I first liked Rangers only because I became friends with a Scotsman who was a 'Gers fan. Later, after knowing their history, I got a soft spot for Celtic.

Don't know if its true, but I always heard Rangers and Arsenal, Celtic and Liverpool. I recall stories of the old firm derby and it sounded absolutely insane. I'm hearing this in LA where there are literally hundreds of street gangs and drive byes and violence was in the news pretty much every night on the evening news. He said the fans fought at a certain spot before the game, during the game and met up after the game. If you had something sharp you didn't stab you slashed to leave a scar, preferably on the face so if you were walking around Glasglow you might see your work. Insane.

yes that was my thought when I saw it. Too much blue and too much white. Bit too untraditional for me

it will still sell bucketloads

We’ve offered Jorginho a new contract. Little bit surprised to be honest. Thought we would go in a different direction

Rice is done an interview with The Athletic and an interesting thing came out. I recently said one thing we don’t do, or aren’t good at, particularly are CB pairing was long diagonals….Rice said that Arteta doesn’t like diagonals, or that he only likes them if you gain an advantage from it. He said he played a lovely diagonal to Rice in the Brighton game and Arteta told him, nice pass but Saka has no one near him making the inside ball on and has another Brighton player coming over. So Arsenal gained no advantage from the switch of play.

Have a look at the pass map for the amount of switches of play Rice has attempted in the last 6 seasons.

The details you hear snippets of about the plan and idea Arteta has on how to play football are pretty incredible at times. Arteta can still improve and I reckon he’s learning at a faster rate than Pep or Klopp because he’s so young and inexperienced in comparison to them. I think it’s crazy how little recognition Arteta gets for dragging this club off the floor and in to two title races in his first management job.

I think it’s a smart move. He’s proven he can come in and perform at a high level, he suits a lot of games and is a useful bench option. He doesn’t moan about lack of game time, doesn’t expect to play every game and his experience around the team on and off the pitch is vital.

We need players who fill squad positions 14-20 and can be very very good when needed and can be rotated in and out with the minimum of fuss. Whether that’s buying them in or even better buying in a player for positions 1-11 and raising the ceiling of positions 14-20 - Jorginho fills this role really well.

I think a central midfielder will be a top priority this summer

Hey Rog

Don’t seem to be able to log in on iPad.

Arteta might see him as the new Elneny, and bring another midfielder in anyway.

Unsurprisingly - and probably boring to most - but I was at that game. Arse had a long-standing relationship with Rangers, particularly at Board level, and we used to play them quite regularly pre-season. Their supporters were generally arseholes and many never made the match, preferring to stay in the pub, but they were considered as a temporary annoyance to be tolerated.

They day though, they were utter arseholes. Rat-arsed from the off, they were compLete degenerates. Pissing in bottles, cans & plastic bags and chucking them at the Arse supporters. Breaking bottles (with piss) on the underside of the roof so we got showered with glass AND piss.

As the report noted, this was all new. The normal North Bank chaps were thin on the ground since it was a ‘friendly’, so they had the run of the place.

Big falling out at Board level and we never played the again. I have never forgotten and I still dislike them.

Liverpool were Protestant and Everton Catholic. Not that anyone cares in this day and age

Declan Rice on if criticism of his goalscoring record is fair: “No, not really, because Roy Keane, Souness, Redknapp - people that talk about my goalscoring ability - if you looked at their goals, they didn’t score hundreds in their career.”

“They’re remembered for what they did as midfield players — Roy Keane breaking up play, being a hard-tackling midfielder, won loads of titles for [Man] United. The same with Souness.”

“I don’t know why when it comes to me, it’s all about goals, because it’s never been my game, but since I’ve been scoring, no one has said anything!”

I’ve said this before here but I’ve always despised them. I attended ibrox to watch the Richard Gough testimonial in 96 where we played them and sat in the home end. Ian wright was getting monkey chants from a group of fans that was hardly a minority (it was most) and it always rankled with me. For a kid from down south it was very unusual and disturbing to hear. Couldn’t get over it. To cap it all we lost 3 nil.

A few years later we played them at Highbury (can’t remember the fixture) but their team included guest players like David Unsworth so couldn’t really classed as competitive. There was loads of wrong uns around the Highbury area and some undesirable with a glass eye tried to start on us outside the fish bar of all places.

Since that day I’ve always dreamt that we would end up drawing them in Europe and would utterly annihilate them. I’m desperate for us to draw them but it’s never happened

Brilliant DHD!! Not boring at all. I encourage you (and others) of stories of the old days. It's one of the things that makes this site more unique and special than others.

I will say this. The Rangers fan I knew was a guy I wouldn't want to get on the bad side of. Completely great to me, but I noticed the wide berth others gave to him when arguing over matches, politics, whatever.

Literally and figureatively taking the piss!! That's crazy. One can only imagine what they did to clubs they didn't like such as Celtic!!

Some will find anything to criticize Arsenal about. I have never heard a peep out of any Gooner on any podcast or page say anything about his lack of scoring. I've also not heard any rival fans who criticize our team say anything but great things about him including Spurs podcasters.

I also haven't heard any pundits say it either. My question would be to ask that interviewer from what circles has he heard that. My initial view after reading that is he made it up just to be critical.

I hope the Sesko deal isn't going to come to fruition. The guy is slow. I would wager Giroud has more pace in him then and now than him. It seems to be we are buying the bootleg version of Haaland. Like a really bad version of an Arsenal kit and there is an 'm' instead of an 'n'.

I certainly do. Appreciate the clarification. I just recall us being linked with Rangers and the Merseyside connection may be Everton (also share the color Blue).

Did some googling and found this:

What is the connection between Liverpool and Celtic?
The two clubs became practically inextricably linked in August 1977 when Kenny Dalglish signed for the recently-crowned European champions. For many, Dalglish is still regarded as the best player to have ever donned a Liverpool shirt. So Liverpool fans have no problem with Celtic adopting their anthem.

Found this as well.

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/its-no ... -supporter
It’s not just Liverpool: Everton have a strong bond with Celtic according to one famous supporter

"I’m a lone campaigner for Everton and Celtic being the true and original partnership," Burnham recently told FFT. "My upbringing was, ‘These are the clubs you’re going to support’.

Maybe its both?

Hi

Make sure the link you are going to is the secure SSL one - https://stevegleiber.com

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What hasn't been emphasized enough about the NLD is we were playing our 3rd and hardest game in a weeks time. Spurs had about 2 weeks rest and we were still 3-0 up at half time. Had we we had the same amount of rest as they did, who knows. Could have been a 5-0 in stead of 3-2.

Richarlison is a horrible player, after his spat with Gabriel at the weekend he posted the video (edited to not show him running away when Gabriel confronted him) with the tag
Brazil's first choice striker Vs Brazil's last choice defender

Typical spurs classless player. I reckon Gabriel has more goals than Richarlison in 2024

Gunnerblog now saying we will listen to offers for Jesus this summer. Not surprised but I wouldn’t imagine selling him will be easy

Jens Lehmann...mad as a hatter but at one time during the CL run was undoubtedly the best keeper in the world on form that spring of 2006.

Yes Danny, that's the way it used to be. Everton / Liverpool and Celtic / Rangers were the classic Catholic / Protestant rivalries. Nobody would say that Everton or Liverpool give a rats' arse anymore but its a very different story in Glasgow; nobody forgives or forgets up there.

My mother - Irish Catholic - always had a soft spot for Everton. Back in her time, Everton were the team most followed in Ireland. Nowadays of course, it's mainly Man U, though for other reasons which I've never understood. Liverpool are very popular over there too. Could be the ease of access via the ferry. More probably though it's simple glory hunting. Nothing wrong in that I suppose for foreign nationals.

Arsenal always had the reputation of being an 'establishment' club with Directors (some knighted or decorated) drawn from business, banking and the City of London. I think we had a few ex-Mayors of London. That characterised us as 'Protestant', indeed I remember the Rev Noel Bone was a Director. Rangers' Directors were from similar backgrounds, though Glasgow based. It came to light in Rangers' recent financial implosion that the club held quite a few shares in Arsenal which were worth a lot of money in the liquidation process.

Contrast this with Chairmen like Bob Lord of Burnley and Louis Edwards of Man U who came from trade. Both were butchers as I recall.

The other bunch of toffs were Ipswich - the Cobbold family who were landed gentry, bankers and brewers. Seems there was traditionally a close Boardroom relationship between us and them. It was said that the biggest competition between the clubs in those days was in the quality of wine served in their Directors' Lounges.

Nowadays, most successful clubs are owned by American conglomerates or Arab sovereign wealth funds. Inevitable, I suppose but is that really a step forward?

Flaky accident prone who cost us twice in the UCL. Caused chaos in his own box and often l wonder what would have happened had we a better keeper from 2004.

In the 70s when I started going as a 10 year old next to junior gunners section there was a large amount of Irish gooners withe permanent Tri-colour on display

Absolutely Danny. There were a lot of Irish in North London in those days - far more than there are now. We also had a really impressive Irish contingent on the playing staff. in no particular order - Brady, Stapleton (spit), O'Leary, Devine, Quinn. Good players.

True. Lived to the reputation that keepers had as quirky. But when he was on form....he was great. 2005 FA cup final anyone?

At the bar I went to in LA, there was a fair amount of Irish in there. Pretty much all the Irish supporters of Israel, with very few exceptions, were fans because of 2 things. Liam Brady and that Arsenal had Irish players during the 'Troubles' that happened in London, with bombings, etc. in the '80s.

Maybe folklore but supposedly (according to an Irish fan I knew then) Arsenal were lightly pressured to sell the Irish players.

I was the biggest opponent to Americans owning English clubs and effing the football culture I fell in love with from half a world away.

My reasons were (and still are) is that we have very few sacred cows in America these days. Everything is money-centered. We ruined our own sports in pursuit of the 'almighty dollar'. The NFL and NBA I grew up with is unrecognizable.

Close friends who chastised me for leaving American sports. I told them 'American sports left me, I didn't change, it did'. The Super Bowl is no longer about football. Some years literally, the game is secondary. What takes primacy over some games is who is performing at half time and what new and creative adverts will debut and how many millions it cost Apple for its :30 second slot.

It's viewed no different than the Grammys or any other 'entertainment event' wrapped around an athletic contest. The games itself is often a bore. What was a 2.5 hour game is dragged out to almost 4 hours. That is completely in violation of its own rules.

My guess is its the American owners of football teams that are completely on board with this super league which is essentially the protected clubs in the CL. The Arabs may be willing to go willingly in football corruption but at least they actually know the sport. I still contend that Kroenke couldn't name more than 4 positions top by name when he first bought the club and the only reason he does now is when the club says we need a new 'striker', 'defensive center midfielder' or 'right winger'. Never, ever have an owner who doesn't even know the sport unless he's just going to shut up and write checks for the football people in the club.

Sorry, you all got me started on a rant....

How does Israel come into it?