https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCSport/status/1271552857624510477

This is an absolute disgrace.

And why would you think that?

Football should be apolitical. FIFA stopped England wearing poppies as no symbols or political messages were allowed on a Jersey. Correct call. This sets a precedent.

Andy Green can attest to the reputation of the Philadelphia police force I imagine (at the risk of putting him on the spot). More like the Philadelphia gestapo in some respects, especially during my youth. I finished HS in a nice upper class suburb of Philly using a local address and the local constabulary were nice, helpful, small town police types.

I also have 4 friends who are police officers. One a former HS classmate. Salt of the earth guy. That said, policing in America, especially urban areas are often tantamount to bullies with guns. Imagine that 5th former that hit the younger students all the time for nothing and now he's got a gun and a badge and free reign to do it without much repercussions? Exactly.

When ever those of us in America demand better conduct from our police force, after some incident of abuse that gets national attention, we are invariably given the response by someone "They put their lives on the line. We can't fault all of them over a few bad apples." That term 'a few bad apples" is repeated ad nauseam.

I've never heard of anyone who would agree to get on a plane of an airline if they openly allowed a 'few bad apples' to among their many pilots. Or a hospital that had a 'few bad apples' among all the surgeons. Even the American military doesn't allow a 'few bad apples' among the soldiers. But we allow an organization that is given an extensive screening process, extensive training, a gun and legally allowed to use lethal force on the citizenry to still employ and deploy a 'few bad apples' among the good ones?

The NYC police department union boss made this 'bad apples' assertion. The city paid out over nearly a quarter billion in settlements https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-stringer-report-nypd-payout-settlement-lawsuits-20190415-2zzm2zkhpna63dtlcr2zks6eoq-story.html . Doesn't sound like a few bad apples. Youtube has many videos of those 'few bad apples'. Many. Sounds more endemic than a 'few bad apples'.

No job that has life and death implications should be allowed to have a 'few bad apples' employed. We don't even allow it for jobs where there are no life and death implications. No parent would allow their small child to go a to a kindergarten or primary school that has a 'few bad apples' teaching there. But we allow it for the police? I'm not the brightest so I will need to be spoken to slowly and carefully for that explanation to make sense.

The police were given military equipment since the 90s. Excess weaponry and materials from years of cold war buildup as well as the too many to recall foreign conflicts we Americans seem to find ourselves in at least once a decade. We have militarized the police against its own citizens.

Finally, and this is an uncomfortable truth in America, we only hear the 'few bad apples' argument when the victims are black. I've never heard it when it was any other. I've seen instances of police abuse issues involving a wide variety of people in NYC:
white college students, Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn, Asian or two, handicapped believe it or not and even Latinos the 2nd most targeted group, and the 'few bad apples' mantra isn't trotted out.

The current movement to defund police departments in certain urban areas sounds scary as hell to me. I'd have to see what will replace it or what is proposed before I sign that petition..lol. But the police departments of NYC and other major cities facing this would not even have this posed if they were doing their jobs properly. That suburban town I went to HS hasn't spoken of defunding at all nor is it even a question. The local police do their jobs. There are fairly large urban areas in America where the police department is not seen as the enemy. It's possible.

I've encountered the police in major cities globally and have seen the stark differences to America. I've been to Istanbul and Barcelona after terrorist bombings in a heightened atmosphere and still didn't see the same antagonistic attitude of the police in cities like Los Angeles.

Football should be apolitical. FIFA stopped England wearing poppies as no symbols or political messages were allowed on a Jersey. Correct call. This sets a precedent.

Football should be apolitical. FIFA stopped England wearing poppies as no symbols or political messages were allowed on a Jersey. Correct call. This sets a precedent.

That's fair enough if that's the reason. We have to remember though that a lot of our players are BAME and they probably want to show solidarity with the BLM movement.

Nothing stopping them doing that just not with our clubs jersey. Also one would have to question why the club distanced themselves from Özil's stance on the Uighurs while embracing BLM. It looks like some lives matter more than others.

Cheeky Californian Pinot noir. I can see Bern’s lip curling.

I really hope this comes to fruition.

https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/06/13/ill-lose-my-freaking-mind-if-this-is-true-some-arsenal-fans-really-excited-by-35m-transfer-update/
According to Tuttosport, Arsenal are ahead of AC Milan and leading the race to sign Dayot Upamecano.

I've only seen fan sites suggest the player for us to buy. Nothing as far as I have seen of rumors that the club was interested. I would love his addition to the squad.

Article in The Athletic shows the stats for using Aubamayang on the left wing, and shows he scores more from that position.
So much to sort out with this team. Central defence and central midfield are still to most critical areas to fix, it feels like they have been for a decade or longer now.
Depending on the futures of our 2 main strikers we could face a re-build there, although I'm more confident we have some young talent coming through in those positions.
Also, depending on how Arteta starts to shape the team we could be looking for a central creative player, or Arteta may get rid of the No. 10 position and go with the double 8 as City do with De Bruyne and Silva. Or he may look at the liverpool route and try to get more creativity from the full back positions and a potent front 3.

Happy that football is back but we must remember Arteta has still had precious little time with the players. We really do need some sort of European football for next season (even Europa fills the coffers with £40m odd), but it is still a tall ask, particularly when you look at the fixtures and the fixtures of some of our rivals. Man U have a very easy run in. Although who knows what state each team will be in when football returns

Widespread rumours that Maintland-Niles will be sold to get some funds towards Aubameyang’s new contract, if he signs it. I accept AMN is probably not good enough to be an automatic choice for the first team. But however good your first team is, back up squad players of a decent standard will always be required. Especially if they’re sufficiently versatile to cove more than a single position. If the stories are true, one has to assume that Arteta doesn’t feel AMN is the standard required, either as a back up for midfield or right back.

I'm with Arteta on this one Bernard.

Homegrown and multi-talented AMN (Conservative) undoubtedly is, but he seems to have a problem with his levels of concentration. I don't think he's lazy, but too often for me he's been lacksadaisical (sp?). Whether that's confidence or a couldn't care less attitude I don't know, but at the end of the day it makes no difference. He has mistakes in him and gives the ball away in dangerous positions.

So if the rumours are true, they make sense to me.

(we should have taken Cesc back )

You’re probably right. But if we’re not keeping the bloke from Southampton (which I heard somewhere), who will fill in at right back?

Are you saying AMN votes Conservative? I didn’t know that. Where did you get that from?

Widespread rumours that Maintland-Niles will be sold to get some funds towards Aubameyang’s new contract, if he signs it. I accept AMN is probably not good enough to be an automatic choice for the first team. But however good your first team is, back up squad players of a decent standard will always be required. Especially if they’re sufficiently versatile to cove more than a single position. If the stories are true, one has to assume that Arteta doesn’t feel AMN is the standard required, either as a back up for midfield or right back.

If we sign Cédric on a free and get someone in for central midfield then it makes sense that AMN is someone who could be sold to raise funds. Cédric is a better natural RB so can compete with Bellerin.
We can't go out and build our ideal squad right away, we have too many problems to fix and will lose some players as well. So my view is we need to build for longer term but also put cheap plasters in places that help but don't break the bank. Cédric and Mari help this. Then look to get your core team for the next 5 years in place. My number 1 target in central midfield would be Ndidi from Leicester. He's only 23, covers so much ground, has lead the league in tackles for the past 2-3 seasons and just look at how Leicester dropped off when he was out injured. He may cost £40m but I think he'd be worth it. I would love Partey but for a similar price and 4 years younger Ndidi may be the less fashionable but more sensible purchase

You’re probably right. But if we’re not keeping the bloke from Southampton (which I heard somewhere), who will fill in at right back?

It was a running joke on Alan Davies’ Yellow Boots podcast. Just a referral to the posh-sounding double-barreled name like he was a Conservative candidate.

The most consistent rumours I’ve heard of Ramsey’s season in Italy is that he’s struggled for form and fitness. He’s apparently played 24 games in all competitions with four goals and one assist. Not bad but for an attacking midfielder not that great either.

I can understand any decision by Juventus to sell him for what will presumably be a more than decent fee. They’ll make a decent profit on signing him. When I think of his time at Arsenal he had one outstanding season but was otherwise often good but not great, and sometimes worse than good. Maybe a modern day equivalent of David Platt? Alright, but fairly underwhelming a lot of the time.

If I was to list every Arsenal midfielder I’ve ever seen Ramsey would probably get somewhere in the top half but nowhere near the very top group with the likes of Vieira, Petit, Brady, Pires, Rocastle, Ball and various others. I’d definitely put Ramsey lower than Ray Parlour, Steve Williams, Paul Davis and Michael Thomas too.

When he left, from memory weren’t some saying what bad news it was? Financially, I’d go with that. To lose him for nothing was a big shame. But on the basis of Ramsey’s footballing contribution to the team, I was shrugging my shoulders and thinking ‘oh well, worse things happen at sea so nothing to feel that bothered about’.

Fair enough john1.

I suppose it isn’t rare these days for women (from all types of social background) getting married to keep their own surname and combine it with the surname of their new husband. One of my female cousins did that. Her maiden name was that of one of Arsenal’s best ever keepers. She married someone with a bog standard Welsh surname (he is Welsh). She’s now got the surname of them both following each other.

My guess is the maiden name of AMN’s mother was Maitland and she married someone named Niles (or vice versa). Hence she ended up as Maitland-Niles and passed it to Ainsley.