Happy 4th of July American

How about an amnesty where you unblock everyone you blocked and make amends

Now it's (rumoured) Arse want 31 yr old Marcelo as he wants to leave Real Madrid.

Stoke City are showing the way to do it.

The manager signed six new players last week. Now he’s told eight others that they are not part of his plans for the season and not to bother going on the club’s pre-season trip to the Netherlands.

I’m guessing that none of them are on 300K per week then.
If only life were that simple.

I am actually not a fan of the holiday for a myriad of reasons.

Anyway, interesting article about Barca and Malcom. They usually get the best of us in transfer deals.

What is concerning about our inactivity in the transfer market is the apparent shift of focus to Zaha.

The defence needs a total rebuild not in the future but right now. Koscielny was well past it last year and I do not want to see him limp around the field again for the club. Lets say Tierney arrives, then with no injuries at all in the squad our best team would be Tierney, (Sokartis/Holding/Mustafi any 2) and Bellerin.

Plus Tierney IMO is injury prone, never played in a competitive league and if he is so great how come other clubs with obviously more funds are not trying to sign him.

Forget Zaha and start looking at a proper defence rebuild plus a better creative midfielder who has some pace. We are no longer 2-3 good players away from a successful team we are 8-9 fit, skillful, injury free players away from it.

So an international goalkeeper aged 30 is worth 3.1mil or have we been suckered again.

Some good news in the money stakes

https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/ ... r-16534809

It always amazes me every summer how quickly after the season closes when we have our first summer friendly.

Interesting the same person owns both sides in the Rapids game. Kroenke lining his pockets.

There is some hope for the future of America. The social media of American millennials I know were primarily against the Trump's USSR-esque military parade and posts about why we shouldn't be celebrating the 4th of July. Many references to foreign conflicts. The sad fact of the matter is Americans under 30 have only known an un-ending war in their memory and those who are minors have had an ongoing war their entire lives. (Afghanistan).

Only 83 years to go to beat the European record for "longest" war. (Hundred Years war).

I understand what you’re getting at Gaz. But I’m just pleased to see the back of him, whether or not we should have got a bit more in the transfer fee. I’d have more confidence in a 90 year old confined to a wheelchair reaching a cross into the box than I would with Ospina. Good riddance to him.

For years every time I see that one of our targets automatically becomes a Tottenham target, I think they are trolling us in some way? I know good talent is recognized by most sides but with Tottemham, I suspect subterfuge more times than not.

When we were linked to Saliba, not a peep Tottenham were interested as well, until it starts to get close to a deal.

Always thought he was just okay. Our defense has tendered to make most keepers look nervous and unsure. But his ability on crosses did look dodgy.

However did you know (from Wikpedia) that
"earned him a place on the FIFA Ballon d'Or longlist for the 2015" and he played 70 times for the club. Given we only paid 3mil for him I am not sure what you expected.

I'm just catching up on Monday's Arseblog Arsecast and they're explaining the state of our finances. Man, we are in such a mess. If we don't get CL this year, we could be in big trouble for a few seasons. We're getting pulled away from the other clubs in the top 6 financially.

Well the 2014/15 season was Ospina’s first at the club. He made 22 starts in all competitions with 1 sub appearance. He made fewer appearances in the league than Szczesny, with Szczesny also being selected for the FA Cup final when Ospina was on the bench. If your second choice keeper can get on the long list for the Ballon d’Or, then it must be a bloody long list. Do semi-decent players from a Barnet Sunday League pub team have a chance of getting on it?

I'm with Bernard on this one. Ospina was poor.

As for this season, I think we should give Martinez a chance as No.2, he excelled in the Championship last season if you believe what you read. We certainly shouldn't be spending any money on a No.2 goalkeeper when money is apparently so tight.

Everyone knows from my posts here how anti-Wenger I was. I signed online petitions supporting his sacking, and turned up for a few of the pre-match demonstrations supporting Wenger’s dismissal.

If taking Wenger back as head coach was the cost of Kroenke selling up, I’d go for it. Kroenke being the owner at the same time as Wenger being the manager was the nightmare scenario. If I had he choice between having Wenger as manager with a different owner to Kroenke, or Stan staying as owner but Wenger not being the head coach, I’d choose Wenger returning as manager.

I see Stan as the bigger long-term threat to the club’s future.

Impossible. The LA Rams are doing well and have the same owner.

My Celtic supporting cousin seems to think that Tierney has already signed for us and it’s just not been announced.

They have signed 3 players already including a left back and are being linked with more and it’s abnormal spending for them

If you found that depressing, I would advise you to avoid Swiss Ramble’s analysis. I hadn’t realised how poorly run the business side of the club became under Gazidis.

Indeed - and he played a big part in our FA Cup Final win over Chelsea.

We should be getting a £4-5m fee due to a 30% sell on clause we inserted for Bennacer when he left us. He’s about to move to Milan for £15m

Selling them Hleb, Song and Vermaelen worked out quite well for us

He let in a shot he should have saved.

Evening all.

Love the new shirt so much I’m thinking of buying one.

Before Puma, I used to collect all of them.

Anyway, want some help. They advertise the standard shirts, but also one ‘as worn by the players on matchday’. They charge an extra £49 for them.

My question is, does anyone know the difference between the two, and is it worth the extra?

Tia

Gazidis was useless

The only positive I could say was that he realised Wenger was past it when our fans didn’t.

Aside from that he was supposed to bring commercial excellence to arsenal and we ended up with visit Rwanda on our shirts for an Annual fee less than Mesut Ozils wage.

Basically slimmer fit and more heat wicking materials. The crest sounds cool.

Tia?...you couldn't mean Tia Carrere? (joking)

It does make a lot of sense. No wonder ‘he’s’ after a slimmer fit. John1 - pfft, clearly a made up name.

I will pencil him in then for next season. Does he leak stories to the media because the stories both seem to have the same amount of credibility. Is your cousin psychic, does he feel it in his waters, hear voices?

The media today are telling us Vacquez, Zaha, Marcelo, Malcolm. I am starting to suspect that it will be another great season with Mustafi, Mth, Sean K, N-M and others frustrating me as we prove just how difficult defending can be. I have seen not one name mentioned in potential transfers that has actually given me hope of an improvement.

Apparently the club are looking at the rules of football to see if it is illegal for a player to have a zimmer frame on the field. If we continue to rely on Koscielnky we will learn the answer.

Who is Sean K?

Kolasinac- but autocorrect may have given him a new first name although I don’t rule out having made the mistake myself. If I did it would be the first time in my life I have ever made an error.

What the hell are we playing at????
Pre season next week and no signings.
How long is this Tierney saga going to run for?why the delay in putting in another bid.
20 to 22 million with add ons would probably do it so why are we *%^@*** around.
Really annoying how we go about our business.
*%^@*** amateurish.

No he’s just a season ticket holder but just said it’s odd they are signing the volume of players being mooted and already come. He’s not claiming to know anything in particular

Under Kroenke, what else is realistic to expect? I heard that people involved in transfer recruitment (wasn’t given names but I assume they included Sanllehi) pleaded with Stan for more to be added to the budget. No idea what his response was, but who would be shocked if it was a polite ‘get stuffed’?

I type of knew that but was just being a bit of a prick. But they are splashing money around and must feel they are going to get some cash - given they are playing hard ball, I would wait for them to spend a bit more and then offer 1 million less for Tierney, hoping they were under a bit of financial stress.

With the purchase of Martinelli and sales of Ospina and the sell on clause for Bennacer, we have a net profit of £2m so far.

It is obviously difficult to shift our high earners but the likes of Elneny, jenkinson have to be sold. Chambers should fetch £15-20m easily based on relative prices of young English talent. Those 3 should add a further £25-30m to the coffers. So we should have £75m to spend.

The worrying thing for me is we’ve already lose Čech, Lichtsteiner, Ramsey, Welbeck from last year. Now we could say Martinelli replaces Welbeck, Willock replaces Ramsey and Martinez replaces Čech but we are certainly weaker than last year already....

Lots more to be done

Like I said last season I’m expecting Kroenke out protests by the end of this year. His stewardship of the club has been appalling and not all of our fans are stupid enough to simply blame Emery for everything. Seems incredible to think that I now long for the custodianship of the Hill Woods and Dein. We literally would still be better off if Kroenke had never got involved with the club.

What does that say about him as a person and businessman.

We don’t even have a football focussed chairman or CEO. Chips Keswick and vinai ? Do me a favour Vinai is an administratior.

Sanelhi ? He’s a negotiator at best. He’s also a here today gone tomorrow guy who wont hang around long. Believe me I know his type.

It’s an odd situation but I think we would even be better off with a Steve Parrish, Daniel Levy type chairman who at least would get what the club is all about. I bet Emery gets zero assistance from the club.

Kroenke cant *%^@ off soon enough and I doubt the club will be able to return to its heights while it retains his ownership

Having lost 2 stone in the last 6 months, i guess you could argue I'm after a slimmer fit. However, as I am still overweight, I may have to think again.

No, Tia meant than ks in advance, not Tia Carrere. I got rid of her a couple of years ago as she was getting too clingy.

Yes, John1 is a made up name. I signed up as John originally, but John already had that one. I wanted to put my name down as John10, in honour of DB, but I mistyped and ended up as John1.

I think a visit to the Armoury is needed. Wasn't going to get to the Emirates until November when I get time off, but might have to work out something sooner now.

Thanks for the input.

Kroenke is the epitome of all that is wrong with the world. And he owns our club. What times we live in.