Because we need to be managing him out of the club, not giving him expectations he is to stay.

I'm still a big fan of Martinelli and think all he needs his time. It should also be noted, its not like he's got the best support on the pitch at times. Also, he needs time to build a working relationship with the players who do play well like Saka, Smith Rowe and Tierney. They know his movements and he knowing theirs.

Because of Mo Salah, Liverpool is huge in Moslem countries, especially Arab countries. There are Liverpool shops in the major malls in Dubai.

So it looks as though UEFA will shift the CL Final from Istanbul because of the Covid risks in that city. The obvious choice is Wembley in pretty much Covid-clear UK; this would allow maybe 20,000 fans to attend.

But no. Oh no no noooo. UK is still barring entry to a number of countries which means that some of UEFA's 'guests' and sponsors would have difficulty attending.

Portugal on the other hand has a more relaxed approach to visitors so UEFA can bring in 3,000 high-roller lick-spittle cronies. And their wives. And their nieces. Bollocks to the club fans.

All things considered, I am not in favour of a breakaway elite. However, anyone who believes those UEFA weasels have the best interests of the game at the heart of their decision-making is deluded. They are leeches, just like the Kroenkes and the Glazers.

I once had a count of the exact money I spent to go to our Europa League final against Chelsea in Baku. It came out that I spent £1,143 and a some pence, think it was around 50p, that I wouldn’t have spent had I not gone. I don’t know how many Arsenal and Chelsea fans went to the game, but I assume the ones from London and the Home Counties all spent at least that. I say at least because I didn’t stop overnight and doing so would have cost even more. Well, I didn’t stay overnight but I did, simply in the airport waiting rooms as the flight back was delayed hours on end until some time the following morning.

All for a 4-1 bloody hammering. But my own experiences of that game makes me agree with you about UEFA. The game was between two London clubs. Why couldn’t it have been rearranged for Wembley?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/weaintgotn ... ley-report

Porto of course. And 20K fans, UEFA cronies, dignitaries, their entourage, other hangers-on....naturally.

Arseblog are reporting we are hiring a team to recruit new scouts. Looks like sacking the scouts was a mistake. Who would have guessed it.

Hi Gaz,

Maybe Hodd can throw some light on this.

Hi Zed,

I said when the Superleague was disbanded that Uefa, Sky, BT etc were not celebrating football being saved by the people, they were celebrating the fact that the gravy train was not leaving their station.

How about you convince him to stay

https://www.football365.com/news/arsena ... ns-emerson
If we get £35m for Bellerin I will be amazed and will heartily congratulate whoever brokers that deal. He seems a certainty to leave though. If we can push towards £25m then we should snap anyone's hand off for that.

It’s not like for like tbf
things are a bit odd across the club at present, so probably best if I don’t comment

Hi Soc,
Oh no of course not. ESL really isn't dead at all.

Man City are champions. It is their 7th title in their history.

City and Chelsea now have as many league titles combined as Arsenal with 13. 10 of those 13 have been won with the artificial finances of their rich owners.

https://tbrfootball.com/hes-just-been-a ... last-year/

Nice endorsement for Martinez

The sad thing is that pointing out the money of Chelsea and City labels you a 'sore loser' by almost all. It's in the media's and everyone else's best interest financially, etc, to ignore the money and pretend it has no effect at all.

We know the issue, we now have to stop complaining and come up with a viable plan to counter it.

As I’ve pointed out, Kroenke’s money is comparable to Abramovich’s and the Kroenke family’s wealth ($18.9b) is comparable to Sheikh Mansour’s ($20b). I wonder if that’s what AG’s post regarding the harping on about City and Chelsea’s success under their owners making people look ‘sore losers’ was about?

Look, I accept the logic of Hazuki’s post a while back saying Ann Kroenke’s personal wealth (from memory $8.9b) shouldn’t be considered at all when discussing this issue. But on a relative pauper’s level, me and my wife both have a range of personal and joint accounts. If I wanted to invest in a few cases of extraordinarily expensive fine wine and could only do so if she gave me something from one of her personal accounts, if I gave her solid reasons why it was such a good investment, I’m sure she would. I suspect Stan and Ann Kroenke also have a range of joint and personal accounts, so if he asked her for a bit from one of her personal accounts for Arsenal’s transfer budget, I imagine she might be willing. Although I do accept Stan has enough personal money not to need to ask her for it.

The point is more that just because Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour decide to spend on the clubs they own and Stan Kroenke doesn’t, how much can we moan about how unfair it all is?

We’ve got the 3rd best defence in the league so far this season.

You could say the same about all but 3 of the premier league clubs then. As all but 3 have billionaire owners. Fulham and villa’s owners have comparable wealth to Kronke.
There is a big difference between Arsenal and Chelsea/City. Arsenal established themselves as a top club without the extreme cash injections of a rich owner. City and Chelsea are only where they are because of their owner. In Chelsea’s case it was a ‘reward’ for actually being incredibly badly run they were bordering administration.
Of course all these other billionaires could invest un-earnt riches in their team and if they all did to the same level as City then it probably wouldn’t take long for City to drop back to being a midtable club.
So I think irrespective of what other owners can put in, and there are rules to stop it happening, it is still unfair that these two clubs have such a massive leg up in the competition.

Not really looking forward to the game. I would take a draw right now if offered to me. Would be great to beat them for old times sake but unlikely. If anything we'd do well to keep them under 3 goals.

I stated some weeks back if we can beat Tottenham (and Mourinho) I'd be happy for the duration of the season. For the most part I'm not but beating them, especially before Mourinho left the country will be a nice lasting memory.

Speaking of him, he's now firmly in the 2nd tier of football management. Roma is a decent club but oh how far the mighty have fallen. I have no sympathy for him. He's a brat when all is said and done, with moments of humanity once in a while.

If the squad can go 'once more into the breach', and beat Chelsea, I'd 'loov it, just loov it' if we beat them.

Huddersfield Town won three titles under Chapman before Arsenal had a trophy to their name. Then Arsenal poached him and look at what happened to both clubs, particularly Arsenal. I wonder if part of the reason for Chapman joining Arsenal was the money we offered? I’ve little or no doubt there will be countless other examples similar in principle before owners were billionaires. Bolton Wonderers were once a far bigger club than they are now.

Sorry Rich. I know how strongly you feel about the success of City and Chelsea. But if the main reason behind it is Sheikh Mansour and Roman Abramovich spending their money on their clubs while Kroenke chooses to spend his comparable wealth differently (not on Arsenal), I think to borrow that term again, you’re beginning to sound a ‘sore loser’. If not slightly hypocritical?

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/footbal ... kel-Arteta

Fantastic if this report is true and accurate, especially regards Willian

This says the exact opposite about Leno, as I’m assuming he’s one of those you’d like to see go. I suspect the main thing to remember about transfer gossip is that the huge majority of it is utter trash, made up to sell papers or get internet hits.

https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/ ... dium=email

If he does not want to stay, better that he leaves

But the report implies he insists he’s still happy at Arsenal so will want to stay. My strong advice is don’t believe any transfer gossip you see. The huge majority is garbage made up to sell papers or attract internet hits. That’s all it is. No more, no less. The stuff that’s based on anything tangible is few and far between.

Especially around this time of season ticket renewal requests. It's all PR.

Very good point Darren.

The express has now run 3 or 4 Kroenke puff pieces now.

To be honest I wouldn’t really lose much sleep if any of those players mentioned left especially Xhaka however that seems really wishful thinking and I can’t believe that’s true.

When chelsea wallop us later rather than focus on us watch their midfield 3 and how they distribute the ball. The problem story of our season in my opinion (which had many)

I think we need to get Arteta a couple more midfielders then if he has better players in the midfield but still is making over indulgent and pretentious decisions like the ones seen recently then he can get booted around Christmas

The Arsenal app is still showing the Palace game as being this weekend. Pretty poor really.

The Arsenal website has it correctly.

I think we’d be very lucky to find another keeper better than Leno for the money we’re likely to spend on a replacement.

The 3 GK I've seen mentioned (other than Ryan) are:
Szczesny - all seems to be based on Juve going for Donnarumma on a free transfer, and he'll always be linked back to us by the press
Onana - Ajax GK currently serving but appealing a doping ban. If his appeal succeds he's rumoured to be available for £7m
Raya - Brentford GK we were linked with heavily last year, counts as a home grown player and there were rumours of him staying 1 more year with Brentford to try to get them promoted and then being allowed to leave

At the moment we have 3 non home grown GK - which makes absolutely no sense for squad building. You need at least 1 possibly 2 of the 3 to be home grown considering the lack of action they would generally see. If we're out of europe next season the 3rd choice GK should probably be our best home grown youth prospect, so send Runnarsson on loan somewhere.

Think your probably right on that and it’s also worth remembering that would mean we would likely need to sign 2 new goalkeepers this summer as a back up if Matt Ryan doesn’t come. These things don’t sound easy. Make or break summer for Edu

If Leno does go it will make the irritating moaning about him go away. Arsenal fans seem to have long forgotten the endless blunders from Čech, alumnia and ospina

Pretty uninspiring options you have to say.

Also if Lacazette goes he might be hard to replace. Quality strikers come at a premium

Ryan Bertrand is leaving Southampton on a free transfer this summer. He's inevitably linked to us as a back up left back, probably because he's cheap and home grown.

For me I'd rather we went and got a young home-grown left back to play back up to Tierney rather than going down the road of high wages, high signing on fee and risk signing a player who is only going to get worse - and these guys usually want 3 year deals. Id rather go for a young championship left back who we have scouted and rate - or go for Tyrick Mitchell from Palace if you want a home grown left back on a free transfer.

For the money we'll have to spend you're going to be taking a risk with any transfer. Seemingly available strikers
Edouard from Celtic £20m
Dembele from Lyon £25m
maybe Daka from Salzburg for £20m
All of these have scored lots of goals for smaller teams but then so did Haaland before he signed for Dortmund. It all comes down to good scouting and good coaching

So, how much is available to spend? I have next to no idea of our finances and transfer budget. Will we have to sell to buy? Kroenke is hurting financially. A lot of money was poured into the stadium and the team and the pandemic has cut the expected revenues. The league itself took out a huge loan to tide themselves over and it will have to be repaid. Kroenke is responsible for his share.

Not to mention his other professional franchises in the NBA, NHL, MLS. They are all similarly affected by covid19.

Also, California, especially LA is losing population fast. California for the first time ever lost a congressional seat in Congress (based on population) and is expected to lose more. The local economy is uncompromising and my guess having been a former resident is it will get worse. I don't think the Rams will be a successful financially as the league and Kroenke hope they will. But that's my guess on what I know about the city and how things are.

There will be a crash at some point (long overdue economically) and LA will be hit harder than most when it does. London and other places will as well but this is about Kroenke specifically. It won't be good for us and we may even see money siphoned off.

All that said, it could....fingers crossed, could prompt him to sell. That would also assume that a willing buyer can be found who has the resources AND will be positive for the club and not just replacing one onerous owner for another. Financial ruin is probably the only realistic way we will be rid of Kroenke. His ruin, not ours...for the pedants.

Watching a series on Netflix with Martin Freeman playing a badass cop. It's tough to see that in him. He's pulling it off somewhat. As an aside, Brits generally do very good American accents. Middle American accents, what we mean by that here is, an accent that has no specific region like New York, the deep south, Boston, etc. It's what they used to look for in TV news. The Iowan accent is supposed to be the ideal American accent. Non descript, clear.

Americans on the other hand are generally terrible at it. I have jokingly done British accents that fool Americans and some non Brits but of course not Brits. One side story, at the pub in LA, a Chelsea fan and I went to Starbucks after a match to discuss the game. A couple American girls heard him order and of course loved the accent. He said 'Me and me mate here are having a cuppa...care to join?" They sat down and I smirked at him and did my faux British accent (London) accent, he laughed but kept up the ruse. They bought it. I'm no anglophile, truth is when I do the accent around other Americans its mocking you guys as you do about us. My accent range is east London, west London, Liverpool, Irish, the poorest Geordie, a poor Glaswegian accent. I also do regional American accents. I've always been a decent mimic growing up. I have great Vito Corleone, Darth Vader and a few other voices that I immodestly say are pretty darn good.

For Leno it's either way obviously which way he goes.
May have something to do with the GK coach Inaki Cana. Reports suggest Leno's form has dipped and he's made a few errors in games lately, of course. Cana is a concern among a few players apparently. Arteta brought Cana to Arsenal in 2019.

You're wrong about the app LTG. I recently updated mine as it was still showing the games on Saturday. It has been updated on the website and you need to redownload it to your calender.

Just checked the app to make sure and it is also correct. It's the calender link that isn't.