The trailer seems like its going to be one of those 'feel good' movies. Foreigner comes into a small town changes things theme. I wonder how close the reality is to the documentary/movie?





For you old geezers/gooners, how painful was this?

I hope we don't end up losing him. Why not a season long loan to Palace?

Leno to Fulham for £8m is close. I think that’s a bargain for Fulham. The only thing Leno lacks is an ability to play with his feet to the highest level of ‘playing out from the back’. I can’t think that Fulham will have lots of possession this season so a top class shot stopper is great for them

apparently he rejected some premier league offers

Hmmm ...and your point is ....?

No matter what his contribution from your perspective Bernard ; he can always say "" I played for The Arsenal "".

I'd be more than happy to add that to my stellar range of achievements .

Hillier wasn't that bad. He was captain of the youth team and did very well when he first came into the team. I remember a game at Anfield when he bossed the midfield, we won 1-0 through a Merse goal. Typical Graham player, hard working but not the most gifted. He was on the Highbury Squad a few times last season talking about the Arse.

Easy to make the wrong choices in life though Long Time . In one of my visionary moments I said as such the other day to a mate and his wife .
My kids stable good jobs ; my brother has a daughter in and out of drug rehab , another pregnant every other day to a different bloke and a son in jail

I'm sure Gascoine Sanson George Best wouldn't mind a re run of their lives .

Remember reading an article about Jet Harris [ the Shadows ] He was earning 2000 pounds a week in 1960 parties flash cars dumb arse investments . by 1973 he'd blown everything and was earning 39 quid a week as a bus conductor .
One for the old coot from Hoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHyTN5D ... KevinAllen

I thought some may have found it interesting. A completely different line of work for such a poor player.

Absolutely! Good attackers/strikers become even more effective with good passers. Bergkamp and Fabregas, 2 of the best passers ever in the PL, made an already lethal Henry and Pires much better. Wiltord, who we can debate as how good he actually was, wouldn't have gotten the goals he had without Bergkamp either directly or indirectly (the pass that set up the assist).

I also think Martinelli will benefit as well.

Really? I'd have advised him otherwise. I assume the thinking is he will get far more minutes with Reims. I have no idea how good they are or what their set up is, but its possible he may start for them perhaps.

I'd have advised him to go on loan to Palace or Newcastle, if not them, the best side he can find with a great passer in the midfield, so he can get good service.

Anyway, we all wish him the best of luck obviously. I'll have to watch for his progress if he ends up going there.

A shame we couldn't get more money for him. He's a steal at that price. Chelsea, City seem to get full price or more for their discarded players.

I agree it would be good to add to your achievements but as long as it was not the only highlight.

I agree ... there is a tendency to rubbish no name players from the past Trevor Ross , Steve Gating , David Price , Ritchie Powling , Ian Selley , Steve Morrow .
John Matthews .

Did you miss or not understand the word STELLAR Big Boy .

I suppose you are busy organising a fund to build a stature of Kyle Feldt in your town centre . In commemoration of his exploits against the Tigers ...?

Yep. Gaël Clichy

Bein Sur ... Naturlich showing my worldly linguistic skills ...it was starter for ten for Rotterdam and myself ... maybe I'm coming over a bit Dalai Lama but worst ever Arsenal team ??? not so sure .

Julio Baptista would be my cornerstone . Mancini , Blockley ,

I can’t think of a single central midfielder who played at least twenty games (I think that’s reasonable rather than just picking a useless kid who came on for a few minutes as a sub) who I would say was worse.

Really, you saying Hillier was worse than Denilson or John Jensen?

Did he steal your suitcase Bernard?

Yes but as Rotterdam points out he had a monster game v Liverpool [ and strangely I do remember that game ] so he can't have been all bad .

Anyway onwards and upwards , been very very impressed with the pre season highlights . Plenty have said in the past when we buy players ""Oh God do we want whoevers cast offs . Mama Mia why did Citeeee get rid of Jesus ...??
Fresh faced , smiling , instant control , wonderful technique . Fellow Brazilian I think Martinelli will blossom beside him .

Vitally important we BEAT Palace ; even a draw good result as it might be ; could deflate our pre season euphoria .

Yeah I would. All good candidates for my worst ever (from those I’ve seen) team though.

I was busy and didn't catch the womens Euro final. I am very, very happy for the women's team and congrats to them. They and the US women's team are who I cheer for. I cheer against Germany and Brazil to a lesser extent. I don't know why, I just do.

This is a very good illustration of the work we've done in the last two years in terms of squad bulding. Looking at that list, the thing that really strikes me is how few of them who really earned their wage at any point in their Arsenal career.

I've been trying to find a full comparison of our wages and what we've removed from the wage bill over the past few years, there are more to add here I think with the likes of Luiz, Sokratis, Mustafi - all these played under Arteta. Of course others have come in on good wages - but they tend to be justifying those wages, and good players have got pay rises. I think the figure we've stripped off our yearly wage bill is huge (like £50m or so). The work that was done in January has to a certain extent allowed us to do what we have in this window - the flip side is that perhaps the work that was done in january meant we didn't get those 2 extra points needed for Champions League? Who knows.

One other thing to note is the list of forwards we were linked with in January, most notably Isak had £75m+ price tags, now we have Jesus for £45m.

2 years ago today we won the FA Cup beating Chelsea 2-1. Here is our line up and subs from that game:

Martinez, Holding, Luiz, Tierney, Bellerin, AMN, Ceballos, Xhaka, Pépé, Lacazette, Aubameyang
subs: Macey, Sokratis, Torreira, Nelson, Kolasinac, Nketiah, Willock, Smith, Saka

Of those 20 players, only 11 are still registered Arsenal players, and only Holding, Tierney, Pépé, Nketiah, Saka are in any way being used in the first team right now.

Win the FA Cup and change 15 of the 20 man squad in 2 years. It has been a huge turnover in players

Chelsea are interested in Fofana from Leicester - Leicester value Fofana at £75m. This is where Saliba and Gabriel need to be valued for us.

Chelsea also looking to hijack the Cucurella deal from Man City. A bit surprised at that as Chelsea have Chilwell already, It seems like Alonso will move on but having 2 x £50m left-wing backs who don't play CB and don't play in midfield seems a bit strange. Makes more more glad we picked up Zinchenko for £30m

Seems the club cocked up the Bournemouth ticket allocation - there are more available. Going on sale to former Away Scheme members at 14:00 today - in 5 minutes.

Wish me luck!

EDIT

Success!!

If the club need to sell before we buy then it makes sense to make some small concessions on player fees who we want rid of. There seems little point haggling over a few million if that is blocking the signing of a new midfielder for example. If you go through the team and assume the best 10 players are available and only 1 needs replacing - where are we weakest? I think it is CM still and specifically Partey's position.

If Xhaka is the only player missing and everyone else is fit I think it would be tempting to play Zinchenko there now.

He did and it had all Bernard's best dresses in too.

Torreira to Galatasary it seems now. 5.5m euros with 1.5m in add ons. Which is about 4.5m fee and close to £6m in total.

We have £13m from Guendouzi and Mavropanos, and potentially £8m and £4.5m from Torreira. So just over £25m in sales if that all goes through and would bring the net spend down to £96m.

I feel like we'll give Mari away for free eventually. Maitland-Niles is the one I'm really surprised can't be moved on for a reasonable fee. I feel like if AMN can only generate a fee under a few million then you might as well keep him until January for Europa group stages. He'd probably still be worth a few million in January anyway.

I wouldn't mind a re-run of their lives. Given the choice, I'd cut out the booze and drugs, but keep the birds, money and glory. But beggars can't choosers, hey?

Hi Rich,

Is it only us who are virtually giving players away for nothing again or is the rest of europe doing likewise?

I was driving with 2 colleagues, both 50ish give or take. We were discussing something and one said "That's a cult" and I said "like 'Blue Oyster'?" and then of course we shifted topics immediately.

They insisted 'Don't Fear The Reaper' is their biggest and best song. I said 'Burning For You' is. Surely, you all will agree with me, right?

I will say this. This is an effing great song and I love it but I don't get the lyrics and how it relates to the hook? Its one of those songs I wait around for the hook.

We didn't fare too well in both fixtures against Palace last season. I love Paddy and always had a soft spot for Palace but I wanted to win both games. That said, I have to assume gooners are expecting nothing short of all 3 points even though its away and a London derby. Or do I assume too much?

I simply don’t see how that can be the case Rich. Everything I read suggests Arteta doesn’t fancy Tielemans. If he’s available for £25m-£30m I have to believe that, as it’s peanuts.

If you think midfield is the priority and earlier you told us Balogun was going on loan, do you really think Jesus and Nketiah are sufficient forwards for up to 65 games? At the end of the day, can someone remind me when Martinelli did well more centrally because if it’s ever happened I’ve forgotten the game? Smith Rowe as a withdrawn forward? Seems more possible but has it ever happened?

I do worry that overplaying Jesus makes injury more likely. That should come into the pros and cons of buying another forward.

Same here. I can't recall (bad memory, old age) but did we get anything close to maximum value for Nasri, RvP went for what, 24k? Or was that wrong? Adebayor as well.

We got good value for Paddy I think and decent money for Henry was the consensus although I didn't agree at the time.

Anyway, AMN is a decent player. I just get the impression that if these players were wearing a Tottenham or Chelsea shirt, they'd get more money.

I think you can make the case for a defensive midfielder or another striker being a priority.
If Jesus is out we can play Nketiah. If Partey is out we can play Elneny. I think there is a bigger drop off from Partey to Elneny than Jesus to Nketiah - and a lot of that is based on the skill level the lone holding midfielder requires in our sytem, I don't think we have a single other player capable of doing what Partey can in that system - which is why I think if Partey is out then we need to move away from 4-3-3 and back to 4-2-3-1 and play a double pivot of Xhaka+1. Xhaka and Tielemans is still a strong midfield.

I completely accept the point that relying on Jesus and Nketiah for 55+ games this season is a big workload for them and we dont really have any players who even fill that role in an emergency. I actually saw someone give a shout for signing Edison Cavani on a 1 year deal as he's a free agent.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/gabriel ... ler/363205
Here is Jesus' injury history if it is of interest. He's been very robust over the years

I don't know about the rest of Europe because they tend to operate in a very different financial market to Prem clubs. But in the Prem I think there is a general pattern in big clubs.
1) If the player is still actually good and wanted by a big club then you will get a good fee.
2) If the player is homegrown that helps a lot
3) If the player is young that helps a lot
4) If the player is on reasonable wages that helps a lot
items 2, 3 and 4 tend to go hand in hand

Man U have struggled massively to get fees for unwanted players. Lingard, Matic, Pogba, Rojo, Sanchez, Valencia, Herrara all went on free transfers. The only decent transfer fees Man U have received recently are Pereira (£8m) Dan James (£26m), Smalling (£13m)....and Lukaku (£66m). The first 3 all fit criteria 2, 3 and 4 in my list above. Lukaku fit criteria 1.
Man U still have players like Van Der Beek, Martial, Phil Jones, Bailly, Wan-Bissaka who would they would get nowhere near what they paid for them if they tried to sell them now.

Spurs are an intersting one, I think they find it easier to sell as the wages are a lot lower. But they still have expensive flops they are struggling to shift, Ndombele, Gil, Lo Celso.

Chelsea ahve sold young home grown players well, but lost Rudiger and Christensen on free transfers, have sent £100m Lukaku on loan and can't shift players like Arizabalaga, Bakayoko, Batshuayi, Barkley, Emerson, Kenedy,

Man City and Liverpool are the best in the market and sell youth team players well.

Generally unless a prem club or a top 10 European club wants your player you are going to struggle to sell for decent money if you're a top 6 team.

It is telling that the 3 best sales Arsenal have made in recent years (Ox, Iwobi, Willock) are all English, young and sold to Prem clubs.

Our first ref of the season is Anthony Taylor. I genuinely think he's one of the best 2-3 refs in the league.

This season will see a number of new and inexperienced names added to the prem refs list as some very experienced refs like Dean, Moss and Atkinson have all retired.

Lets see how they get on, i'll give them a fair ride of course.....