‘In TWO games they could close the gap to ONE point’
I could only catch the game intermittently because apparently, even in foreign countries, the coverage is f*cking pony.
But… what a bloody evening people!
Mind. The. Gap
The dream is starting to come alive for Unai Emery. He won’t win the league, but a sure-fire win in the eyes of all Arsenal fans would be if he could topple Spurs and land 3rd place.
Spanking Bournemouth 5-1 sure was a good way to get the ball rolling on that agenda.
There were many things to smile about, first and foremost for me, an ACTUAL performance. I thought the most likely output of our third quick start in a row would be an exercise in energy conservation. If there was any critique of the Southampton game, it was that we didn’t try and attack our goal difference.
Emery didn’t make that mistake last night. Mesut Ozil opened the evening with one of his famous shots that he stubs into the ground, assisted by Kola.
Our second involved Mesut again. Mikhi picked up a shocking pass from Adam Smith, he found Ozil’s run into the box, the German returned his pass unselfishly and the Armenian showed no mercy with his volleyed strike.
We took a moment to look silly, Guendouzi losing the ball twice, the second when he was on the edge of the box, he was brutally mugged and Mousset finished off a squared pass into an empty net.
Laurent K finished a Mikhi cross for the third of the night. A great move started from a freekick. The Armenian popped up with his second assist of the night after intercepting a pass on the edge of our box, powering forward with a run and finding Auba in a footrace that he easily won, rounding the keeper, passing into an empty net.
The final goal of the night was a well-worked freekick. Arsenal players splitting the wall in a pre-planned set-piece, allowing Lacazette the clip freekick through the gap. Keeper should have done better, but the craftiness was truly appreciated.
A great night and absolutely perfect preparation for a massive game at the weekend.
Chelsea easily beat a depressed Spurs, all the more impressive considering the drama they’d been dealing with over the Kepa incident, plus the draining impact of a 120minute cup final that ended in defeat. Don’t write Sarri off quite yet.
Also worth remembering Arsenal are quite often the exact team you want to play when you’re on a bad run, this weekend is the perfect chance to change that perception.
The season is on a knife edge.
Beat Spurs and United in succession and 3rd could very well be ours. Lose our next two games and top 4 starts to look a little tougher.
Still, the overarching point here is we’re now heading into March and the squad everyone said couldn’t compete for top 4 is sitting in the top 4. We are more than capable of winning at the weekend and we should certainly give United a run for their money the week after as long as we learn the lessons from last time. Namely, don’t play to their strengths.
… and to my point at the top of the post. Last night was a proper performance. That wasn’t us stumbling over the line. That was our senior players who are paid a shit-ton of money stepping up and showing their value. Mesut Ozil landed 1 assist and one goal and created 4 chances. He kept the ball moving in the final third, making the most passes there. He also made the second most ball recoveries, two behind MGs 8. Mikhi, a very capable talent has 6 goals and 4 assists in 17 starts in the EPL. He has been great since coming back and was decisive with two assists and a goal.
Here’s the other point… 3 of our best players should be Ramsey, Mikhi and Ozil. If they are coming into form, remember that they are 3 of the freshest players at the club. They’ve played 51 90 minutes between them (17 games each)! They really could be our secret weapon as we tackle Europe and #Top3.
Who knows who will start at the weekend, but it’s clear Emery’s olive branches are being taken and we’re seeing the results on the pitch.
Right, have a good day and let’s hear you in the comments! x
Just saw we are being linked with Tagliafico now. Anybody have anymore info than just an ESPN rumor?
I don’t think the capability of Ozil having a good game was ever in doubt, I mean we went through this after the Leicester performance. Hopefully he won’t shit the bed in his next 4 appearances this time around.
Ranieri sacked by Fulham.
Fulham still have to play the Chavs, Pool and City. They also have Wolves and Watford away so they are basically relegated in my opinion.
The Chairman should have saved the payoff for Championship spending.
I believe Ranieri holds the world record for pay-offs from gullible club presidents and CEOs.
I’m sure he’s made over 1,000,000,000 in the past 10 years 🙂
96.9% passing accuracy
85 touches
Guess who?
As I said , possession of the football is rule no. 1 …hence control of the game .
Guendouzi will learn the correct way to play the more he plays with class players.
last night It took him 45 minutes to realise that he didn’t need to go marauding forward with the ball resulting in lost possession..
2nd half he kept it nice and simple to the benefit of the team .
85 touches
Was that from you to yourself?
Pierre
“2nd half he kept it nice and simple to the benefit of the team .”
Nah
He kept it nice and simple because the game was already over.
Dissenter
makes no difference if the game was over or not even though 2-1 at half-time tells a different story …Guendouzi will learn , not sure that you will though.
Englandsbest Remember when you lied and told Le Grove that Wenger asked Kroenke for an additional 20m for a CB and GK but Kroenke balked? I do. Remember when you lied and told Le Grove that Kroenke was placing the LA stadium debt onto Arsenal’s books? I do. I have an idea. How about making an honest argument? You could begin by addressing the argument I made earlier today. Or you could begin by answering the following two simple questions: one, how has ownership hindered Arsenal Football Club in the past 12 months? Two, how is ownership hindering AFC at… Read more »
Iwobi should learn from those experience players how to remain calm in the final third and plays smart.
Bamford Finally, allow me to say that the people who cry “ownership is the problem!!!” over and over are always, unfailingly the most simplistic commenters on Arsenal. Always. Way to go to insult people and continue to inflate your already over-inflated ego. My problem with Kroenke is his total lack of ambition with the club. His only directive, in my opinion, is to make top 4 to get into CL and that’s it. The problem with this “ambition” is this: either you get people in who want to overachieve and they will make it their aim that top 4 is… Read more »
‘The owner is irrelevant’
I try to take this seriously but when I do I keep getting a vision of somebody going into a posh restaurant, getting seriously overcharged for a truly lousy meal, and telling the waiter he wants to complain to the person who set the table.
Where are you, Basil?
Wonder if Fulham can pull off a bit of new manager syndrome on Sunday?
Oh, you-know-who defending Stan as per. Must be an American thing, and an ignorant thing..
Bamford
If you’re reading this…
You need to agree that Stan is child molesting scum bag who just put the royal corgis through a meat grinder to make special Marylebone sausages for his dinner.
His sentence to be disemboweled publicly, hanged on the tower bridge, then chained to four stallions to be stretched and quartered.
Failure to do so will earn you a lengthy ban from here. ,
Anyone with more than one brain cell can surely understand that the ownership of a football club is in the end, the single most important factor.
The most successful clubs have the most ambitious and generous owners.
End of story.
There is no getting away from this and sadly, arsenal fc is not blessed with such an owner.
Top four on a budget is the extent of Stan’s plan for our great club.
It’s just not good enough.
@AlexanderHenry,
The owner of the Patriots is the example that you need an helping hand.
Stan can’t just pump money in without restrictions because of FFP and this is a very pertinent point that seems to be missed by msny in here. He could be creative though. He could pay off the rest of the stadium debt thus freeing us up of our annual payments and the £160m cash we have to leave in the bank at all times which would allow us to spend all the money we earn. He could dilute the shares and relist them on the stock market and then put those proceeds into the Arsenal bank account but that would… Read more »
“Top four on a budget is the extent of Stan’s plan for our great club.”
So what is the realistic alternative?
” Incidentally – What happens to the name of the stadium once the Emirates deal ends and they don’t renew? It’ll be weird calling it something else.”
Well either they renew or some awful marketing people earn a shit load of cash re branding it.
Alex,
Atleti. Champions League final twice on a budget.
Dortmund top of the German league on a budget.
Monaco took down PSG on a budget.
Like Benny said, you just need to get creative.
It’s weak to blame money. The only person I’ll be blaming if this goes to shit is Raul.
Whatever you think about his hire, it was good on paper. As was Sven M.
Alex, you need a new thing to talk about.
Stan Kroenke could pull a deal with Adidas and Nike to co-sponsor our kit Adidas can get the contract to make the shirts for say 60 million… Kronke will secretly repay them back through letting them put up free billboards in Walmart locations around the states. Nike can make the sorts and socks for another 60 million…Kroenke will then reimburse them though back channels, maybe build a sweatshop on his vast American ranch. There are so many opportunities to beat FFP, it seems. ]chuckle suppressed] Kroenke made it loud and clear that he was going to be a non-intrusive owner… Read more »
Alexander “Top four on a budget is the extent of Stan’s plan for our great club. It’s just not good enough.” Oh, did he tell you this himself? That’s interesting, because he and Josh have told Sanllehi and Venkatesham something very different. “We want to win the biggest trophies in the game and, if you compete in the Premier League, there are only two – the Premier League and the Champions League,” said Venkatesham. “The short‑term ambition is to get back in the Champions League. That is a step on the journey but not the ultimate ambition. Raúl and I… Read more »
Marc
‘So what is the realistic alternative?’
Spend some money and win it.
AlexanderHenry “‘So what is the realistic alternative?’Spend some money and win it.” At least you’re honest about your intentions, which is simply to be the beneficiary of a sugar daddy. An oil state-nation owner may spend money like that A Russian Oligarch billionaire may spend money like that It’s going to be hard to find other owners who will just will-nilly spend without a promise of concrete financial returns [that will show up on a ledger]. The Liverpool owners have spent money to build their new stand which offered tangible returns because on boosted revenue and saved money required for… Read more »
Mystic
Our days of having equivalent revenues to Bayern are long gone.
Our revenues are now £388m. Bayern’s are £557m (i.e 50% higher than ours).
They’re firmly in the superclub bracket, while we need to get back into the CL to re-establish ourselves as a tier 2 power. If we can use CL money to rebuild cleverly, we could reach that top tier as we have an existing big international following, but that’s easier said than done. First step, finish 4th.
Pedro ‘Atleti. Champions League final twice on a budget.’ They lost. ‘Dortmund top of the German league on a budget. Monaco took down PSG on a budget.’ Let’s be honest, these are rare exceptions. ‘Like Benny said, you just need to get creative.’ That’s very vague. Are arsenal really going to win the PL by tactically outwitting bigger spending clubs? ‘It’s weak to blame money. The only person I’ll be blaming if this goes to shit is Raul.’ It’s naive not to blame lack of money. Are you seriously suggesting that arsenal’s decline has absolutely nothing to do with Stan?… Read more »
alexanderhenry
Can’t believe you’re still running with this bull shit. We have spent money, up to last summer our net spend over the previous 5 years was the third highest in the PL.
I’d really prefer it if you just said I want Kroenke to bankroll the club and throw money at it.
Out of interest how much money do you put into the club?
Pedro. I feel the same way about blaming the manager all the time. Time for a new thing, pal. To state the obvious: the main man in any business is the owner. For some unknown reason, you seem to believe that this does not apply to AFC. I’ll repeat my question: name me a successful football club without a committed owner. The sooner we all latch onto this, the sooner Arsenal will return to the elite. Arsenal has everything else going for it – high revenue, huge fan base, London, tradition. It’s a default reaction to blame the manager. Well,… Read more »
I’d love to know how many of those who regularly quote the “Arsenal huge fan base” thing have ever been to a match?
Marc
..and before that it was one of the lowest for years.
None of this has anything to do with me of course because apart from an arsenal sticker I bought about two years ago, I haven’t spent a penny on the club
Why should I be fleeced?
alexanderhenry
Of course we had a low spend over a period – we were paying off the stadium debt.
Your last statement sums you up completely – You won’t spend a penny supporting the club you mouth off about yet expect someone else to subsidise you.
You really are full of shit.
Marc
Nonsense.
The debt belongs to the owner. He acquired it when he bought the club.
He should have payed it off.
You really are gullible.
Alexander
Nope
The debt does not belong to the owner. The debt is Arsenal’s and it is being serviced appropriately. If and when Kroenke decides to sell the club, the debt is considered in it’s valuation before sale.
Owners of businesses as large as Arsenal separated their personal debt from institutional debt.
You really need to cool off this whining for a sugar daddy.
“spend some money and win it” is not a plan in itself.
Dissenter
That makes no sense:
‘The debt is Arsenal’s’, you say, and who does arsenal belong to?
All this talk about the need for a sugar-daddy is total nonsense. You don’t get any of that from me. AFC is perfectly capable of self-sustaining as an elite club. That is the way it has been throughout its history – or rather, until Stan appeared on the scene. The man has harmed the Club in all sorts of ways, and it will take time, money and effort to rebuild a competitive winning squad. Providing he allows that to happen, of course. The above is judgement made on what we have seen from him, not on conjecture. However, a look… Read more »
Alexanderhenry
Well. It’s like if a company went bankrupt, it wouldn’t affect the CEO’s personal credit. So the debt is Arsenal’s debt as far as the banks are concerned, I think.
AlexanderH “‘The debt is Arsenal’s’, you say, and who does arsenal belong to?” Kroenke owns Arsenal if that’s the concrete reply that satisfies you. The more astute answer is that owners of businesses as large as Arsenal separate their personal debt from institutional debt. These stupidly rich people isolate debt in creative ways because they can afford the best tax lawyers and accountants with dummy corporations in tax havens etc. Why pay off the simple stadium mortgage when the business will easily pay it off as scheduled? Arsenal is running itself. When you’re a billionaire, or even an meager millionaire,… Read more »
engladsbest “AFC is perfectly capable of self-sustaining as an elite club. That is the way it has been throughout its history – or rather, until Stan appeared on the scene.” …and that’s precisely the way Stan has kept. That was the precise reason why Lady Nina and the Fitszman sold out to him rather than Usmanov. Now you what the rules changes and you’re implicitly asking for new investments. The reason why we are in this state is because Kroenke honored that stay-away to the letter and was partially limited by not owning the club. He didn’t intrude himself more… Read more »
As with most contentious issues, the truth lies somewhere in the middle Owners are highly relevant to the success of any business, including football clubs. Even if they don’t bank roll the club (fair enough) they set the tone of what is expected of the staff below them. To describe stan’s as providing anything other than a total dearth of vision, expectation and standards would be to be lying to yourself. 10 years has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding, interest and ambition in making arsenal a genuinely top tier club. If the club stadium burned down he wouldn’t realize… Read more »
Banford Absolutely hilarious that you’re offering up media platitudes from Arsenal execs and leaning on them in a debate as ‘evidence’. I mean my god, are we competing with Bayern yet? I’m sure that was outlined a while back too was it not?…..oddly enough with Stan as owner still, so maybe it’s not exactly gospel when arguing ambition. You’re embarrassing in this continuous defensive stance over Stan Kroenke, nothing can ever be drawn back to him. In fact we should all feel rather good about ourselfves, thanks Stanley, love you mate. Fuck me, how did you land on Arsenal after… Read more »
I personally don’t see Kronke as the problem at all. He doesn’t take any money out and allows us to spend what we earn. Look at the purchases of Ozil, Sanchez, Lacazette and Aubameyang in quick succession followed by the astronomical contract given to Ozil and the not to be sniffed at deal to Mkhitaryan. Look at the Glazers and Msn Utd. My manc mate hates them. They effectively bought man utd with the club’s own money by securing the loan against the club and took the piss further by issuing a 10 year bond scheme taking £100m of man… Read more »
Give a man a high salary and no oversight and see how long he’s motivated to try his best. Most people I know who can, take the easy road and focus on self preservation rather than breaking their back to push on despite their leader not paying attention Stan is the reason wenger turned into that ugly shadow of his former self. He let wenger fill a vacuum unmonitored and unrestricted. I don’t doubt in the early years wenger genuinely planned on building a super squad of British kids on a budget and taking the world by storm, but as… Read more »
“And really we have a LOT of money in the bank that we cannot spend due t restrictions so this talk of doom is just laughable“
Lol what… is this a serious comment? We’re not spending because of FFP? It’s not 2011 ffs, that’s absolute garbage and every club going has sidestepped that pathetic musing long ago.
Yeah it is somewhat baffling why only arsenal appear to suffer with FFP Even average to shit clubs can throw pretty substantial chunks of money around without consequence but arsenal are shaking their heads saying those aren’t the rules Have arsenal even bothered to look at FFP loop holes? You would surely think in all this time since it’s come in we wouldn’t be the first club ever to be so hampered that we could make one permanent signing, even for pennies during a transfer window As far as I know we’re the first club in PL history to face… Read more »
‘We can’t soend the money in our bank account because of FFP!’ Said no team ever apart from arsenal
That £100m the Glazers take is each year!
Who said Arsenal can’t spend what’s in their bank because of FFP? No one. What has been said is that Stan can’t inject huge amounts of capital because if FFP. Big difference. Where FFP comes in is wage bill versus revenue and we are maxed out on that with our Wengerised bloated wage bill hence the board wanting Ozil out, according to Ornstein. Wenger and Gazidas sanction that, not any of the new guys. We also have to leave £160m in our bank at all times as insurance against our stadium repayments – nothing to do with FFP. This is… Read more »
China
Except no one is saying that. FFP does not prevent Arsenal from spending its own money; it does, however, prevent Arsenal from spending its owner’s money, i.e., the owner cannot simply pour his own money into the club’s coffers or transfer kitty.
And contrary to Champagne’s bullshit claim, clubs are still very much expected to abide by FFP, especially European FFP. See the article about City and FFP below, for example.
“Manchester City may face Champions League ban after Uefa FFP investigation”
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/04/manchester-city-may-face-champions-league-ban-uefa-ffp-investigation
Bamford,
Exactly.
Benny Yes, he could do that, and perhaps he should. However, as we have discussed already: one, doing so would cost him some £160-180m and would only yield an additional £20m a year for transfer spending; two, when Arsenal took the stadium debt on, no one at the club — neither the board nor ownership — expected ownership to erase that debt at some point in the future. That was not something the board expected of ownership, nor that ownership expected of ownership. By they way, we are not required to keep £160m in cash on hand; we are only… Read more »
I don’t understand why some people here keep defending Kroenke. Isn’t Kroenke the one who let Ivan G and Wenger destroying the finance of the club? The situation now is even worse. Kroenke is the sole owner. No one knows anything about the books. The owner is not communicating with the fans. The board also keeps his silent. Everybody is guessing why we have no money and coming up with excuses for the owner. I find that it is to the advantage of the fans to demand the board and the owner to be more open and explain to us… Read more »
Champagne
“I mean my god, are we competing with Bayern yet?”
No, primarily because Arsene Wenger was in charge of everything back then, unfortunately, and he made a fucking mess of things. He spent a lot of money and he spent it poorly. He slowly reduced the value of Arsenal’s brand and standing in world football, and he then turned Arsenal into a 6th-placed, Europa League-caliber team. And again, he did this while spending a ton of money.
Bamford,
I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it was gambon who said about the £160m thing.
Mighty g, if you’re reading; was it you?
Most fans were against Usmanov taking control preferring instead a self sustaining model.
Now the Wenger of fans themselves want to change course…wtf…lol
Nelson,
I’m not defending Kronke, I just don’t see him as the problem for the reasons I’ve already laid out.
Redtruth, Your absolutely right. All the people bitching off Kronke were dead against Usmanov and were full of praise for Kronke not interfering and letting the Arsenal board run the show. For the record I personally was in favour of the Usmanov/Dein ownership over Kronke, but am saying that I don’t see Kronke as the cause of our problems either. Reason I wanted Usmanov was to rival Abramovich as the Shiekhs or Glazers weren’t in town and FFP wasn’t a thing back then. That came in after City and PSG royally took the piss and other clubs were having trouble… Read more »
BennyD – just took a look at the Swiss Ramble thread of tweets on Arsenal’s accounts.
The amount of cash held back as a debt service reserve is £23m.
Total cash as at 30 June 2018 is £161m
Redruth
Not me. I was on Usmanov’s side from the beginning.
Benny
The 160m is likely the principal we still owe. That’s different from the amount of cash we are required to keep on hand. That’s just one year’s payment, i.e., £20-23m.
The problem with Kroenke isn’t that he’s taking cash out of Arsenal, or refusing to inject cash. In the last few years of the Wenger era, there was a pretty serious level of spending on transfers and player wages, even if we didn’t march the two Manc clubs
Cash balances at Arsenal have always been the highest by far in the Premier League.
The Problem, as China highlights, lies in the utterly hands off approach of the Kroenkes, delegating everything first to Wenger, and now(potentially) to Sanllehi.
If things don’t work out
Pedro, Even though I for one am finding the LG experience so much more relaxing without CG about, are the comments down in his absence? They seem to be to me. As infuriating as I found him, he certainly whipped up the comments that’s for sure. I am humbly grateful for you sin binning him and alleviating my stress levels for a few days , and I know it’s not up to me, but he was a prolific contributer to debates and I agree that we could benefit from exploiting the homegrown markets a lot more than we do. I… Read more »
Oh, you-know-who defending Stan as per. Must be an American thing, and an ignorant thing..
________________________
Oh, you-know-who defending Stan as per. Must be an American thing, and an ignorant thing..
Nope the entire City of St Louis disagrees with you… Americans Hate Stan too… so fuk off with this line of criticism, please. It has nothing to do with nationality..
Woab, Bamford,
Fair enough, I stand corrected.
Thanks.
CCC
I said we can’t spend money in the bank due to restrictions . I didn’t say FFP.
Which is very much true
There are wage restrictions that we are close to ex ceding, which is why we could only do loans in Jan
I stand by that comment.
BennyD
Yeah, the problem with CharlieG not being around is that we might get lulled into a false sense of security with respect to Arsenal FC.
Compacency will set in amongst all the LGrovers, and the next thing we know,the club will have been fully taken over by The Spanish Mafia….
From reading Bamford political convictions here, I’m pretty sure that he’s no fan of Kroenke.
I detest Kroenke, his political affiliations, his gross ranch, his mustache, his silly cowboy hat, Walmart connections etc. I was 100% for Usmanov.
CC
You keep throwing in the cheap American connection to smear those that don’t want to hold Kroenke as the reason for our problems and do not want to excuse Wenger’s failings.
That’s a very disingenuous approach, me thinks.
Words
Except that they aren’t delegating “everything” to Sanllehi. Sanllehi, Emery, Venkatesham and the incoming Technical Director and Chief Scout will collaborate on nearly everything. This is a completely different animal from when Wenger did everything under the sun.
How many clubs have £180 million sitting in the bank.
Kroenke is very poor at siphoning money out.
He needs to take lessons form the Glazers.
**He needs to take lessons from the Glazers.
Bamford, sure, point taken, though I’d prefer a little more active interest/direction, especially if the new structure proves unwieldy, and power concentrates in the hands of Sanllehi.
Woab,
Lol! I’ve already built one ivory tower annex and am putting together a pitch for gunnersaurus sex to wear a sombrero.
Gunnersaurus sex??!!!
Now that would be one weird pre match day experience! 😂🤣
As for paying off the Stadium bond debt….. said it before but there is a substantial penalty in paying it off early. They did this when they set up the bonds so that people would be encouraged to invest in them and be guaranteed some return on a long term basis. Remember reading this per Swiss Ramble. So yes Stan could pay it off but not sure there is enough incentive to do so.. or what the penalty versus the reward is.. plus the debt is probably at a low interest rate. Anyhow, do I think Stan is a good… Read more »
Gunnersaurus sex – thought that was failed ploy by Commercial Director Venkatesham to increase match day revenues!
Midwest Gun,
Great post, good points.
MidWest, I’m sure there will be plenty of back and forth on Kroenke over the next few days and months, but you pretty much summed it all up.
ES The only things I agree with your protracted Ozil glowing sentiments posted earlier is Ozil needs to be played if we want to sell him, but that can go two ways depending on Ozil’s performances, and he has the best creative skills in the squad when he turns up in games. However, I feel you are very premature with such praise because of just one game against a greatly depleted lower mid table team who played abysmally. I’d have thought such a seasoned veteran supporter would not be so easily taken in by Ozil’s one-off great games against poor… Read more »
Woab,
Lol! Gunnersaurus sex has got to be my best typo ever!!
Can just see him with his sombrero on with his chorizo out…
Classic! 🤣
Match days will never be the same again!
GOH
“I’m like Homer Simpson and his support for the Isotopes”
You mean fat, ugly and stupidly radioactive?
Sounds about right Guns!
You sound too much like men whose wives have had a babies: devoid or sex, demoted to last family member for affection and lack of sleep, which with someone like you whose fragile ego needs constant nourishment is bringing out your best belligerence on all things Emery & Arsenal.
Get yourself away on a mate’s ‘Boys’ holiday to Cuba or S E Asia.
Tony,
“You sound too much like men whose wives have had a babies: devoid or sex, demoted to last family member for affection and lack of sleep,”
You got a secret camera in my house bro?
🤣
GOH
Failing the ‘Boys’ holiday recommendation, buy a few more cats as they seem to like you.
Sounds like you’re a pussy magnet.
“Ranieri sacked by Fulham.”
Arteta?
“Fuck me, how did you land on Arsenal after your 20 year search for a team to chat shit about.”
Alphabetically
Benny
Is that why you’re on here so much 🙂 ?
Vasectomies rule!
Salparadisenyc
“Fuck me, how did you land on Arsenal after your 20 year search for a team to chat shit about.”
Alphabetically
Chatting shit included what else would you expect from a Harvard old boy?
Tony, late of the night and weekends are my best times pretty much yes, plus I get by on average 4 to 5 hrs sleep a day with catch up sleep weekend mornings which affords my most busy periods on here 8pm – 3am. Me and the missus both do flexible part time work to share the childcare so it ebbs and flows too. I don’t do Fridays so that’s a bonus but I’m on school run so better chip off.
Night all.
Pedro
“It’s weak to blame money. The only person I’ll be blaming if this goes to shit is Raul.”
Not Emery Pedro? Surprising!
Leaving money out of the equation try Kroenke and Raul – both are culpable for differing reasons with many so often spoken about here to choose from.
Benny
Props to you bro.
Not easy bringing up a family on any budget; large or small. Money can’t buy the much needed love, affection and serious attention time nurturing.
Being a responsible parent is a full time job on its own.
I left having kids very late in life for the reason I wanted to have the time to enjoy bringing them up.
Glad you are here as your posts are always fun & interesting to read.
@AlexanderHenry,
The owner of the Patriots is the example that you need an helping hand.
__________________________
Ummm no dude… maybe you haven’t heard the owner of the Patriots is a douchebag who has been supporting and using a brothel filled with victims of sexual trafficking. Not to mention the many transgressions of cheating the Patriots have been caught doing… filming other teams practices… doctoring balls…. etc… Hardly a great example to be holding up of anything.
I’ve heard the area code for Shite Hart Lane is 1010 (won nothing won nothing)!
So how exactly does our wage bill affect our ability to spend our cash reserves of £160m? It wasn’t long ago that we had the same amount of cash reserves of the entire PL combined. That didn’t stop half of those teams outspending us in the transfer window. I would accept that we might not be able to add new players without letting go of some players. But we will lose Ramsey, Welbeck and Cech ~£300k/wk. If we wanted to why couldn’t we spend £130m (keeping debt service amount aside) as long as the wages of the new players were… Read more »
If FFP stopped us spending our own money (that is sitting there in the bank) on purchasing players outright in January because of our wage situation then yes – FFP is explicitly restricting us from spending money that we have and can afford to pay Again, where are all the other clubs suffering under FFP? I haven’t heard of any other PL club get into a situation where due to FFP restrictions their hands are tied at a time when they have money in the bank. This can be dressed up any which way, but we were not allowed to… Read more »
The semantics and methodology of FFP is irrelevant to the point that we were not allowed to spend money that we have on buying players in January explicitly because of this system
This cannot be dressed up and the methods and reasoning they give about wages or other I don’t care about. This is the outcome
China1
The wage situation is not FFP. It is Premier League rules.
Still don’t understand why only loans. If our wage bill is full to the max allowed. Wouldn’t adding a loan player increase our wages by that loan players wage taking us over the limit.
Has there ever been a clear explanation on why we could only sign loan players?
So we are the only club in the PL which has ever been in this situation with PL rules?
Qna
Their preferred targets probably wouldn’t have been allowed to leave mid season for anything other than a price AFC could not afford. It makes sense to wait til the summer to acquire your preferred target.