At least if Lyon beat my second team, our friend from across the Atlantic won’t have any excuses for droning on about how he hates Bayern for losing to them.

Since I blocked him Bernard I've enjoyed the forum much more. I only see his posts if somebody replies to him, which is not very often.

Amazing result. Sterling showing his lack of technique that cost them against us. Again a tiki taka style side done by a more direct countering team.

Wow check out Sterling’s open goal miss that would have made it 2-2 in the 86th minute. 60 seconds later they are 3-1 down. I’m delighted

Can recommend

I try to remember to call him our friend from across the Atlantic in case he uses some sort of search facility that enables people using the term American to be spotted. I’m not sure he did, but I seem to recall him saying something that gave me the impression he did.

I reckon he gets turned on by attention. Probably why he hates Mustafi so much if his bird ignores him to shag Shkodran instead. I’ll stick a written smiley in here to avoid confusion.

Ederson is such an overrated keeper in my view. Great with his feet, possibly better than any other goalkeeper, but so many flaws in the rest of his game. That third goal is his, and it killed the game for them. Would pick both Leno and Martinez ahead of him, both are good enough with their feet and much better at actually stopping the ball from going in.

Having used the ignore function myself (not on AG), you see that the person you're ignoring has made a post, and you can then choose to show that post. So I'd assume he has a look every now and then.

Another rumour that Huss Fahmy has now been sacked too.

No shite....

https://www.onlinegooner.com/articles/view/5322

Thanks Hazuki. That must be it. The people he blocks do discuss other things much (or far, far, far) more often than him. My guess is that hurts.

By the way, if you don’t mind saying who have you blocked? I don’t recall you seriously falling out with anyone.

Sanllehi is quoted in yesterday's Arsenal.com announcement: 'Huss Fahmy is a talented and highly-capable leader of our football operations'.

But who’s swinging the axe?

Being reported that one of physios has left the club and returned to Liverpool. Name of Morgan - not sure how important he is to us

Good question. Venkatesham has appeared to survive. Was firm evidence of Sanllehi taking backhanders provided to him that didn’t implicate him and he took the evidence to the Kroenke’s? Or did someone provide it to Stan or Josh independently and, because it didn’t implicate Venkatesham, they have kept him in his job?

Pure conjecture obviously. But neither seems an outlandish possibility.

This seems like its going to be cringeworthy and terrible but I will probably force myself to see it so I can complain after.

So just so I’ve got this clear.

The announcement that the club was investigating Pépé’s transfer: I presume the sudden ‘departure’ of Sanllehi and then the rumored departure of the contracts guy is the club getting rid of the guilty figures yes?

I know it’s probably obvious, but in these crazy times I couldn’t help myself wondering if it was the ‘bad’ guys getting rid of the ‘good’ guys before the investigation reaches a conclusion. I’ll get my tin foil hat.

Chris Morgan, I think I read he was at Liverpool for quite a while before joining us, and is now going back to them. Gary O’Driscoll Arsenal’s club doctor had agreed to leave for Liverpool as well, but Arteta persuaded him to stay. O’Driscoll was the guy Arteta can be seen hugging and saying “I told you, believe in me” just after the final whistle of the FA Cup final

Really strange goings-on at Arsenal.

We appear to get rid of our traditional scouting network in favour of a more analytical and contacts based recruitment policy and then we sack or main "contacts" guy.

So we now have no scouting network and no contacts guy either.

If Sanllehi has been sacked for basically giving his agent mates backhanders, as some would suggest, then why the relatively amicable parting statements from both sides.

All a bit mad.

GK: Leno, Martinez, Iliev
LB: Tierney, Kolasinac
RB: Bellerin, Cédric, Maitland-Niles
RCB: Saliba, Sokratis, Mustafi, Chambers
LCB: Mari, Luiz, Holding
CM: Xhaka, Guendouzi, Torreira, Willock
AM: Willian, Özil, Smith-Rowe
LW: Saka, Martinelli
RW: Pépé: Nelson
ST: Aubameyang, Lacazette, Nketiah

That's how we currently stand. Stating the obvious but central midfield is an absolute stand out awful area.

Morning socrates. I’m not really surprised by the, to use your terminology, ‘relatively amicable parting statements from both sides.’ It’s often what seems to happen. Didn’t we see exactly the same when Emery was sacked, in both the club’s and his comments? I doubt if it’s only Arsenal where polite thanks are given to people who have just been sacked. Moreover, I doubt it just happens in football either. Although I can’t recall specific examples I’m sure I’ve seen similar in broadsheets when top executives or leading businessmen have been dismissed from big firms.

I would have been astonished if Arsenal had said words to the effect ‘we sacked that thieving git Sanllehi because he is as bent as a two bob note.’ It simply doesn’t happen.

Arseblogger is very good today in summarising the situation

Quite simply you are introducing people into positions of power and control over arsenal who don’t have the clubs interests at heart and know they won’t be around for long.

Really hope the club do something like introducing Bergkamp or overmars to the set up. We need people who can act with integrity

It’s a face saving thing. We will let you go quietly so it’s won’t affect your future. Let’s not let this play out in a public drama .

So that's why he's gone? (reading Soc's post) Okay. Not surprised. And as far as the squad so far, I think if we got Partey and a CB, we'd be competitive. Arteta may have to play Özil if he needs creativity and passing to get the attacking players the ball in matches where we are up against a lot of class.

Do we still know who we are playing in the CS, if rumours that Liverpool are opting out are true? I assume City.

There have been some odd goings on. Not just Pépé

Mari and soares just can’t make sense of those 2 signings.

Soares is a journeyman who was deemed surplus to requirements at saints. Has had 1 decent game and 1 poor for us.

Mari likewise and people are forgetting we apparently paid 14 million for him plus an initial 4 million loan fee, He may come good buy there’s no doubt it’s a little odd.

Hi TG,

I am baffled by those two signings as well.

If, as is being suggested, we are after a left footed CB then that suggests that Mari is no more than a back-up. On the limited game time he has had he looks more Cygan/Upson than top level, but to be fair he has not had anything like enough game time to prove himself. All I can say is that he must look dynamite in training for us to exercise the option to buy him after so few minutes on the pitch.

Soares is another strange one, especially with a 4 year contract. I've no idea why we bought him but, blimey, he should have been happy and grateful with a 2 year contract and perhaps an option for a 3rd year if he does well.

My first impression when the news broke was that the internal inquiry into the Pepé transfer had revealed something the powers that be didn't like, and hence he was sacked. As several posters has pointed out, the fact that the official statement from the club was complimentary towards Raul doesn't necessarily mean anything, as that is par for the course.

However, there was another statement released by Raul where he once again stressed the split was amicable and heaped praise on the club on those who run it. And watching the interview with Vinai on arsenal.com, he starts the thing off with praising Raul, saying he was lucky to have him as a colleague and friend, and that Raul's fantastic work (his words) is one of the reasons he's optimistic about Arsenal's future.

I don't know, but it all seems a little too much if they're only trying to keep up appearances. The official statement would've been enough for that, I think. Maybe too much is being read into all of this, and it really is mostly about streamlining our leadership structure? If this move means Arteta gets more of a say I'm all for it, because in Arteta I think we might have an exceptional manager talent.

Hi Bernard,

I love that line.

Hi Haz,

I agree.

It all seemed a little to cosy, cosy. Unless of course Sanllehi got a golden handshake from Edu that Kroenke doesn't know about yet

Any other owner of a club with the size and stature of The Arsenal would have been embarrassed by this season and spend the money to right the wrongs. Chelsea, Man Utd and Liverpool all had seasons somewhat on par as we did and they went into panic mode and did what ever needed to be done to get back to winning ways.

Kroenke helped the former owner of the Rams move the club from Los Angeles to St. Louis by taking a 30% stake in the mid 90s. The team won a Super Bowl in 1999 and appeared in another. When Kroenke took over they no longer won much, barely made playoffs. In the interim the other 2 professional teams in St. Louis won titles. The St. Louis Cardinals baseball team won at least a couple World Series in the 2000s. and the St. Louis Blues ice hockey team which has had a dismal record of being in any where close to winning the Stanley Cup, won it. A team that has not appeared in a finals since 1970 and and had never won it before, won it 2019 for the first time.

Arsenal have had a bid accepted for Gabriel Magalhaes, supposedly 30m euros. Napoli in a similar position. Lille have said he's off, they've given his shirt No. to a young player. So it appears it is down to the player to decide if he wants Italy or England.

Fantastic news. But did we get more money from Stan? Did we (or are we going to} sell players to finance these transfers?
We will have a very capable central defense. My only remaining wish is for a DM specialist. Partey if possible but it would be asking for too much. I didn't think we'd get much done this transfer season but its coming along much better than expected.

Can anyone please tell me the process for blocking someone on here? I’ve tried the ‘foe’ option, but that doesn’t appear to work.
Thanks

Ignore - just realized it only works if you’re signed in.

Any prizes for guessing who you’ll block? Imagine a smiley put here.

With the new transfer, its shaping up. I'm trying to stop myself from being too excited...hmm...excited is the wrong word...cautiously optimistic is more accurate. My biggest concern was the central defense more than any other part of our squad and (knock on wood) we seem to have two very fine, young defenders to build on. The Luiz/Mustafi era may be ending..hopefully.

I am probably wrong but I have hope for Holding. He hasn't set the world on fire but I go back to the cup final where he 'bossed it' at the back as AOC said at the time. Hoping he can do well. But would understand if he was sold or loaned out.

For God’s sake, did you even watch the 2017 final? Holding had a fine game but Mertesacker bossed it. Martin Keown calls it the Mertesacker final for a very good reason. Moreover I think Keown knows a bit more about central defending than AOC.

Not just Keown, I think it’s widely known as the Mertesacker final. Per had pretty much retired, he’d perhaps player a handful of games all season and hadn’t played for a number of months. My view is that as good as the defence was that day it was guided my Mertesacker

Aubameyang tweeted tonight “.....and then a sand timer emoji”

Fabrizio Romano, quite a reliable journalist also tweeted that Aubameyang WILL sign his new deal soon

Couldn’t agree more.

Ahead of the FA Cup final I actually looked at Mertesacker's stats from 2016/2017, and that season he only had a single appearance before the final - coming on as a sub in our final league game with about 30 minutes to go. So that cup winning performance came after he had only played 30-35 minutes of football that entire season.