You’re ahead of the game with that news about Nketiah. Hope that you’re right about incoming but I’m not that optimistic.

It’s easier to list the players Newcastle aren’t signing at this point. Utterly crazy

Sell them! Sell them all !!!

If Nketiah goes and Aubameyang remains in exile I think that leaves us with just 19 first team players.
GK: Ramsdale, Leno
RB: Tomiyasu, Cédric
LB: Tierney, Tavares
CB: Gabriel, White, Holding
CM: Partey, Xhaka, Lokonga, Elneny
AM: Ødegaard
LW: Emile Smith Rowe, Martinelli
RW: Saka, Pépé
FW: Lacazette

Feels like we need at least 3-4 players in if this is the state of affairs. Surely at least 2 will come but we've backed ourselves in to a corner a bit so may end up panicking or overpaying. We might have more players on loan that available to pick for the next game!

Old school, retro football. Small squad, 70 games. When football were played by men and not softies more worried about what side they preferred the cameras to capture and their instagram photos.

Total Premier League minutes played, 2021-2022
Ainsley Maitland Niles - 268
Pablo Mari - 180
Cal Chambers - 170
Sead Kolasinac - 91
Eddie Nketiah - 55
Total: 764

Reading about the potential deals in this window really highlights the stupid nature of football.

This or that player might leave on a loan without an obligation but first the selling club themselves need to get a new player in on a loan without an obligation to allow the other loan to take place. I mean you wot ! There’s probably more loans than actual transfers, at what point do they say we won’t bother.

They should ban loans to ensure there’s more accountability and ownership from the players and clubs

FIFA are looking to bring in rules to limit the amount of loans a team can send out. Under 21's are exempt. The original point of loans was for young players to get experience, certainly not for teams to hoard talent and then just loan out the weakest of that very expensive group. I didn't understand the point of a loan with obligation deals when they first started happening but it all seems to be just an accounting trick to manoeuvre about any financial regulations.

I also have no doubt agents use Arsenal (and other clubs) names with supposed interest in order to get their clients new deals. Danilo in brazil and Cody Gakpo were both recently linked to Arsenal and both less than 2 weeks later signed new deals with their respective clubs.

I would let him go even without any signings. Aubameyang can no longer be trusted to give his best. Too professionally immature as a player, let alone as Captain. I can't see him wanting to help Arteta achieve his goal after being publicly dropped.

We should have a new striker by next week.

I fear we've already lost him. We messed him up after signing him. Don't think he wants to play for Arteta. He made a telling comment when asked about Arsenal. Instead of commenting about his role and/or desire regards Arsenal, he stated he is happy at Marseille.

Was hoping he would come good, and surprised how poor he is. Good sale if it happens.

Guillem Balagué Was on the radio the other night saying he gets calls from agents asking to talk about their player suggesting clubs are involved to essentially put the player in the shop window.

I guess it’s a trade off so when he needs a story they also comply. You scratch my back

Offer is meant to be £9.5m

Agreed G7
I think Sailba has mentally burnt his bridges with us.
Sending him out on loan again was the last straw for him and he must think Arteta doesn't rate him.
He is playing every week for Marseille.
Why on earth would he want to come and be 3rd in the pecking order behind white and Gabriel.
Huge shame we will never see him play for our first team.
He has all the attributes to be a success.

If he doesn’t it’s a question I’ve asked before. Will Saliba be the most expensive player to have never played a competitive game for his new club? There was that guy, Emiliano Saka, who died in a plane crash shortly after joining Cardiff, but I don’t think he cost £27m.

Good price, grab it!

In comparative prices Clive Allen may be our most expensive player to never play. Paid 1.25 million around 1980. Given what that was worth at the time it was a lot of money.

Saliba was well scouted. As I understand it, the intangibles are researched as well: attitude, etc,
So, his personality was not a mystery to anyone. We haven't gotten the full story. We haven't heard both sides. We haven't heard much of anything frankly. Its the first thing I will look for when the documentary comes out.

Till this day I don't know what Podolski did wrong. I recall someone, a player, coach, not sure saying he was one of the most clinical finishers he saw. But he was frozen out for whatever reason(s). Joel Campbell, an Asian player I can't seem to recall (Japanese?). Didn't we make a panic buy for some vet that never played and was a head scratcher?

Saliba was out before he kicked a ball. On the surface, ability doesn't seem like the likely reason. It's something to do with character, personality, attitude, said intangibles.

If he ends up somewhere else, which seems likely at this point. I'd be surprised if he signs another contract, then perhaps he'll feel free to speak on his side. I am also a bit surprised no one of note has made a bid to buy him. This one is a big mystery. A shame.

That’s true. £1.25m back then was probably worth more in the transfer market than £27m when Saliba joined. At least Allen was used to get who I still see as the club’s greatest left back since I’ve been watching them.

I still think ‘greatest of all time’ is a nonsense phrase to use, unless you’ve been watching Arsenal since 1886, and will live until the club no longer exists.

Actually, OMOH and LTG may well be entitled to use the term.

Yes that was a pretty good player we obtained as a result of the deal. And Allen never really set Division 1 alight.

Puzzling just why we invested so much time in this pursuit. Never once did it look plausible.

https://metro.co.uk/2022/01/28/dusan-vl ... vgr2Xt-koM

Keep an eye on the relevance here and watch this space

https://insidefutbol.com/2022/01/14/ast ... nd/544120/

I concur with your views.

Hi ltg,

It was a bit odd. Maybe we got flirty signals that made us think he could be persuaded. However, given the need for a CF it does seem a little remiss to have let it play out for so long, especially if it leaves us short of striking options.

It does seem a little mad to let all these squad players go when we are effectively only just half way through the season. A spate of injuries or a covid cases and we could be in big trouble.

"...had been coveted by Arsenal but Vlahovic had little interest in joining the Gunners and has instead signed for a club that can offer a regular diet of Champions League football."

I enjoy not knowing the score beforehand. Also, hearing names banded about on here but never seen.

There's a nifty little player named George Best in this game. Not too bad actually.

Radford isn't too bad as well.

I think its the reverse fixture. Not sure. Yeah, that Radford boy isn't that bad. The referees were helping Man Utd even back then it seems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EkiKgsT3rc&list=TLPQMjkwMTIwMjL8tgqQtBn6gQ&index=2

Perfectly constructed, lured them in, devastating.

I’m flattered that you think that I will live until the club no longer exists. Although that is a little worrying for the club.

Possibly more likely if we were Derby County.

I'll tell you about my conversation with Henry Norris one day...

Aussie winning tennis Slam - maybe all is not so bad in our crazy world. Oh my Margaret and Evonne from so long ago...

Another of our players at the ACON. He had quite flown under the radar for me.

https://newsjust24all.com/omar-rekik-in ... jjOKVLYIk4

Well you did get the Victoria Cross at Agincourt, although I suppose it was the Henry V Cross then.

Were Arsenal v Man Utd & Liverpool, 'always' big matches?

Always meaning before you were born.

Did we invest that much effort, though? I posted a couple of weeks ago that I didn't think Vlahovic had the slightest interest in joining us, and if an idiot like me can see it, I suspect the bigwigs at Arsenal did as well. I wouldn't be surprised if approximately 98 per cent of the articles in the last fortnight about this geezer were generated by either Fiorentina or his management team to add zeroes to his transfer fee or wages.

Stuck a cheeky 25 quid on Douglas Luiz joining us by Wednesday at 4 to 1

Derby is actually the second worse place I’ve ever been to in terms of being poverty stricken. Must have been when my dad took me to my first away game there. We definitely went to a 2-2 draw when Charlie George scored both our goals (he later joined them). All the Arsenal fans were saying what an utter dump it was. I have been back to Derby a few times and it’s much improved.

The worse place was the Gorbals in Glasgow. We went to a few family holidays in Scotland and took a trip to Glasgow one time. I asked my dad to take me to see both Ibrox and Parkhead, as Celtic Park often seemed to be called back then. Purely because Rangers and Celtic were such famous clubs. Anyway, whilst in Glasgow my dad took us through the Gorbals, which I think is somewhere between Ibrox and Parkhead. I still remember it to this day, and it must have been sometime during the 1960s.

The Gorbals was so bad it was frightening. I’ve seen Arsenal play at Celtic a couple of times, once in a friendly and once in the Champions League when Eduardo famously got us a penalty. One of those times I went to see the Gorbals again, and it’s nothing like in the 1960s. All the old tenaments knocked down. Let me say I still wouldn’t want to live there. But the Gorbals is nothing remotely like as bad as it used to be. The cab driver who took me there said it was going to be nothing like how I remembered it, and he was right.