Nunez gets booked for a tackle and kicks the ball away. 1 yellow no subsequent yellow. Dalot gets booked twice for dissent. In the "fog of war" mistakes are made. There is no grand conspiracy against any team.

Do you ever actually read anyone's posts?.

Its stating the bleeding obvious but Martinelli was signed before Edu and Gabriel and Jesus were hardly exploiting the south american market.

Gees, get your brain in gear before you wade in with your size 10s.

Porto v Arsenal in the Champions League

Also, Jesus was already an EPL player, we got Gabriel Magalhaes from Lille. I assume you meant directly from the South American/Brazilian leagues. Of the 3, Martinelli was the only one we got direct. With us having someone who is Brazilian but also has played for the club he's recruiting for, a big name club at that, I agree that I'd have thought we'd have an edge in that market.

Bit silly to give Edu grief when he’s responsible for signing martinelli for a paltry 6 million. That’s nothing.

Gab is an absolute class player. It’s divvy to suggest we haven’t had a touch thanks to Edu

There will be more Brazilians rocking up I’m sure but there are also considerations when signing players from South America. How many can you have.

Anyone see the end of the Brentford v Villa game? A brawl between both sides, both managers yellow carded, 10 players yellow carded and Emi Martinez and Neal Maupay trying to outdo each other for being the biggest pr*ck on the pitch......but...but....but Arteta waved his hands around again and got yellow carded!

According to reports, Paulo Xavier has left his role as Real Madrid’s Latin America scout to join Arsenal. Timely bit of news considering the debate on here about edu not using his Brazil connections to bring us many talented SA youngsters

No I didn’t. But agree with him that you must be about 10 years old. When Rice has performed for 5+ seasons, maybe we’ll talk again!

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/liverpool-paul-merson-transfers-szoboszlai-30951172.amp

Football pundit Paul Merson has lauded Liverpool new boy Dominik Szoboszlai and claims that the midfielder is the best signing any Premier League side made this summer

So Liverpool got a big one in their favour due to the rank inconsistency of officials. Its a shame we don't ever seem to benefit from these margin 50/50 calls, or at least the balance is heavily skewed. If the mistakes are just random why do we rarely benefit, or if we do where are the examples?
What decisions this season have had our opponents seething that Arsenal got away with one (penalty, red card or goal) where the decision could have gone one way or the other - 'seen them given' type ones?

Often its small things, even at the weekend, plenty of opportunity to book Milner for multiple fouls on Saka, Ben White then takes the first yellow card of the game and the ref was absolutely not going to book Mitoma for the same type of foul on Saka until the crowd and Arteta started making such a big deal over it. The crowd did the refs job for him.

Of course I don't believe refs are going out there thinking I am purposely going to try to make Arsenal lose this game, but there is something there with certain teams and players. Are we to believe that any of England's leading internationals and the prem's highest profile players would have taken 2 yellow cards in the way Dalot did? That's not mistakes, it is treating players differently. if Kane were still in the league I doubt he'd get 1 yellow for that, or if he had got the first it would have been a talking to at worst after that.

By the way Ash is right and certainly not deserving of divvy comments in that we have never had a player like Declan Rice before, certainly not in my Arsenal supporting life. Not saying he’s better than Vieira by any means but in terms of what he brings to the team it’s kind of unique.

His skill set seems to sit somewhere between Vieira and Roy Keane (fractionally closer to Keanes I’d say) but Patrick had Gilberto or Petit to cover him where as Rice seems to run our midfield practically single handed flanked by 2 number 10s in Ødegaard and Havertz. Yet despite this he still seems to add value in attacking areas. He just doesn’t waste the ball at all and also doesn’t seem to make errors and his temperament and timing considering he makes so many tackles is remarkable. Only 1 yellow all season.

We’ve had solid defensive midfield types like Davis, Williams and Richardson and cultured midfield players like Thomas and cazorla but never a player with such a specific quality.

I think our midfield 3 are starting to click but Rice is absolutely paramount to the success we are having controlling games.

I would not be surprised to see Man Utd drop points at West Ham. Everton have 4 wins on the trot. That point deduction has put a fire under them. So, I am hoping they can take points at Tottenham.

I like Villa. I'd love it it if they finished 2nd to us in the league.

Some other bits of news.

Apparently Brentford and Palace are keen on Nketiah, Arsenal want £40m. I'd definitely take that as long as we replace him.

Xhaka will be coming back to watch an Arsenal game v West Ham (Germany have their winter break) - a chance to say goodbye to the players and staff. Hopefully enough of the crowd know he's there too so they can thank him too

There is always some luck in how the fixtures play out depending on who you meet and what form they are in. We played Everton pre points deduction and got a 1-0 win at their place, a result with their form right now that any team in the league would bite your hand off for, they are flying now.

As it stands Arsenal, City, Liverpool are the 3 favourites to go right to the end, but after that Spurs and Villa are clear from the rest because both have shown that even with players missing they have the system set up to win games and other players can slot in. Big injuries and fatigue will be vital for all of those teams

I definitely agree on the assessment of who the favorites are. The surprise is who is not in there and Newcastle comes to mind. I saw a podcast they are having trouble trying to navigate CL football and the EPL because the level of play is much higher in the CL than the Europa, for example that they can't rotate players as much and they have play harder. I don't know if there is any veracity in that but it sounds logical.

I love Nketiah. I'd like to see him stay in London as I assume his family would prefer that. 40 million is a nice amount and I can't see Arteta not buying for that position. I think Nketiah has got a good future in the league at this level. He won't be Henry but no one is expecting that. I was hoping Willock would be better for Newcastle as well. Liked him.

On the Nketiah thing the reason why there may be some truth behind it is the same reason Chelsea are looking to sell Connor Gallagher in that FFP has some strange rule that selling academy players is considered pure profit and frees up space to sign other new players on amortised contracts.

For me Eddie to Brentford makes sense. Would get the minutes he wants and we can upgrade our forward line.

He’s had too many CBD gummies then.