The gooner now seems keen to promote internet and social media hysteria

https://www.onlinegooner.com/articles/view/5300

Few journalists saying AMN has been told he can leave the club. Whilst he may be a player we can generate a decent fee for there are a lot of players who should be leaving before him and I’d actually be against him leaving as beyond Saka I think he’s the best academy player we’ve got. Seems to have flipped a switch with his work with Arteta.

If he does leave the price needs to be £25m minimum. Kyle Walker peters is going to Southampton for £15m. If we sell AMN for anything close to £15m I’d be fuming

Ha. . I certainly don't. They still fit me but would be entirely decorative these days. I'd pull half the muscles in my body if I tried to play football these days.

Muscle is heavier than fat, Haz......

Hi Rich,

He shouldn't be leaving, he's homegrown and he's versatile. He's quick, athletic, technically adept and quite strong. The only negative was in his head but he seems to have sorted himself out now. He has the makings of a better right back than Bellerin.

Maybe it was the 15 donuts you eat at the end of every run, Haz.

Well I had to reward myself for running, right?

I'm torn on Maitland-Niles. On the one hand I'd really want him to stay, he's a good young player who is versatile, and obviously being an academy player is a plus. On the other hand, he doesn't seem to have a preferred position and while he has excellent physical qualities I'm not sure he's skillful enough on the ball to play full back or wing back consistently. With his pedigree hes probably worth about 20-25 million too, and he's 23 soon so certainly not a kid anymore.

Absolutely.

In terms of his ability as a fullback/wingback I like his pace, going forward and recovering. Obviously he's not a natural defender but then neither is Bellerin.

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't argue much with anyone wanting him to stay. He was excellent against Chelsea in the final, and his pace and work rate seems made for the way Arteta wants to play.

Anyway, speaking of departures, some apparently reliable sources in Italy are saying Fiorentina are close to signing Torreira.

I could definitely see that one happening, although could Fiorentina afford a decent transfer fee for him?

In the current climate I can't see anyone (like Brighton) paying £20m+ for him as a RB unless they see him as a central midfielder to build a team around and I don't think they could possibly gamble on that given the limited opportunities he had in midfield.

I don't want him sold off cheaply.

I think the Mail have said we are asking 30.

'Fattening the curves' are you ? That's like when I get on the scale, it has a message that says "One at a time"

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/06/poli ... index.html

Haven't seen much of Mari in an Arsenal shirt to say one way or another but this is why we got him.

I'm also looking caustiously at Soares. Why was he placed on loan by Soton? Twice? We being the second club. Soton is a good club, tough at home but why couldn't he secure a starting position? Hmm...

I appreciate Emery wanting to take Guendouzi off our hands, but if we can have as part of a deal to sweeten us getting Partey, I'd do that. If we get Partey, we won't win the title but we'll be very tough to beat. I'd take Partey right now over Coutinho. Not because he's better in terms of his position compared to Coutinho but we need his position more. We can get by in creativity with Ceballos and if he stays Özil. We have other creative players, but if we can get a quick, athletic DM, in front of Saliba and whomever, we can hold on to leads better.

We have limited funds. We always seem to chase creative/attacking players at the expense of defense. We have been suffering at the back for ages. The one time we spent (he who shall not be named) we effed it up royally. Who ever scouted him needs to be taken out behind the back of big Tone's statue and shot.

In a perfect transfer world, I'd love to have Partey, Coutinho, Willian and Aubameyang staying but its not going to happen. Dein, via Fiszman, has left us with Kroenke. I said it then and its still the same. Any trophies we win with him as owner is, in spite of, not because of, him being our owner. Arteta and the ones that care have to play Bob Cratchit to Stan's Scrooge.

We are sorted at the full back positions. Although he's been getting it on here, I actually like Kolasinac. He's a decent back up. He's tough, experienced and decent going forward. He's not going to replace Winterburn in the memories of gooners of great Arsenal left backs but he's decent enough against most competition.

Tierney and Bellerin are a great pair of fullbacks even though the latter seems to have lost a yard of pace.

...on a non football note, I was surprised I didn't see any mention of the passing of John Hume on here and assumed it was a sensitive topic. Or perhaps people were just too occupied.

Hi TG,

Most businesses are not owned by a billionaire whose fortune has risen by over £300m during the pandemic.

He could absorb the costs of keeping those staff in jobs without even blinking and think of the goodwill it would have generated.

Reading more reports that the £100k a Week wages for Willian are correct, but that he also gets a £10m signing on fee. So more like £160k a week for 3 years on a free transfer. Also has incentives/bonus related elements.

I’d much prefer us to move towards smaller basic wage topped up with bigger bonuses. It makes sense. Win things and you get paid more

If the rumours that Aubameyang has agreed a new deal with us are true then it’s great news. It also made me think back to how, certainly one my time supporting Arsenal, that we’ve had some unbelievable strikers/goal scorers pretty consistently for 30 years.
Wright (who was a God to a 10 year old me), Anelka, Henry, Van Persie, Adebayor, Aubameyang
Adebayor and Anelka weren’t as consistent or stay as long as some others but these were 25 a season strikers. When you look at what other top teams have had over that 30 year period we’ve been pretty lucky.

But the jobs don’t exist anymore that’s the entire point. If you come in to work and there’s no work to perform you’d expect to be out of work at some point

Surely it makes more sense to offer them a generous redundancy payment in a golden handshake then everyone moves on. A redundancy payment can be 5-9 months salary anyway. I bet that head scout is on a massive golden handshake.

Arsenal are one of the only clubs to have paid all their staff 100% of their salaries through out the whole crisis and not used any Government scheme or support to do so. Yet now they are getting battered by the fake twitter outrage mob

I can still recall the excitement at signing SuperMac.

Kind of makes sense. But our scouting positions? Those jobs don’t exist any more?

It was always likely to get streamlined remember what Mslintat said.

https://shewore.com/2020/08/07/sven-mis ... unctional/

A little known fact is that most of our academy coaches are employed as "casual staff" so only usually get paid when the actually coach; during the lock down the club paid them based on average hours they had worked during the current season;
a very generous gesture from the club.

Had RvP been healthier, god only knows what he would have done. Eduardo's situation was tragic. I think he would have been one of those players who would have made goal of the season quality scoring for us. Another player who would have been consistently productive and been a bit of a 'Robbie Fowler' for us is Podolski. And possibly the biggest what if may be Gnabry.

Scouting at the senior level has change beyond recognition in the last couple of years.
Players are identified by local contacts and the recruitment can be done via statistical analysis and video scouting.

We have signed 3 players into the academy (18-23) during lockdown that can't have been watched in person.

I know Francis and have immense respect for him, but he had very little involvement in the Martinelli deal at all from my understanding; He was actually "given" to our scout in Brazil by Manures local contact after they didn't follow up on their interest; Edu was the one who got it over the line - mainly because he was still in Brazil when this was all unfolding.

...and so many other mysteries when it comes to Arsenal strikers where we don't know the real story of why they didn't make it. Joel Campbell, Park Chu Young, Carlos Vela, Ryo, Wellington, Asano.

Don't think there's much of a mystery with these players, they simply didn't have what it takes at this level as evidenced by their post-Arsenal careers. The only one out of those who has done anything of note after Arsenal is Vela.

That’s a touch of class from Arsenal. Paying valued staff for work they didn’t perform.

Thanks for that An interesting perspective.

Arsenal's shadow recruiter.

There’s no doubt his influence is etched all over Arsenal right now

All the players we are signing or being linked with are his clients. Even the Lisbon player Joelson we are supposed to be interested in is repped by him.

Just looked at his companies filing at companies house. His revenue was 14.5 million last year. Not bad for essentially doing *%^@ all.

That’s not fair, I’ve seen him working hard watching football games in all expenses paid executive boxes the length and breadth of Europe! Did you know he started life as a car salesman? Why am I not surprised

Kia's uncle and father were both quite succesful in car sales. Father's uncle at one time, ran the biggest car manufacturer in the Middle East. Father had a car dealership called Medway Autos in Kent.
Kia has had a long standing friendship with super agent Pini Zahavi, (remember him?). Zahavi was responsible for acquisition of Chelsea by Abromovich, acted as broker for MSI (Joorabchian).
Fascinating stuff.

We haven’t missed Guendouzi one iota since he’s been taken out the fold. Not sure why would contemplate re signing him. Arteta sounds like he can’t wait to see the back of him.

I'd personally like to keep AMN for a few reasons. Among which is that he's a good player. Not great. He won't be a great player probably but a good, decent squaddie. He came up through the academy at a very young age and its a good advertisement for the whole Arsenal system to see a player go from academy to first team. He's also flexible and can play multiple positions. With money tight, we need a versatile player.

If he is okay with not being a guaranteed starter and only an occasional starter but a place on the subs bench, then fine. He can have a decent Arsenal career.

If we have no choice (sell before we can buy for example) then so be it, but if its at all possible, I'd like to keep him.