Hector Bellerin....

Hector Bellerin could reject an offer to stay at Arsenal and leave for Manchester Cityin the summer. Arsenal have offered their Spain right back a five-year deal that would almost double his pay packet of £50,000-a-week. Barcelona have also shown interest. Sources close to the player insist that Bellerín’s preference is to join City. (The Times)

Arteta and Pep and guaranteed a start. He'd probably get paid a little more too.

He's very close to Arteta who helped him and his family out when he arrived at Arsenal - Bellerin claims, "he's like a father figure"...

Lets hope a deal can be done &  quickly rather than drag it out like the Laporte saga only to be disappointed. Will be the summer though.  In the meantime I would try & give a couple of the eds boys some game time to ease them in. Not necessarily full games but enough time in matches to build up confidence at performing at the top level.

I'm sure we're working hard behind the scenes for this lad. If he wants to leave, I can't see him going anywhere except to one of those two clubs.

It's imperative we get more youth and pace ito the wide defensive areas.

Also reported in the MEN that City will return for Laporte in the summer.

skyblueoz wrote:Lets hope a deal can be done &  quickly rather than drag it out like the Laporte saga only to be disappointed. Will be the summer though.  In the meantime I would try & give a couple of the eds boys some game time to ease them in. Not necessarily full games but enough time in matches to build up confidence at performing at the top level.

Will it really be that different this year for the kids?

It seems that there are more of them involved with the 1st team squad, but I can't really see them getting much game time outside of cup matches. 

Unless they really are flying in training.

Maybe not dawg but the one difference is that Guardiola will bring them on if a game has been won. Bournemouth a prime example 4-0 up so gives Garcia 15-20 mins. You would never have seen Pellegrini do that, only once v Leicester I think we were 3-0 down when he gave Celina a debut with 10 mins left. No pressure as game was lost. No disrespect to teams like Hull & Watford but I would say especially home games against such opposition if we are cruising then give these guys the chance to play with some confidence in a winning atmosphere, It can't do any harm, & again could save us some big bucks in the future.

I agree with you Oz, but there's still the pressure to win things. No coach, even Pep I think, will take the risk just for developmental purposes unless games are well put to bed.

Who does he leave off the subs bench for the academy kids? We've probably got a full bench already.

Sane, Clichy, Zabba, Navas, Delph, Fernando, Itchy, Gundogan even.

On Sunday's showing, Zaba will be lucky to get another starting place - so there's one place. Delph hasn't been fit, so there's another and then there's the issue with Fernando. I'm sure we've got some youth that can sit in there after 65-70 mins and shore us up alongside Fernandinho....so 3 places.

We have 6 places on the bench (apart from Big Willy). He'll always have at least two 'proper' defenders such as Sagna/Zabba and Clichy. Then there's Sane, Itchy, Gundogan. 

I just can't see how you get 3 places for kids, excluding Sane and Itchy who are kids. The only one seen really is Alex Garcia.

And technically Sane doesn't count, because he's not from our academy.

But it's always going to be a problem, who we can have on the bench.  Unless the rules change to allow clubs to post two or three youth players in addition to the six allowed subs, it's never going to happen unless the manager is convinced they are ready.

I mean, look at Itchy.  He only got a crack because Serge was injured and we were reliant on Bony.  Same deal at the rags, the only reason Rashford got the nod at all is because they had no strikers available.

As for the rest of the kids, their only input (apart from the Garcias) was in the ill fated FA Cup game at Chelsea.  And a baptism of fire isn't a good assessment, even though some of them did show some quality in the first half.

Topdawg wrote:We have 6 places on the bench (apart from Big Willy). He'll always have at least two 'proper' defenders such as Sagna/Zabba and Clichy. Then there's Sane, Itchy, Gundogan. 

I just can't see how you get 3 places for kids, excluding Sane and Itchy who are kids. The only one seen really is Alex Garcia.

My point was about integrating the youth players for those who just aren't doing it. Pep can either say "ooh, we need experience on the bench, regardless of their current performance levels"...or he can add 3 players where I mentioned....what he'll do is up to him, but he CAN do it if he feels they're ready.

The bench could easily be:

Willy
Maffeo
Kolorov/Clichy/Tosin/Angelino
A. Garcia
Navas (Gundogan when KDB is back)
Sane
Kelechi

It just depends on what he wants, but it's doable.

We should be happy enough that Itchy and Sane are on the bench. When Kompany is back, that's an added problem. The fact that Kolarov can play CB or LB is in his favour and Clichy can play at either FB position helps him.