The article has direct quotes from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as well as the Cold Chain Federation, and statistics from the London School of Economics. What aspect of the story do you think the Guardian has made up?

You trying to debate the politics of the day with someone who thought Colonel Gaddafi was the same Colonel that invented fried chicken?

I just thought I'd see how being civilised might work in a political debate on the forum. You never know your luck.

In other news, power prices just went up here (Sydney) - Up 40+%
I'd be curious to see what others are paying per Kwh where they are.



And their profits are doubling.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/ag ... 615-p5dgzb

Hi Rich,

Just another example of financial doping.

We end up having to virtually pay players on high wages to leave us whilst Chelsea get big fees for their surplus to requirements.

Very clever on Chelsea's part but totally unethical.

The PL has lost control now, the Govt should step-in and remove nation state owners but they won't for political reasons.

I think the 2nd will be contested, but 3rd and 4th spots will be heavily contested and may come down to the final match. Our match with Man Utd towards the end of the season may determine if either is top 2 to 4.

I think Chelsea are a season away from being a real threat. This is assuming they haven't bought Mbappe or some such transformative player over the summer. lol Tottenham will be in for a Europa spot. If they lose Kane they'll struggle.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1TE3rsmZUx4

I am going to warm up to the Havertz transfer because 1. He was a very good young player in Germany and 2. I'll have to trust Edu and Arteta.

He didn't become a bad player overnight. Chelsea are in disarray and that has to be taken into consideration, same with Mudryk. I think he's a good player and would have been good for us.

If the reports are correct, our plan is to sell Balogun for maybe £30m and buy Havertz for maybe £60m. Why? Is it just me?

It’s not just you DHD, I’m kind of stumped by it.

Selling Balogun should be off the table full stop. I saw someone earlier suggesting that Nketiah could be the one that actually goes. I think this would make more sense as Balogun to me anyway looks are more well rounded than Eddie however I think the coaches are quite emotionally invested in Eddie’s development.

My hunch is that Havertz is actually being signed not really for his prowess up front but to cover Ødegaard and potentially be an option to covers xhakas role in some games. It’s Arsenal right? To spend 60 million quid and pay Havertz 200k a week to offer competition to Eddie and balogun? I just don’t see it. That’s major money for us so you would have to assume he’s coming to take somebody’s place in the first 11. Kind of reminds me of the Ramsdale deal where nobody could understand at the time why we had paid 32m for a backup keeper.

I love Eddie but I would be keeping Balogun at all costs. Sell Eddie and keep Balogun and tell him to fight for his place if he wants it bad enough.
He seems to have more to his game and is 3 years younger.
I'm not convinced Jesus should be assured No 1 status striker.
Let him and Balogun fight it out.
I just think Balogun is ready to explode and we should be doing everything to persuade him to stay.
Whats wrong with playing Jesus off the flanks and Balogun through the middle sometimes??
We will regret it big time if we let Balogun go.
If he insists on going then a buy back clause HAS to be inserted into the sale.

Calling the BBC anti conservative is hilarious when you understand the Chairman of the BBC is a Tory donor to the tune of over £400,000, who literally helped facilitate a loan of £800,000 to Boris Johnson whilst he was PM. The Director General, Tim Davie is a former failed conservative MP candidate and was the deputy chairman of the Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Association.

But why let facts get in the way of a mentalist licking his balls in public.

Keep Balogun !!!!!!!!!!
I think we will regret it if we sold him. That guy gives us a Plan B. Something we don't have right now. IMO

Thing about Balogun is people seem to consider him as an either or with Nketiah where they are both young players trying to make their name however Nketiah is 24 which is 3 years older than Balogun. Baloguns just tore up the french league on loan and scored his first international goal in his 2nd game. Eddie is 2 years older than Haaland yet our fans seem to think he needs more time to develop. It’s just kind of weird I think some of our fans have real blinkers on and are blinded by love for Eddie because I’m not sure many fans of other clubs would be happy enough arbitrarily selling or a young striker like Balogun who looks like he could be a very special striker. I also think Southgate will find out he’s dropped the ball.

Gary O'Neil sacked at Bournemouth. Very harsh.

Just like a lot of sports rivalries, India vs Pakistan in cricket, England vs Ireland in football, France vs Germany in football, USA vs Mexico in football is really more about countries that have had historical issues up to and including war.

Mexico has obviously had a far better footballing tradition and dominated early contests, however since Covid19, America has been winning. Albeit in America. America hasn't won in Mexico and its always a loss. America has been beating Mexico, albeit in America but got a draw in Mexico last year which is usually unheard of. Especially given the fact it was World Cup qualifier and so a lot at stake.

America has finally gotten some players that can be arguably be called stars at any level: Balogun, Pulisic.

This latest match that America shockingly won 3-0, ended with both sides down to 9 men. At the risk of sounding bias, the Mexicans were cheating and kicking out of frustration, out of seeing their pride beaten by class. The American coach needs to get them to play past that and punish bad behavior with goals.

Pray for rain.

Strange that’s what I said when I woke up over here. England have this test match won.

For some reason they have no resnsibility for the programming of the BBC. Iirc the Chairman has resigned and been replaced by a woman unless it didn't go through. Anyway they appear to have no control over Lineker, Maitliss and other pro Labour reporters.

Saka with a stunning international hat trick pretty much completes life. Anything this boy can’t do or acheive?

14 goals and assists for Saka in 21 international appearances. Quite phenomenal

3 very different finishes for Saka as well.
First one is that finish he’s made with his right foot high at the gk near post.
Second one is lashed across the gk with his left in the top corner from 20 yards
Third one is through 1v1 with the gk and calmly passed it passed him.

I don’t understand why England supporters are not loving him like they do some of the other players. I wish he qualified for Australia.

Arda Guler scored his first goal for Turkey tonight, 18 years old very talented. Available for a knock down £15m due to a clause in his contract being triggered based on the minutes he played last year. Potential low risk signing for so many team considering his talent and his age

Ornstein reporting we’re in for Ajax defender Jurrien Timber. Man U were heavily linked when ten hag took over.

Constant theme of us being linked to right sided defenders, but some are CB who can play RB and some are RB who can play CB.

Arteta massively valued versatility in his players

One persons view in what I think is the very unlikely scenario of getting Rice, Havertz and Caecido.
How is Rice captain?

Agree 100%

Hi Rich,

Don't understand why Arsenal have fed Ornstein this info.

Now everybody knows we want him and its perfect for a United hi-jack.

Hi g7,

Only thing I would say is that Lacazette has banged in even more goals than Balogun in the French league this season and he was hopeless for us in the latter days of his time in england.

Hi Soc, RE: Timber, Romano also says Simikan from Leipzig is high on our list of RB/CB.

Who knows what tactics the clubs play in trying to get their targets, it is a big game of poker. Maybe Simikan is the real target and so they release some news of being very advanced with Timber to prompt Leipzig in to action on the Simikan deal.

As fans we probably get less than 1% info on what is going on with various transfer dealings

Yep, Balogun has come on leaps and bounds but I'd really want to see him do it in the prem before we say he's a world beater. If we need to raise funds to secure primary targets then a smart move would be to sell Balogun but include a buy-back clause. the buy-back clause could be as high as £50m for example, because if we sell him for £35m (for example) and he goes on to be a striker that is worthy of being a No.1 target for us to transfer in (ie: he's proven very special) then a net £15m spend for us to find that out is peanuts

The big thing Edu et al need to prove this window is that we can get our No.1 targets. We've done very well manoeuvring to secondary targets and they have worked out well but we're in danger of becoming a team who has numerous very high bids rejected and we move on. Already this window good sources are saying we've had (quite public) bids rejected for Rice, Havertz and Timber.

I can see logic in all 3 signings, albeit Havertz is one that won't sit well with many Arsenal fans, but if we were signing him straight from Leverkusen we'd be excited, he was one of the most sought after teenagers in the world at the time. With that particular deal Arteta clearly likes the flexibility he can bring to w number of positions. Also with Chelsea's FFP deadline coming up maybe we think we can strike a bargain deal.

Rice would be incredible for us, however if we don't get him for whatever reason I don't think we can let Caicedo slip through our fingers. I want both but we cant get in a situation where we let Chelsea get Caicedo whilst we focus on Rice and then that one doesn't come off.

Rice as the primary midfield target
Timber/Simikan as the hybrid RB/CB
Havertz as the versatile attacker
Then for me I think there is still need for another central midfielder.
Then any more signings depend on outgoings

Yeh, I agree, it sounds like a little reminder to other clubs we are negotiating with that we do have other targets and not to hold us to ransom.

That sounds like the perfect solution.

The trouble is, is a club going to spend £35m on a player knowing that if he does really well they may be foreced to sell him for well below market value (even though £50m gives them a tidy profit).

It's definitely time we started getting a few no.1 targets over the line.

Chelsea appear to be selling all their cast-off to the Saudis for inflated fees so who knows where they will be financially this summer.

Saka is now approaching that 2nd tier bracket of players, just below the likes of Mbappe and Haaland. Amazing really.

Let's be honest, international football is total dross with many opponents probably below the standard of League 2 in england but he's producing the goods at 21 and I think he must now be high on Real Madrid, PSG and City's list of targets.

Yes to be fair my figures are slightly unrealistic there. If you put a buy-back clause in then the initial selling price is goin g to come down quite a bit.

I think Tammy Abraham went to Roma for 40m euros and Chelsea had an 80m euro buy back - feels a bit more realistic in terms of selling to buy-back ratio

Apparently we've gone back in with a second bid for Havertz, £55m with some add ons.

Given that a lot of Chelsea fans will welcome that deal and football fans in general will raise an eyebrow at it, it is really one that needs to come off for us.

Rice is different, everyone would agree generally that he's worth the £90-100m you'd spend

Maitliss left the BBC two years ago. Richard Sharp, the BBC Chairman, doesn't leave his role until the end of this month. Both he and Davie were approved for their respective positions by the govt. The bias towards Labour is in your head. Pro-Freedom of speechers really don't like free speech at all, they just want to hear their own opinions echoed as often and as loudly as possible. As soon as anyone deviates from that they yell "Bias".

The Havertz bid is very interesting. Arteta must really want him and have a plan for him.

To be fair many doubted his signings of Ramsdale and White

Also who foresaw that Xhaka would play as an 8 driving in to the box, White would play at right-back all season and that Zinchenko would play as an auxiliary midfielder drifting in from left-back?

If Arteta has a plan for Havertz (and Rice and whoever else) then he's probably earned a degree of trust as he's built this team from scratch and has shown that he can improve players within the system as well.

Havertz at a mess of a Chelsea team could be very different from him at Arsenal in a settled and defined system playing to his strengths

From a mate in Africa:

Being reported in Ghanaian press that Partey has been allowed to speak to the Saudis.