Jamie Carragher has sarcastically tweeted “all ok for Thursday?” In response to Arsenal getting today’s game called off. The lack of any self awareness is astonishing. Someone needs to ask Carragher why it is Arsenal are even having to play this Thursday at all!

And, Arsenal are simply using the rules to their advantage. Liverpool very clearly cheated the rules. Klopp suggested Liverpool had “lots” of false positive covid results which meant they couldn’t play us when the statistical chance of getting just 3 false positives is 1 in 8 billion

In one sense it’s crazy to see the anti-arsenal bias in the media it has had a galvanising affect for the fan base all pulling in the same direction right now which it hasn’t been for a while. I hope Arteta is using a similar them against us mentality in the dressing room. Showing especially the new players that this is what it’s like when you play for us and use it as motivation to stick it to them by winning games

The league still has a winter break scheduled in. With the amount of games postponed wouldn’t it make more sense to arrange some of those games in the winter break than be forced to cram them in at the back end of the season with teams playing 3 times in a week?

Great weekend for us.
Game postponed.
Utd lose 2 goal lead.
West ham lose!
Great chance for them to go 5 points clear though we would have has 2 games in hand.
Expected them to so Leeds did us a huge favour

I don't think we can discount Man U just yet for 4th. And West Ham, while underdogs, are not to be taken lightly either.

Marseille transfer ban for 2 windows

https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/ ... r-22764490

Basically means guendouzi and Saliba will have to come back

I think Guendouzi will still have to go there. The contractual situation of the obligation to buy was set prior to this ban. It’s the same kind of situation that allowed Chelsea to buy Kovacic despite their ban

Bromley, I agree about Manchester United. I’m not ignoring Tottenham’s chances either. West Ham I’m less convinced about, although in Rice they arguably have the country’s second best midfielder after Kante. But I honestly think we’re stronger than them all and if we do sign a top forward this month, I’ll be extremely disappointed if we don’t finish fourth.

Hope you’re wrong about that Rich, but that’s hope not expectation. I’d love to see Guendouzi back. I simply don’t believe he can be as big a troublemaker as his reputation suggests.

https://dailycannon.com/2022/01/transfer-ban-marseille/

Guendouzi should be fine. If this happens.

He is still bitter with our 89 win at Anfield

The problem for the duck head ( just to test out the Warrior swear barrier) who constructed the table is that Kane is apparently worth about a 150million according to Levy so they are well ahead of us.

Would like to see Saliba finally playing for us.
Won't mind giving Guendouzi a place too. He might spring a positive surprise.

Here's hoping

Nice goal by Pépé for Ivory Coast. But for a real laugh have a look at Sierra Leone’s late equaliser. Shades of Gary Sprake.

Our youth player Omar Rekik also came on as sub for Tunisia in their game at AFCON. He’s 20 and plays CB. No idea how close the club see him to the first team squad.

Prem wages league.
Accounts from last year mostly but it shows how we’ve reduced our wage bill hugely. We used to be up alongside Liverpool at least and not too far off the other big spenders

Big 6 sponsorship deals.
The area we fall behind the rest is our shirt deal with Emirates. It is £40m per season but it includes the naming rights for the stadium and training kit sponsorship. Liverpool are getting £20m a season just for training kit sponsorship. City get £20m per season for stadium naming rights which is a bit harder to gauge because their deals are a bit dodgy.

I’ll be glad to see the back of Emirates. I prefer short names on the shirts like JVC and O2. I suppose everyone looks on the Emirates as the stadium’s name. The point that we don’t have a common non-sponsor name like Old Trafford, Anfield, Stamford Bridge, (even the old ground commonly called Highbury was actually named Arsenal Stadium), it might take a while before people start thinking of it as whoever the new sponsors name might be rather than the Emirates.

Not that I care too much what other fans think of us, its a shame the current feeling about us. We are a remarkable story this season. It's a shame its not celebrated. We clawed our way from literally bottom after a month to serious top 4 contenders.

We really shouldn't expect Sounes and Carragher to be fair when it comes to The Arsenal anyway, its just a shame though nonetheless.

Doesn’t sound like Marseille think he’s a problem personality. As I’ve said, when the usual captain doesn’t play I read Guendouzi has been made their captain on a game by game basis.

Can’t recall if I’ve ever said this here, but my hairdresser has another customer who has worked at Arsenal in a relatively good job for quite a while. The hairdresser is a big up-front about it Arsenal fan and told me that his other customer told him that before Arteta arrived, Guendouzi was widely seen at Arsenal as a future club captain.

I find it difficult to believe he’s as difficult a character as his reputation suggests.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... dium=email

https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/ ... dium=email

My hairdresser, not having very much to do these days when I visit him, has a lot of time on his hands. While clippering the remains of what once was my Robert Plant but is now very Stevie Bould, he told me on good authority that Guendouzi is a right knut...Seems reasonable enough to me. Anything for the weekend squire?

What’s a knut? A housing estate in Knutsford?

Scunthorpe....

Reminds me of the old joke. If Typhoo put the T in Britain then who put the …..

What I don't get with all the outrage about the NLD being postponed is how much of it that seems to be aimed at Arsenal. Clubs don't decide to postpone games, all they do is apply and then the Premier League board reviews the application and makes a decision. We didn't make up the rules.

To me, blaming Arsenal is like blaming a club for getting a dubious penalty after VAR check - in that instance surely the criticism should be towards the VAR room or the ref because they're the ones actually making the call.

That being said, I think the current rules are an absolute joke. No game should be cancelled because of one or two (or four) covid cases, the intent should be for every game that can be played to be played. We should've played yesterday, and the first leg against Liverpool should've gone on as planned. Feels like the league has painted themselves into a corner here with their interpretation of the rules.

Come on Chaps. It’s pretty clear we’ve worked the system to our advantage and that’s why we’re catching flak. I know other clubs have done the same but that’s not an excuse. Sure we had plenty out to African absence, suspension and injury (though you’d question just how ‘injured’ some might’ve been), but only one for Covid. That’s really handy since without that single positive test, we wouldn’t have been allowed to request a postponement. With the benefit of that single positive test, the request passed the test and couldn’t be denied. The rules are there to help clubs whose squads are overwhelmed by Covid. Ours wasn't.

I agree with this in principle, but my point is that we didn't make the decision - the league could've denied our request if they didn't think the rules applied, but since our request was accepted it surely followed the same rules that applies to everyone else?

Like I said, my personal view is that the game should've been played (and I feel the same about many other cancelled games), but in the end all clubs will do what they believe are in their best interest.

Anyway, it seems Pablo Mari is going to Udinese on loan for the rest of the season. Wonder if that will be mentioned in the context of us getting a game postponed...

Agreed Haz.

There are always injuries at this time of the year. We have ours, Tottenham have theirs. Personally, I think the Totts are in a pretty chaotic state right at this moment and I was confident of a result, but if things went against us - tough. It happens in the game. Treat those two imposters just the same.

Maybe but If you can’t backfill the player absences due to the u23s playing on the Friday what can you do?

You can either put a team out or you can’t. There’s no question we are hopelessly stretched

Arsenal supposedly offering £50m plus Torriera for Vlahovic. I like these sorts of deals because Vlahovic's price will always be quoted as £50m, people always forget to add the player that went the other way, possibly because their price was never given.

The other strange one I read is Juve are willing to do business with us over Arthur Melo if we include Partey in the deal(!). We could of course offer them a counter proposal of swapping Pablo Mari for Dybala.....

As I understand things, if there is a single verified case of Covid, the request passes the test and can't be refused. This is the statement:

"With Arsenal having fewer than the required number of players available for the match (13 outfield players and one goalkeeper), the board accepted the club's application. The decision is a result of a combination of COVID-19, existing and recent injuries and players on international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations."

Interestingly, they added this:
"...all clubs are able to apply for a postponement if COVID-19 infections are a factor in their request"

Aren’t you in the Dagenham area? If you use a hairdresser in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire he or she must be a genius hair stylist. Unless of course you only go there to repeatedly see where Beverley Allitt committed her four murders, knowing how interested you are in serial killers. She did her crimes in Grantham, Lincolnshire. So it’s presumably convenient for you to visit Grantham on the way to Scunthorpe.

Fair point - we are stretched, but that's not a unique state at this point of the season. We used our single Covid case to our advantage so we shouldn't be surprised at the reaction.

Yeah, but at the same time Leicester only had two covid cases. And with a lot of the other postponed games we have no idea how many cases there actually was, because there is no transparency and the reason is stated in vague terms such as "a number of injuries and covid cases". For all we know that could've been six injuries and just one or two cases of covid.

I've always liked Benitez and felt he and Wenger had a healthy respect for each other. Sadly, I doubt he'll ever see a top job any more. He'll make the rounds of the mid-ish table sides either in England or abroad. Maybe a national manager of a 2nd tier European side or a side in Asia or Africa.

He's not alone in that predicament. Raneiri and Mourinho are there as well. No sympathy from me for the latter. Mourinho has some sociopathic characteristics I think.

Can't disguise that another reason this particular postponement pissed me off was because I'd been looking forward to this game for 2 seasons and I had a full day of jolly-boy fun and fine dining planned around it. But as I mentioned, many will have been far more inconvenienced than me. There's always Scandanavian, Irish and Asian contingents at these sorts of games. Last time I went to the old WHL, I walked from Seven Sisters and got chatting to a number of Tott supporters; one group had flown in from Israel and another from South Africa for the match. I have Gooner friends in the USA who had intended to come over. It's that sort of game.

I don’t think you can really look at it like that. If our game with wolves took place we would have been at full strength they would have been depleted at best and we seem to have been supporting the clubs making the postponements when they request them.

Then when we need help we can’t get it ? I mean how unfair is that.

We were missing all 3 right backs .. so what’s the suggestion ? We play a 17 year old or 18 year old who played on the Friday night and has never played with the first team? That would be beyond ludicrous and totally unfair

That's perfectly understandable. I'm really itching to get over and watch a game, but I'm going to wait until this is all well and truly over and there's no risk of games getting postponed. Sadly, that's very unlikely to be until next season at the earliest.