolves	£10.5m (£12.5)

 

Notable European Transfers

Player	From	To	Fee
Federico Chiesa	Fiorentina	Real Madrid	£55m (£69m)
Lucas Hernández	FC Bayern	PSG	£47.5m
Mariano	Real Madrid	Inter	£28.0m (£31.5m)
Merih Demiral	Juventus	PSG	£27m
Luka Jović	Real Madrid	Dortmund	£25m
Kylian Mbappé	PSG	Real Madrid	Free
Niklas Süle	FC Bayern	Dortmund	Free
Christian Eriksen	Brentford	Tottenham	Free
Alex Lacazette	Arsenal	Tottenham	Free
André Onana	Ajax	Manchester City	Free
Franck Kessié	AC Milan	Tottenham	Free
Alessio Romagnoli	AC Milan	Real Madrid	Free

 

 

Finances

At the beginning of the month, the club accountants updated me on our current financial health.

Thanks to Champions League qualification and our prudent roster rebalancing, we were able to complete our transfer dealings with upfront payments. Our outstanding debt situation is very manageable. The KSE refinance of the outstanding stadium debt resulted came in the form of a 0% interest loan from the Bank of Kroenke.

 

Transfer Debt Breakdown

The £55m outstanding in transfer debt is also manageable. The accounting department factors this for our transfer budget, so we aren’t in a position to require sales to finance this debt.

It is frustrating to see that, after selling Nicolas Pépé, we'll be making installment payments for another two years. Including the August 2022 payment, that will be £39m paid after selling the player for £30m.

Spoiler

Player	Month	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027
Auston Trusty	January		-£0.50	-£0.50
Benjamin White	July		-£10.00
Albert Sambi Lokonga	July		-£2.50	-£2.50	-£2.50
Pablo Marí	July		-£1.50	-£1.50
Nuno Tavares	July		-£1.00	-£1.00	-£1.00
Takehiro Tomiyasu	August	-£2.50	-£2.50	-£2.50	-£ 2.50
Aaron Ramsdale	August	-£4.00	-£4.00	-£4.00	-£4.00
Martin Ødegaard	August	-£5.00	-£5.00	-£5.00	-£5.00
Nicolas Pépé	August	-£13.00	-£13.00	-£13.00
Gabriel	September	-£4.00	-£4.00	-£4.00
Lucas Torriera	July		£10.00
Alex Iwobi	August	£7.00	£7.00
Joe Willock	August	£3.00	£3.00	£3.00	£3.00	£3.00	£3.00
Krystian Bielik	August	£1.40	£1.40	£1.40
Tolaji Bola	August	£0.05	£0.05	£0.05
Emiliano Martinez	September	£2.50	£2.50	£2.50

Season Ticket Sales

Wage Expenditure

Our wage expenditure ranks 8th in the league.

Spoiler

 

Edited March 10, 2022 by Harper

[BrickCommo23]

A quick update on the new system. No massive hitters in terms of pre-season opponents but with low familiarity and variable fitness levels - decent start:

And a couple of matches in more detail:

 

[BrickCommo23]

On 08/03/2022 at 18:14, Telegram Sam said:

2026/27 Season - Part 3

Going into January, I didn't feel the squad needed strengthening in any particular position but I was keeping my eye out for the right player if he came along. We'd earned some big money in the summer through player sales and the money was starting to feel like it was burning a hole in my pocket, and ultimately I couldn't resist going big when a certain someone caught my eye.

Frenkie de Jong had only 18 months left on his deal at Barcelona and I moved early in the window to secure his signature. At 29 he was perhaps past his peak, but for the type of player he is I figured he'd still be a world class midfielder in his early thirties and as a true Model Citizen I was delighted to add him to the squad.

There wasn't much in terms of outgoings, although I did sell Son Heung-min to FC Porto for £7m almost one year after he arrived. It was an ill-advised transfer and he was nothing more than a fringe player for us during his time here, so I was happy to see hime gone. Getting his £135k p/w wage packet off of the books was great for our finances at the very least.

Bayern Munich had been publicly courting Dominik Szoboszlai for months now, so I was braced for a bid. After rejecting their first three bids, they came back in with this mammoth offer:

It was a reasonable bid but I was in no mind to let Szoboszlai leave mid-season, even if he at first told me he was desperate for a move. I was able to persuade him to stay and I rejected this final bid, although I anticipate they may return in the summer where I may be more open to allowing for a move.

We started 2027 with a narrow 2-1 win at home over Liverpool, with goals from Declan Rice and Dušan Vlahović earning us the victory. Aaron Ramsdale saved a penalty from Mo Salah before half-time to keep us in the lead, and despite being under heavy pressure for the second half, we managed to keep things as they were to secure a huge win in terms of the title race. Liverpool had just lost their last game at home to Manchester City 3-2, so these back-to-back defeats put them five points behind us with just under half the season remaining.

A 4-0 win over Swansea in the FA Cup and a 2-0 win over Norwich in the league kept up our perfect start to the year, but things soon took a turn for a worse. Away at Wolves, we took an early lead through Declan Rice before Wolves levelled through Arthur Cabral. We battered our opponents for the rest of the game but failed to score, only for Fábio Silva to pop up and score a winner for the home side with just over ten minutes left to play. The match stats from the end of the match show how unlucky we were:

We then conspired to lose our next game away at Leeds, making it back-to-back 2-1 defeats on the road. Unlike the Wolves game, we were really poor in this one and Leeds deserved their winner despite it coming with only minutes left to play. This made me seriously question the structure and security of the 3-3-3-1 formation I had used for most of the season as in both games our vulnerabilities at the back had been ruthlessly exposed. This put us 7 points behind Manchester City after 24 games played:

Wins over Stoke and Brighton in the Premier League, as well as Crewe in the FA Cup, lifted the mood a little before Manchester City came to visit the Emirates. It was a huge game given our recent poor form and a win was necessary to help us claw back some points on the league leaders. It didn't go to plan and City edged us out 1-0 at home thanks to a goal from Benjamin Šeško. We had our chances but failed to make them pay and this defeat left us 8 points behind City with only 11 games left to play. I started to believe at this point that retaining the title was pretty unlikely.

We responded positively to this latest setback, however, with a goal from Jamal Musiala earning us a 1-0 win at the San Sario in our Champions League. The goal was a stunning curled effort into the top corner in what was a poor quality affair, with me switching back to the 4-3-3 following our struggles with the 3-3-3-1. In the return leg, we ran out 2-1 winners to earn a passage through to the quarter-finals.

Things also started to look better for us in the league, too. We had responded to the City defeat with 5-0 and 4-0 batterings of Everton and Fulham respectively, before then earning a hard-fought 2-1 win at St. James' Park over Newcastle. In the same time, City had managed to draw 1-1 at home to Fulham before losing 4-2 away at Everton, putting us three points behind them with 30 games played. We were still third with Liverpool one point ahead of us.

Our hopes of retaining the FA Cup were unfortunately dashed as we fell 2-0 at home to Norwich. I had thought the 2-1 defeat to Wolves was frustrating, but this was another level:

Their second goal came from Wojciech Szczęsny deciding to run miles out of his goal, failing to win possession and allowing the Norwich player to fire home from the edge of the box into an empty net. It was a hugely frustrating game and one that was consequential as the board had expected us to reach the final this season.

In the Champions League, we were due to face Manchester City (again) and our woes against them continued as we lost 2-0 at the Etihad in the first leg. City had completed had our number this season and had beaten us three times without us even scoring a single goal. In the return leg, we struggled to get back into the game despite having more control than we normally do against City, but we were given a lifeline in the 67th minute as Szoboszlai scored a penalty to bring us back into the tie. A minute later, Bukayo Saka stepped up to score a stunning goal and level the tie:

The momentum was with us but neither side were able to score, so we went to penalties. After both sides missed two of their first five penalties we went to sudden death, and eventually managed to defeat Manchester City after Aaron Ramsdale saved their eighth penalty of the night and Saka slotted home to earn himself hero status.

It was a huge victory, not only so that we qualified for the semi-finals but also the belief it would give us going into the final weeks of the season. City had wobbled in recent weeks and we just needed to keep winning to stay in the title fight as we also focused on Europe. Interestingly, we were drawn against Wolfsburg in the semi-final—they were 12th in the Bundesliga but had beaten Manchester United and Barcelona to get this far—with PSG and Bayern Munich contesting the other semi-final.

Wins over Crystal Palace, Southampton and Sheffield United had kept up our momentum in the league and actually gotten is into top spot as both Liverpool and City had slipped up again. With five games remaining, the title race was by far the most exciting (and closest) I'd seen in my six seasons here:

Two home games against Bournemouth and Leicester should prove to be relatively straightforward, but things soon got trickier with two London derbies on the road coming before we hosted Manchester United at the Emirates on the final day.

Our first two games did indeed prove to be straightforward with 7-0 and 4-0 wins over Bournemouth and Leicester giving us six points while massively improving our goal difference. City responded in kind by beating Newcastle and Sheffield United 2-0 and 2-1 respectively; Liverpool could only manage a 1-1 draw with United before beating Norwich 3-1 on the road. 

Spurs would have to wait as we first faced off against Wolfsburg at home in the first leg of our Champions League semi-final. I knew they would pose us problems, but was perhaps guilty of underestimating our opponents as they took a 1-0 lead through Timo Werner in the first half, before then doubling their lead in the second through Magnus Mattsson. After making some changes and bringing on Emile Smith Rowe, however, we completely reversed the scoreline in the space of a few minutes with goals from Martin Ødegaard, Smith Rowe, and Vyacheslav Spirin turning things around. Further goals from Smith Rowe and Spirin made it 5-2 and capped off an incredible European night at the Emirates:

With our place in the Champions League final now looking pretty secure, attention turned back to the league and the first of our three final games to close out the league season. It was a thrilling game, with Spirin opening the scoring in the sixth minute before Adeyemi pulled Spurs back into the game with a header at the back post. We pushed Spurs back and kept threatening throughout, but disaster struck in the 63rd minute as Rúben Neves' free-kick hit the woodwork before bouncing back to Gabriel Jesus to tap in and give the home side a 2-1 lead.

It was a sickening feeling to know that we may lose our league title by losing against Spurs for the first time during my reign, but thankfully we managed to earn a point as Spirin got on the end of Saka's cross to score his second goal of the game. It was disappointing not to win but a point still kept us at the top of the table on goal difference after City and Liverpool both won their 36th games:

Our 5-2 win in the first leg against Wolfsburg allowed me to rotate heavily in the second game, and we ran out 4-2 winners in Germany to earn a 9-4 aggregate victory and make it through to the final. We would face Bayern Munich in the final after they put PSG's run to an end 2-0 on aggregate.

We faced an improved Chelsea side at Stamford Bridge; they were firmly in fourth place having spent a number of years outside the Champions League, and I knew after our draw with Spurs a win was an absolute necessity. We started well in what was an open game, with Vyacheslav Spirin continuing his fine run of goalscoring form to give us the lead after 21 minutes. Both sides threatened for the rest of the half but the first 45 minutes ended 1-0 to us. 

The second half got off to a perfect start as Jamal Musiala doubled our lead in the 50th minute with a placed finish into the bottom corner, but Lukaku fired one back for the home side on the hour mark. Chelsea pressed us in the final third of the game but we held firm to secure an absolutely vital win at the home of our London rivals. We would go into the final game of the season top of the league, level on points with Manchester City and a point ahead of Liverpool. Our goal difference was +18 better than City's, so a win against United and we'd retain our title.

The final day was upon us and I opted to stick with the 3-3-3-1, despite my concerns over it. We'd managed a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford and felt confident we'd secure victory against a poor United side, who were 9th going into the final day.

Things started brilliantly for us as Spirin sprung upon a suicide pass from the United goalkeeper and slotted home to give us a lead within 2 minutes of the game. Our lead was short-lived, however, as Hannibal slotted home an equaliser for the visitors in the 10th minute to make things pretty nervous. We were dominating the game but United looked dangerous on the counter, and the nerves soon turned to outright despair as Marcus Rashford fired home two goals to give United a 3-1 lead a half-time. With Liverpool winning at Stoke and City ahead against Spurs, it was looking like the title was slipping out of our grasp in the most painful of ways.

I ripped into the players at half-time and went with a 4-2-3-1 shape, recognising that the 3-3-3-1 was too risky a formation given the counter-attacking threat United posed. We started the second half well and managed to bring the score back to 2-3 thanks to a headed goal from Gabriel from a Szoboszlai free-kick. Minutes later, Bukayo Saka played an incredible cross-field ball to find Musiala on the right wing, and our record signing controlled the ball and slotted home an equaliser to make it 3-3 with 55 minutes on the clock. We'd clawed our way back into the game and now needed to find a winner to remain as champions.

United settled down defensively as we kept plugging away at them. Chances came and went but we continued to pressure them, and eventually a breakthrough came through the unlikeliest of sources:

Tino Livramento, who'd only scored a single goal for us in three seasons, stepped up to receive Musiala's pass and thundered in an incredible strike to give us a 4-3 lead in the 76th minute. It was a goal that would go down in history as we mounted an impressive comeback to defeat United and claim the Premier League title for the third time in four seasons. Feeling that the Arsenal fans had had enough stress for one day, Martin Ødegaard fired home a fifth goal from Jude Bellingham's cross to finish the scoring. We had done it, and not with a point to spare:

With the Premier League title secured, attentions turned to the Champions League as we faced off against Bayern Munich in Dortmund. I went back to a 4-3-3, knowing full well the 3-3-3-1 was out of the question with Mbappé playing down the wings, and hoped for the best.

In the end, it was relatively simple. Jamal Musiala struck twice either side of the half to down his former side, and we were European champions yet again.

For the third time we had won the Premier League and Champions League in the same season, although at times this season it'd looked like we'd win nothing. Retaining both titles was an immense achievement and signified our place as the dominant force in both England and Europe, and has left me thinking of what to aim for next. Nonetheless, we've built a squad for the ages here, and a number of the players can already claim to be bonafide legends of the club.

That Livramento winner. You must have been jumping around the room!

[Telegram Sam]

56 minutes ago, BrickCommo23 said:

That Livramento winner. You must have been jumping around the room!

It's strange; once we had brought the game back to 3-3 early in the second half I knew we'd find a winner, even as the game dragged on. We had United on the ropes.

I certainly didn't expect it to come from Livramento of all people though!

[dido53]

started with Arsenal and this is my tactic but really struggle to break down oppisition.I want my team to play good fluıd football.Any advice?

Edited March 11, 2022 by dido53

[Harper]

September

August Awards

Player	Award	Place
Miguel Azeez	League 1 Young Player of the Month	2nd
Miguel Azeez	League 1 Goal of the Month	1st
Folarin Balogun	Championship Young Player of the Month	3rd
Ryan Gravenberch	Premier League Young Player of the Month	1st
Kieran Tierney	Premier League Goal of the Month	1st
Harper	Premier League Manager of the Month	3rd

September Fixtures

Peterborough Analysis

Scheduled on the Wednesday that many of our internationals returned from duty, the Carabao Cup tie at Peterborough saw a fully rotated squad get a runout. Matt Turner, Román Vega, Robert Renan, and William Saliba received their debuts, while Luke Ayling received his first start.

Peterborough put up a tough fight, holding out to half time with the score nil-nil. Román Vega broke the deadlock with a debut goal, connecting on a lovely ball from Boubacar Kamara (65’). Amine Gouiri scored a penalty earned by Gabriel Martinelli (78’).

Vega’s performance earned him Player of the Match honors. What a debut!

The Third Round of the Carabao Cup featured some surprises.

• Man City was dumped out by Swansea through penalties (FT 3-3; 3-4).
• Leicester outlasted the nouveau-rich Newcastle, winning on penalties (FT 1-1; 5-4).
• League 1 teams dumped two Premier League teams, with AFC Wimbledon defeating Crystal Palace 3-2
• Sheffield Wednesday outlasted Man United in the penalty shootout (FT 1-1; 5-4)

Spoiler

 

Carabao Cup Draw

The first North London Derby comes early, as we host Tottenham in the fourth round of fixtures. 

Aston Villa Analysis

Aston Villa were a difficult team to break down, but easy to contain. They won the possession battle, having possession for 52% of the match. Despite this, we outshot them 21-1 (9-1 SOT) and dominated the xG battle, 2.53-0.01. Ben White scored the only goal, heading home a Ødegaard free kick that might as well have been a set piece routine from the left corner. Truth be told, we were wasteful with our possession for much of the match. Tyrick Mitchell made his debut in place of the injured Tierney. He didn’t kick on until after Villa went down to 9 men. Matty Cash collected two yellows in eleven minutes (61’, 71’) and John McGinn earned a straight red (82’).

Spoiler

 

Real Madrid Analysis

A good win to kick off our first Champions League campaign in half a decade. With the summer departures of Xhaka, Elneny, and Bellerín, no players who experienced the 10-2 aggregate loss to Bayern in 2017 remain at the club. Arsenal, back in the Champions League, hosting the team that’s won the competition more times than any other. A new generation of young guns versus a veteran squad filled with serial winners (supplemented with the third generation of Galacticos - Kylian Mbappé and Federico Chiesa). The average age of my starting XI is 22.7, while Madrid’s is 28.7 (with a 37 year old Modrić).

The opening minutes were nervy, with Kylian Mbappé being gifted a chance after some panic and confusion between White and Gabriel. Ryan Gravenberch gave us the lead (24’) after a smooth restart from a throw in. Tomiyasu threw to Saka from the halfway line. He dinked it back to Tomiyasu, who spotted Gravenberch’s run and dinked in a perfectly placed pass. Gravenberch to split the defense, beat Courtois to the ball, and volleyed home for a 1-nil lead, which we held on to for the remainder of the half.

Dani Carvajal brought Madrid level in (64’), but as the match wore on, we began to assert our fresher, younger legs. In a mirror of the goal against Villa, Reiss Nelson delivered a free kick from the right corner that was met by the head of Gabriel (’65).
What a day!

Spoiler

 

 

The defensive instructions to Tierney, Gabriel, and Tomiyasu to tightly mark Chiesa, Benzema, and Mbappé, respectively worked to a tee. You can see from the pass maps that the majority of their passes were backwards and managing two shots on target and the one that hit the woodwork.

 

Sporting Analysis

🎶 Here we go, oh! Saka and Emile Smith Rowe!🎶

We got off to a strong start, with Bukayo Saka picking out Emile Smith Rowe with a long diagonal pass for to open the scoring (2’). Saka then gathered a cleared set piece delivery and sent the away fans to the moon with a rocket to far corner from 24 meters out.

Sporting piled on the pressure thereafter, but were unable to penetrate a stout defense. Gianluca Scamacca extended his scoreless drought to three games. It might be time for the Italian to take a sit in favor of Martinelli or Nketiah.
 

Spoiler

 

Southampton Analysis

Any away trip to St. Mary’s, another pitfall of Arsenal teams in the past. Calvin Stengs put the hosts up (18’) and frustrated us for much of the match. Scamacca tried to piledrive a penalty down the middle and Forester held his ground and saved the attempt. Scamacca brought us level (70’) and we pushed for a winner, that eventually came from the bench Reiss Nelson (84’).
 

Spoiler

 

 

Freiburg Analysis

The Champions League campaign continues to be a success. We throttled Freiburg with a rotated squad. Gabriel and Gouiri effectively rotated between the left flank and forward positions to score all of the goals. Martinelli with a hat-trick (26’, 49’, 60’) and Gouiri getting in on the actions (34’).

Spoiler

League Table (Game Week 7)

Liverpool are absolutely destroying teams, averaging 4.5 goals per game thus far.

September Awards

Player	Award	Place
Miguel Azeez	League 1 Young Player of the Month	2nd
Miguel Azeez	League 1 Goal of the Month	1st
Folarin Balogun	Championship Young Player of the Month	3rd
Ryan Gravenberch	Premier League Young Player of the Month	1st
Kieran Tierney	Premier League Goal of the Month	1st
Harper	Premier League Manager of the Month	3rd

Injuries

Albert Sambi Lokonga is our only active injury. Nuno Tavares has just returned from his achilles injury. The young Portuguese left back has competition for left back in the form of the newly acquired Tyrick Mitchell and Román Vega. A loan away may be in the cards.
 

Spoiler

 

Dressing Room

Beginning of the Month
The church in the squad is noticeable in our dressing room leadership. Steve Round, continuing on as my assistant, thinks Erling Håland would be a good fit for the dressing room. Perhaps he would be, but he'd also destroy any wage sanity that has been established. 

Spoiler

End of the Month

A lot can change in 30 days, most noticeably winning games and being captain. Tierney has taken to his new role and has noticeably stepped up in the room.

Spoiler

Tactics

I've made a few more tweaks to my starting tactic

Spoiler

 

In Possession
Start of Month	End of Month
Slightly Direct	Shorter Passing
Pass Into Space	-
Play Out of Defense	Play Out of Defense
-	Whipped Crosses
Play for Set Pieces	Play for Set Pieces
-	Higher Tempo

 

In Transition
Start of Month	End of Month
Distribute to CB	Distribute to CB
Distribute to FB	Distribute to FB
Counter-press	Counter-press
Counter	Counter

 

Out of Possession
Start of Month	End of Month
Force Outside	Force Outside
Standard Line	Standard Line
Standard Engagement	Standard Engagement
More Pressing	-
Prevent Short GK	Prevent Short GK
Get Stuck In	-

Loan Watch

Our loanees are playing well, particularly Folarin Balogun and Marcelo Flores are having storming campaigns. Nikolaj Möller has already voiced his displeasure with his experience. Understandable, given he hasn't made an appearance thus far.

Spoiler

 

Recruitment

Spoiler

Right Back (Takehiro Tomiyasu Rotation)

Defensive Midfielder (Thomas Partey Replacement)

Defensive Statistical View

Offensive Statistical View

Right Wing (Reiss Nelson Upgrade)

Staff

I continued filling out the youth team staff with a U23 goalkeeping coach and a U18 physio. Both being hired via job listings.

Spoiler

In	Out
Roberto Carreira (U18 Physio)	-
Thomas Schlieck (U23 GK Coach)	-

Finances

Our overall balance has decreased by £9m, but we are operating within expectations and anticipate no major disruptions to the business side of the club. Our wage structure is well balanced and we should be able to maintain happiness with regards to playing time expectations.
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 12, 2022 by Harper

[Harper]

October

October was a busy month. Nine matches. Six league matches, two Champions League, and one Carabao Cup match. Two North London Derbies. A match against Chelsea, A match against the reigning champs. A match against the perfect league leaders. Two games every week with no more than three days off.

We managed to survive it and walk away a bit banged up, but remain the lone undefeated team in the league.

We had a signature win against Liverpool (5-1), but unravelled at Manchester City and hosting Tottenham in our league fixtures, dropping points and opportunities to go top.

Tottenham handed me my first loss of the season, with a 2-1 win against a rotated (but still strong) Carabao Cup side. Alexander Lacazette provided the winner. Mattias Svanberg had an opportunity to bring us level, but saw his penalty saved by Hugo Lloris.

On an individual level, we have a few standouts in terms of league leaders.

Gianluca Scamacca is tied with Jamie Vardy and Kevin de Bruyne in the Golden Boot race, with 10 goals each. Martin Ødegaard leads the league with 8 assists. Allison and Łukas Fabiański lead the league in clean sheets (6), while Aaron Ramsdale, Hugo Lloris, David Raya, and David De Get are tied for third with 5 clean sheets.

League Table (Game Week 13)

September Fixtures

Sheffield (H) Analysis

An emphatic win. Gianluca Scamacca with a hattrick, and goals from midfield and defense. Ødegaard, Gravenberch, Saka, and Smith Rowe contributing assists. Dominant in all regards.

Spoiler

 

Tottenham (H) Analysis

Our first loss of the season, to our biggest rival. I sent out a rotated side, opting to give my key players a rest ahead of Liverpool (three days later). We had opportunities to win this match, but found ourselves behind four minutes into the match. Martinelli equalized (31'), but former Arsenal captain, Alexander Lacazette, put the visitors ahead in added time at the end of the first half (45'+1'). Mattias Svanberg had the opportunity to tie the match, but saw his penalty saved (71').

Spoiler

Liverpool (H) Analysis

🎶 The world turned upside down 🎶

A match against Liverpool is always a source of dread for Gooners. Lopsided defeats are common place and with fixture congestion leading up to the Qatar World Cup, it wouldn't be unlikely for another lopsided defeat to a team that, thus far scored 27 goals in 7 league matches (having been held to a scoreless draw in their 8th match). Including a pair of 5-1 wins over Chelsea and Tottenham.

Despite our best efforts to avoid injury to key players in the Carabao Cup match, we could not avoid Arsenal's captaincy curse. Kieran Tierney twisted his ankle in training in the build up Liverpool's visit; the injury would keep him out the remainder of the month. This was his second injury of the season, the first that will see him miss multiple games. The decision to sign Tyrick Mitchell is justified, with Nuno Tavares not back to full fitness after his Achilles tendonitis. We were also without Thomas Partey, who is away with Ghana for a week.

The team was up for the match, despite losing our captain. Four first half goals from Gravenberch (13'), Saka (26'), Scamacca (29'), and Martinelli (44') provided a commanding position. Diego Jota pulled one back for the Reds (50'), but there was no great comeback to be had. We closed out the game with relative ease, culminating with Amine Gouiri scoring our fifth goal in added time (90'+1').

We didn’t walk away from Liverpool unscathed. Tomiyasu suffered a groin injury (70') that would keep him out for 10 days to 3 weeks. He would go on to miss the matches at Chelsea, hosting Manchester City, and the North London Derby. He'll also miss the remaining Champions League group stage matches.

Spoiler

Chelsea (A) Analysis

Fresh off the dominant win against Liverpool, we were brimming with confidence for a trip to West London. We played an unchanged side and played with the same attacking intent, but were left with scraps. Perhaps it was naive to expect to be assertive away from home, but a point and clean sheet at our London rival's stadium is not the worst of results.

Spoiler

 

Wolves (H) Analysis

Another three points in the bag came at the cost of both of my right wing attacking options. Bukayo Saka was not having a great game and got injured immediately after the resumption from half-time (46'). Martin Ødegaard provided the only goal of the game (51'). In the final minutes of the match, Saka's replacement, Reiss Nelson, hobbled off injured (87'). Both players would miss three weeks, and not make a return before the end of the month. It's very likely that Saka does not play again before the World Cup break.

Spoiler

 

Freiburg (A) Analysis

Match Day 4 of the Champions League provided an opportunity to qualify for the knockout stages. Facing a quick turn around from Freiburg to Manchester, and having played Wolves three days prior, I ran out a rotated squad. Although it took some time, we clicked into gear and came away with the win thanks to a brace from Mattias Svanberg (38', 47') and a goal from Thomas Partey (44'). Sam Lammers scored a consolation goal for Freiburg (67') in what was their first significant attempt on goal.

Spoiler

 

 

 

Manchester City (A) Analysis

A trip to the Etihad was full of highs and lows. Similar to the Liverpool match, we raced out to an early lead with Martinelli (6') and Scamacca (31') shocking the hosts. The advantage did not last long, with Jack Grealish pulling one back (33') and Sterling equalizing before the break (43').

All in all, it was a successful trip to the reigning champions and turned out to be an even match.

We left the match with yet another injury, losing right back Ben White for 3-4 weeks to a twisted ankle.

Spoiler

Sporting (H) CP

Match Day 5 of the Champions League Group Stage provided an opportunity to win the group out right at home. Although we lost the possession battle, my rotated squad dominated the match. Matt Turner started in goal and the rotated looked shaky, conceding an early goal. Luke Ayling did himself no favors, losing Bruno Tabata, who raced in behind the right back and placed a shot past Turner and into the far corner (3').

The defense made up for the lax start, with Rob Holding equalizing from our well drilled corner routine. William Saliba scored the winner (58') and Eddie Nketiah bagged a ten minute brace (60', 69'). Gabriel Martinelli added our fifth with three minutes remaining in regulation time (87').

Spoiler

 

Tottenham (H) Analysis

The grueling month came to an end with another North London Derby. Tomiyasu made it back after his layoff and the squad started well enough. Gabriel Martinelli gave us the lead in the first half (31') and we were looking good for three points. As the match progressed, we tired and Tottenham were able to assert themselves, eventually scoring the equalizing goal through Rodrigo Bentancur (80'). 

Spoiler

 

October Awards

Player	Award	Place
Martin Ødegaard	Premier League Player of the Month	2nd
Ryan Gravenberch	Premier League Young Player of the Month	1st
Harper	Premier League Manager of the Month	3rd

October Squad News (End of Month)

October was a general success on the pitch, but the physios are busy following a spate of injuries. Tierney out with his second injury of the year, this time missing four weeks. Tomiyasu was injured in the Liverpool match. Saka and Nelson were both injured against Wolves, the latter having been substituted on to replace the former. Both players missed the remainder of the month, including the City and Spurs matches. Ben White was injured against Manchester City for two to four weeks, while Thomas Partey was injured in training ahead of the Spurs match. These injuries, particularly for Saka, White, and Partey, put their World Cup participation into question.

Spoiler

Injuries

 

Dressing Room

Two players are airing their discontent. Reiss Nelson isn't happy with the way I lost my temper after being knocked of the Carabao Cup by our arch-rivals. Eddie Nketiah, is agitating for more playing time. I asked him to be patient, and shortly after, Saka and Nelson were injured in the same match.

Tactics

A minor tweak to my primary 4-3-3 tactic was to be more patient in the final third.

Spoiler

In Possession
Start of Month	End of Month
Shorter Passing	Shorter Passing
Play Out of Defense	Play Out of Defense
Whipped Crosses	Whipped Crosses
-	Work Ball Into Box
Play for Set Pieces	Play for Set Pieces
Higher Tempo	Higher Tempo

 

In Transition
Start of Month	End of Month
Distribute to CB	Distribute to CB
Distribute to FB	Distribute to FB
Counter-press	Counter-press
Counter	Counter

 

Out of Possession
Start of Month	End of Month
Force Outside	Force Outside
Standard Line	Standard Line
Standard Engagement	Standard Engagement
Prevent Short GK	Prevent Short GK

Loan Watch

Our loanees, overall continue to perform well during their spells away from the club. Flo Balogun (Middlesborough) leads the way with 12 goals and 2 assists. Marcelo Flores (Ipswich) has 5 goals and 6 assists. Tyreece John-Jules (Sunderland) has 5 goals, 2 assists.

Spoiler

 

Recruitment and Transfer Thoughts

The early exit from the Carabao Cup disrupted our development plans for Benjamin Šeško. The acquisition of Tyrick Mitchell and his outstanding performances have likely made Nuno Tavares redundant. We'll plan to send both players on loan in January to get playing time.

Eddie Nketiah desires a more playing time and may get a loan, if our home grown quotas remain satisfied. With Ballard, Nelson, Smith Rowe, and Ayling in the squad, we have the requisite club home grown numbers, and with Holding, White, Ramsdale, and Mitchell filling out the eight total home grown players. Nketiah could receive a loan, or Holding may be sold.

Spoiler

Right Back (Takehiro Tomiyasu Rotation)

Defensive Midfielder (Thomas Partey Replacement)

Right Wing (Reiss Nelson Upgrade)

Staff

No staff have been signed, but David Tivey has been offered a position as a sports scientist with the Under 23s, while Alex Fraser has been offered a scouting position.

Finances

At the beginning of the month, the club accountants updated me on our current financial health.

 

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Harper

[Nonlondoner]

Have any Gooners here used the in-game Editor to completely crush Chelsea's finances? 

Asking for a friend, obviously I'd never be that petty. 

[Cam NBH]

4 hours ago, Nonlondoner said:

Have any Gooners here used the in-game Editor to completely crush Chelsea's finances? 

Asking for a friend, obviously I'd never be that petty. 

 

[Telegram Sam]

2027/28 - Part 1

The prior season had ended on a massive high as we managed to retain both the Premier League and the Champions League, with our domestic victory coming as we edged out Manchester City on goal difference before Jamal Musiala struck twice in the Champions League final to down his former side Bayern Munich. The off-season allowed us to take some time to evaluate our squad with some tough decisions needing to be made, and for us to decide on how we wanted to play moving forward. The 3-3-3-1 had served us well for large swathes of last season but ultimately I had to abandon it later on to ensure we didn't cede too much control and defensive stability in the big games. I had resorted to a 4-3-3 in the Champions League final.

We had some promising young players returning from loan spells who I was keen to blood into the first team this season, and thus I needed to allow some players to leave in order to do so.

Outgoings

The most significant sale was the departure of Dominik Szoboszlai, with Bayern Munich finally getting their man after publicly courting him for nearly a year. They had bid for him four times in January and I was steadfast in my insistence not to lose him midway through the season, but when they came knocking for him again this summer I reluctantly agreed to let him return to Germany. I managed to negotiate them up to a huge fee of £150m, which I felt was reasonable for a world class player in the prime of his career who had finished 3rd in the Ballon d'Or in both 2024 and 2025. He had been incredible for me since he arrived in January 2024, and was a key part of virtually all the success we had enjoyed since. He had dropped off in terms of goal and assist output last year but would nonetheless be an impossible player to replace.

Our defence was given a major shake up this summer with Gabriel, Benjamin White and Anel Ahmedhodžić all moving on to pastures new this summer. All three of them had been with me since my first season at the club and had been big parts of the success we had enjoyed. Gabriel was the hardest one to say goodbye to, but with one year left on his contract and him demanding a significant pay increase in order to stay, I opted to sell him to PSG and cash in on him while we still could. White had been transfer listed by request after playing less football for us last season than any other, and I was pleased to recoup the £50m we had paid for him six years prior. Ahmedhodžić still had three years left on his contract and was happy to stay, but I opted to sell him this summer to allow some of the young defensive talents we had to come through.

Incomings

Having sold three first-team centre backs I knew I needed at least one replacement to come in despite the strength of our young defenders at the club, and ultimately I brought in someone who I believe to be the best defender in the game:

Matthijs de Ligt was Juventus' star man for many seasons and it ultimately cost me a fee that could rise to £100m to prize him away from Turin. I hadn't considered him a viable option but after speaking with his agent and realising that Juventus were open to business for the right fee, I moved to bring him to the Emirates to be the key man in our new look defence. With Frenkie de Jong having arrived six months earlier and Ryan Gravenberch well established at the club, we had a strong Dutch connection back at the club which has certainly worked out well in the past with the likes of Dennis Bergkamp and Marc Overmars.

I was reluctant to bring in anyone else given the depth we already had at the club, but with a huge amount of money burning a hole in my pocket I did opt to bring in one more huge talent:

I had been on the lookout for another left-footer who could play on the right wing as well as in the central positions, and Yusuf Demir fit the bill. The Austrian had finally progressed into the Barcelona first team but was still very much a squad player for them and the Catalans were open to selling him for the right price. That price ended up being £91m, a hefty fee, but with his best years ahead of him I felt it was worth the cost. I'll look to slowly introduce Demir into the first-team and see him as the long-term successor to Martin Ødegaard, who signed a new contract this summer.

Tactics

I have changed my tactics around almost every season so far and have really enjoyed experimenting with new formations and styles. The quality of our side means we can play in pretty much any way we want, although as mentioned I had found the 3-3-3-1 to be overly attacking for our games against the better sides both in Europe and abroad. What I hadn't yet done is found a great five-at-the-back formation, so this is the season where I'm finally going to try that.

This is how we are currently setting up, with this (roughly) being my strongest side:

I'm keen for us to be able to overload the opposition defence with attacking options in numerous channels; Livramento and Saka offer great width and attacking threat from the wing-back positions, Spirin will look to get in behind from the left wing, and Jamal Musiala can break from midfield to offer attacking support. I'm looking for Ødegaard and Vlahović to be creative outlets in the centre of the attacking third and for them also to contribute with goals themselves.

I've not yet fully utilised a Libero, and want to give de Jong a chance to excel from this position as his attributes indicate that he should be adept at it. I'm also using this formation to give Declan Rice more time as a centre-back, such is our depth in midfield.

With our side assembled and new tactic in place, our success last season meant we'd start the new campaign with matches against Brighton in the FA Community Shield and Borussia Dortmund in the UEFA Super Cup. Against Brighton, we found ourselves a goal down at half-time after conceding from a corner, but a second-half fightback saw us win out victorious with four goals scored in relatively short succession:

Gabriel Martinelli bagged a brilliant brace to take us into the lead, before Martin Ødegaard found himself free inside the box to slot home a third goal with his left foot. A headed goal from a corner for debutant Matthijs de Ligt crowned the win in what was a great day out at Wembley as we secured our fourth successive Community Shield. The man of the match award went to Jamal Musiala, who assisted three of the goals on the day.

My favourite goal of the day was Martinelli's equaliser, with some beautiful passing on display as we carved open the Brighton defence before the Brazilian finished in style:

Borussia Dortmund would likely pose a sterner test, and thus they did. A goal from Emile Smith Rowe gave us a deserved lead but an equaliser from Donyell Malen meant it was 1-1 at half-time, despite us having the better of the first half. We managed to get back into the lead just after the hour mark thanks to a header from Vyacheslav Spirin, which ultimately decided the game as we finished as 2-1 winners:

Two games and two trophies to start the season, which is always welcome.

For the Premier League, we would start our defence of the title with a home game against Bournemouth before then heading up north to face Newcastle United and Manchester United. In the Champions League, we were drawn in a very balanced group with no real super teams but no minnows either:

I'll recap the first few months of the season in my next post.

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

Has anyone managed to re-integrate either Guendouzi or Bellerin back into the squad after their loans?

[Harper]

November and December 2022

Arsenal Fixtures

Real Madrid (A) Analysis

A surprising dead rubber match. With first place secured, I played as rotated a squad as I was able for our trip to the Bernabéu. Unfortunately, Mattias Svanberg was injured in the lead up, and missed the last four games of the first half of the season.

This wasn’t a close game. Real Madrid defeated us 3-1, with Daniel Ballard, operating as a central midfielder, scoring his first senior goal for the club.

Spoiler

 

Crystal Palace (A) Analysis

A trip to South London left us frustrated. Crystal Palace went ahead on a Milivojévic penalty (25’). Gabriel Martinelli brought us equal (68’) but we were unable to push on for a winner.
 

Spoiler

 

Manchester United (A) Analysis

Our undefeated start to the season came to a halt at Old Trafford. Paul Pogba scored the only goal, heading home a Luke Shaw free kick (47’). David De Gea made a number of saves in a player of the match performance, making 9 saves. Both teams had opportunities to make this a high scoring affair. Each with nine shots on target and Arsenal leading the xG accumulation 2.05-1.49.
 

Spoiler

 

This result brought us to four league matches without a win, our last win being the 1-0 win over Wolves in October.

Brighton (H) Analysis

Back to winning ways, but not without a bump. Brighton’s Andi Zeqiri separated himself from William Saliba in the six yard box and headed home a cross from an unmarked Steven Alzate (21’). Fortunately, Bukayo Saka brought us level a minute later, pouncing on a loose ball in the Brighton penalty area (22’). Ryan Gravenberch had to be substituted off (27’), but fortunately the injury is just muscle tightness. He shouldn’t miss significant time for us or Netherlands in Qatar. Martinelli scored the winner in added time (45’+2’), while Gianlucca Scamacca (55’) and Boubacar Kamara (75’) added goals in the second half.

Spoiler

 

Midseason Friendlies

With two weeks to get the squad back to match fitness after the World Cup break, I scheduled four home friendlies against AZ Alkmaar, Bayer Leverkusen, Real Madrid, and A.C. Milan. We one all three, though, with closer score lines than we would have liked. We were trying out some new formations, a 4-2-3-1 and a revised version of our 4-1-4-1. Between changing squad combinations, tactical unfamiliarity, and a focus on fitness, the goals allowed were not too concerning to me.

Fulham (H) Analysis

A dominant performance deserved goals from open play. We hit the woodwork three times and had eight shots on target. Fulham didn't create much and we rightfully won the match.

Spoiler

 

League Table (Game Week 16)

November Awards

Player	Award	Place
Bukayo Saka	Premier League Young Player of the Month	1st
Tyreece John-Jules	League 1 Young Player of the Month	1st
Tyreece John-Jules	League 1 Player of the Month	1st

End of Year Awards

Player	Award	Place
Martin Ødegaard	Norwegian Eliteserien Player of the Year	1st
Martin Ødegaard	Norwegian Players’ Association Player of the Year	1st
Martin Ødegaard	Norwegian Players’ Association Team of the Year
1. Jamal Musiala 2. Pedri 3. Ryan Gravenberch	Kopa Trophy	3rd
1. Jamal Musiala 2. Pedri 3. Ryan Gravenberch	European Golden Boy	3rd

2022 World Cup

Arsenal Players

Player	Team	Stats
Aaron Ramsdale	England	4 caps, 3 clean sheets, Second Round (USA)
Matt Turner	United States	0 caps, Quarterfinal (Denmark)
Takehiro Tomiyasu	Japan	3 caps, Group Stage (3rd)
Gabriel	Brazil	1 cap, Finalist
Thomas Partey	Ghana	3 caps, Group Stage (3rd)
Ryan Gravenberch	Netherlands	3 caps, Second Round (Brazil)
Folarin Balogun	United States	3 caps, Quarterfinal (Denmark)

Notable Omissions

• Bukayo Saka and Benjamin White were not called up to the England squad.
• Gabriel Martinelli, with 10 goals and 2 assists to his name, may also feel hard done not to make the Brazilian World Cup squad.
• Gianluca Scamacca, with 11 goals (league leading) and 9 clear cut chances, should also be disappointed not to receive a call up for the Italians.

Group Stage

There weren’t many major upsets in the group stage. The Groups featured some high caliber matches including Germany-France, Spain-Portugal, Brazil-Italy, and England-Netherlands

The biggest surprise may be Qatar progressing from the group stage, pipping Ghana (3rd) via the goals scored tie-breaker. Qatar was the only Asian nation to progress to the knockout stages.

The biggest upset, however, was the United States defeating Italy 1-0 on Match Day to of Group H. The result was significant in the nominal “Group of Death.” At the end of group play, Brazil, Italy, and the United States were level with 6 points each. Brazil took first on the goal difference tie-breaker. Italy required at least a two goal victory over South Korea or Brazil to defeat the United States by three or more goals to progress on goal difference. The United States lost 2-0 and Italy won 1-0, resulting in the reigning European champions crashing out on goals scored (the United States 3, Italy 2).

Senegal was the only African nation to progress from the group stages, while Mexico and the United States represent the CONCACAF Confederation in the knockout round.

Knockouts

France defeated Brazil 2-1 to retain their status as World Cup Champions, scoring 14 goals in the elimination rounds, taking their tournament total to 23. Former Gunners Matteo Guendouzi and Olivier Giroud contributed to the effort. England will be disappointed, losing to the United States on penalties while Denmark and Mexico surprised everyone, making runs to the semi-finals (Denmark won the 3rd place match). Denmark won their second round (Senegal) and quarter final (United States) matches by two goal margins, while Mexico required penalties to advance ahead of Portugal and Germany. Hosts, Qatar, were quickly dispatched by the eventual Champions four goals to nil.

Loan Watch

Contracts

Gabriel Magalhães signed a new contract that increases his wages from £50k to £105k per week and extends his stay from 2025 to 2027. The agreement was signed as the Brazilian made his first appearance for the Seleção at the World Cup. The player was attracting interest from FC Bayern. Hopefully this deal quashes their interest. Edu handled the negotiation.

We attempted to reach an agreement with Martin Ødegaard as well. Initially, these talks were going to wait until the end of the season, but I opted to start the process now. Edu was unable to reach an agreement, with the player reportedly asking for a wage of £205-2015k per week. Almost double his current £115k per week wage. After the player’s negotiations with Edu broke down, his demands to me were a base salary of £245k per week. Thus far, we’ve unable to reach an agreement. The player’s deal expires in 2025, so we have time to find a solution.

Academy Watch

Per Mertesacker reported on the school boys and it's looking like a good crop that will come in to the U18 squad. If we do get three strong forward prospects, we'll need to look into retraining two of them to the flanks. 

Recruitment and Transfers

With a transfer budget of £115m and £430k per week in wages, I opted to sift through the scout reports and get a head start on transfer business for January and beyond.

I wasn’t the only one thinking transfers. Rob Holding confronted me regarding his playing time. His attitude to start the chat put me on the defensive. Given that he’s fifth on the depth chart (and only appeared in 3 of 23 matches) and I was preparing for his exit after the season, I told him he was free to leave. This wasn’t the answer he was expecting and became enraged. I promised to let him go, ultimately bring forward his exit to the winter transfer window. During the World Cup break, we accepted a £22.5m fee from Porto for the 27 year old. £4.1m will go to Bolton and £17.5m will be added to my transfer budget.

Decisions were made at right back and right wing. My hope to knock out both positions with one signing in Alexis Saelemaekers was not to be, but our scouting department provided plenty of options.

Right Back (Takehiro Tomiyasu Rotation)

Spoiler

We settled on Pierre Kalulu to be our long term right back platoon partner with Takehiro Tomiyasu. The defender has only played four of 21 matches for Milan. Our scouts watching him in two matches, both ending 3-0 in favor of Milan.

The 22 year old French defender will finish the season with A.C. Milan. He will move to Arsenal on 5 year deal through 2028 with a £51k per week wage.

We agreed a structured deal that will see Arsenal pay £20m. The deal  includes a 10% transfer profit sell-on fee and could rise in cost to £28.5m from individual performances:

• £4m (£200k per appearance for 20 league appearances)
• £1m after 20 league appearances
• £1.5m after 50 leagues appearances
• £0.5m after his first international cap
• £1.5m after 10 international caps

Harper managed the transfer fee negotiations, while Edu agreed the personal terms.

Our other targets were Jurriën Timber, Alexis Saelemaekers, Wilfried Singo, Max Aarons, and Ben Johnson. Of those Saelemaekers and Singo would were most intriguing for their versatility in playing all positions on the right flank. Johnson and Aarons were intriguing home grown options. Timber, statistically the best defender of the bunch, more often plays centrally. At any rate, all five commanded fees beyond what I deemed reasonable for this stage of our squad's state.

Right Wing (Reiss Nelson Upgrade and Depth)

I opted to accelerate right wing signings to January. With loan exits for Šeško, and Tavares, and Holding handing in a transfer request, the squad will have room for some signings to reinforce for the second half of the season and Champions League knockout stages.

Being priced out of Alexis Saelemaekers, I had my eye on several players including Michael Olise (Crystal Palace), Antony (Ajax), Moussa Diaby (Leverkusen), Carlos Soler (Valencia), and Karim Adeyemi (Salzburg). We quickly discovered we were priced out of all these players as well, with the exception of Karim Adeyemi, who we deemed too inexperienced to step into our team immediately.

Spoiler

Noni Madueke

The first agreed transfer was for PSV’s English attacker, Noni Madueke. The former Tottenham academy player has started in 16 of PSV’s matches, notching five goals and three assists and completing 93% of his passes.

We anticipate that he will rotate with Saka on the right, providing a more attacking threat to goal.

The player had a release clause of £25.5m. Edu negotiated the personal terms. Madueke will join on a 4.5 year deal starting at £65k per week through 2027.

His status as an England home-grown player is a bonus, which will provide flexibility with continental roster requirements. While being a U21 player will allow the player to stay unregistered for the domestic campaign. Our scouts indicate he’s a bit inconsistent, but given his youth, we hope he’ll grow into a stellar player for us.

Mikkel Damsgaard

A second attacking signing is arranged for January 2023, in the form of 22 year old Dane, Mikkel Damsgaard. The player’s two-footedness was a driving factor in this deal. His ability to play across the attacking midfield positions will provide depth on both the left and right. There are concerns that the player will not adapt to the physicality of the Premier League. I anticipate using the player more often on the flanks than centrally.

Terms with Sampdoria were agreed for the permanent signing with Arsenal paying £17m upfront. The deal includes a 10% transfer profit sell-on fee and may rise to £27m on individual and team performances:

• £2m (100k per appearance for 20 league appearances)
• £0.5m after 10 appearances
• £1m after 20 appearances
• £2.5m after 50 appearances
• £1m if Arsenal win the Premier League (Expires 2025)
• £2.5m if Arsenal reach the Champions League Final (No Expiration)
• £0.5m if Arsenal win the FA Cup (Expires 2025)

Edu negotiated a £55k per week deal through 2027 (4.5 years).

Defensive Midfield (Thomas Partey Replacement)

At defensive midfielder, I’ve opted to abandon pursuit of Declan Rice. We’ll monitor his situation and pounce if he becomes available. In the mean time, I’m going try out Albert Sambi Lokonga as a deeper midfielder. He’s appearances have mostly been as a supporting central midfielder, but I think he may have what it takes to operate deeper.

Maxence Caqueret and Gave are also on our radar as a free transfer options for next summer. However, with Charlie Patino, Miguel Azeez, and Omari Hutchison doing well on loan, all three will have an opportunity to claim a place in the squad next season.

I’ll offset some of my wage increase (~179k per week) outlay by offloading Holding’s £40k per week wages permanently and having Šeško and Tavares’ combined wages of £45k per week wages covered on loan deals.

Longer term, I expect to off-load Thomas Partey’s £160k per week salary after the season.

Going into the winter transfer window with my incoming business wrapped up on day one, our transfer and wage budget looks like this.

Injuries

 

Staff

The World Cup break offers an opportunity to make significant staff changes. While I’m not planning on any specific changes, I have posted advertisements for a first team coach and a fitness coach. If adequate candidates apply, there may be some new faces in the technical area come Boxing Day.

In	Out
David Tivey (U23 Sports Scientist)	-
Lucas Oliveira (Recruitment Analyst)	-
Michel Aguiar dos Santos (U23 Physio)	-
Oliver Bartlett (Fitness Coach)	-

Finances

Edited March 19, 2022 by Harper

[BrickCommo23]

17 hours ago, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

Has anyone managed to re-integrate either Guendouzi or Bellerin back into the squad after their loans?

I tried with both in my second season - but failed. 

Bellerin - was OK but not as good as Tomiyasu so was second fiddle and slightly randomly I got a £30m bid from Everton at the end of season 2 so he went

Guendouzi - I was running with a B2B so thought he would be good but he kept complaining about playing time and role so he ended up in the U23s and sold. 

My conscience is clear  but neither worked out for me. 

[Harper]

On 18/03/2022 at 17:48, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

Has anyone managed to re-integrate either Guendouzi or Bellerin back into the squad after their loans?

I had planned to run Bellerin in a platoon with Tomiyasu but after the first season, his wage nearly doubles and I got a £30m bid from PSG for him.

With Guendouzi, Marseille exercised their buy option, so I didn’t get to keep him. He did go one to feature frequently for France in the Qatar World Cup.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Harper

[Carmi88]

I got rid of Guendouzi because i don't like him  Sold to Marseille for 9.5m, and 5 years later they sold him to Man Utd for 71m so i get to pummel him in the league  

 

I kept Bellerin for 1 more year before leeds bid 30m for him, and i had a class looking regen come through, who pretty much covered right back due to first teamer being injured all of last season. Hopefully make a 1 club man out of him, this is his 5th season in the first team