Hi guys,

I am starting a new story today with Arsenal. In the news a lot recently over their poor form and the uncertainty surrounding the futures of both Arsene Wenger and many of their players, I thought it might be interesting to have a go with Arsenal.

I didn’t want the save to be hugely demanding, however, I want it still be interesting, and I will try to create as much of a story as I can for you, so hopefully you will all enjoy it. I haven’t written a story in a while on this site, so if there is anything that you guys would like to see a little more of in terms of my writing, then I’m happy to try and please everybody!

In terms of this save, I am using the latest winter transfer update, but I will be taking over at the beginning of the season, after Wenger has stepped down to a mystery man…

Hope you all enjoy!

Good luck!

Arsène Wenger steps down

Arsène Wenger has today called time on his managerial career after 32 years managing just 4 clubs. Wenger, who turns 67 later this year, will be remembered for the dynasty that he built at Arsenal, spending 20 years at the club, and never failing to finish outside the top four or below bitter rivals Tottenham. Whilst Wenger has been plagued by a disappointing lack of trophies in recent years, he has still won 3 Premier League’s and 6 FA Cups, including the famous Invincibles team from 2003/04.

“Arsène will no doubt be looked back upon as Arsenal’s greatest ever manager” said ex-midfielder Ray Parlour;” the number of stars that he bought in to the club and created here, whilst all the time playing a style of football that was both attractive and effective has meant that his Arsenal sides have been admired by fans from all over the world. No other manager has been able to do that for such a consistent period of time”. Thierry Henry said that it was “a sad day for Arsenal, for English football, and for football across the world” as Wenger retired.

Wenger had been able to complete deals for Granit Xhaka, Skhodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez, and will leave behind a squad in decent nick for the next manager to take over. However, it might now be the time that we see a clear out of some of the deadwood that fans have accused Wenger of ignoring. ArsenalFanTV’s Youtube channel was quick to post a video of regular star Troopz listing what the new manager needed to do; “he needs to sell players like Monreal and Giroud, he needs to shore up our defence, and he needs to get some decent physio’s in!”



Speculation is now beginning to grow over who might potentially be Wenger’s successor. Fans have been critical over recent years that the club have missed out on names like Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, both of whom are now managing rivals Manchester City and Liverpool respectively. Massimo Allegri, Jorge Sampaoli and Diego Simeone have all been mentioned, but nobody has come forward and declared an interest in taking over.

Really nice start mate this story has great potential, but a Troopz quote with no bluds or fams?

MJK46 : Thanks very much mate

BackPostHeader: Haha cheers mate - I've actually met him and he barely even said blud or fam. I did think about mentioning that Ramsey was a "bread roll"...

Arsenal unveil Ed Peterson as new boss

Arsenal have today unveiled unknown 20-year old Ed Peterson as their new manager. Signing on a one-year deal, Peterson will be thrown in at the deep end, with this being his first role managing in professional football. Peterson, who has his National C Licence for coaching, was a former academy player at Leyton Orient. However, he stopped playing football after breaking his leg in an U18’s league match at the age of 16, and his since been managing Clapton down in the ninth tier of English football.

“Quite why the club have bought in somebody who is completely unknown and unqualified bemuses me” Paul Merson told Sky Sports News. “I think that it is a strange decision from the board,” said Martin Keown, “especially when you look at the calibre of managers who are out there currently. We just need to get behind him now and hope that he can prove us all wrong.”

Peterson has come in and got straight to work, with news that he plans to overhaul the club’s coaching, scouting and medical setups in order to build a new foundation at the club. An unnamed source told the Daily Mail that Peterson thought “the club was broken, and that he needed to stir things up as he arrived”.



Arsenal will be looking to sign new players this summer, especially in the problem area of left-back, where neither Nacho Monreal nor Kieran Gibbs have been able to make the position their own. Reports suggest that 16 year-old Ryan Sessegnon will be having talks with Arsenal this morning over a potential move, and if he does move, then he will look to be heading out to Thailand with the rest of the squad when they leave in 3 days time.

Ed looks like one of the dudes on Big Bang Theory lol

MJK46: Just like Howard, yes; only noticed that now you've pointed it out!

Had a really entertaining save with Arsenal offline so hopefully your story can be something special! Really strong start mate!

mgriffin2012: Thanks very much mate; I'm enjoying it so far as well mate - hoping to get a couple of updates up tonight.

Pre-Season update: Encouraging

I found my first pre-season to be an impressive start to life as Arsenal boss. I spent most of the pre-season trying to find the correct system to use for the season ahead. Whilst in the earlier games we played an attacking 4-2-3-1, we have since moved to a 4-1-2-2-1 with no wide men, trying to take advantage of the quality that we have in the Attacking Midfielder position. It was also a good chance to blood the new signings into the squad, with two players featuring heavily.

The pre-season tour took us to Thailand, where we only played the one game against Albirex; however, it was a good chance to work on tactics. Afterwards, we played out an entertaining draw against a strong Shakhtar Donetsk side, before thrashing Club Brugge and Celtic in our next games. A dull draw against Juventus followed, before a win against PAOK and a disappointing draw against Penafiel capped off pre-season.

Special mentions should go to Santi Cazorla, who provided an important link between attack and defence, Alex Iwobi, who excelled playing in behind the striker, and Alexis Sanchez, who was effective both on the left and up top. It was disappointing not to win all of our matches in pre-season, especially the final one against Penafiel, but I was pleased to make an unbeaten start to life as manager.

August update: Window closes, Season starts

We made a few important transfer dealings during my first transfer window here at Arsenal; the club spent £131m on 5 players, whilst saying permanent goodbyes to 5 players for a total of £47m. Coming into the club, we started with trying to improve one of our weakest spots in the team: left-back. Nacho Monreal departed for a healthy £9m, and the arrival of Fulham youngster Ryan Sessegnon means that Kieran Gibbs will start, with Sessegnon providing adequate cover on the left. He will hopefully get a chance to develop during cup matches, with a view to be bringing him into the first team within the next couple of years.

The next incoming transfer was another future prospect, and again working on a swap deal; David Ospina left the club on a season-long loan to Lyon, and Predrag Rajkovic was bought in from Maccabi Tel-Aviv for £5.25m. The Serb will play in cup games and some European games this season, and will be seen as the long-term successor to the ageing Petr Cech.

The next area of focus was again in defence, with more ins and outs happening in this department. Mathieu Debuchy left for Everton for £3.8m, as did Gabriel Paulista, who moved for £12m. We also said goodbye to Per Mertesacker, who has joined Valencia for £6m, whilst Carl Jenkinson will spend the season in Bulgaria playing for Ludogorets. The first man bought in as a replacement was in the 2014 World Cup Winning defence alongside Mustafi; Benedikt Howedes has joined for £15.5m after his release clause was activated. Joining him at the back is the versatile and technical Javi Martinez, who was signed from Bayern Munich for £50m. Martinez definitely seems to be worth the money, and will be able to play a role in defence or in the midfield; I feel he fits our style of play very nicely.



Our final dealings were in Arsenal’s problem area up top – the club has struggled to replace Van Persie in the past few years, and I have decided to bring in someone who will not be accused of not putting the effort in up top. We decided to pull off a huge cross-capital move for Diego Costa, who joins us for a huge £58m. I feel as though the combative striker is the perfect man to spearhead our attack and keep us going up top. Going out was Olivier Giroud, who has joined PSG for £15m. Yaya Sanogo has also joined Dijon on loan for the season.


Moving on to our first matches of the season; we kicked off with an away trip to Stoke, one of Arsenal’s bogey teams in recent years, especially at their ground. However, we laid down a marker for change, dominating them throughout the first half. Sanchez bagged two before the break, and Cazorla also had a penalty saved before half-time which would have further shown our dominance. However, Sanchez was able to score again and bag a hat-trick in the first match of the season.


Our next game saw us battle out a fierce North London Derby. Whilst the football may not have been incredible - there were 12 yellow cards – we did prevail and beat our rivals. The goal came when Iwobi was played in on goal shortly before half time, and with the ball running away from goal, he clipped over Lloris’ head and into the far corner to get the goal and guarantee us another win.


Our third game this August saw us face the Premier League holders at the King Power Stadium. This match would see Diego Costa make his first appearance for Arsenal, although it wouldn’t last long. However, he was able to provide the assist for the first goal, laying off to Santi Cazorla to bend one in off the post from 25 yards to give us the lead. Then came Costa’s red; an awful tackle lunging in on Jamie Vardy, and that was it for Costa, who will face a 3-match ban. We battled on with 10 men, and came under real pressure from Leicester, however, with time running out, Alexis Sanchez was able to slide the ball past Schmeichel after a swift counter-attack and gurantee the three points.


Our run currently leaves us top of the league heading into next month, where we will face 3 more league matches, as well as Champions League and EFL Cup fixtures.

September

September saw us return from the international break for a busy month of action. We kicked it off with a home match against Watford, which we comfortably won 4-1, though it could have, and should have, been more; Cazorla had another penalty saved, although Lucas Perez scored his first goal for the club. We then faced an away trip to PSG in our first match of the Champions League group stages. The game finished 1-1, with Diego Costa scoring his first goal for the club, though we were disappointed as PSG spent much of the game a man down. However, in the grand scheme of things, a draw away at PSG is a good result.

In our next two matches, we faced West Brom in the league, which we comfortably won 2-0, and Norwich in the EFL Cup 3rd round, in which we rotated the side to give some game time to some squad players; the 2-1 scoreline flattered Norwich, as we should have scored more. Our next match saw us face a tough trip away to Liverpool. We struggled to get going, and after going a goal down and equalising within a minute through Diego Costa, we conceded in the 89th minute to lose our unbeaten start to the season. We then had the 2nd match of our Champions League campaign, with an opportunity to recover from the disappointment of the weekend, which we did confidently. Doubles from both Costa and Sanchez saw us thrash Roma 4-0, and our dominance was shown in the fact that they did not have a single shot in the match.




Next month sees us face some tough opposition, so it will be important to try and build a run as we come towards the Chelsea game.

A very bright start to the season, shame about the Liverpool result though. I'd think you'd pick up max points going into the Chelsea game and if you can get a point there it would be a very successful month!

ScottT: Thanks mate! Hopefully we will be able to and win both of those big games.