I fear that that horse left town a long while ago.

There are levels to it though. You often see comments about how all billionaires have skeletons in the closet, but as much as I loathe the business practices of someone like Jeff Bezos, his anti-labour stance and horrible treatment of emplyoees is not on the same level as running a state that executes homosexuals or treat women as second class citizens.

Might shore up the defence though ?

Male homosexuality is illegal in Qatar, as is cohabitation of any unmarried partners. Execution is a theoretical punishment for Muslim homosexuals only, under sharia, but there are no known instances of the punishment being carried out. Not a good place to be LGBT in any case.

True. When I posted I was thinking more of football itself. FIFA, UEFA and all the various leagues leave much to be desired.

We all seem to be galloping off towards supporting Franchise United.

Looks like Azeez is going to spend the season on loan at Portsmouth. Danny Cowley their manager had Smith-Rowe at Huddersfield.

According to the Athletic, City GK, Benjamin Mendy has been charged with 4 counts of rape and 1 sexual assault. No doubt he won't be in Saturday's game as he's in police custody.

Isn’t City’s Benjamin Mendy a left back, not a goalkeeper (you call him “City GK”)? Isn’t City’s keeper Ederson? Are you confusing him with Edouard Mendy the Chelsea goalkeeper or GK?

It is City’s Mendy who has been charged with rape.

Thanks Bernard. Mixed him up with Chelsea's GK, who's name is Edouard Mendy. So, yes Benjamin is the City left back who won't be playing Saturday.

FabrizioRomano
"Aouar was offered to Arsenal, but the club haven't responded yet. Let's see if #Arsenal go for a bid in the coming days. Tottenham are not interested as of now"

It is a strange one how we can be so in to a player we had a £40m bid turned down only 12 months ago and now when his club come begging for us to sign him at half the price we're um-ing and ahh-ing. It can't be because we went for Partey instead last year because I don't think their similar players at all. Perhaps it is the emergence of Emile Smith Rowe (a more similar player at least) that means Arsenal are less interested.

Is it perhaps that he is now being reported as coming with a load of attitude baggage? I seem to recall reading that a couple of months ago.

If so then we really don’t need that.

Hope they arrested the right player for this.

Very wise of the team to play like that. They can't use up any excuses before the City game!

Yes but not all franchises are McDonalds. Haven't you watched Itowon Class yet?

Must be my age. Never heard of it. Needed the help of Mr Google.

Would love Aouar here. Everytime I've seen him he's been class and would certainly be a better midfield option than Elneny.

The rumours about his attitude are a little troubling, but sometimes players fall out with club management, and it doesn't have to be just the player's fault. Aubameyang had the same reputation when he left Dortmund, and his attitude has been excellent since he arrived at Arsenal.

Read the same.

How would Arteta play against City? Please let Aubameyang be our CF for that match. Don't waste him on the wings.

But we are playing with one arm tied behind our backs.

I wish we would sort out our fullback and midfield situation, also excited to see the impact White has. Imagine Pépé and Saka playing in front of players who can spot their runs and get the ball forward quickly. Pépé in particular is wasted at the moment.

100% correct. The front three must be Pépé, Saka and Aubameyang.

When we were on top, Chelsea emerged, Man Utd slipped to 3rd in the pecking order. Up until 2006 season, Man Utd had never gone 2 seasons straight without winning the EPL.

2004, 2005 and 2006 they didn't win the title and it was the longest in the EPL they went without a title.
They won the league cup in 2006. They won the FA Cup in 2004 but they were visibly 3rd best team in the league going in 2004, 2005 and 2nd in 2006 season. And in 2006 Ferguson was reputed to have said, that he valued that 2006 league cup trophy. Why? Because he was reputed to have said that he wanted his players to remember and be hungry for the feeling of lifting a trophy before they got used to not being able to do so.

So, he went for the league cup when he otherwise would not have in prior years. That trophy is partially credited with whetting the appetite for a 2007 title run.

My personal opinion, is we need to think out the box. I would advise Arteta to seek out Ferguson for a private phone call or face to face to chat, Wenger as well. I don't know if he has sought out older, wiser persons such as them. I would be particularly interested in what Ferguson has to say.

Anyway, that said, I hope the players have a bit more confidence going to Manchester and get something out the game. I hope the fans spur them on. However, being a pragmatist, I'm not expecting anything other than a loss. It may be a close 1-0 heart breaker or a 4-1 demolishing. I'd be happy as pie for a point. But the reality is we are no where close to getting something like a point at City yet.

I hope the players don't believe that but privately, if we are honest, we aren't very likely to get anything out the game. Arteta has to be prepared to know what to tell them if that happens.

Anyway, the breadth of good teams makes the FA cup a difficult trophy to win. The title is not even on our radar. A domestic trophy is and I would advise Mikel to go big in the league cup game even at the expense at the preceding and following league game its sandwiched between. We have no outside distractions. Everything is all in England. If we don't get either domestic cup we should make it hard for those who do.

Imo even though I love Leno as a shot stopper Rammo is the 3rd goalkeeper to show up Leno's terrible, I don't think that's overstating the problem, distribution and passing out when he has the ball. Something Martinez was excellent at.

It's heartening to read in these difficult times that the totally skint Real Madrid have managed to find approx 170m down the back of the sofa to pay for MBappe.

Hi Soc,

I heard an interesting take on it yesterday. They are investing in the stadium upgrade and apparently it will be excellent when completed. But a shiny new stadium needs a star at a club which has always had stars. A chubby Hazard jogging around won't cut it. So Mbappe is seen as much a financial/marketing/merchandising investment as he is a big addition to the team. They are the biggest name in world football. The Spanish banks will back them.

Come on, AG, where's that plucky Falklands spirit from last weekend, when you thought we might win, lose or draw against Chelsea? City aren't exactly Brazil 1970 - they lost to Spurs a fortnight ago - so anything's possible...

It’s all personal opinion but I think your hugely overstating Leno’s problems with distribution. Terrible is a ridiculous word to use about it. I genuinely don’t think it’s that bad. Moreover when he first joined I felt is his distribution was pretty damn good and I still do.

Also, what the hell did Ramsdale do regarding distribution in one single game against possibly the worst opposition we’ll face this season (obviously depending on who we get in the 3rd round of the FA Cup) to show up how terrible Leno’s distribution is? It was a game we walked 0-6. Considering how much keepers are often in possession of the ball to distribute, he hardly touched it enough to justify your exaggerated claim.

The American media and from what I've seen of the BBC cable channel the narrative is that leaving Afghanistan is akin to the fall of Saigon.

The fact of the matter is the powers that be in America did not want to leave. Too much money being made by the 1 percent. We went into Afghanistan to get bin Laden and changed our objective later to some sort of 'nation building'. I have family members who served there and friends who worked there. The money was very, very good. I applied to a site paying 160k a year to go there. Most of that tax free. Free lodgings, food, and depending on the contract, 2 weeks off every few months or a month off every quarter. Safety? By that time the area around Kabul where they were working was largely pacified. Very, very little roadside bombs, etc. The area swept. Gun fire in the distance going to and from the airport. It wasn't a trip to Disney World by any stretch you could still get killed or injured randomly but the money being made made many of us willing to take that chance.

Anyway, Obama wanted to leave, so did Trump. It's documented fact the CIA risk assessment, top military brass, department of defense personnel flat out lied. All kinds of companies were making a lot of money there. Not just the defense companies. They needed computers, water, all manner of food, pretty much everything you need to run a small city and that's what these enclaves were essentially.

It's been said that the total expenditure on and off books in what is called 'black accounting'. Not in the books, was at least a trillion a year for the last 20 years. And while that was going on we were losing ground. The Taliban was slowly but surely regaining territory. A side effect of us there is the opiod crisis. In order to be allied with the U.S. Afghani farmers were allowed to openly grow poppy used for heroin. Openly.

Obama campaigned on leaving but couldn't pull it off or risk losing his re-election. He had already spent all his political capital on national healthcare, nicknamed 'Obamacare'. He was still staving off a recession. No more political capital left after re-election to pull that off and he was being lied to about the ramifications of pulling out.

Trump, to his credit, was hair close to doing so, last year and he was literally gaslighted into not leaving. Some would call what the high brass did 'treasonous' in another era. Well, Biden knew it was BS. He was a hawk. Like a lot of centrist Dems with his years in the Senate, he knew the talking points, was VP for 8 years, knew it was BS and so decided to leave, and couldn't be talked out of it.

The American media is punishing him for it because their advertisers were making money directly or indirectly off it. Their news teams sources in the government where they got their 'anonymous sources said....' were these CIA, Dept. of Defense, personnel who wanted to stay there so they had better keep this narrative going.

Finally, the real truth that America never likes to admit is that we lost the war. That's the fact of the matter. We lost. Afghanistan isn't called the 'graveyard of empires' for just any reason. No one has been able to defeat them outright. Not the Persians, Macedonians, you lot, the Russians, no one. They are tough, hardy people, who live a rough life and can outlast you for decades if need be. There has been only thing that has been able to conquer the Afghanis and that is Islam and it took about 300 years to fully work there. And in that time, the moslems lost many, many lives in doing so.

Could the exit be smoother? Yes. Could any exit be smooth? No. If you lose a war, your exit is never, ever totally up to you in the manner of how you leave. History is repeat with examples. The Russians left all kinds of material there. America the same in Vietnam and also material left in North Korea. The Japanese retreated from large and small Pacific islands leaving all manner of things they couldn't bomb or burn. Similarly in China. The fact is the Taliban controlled the area outside of Kabul and if they wanted to could make it a very difficult exit. Far more difficult than they are making it now. Their focus is purging their own collaborators. They aren't focused on revenge on Americans and Europeans there. If it was, any type of exit would be very, very messy. The number of Afghanis who America made a list of needing to be lifted out went up exponentially because the Afghans were purging people and willing to use family members of such people. Pretty much all of Kabul made money off the foreign forces. No one was immune. The local economy was almost completely based directly or indirectly on supporting, supplying or being instructed by America and the allies. So, in theory, every Afghani in Kabul and surrounding areas were collaborators. The press knows this, the military knows this but Biden will have to be punished for ending it and to send a message to any future President who dares derail the money train.

Biden will be judged harshly in the short term but perhaps history after things have settled will be kinder when it remembers this era.

Is Wilshere so far gone he can't be offered a play as you go contract? PR wise it would make us look good as well.

I like Aouar but who is left out? Xhaka? If we are going to pick up a player, I'd like a winger or defender. I would have said a playmaker but not as much as I have in the past.

Think Chris might be partially right on this one.

There was evidence Ramsdale was quite decisive with his distribution which included an impressive pass with his feet to a player on the halfway line that any midfielder would be proud of that got us moving.

That thing that Leno does where the ball is static at his feet and he looks clueless on what to do isn’t a good look.

It’s very early days though.

Vague links with Bissouma again but it must be too late for a deal like that to happen now. Brighton would have no time to spend the money and losing a player like Bissouma could have huge consequences in the chances of them staying up.

Calling Leno’s distribution terrible makes him wrong, not partially right. I’ve seen long balls out from Leno that were easily as good as Ramsdale’s. I think the problem when the ball is static at his feet often comes round when he receives a pass back that puts him under pressure from a forward. That has happened a hell of a lot. As a result he passes it to a defender or midfielder who themselves aren’t in acres of space. That wasn’t going to happen against West Brom’s reserve team, which I’ve seen it called even if it wasn’t.

I’ve always been against gross exaggerations to try and make a point. Calling Leno’s distribution ‘terrible’ is laughably or ridiculously over the top. It isn’t, and that’s all there is to it. I’m not saying he’s on a level with Neuer, the greatest goalkeeper at distribution (and probably shot saving) I’ve ever seen. But ‘terrible’ is a wholly inappropriate word to use.

But such an opinion is subjective. You have a different view. He is therefore not wrong but neither are you.

Calling Perry Groves better than Messi would also be a subjective opinion. If a subjective opinion is just plain silly, do you not feel it should be called out?

Smith Rowe, John-Jules & Balogun have been named in the England U21 squad

It’s not a radical opinion to suggest lenos distribution is poor.

For reference see Sunday when he had the ball at his feet for ages then cluelessly booted it out to Pépé who was miles offside.

I think he’s a good shot stopper but there’s no doubt distribution and command of his box are weak areas.

Swap deal for Ramsdale ?

I’d be shocked if we see anymore new signings

I wouldn’t have bothered commenting on the word ‘poor’, although I don’t think even that is fair. The word used was ‘terrible’, which is so over the top it’s ridiculous.

More ridiculous than suggesting Dani Ceballos was a success and we should have signed him permanently.

Yes, immeasurably more. The first season Ceballos had here was pretty good. It would have been perfectly justifiable to suggest it was a success considering his contribution to the FA Cup win, and that signing him permanently might be a good decision. If anybody did.

I’ve little or no doubt that was the reason Arteta took him for a second season. Sadly, the second season didn’t work out.

Sounds like a gross exaggeration to make a point.