Guendouzi was only on £49k a week at Arsenal. Even Marseille have presumably at least matched that.

Combination of physical power and technical ability would be required. Only player who really springs to mind is Neves at wolves who would be difficult to sign then cost 55 million quid.

Likely a double pivot with xhaka and a new signing required. An adaptation of Xhakas role probably.

If you watched the Ipswich friendly highlights partey made one pass to play in Nketiah first time that was pure class. Ødegaard aside simply don’t have a player capable of that in his absence .

There would have been a rebuttal by now if it wasn’t him surely. Could be a massive loss

On this wider issue does anyone know the latest situation with regards to Bissouma? While at Brighton he was accused of sexual misconduct. Not only did he continue playing for Brighton but Tottenham have now actually bought him.

Were the charges against Bissouma dropped, or were they slightly less serious as far as the law is concerned? Maybe sexual assault instead of rape?

Manchester United have sold Andreas Pereira to Fulham for £13m

Another decent sale for a player with no future at a big club.

Liverpool sold Minamino for £15m to Monaco.

I like our ambition so far in the purchasing department but we need to find new homes and fees for Leno, Mari, Bellerin, Torreira, AMN, Nelson. Other teams are able to do it, there appears to be interest in each of these players. It isn't inconceivable that those 6 players could be sold for the transfer fee Leeds want for Raphinha

Charges were dropped Bern.

Can't help but wonder about the timing though. Gets sold at a cut-price £25m - and you wouldn't really doubt that ongoing sexual assault investigations affected his value, making it quite a brave signing. Short time after the transfer, charges get dropped so he's back to being a nice guy and his value is re-instated. Hmmm....

Many thanks. Presume they were dropped before Brighton started playing him?

The charges were only dropped a week or so ago.

Bissouma had 1 year left on his contract that’s why his price was so low.

I’m not sure how spurs would gain the confidence to sign him if he was due to appear in court. Maybe his solicitors provided reassurances the case was disputable. Could have been something contractual with Brighton around payment of the transfer fee if convicted. Ie they only pay half or nothing or something

Leaking those details and not naming the individual really is appalling ... can't blame the media, but the police need to do a lot better.

Has anybody actually seen the police statements about the rape allegations? I have had a quick look online and can easily find loads of reports about the issue but not the actual statements themselves. The more internet savvy of you may be able to find them.

I am a bit sceptical why the police would include a reference to a Premier League international footballer who is going to play in the World Cup. Why would they do that? Male of a certain age arrested in a location is about the most you'd expect from initial police statements, not what that person does for a living or is planning to do in six months time? This feels like the police's words have been added to by journalists and thereby causing speculation about people who have nothing to do with it. If the police did provide those details, even off the record to journalists, that is not good.

You beat me to it!

I think in Guendouzi's case we can all agree he was sold far too cheap

Fabrizio Romano gave an update on Arsenal's transfer business - in short he didn't give much away - he said he thinks he knows who Arsenal's next right winger target is but needs it confirmed (at least if we're moving on from Raphinha there is a plan in place!) He also added that Arsenal are being incredibly secretive and quiet about transfers - if Romano doesn't know then we must be doing well. If we can keep everything as quiet as the Vieira deal it would be great. No fun for the fans who like to read speculation and rumours but far better for the club as this window it feels like we've gone back to the days when teams would seemingly just wait to see who Wenger went after and go after them themselves.

CM links Tielemans still and Milinkovic-Savic. £25-30m price difference between the two, Tielemans is 2 years younger and adapted to the league already. he's who I'd go for.

Still links to Martinez but I'm sure we must be 2nd favourites behind Man U

You are just watching sky news just shaking your head. Never in history have you seen such a bunch of lying thieving criminals hurt the country like this. Simply staggering.

Few rumours that Arsenal have submitted an official offer for 23-year-old Lille winger Edon Zhegrova

Apologies DHD. You did mention it was after Tottenham signed him earlier. I missed it.

Do we need more wingers?

On another issue, I would like to see Nuno trialed as a box to box midfielder. I think its a job he may be better suited to. We have a lot of games to cover other than the EPL and I think he could be effective in that role.

As for LB, I think we should look for a quality replacement for Tierney : nope not cover but a person to be LB. We can't have a fourth year of waiting to see if he can stay fit. He can become the cover. Plenty of games for him still to play if he stays fit. Further there are stories of him being wanted by other clubs. If we can make a profit lets cash in now.

The overall squad still looks a little thin particularly in midfield. I am hoping we deal with this before the start of the season proper.

If we've given up on Pépé then we definitely need to replace him in the squad, the workload Saka has gone through in the last 2 years is too much for him. It seems the club are happy with Martinelli/Emile Smith Rowe on the left but right-wing needs help. I think there may be games where Nketiah plays up front and Jesus on the right, but currently (if we discount Pépé) we only have Jesus, Nketiah, Saka, Martinelli, Emile Smith Rowe for those 3 forward positions - that is a player light for me. Raphinha would have been superb.

I don't think I'm with you in trialing Nuno Tavares as a box to box CM, if you'd said left-winger I'd have been more on board. His attributes are his directness and athletic prowess - I can't think of many players in world football who can turn their hand to fullback AND box-to-box CM, let alone a player who has had a very iffy first season, is very raw and certainly needs to improve his awareness. When we're looking at the likes of Tielemns and Milinkovic-Savic for that box-to-box role the drop off to someone like Nuno playing it is crazy, we'd be far better off sticking a genuine midfielder from the youth team in there

I do agree that CM looks too thin. If we want 2 players for each position then we lack numbers in CM and lack quality at RB, LB and RW

While I fully accept your point about Saka playing too many games, would Raphina have been happy being a second choice right winger appearing when Saka was being rested against the weaker sides in less important games, in the early rounds of the cups and when Saka was actually injured?

Clearly not as Arsenal were his third choice behind Barcelona and Chelsea. If he’s good enough for those clubs to want him, I reckon Raphina would have wanted to be an automatic first choice at Arsenal. That’s the reason I think to have any chance at all of attracting him, if we’d bought him it would have been to play across the forward line. Left, right and centre.

Myself I think it’s a bit premature to say Pépé is on his way out. Who would match his wages for a start? He’s on £140k a week. If he went on loan Arsenal would presumably pay a significant proportion of his salary. Would a lesser French team even cough up 50%, so £70k of it, for him? The 90% we paid of Özil’s was simply down to there being zero chance of Arteta using him again. That won’t be the case with Pépé.

Hilarious.

Sadly Tierney is right up there with Rosicky. Has he yet ‘recovered’ from his latest problem?

I agree that we were likely targeting Raphinha for multiple positions. If we're looking to go all the way in the Europa and make a better fist of the domestic cups we could play 55 odd games next year, if you have (for example) 3 players for 2 spots they'd each get 40 odd starts
My point about Pépé being on his way out wasn't necessarily me thinking he IS going, more than I think the club want to move him on. His wages may mean we end up having to keep him, he'd still be useful in the Europa league.
Our best and outside chance is him being reunited with Galtier who is the new PSG manger and was also his manager at Lille and loved him there

If the links to Zhegrova are true and he is the alternative to Raphinha then we're clearly shifting money in to other areas. Raphinha was a £60m first team ready player who'd immediately be one of our best players, Zhegrova is young and inexperienced and has a current value of £5m
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/edon-zh ... ler/496857

Saliba coming back, Turner effectively replacing Leno, Jesus coming in and the surprise addition of Vieira is a decent start to the transfer window but now we're 4 weeks from the start of the season and still require (I think) a minimum of 3 players - left sided defensive cover, central midfielder and right winger. Depending on the Partey situation we may need 2 central midfielders as without Partey the only options are Elneny, Lokonga nd Xhaka

I think he has and on his day he is great but defence depends on people playing continuously across the back 4 and we can’t afford half a season players.

Substitute 'wingers' with 'that's right, its the square hole' in this and you just about have it.

https://twitter.com/sanjazakovska/statu ... 3787152389

Spot on again Einstein

I think I have mentioned it before here, but with an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of 160, Albert Einstein actually had a lower IQ than Ian Brady, the boyfriend of fellow Moors Murderer Myra Hindley. Ian Brady’s IQ was 170.

Saw that on a documentary about IQs.

It’s hard to imagine any current poll being made up of anything other than “35% Brexitters and 65% Remoaners” as it dawns on more and more people that Brexit is not the wonderful future that was promised.

I for one am happy to be a Remoaner and not a Brexshitter.

There’s often little correlation between intelligence and common sense. Rees Mogg would be a good example of that.

True. That was one of the very points the documentary made. There’s also no guaranteed correlation between stuff like career, financial or business success and IQ.

That's because the electorate was lied to - loudly, consistently and shamelessly.

It is only now that people are beginning to realize.

Boris has resigned.

As a massive remainer, I've come to the conclusion that Brexit needs to unravel itself. People don't want to be yelled at, a mistake I've made myself. They just have to see that the version of the Brexit that seems to be here is one that is unsustainable. The only way Brexit can succeed is to adopt a Norway type agreement. The fishing industry, who voted for Brexit, have been trashed, the farming industry -who again, were hugely pro-brexit, has been trashed. People need to live the disaster of this before the majority realises it was an error. At least in the way the ideologues have tried to sell it.

It may take many, many years to reverse, but it will eventually, certainly to a large extent - and it doesn't necessarily mean rejoining to acheive that. People need to see it for themselves though. Whilst the EU is very far from perfect, but we're better being closer to them than by being antagonistic and breaking laws and legally binding agreements. It won't end well.

Changing subjects completely, what iPhone models and smartphones do people use and what networks do you recommend? My three year contract with O2 (the network I’ve used since they started sponsoring Arsenal, I think some twenty years ago) for my current iPhone has expired and I’m getting regular calls and messages to upgrade to an iPhone 13 Pro Max.

The thing is, the iPhone 14 Pro Max apparently comes out in the UK on 14th September. So if I get the iPhone 13 Pro Max, it’s going to be out of date in a few weeks. Furthermore, after generously (according to them) giving me a £100 reduction, O2 are still asking £24 more than what the price of the iPhone 14 Pro Max will allegedly be.

I’ve long admitted to being a technological idiot, but am I missing something? It just seems I might as well wait a couple of months and get the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Or do people use other smartphones they think are better than iPhones, or indeed other networks they think are superior to O2? I won’t use a Samsung phone as they sponsored Chelsea nor use Vodafone as my network as they sponsored Manchester United.

Neco Williams, 21 year old right back, £17m from Liverpool to Forrest! 5 premier league starts and 13 prem appearances in total. Only made 14 appearance for Fulham in the championship last year.

It is crazy how these clubs can sell their youngsters for such high fees

I've just upgraded to the iPhone SE - I lied it because the handset isn't the really big one that doesn't fit in your pocket, and it still retains the little round 'home' button at the bottom.
I'm with ee, never really had too much of a problem with them, coverage is always good.
I got the handset for free and joined on a 24 month contract at about £28 per month, which includes a 30% discount on their friends and family deal as a family friend works for them

I saved myself a fortune by buying my iPhone outright a few years ago and using a BT monthly SIM. The SIM deal is an absolute bargain especially since I use BT for broadband, and the 6S Plus is still going strong.

Monthly contracts are an absolute ripoff.

Thanks. Must admit I prefer big phones since I saw clinical research that small phones are likely to damage one’s eyesight long term.

Thanks again. Wonder if buying the iPhone 14 Pro Max outright (for the size of it) and using a monthly SIM deal might be the best option?