I have a soft spot for Fulham, but it would have been something else to see Brentford back in the top division. What a great effort they made. Last time we played them in the League was May 1947 when we won by the only goal of the game scored by Paddy Sloan. Sloan must have been the definition of have boots will travel, including a spell at Milan. Read his Wiki entry!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Sloan

Mean

According to Matt Law, Aubameyang is close to signing a new contract until 2023.

And Willian turned down a 2 year deal at £140k per week with Chelsea to sign a 3 year deal at £100k per week with us. One of my fears with Willian was paying him upwards of £200k a week. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if that is his wage

Back in the 80s I helped out in the Miners Strike and was given a Coal Not Dole tee shirt by one of the mining families from Kent. In those days I was a guy who had to run around in a shower to get wet - a sort of shorter version of Peter Crouch. The shirt fitted well and I was proud to wear it. A couple of years ago I attempted to try it on for old times sake. Sadly I looked like I was gas mark ten pregnant.

Arteta is going to have a tough choice once Mustafi is back from injury.

It happens. I took up running in April - I was working from home and not really seeing any people because of corona, so I needed something to occupy myself with (and I'd been a lazy b****** for far too long). After going on a run three times a week for about three months I finally climbed the scales at the end of June and found out I'd gained five pounds.

Doesn’t sound right Rich. Those figures, if correct, would mean Willian getting £14,560,000 in two years at Chelsea (£140,000 x 52 = £7,280,000 x 2 = £14,560,000). At Arsenal he would be getting £15,600,000 in three years (£100,000 x 52 = £5,200,000 x 3 = £15,600,000).

That represents a difference of £1,040,000 more that he’d be getting at Arsenal for staying a year longer. He could make up that difference by joining an American or Chinese club paying him £20,000 a week on leaving Chelsea in two years. In reality, I’m sure he would be able find a club somewhere that would be willing to give him appreciably more than twenty grand a week in a couple of years time (when he’d still be 33, albeit on the verge of 34 as his birthday is 9th August). Hence your figures just don’t sound right.

Bernard I agree. On the face of it..it doesn’t seem to make sense but there may be other aspects to the deal not reported....such as....win and trophy bonuses, appearance targets, the security of an extra years employment with full medical insurance, personal rights clauses like percentage of shirt sales, an extra year of pension contributions..... I’m kinda making these up a bit as I go along But you get the drift.

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/

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.

...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.