We're in Group F against

Bayern Munich
Olympiakos
Dynamo Zagreb

Can't see us not going through to the knockouts. Best we can hope for is 2nd spot behind the obvious favourites Bayern.

Bayern, Olympiacos...........

I can't make any sense of this draw. Why the there two pools which we could not go into? Who else apart from Chelsea?

Then Man City, had only one group to go straight into, Juventus - and the next side out, Bayer Leverkusen went in with Barcelona. Why couldn't City?

Off to Zagreb and Olympiakos again.
A lot off fuss for a lot of sides, for four games like that. Thankfully, we are winning the FA Cup nowadays.

Guessing that'll be because of the TV split. Two English clubs in Groups A-D, two in Group E-H.

Bayern and Olympiacos again, eh? How dull.

There are many reasons why transfers go down to the wire - mostly to do with money. It's why there is almost always a flurry of activity on deadline day. Enough to make Sky Sports make a day of it in the calendar.

In many cases players are identified and there are conversations behind the scenes between middle men and agents, and players, and players' agents, and representatives of each club. An example of something that might hold up a transfer is the lack of a transfer request from the player. If a club accepts a bid for one of their player from another club, and the player has not handed in a transfer request, the player is due compensation on what is left on his contract. If the player has handed in a TR then no compensation is due. So that could hold it up. It's been well known for months that Chelsea have been in for John Stones, and yet he only handed in a TR two days ago. Why did he not do it sooner if he wanted to move?

If we do end up signing players between now and the end of the window, they won't be desperate, last minute panic buys. They will have been planned for months, and delayed for one reason or another outside our control.

We don't always leave it to the last minute. The vast majority of our signings are not made near the wire,

"We have to play quicker, be more incisive, combine quicker in the final third and we work hard on that," the club's longest serving manager said.
"We create chances, but at the moment, we analyse well after the game the number of chances and the number of expected goals we should score with the chances we create.
"At the moment we have a little deficit between the chances we create and the number of chances we score," he added.

No shit Sherlock! It's been like this for at least two years - why don't you do something about it instead of talking about it?

Dinamo Zagreb had trouble qualifying against the Albanian outfit that they were faced with the qualify. As an Olympiakos fan, I'd be hopeful of picking up all 6 points there. I realistically expect nothing from the two games against Bayern so that leaves the two games against your lot.
3 points at home, a decent goal difference and who knows?

Agree that those things can play a factor but the biggest reason is the arrogance/dithering of Wenger.

If Chelsea didn't have Terry, Cahill Tec they would have signed stones by now, they're not in desperate need for him so can take their time to negotiate.

Answer this, would Mourinho, Van Gaal or Pellegrini start the season with Giroud as their main CF & Coquelin as their main DM??

It must have been something like that. To watch it live, most sides only had a choice of 3 or 4 pots and it was not because of nations.

We definitely had two balls left out, they even mentioned it and City went straight into a group but were not last.

On a more general point re transfers. I thought that once a player formally request for a transfer then they forfeit any monies, bonuses etc from the transfer fee. So it's usually a last resort by the player, in the hope that the 2 clubs can reach an agreement without the need for player/agent intervention. As far as I am aware anyway.

That does seem to be the case but I've never known if that is a standard rule for everyone or done on a contract by contract basis.

It can mean a lot of money - and each agent is probably working on a percentage either way.

I'd suggest every club would try to get the player to formally request the transfer - or at least bargain to get the compensation they were due reduced. If that couldn't happen, they would probably demand a higher transfer fee from the buying club in order to pay for it.

As I say - it can get pretty complicated and protracted. No surprise considering the sums of money involved.

I do appreciate it's not as simple as buying a jar of coffee from Tesco's regarding buying players. However, Wenger does seem to be the only high profile manager that has a real bugbear with the whole business of incoming transfers. He said he's involved with every aspect of every transfer which might be the problem itself, or a part of the problem, Anecdotally I have heard/read that he has deemed a fee to high and put the kaibosh on it. I am talking thin margins too.

It appears to be an area of football management he doesn't care for much. Well I am sorry, he's paid a fortune to manage Arsenal FC and whether he likes it or not, transfers are very much a part of it. If he's saying that he is still looking to add to the squad then why has he left it so late? Or is it just smoke and mirrors to deflect any criticism from the fans if and when there are no additions before the window shuts?

As for the CL draw. Same old, same old springs to mind. I doubt I will bother even watching the group games especially now they won't be on ITV. We will prob qualify in 2nd place, though even that I not over confident about and then we will get knocked out after that. Just like last season, the season before that and nearly every season before that zzzzz.

This happened with the Suarez bid with of £40m+1 pound instead of a normal £40.5m bid then pushing it up to £42.5m or so. Instead he wouldn't budge.

I find the way Arsenal does transfers shambolic. You only have to look back to the way they signed Danny Welbeck as the latest evidence of this.

I understood that we were told categorically by Liverpool that increasing the bid would make no difference - and they would not sell to Arsenal.

Regarding reports in the media and twitter etc. about our transfer business - it must all be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Almost all of it is complete garbage.

Its bad planning uf anything, because by deadline day we could be out the title race, then what? Wenger and the board are woeful at transfers. People need to stop defending them. I understand the media rile the fans up about transfers but Aw gives them a reason to. It just shows the lack of ambition we have. If no one comes in by DD. Then even the players will lose interest and players like Sanchez and Ozil will want out.

Imo mangera should not be involved in all aspects of transfers, they should just name the player and let the negotiaing team get on with it.

It's the same every year Spidey, Wenger never 'fully' strengthens the team and only he knows why he comes out with the spin as to why we couldn't get the players we were after. It's just bullshit.

Koscielny, Theo and Ox start ahead of Chambers, Giroud.

Ozil not even in the squad - "slight knee injury" according to ODL and out for 1 week.

Let's see what Ramsey can do back in the middle and Theo with his first start this season.

We have a very strong squad already. Just need two or possibly three more to refresh it.

I have confidence in the manager that he'll deliver the signings he and his team have been working on for months.

Play with 2 genuine wide men not central midfielders put wide like Ramsey.

Should have been a pen. Decisions going against us so far this season.

Red card for Newcastle. Anything less than 3 points will be disappointing.