One really good thing about Mustafi is that he urinates off our friend from across the Atlantic. Means our dodgy defender isn’t all bad.

I'm still waiting for him to use his deep knowledge of the 'conference' to suggest a few replacements.

A mate of mine attended a friendly yesterday to watch his team play against a lower league side away in a kind of training type exhibition game. His team plays in the championship. I won’t mention the other team involved for a certain reason but let’s say they would expect attendances of less than 500 and play in the southern league.

Halfway through the second half his son who is in his late teens went to the toilet and was unbeknownst followed by 2 men into the toilet and given a pretty savage beating by the 2 home fans as a third blocked the door. Seeing his son stagger out my friend who is in his 60s confronted them and was attacked and had his head split open.

No reason to mention this apart from saying Football is pretty unique in its ability to attract morons and knuckledraggers and football hooligans and firms are the biggest lying hypocritical scumbags in the world.

That's terrible. I hope they are ok.

If we get Saliba and Cabellos and spurs were genuinely in for both then that is quite a hammer blow to them. On paper they have more to offer (maybe apart from wages), but champions league, upward trajectory, new stadium, settled squad, settled manager.......but players still choose us...

You really never know with sperz. I always thought they respected our eye for talent and would sometimes be interested in a player because we seem to value them highly. These days they seem to be much better at picking quality bargain players for the most part. They haven't spent much and are still way ahead of us the last few years.

Game live now :

https://www.sbs.com.au/guide/video/2775 ... -Arsenal-v

Arsenal 2-1 Bayern
Own goal and Nketiah.

Stan Kroenke here, borrowing Bernard’s computer (saves me internet charges). So Arsenal are winning against Bayern. So what do I need to spend any money on team rebuilding for? Good news.

Never heard of Nketiah before, who is he? I’ll phone Josh. He’ll know who to ask to find out.

Just been told he’s a young lad who plays in the same position as two other players whose names are apparently Aubameyang and Lacazette. Excellent, we can sell them both and make do with Nketiah.

Nobody can accuse me of taking no interest in team rebuilding. The fans will now support KSE’s ownership totally.

Stan,
Thanks for making the time available. Its great of you to take time out of Trumpy's nazi (sorry campaign) rally to find time for the poor people. All good news today. Just to make sure you are under no misapprehension - Bayern are not in the EPL and this was not the start of our season.

And while we normally have a red on our shirt, in this game we were in the yellow shirt - I am sure you knew that. Anyway great to hear from you - say hello to Trumpy.

Arsenal 2 - Bayern Munich 1. This result means we're going to win the league!!

Forgot that Kroenke likes to spend his cash on funding fascists rather than arsenal

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 91536.html

Are there any more reasons to think of not to like Kroenke. We must be running out eh ?

Looking to wtch the Bayern game but got the Colorad game by mistake. Stuck with it and saw 2 first class opening goals with assists from Eddie and the new Brazilian boy. Magnificent third goal from Martinelli.

Ecellent play throughout with none of the monotonous side to side passing at the back.

Loved the performance.

Arsenal fans flipping off little Josh Kroenke just brilliant

https://twitter.com/ryanrundle1/status/ ... 70976?s=21

Hysteria much?

More hysteria.

Presumably the plod have been informed?

Yeah they saw the thugs again at the train station heading back and phoned them to report it. The police said they didn’t have anyone available to attend the scene. Not sure if anything can happen

https://open.spotify.com/show/26lUz3nA53o3vm3HRiCy56

Arsenal / Man Utd rivalry by fans.

Struggled in the Bayern game but we managed to beat a strong Bayern team and it could have been 3-1 near the end of the game.

Defended well in the first half few dodgy moments but with a few more players we could do well in the coming season.

This should cheer us all up.

Long season ahead.

Zaha has officially told Palace he wants to leave, not sure if that is the same thing as a proper transfer request....but it must surely only strengthen our position and weaken theirs.
I’d still be against spending any more than £40m plus some deadwood players we can’t shift otherwise.
If we keep going up, say something like £60m you’d have to feel the money would be better spent elsewhere more evenly across the squad. We do afterall have some very exciting young players who play wide.....we don’t have that luxury in defence

Do we?

Saka, Nelson.....is back Nketiah to do better in a wide right position in the first team than any youth team central defender would do as a CB in the first team. Only
My opinion but the young players we have that everyone is talking about are attacking players.
We don’t have youth team players of their quality in defence. Besides I think it is easier for a young player to make their mark in the first team in wide areas than central defence

I think, whilst that is true, Zaha hits the ground running. He’s premiership tried and tested and to a degree is battle hardened scrapping for a mid table team week in and week out. That’s worth over paying for in my opinion and especially for us and especially now - well last season would have been fine too. Whether we can get it over the line is another matter and it won’t happen. If Palace sell him now and then have to scramble to get a replacement in - they could go down they just won’t do it. Maybe two weeks ago if we had the money but not now, and I think it’s a shame.

I can see Aubameyang going and Zaha coming in.

I think if you sell high and buy a few players that’s one thing. Swapping Aubameyang for Zaha would be hard to work out if we’d be any better off and exactly how we’d do it

Our young wide players may be better than our young defenders, but that doesn't mean they are first team material. Saka and Nelson have barely kicked a ball for the club. It would be great to see some of the young players make it with us, but they really are only squad players at the moment.

Indeed. Just as there are games where he makes more than 1. When he first joined us he was excellent for the first 3 months, but hasn't found that form since.

Entirely fair assessment. But, if nothing else, he would give us options where we don't have enough. If he helps us get CL football then he's worth more than the development time we put into him. And maybe he'll fall in love with North London!

Scumbags. But then so many of the No surrender lot tend to have their England flags with the names of piss poor tiny teams on them. I think its easier to hide in plain sight as a fan of a smaller club - much less likely to cause a PR storm and get banned for life.

Hope your friend and his son have a swift recovery and get sympathetic assistance from the police.

Super rich men buying tax breaks - nothing ever changes.

That's why I spend all my money on booze, women, and horses. The rest of it, I just waste.

True on Zaha. But my point was based on a hypothetical choice between having zaha and spending nothing on defence, or having to entrust a youth team player in defence vs not having zaha, letting Nelson and saka play games on the wing but spending £40m on the defence.
And with our tiny budget it could easily be that choice
If we concede as many as we did last year we won’t get top 4.

This is good if depressing article by Tim Stillman on KSE's ownership and how its allowed Arsenal to drift off into mediocrity.

https://arseblog.com/2019/07/we-care-you-dont/

There is an awful lot being made of Rob Holding's comeback but, let's be realistic, he is coming back from a serious injury and will take time to recover properly and this is not the return of a peak Sol Campbell.

From what I saw of him he is a promising and steady player with a decent all round game but with no real outstanding quality that suggests he could become a worldclass CB. I hope I'm wrong.

He should really be looked upon as a promising back up centre half.

I think you’re both right. Not quite as good as some make him out to be.

Also, he nearly 24 (in September). I tend to see players as promising youngsters before that sort of age.