I wouldn't do Emile Smith Rowe for Neves - for me it would need to be a player who is really top class or has that potential to be really top class. Someone like Bellingham I'd be tempted

Emile Smith Rowe was our second highest scorer last season and our top scorer from open play. Not meaning to go all Bernardesque on it, but he scored 16% of our PL goals. This in a season in which he suffered injury/Covid. It would be crazy to sell him.

Says more about our strikers though than anything else that statement.

Not saying I don’t see his potential but I’m not sure where he slots into this side right now. A lot of those goals were scored before Ødegaard started really finding his feet in my opinion let alone Portuguese and Brazilian midfielders rocking up at our place that could be happening. He wasn’t getting many minutes towards the end of the season as it was.

I think we would be crazy to sell Emile Smith Rowe. He has so much potential. We need the depth. I see Southampton are asking for £75M for Ward-Prowse, and I would suggest slapping a fee like that on Emile.

Well he scored more goals than Gabriel Jesus who apparently is going to be our new striker. It may have been fitness issues that kept him out of the team towards the end of the season.

We will have lots of games next season so rotation will be needed. Unlike much of the sentiment expressed here, I'd have no issue with Smith-Rowe inter-changing with Ødegaard. We need to be be able to vary our play.

Going back to Gabriel Jesus, while Rich has posted a goals per minute stat that looks hugely impressive, it is very odd because in 5 full PL seasons, he has only hit double figures twice with his best season being 14 PL goals.

Well yeah, Because City decided to play Aguero ahead of Jesus and now Haaland he must be rubbish right?

Not sure I understand that logic. They are 2 world class footballers

Also nobody said they have too much of an issue with Smithers just Rich and I said we didn’t know where he fits in the side and long term you could see him leaving. Most of his goals last year were from the LW before martinelli emerged and before we were getting linked with Raphinha. He’s likely to have 2 players ahead of him in either position he plays in if the bloke from leeds turns up

Jesus scored 8 PL goals last season. He had nobody ahead of him for the centre forward role because Aguero had gone. Pep frequently chose to go with no centre forward instead. It goes without saying that I'd love Jesus to score a load of goals for us, but we are talking about a player who has gone on record as saying that he prefers to play wide rather than as a centre forward.

As for Smith-Rowe, I don't see why Martinelli should be viewed as ahead of him. I actually think Smith-Rowe is better as it happens, but both are very good young players with buckets of potential. BTW, Raphinha primarily plays on the right wing.

Wow! hahaha

In 1989, Zinedine Zidane began his senior professional career at French club Cannes, where he spent three years. In his first full season at the club, he helped them secure their first ever European football berth by qualifying for the UEFA Cup after finishing fourth in the league.
After three years at Cannes, he joined Bordeaux in 1992 where he played alongside fellow countrymen Christophe Duggary and Bixente Lizarazu.
In 1995, it was reported that Blackburn Rovers manager Kenny Dalglish made a move to sign Zidane but club owner Jack Walker decided to talk him out of it, saying: “Why do you want to sign Zidane when we have Tim Sherwood?”
Also, in 1996, Zidane was reportedly offered to Newcastle United for £1.2 million, but the club turned down the offer after watching him, claiming that he was not good enough to play in England's top flight division.
Zidane spent four years at Bordeaux before leaving for Juventus in 1996. During his time at Bordeaux, he won the 1995 Intertoto Cup and finished runner-up the 1995–96 UEFA Cup. He was also named Ligue 1 Player of the Season in 1995-96.

Barca have made an offer to Sevilla for Kounde. The offer is a £23m loan fee with an obligation to buy for a further £40m. Bordeuax, Kounde's former club have a 20% sell-on-clause and so they would only get 20% of the £40m and nothing from the £23m loan fee. Sneaky

I know there are clever accounting reasons for these loans with obligation to buys but I haven't quite understood them fully - other than the very basic defering a large chunk of the payment to further down the line. But this is done with any signing where the cost of the transfer is usually split in equal chunks across the length of the contract.

US Supreme Court strikes down right to abortion

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-n ... index.html

Wow - They really did it.

America is literally going to end up doing The Purge aren’t they. That movies a prediction not a sci fi movie.

Worlds gone mad, basically democracies are unable to deal with the utter dickheads in their voting population who vote for stuff that obviously harms them.

Prediction. Just watch the ERG, UKIP, farage lot start championing this in the UK now at some point. Someone’s going there trust me

Here's a video of Vieira being given a tour of the Arsenal training facilities by Edu.

Edu comes across quite well in this I thought. Certainly a great ambassador for the club and the way he is speaking is very good. I bet he must be a big draw for the South American players we are speaking too

Horrifying.

Perhaps this and the ongoing revelations about Trump will galvanize the electorate. I don't think the world can survive another round of Trump or some other snake-oil merchant even further toward Taliban territory.

I’ll have a little wager with you that he returns a more than decent amount of goals next year if he turns up.

Feels to me like the moans last summer that Ramsdale had been relegated 3 times and Ben white was too small before neither had kicked a ball and I was urging people to reserve judgement.

Brazilian international ffs. Scored 4 goals in a premier league game, can’t be that bad honestly

A little video of Gabriel Jesus goals and skills. Clearly not an average player and I think he could easily go up another level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiZXpyjZvwc

This is a much more interesting video about Gabriel Jesus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmlXlhDWR1Q

Jesus deal seems like a 9/10 certainty at the moment.

Hard to call on the others.
Seems like Raphinha is the one we’re going hardest for - maybe give that 6/10 at the moment

Martinez maybe 6/10 as well

The the strange one, Tielemans- seems like the one we could wrap up any time we want but we’ve allegedly put it on the back burner

Several sources reporting it's close to being done for around £45m - very good fee. Turned 25 not long ago, six seasons of PL experience, Brazilian international.

The only thing that puzzles me a little bit is that it looks like we might not go for an outright central midfielder. Martinez can play there, and the club might see Vieira as an option in the no 8 role, but I would've liked to see a top, top player come in for that position. Our record with and without Partey speaks for itself, when we can control the midfield we're at another level.

Still, if we get Jesus, Raphinha and Martinez over the line I certainly wouldn't complain, that would be an excellent window.

I wouldn’t give up on Tielemans yet. I think Arsenal are playing hard ball on that to knock down the price as much as possible towards the end of the window. 1 year left on his deal, Leicester can’t afford to lose him for free next year

Jesus, Raphinha, Martinez….plus Vieira, Turner and it’s easy to forget Saliba - little hype now but of we’d just bought him for £27m after the season he’d had at Marseille being voted young player of the year in France and in the French team of the season and just been capped - everyone would be very excited.

Those 6 would cost about £160m before any outgoings.

To compare to Spurs(as we need to) they’ve bought Perisic, Foster, Bissouma and will have to pay to make the Romero and Kulesevski deals permanent. So they’ve spent £100m to add just the first 3 in that list

As I understand it Spurs don't have to pay for Kulusevski until next summer. Romero I'm not sure.

I think this is a concern. At Newcastle our midfield 2 were overpowered and outplayed. Even after the summers transfer prospective activity right now it looks we will have the same players Partey, xhaka and Lokonga there. Not sure this helps us

Yeah, I'm not giving up yet. Might just be that it's an easier deal to make, with less competition, so we're focusing on the bigger deals first. If we really want Tielemans I think we'll get him. That being said, I'm not sure he's in that 'top' category I was talking about either, though he does have some interesting qualities that we lack.

Both Ornstein and Fabrizio Romano are now saying full agreement between City and Arsenal for Gabriel Jesus, £45m.

Maybe mine didn't refresh because until I posted that was the first day it came up. But as for internet, our neighbourhood did not get the same system (NBN) as other parts of Australia and it is really poor with dropouts regular and slow speeds.

I'm hugely impressed with his ability to time his jumps to head in so powerfully.
Fantastic mobility to get free of defenders.
Definite a 1000% better than Pépé's dribbling. Stays on his feet well.

Get him!

Vieira’s signing was formally confirmed on Arsenal.com last Tuesday, the 21st June 2022. Although I’ve never looked at it, apparently the transfer was also confirmed on Arsenal Direct, another official site for selling shirts and merchandise, the very same day.

Thanks - missed it . Checked Arsenal.com a couple of times but maybe it was an open tab and I didn't refresh it.

Never knew Rapinha and Gabriel started their careers at the same club at 18. Now both in the national squad together with Martinelli. That’s gotta have a pull along with Edu.

Hi Haz,

Totally agree, Haz, in the unlikely event that we do get Jesus, Raphina and Martinez over the line you would have to say its a real statement of intent. However, so many games in the PL, especially away from home, are dictated by who wins the midfield battle and generally that involves a large degree of physicality and athleticism. Without Partey I don't feel we are well equipped to win those battles, as the Newcastle game showed and also the fact that we lost 13 games last season.

It feels like we had two choices this summer, try and sign an out and out no.9 who could get 20+ goals a season (not many around and even fewer available to a side without CL football) with a massive cash outlay or sign two or more top forwards/wingers who are not really no.9s but can each get a decent number of goals and thus spread the goals around the side.

Jesus, should be get him, feels like a compromise. He might well explode as a no.9 but more likely he will score say 15 goals and hence the desire to add someone else like Raphina to add more goals to the equation.

If/when the Jesus deal goes through he’ll be just the second player Arteta has signed for the front 3 positions and the first one we’ve actually paid a transfer fee for.

Turner, Vieira, Jesus, Raphinha, Martinez would be a tremendous summer

For me that would just leave 3 areas of the squad to make it feel like a truly elite level squad
1. Additional physicality and athleticism in central midfield
2. Additional physicality and height at centre forward
3. A better right back back up than Cédric

We’ve certainly splashed the cash last summer and look like doing the same this summer. We’ve transformed the quality of the squad. Shows you what can be achieved with money and we’re still miles off what the likes of City, Chelsea and Man U have spent on their squads

Just looking at schedules for Europa League and EPL in October and November.

I know the EPL will be fiddled with but assume they are the same date as listed we will have

October
2 Spurs
6 Europa
9 Liverpool
13 Europa
16 Leeds
19 Man City
23 Southampton
27 Europa
30 Notts forest

Novemeber
3 Europa
6 Chelsea
13 Wolves

Interesting times ahead.

Any further news on Zinchenko and Hickey?

Morning socrates. If Jesus, Raphina and Martinez are the only arrivals still to come, doesn’t it mean Arteta must feel deeper midfield is already strong enough with Partey, Xhaka, Lokonga and Elneny? Perhaps Maitland-Niles can be added to the mix too? Or at least strong enough to prioritise other parts of the side?

If the list of aforementioned possible arrivals are the case, we spent an absolute fortune in the transfer market in the last couple of years or so. I find it hard to believe the money hasn’t been spent on those positions that Arteta wanted prioritised and the players he desired? For example, why did we sign Vieira, a creative skilful talent, and not go for Bissouma? After months of clickbait linking us with Bissouma, we apparently leave Tottenham to sign him dirt cheap without even being turned down after going for him.

If the reports of us going off the idea of buying Tielemans are true, which I accept may not be, why is that? I am quite certain that the players Edu signs are those guys Arteta wants and approves us recruiting. I reckon the days of Sanllehi buying Pépé when Emery wanted Zaha are long gone.

I’ve said before it’s probably best to sit back and wait until the transfer window expires (11pm 1st September) to assess the strength of the squad. If our options in deep midfield are Partey, Xhaka, Lokonga and Elneny (possibly Maitland-Niles also) while we spend big bucks on other areas of the team, then I believe the most rational conclusion to draw is that Arteta is comfortable with those four or five options for deep midfield.

Both have gone very quiet

Jesus would be the 12th Brazilian to play for us in the Prem. can anyone name the other 11 without google?

Martinelli, Willian, Gabriel, Gilberto, Edu, Baptista, Sylvinho, David Luiz, Andre Santos, Gabriel Paulista...blanking on the last one.

I largely agree with this, but I think it should be noted that Martinez is a genuine option in central midfield. He's not just a centre back who can do a job in midfield, he spent the majority of the 19/20 season at Ajax as a DM before being moved to CB which then became his primary position.