ARFELANS TRPSM DEALDAT LIVE BLOG

0742 – Just sang “Roadhouse” by the Doors to my dog Porkchop. Her full name is Porkchop Express and I’m not saying I’ve been everywhere and done everything but a man would have to be some kind of fool to think we’re all alone in this universe.

0745 – It’s being reported that Arsenal sold Ox to LFC for £40m+1. In terms of surrealism this is the melting clock on top of the lobster telephone of transfer deals. Ox was sold in the final 12 months of his Arsenal contract for the release clause that Liverpool refused to honor when Wenger tried to buy Suarez, who wanted to leave England, but who thought that London would be far enough away. Suarez scored 82 goals in 133 appearances for Liverpool. Ox scored 20 in 198.

0751 – Mustafi is staying. So reports the Orn. I guess at least that means Arsenal are no longer after Johnny Evans. Though what happens to Mustafi at this point is unclear. BBC is reporting that Arsenal has also rebuffed several £20m+ bids for Chambers.

0755 – Arsenal.com is running with the headline “My Phone is Red Hot on Transfer Deadline Day” which explains at least partly why Wenger won’t pick up the phone.

0808 – EIGHTOHEIGHT AND HEARTBREAK. I actually haven’t a clue what that means but I did find this brilliant photo on Twitter.

Also, yesterday there was a story going round that Arsenal have no money. The no money story was reported by the Orn. Now today there are reports that Wenger is in Paris to sign Lemar, that Arsenal have told Man City to wait a minute on announcing that they have signed Alexis until Arsenal can announce Lemar. All I know is that the Arse have earned £27m on transfers so far this year. If they sell Alexis for £60m (the reported fee) they could, in theory, spend the £87m on Lemar.

Final thought on all this? If (HUGE IF) Arsenal sign Lemar, Lemar doesn’t fix the two problems Arsenal have at the moment: the Arsenal midfield, and the Arsenal manager. Unless Lemar is some kind of Cazorla replacement and we all just don’t know it.

0816 – The gunner-sore-us image was made by Dangerman on twitter. https://twitter.com/Reubendangerman

0847 – Multiple sources reporting that Arsenal have had a £90m bid accepted from Monaco to transfer Thomas Lemar.

0850 – Multiple sources reporting Lemar doesn’t want to come to Arsenal. Would prefer Liverpool. LOL.

0853 – Guardian reporting that Arsenal have pulled out of the Lemar deal and Arsenal are keeping Alexis Sanchez. Lemar said no, folks. Lemar said no. Smart boy.

0923 – Arsenal’s transfer dealing are done. If anything happens I’ll update this post. Nothing will happen. Go home.

1208 – Lucas Perez goes on loan to Deportivo.

1227 – Teams that have spent less (earned more) than Arsenal on transfers this season: Tottenham, Swansea. (Source: transfermarkt)

1241 – I’m 100% convinced Wenger tried at the end to sign Lemar again today and failed. There are a lot of very trusted reporters who are saying that Arsenal cut a deal with City for Sanchez conditional of getting another player in, there is a lot of evidence that Monaco accepted Arsenal’s bid of £90m for Lemar, there are a lot of trusted reporters saying that Arsene tried to convince Lemar by sending Giroud, Koscielny, and Lacazette to Lemar’s bedroom, and that Lemar still refused. Arsenal also needed to shift Mustafi, who literally wants nothing to do with Arsenal right now, and couldn’t move him because their replacement choice, Jonny Evans turned us down.

Now we are stuck with Alexis who doesn’t want to play for us and who will probably take his foot off the gas toward the end of the season because 1) he’s guaranteed a starting spot for Chile and 2) he won’t want to risk injury. And Arsenal are stuck with Mustafi – who I have publicly called physical coward because he won’t challenge for aerial duels and who goes brain dead all the time – who also doesn’t want to play for Arsenal.

Arsenal fucked this up bad. As bad as they possibly could.

70 comments

  1. Hey man I think you have a few typos in the title of your blog today. Was Wenger your editor?

  2. Just looking at some of the transfers being done today.

    Renato Sanchez could be a good loan for Swansea.

      1. Definitely moves them higher up the EPL Hair-Table. Sanches’ hair is top-shelf. Can’t think of an Arsenal player’s hair that rises above premium- mediocre.

    1. There’s a lot of decent loan deals… Krychowiak to WBA? I’d take him in midfield next to Xhaka. If we’re on a budget we should go back to taking players on loan from the real big boys. Maybe Liverpool and Spurs have some kids they can loan us.

  3. The gunnersaurus picture made me laugh out loud and earned some very quizzical looks from coworkers. Damn you Tim!

  4. Reading here won’t be the same anymore…its like we trade our best player to rivals. We all are so ARSENAL.

  5. Sounds like Alexis is staying. We did a pretend bid for Lemar that we knew we’d never have time to complete.

    Who is more at fault? City for bidding so late or Arsenal for not forcing the situation earlier?

    1. Ah, the patented Arsenal pretend bid. I’m so sick of this club sometimes. If I hadn’t been doing this since I was a kid, I’d surely have found a new hobby that actually brings me joy.

  6. Hoping we sell Alexis at this point. I love him as a player but our problems seem to be more psychological than physical at this point and he strikes me as being a very polarizing influence in the team. Not saying he’s disruptive but he’s not leading the team “Kumbayah” sing-along either… I just don’t think we’ll get the production from him this year to make it worth passing up 60m+ quid. And this season may already be a lost cause anyway.

    1. I couldn’t agree more with this. For close to a year now he’s been very obvious in his discomfort at Arsenal. If we can write this season off essentially, maybe we can try to salvage something from the dumpster fire. I’d begin with selling him. At this point, it doesn’t make any sense to not make money on the player anymore. Earlier some thought we had a shot at the title if we hung on to him, plus all that show-of-strength nonsense. We likely don’t have a shot this year, and the lunatics are running the asylum to boot. Only a sale makes sense.

      1. “the lunatics are running the asylum”. this is the problem arsenal has.

        alexis has one problem; he hates to lose! last time i checked, this is a quality that most champions tend to have. if the “lunatics” didn’t sabotage arsenal’s chances of winning by doing outlandish things that most arsenal fans can’t comprehend, perhaps there wouldn’t be the sad faces from alexis.

        how about keeping gabriel and playing center backs at center back? how about playing 3 in midfield instead of only 1.5 (ramsey is a striker)? how bout playing your right back at right back instead of lwb? how about playing your best center forward at center forward? how about playing with two striker instead of a center forward? how about putting mert’s organizational and leadership qualities on the pitch? if arsenal could simply fix this little stuff, perhaps alexis doesn’t mope and actually is more fun to be around, spearheading the arsenal attack.

        i used to think that wenger was just so bent on proving how much smarter he was than anyone else. now, i’m afraid he’s just lost his ability to understand how to solve seemingly simple problems. when people say he may be losing his mind, it’s not meant as disrespect to wenger. it’s sad to see someone who was once so brilliant struggle to do things that used to be easy to him. if you’ve ever seen someone lose their mind, it’s a sad site. ian wright aptly compared watching the current version of wenger to watching muhammad ali fight larry holmes; it hurts your heart.

        1. I alluded to this in the last thread but I agree on Alexis. He’s disruptive in the locker room because he wants to win and he doesn’t see that same desire from Kroenke, Wenger, or most of the squad. If the answer to our locker room discord is getting rid of Alexis, we are definitely asking the wrong question!

        2. We should absolutely have more players who hates to lose. Not only that, we should have more players who express themselves when they hate to lose. Wenger likes to surround himself with yes men – you can see it in the coaching staff and the players who are just happy to get a paycheck. When players don’t agree with him, they are moved on. Just so happens that our best players are the ones who don’t agree with him because they are the ones who are quickest to understand his drawbacks. That’s been the trend for the last decade.

  7. the oxlade-chamberlain deal is bitter sweet. it’s bitter because this kid knew that arsene wenger was not the manager to help him progress like he had hoped when he signed. how dark does it have to be when a club like arsenal offers to make a young man their highest paid player and that player has the clarity to see past the money and say “get me the f–k out of here”?

    it’s sweet because klopp will help him grow and i’m rooting for the kid. he’s underachieved at arsenal and the main culprit has been how poorly he’s been managed. as a bvb fan, i can confirm that klopp has a good record with players like lewandowski, aubameyang, hummels, kagawa, schmelzer, reus, goetze, etc. we’ve seen him in action at liverpool with players like emre can, wijnaldum, matip, coutinho, firminho, lallana, and henderson. he’ll keep it going with oxlade-chamberlain.

    i’m excited for the kid because he’s going to be an exciting player once given the direction he needs to make the most of his talent. who really believes xhaka and ramsey are more talented than chamberlain? what really sucks is that he’s not going to be doing it for arsenal. i know there are gooners who aren’t sad to see the back of him. i’m telling you, arsenal lost out on this deal. we don’t have to argue about it, though. time always tells.

    1. Ox is a good player, but I don’t think he is anything special, nor do I think that he was held back by Wenger. In fact, for a long time in his early years, competition for places was fierce. Wenger gave him breaks when he wasn’t playing that well, and my memory’s not so short as to forget that he wasn’t playing that well at the start of season. But good luck to him, he’s with a very good coach, and I will at least have the impact of Mane.

      Ox is known admirer of Steven Gerrard, and he dropped a very heavy hint of where he sees himself in the post-match, pitch side interview with BT Sport after the FA Cup final. I like him (he’s smart and personable and has a career in media when he retires), and wish him well; but £40m with his contract situation is great business for us, although clearly on long term contract he’ll double his value. He had games in midfield for us in an injury crisis pinch, and did not make an unarguable case for staying there. He’s the teams best dribbler (Im not going to be absolutist in my argument), but he does not bring Santi’s ball-retention insurance to replace him there. He played well on the wing in the latter part of season, a reward for his manager keeping faith despite earlier unexceptional performances.

      This isn’t black and white as you paint it. I’m as Wenger-out as they come, but it’s not all bad on his part when it comes to Ox. Some of the time Wenger was good and patient with Ox. It’s why he made an appeal to his sense of loyalty, referencing the time and money invested in him. But the young man was motivated by pragmatism and a sense of what was best for him, and I don’t blame him.

      I just wish we’d offloaded him in July. Someone who really wanted to play for us could have gone to China and Australia, and taken his minutes in the Community Shield and 3 prem games.

      1. as for chamberlain’s early years, you have to be patient with young players. when they’re young, most players need a little bit of direction to maximize their talents at the top level. i don’t blame chamberlain for being young.

        the main idea behind my post was not about ox but how wenger failed to make this talented player (technical skill) a good player (tactical skill). it’s not the first time as the list of players he’s failed to maximize their potential is way too long. i’ve made this argument countless times with players like fabregas, vela, arshavin, song, vermaelen, rosicky, ramsey, eduardo, walcott, ozil, szczesny, etc. chamberlain isn’t the only one, he just happens to be the most recent.

        1. Fabregas? Absolutely not the case.

          Eduardo? Never recovered from that broken leg… became hesitant, tackle-shy and afraid in his play. Plus he lost a yard of pace. Rosicky? Wenger failed him? Not at all. His injury management regime, maybe, but trust me, Rosicky was the real deal when he played. Vela? Manager or player? Left young for a more suitable league. Song was developing nicely as an outlet for RVP, but was a dressing room disruptor. All things considered, I that to say Wenger failed to develop any of those players is harsh in he extreme. You could just about make up another list where he has succeeded, and Fabregas would definitely be on it. Players succeed, and not. I think his record on nurturing players is overall a good one. It’s just that he hasn’t been the manager he was for 8 years now.

          I”m not having a go at Ox, but he really isn’t that technical. His game is very English — run, high energy, not time and thoughtfulness on the ball. Mind you, he was very good at it, and that’s why the wing suits his explosive style of play. I’m gonna say it again… Gnabry was the one (a player of similar technique) that we shouldn’t have let get away.

          The way I understand technical is someone who’s got great technique, and good footballing vision. I would never describe Ox as technical… Wilshere is.

          The thing we have to be careful about in assessing Wenger — who’s now a shadow of the manger he was — is in rendering too harsh a judgment on this overall record. But that is partly his fault. If he’d walked 3 years ago, I suspect that we’d all be remember his legacy a little differently.

    2. Another note of correction. We did not offer to make him the highest paid player. The reported wage offer would have made him 2nd highest paid behind Lacazette. Ozil and Sanchez had higher offers. He would have earned more at Chelsea, but he’s taking less at Liverpool than we would have paid him.

      He’ll do well there. Klopp is making Salah look twice his transfer price.

  8. Once again, the club conduct a comedy of transfer window errors. We reportedly bid 92 million for a guy who we didn’t know wanted to join Liverpool? All that’s missing is the 1 pound extra. Higuain, Suarez and now this. Something has been wrong at Arsenal for years.

    WtF?

    1. lemar wasn’t the way forward anyway. how would he have helped arsenal? where would he play? i’ve only seen him play left wing. arsenal don’t play with a left wing except at wing back. if that were the case, i’d prefer kolasinac to lemar. as a striker behind a center forward, i’d prefer lacazette to lemar; hell, i’d prefer lucas or walcott to lemar. the only way lemar is a good idea is if arsenal were to change the current formation.

      1. talking trash about lemar, he just hit a sweet volley against holland. it appears he’s playing centrally but he can’t play center mid by himself so i stand by my point.

  9. Wow, Tim, that mid-summer prediction of ‘no more incoming after Lacazette’ is looking to come true! At the time, I just didn’t think the club would be that stupid. I was wrong!

    1. Bun,

      I thought the same. Like you, I’m surprised at how stupid we are capable of being. Par for the course, I guess. I’m now looking at a lot of past decisions that I questioned, but deferred to “Wenger’s genius” on through the lens of “this guy is deluded and has been for a long time about what it takes to succeed and how he’s affecting the club.”

    2. You know how I knew?

      There was no smoke.

      Only one time in my life has Arsenal surprised with a signing (Ozil). All the others have taken months and months of groundwork and contacts and massaging of the players, their agents, the Arsenal budget, everything. We take forever to sign players. Once the line went dead on Lemar i knew we were done.

      That said, I’m 100% convinced Wenger tried at the end to sign Lemar again today and failed. There are a lot of very trusted reporters who are saying that Arsenal cut a deal with City for Sanchez conditional of getting another player in, there is a lot of evidence that Monaco accepted Arsenal’s bid of £90m for Lemar, there are a lot of trusted reporters saying that Arsene tried to convince Lemar by sending Giroud, Koscielny, and Lacazette to Lemar’s bedroom, and that Lemar still refused. Arsenal fucked this up bad. As bad as they possibly could.

      1. Jaysus, what a mess.

        In July, when he showed signs of wanting to come, they’d maybe have got him for £65m, financially offsetting any Sanchez sale.

      2. He turned us down because of a lack of CL football? Or because we’re managed by a senile person? All of the above?

          1. Damn you television! Showing Lemar our games, while giving us boatloads of cash that we refuse to use!

            How nice for Lemar tonight to score a couple of beautiful goals. [weeping]

    3. I wrote at the beginning of July that this will probably be it with our transfers and do I hate myself for being right.
      Wow. I don’t mind them signing only two players, I’m already used to being disappointed by Arsenal.

      But they really took it to the next level with that Catalyst for change bullsh*t. If you are going to sh*t your pants, at least don’t brag about how you are not going to sh*t your pants. Either that or they were plain lying to us and that is what insults me more. Being incompetent is one thing, having the balls to come out with a statement like that about the transfer window only to have it finish like this is on another level.

      At the moment, I’m trying really hard to find a reason why should I watch the games anymore. I’m feeling like a real sucker, letting myself believe one more time that maybe finally that obstinate old man will change something, anything, but as it stands, there is nothing we can do to change the club except to walk away from it.

  10. Embarrassed for our great club. The time to drive a Lemar bargain to completion was July, when he posed fora photo with two gooners in Arsenal shirts. Not f***** transfer deadline day, after nixing the deal, and last-minute trying to resurrect it at £40m beyond your cutoff.

    Good blooming grief.

  11. I’m finding it really hard to support this club any longer.

    I had a long rant, but I deleted it. I think everyone knows what’s going on. I feel like a child abandoned in the woods.

    1. We need to start rooting for Man City to drop points and panic buy Alexis in January to stay in the title race. Otherwise if he leaves on a free then the ensuing will blow a hole open in the balance sheet and be used as a justification for a lack of reinvestment.

      The silver lining, if there is one, is that Wenger may have alienated his remaining allies at the club. The profitability hit that comes with not cashing in on Alexis might be the only remaining path to a Wenger sacking…

  12. so many were talking about arsenal signing vincent jansen last summer. based on what? that kid sucks!

    1. I fucking said this shit earlier in the summer too: SELL PEOPLE WHO DON’T WANT TO PLAY FOR YOU.

      Fuck’s sake.

  13. I don’t like to be too critical of the club, but as others have said, if they really wanted Lemar that badly and were always willing to sell Sanchez anyway, why not make it known Sanchez was available for the right price earlier in the summer and try to start a bidding war as opposed to pretending he was off limits until the last day when it’s too late to do anything else?

    I love the club, but it’s almost impressive how the people in charge have managed to make holding on to Sanchez it’s own kind of PR clusterfu€k. They can’t even say that they stood by their principles not to sell for the good of the team, which had garnered at least some positive goodwill from the fans.

  14. arsenal held onto sanchez because they didn’t want to be labeled a selling club. they wanted to show that they could, now, keep their best players. it was an effort to try and look tough but there was no real direction with this look. now, instead of looking tough, they just look like fools.

    significant last minute transfers implies a lack of preparation. that’s damning to any manager in any arena. have we seen a last minute scramble from real madrid, juventus, chelsea, man united, etc.? they might make final day signings but they’re not critical; more opportunistic. they tend to handle their important business early, which is what top pros do. i’ve never understood wenger’s allure with deadline day signings. since david dein left, he’s been exposed as an intelligent man who lacks business acumen. arsenal are not the club everyone wants to play for anymore and this coupled with his lack of transfer savvy has made it all the worse.

    as an aviator, i can tell you that it’s one thing to be messed up and know you’re messed up; your more apt to request/receive assistance. it’s quite another thing to be messed up and not have a clue. which one is arsenal under wenger’s management?

    1. I agree in general, but Real Madrid and Man United did have that incredibly embarrassing screw up over De Gea a few windows back, so it does happen to everyone…

      We are worse than I ever imagined we’d become in my lifetime (ok, lifetime is a bit dramatic; more like, in the foreseeable future).

  15. I am expecting some boardroom changes before the end of the year. Either they are all corrupt or several will not wish to be associated with some if the current decisions and the likely decline of the club. To send a message would be good if several resigned immediately / simoultaneously and laid bare some if the internal political disputes.

  16. At least we managed to keep Walcott and Welbeck! And let’s not forget Debuchy.

    I predict all three will have a breakout season.

  17. I’m glad for once there’s an inter-lull right now. Because I probably would have made the huge mistake of watching our match and then been forced to apologize to my family for destroying all of our TVs.

    I won’t do that next weekend or the rest of September because I need at least a month away from Arsenal right now.

  18. While we are berating our situation, I am very intrigued by players avoiding Chelsea. Ox and Barkley both rejected Chelsea. Costa is out too. A team full of Champions and it is not attractive enough? I find it very wierd. As far as Mr. Wenger is concerned, only fellows at Untold will be flying his flag now.

    I am totally bemused by our last minute dash for Lemar. All the bravado in the world to hold on to an unhappy player while the player you really want for the future was not bought earlier when a reasonable amount could have been negotiated. A PR and morale sapping disaster.

    When publicly your young talent says that he wants to move to another club because he want to play at the next level and the player you really wanted refuses to join the club (because first you dilly dallied for weeks in hope of a miracle selling price) then the knock on effect of current players giving up on the season is in plain sight.

    Let’s see if we finish in top 10 this year.

    1. I don’t know about Costa, but I think in the cases of Ox and Barkley, it was a matter of guaranteed playing time or the prospect of it. Chelsea have a track record of destroying the careers of great but not amazing young players, especially English ones.

      1. Also, I think Ox really does want to play in the center, and Liverpool normally play with a midfield 3 and no wing backs.

  19. Wow we really handled the Lemar transfer as poorly anyone could have handled. There is zero chance of him coming to Arsenal in the future. Stellar job you morons.

  20. Au contraire…

    Wenger gets a chance, which he deserves based on 20 years of faithful service and good but not great results mixed with occasional triumphs, in which he laid the foundation for the future.

    Either he fails and we start spiralling… then we put in a caretaker and unload Sanchez in January. My first choice would be Harbin FC. But who really cares? Maybe we unload some other players as well Ozil to Barcelona, Ramsey and Walcott teams on the cusp.

    Or Wenger ‘succeeds’ and we muddle along and make it back into top four, but the year is considered a debacle because we lose our best player on a free and don’t challenge for the title. Maybe we win Europa or FA cup. Most importantly it becomes clear that we can’t resign our best players and no great players want to come here, no one says it publicly, but private conversations point to Wenger as the reason. He is forced to retire with an open top bus parade.

    Either way we start tapping up Jardim in January, after it is announced Lemar follows his mentor here. Jardim does a great job recruiting the coming stars of France, he finds another Kante to play with Xhaka, he finds his third ‘next Thierry Henri’ to lead the line in front of Lacazette. We start playing great tier 1a football, i.e., tactical and disciplined defense with lightening counter attacks. We win the league in Jardim year two.

    *****
    clutching at straws, I know.

    1. This sounds majestic. Unfortunately option one is more realistic.

      For the first time it really feels like our reputation has taken a massive hit. Wenger isn’t a draw anymore, and the cat is out of the bag about how the club operates and the squads mentality.

      Perhaps we can create a siege mentality within the squad and go on a run. Thats the only positive I can think of.

      1. how can arsenal create a siege mentality with players that tolerate mediocrity so readily?

  21. Glass half full…
    Stoke away and Liverpool away defeats…happens most seasons and should not result in the season crumbling
    Kolasinac in, Lacazette in, Ozil and Alexis staying….well, this is what we were told would happen before the season started
    No other signings unless someone big comes along….Lemar seemed a good shout but didnt happen, its not like he went to Liverpool (yet) and anyway, I’d really like to see Iwobi and/or Nelson get an extended chance in the team
    We go on a run and things could work out

    Glass half full
    covered almost everywhere else by 90% of Arsenal fans online

    They should have sold Alexis even with no replacement…apart from this, transfer window was pretty much as expected.

    1. I was trying to come up with a glass half full post but where I came up short was that I was so scarred by the way we played against Liverpool. It’s not the loss, it’s the total lack of anything resembling top flight football and that’s only a slight exaggeration. It wasn’t that bad against Leicester or Stoke but the numbers don’t lie: we can’t defend and that midfield has been somewere between halfway competent to epically failing for over two years. That’s why I can’t see the glass half full. At the end of the season I said a midfielder should be our top priority. We hardly even sniffed in the direction of one. I don’t understand how Wenger can be satisfied with what he has seen from the players he has in that department. I understand even less why he allows Ramsey to play with reckless abandon in there. If we resembled a cohesive football team I wouldn’t have a huge issue with the way the transfer window unfolded. As is, I am despairing for the season ahead.

      1. I like to think that IF Lacazette and Kola started that match (benching Ox and playing Hector in his place), end result would’ve been different.

        What I can’t understand is Arsene making a mess of each one of the 3 starting XIs so far.

  22. Making a profit in this transfer window is such a wildly inflammatory move that it beggars belief. The Cannon has been packed with explosives and the already short fuse that was slow burning behind it has now had fuel poured all over it. It’s now a time-bomb and it’s going to get very ugly (unless there is a miracle).

  23. Sorry to burst your bubble guys, but arsenal have always been a mediocre club. With one or two Title per decade. It has never been the first choice for big name player$. Despite what Arsene says in miser days (he has been lying and is lying according to you guys – fooling fans is the favorite phrase here) nobody wanted to join Arsenal in the last decade as well.

    Kindly understand this. Arsenal is a midtable team made to look like next big thing only because of Arsene’s Wizardry.

    Now, has Arsene lost it? Absolutely. Bringing players from nowhere was his strength but due to pressure and failing again and again he has started doubting his methods. He has not gone senile. Just lost his mental strength and lot of faith.

    Arsenal were a mediocre club before him and it will be a mediocre club after him. I used to like unkonwn players making a name for themselves. Alas! That too no longer exists.

    Fcuk trophies. Taking the joy out of football and watching wizard at his work.

    1. I disagree. Arsenal have a 60,000 seat arena and their earnings put them in the top bracket of teams in the Premier League and the world. They also have an obscene amount of cash and are able to pay outrageous salaries. A mid-table club is something like Stoke, Everton, or Southampton: clubs which are limited in their earnings because of the size of their fan base.

      I will agree that in their current incarnation Arsenal are not a big club and we are a mid-table club. However, would also say that Arsenal could easily start down the path toward rebuilding as a big club by investing in the assets that big clubs invest in: top players.

      1. Ok. Maybe I have been living in a bubble. But I don’t remember Arsenal singning a top player ever. They bought decent players and some of them turned into worldclass.

        Before you say anything, Ozil and Alexis were not deemed good enough by their previous clubs before Arsenal signed them.

        Here’s the priority goes for a player

        1. Real Madrid
        1. Barcelona
        3. Bayern
        4. Man City
        4. Man Utd
        4. PSG
        7. Chelsea
        7.1 Liveepool (CL)

        Then comes Arsenal. It’s just reality.

        If Arsene has continued with the project youth plan, he might have had success by now. Considering Arsenal now have the money to keep their players. It was something he tried and believed in. He could have perfected it. Alas! He too has lost patience now resulting in identity crisis of the club.

  24. Tim, long live the PorkChop Express. You know, Jack Burton is a hero and we are all in his debt. What we should have been doing was getting old Dick Law out there to sign one of those Three Storms, I prefer “Lightning Hands” myself.

    On a more serious note – much like many other readers here, I came for the Arsenal but stayed for other content you share. As a dad of 2 in my 40’s working, hoping, and living in Philadelphia, I have always appreciated your wit and candor. Thanks for sharing.

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