Just watched it Darren. Staggering. We've been spun an absolute pile of shite since this all started. Lies upon lies, week after week. "Follow the science" my arse. Choose the science that suits the story they want to spin, more like.

Not sure about resigning - this should hit the courts.

This is also staggering: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... nal/latest

I simply LOVE the matches where I don't know what the result will be. It's closest to being there.

No idea we played the scum for the league cup semis in '68. First leg here.

I'd suggest Mustafi's so called 'improvement' is Areta's ability to organize around his ineptness. His grade above the players mentioned is mind boggling. At best he's a back up on the bench when you have no other choice. But a starter? I wouldn't let him start my car.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/ranking-ev ... 37561.html

Yawn! You do come across as somewhat obsessive. Come on Arsenal. Give Mustafi a new contract. If nothing else it would be fascinating to see an individual’s response to it.

If he was as useless as the forum idiot keeps telling us, Wenger wouldn't have bought him and Emery and Arteta wouldn't have played him. Also, Löw wouldn't have given him 20 caps.

I still recall his claim that it would be easy to find Conference League defenders better than Mustafi. Has he ever seen a Conference League match, and if so how many, to ascertain the level of defenders in it? The standard must be bloody high if loads of the defenders in it would win twenty caps for Germany.

Just seen it. Unforgiveable lack of preparation in the first place, made all the worse by re-classifying Covid-19 from a High Consequence Infectious Disease to cover up the shortage of PPE. Immorality at the heart of our government and some supine advisors.

Panorama must have been good it so it will be all over the news feeds and every paper I read has mentioned it.

Hang on where's my microscope only the SG forum has mentioned it.

Lefty luvvies of the unbiased BBC I suppose..........................

Article on the Athletic(£) about Anelka. Just astonishing, I’ve always regretted him going and was sad we never got to see him dominate. Because we signed Henry straight after there was far less regret about it all, but I have always had a little Bit of what could have been if he’d stayed and developed for a few more years. Now I see that was impossible, here are some (batshit) quotes from him about that time.





Bananas. Really fragile ego with terrible advice from controlling brothers. He never stood a chance. What a shame. He already was something astonishing and could have been a legend. But then maybe we never get to see Henry as he was. I left Arsenal to punish the fans, what a bellend.

Your last three words sums things up. Give me Henry any day of the week.

Lifted from the BBC.....

The Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 seasons will not resume after France banned all sporting events, including behind closed doors, until September.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the 2019-20 sporting season is over as he announced plans to ease France's coronavirus lockdown on 11 May.

French football's governing body had hoped to resume the season on 17 June and finish the campaign on 25 July.

Football was suspended indefinitely in France on 13 March.

It is not yet known whether Ligue de Football Professional (LFP) will choose to abandon the season with no promotion or relegation and no champions or base the outcome of the campaign on current standings.

Defending champions Paris St-Germain are 12 points clear of Marseille at the top of Ligue 1, with 10 rounds of matches and one outstanding fixture left to play.

Toulouse are bottom of the table, 17 points from safety, and 10 points behind Amiens. Nimes are 18th and in the relegation play-off spot, three points behind St Etienne in 17th.

The top five sides in Ligue 2 are separated by just four points, with Lorient and Lens currently occupying the automatic promotion spots.

Did the league end after the season or mid season when WW2 broke out? I'm curious to hear it was handled then. Not that it should be used as a formula for today mind you.

Wikipedia...

The abandoned 1939–40 season would have been the 48th season of The Football League. The kick-off in all divisions took place on Saturday 26 August 1939.[1] On Friday 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. On Saturday 2 September 1939, all divisions of the Football League played their third game of the season.[1] These would be the last fixtures before abandonment following the British declaration of war on Germany on Sunday 3 September 1939. Large gatherings of crowds were suspended with the implementation of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939.

I saw five Bromley Town home matches in the National League (Conference that was) this season before the lockdown. The standard wasn't bad at all, but as you might expect I didn't notice any defenders who'd get anywhere near the German national team (even if any of them had been German). Still, maybe American knows better than me, after all I've only been watching football for about 53 years.

Fantastic season for Henry, 24 goals, 20 assists. If I'm not mistaken (and I often am) it was the only season RVN scored more goals than him.
De Bruyne can crow all he wants but until he can be as a complete player as Henry, its hallow.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/thierry-im ... 50879.html
'Thierry, I'm coming for you' - De Bruyne fires warning to Premier League assist king Henry

I see the French league season has been abandoned- no football until September at the earliest. The Dutch league has also been abandoned, with no champions, promotions or relegations.

It was the only season. I'm quite surprised that RVN was top scorer only once as I remember him as a dominant force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... %80%932000

Kevin Phillips is another who had slipped the memory.

Not sure if it’s been raised earlier but an old mate just reminded me that it was 50 years ago to the day we were together at Highbury when we beat Anderlecht to win the Fairs Cup.
Maybe he’s got the date right though I’m not sure about the year… in reflecting I thought it was 1969. Anyhow great night ...particularly for the generation before mine who had been starved of success for many years.………actually it was a f…g great night for me too!!
Stay safe Gooners.

I see FIFAs top medical officer has advised the season should be binned

Anderlecht was 1970 Andy. 1969 was the Swindon League Cup final.

I was there and it remains my greatest night of football. All those years without a trophy ended by an incredible comeback performance. The old place exploded when Radford and Sammels scored two goals in quick succession. I have never heard such a noise from a crowd before. Hard to imagine now but Anderlecht were favourites to win the Fairs Cup, having beaten Inter in the semi-finals.

Have you watched it? If you do you'll find no luvvies on show, just dedicated but very worried NHS staff asking why they are expected to take on a killer virus without the protective equipment they should have. This is not about politics. It is about monumental mistakes made by people in authority at a time of national crisis, some of whom have tried to cover it up.

Mine too Old Man.

There’ve been a number of anniversaries of our triumphs in recent days and I remember them all with brilliant memories and gratitude. But Anderlecht was the dam-buster. The mould-breaker. A collective release for all of us there of the tensions of all those barren years - all my youthful life spent in the shadow of - amongst others - Spurs.

Oh yes. A blessed day indeed.

It was the first trophy I’d seen us win live too. Though my barren years weren’t as long, a mere two seasons, I’d been to losing League Cup finals in both. Leeds in 1968 and Swindon in 1969.

Hi OMOH,

We failed to stockpile the right equipment over the last decade, failed to heed the guidelines and recommendations of various health organisations and basically left the NHS at the mercy of any pandemic. Even when the virus first hit we still had time to react but failed to do so. UK companies producing surgical aprons contacted the govt to see if they could help but were ignored and instead focussed on supplying the US.

Having made a catalogue of errors, from inadequate stockpiling to the slowness in locking down, the govt then deliberately downgraded the severity of the virus to enable them to cover their tracks, knowing that their failure to prepare properly and react in a timely manner was going to cost thousands of innocent lives.

As I said the other day, I don't give a shite who the govt is, what matters is that they have got this badly wrong on so many counts.

Yes of course. Thank you Bernard. Two losing finals at Wembley but we came good that great night at Highbury...what an atmosphere...
Certainly made an impression on OMOH and DHD as it did on us Bernard!
I wasn’t there (Harlow was!) but Liverpool away was probably a contender for best Arsenal night......

Great player but at 31 year old? Hmmm....
https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/27/arsenal- ... -12618871/

I'm really loving these old matches.

This being reported here. Aubameyang for 30mil. The club remains a joke if there is any truth to this at all.

https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/arsenal ... m:twg:2019

Certainly not ideal but if he wants to leave and only has one year left on his deal whilst 31 years old, then I’m not sure what else we can do? It may be a case of Hobson’s Choice.

Frank told me the Anderlecht game was his favourite game of his career. He said the first leg was strange as he didn’t think Anderlect were that much in control yet they found themselves three down. The away goal turned it. He told the players they were going to win the return. He said he’d never experienced Highbury as it was that night.

The first thing that Arsenal won since I had started supporting them. Truly wonderful after having been at the Leeds and Swindon finals and then us being 3-0 at one point in the tie.

Set us up nicely for the following year. A real sense of us building something special at that time. It was surprising and disappointing just how quickly it all fell away after 1972.

No nor have I tried to find it as a number of twitter feeds say it has been withdrawn, proved to be full of inaccuracies etc etc.

If you have a link to it let me have it and I will watch it..................

Found it on iplayer and watching it shortly...........

Panorama Programme

Very sad.
Very critical of ppe supplies which are not the responsibility of the Government to purchase. Which are purchased by the NHS and which the world over is short in supply.

Lefty lovers like Prof Ashton saying we should have had an stock of them as we were warned. Did anybody have supplies? Germany apart nobody made preparations did they? Possibly the Asians because of their experience with Saars but certainly hardly any in the west.

It is blatantly a procurement problem and the Government can be blamed for not creating a mountain of supplies but which Government did?

Procurement was and still is the nhs's responsibility.

Check out #ppeshortages and you will see 50/50 split of opinions.

Basically it is biased reporting and not impartial as the BBC should be.

Sad but very one sided. These same lefties would have been critical of the Government if they had stockpiled ppe and it all proved to be a waste of money.

Easy to criticise in hindsight....................................

Plus the global market would be driving his price down.
I can't see us spending anything this window whenever it happens, we may reinvest money we receive but it will probably be a case of another transition year because all we can do is:
shift as many duds and high earners as we can - Mkhitaryan, Elneny etc
sign very low price or free agents - Mari, Cedrid, Willian, Fraser
tie players to long terms deals - Saka