But you agree that we are not likely to have much chance of getting back into the CL unless we compete with the wages and transfers the big four are paying? And if you do pay big, you are bound to have expensive, hard to move on, flops. Its a dope or die world.

The final days of the window will be interesting. I think a lot of interested clubs are waiting for the panic-discounts Arsenal will offer.

I am so angry watching this. That Villareal player should be banned. Not just the tackle, but the follow through also showed intent to injure.

Also it was totally premeditated. It’s basically assault.

Would be totally forgiven if a Leicester player put one on him after that.

You can get the balance right. If you sign obvious talents they will command a big wage but it can be balanced. Leicester have only 3 players on over 100k a week.

Arsenal is a much bigger club. Leicester with the possibility of CL or even if they had CL qualification doesn't trump Arsenal. We are a very big name and a wealthy club. It stands to reason that we would pay higher wages than everyone except for the two Manchester clubs, Liverpool and Chelsea. We are on a par with Liverpool and Chelsea and well behind the other two. City are the only ones who seem to be CL guaranteed these days.

Also, it is hard to see how the contracts to Bellerin, Kolasinac and Torreira are a massive constraint when we just spent £50m on an inexperienced centreback and will pay him £120k pw.

Not correct. Look how regularly United have qualified for europe.

Kinda diverting from the original point again. We are paying champions league wages for players not good enough to qualify for it. Anywhere near, you will find better right backs getting paid half of what bellerin does.

The usual. CL wages on an EL budget. And Arsenal aren't even in the EL yet.

I saw a video of Fofana putting a robust but fair tackle in on the same player minutes earlier in the game. The Villarreal player rolled around in pain and was clearly not happy about it because this was retribution

Read an interesting take on our Maddison interest. Should we be handing £60m+ to a team who have proven to be very smart in the transfer market and who we also need to finish ahead of to have what most Arsenal fans would consider a successful season?

Current news is Messi will NOT sign his new deal with Barcelona. Messi is currently a free agent….but with the wages he’s being paid you’d have to form out the thick end of £25m a season for him. Only City and PSG can really afford that. Maybe he wants to go to America - which would be a cop out.

Silent Stan could afford it Got to be worth it for the marketing alone.

Man Utd finished 6th as recently as 2019. Behind us.

We have gone backwards in the last two seasons and it isn't down to wages. Even with Özil on his monstrous wage, we broke our transfer record. We are still very competitive in the transfer market. Not so on the pitch, though.

They are in the champions league this year and we weren’t good enough to get a Europa place, I can’t contain all the glory we are experiencing.

If you can’t see how damaging it was for the club paying 350 k a week for Özil to sit on the bench then I’m speechless.

Not vice versa?

It will be very interesting to see if Leicester will still be in the right half of the EPL in a few years. They are going through a purple patch (albeit a admirably protracted one) but translating that to a permanent seat at the top table (or at least the Spuds kiddies table just below the adults) is another matter.

https://twitter.com/avfcofficial/status ... 42146?s=21

This is decent from Villa CEO, that’s how you communicate with your fans. Not all fans will agree with what you do but be open and honest and clear in your strategy

Nobody is saying that having expensive players who aren't pulling their weight isn't a problem. Cherry picking the ignominous end to Özil's Arsenal career proves nothing. All of the big clubs have flops.

And our form in the second half of the season wasn't that bad at all. So that is another non-argument.

But maybe not for the drama. Imagine the stink if he develops a taste for steak and pidney pudding and has to dropped ...

He's a merchandising dream for any team. Becks was bought to sell shirts at Real Madrid and he paid for his wage.
China is hungry for credibility. Basketball is huge there and they have been trying to get NBA players on the back end of their career to go there as well as nicking a young player or two. I can see a team there paying Messi an uber salary as a way to reinvigorate the league post Covid19.

If Messi goes to America I’ll be happy enough. It’ll keep him outside the news more than staying at Barcelona or joining City would.

On another site the first fake photo of Messi in an Arsenal shirt has already appeared.

Eh ? Who mentioned our form in the 2nd half of the season. Not me.

You said we weren't good enough to get a European place. I'm suggesting you need to qualify that, if the point at issue is whether we are a terribly run club full of poor, overpaid players. Pretty easy to understand, I would have thought?

In other news, the Harry Kane no show saga continues, while he's still hunkered down in Florida.

I said we didn’t qualify and errr we didn’t. It’s a fact we were not good enough. Like we haven’t done for some time in the champions league.

Take a look at the European qualification records of our rivals compared to us and consider if more qualification is needed.

That’s it Zed. They didn’t even superimpose Messi’s face on someone in this season’s home shirt.

that too, though we have so many to shift off

I might be the only one but £25m a season for Messi doesn’t seem that bad a deal. Imagine the shirt sales and merchandising deals, the marketing opportunities, the media coverage......it would probably pay for itself purely in the off-field possibilities and put Arsenal right back on the footballing map. It might even get us back in the CL (unlikely but you never know)

Game day revenue, merchandising alone would halve that fairly easily.

Morning socrates. Economically you may well be correct. But if Messi is open to moving to England, don’t you think other clubs would tempt him far more than Arsenal? City under Guardiola for a start, with them paying him even more generously. Okay, they’ve just signed Grealish so let’s say they’re not so keen now. How about their neighbours? In the Champions League, the country’s biggest club. With their worldwide fan base, and as big as Arsenal’s is United’s is miles bigger, they’d therefore sell way more Messi shirts.

The economic argument you give applies to Chelsea and Liverpool just as much as Arsenal, and aren’t they more tempting? At least Chelsea are in the Champions League. The only way Arsenal are in Europe this season is geographically.

Everyone here knows I’m not keen on Messi. But I appreciate what a wonderful player he was, especially at his peak. What I don’t understand is Arsenal fans clinging on to a hope he’ll join us, and I’m not saying you are socrates despite your last post. That picture I saw of Messi in an Arsenal shirt which Zed kindly posted here. It’s so ridiculous it’s laughable. There’s as much chance of a couple of supermodels offering a threesome to a homeless tramp in his cardboard box down the Embankment tube station.

Isn’t he hugely more expensive than that? I thought that he had agreed to drop his wages to ‘only’ £39m

Hi Bernard,

He won't join Arsenal in a million years, I'm just saying that the economics might actually work in the favour of the buying club if they get it right.

Messi will probably join PSG. They don’t appear to have any financial worries or constraints, just like Man City really. Bloated and obscene.

We're linked with Takehiro Tomiyasu - right back from Bologna, currently with Japan at the Olympics. 22 years old 6 ft 2 and Spurs have been chasing him all summer and had a £15m bid rejected. We've apparently moved to the front of the queue.

So that would be 5 right backs at the club if he signs!?

Still so much work to do before the window closes.

I had picked up the £25m a season based on his weekly wage being around £500k per week. But his yearly salary is posted online as 71 million euros!

Talk of Kolasinac's contract being cancelled so he can join Fenerbache on a free - joining his best mate Özil. If there is no other way to move him out of the squad then just do it, even if we are having to pay 50% of his wages for the next year.

Hi Rich,

You can never have too many right backs......just ask Gareth Southgate.

We paid 90% of Özil’s contract for the period he was there before 30th June.

If Kolasinac’s contract is being cancelled, wouldn’t that mean paying it off in full?

Isn’t it more than double that ? I read the new contract he’d agreed was still over a million a week. Can’t see Kroenke biting

Can just imagine the bed wetting here if Messi turned in a bad game. *%^@*** Arteta etc etc